Um shouldn't fell last time.

So he's not, I just saw how you would be here to hang on last night.

So I even had signed in the past and territory.

I waited.

The only thing we're doing today is this.

And so we might as well have all that.

Everybody said good morning, everybody.

Well, first of all, I'm gonna introduce the director of public works.

My boss, Mr.

Mark Rice is in attendance.

Appreciate you for coming.

So uh by the way, my name is Gerard Bush.

I've been had the privilege of working for the city for 25 years.

You know, it's been during the time, had some challenges and you know, some successes, but I'm just grateful that I have the opportunity to continue to improve the city while I'm here.

The name of my project is Operation Lower Yard Brickyard Cleanup.

So the purpose of this project is to clean up the lower yard, the lower brickyard and organize, because you know, we had over the years we had it seemed to be like a dumping ground for different departments they come there, contractors come and dump and you know dump their stuff and well I'm gonna show you right.

So basically, this is our lower yard, so we have all departments that's dumping right here, and as we go further, environmental services, Scott Reese, he's the supervisor over there, he will be involved.

We have Mr.

David Ledoux, traffic supervisor, he will be involved.

Mr.

Richard Stokes, transportation will be involved, and of course, of course, the street department.

So as we move forward, as you can get, then as the picture you can see is a creek that runs right behind our brickyard.

And 15, 20 years ago, I'm behind that fence.

I will be able to drive a bush off a tractor back there and cut all of that.

But now, since it's trees that fell in the creek and it's making a whirlpool, it's starting to wash out.

And it's actually about I would say about four or five feet from the brickyard.

So I'm gonna have to, you know, straighten out the creek and do all that stuff, but as a closer shot out shot uh picture of it.

And as you can see, we see uh that's me and Mr.

Richards.

We out there brainstorming, getting the plan together.

And as you can see right here too, you see the trees and and you can see all those brick, that's a that's a cut-up bricks and all different kind of debris just throw down there, and it's becoming a breeding ground for snakes, rodents, and other other kind of wildlife that we have down there that we're trying to get rid of.

So we we even have some Marietta power truck that parked on our yard down there.

So right behind those Marietta power trucks, I actually have started cleaning behind it, so you can see almost to the creek.

I have started, you know, my project cleaning and everything.

Right here, and as I clean that, this is actually bricks and stones that's up under all those trees and stuff that was buried for 25 plus years.

So the purpose of it really is you know to sort organize, repaletize the bricks, get rid of the bricks that we don't need and won't use, and actually we're wanting uh to use plastic pallets instead of the wooden ones, because it seemed like the plastic ones have more durability and they last longer.

So and then also the budget I'm guessing is really under like a thousand dollars, just because we really just need plastic pallets and manpower.

So then you know, uh the effort is to you know, just to clean up, organize, because I feel organization plays a major role in work.

So, but basically that's if you have any questions, that's my presentation.

Thanks.

Yes, sir.

I one of the things we talked about in terms of when you do presentations and understand the setting that you're gonna be in.

This room has an echo.

I mean the ceiling is high, it's spread out, and so just as we go on, be cognizant of that, especially if you turn at something and your voice is projecting that way.

It's not projecting that way.

I think this is a challenging room.

I can't just present standing this way.

I realize it's set up to present from present to the house.

And so that's just that's an adaptation I think is important to understand because you're gonna be in a bunches of different kinds of rooms, and some of them will be acoustically set up to handle your voice much better than others.

And just again, thank you for coming first.

Uh but it's just I I think when you present and we catch your tone, it's a little more challenging in this room than when we have another because a lot of sales and we're closer together.

Anyway, just mice and observation.

Sure, sure, sure.

Okay.

Hello, morning.

I'm David Ledoux, supervisor of the traffic services department.

Um right now I have uh Mark Rice, uh Public Works Director.

Um it's a great honor to be part of this uh leadership class.

It has taught me how to problem solve, how to communicate, and how to be aware of everything.

Um part of this uh class.

Part of my uh course three project is um HP latex uh 730 printer and the CWT uh project um table.

Excuse me, I'm nervous.

Okay.

Part of why we need this uh HP printer is because it will help us to print our uh traffic 3M traffic addition uh signs that we you see every day out in the field.

It will also uh give us productivity as far as printing out these signs and able with the also with the table itself, it will help us to uh illuminate when we're making the signs where you're able to see the borders on the signs right now.

As you can see, some of the signs there are kind of you know not in the right um direction dimensions when you're making the sign templates.

So as you see see right here, we have the HP printed um printer, and we have the table.

So as you see to my right to your left, um the illumination of when we're making the signs and when we fabricate uh it gives you a nice uh uh border and uh reflectivity of the sign itself.

Uh why do we need this is because the old one is gonna be almost obsolete, it's gonna be hard to really try to um repair it and um issues that we have in along the line as far as um everyday you know uh guys staff brought to my attention about this printer and how difficult it is with certain stuff that we're doing on our table.

Right now we have like a wooden table that we make of our signs with this one right here, we're able to uh have is an air compressive um table where we're able to go back and forth and have no bubbles in in our uh signs that we make.

So it'll give us like a straight line.

The cost and estimate for this uh table in the uh HP printer will be estimated about $53,830, but we could also get it one at a time just to get us kind of ahead of uh technology itself.

It also provides uh flexy software, uh 3M traffic edition that will also help us to um make sure we have the right amount of um guide signs and warning signs and stop signs that we're able to print off with this um addition right here.

Um it also includes uh five-year warranty.

Uh I believe it will last us like five to plus years, and it will help us for the next generation coming up also.

So we want to be kind of close to technology itself and be right there with it and make sure that we're advanced advancing ourselves with this uh product here.

Uh, went to the Cobb County building, uh brought my uh staff with me to uh see what they had.

And this table was one of them.

This was a smaller version of what they had, but I feel like this was uh better suited for what we need and our everyday use.

It's not like we completely um do signs like every day way Cow County do it, but we have a lot of streets where it needs updates.

Uh we do a lot of custom signs with this one.

So the HP printer itself would help us to do even custom signs that we have, like we've been putting up um custom signs for I guess it was like a church uh pastor had passed away, and we was able to make a custom one.

It's not all the time that we're making these custom, but it's only probably as requested, and it has to be requested probably from you know my director or a supervisor.

So with these combination right here, it would help us to just advance the traffic department design department and really advance the way we do our signs and illuminate everything that we have so we can have a clean border on how we make our signs and when we put them up, we're able to where somebody's not looking at it sideways, but we're able to um do it in-house.

So that's part of the visitation.

Do you be able to have the slide right here versus having to do that?

Yeah.

For those of you that are doing, I'm thinking for those of you who are doing presentations.

I'm gonna have Aaron put his laptop here so that you can see the slide that you're projecting rather than having to turn around.

I think that's good.

I just make it, I think it's easier for you.

And so thank you again for the two of you that did not have that, but we'll have that going forward.

You want to go again, Bush?

Do you want to do that again?

I gotta go around the laptop.

Okay, we got I think it's gonna be easier.

Thank you.

Okay, appreciate it.

All right, thanks.

Yeah.

Alright, so I'll I'll tell you a story.

Be careful when you recommend a blog.

Because I there's one that I got.

Uh 10 ways to kill your community about public service and community service and things like that.

I got it from Amazon.

And uh used my wife's Amazon account.

So I took a screenshot of the book just to save it in the file.

And what I did not realize is when I took the screenshot, it cut off the bottom of the title of the board.

And so when she pull up a screenshot, 10 ways to kill your MS on S.

Now even in a and maybe a little bit of the top of the C, but it's supposed to like the top of an S.

And so you can imagine, you know, if there's a word that you can use S and your merit or something.

Yeah, 13 ways to kill your okay.

Anyway, I just I realized when you do a screenshot, just make sure you capture exactly what you're looking for now.

Okay, I I ready.

Some of you have sent them to I just need it by the last day.

All right, so it doesn't have to be said, I just want it by the last day, and only a lot.

I mean hard copies or my print.

Just send me I it's an attachment, a work doc to an attachment or B, whatever you want to do, but that's not gonna store this electronic for us.

I don't I don't want to print the paths.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Any questions about regulation day?

At eight o'clock, we know we've got a bunch of stuff to do.

And then ideally we're done by eleven ish to be able to get to the strand by all.

Yes.

Like a gift card inside them all for the reading balance right now.

I recommend my job.

Yes.

Yeah, and not only that, I'm not gonna lick the speed.

Okay.

Yeah, I went I can just add it on a camera and have the fireplace my mother specifically wanted to use for it.

Just because you can answer me.

Yeah, yeah.

What do you what do you call sheep that fall down the hill?

What do you call them?

A sheep that falls.

What do you call sheep that fall down the hill?

A lamb slope.

I'm here already.

Who's next?

We don't have one.

You don't?

I'm doing some impromptu stuff here.

Hold on.

No.

Okay.

Everyone, please have a seat.

Thank you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Melanie Olivares.

I am the SPLOSS budget analyst for the City of Marietta.

My lovely supervisor in the back, Mark Rice, Director of Public Works.

Lovely and amazing supervisor.

I'm here today to proudly present you all our course three project.

So our the purpose of our course three project is to develop a system that'll help improve our duties in our department.

Help it run more smoothly.

So for the building inspections division, we decided to focus on the duties that the permit technicians uh perform every day.

They have a heavy workload every day.

Um they have to answer a lot of phone calls, emails, deal with a lot of customer service, face-to-face interactions, and most of the questions that they receive can be simply answered through a video or email.

The thing is it's just too much for them to handle at once.

So my partner and I thought about making instructional videos on how to apply for homeowners building permits.

This focuses more uh to help the citizens of Marietta who aren't familiar with the process and they're interested in doing any home projects, which most likely needs a permit.

And so that's why we decide to create these instructional videos.

With that being said, these videos are made to help these the citizens of Marietta guide them step by step on how to apply for these for these permits.

And we don't plan on just stopping there.

We plan on continuing helping contractors and business owners on applying for the necessary permits that they need.

But for right now, we just created the ones that we felt like we needed to focus with more, which is the citizens of Marietta and the home projects that they would like to do.

Luckily, my partner who has many certifications that could fill up the four walls of his office, decided to do this project with me.

So if you could help me present, Jeffrey Duckett.

Well, Melanie has covered everything, so that concludes our presentation.

Now I'm Jeff Duckett.

I'm the deputy director over public works, over inspections and engineering.

And permitting is required any time someone intends to construct or enlarge or alter or demo or have a change of occupancy, it requires a permit.

And it can be a building permit, it can be an electrical permit, plumbing permit, mechanical permit, so on and so forth, or it can be all of the above.

So everything goes on in that Sage's portal, which for staff it can be pretty simple.

We've done it for several years and we were familiar with it, but for customers and citizens that just coming on, it can be quite daunting.

So they usually call and permit techs take their calls and they try to explain to them how to maneuver and navigate through this system.

And without being able to show them and point and you know be with them virtually, um it's it's hard to describe sometimes.

Sometimes the permit text can answer the question in five minutes.

Sometimes it's up to an hour.

I mean, that's a lot of time, and that's just not one call.

There's many calls throughout the day, which takes up a lot of time for our staff.

So Melanie had this wonderful idea for videos and text to um to present to these customers, clients, citizens, whatever, to uh help them to understand the system that we have.

It um very starts out very basic.

I mean, name, put your name here.

So very very simplified to um to help them.

So I'm sure that most everybody in here has had to deal with a customer service provider at some point, and it's always the same.

You uh call and your call is answered, you're 24th in line.

Your um call will be answered in the order of the received.

Uh you can hang up and we'll call you back when we have time.

Or you start listening to music for hours on end, and um then by the time they answer the phone, it may not be the right department.

The person that you called may not know the answer, or you may just get disconnected all together and have to start over.

So I had an experience not uh too long ago, just a month or so ago.

I called and um of course they answered and put me on hold, and finally they a human got on the phone, and I don't know what happened.

I mean, maybe they were from South Georgia and my New York dialect, and we couldn't we couldn't communicate.

Um I couldn't understand them at all.

So I ended up just having to hang up and start over.

So remember that, because I'm gonna come back to that in a minute.

But that's what we want to try to avoid, and we will avoid here at the City of Marietta.

We want to have a really good customer service program, and um that's what these videos are gonna do.

And how do they access these videos?

I'm glad you asked, Jared.

Um so that's gonna be a few different ways.

We're we'll have them on the website, and and there's a link, you just click.

We've actually used one just the other day.

Uh so they'll be there, and we'll have a YouTube channel.

Uh Rachel's and uh some other people are helping us with that, and also when they when they call and the permit text answer and they say, 'I have a question about this or that,' they say, 'Well, let me uh give you this link or email you this link, and you can go and watch this these videos.

And that that may not completely solve their problem, but it will give them a background and um kind of a starting point where that they'll when they do call back, they'll kind of be more educated in what we're trying to explain to them.

And um the reason I said remember that I was talking about uh they couldn't understand me.

Uh Melanie is fluent in Spanish.

So we don't know every language, but Spanish, and uh so we're gonna create videos in Spanish because we have a lot of uh Spanish speaking customers that come in.

So we'll have those as well, so hopefully we can uh reach more people with those and um just create uh a better customer service atmosphere for everybody and uh like she said, we're we're gonna continue this on.

We started it with homeowner permits, which homeowners are really um it's really a struggle for them because they're not into the construction industry at all, so they don't know.

But we'll continue these on and um keep making more and more, and um hopefully um it'll be a great great experience and take a big load off of our permit technicians uh so they can concentrate on other tasks.

But uh you have anything else?

Any questions?

No, thank you.

So I do have one.

I'm assuming this will be available on someone's desktop or a laptop or the mobile phone.

I mean, they can access these devices.

Yes, okay.

I gotta make it larger than that.

Okay.

So you should click forward.

Click forward, click back.

Push forward, click that.

Okay, I'm not going to go.

Okay.

Good morning, everyone.

All right.

Hi, I'm Ledonna Collins.

I am the employment manager here, and this is my partner.

I'm Chuck Carter.

I'm the facilities maintenance manager here at the City of Marietta.

So we're going to talk about what our project is.

And before we really get into our project, I'm going to tell you why we picked this project.

It started off with me, and that is that I had worked here about eight months and one day wanted a diet Coke, ask a co-worker.

Gosh, are there any vending machines around here?

And they said, Yeah, the break room.

I'll take you there.

So Tanisha Woods, who is the HR uh coordinator, she took me down to the break room to get a diet soda.

And I was surprised when I saw it.

It was kind of giving like a 1970s vibe.

It was dark, it was outdated, just um not someplace that was really inviting, or someplace that you would want to go for your lunch.

So that is how it came about to pick this slide.

I mean, to pick, not just pick this slide.

I'm thinking about the slide.

That is how it came about to pick this project was top of mind.

When we got the opportunity to do a project, I thought back to the break room experience that our employees need a place that they can go to relax, refresh, recharge, and someplace that uh I had somebody tell me that the uh current break room, the previous break room, that it was a seasonal depression room.

So uh wanted to get away from that and and give something that employees would want to go to for their lunch breaks.

So what I started thinking about what effects uh a nice break room has on employees, and um Slack workforce index, they did a survey, and 62% of the people they spoke with said that a better break room makes them helps them have a better work life balance because it encourages them to take breaks.

And so people that take breaks are less 43% less stress able to handle stress better, and 62% better work life balance because there's some place to get away from their desk.

A lot of us eat at our desk sometimes, which is a very, very bad habit.

It's something I'm guilty of.

But now we have someplace that's nice to go and enjoyable, and hopefully we'll start getting more people that want to come down.

So when you start on any project, you gotta start with the end in mind.

Make a goal.

What do you want it to look like?

So this was my goal.

This I look like asked uh chat GPT.

What does a nice inviting modern break room look with the picture that I had of our break room?

And it showed this.

So starting with the goal in mind, I know before when I put this up during our practice sessions, you all thought this was the finished project.

And then you all were very disappointed.

So uh again, this is a rendering of what I had in mind.

This is what I had to work with.

So it uh you can see our nice compliance posters there and our refrigerator and our TV, and then you know, I don't know the runway floor thing that we had going with the the green and the orange.

I'm not really sure what that concept was, but that was the starting point, and to get from the rendering of my vision to what we have now.

The first step was getting approval from a Keisha Register, my department head, and um Bill Bruton, the city manager getting his approval, then picking a paint color.

Then after picking a paint color, I mean this to pick a paint color, what I did was narrowed it down to three colors, and then did worked with the IT to send a survey out so that employees could pick what they thought, what color they would like for the break room.

After that was done, then I was stuck, and I was like, okay, now what?

How do I buy paint?

How do I get it painted?

What do I do now?

I'm stuck.

But the um I will say that the survey of show the break room some love.

We got a lot of response.

Got a lot of response.

A lot of people participated, and hopefully it got people excited about getting a new break room or a refresh break room.

So to get unstuck, I said, let me ask Chuck.

All right.

So she did.

She asked me.

First of all, I'd like to welcome Keisha, the HR director, and Eric Black, the newly appointed director of Park Trace facility.

Thank you so much for attending.

So she said, this is what I would always ask.

One of the first things I always ask when any project is what do you want in the end?

She said, This is what I would like to have.

I said, okay, whoo.

Alright, so this is what we're gonna have to have.

We're gonna have to upgrade the lighting.

We're gonna have to new new paint.

Because this paint is horrific.

We cannot have this paint.

We need a new flooring because this and the it's just not going to match.

And we need some new appliances, and we were able to do all those things.

This is the before.

I want to remind you what we had before.

Horrible paint.

It just was really bad.

So I got busy.

I upgraded the lighting in-house.

I hired some contractors to do the painting.

The we upgraded the flooring with high traffic LVT, which is a luxury vinyl tile.

And we also um upgraded the appliances, the fridge, and a new microwave to make it all come together.

So after all those things were done, this is what we ended up with.

As you can see, it is way more inviting.

Everything seemed to turn out very well.

And this is another shot.

This is the back part of the room where all the information that is required by law is displayed.

And so here we are showing a return or investment with dividends because people are enjoying this room.

This is the most people I've ever seen there in my time there.

Free food always gets people to come out.

That does.

So that's what we have.

Any questions?

Okay, no, thank you.

Which way do I click?

It's uh to the right and the one that goes to the right.

Uh that needs to go to the right.

Or I need to click to the right.

Yeah, the clock the ray forwards makes it go forward.

You only have one slide though.

Yeah.

So that's all you got.

Yeah.

All right, good morning, everybody.

First off, before I get going, I want to well, he's not in here.

I don't I don't see him.

Oh, yeah, there he is.

Uh thank Mike for everything he's done for us throughout this class.

Uh but my name's Barry Billard.

I've been with Marietta Power for 21 years.

Um, and my course three project was going to be uh updating the Marietta Power distribution bathroom.

It has uh been, I would say, neglected for quite some time.

And as you can see on the left, I have already replaced the sink.

That was about a 10,000 dollar sink, but it's gonna take about you know, around three years with the funding to be able to go full on with this, and you can see on the right, that's my that is checked GPT, but that is the end goal is to get everything replaced in there.

And you can see on the left the walls behind that sink.

I mean, it's it's bad.

So uh throughout this project, you know, I've had to go through Chuck with uh getting contractors in there, and this is gonna end up being around a 75,000 dollar deal.

Uh but like I said, as of now, we're having to crawl before we can walk.

We've got the wash station uh changed out, and uh like I said, the Chat GPT will does show you what what I was looking looking to go for.

But uh moving forward into that again.

We're uh I'm gonna move out into the Marietta Power Distribution Break Room.

I don't have pictures of it yet.

I really don't we don't want to go into that.

Uh but it's all in all, this is gonna be about a probably a $300,000 deal.

Uh but maybe I will run into y'all later on and in your career be able to show you pictures of the finished product.

But as of now, like I say, this is uh an ongoing deal, and that's what I got so far.

So again, I've enjoyed this class with you guys.

Uh I've enjoyed meeting all you guys.

I'm gonna keep it short and sweet.

My son's in a college baseball showcase this morning, and I gotta go.

Thank you all.

Since we're way ahead, we'll just uh take a moment where you pause.

But let me ask why is this hard?

Or for if you personally maybe you feel it's hard, maybe you don't feel it's hard.

I'm just curious.

Why is this hard?

Why is speaking publicly?

So she in a room like this.

Why is it difficult?

Okay.

I don't have a read it, so it's not something that I pay.

All right, so this is not a natural human thing.

Yeah, I probably have I mentioned that just I don't know what you agree I had.

This is what makes it even more difficult.

And who knows if you were gonna end up doing this again, actually.

If you ever are asked to do again, you can do something there and done that.

I've done it before.

Maybe that builds a little bit of a small life on you to hang on every word and actually has uh a natural human type.

And just just become better and back.

I've been working doing it now for five years, so just starting to be a long time to get some guns, anyway.

That was well done.

I alright, so we just take ten and we'll come back and then we'll make a whole lot of point.

So I know that's why you want to see much more it's it to be at the outside every now and then.

Are you ready?

I don't know, which is quicker actually.

Browser download or sync one drive.

I think browser download download the desktop.

But it won't do the order.

I'll make it up.

Why are you checking if you're not going to sign it in?

Microsoft.

So you got everybody else, but not all words.

Yeah, I'm I made it and I apparently I forgot to copy it up to the poster layout there, right?

Yeah, I was just gonna do it every one of the breaks anyway, so let me handle whatever you've got.

But they're not gonna play though.

They don't no, they just see this current one.

Yeah.

So that current one is how to leave it on and then you might click them out.

Yeah, so I'll go through the introduction.

Services and I'll just flip over the end where I'm gonna leave it there.

So when you come up, you'll flip it to your own.

Yeah, you can set it down or whatever.

I'll be right back.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

But that's where I'll leave.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then I and then I switch over mine.

And then I'll be like, yeah, and we're even seeing it.

It's already deployed.

It's not up there, but make sure you have shooting it.

You're not sure.

Yes.

Um gotta build it's not easy and I'm here.

So we're not really saying the chairs.

I don't think so.

No, I think we're gonna end up like time.

I can see all the people.

I mean that's what we have to do.

Yeah, I mean I'm gonna wait.

Yeah, I'll be out.

You don't have a presentation, right?

Always change it.

I don't want to be y'all want to be hailed down to something I'll put on paper.

Feel like I'm constrained.

I'm just gonna like a peacock.

Alright, we're gonna start in about three minutes.

Three minutes to start time.

That'll do.

I'm just gonna put that.

Did the uh speakers still work in the bathroom?

If you're in the bathroom, please start making your way to the chap council chambers, please.

Melanie.

Melanie, if you're in the bathroom, come to the council chambers.

So she's she's waiting on those things to get in place.

I just need to put the revision about this.

So a little bit of it is that kind of a win thing waiting to find out.

So I'll just continue to roll on.

But maybe maybe there's a possibility of just power or something.

Alright.

So uh major Ben Nixon here with uh Captain Richard Franklin.

And like we talked about a couple of weeks ago, uh, we're going to be working together, put it together, stop the bleed presentation that dovetails nicely into an active threat at the share presentation.

It fits so well together that we decided to dress a light and arm ourselves uh equally.

Uh we uh with uh tacky pants and black shirts and both uh ready for anything.

Preparedness, right?

Well remember a couple weeks ago, we started with the demonstration, right?

So pushing away this ball.

And I threw it in Jeff, right?

But what was different in that demonstration than the one two weeks ago?

He was prepared, right?

So last week, or two weeks ago, we did that same demonstration.

And remember the ball being tossed, and he's telling you what was gonna happen was reflective of society telling you that you're safe and that nothing bad is ever going to happen to you, and that only you're responsible for the things that come into the out of your life, right?

And then at the last minute, we changed the direction of the ball to someone who is expecting it to go in a different direction, and they had to adjust on the plot, right?

So we fast forward two weeks, right?

And now everybody in the room is ready to be hit with a paper ball.

Right?

Why?

You were prepared.

You had seen it before you had come up with a plan, if it happened to you, you go to it or not.

But if it happened to you, you were prepared to respond.

And that's really if you think about active shooter presentations and active threat presentations and medical presentations, which Richard's gonna get into in just a second.

It's mostly about being prepared, mentally scripting, having a plan, right?

So when you think about active shooter presentations across the country, they all follow a pretty similar similar form.

They mostly start with trying to make sure that you get rid of the denial phase.

So often when we find ourselves in a crisis or stressful situation, we spend a lot of time talking ourselves out of what is actually happening.

How many people have seen the movies or you've done it yourself where something is thrust upon you, you're not ready, and the first thing you think of is I can't believe this is happening.

What does that represent?

That represents time loss, right?

And with any active threat or active shooter in uh emergency, time is the biggest thing we have on our side.

So if we spend time, valuable time, we only have so much of talking ourselves out of something that's obviously in front of us.

We're now working with first.

So we want to get rid of the denial phase all together.

The second phase, which these presentations go into in-depth is deliberation.

What's deliberation either?

Anybody.

Making up your mind on what to do, right?

And a lot of times mental scripting where we prepare for what we're going to do in our minds before we do it with our body.

A lot of times, if we can figure that process or that plan out ahead of time, we can reduce the deliberation.

The uh, should I go forward, should I go back, or should I go side?

Once we reduce that deliberation, we then get to what's the most important thing we can do with an active correct scenario, and that's a decisive movement or decisive model.

What is decisive?

Make a decision.

Make a decision it'd be good with it, right?

We're gonna do something, right?

We talked in the last class when I gave this presentation about hoping, hiding and helping.

Oh, I hope that guy doesn't come to my room, or I hope he doesn't come around this corner.

Not a strategy, right?

We're gonna do something to affect the end goal.

And in this presentation, Richard and I are going to give uh to all city employees uh free of charge, maybe co-host it a couple of times.

We're gonna give you a step-by-step guide on what to do should you find yourself in a bad situation.

The beauty of it is it translates in any environment.

We're gonna be mainly talking about the work environment because we're all co-workers.

But this translates to out to get the restaurant, would be standard, football game, for a all principles we're going to talk about translate to each of those environments.

So this time we'll turn it over to Richard.

He's going to carry on this presentation in terms of preparedness and have a little bit more of the medical clear.

But Richard Brainworth, Captain Barry, the Bible Marshall's office, paramedics for about 17 years now.

So when it comes to active shooter situations, the government at one point got really involved in this idea of how can we stop not only the active shooter, but stop the loss of light that is occurring every time one of these things happen.

They got together, they looked at uh different incidents that occurred, mix it with what we've learned from the military from the casualties and the wounds that they suffered.

They got together, they're the program created custom stop and bleed.

One study showed that about a thousand people per day died from leading emergencies that could have been stopped by an on-the-scene responder with minimal training and equipment.

So you think about a thousand people, the odds of that are pretty low.

The odds of an active threat situation at our workplace are even lower.

Fortunately, that's the case.

Unfortunately, what if one of those thousand people today on your buttons and over children, family?

That's where the preparedness part comes in to be very important.

Stop the booting creative to address that.

Using a few simple techniques, pressure dressings, wound packing, and turning the application, you can stop most bleeding emergency things and allow a person to get to clean the note of the treatment.

Alternative is the simple thing here, which kind of we go through now for all trauma bleeding in an extreme alarm.

The simple alternative is just to be tricky buttons, put around the arm or legs, stops and blood loss.

We now concur to a fatal level in five to ten minutes.

It takes our department for an angle because that long to be in there.

If you were on the scene, you've got one of these with you in your car, you know, box and located in the building.

You're prepared and equipped to provide treatment in by five to ten minute windows that you can save that time.

This corresponds out when you can personally buy one people in your vehicle, which you learn how to do this, even in your vehicles when you're out with family cars, type of emergencies, all job groups.

You're working with a lot of department utilities.

It's a very simple process.

Anyone in here is going to learn to do this, even if you're squeamish the blood, and we can just that's going to go out the window and prepared.

So we have partner, we well starved supplies with all three setup.

Um, so in conclusion, the topics that we're talking about are fun topics, right?

Not something lack about.

Um the benefit of all the classes, we are able to add a little bit of revenue.

Uh we're able to keep it like fun, but also empowered, right?

So, how much better would you feel when you put yourself in the wall?

If you were to find yourself in an uncomfortable crisis environment, you should at least have some things in the back of your mind.

You wouldn't spend your time, I think it hopefully opened in the police department or you.

So if we put these presentations together, we hope we'd be encouraged to attend.

We're looking forward to putting them out somewhere like the council chambers or some other training meeting or fire department.

We hope to have pretty good attendance and I'll be able to do it.

Years ago, he um he advised me if you were the fire to go to water school, or he was doing the same exact thing.

He was handing up a active shooter and stopped the wind programs and I would be on the uh inspiration.

All right.

Good morning, everyone.

Uh, my name is Camry Smith.

I work in the city clerk's office.

And for a moment, I want everyone in this class to think about your project for a moment and reflect on all the hard work, the dedication that it took to get it done, the conversations that you had to have to get to the finish line.

And I'm sure there was plenty of questions that you guys asked yourself along the way.

For me, I asked myself three main questions, amongst other questions.

But the three questions I asked myself, the first one, how am I gonna do this?

How am I going to pay for it?

And now reflecting back, how did I get through it?

But before I answer those three questions for you, I'm gonna talk about what is my project and why I chose my project.

So my project is the council office improvement project.

So as you can see, this is the office.

Um so the main thing I wanted to do, this office is basically mainly used for council members.

They go in this office to have meetings.

Um, there's visitors that come in, and as you can see, the furniture is kind of a little old, it's a little traditional, outdated.

Uh, there's different colors in there, different patterns, uh, just different, it's everything's kind of very old.

And so here's another version of it on the other side.

Um, as you can see, the chairs is just everything is looking very old.

Um, and so the main thing I wanted to do was improve this office, um, just so that the council members have a better space to go into.

Um, and the why I chose this project, I have two reasons.

The first one being I wanted to um, like I said, have an uh update this office so that the council members have a place to go and attend meetings, and there's newer furniture that reflects what the city council does for the city and all the hard work that they do.

The second reason on why I chose this project was because I wanted to choose a project that I knew it was going to be difficult for me, something that was gonna challenge me, stretch me, have to have conversations, um, and basically build me out of my comfort zone.

And so now I can answer the first question for you.

How did I do this?

So, what I did was I put in new lighting, requested with Chuck, got new lighting, there was a ceiling panel that was um broken, I got that fixed.

Um, and uh we put up the picture frames that you see on the side.

There was some that were hanging on the the um side over there, and so the main thing that I wanted to do with this was get, of course, permissions.

That was the first thing that I did.

I talked to Michael, wrote a proposal, I talked to Stephanie, had conversations with Keisha, and uh basically everyone was supportive for this project, and they gave me all the thumbs up.

Second question, how did I pay for it?

Went to my boss Stephanie, wrote a proposal, said, Hey, I want to put new furniture.

This is the vision that I had.

She was very supportive, and she gave me some funding, and she said, Okay, put a spreadsheet together and start putting prices together for furniture.

And uh I noticed that I wasn't gonna have enough money to get furniture and the snack station and the coffee station that I wanted.

Um, luckily, there was an opportunity for more money funding to come my way, and I was able to get everything paid to uh get the furniture.

Uh, third question, um, looking back, how did I get through it?

I do want to shrug my shoulders sometimes and be like, I I genuinely don't know.

Um, but I do know.

Um here's another version uh other side of the room.

Um, but how I got through it was hard work dedication um in chunks, little bit by little bit, like I mentioned, got the lighting redone, ceiling panel, and then ordered the furniture, and stuff slowly started to come together.

And uh also another way I got through this was the help of others.

First off, my boss, she was very helpful in this, very supportive.

When I went to her day one, she was very positive and was just had a great outlook for me and said, Whatever you need.

Um, second one was Keisha.

She was very helpful in this process, just being in the class.

I had a lot of conversations with her, and she was very, very supportive for me, so I appreciate her.

Um, and then also the city manager.

I went to him.

He was very supportive of this project as well.

Um, and then people in this class as well.

Chuck Carter, him and his team helped a lot.

I had a lot of conversations with him.

Richard Stokes, I had a lot of conversations with him as well.

He was helpful.

Uh Ladonna Collins, Tamara Ridgeway, Caitlin Farrorth, a lot of supportive people that helped me along the way.

So that is my project.

So thank you, everyone.

But I'm glad it was.

No, I just said it's great that you all have this all the time.

Use the clicker or just be able to use the clicker once I get in it.

Because you're online.

To the right.

Yeah, this one's too right.

All right, Nick Sawyer, Maryetta Power, good morning.

Um, I think we can all give ourselves a round of applause.

We've been doing this class for seven months, and Mike's had to put up with all of us, and we've had to put up with him.

So second thought, too.

Uh, if anybody is watching me and needs some ideas, I play a lot of golf, so that'd just help you out a little bit.

You lose a lot of golf balls.

But uh, my uh presentation is on pallet recycling.

I saw a need instead of throwing the pallets away in the dumpsters, the city could reuse and recycle them.

Um came up with a few ideas.

The problem was we're throwing uh thousands of pallets away, and they could be reused.

The disposal cost takes up landfill space.

Uh waste management cost about six hundred and fifty dollars every two to three months, totaling about 2600 to 3900 every year.

The labor cost, uh, you know, employees spending their time to take the pallets to the dumpsters, stacking them, whatever.

Just figured out, you know, a couple ways, takes up warehouse spacing, you know.

They'd have to take these pallets out every couple weeks.

So instead of disposing of the pallets, we could reuse and recycle or resell the pallets.

Solutions are create city supported pilot collections, can be reused for schools, pilot wood for city projects, recycling the pallets to make benches, city parks, raise garden beds, community gardens, et cetera.

Donate them to schools, uh for ag classes, shop classes.

Donate them to the fire department, they use them to you know start their fires and uh for training exercises, uh the financial benefits, reduce disposal costs, no longer paying for disposal, approximately three thousand dollars plus a year can be added back to the annual budget.

Uh community impact would be used for projects donated to schools and woodworking classes.

And instead of throwing pilots away, like I said, they can recycle them and useful resources, uh improved parks, gardens, education, housing, um, and local businesses while saving costs.

And that's it.

Any questions?

No.

Thank you.

Yes.

Okay.

This is what's on the screen.

Okay.

That's what's on the screen, right?

Oh, okay.

My name is Tamara Ridgway.

I am the tax manager here at the City of Marietta.

I've been with the finance department for 19 years, all of which have been in the tax division.

For my course three projects, I decided to um uh to make submitting your property tax payments a little easier.

And I went back and forth about inserting a sound bite of cheers and hand claps, but decided against that because a deafening silence would definitely be more appropriate.

So thank you for confirming that for me.

Um, we all want to make paying property taxes easier.

Um, and so um for the duration of my time here, uh, we've gotten two requests primarily each year from citizens, one being uh the ability to pay property taxes online, and the other um to have a drop box somewhere here on the city hall campus to pay property taxes.

We were able to implement paying online uh a few years ago, and it's been great.

We've got an outstanding response from the citizens because that's what they wanted, and it's been great for our office, and the other is a payment drop box, um, which hopefully we will have very soon.

Um we also have each year customers um who will call us to let us know that they're going to drop their payment off right next door at the post office, which um in essence seems like a very timely and efficient way to pay your property taxes, but it's not because most people don't know that payments still have to be routed to a processing center, whether I believe in Palmetto or Atlanta somewhere, to be processed before distribution locally here.

So what they feel may be a two to three day process can easily end up being a two to three-week uh process, which can delay property tax payments and you run the risk of um of it being late.

So here is um an aerial view of where I propose the property the drop box to be located, which is uh at the this is the top deck of the city hall parking lot um and it is exactly opposite of the um Board of Lights and Water Utilities Payment Dropbox, so it won't impede traffic in any way.

Um it maintains the same flow, whereas you would drop your property your utilities payment off upon entering, you would deposit your property tax payment upon exiting the parking lot.

So I wanted to highlight some of the external benefits of having this drop box.

Um the first being 24-7 convenience, um, and again, it's just that uh whether the office is open or closed before or um outside of business hours, you're still able to come and make your property tax payment.

And um, and I just wanted to say these you know, external benefits are obviously to um to help our citizens and taxpayers because the city of Marietta, we the tax division wants to stay in compliance and and in alignment with the goals and values of the city of Marietta, and um because we do try to maintain the same um excellence in community service, but uh not community service, um, customer service.

And so we do also have a number of taxpayers who don't live in Cobb County, they just may own property here, a lot of businesses, and the drop box will allow weekend access to bring their payments in, and they still be the payments still are on time.

Um with the drop box, there's no betting on on the mail, and there's no betting on postmark delays or mistakes, I should say.

Uh the next benefit would be no waiting in line, um, and that is self-explanatory, it eliminates the need to stand in line.

We our busiest collection time is during collection season is during lunch time, and so again, going back to persons who may not live in the county or the city.

Um, they like me, I use my lunch break often to run errands, to handle business, and um it in it's just an hour, so um, it eliminates the need to stand in line and use up your time in that regard.

So that's the second benefit.

Another one would be a contactless contactless option.

So since COVID happened, uh there are still persons who um still practice social distancing, and that's fine.

We understand that and respect that, and while we love engaging with our taxpayers and customers, we do understand that that there are those who um still prefer minimal uh in-person interaction, and so this is an especially um helpful option for them.

And uh the last benefit I wanted to highlight would be it's an easy way to pay by check.

We live in a very digital and digitized age right now, however, there are still persons who need to um and prefer to pay by check.

So this is an excellent option for them.

Um next, I wanted to talk about some of the internal benefits uh for having a payment drop box, and these are the benefits that are um uh operational and financial benefits that the city of Marietta stands to gain from a payment drop box.

Um, the first being faster payment collection, and because payments can be received when the office is closed, that can improve cash flow timing.

And when when I initially think about cash flow timing, I thought about businesses and retail um organizations or businesses that are actually selling something, but cash flow timing definitely can pertain to governmental operations and very relevant for government collections, and that's because property taxes are highly seasonal, whereas um uh governmental operations are um are continuous, they're ongoing.

And um property taxes play a role in that process because when there's slow collections that can lead to deficits in other areas in our finance department, and um it can also affect budget forecasting, which I've found um from since I've been in the manager position that that's very important.

So um, and then lastly, it can reduce uh late payments, which also reflect in our finance department's bottom line as well.

Um sorry, I wanted to go back.

There was one more, I'm sorry.

The um it can reduce staff workload as well.

So with uh fewer in-person transactions that frees up the staff to um to handle other um time sensitive tasks simultaneously.

We um a lot of people think that all we do is mail tax bills and and collect the money, and that's it, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

There is a lot of work that goes into keeping over well over twenty thousand accounts accurate.

Um people do look there are it and only takes one person to to find a small mistake and it can balloon it to something pretty large.

But um we there's four of us in the office, three of those persons who do the brunt of the work.

And it's a very manual job.

So um we have a lot of and a lot of those tasks that that have to be done, they often come at the same time of collection season.

So to be able to not have to deal with so many people, but and and get to those other tasks would be very helpful for us as well.

Um also um we want to we we also strive to improve our customer satisfaction.

Uh daily, we pride ourselves on offering exceptional customer service and um having fle flexible payment options makes our office and um our processing just that much more user friendly.

So thank you for listening.

I think we are way, way ahead.

Okay.

Do you want to just keep rolling?

Which means if you have people type of planning to come schedule and therefore not being that should call I will do for an hour of point, I will put whatever it is that you want to copy out to the directors that are coming in the players on us over here to like crossing past.

We keep going and we are done early, and we're not sitting here for an hour and 20 minutes.

The downside is if you can summon this help and see then quite possibly changed to see if we can actually test five minutes.

If someone is going to help me, we can contact them to see if you're able to come early.

And we certainly got five and do that by run over this inch on the button on two minutes to be one.

Do you want to use the uh clicker or sure?

Yeah, so it's right to go up.

Right to go forward, left to go back.

Okay.

This main screen is what's up on the screen right now.

This is the next slide coming up.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Oh shit.

Oh wow.

That's the whole point.

Okay.

Faulty equipment.

This is one other end we can forward the rank.

Yeah, I think it's a little bit more.

Steve now's like, yeah, use this one.

It's like this thing even work anymore.

Yeah.

Barely.

That one you just had.

Yeah, it's you can imagine technology and stuff like this.

This was probably at least 15 minutes old.

Technology that how fast it goes and questions batteries, battery technology is that another one that's your question mark.

Yeah.

So if they're in the fire room, it may be it may be hard to tell.

Like if they're actually in the room that's on fire.

You know, it's gonna be the same.

So it might be hard to see if the whole room got a fire in the corner of the room.

No, you I mean it's like a really good.

Oh wow, that's the room is hard.

Would you know what I'm gonna do?

Yeah, another guy will start to do some medical stuff and metro turns up.

Not the time to read the fire the sound and medical questions.

That's why you saw it.

Literally like two front five.

Actually, we have to understand.

Yeah, but so now it's funny.

Oh yeah, you're on there.

We approved the data center.

And then the rest of the thing is that they're like, no, it's not everybody done.

Yeah.

But I don't know.

Oh, I don't know.

I don't care.

I got pictures kind of depicts in my slide presentation.

Like what you're doing.

I mean, there's a mask on there.

I mean it would be something that you can do.

Oh, you did that.

Yeah, talking about that.

Well, that would be that one there.

Oh, I know.

I have round up the best.

If I wasn't here, I wouldn't be out.

Yeah, but yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

When you get back, we can just tell him I already went.

I'm done.

When he walks in and be like, ah, that's it.

Thank you.

No, I think the best usage of our time is just keep going.

All right.

Good morning to everybody.

My name's Lieutenant Bobby Anderson.

I'm with the Marietta Fire Department.

Currently I'm in the training division.

I've been with the city fourteen years, and throughout my time I've participated in the training that goes on.

And throughout through through those years, we've used things called a thermal imaging camera.

And we typically use this in a search and rescue.

We can also locate fire, um, help locate any kind of victim that's lost in the woods by picking up on their body heat and things like that.

Like I said, currently I'm in the training division, so I moved in the training division and I saw a need that we needed uh for better training and to put on better training for our guys.

And we needed to get some new thermal imaging cameras and update our equipment in the training division.

So what is a thermal imaging camera?

So essentially it's a specialized camera that detects heat and creates an image for you, and it can do that in a completely dark room.

And a completely dark room that's s uh filled with smoke.

So it helps with various things.

And that would be in a dark room, whereas if I didn't have this specialized camera, I wouldn't be able to see them.

How are they used?

Uh we primarily we use them in uh search uh for victims and we also use them for orientation and egress.

Somebody smells electrical smoke.

We come in and we can't find out where it is.

We can use this thermal imaging camera to start scanning the walls and looking in the area where that odor is coming from, and we may find electrical box that's overheated or has an issue, and it can pinpoint that location because the temperature will be raised and also indicate it with the picture itself.

We also use it for overhaul operations, and with this camera in the training division, we can also better train all the above, all those disciplines.

So essentially, why does the training division need new ticks?

And that's another picture.

You can see that yellow and red at the top is showing that those heat signatures of that fire that's behind those firefighters pictured.

Um obviously the heat rises to the top, and that's why you're seeing a lot of the bulk of the ceiling level.

But why do we need new training ticks?

So we have this older, we have an older style model bullet that we used for years when I first got here.

This is what was on our frontline engines and trucks.

Uh, because of cost and things that happened along the way, we decided to go with a new model, which is this is a bullard.

This is a model of these.

And this model is called a FLIAR model.

And so we changed brands essentially, and when we started buying them in around 2019, we started purchasing as many as we could, and then replacing them on the frontline trucks and then training division.

We would get the hand-me-downs, which is good, and it worked for a while, and uh it was helpful to have them, especially on hand on the training grounds when we're doing this stuff with our recruits for recruit school, or if we're training with our guys who are on the trucks uh themselves.

And so we finally got to a point where now all we have is the FLIAR model on our frontline pieces of equipment.

We've got a large box of these style at the training grounds.

And the bad part about this for the older models that don't function properly, it stinks because if I'm training you to and I've trained you how to search, and now I'm gonna watch you do your job and see how you perform.

I'm standing in a corner in a dark room, could be smoke filled from either burning pallets, which Nick referenced earlier, or we use fog machines as well, which is just a smoke-generated machine.

But I mean, even with those smoke machines, I can't see my hand in front of my face once we do that.

But I can stand here with a thermal imaging camera and I can watch you perform your search, and we and then when we're done, we do like an evaluation.

We talk about it, and we assess like how how well the drill went.

Well, I was coming to find out that these things die within like five minutes because they're old and the batteries are old, and the um it's they're just outdated.

So I'm standing here, I'm watching, and then the camera dies on me.

So now I can't see you.

All I can do is hear you.

I can't really truly evaluate you properly and how you did.

Now I'm standing here holding this brick.

Maybe I've got a spare battery in my pocket.

I swap it out, last me another couple minutes, and uh Richard can attest to this.

He was in the training division, it just it just didn't work, it became frustrating.

So you kind of give up, you stop carrying it in there in the training evolution, and then you don't evaluate your recruits or your uh firefighters as well.

So, with these new ticks that we can have on hand all the time.

This new FLIR tick.

I'll be able to the batteries are awesome.

I've had this one on the whole time, still got four bars of green since I've been up here when I set them on the table.

You see that yellow light indicator that was full after a few minutes, it goes yellow, and then it'll it'll soon die.

This one's I've just put a brand new battery in that one, it's turned red already.

Uh last bar of the battery, so that's kind of what I'm getting at.

Is it just they're outdated, they stink.

We need we need to keep up with what we got.

Uh, this new FLIR tick model is awesome in the fact that one, it's updated technology, it's double the resolution.

Obviously, those are probably 15 plus years old.

Um with technology like this, it go it moves at a fast pace, kind of like your phones.

Uh, there's always a new new better version.

Um with this model, we've got different modes that you can use for specific tasks, which you could toggle through and get in those modes.

The greatest part about it is I can take pictures and videos with this.

It's got a little trigger on the handle right here.

So if I'm watching somebody train, I can take a picture or I can hold it down longer and take a video.

There's a port right here for a cable to go in.

You plug the cable in to the computer.

I can go back and watch the evolution or the training evolution with the recruits so they can see how they performed and not just talk about it.

Um seeing how you perform is always uh a great way to learn.

And with this uh new model, they're doing uh where I could get an app on my phone and actually live stream.

Now we haven't set that up yet.

I'm not sure how that works.

If it's Bluetooth, how exactly it works, but it it might be pretty cool to be able to live stream, be on the outside of the building, watching your guys train, have you got you know another guy positioned inside evaluating them and then be able to see you know everybody in the training division see what's going on and then be able to correct those mistakes right away and show them what they're doing wrong and show them how to do it right.

Um my clicker.

How do we get there?

So the disadvan the only disadvantage in all this is these are expensive.

This camera I'm holding right now is 4,500, so it's it's very expensive to get.

We've we've asked through the capital request budget that we do annually through the city.

We've asked numerous times, and it just hadn't happened.

We hadn't got them yet.

So I got with Captain Clayton, who is uh in charge of the tick budget, and he we got together and made a request for five new ticks, two of them going to the training division, and the other three would cycle onto frontline equipment, and we would take the you know, have the old ones for reserve in case something happened to one and needed to send it off to get fixed, we could put another one in its place, therefore we got reserved ticks and we got reserved batteries.

I think each tick comes with two batteries when you buy a brand new.

Uh as luck would have it, timing and a little bit of luck.

Our deputy chief about three weeks ago came to my captain in the training division and said, Hey, we found money that needs to be spent from the splash fund.

We're gonna get those five ticks, and so just good luck and timing and the money was there, so we ended up purchasing them.

We got the boxes yesterday.

I just unboxed this camera yesterday and started setting it up and playing with it.

So we're looking forward to uh having them for the training division and uh putting on better training and the benefits having these players that we can train with and use on the training ground all the time now, will keep us consistent with our frontline equipment, so we're not no longer using outdated old equipment that are nobody would use.

You're using what you use in the field.

It uh going back to help uh assessing and evaluating the recruits or the firefighters that are going through the training evolutions.

We're I mean, it's gonna be great in how to how we can do that and make our our training better and be better at our jobs.

And I think we've never had a specific tick class within our search and rescue uh that we put on for recruits.

So now I think we could put a portion of this and really dive deeper into how to use a tick properly because it's not something that's it's a tool in the toolbox, it's not a search technique, it's it's a tool that helps you with search.

So there's a there's a big difference there, and we can teach that within our recruit class from you know, here on out.

And then we'll have spares, you know, if frontline equipment needed to uh take one of ours from the training division.

We're not gonna use them every single day, obviously.

They'd be able to take it and have those ticks uh to be able to replace, and if we have to send one off, get it back, batteries and things like that, and then above all else, I think better training is always going to be make us better at our jobs, and that's gonna help us save lives.

This is a uh tool that helps with primary search.

So if you're down in a fire, we're coming for you, we're gonna get you out, and this is a way a way to find you through uh blacked out house with uh dense smoke and fire going on, and it's just gonna make us better overall as um in the fire department.

And that's my presentation today, and thank you very much.

So Bobby comment on the fact that you can take a picture and capture the I think would be all the justification we need to add up.

My question is how's the temperature in the room?

Thermal change.

I mean, if it's a really hot room, I said it's just kind of how's that work?

So I mean, kind of like that picture.

Just going back to that picture.

See all the gray underneath the red and orange.

Okay, that's that's a those are walls behind it.

But the fire must be down towards their feet, and now the heat is going up, and then the heat goes as heat and smoke rise.

It goes into the ceiling point.

So if I'm pointing the camera into a room that has into this room, so they have fire started in this corner over here.

Right.

Okay.

So we like a lot of whole room with the differentiation that we like a lot of people.

Exactly.

I'm just putting a logo up.

Sorry.

We'll wait for you.

Unless you want to remember this table.

Present while I'm behind.

Breaks new camera first week.

They're very good.

Ready?

My name is Kelsey Thompson White.

I'm the community development manager for the City of Marietta, and I've been here for seven years.

For my process improvement project, I focused on increasing collaboration within the development services department.

For those of you who don't know, development services has three divisions: community development, code enforcement, and planning and zoning.

And while we all work together really well when we have to, there's generally not a lot of unforced commingling unless we have a project together.

So the first phase of this really was working with code enforcement and community development.

We in my division, we operate a housing rehabilitation program where we rehab houses for low-income residents.

And a lot of times they have code enforcement issues with their house.

And so we really wanted to focus on increasing the referrals between code enforcement and community development.

Several years ago I met with the code enforcement manager, and we implemented a flyer where anybody with a housing code violation would get a flyer for our program.

Over time, we noticed that this was not really creating the referrals that we thought it would.

And there's a lot of staff turnover, and there actually is a new manager.

So we wanted to get back in and meet with new management and new staff to really let them know about our program and hope that that would increase our referrals.

So in April, I met with Mark Stewart, who's the code enforcement manager now.

We sat down and went through what their processes look like and what they're currently doing to promote our program.

And then in May, myself and my coworker Jack, who runs our rehab program, we sat down with their entire staff and we did a full training on what our program is and how the process works, and then just had some conversations with them about how we thought that could be better, what they run into when they have people who may qualify for our program, why they don't get to us in the end.

And we had a lot of good discussions.

You would think they would be that that's often not the case.

So what we've done is now they are going to continue to send out the flyer.

I think that did stop for a little while.

So if you get a code enforcement violation, you'll get a flyer about our program.

And then every month uh the manager will send me directly a list of all of the code violations for housing.

And that way we can cross-reference that with anybody that we have that we're currently working with.

And it also gives us an opportunity in neighborhoods we're working in to know hey, I saw this person a few years ago, and I've talked to them before.

I see they have a code violation that can restart the conversation about our program and how to get an application.

We also talked about there might be cases where it's not quite a code violation yet, but they're in these neighborhoods a lot and they notice that something's going on.

They can let us know about that, and maybe we can step in and preempt the actual violation or just have a conversation about other resources that exist.

My department often has can connect people with utility assistants or other things that they might be going through, and that just gives us more chance to interact with them.

So that was phase one.

And then phase two is just general collaboration with development services.

We have not had a formal department head in over a year.

We've had a great interim, but he also has about four other jobs.

So just really increasing our communication and the way that we work together.

And the first way we did this was we just established monthly managers meetings.

So we had our first one last month in May, where myself and then the managers for code enforcement and planning and zoning could sit down with the department head and just talk about anything that we have going on separately, and also gives us a chance to follow up with things that we might have that relate.

So if there's a code enforcement case that happens to be coincides with the planning and zoning board of zoning appeals case, they can follow up on that in real time instead of letting it linger and not following up.

So we have those scheduled out for the next several months, and we hope that that'll just kind of increase our the way that we work together as a whole, and so that we can call on each other when we need it.

And really costs no no staff, just all only staff time for this, so no financial investment.

And as the code enforcement referral process continues, we'll just keep following up to see if we need to change anything or if there's ways that we can be a little bit more proactive.

That's all.

Cross-training is important because we have a number of tenured employees that are retired, and in that retirement process, we want to make sure the newer guys are the mid-level guys have the training they need to continue to keep the ball rolling as far as Marietta.

We like to say keep the water flowing.

Um cross-training um is um is required because we are preparing new employees to take on new roles and responsibility to keep Marietta moving forward.

Our tasks is uh with training.

When do we do our training?

We do our training during bad weathers, rainstorm, um, extreme cold weather, uh training, and sometimes during big emergencies, big water main breaks.

The best time to get that opportunity to learn these new things that we're training is hands-on training right then and there.

So we have our standard operating procedure, which is uh SOP, but sometimes looking and reading those, they don't apply to some of the things you do in the field.

You have to learn and adapt to the situation.

So that's what the training and the knowledge come in to take place from that.

Um how long does the training take?

Training could take anywhere from two weeks to three weeks, depending on the job, how big it is, and not only that is as well as the employee, how well they receive that information.

Um sometimes a little more training is necessary, but um, there's no costs, all our training is done in-house by Maryal professionals.

We call ourselves water professionals because we're certified by the state to do what we do, and we're we're good at it, not the two-down homes, but we handle problems and situations.

Um closing the result, uh properly training properly cross-trained employees have the skill and knowledge to do their job to ensure the task is completed in a professional, a timely manner and a hundred percent customer satisfaction.

I said comes to 100% customer satisfaction because customers are happy that they'll be able to use water in any way they use as far as cooking, cleaning and going to facilities.

I mean, getting home from work some days don't have the water, that can be a big thing, but luckily, you know, we have a professional crew on hand to take care of our problems.

And Mr.

Bulldog.

Marietta Water, been here for this is my 25th year.

And kind of going off of the cross-training thing.

Uh work a lot of calls, a lot of overtime, and we've taken a lot of hits here over the last few years as far as experience goes.

And you kind of, it's getting hard to find employees to cover all three categories: water, sewer meters.

And the overtime really isn't the best time to train.

I mean it is, but it isn't.

Just looking good in front of the customer, we kind of need to know what we're doing out there.

And if we could just, if we could put something together, maybe in the morning times or afternoons, whatever, just as foreman, supervisors, whoever.

Or if one crew's kind of slack that day, they can take the employees, move them around.

I did that today, putting my guys on the VAC truck so they learn another side of the sewer department.

But uh anyways, I mean I just think a meeting of some sort could help get these employees more knowledgeable and all the aspects of what we do.

Oh, thank you, Kim and Kevin, for being here.

Thank you.

While Aaron is getting our presentation set up, I just want to say for all those that followed Bobby.

I I've learned in public speaking there's a few types of people you don't want to follow puppets, weirdly.

Don't ever follow puppets, and now I know why you don't want to follow firemen.

It's because they have fire trucks out in the public, kids love them, and they bring things like clear cameras, they get all these object things.

That's why.

I know why we don't want to follow fire.

So we all get that.

We're almost done.

I think we're down to two or three remaining.

So we're at the end.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm sure.

There you go.

Need to send you out.

My name is Brian Holland, and I'm the network services manager.

I've been with the city for 16 years, and this is Aaron, he's my my co-partner in the project.

And uh we both work in IT, which is information technology, and you might think of us as one group, but really we're three individual teams.

And they kind of work together.

The problem with that is you we're siloed in our responsibilities, but we're highly dependent on each other to be successful.

And so uh, you know, as a uh independent unit, but depending on other people, it kind of makes you find the stress points quicker, like with those other groups.

Aaron was our newest manager until I took my new position recently, and as a new position comes on, and you're taking on new roles, responsibilities, is often stress, uh there's difficulties, challenges, but at the same time you get a new perspective, and maybe you can see things that the managers that were outgoing couldn't see or just maybe had ignored for time.

And Aaron had already identified an area of need within our teams, and he was kind of thinking about it, and then I got brought online to my new role, and that was like the perfect time to start addressing some issues he had found.

Well, at the same time, Ronnie decided, Ronnie's our director.

Uh, he decided that we need to be in management training class together.

And so at the exact same time that I came on, we started the class, and I called, by the way, I want to apologize, Michael.

I said that you were insane in the dress rehearsal portion of this.

I I want to take that back.

I don't think you're crazy, I just think the projects are a little insane, right?

But he told us we had to have projects, and so Aaron and I we didn't have to come up with a project for our course three project.

It was a natural fit because we already knew something we were actually working on, and it really needed to be done.

Sorry about that.

And so our course three project is really about us creating a more seamless integration between our team, it's about establishing a standard operating procedure, like Chris mentioned for the water department for the service desk, and really in the end building some type of mentoring training program for us to be able to help uh the service desk.

When I say us, I mean network services, and so we started working on that together uh even before the the course three project, but now we've kind of formalized that.

And so as far as network services go, we are not on the help desk, but we're adjacent to it.

And so our really our role is tier two and tier three service desks items as far as he's concerned, and what that means is we're hoping that the majority of the tickets that you issue as users, our customers, we see them as those are covered by the help desk, by the service desk.

But there's gonna be things that happen, they're gonna be more complex issues, they're gonna be broader problems, they're gonna be things that affect entire departments, maybe the entire network's down.

We don't expect the service desk to do that.

That's when it gets elevated.

That ticket elevation process is is really it was the main point of friction that we were having because it never been addressed.

How do you do it?

What's that look like?

Is there some kind of standard procedure?

So that was the first thing we tackled, and even now we haven't finished with this project implementation.

We're already seeing huge results with that with lower stress for my team, we're getting quicker ticket resolution.

Uh I know that the users may not understand that because some of these are bigger problems, but when they elevate those tickets, we've got all the information, good notes, so helpful, and we're able to resolve things very quickly at my level.

And so uh frankly, one of the most important things from a network service perspective, but not just us, all of IT.

We're supposed to be subject matter experts in all things tech.

Even if it's something that we have no idea what's going on because it beeps or blinks, people expect IT to know how to do things like that.

So we are supposed to be SMEs or subject matter experts, but one of the things that we miss with that is being teachers.

I think that all IT people should be able to mentor or teach, whether it's our users or our customers, or certainly uh if we're training our service desk personnel from a network services perspective.

And so in that area, I think we've done that in in IT for the City of Merida, but we've done ad hoc.

So what would happen is we would get a service desk ticket, it was something that got elevated, we were there with the service desk personnel, we would kind of teach them here's what's going on.

But it was never formalized.

We also had a part of our program when Aaron would onboard new personnel, he would keep them for three, four weeks, and uh at a point he would send them up to us, and we would take an hour with them, kind of show them how the network is functioning just very broadly.

But what we thought is we could formalize that and we could standardize that, and not only that, but we could actually bring it into a video training platform.

Now, this is where it got interesting because we already had a piece of software we're using to do phishing training that you see all the time from your emails.

That platform, which we've already purchased as a city, allows us to do video training, and we'd never used it for that purpose, so I thought, why not leverage that?

We get a great ROI on that because it doesn't cost us any more than what we're paying.

And so, what we did is we built this, and you see some of those, these are actually slides from the video training, and we cover things that we did initially cover in onboarding, like network topology, but we go deeper than that, like how the network functions, why it's designed the way it is, things like the city's view on cybersecurity.

And so we started integrating that, and additionally, we were able to kind of uh put in quizzes inside of the training to make sure that the service desk personnel are getting good uptake on that.

And so we think it's working great.

We're actually very happy with it so far, and we think the use is only gonna increase through time.

All right, thanks, Brian.

Um, Aaron Sacco, service desk manager.

Um he was covering uh the escalation process.

I was gonna cover more of the uh service desk process.

Um so some of the things that we uh were see looking to do is that we wanted to create a clean standard operating procedure for the service desk.

We wanted to be able to identify issues quickly, efficiently, and move them along as needed.

And if they needed to be escalated up to his group, and it's not only to the networking group, we also have a systems group where we are implementing this process as well.

Just Jeremy's already been through the class, so it's just me and Brian.

So one of the things we didn't want to have to do is introduce a lot of new tech.

This is a very low cost uh uh return on investment.

We already had stuff in place, and we're just approving improving the existing process.

Um, how do we implement this?

Um, the goal is to create this procedure, and then what we do is we um work the tickets in order, and then after we do the work tickets in order, we're gonna make sure we do proper documentation on our KB, which would uh as you can see here, some of the entries that we're doing.

Um we want to make sure that we're up uh escalating those based on what's in the KB.

We don't want to just randomly assign stuff to Brian's group.

Uh we want to be able to perform clarifying questions and troubleshoot stuff before we start sending it up to his group.

Um we want to identify is it a larger issue or is it something local to the local user?

So uh we want to remove the guesswork, and we're and that's why we have this process in place.

Um why are we doing this?

We're gonna have improved thoroughness, we're gonna have uh technicians that are gonna be able to follow standard procedures.

Um they're gonna be able to do better notes on their tickets and have better documentation of what's going on.

So we'll have fewer missed issues uh after this process.

And we're going to reduce duplicating troubleshooting processes.

And then we're going to have uh, of course, a better KB.

And then validated issues will get escalated.

We won't be wasting their time as well.

And uh so it overall improves the response times and user satisfaction.

Um the implementation processes is we've already started this, we've created the document, we already have it online.

I've already told my text about it.

We're already working on the uh improving the escalation procedures.

Like you said, it's already reduced friction between the two of us.

So and then we're gonna just keep monitoring this and get feedback and improve as we go.

Um so overall, um really this is just to improve the effectiveness of the IT department for everybody here at the City of Marietta.

So and even though it was a pretty low cost uh implementation, it really provides a strong operational value for uh resolving issues and improving communication overall with everybody.

So thanks.

I did the first few minutes.

Yep.

I know it's in here.

There it is, it's at the bottom for some reason.

It's at the bottom for some reason.

I don't know why.

Right.

The big one's the current one.

Okay.

Okay.

Good morning.

I'm Andrea Nicholson, deputy court administrator at the municipal court.

I've been with this city of Marietta for about three years.

Um, my director, Kim Odom, is not here today.

She's on an Alaskan cruise.

However, my um partner in crime, the chief probation officer, Kristen Bell, is here, so I thank you for coming today.

For my course three project, I have created a traffic court diversion program to use through SAGES.gov.

So you may be asking what is a traffic court diversion program.

This is a prosecutorial program designed to allow eligible offenders to accept responsibility and complete educational requirements instead of receiving a conviction or points assessed against your license while educating drivers and allowing participants to negotiate without ever having to step inside of a courtroom.

I have created the prop the program to use through SAGES.gov, and SAGES.gov is already utilized in many departments within the city.

So this program is not going to require any additional funding.

So now that you know what a pro what the program is, let's talk about who qualifies.

Typically eligible are minor traffic offenses that do not involve a motor vehicle accident, running a stop sign, failure to signal turns, minor speeding violations, first-time or infrequent offenders, and you cannot have any convictions on your record within a five-year period.

Now, some offenses that are always excluded, and we want to be very clear: no arrestable offenses, no driving under the influence, any citation with a motor vehicle collision, excessive speeding offenses, any code or ordinance violations, or recent prior diversion use within our court.

So now let's talk about how the process is going to work.

When a driver is issued a citation, the court receives the citation and we prepare courtesy notice to the defendant, reminding them of their court date.

On that courtesy notice will be a QR code which will link directly to the application on SAGES.gov.

The defendant will simply apply by filling out the application and paying a $200 fee.

The prosecutor will review the application and make any recommendations, such as a defensive driving course and or community service.

Once the defendant has completed those requirements, they will simply upload the documents to Sages.gov.

Once the court reviews the documents, the judge will sign the dismissal of the citation and close the case.

The defendant will then be notified that they will no longer need to appear in court.

So some of the key benefits of this program is defendants will learn safer driving habits, avoid insurance rate increases.

The prosecutors will be able to focus on more serious offenses.

And the last column, I think, is the most beneficial part of this program.

We'll have safer roads in our community while educating drivers.

And that's it.

Exactly.

So it's like cheaper cheaper there.

So you're going to be required to screw it.

Well, ready?

Sure.

Well, it's our three wanna want to go work.

Yeah, let me just get this up.

All right.

Okay.

Oh.

I'm the administrative specialist and city office because it's sitting in the area.

And when I got to thinking about the course rate project, I have to think about my first few weeks for the city area.

I'm about to get one year in the office.

And when you start a new job, it really takes time to learn the rhythms and structure of the office.

Office organizational structure, some kind of system so that we can keep this running.

A, for uh efficiency in the office to find what we're looking for fast, but B, do we get stewards of the resources that we can get in here?

Um we're not over buying supplies, but we're also now running out of it as well.

Um so here are some before shots of some spaces that we were looking at.

So uh this was actually a really fun project to work on.

I love a good organizational project.

Um, and then here's another office that we worked at a work on as well.

Um, so there's a simple four shots.

So I knew I wanted to focus on five different areas.

There were some set of cabinets, there was an agenda workroom, a kitchen, city council closet, and we have a big office in our space.

So I started with some cabinets.

And I knew that I wanted to have all the supplies in the bottom of the place.

I wanted any employee to be able to walk up there who can get whatever they wanted to, and so that I could monitor where we were in terms of volume of supplies that we have.

Um I also wanted to move some supplies that we don't use as frequently back to a less prominent space.

And um, because I consider this problem, and uh, and so I wanted to have things that we use a weekly basis in there.

I also noticed that uh our media specialists house a lot of batteries in there.

So and they were in our packaging, but they're falling out the cabinets.

So I purchased some battery boxes and houses even and not all over the space.

The next space I worked on was the agenda work room.

Now, this space is where we prepare all the notebooks and packages for city council.

Um, so I wanted all the supplies in there to be that corresponded with architecture preparation.

One of the things that I did selfishly for myself in this room was I moved the uh binders to a lower shelf.

Um I was finding that as I was doing uh pulling binders, I would have to kind of get on Tiffy Notes.

And so I there's a better solution.

I just wanted to pull it um lower.

Um this room is that counter space was had a full computer set on it.

And nobody was using it.

So we got the IT department to come and collect that, and now we have a clear counter space to use.

We also had a drawer that was set, so Chuck's team came and helped me open that, and now I have a new drawer to use in that space.

Uh, this was my favorite uh room to work on.

We just have a limited amount of space in there to work, and I wanted to maximize it as possible.

The next room we worked on was the kitchen.

Um, mostly the time I spent it there was uh cleaning off all the labels that had been there for time, right?

And relabeling the mayor and city council's mailboxes and cleaning all of the cabinets.

I also wanted the right space, as you see here, to look clean and unclear, because that is the direction you see in the line of the city of office.

I wanted to look clean and professional.

Um, just for a good look after walking into the office.

The city council closet is a shared space that I worked on next.

Um, as you can see in the before photos, the problem with this space was that most of the items in it were in cardboard boxes.

And the problem with cardboard boxes is you can't tell what's in them.

And so if they get pushed to the side, or you rebuy, or you just have no idea what's in there.

So I did purchase some plastic bins to house some of the supplies that we use.

And now you can walk in, everything is labeled, and you know exactly what you're looking for.

Uh, we did move uh all the items that we use about once a year into this closet.

So uh, example events like the employee clean or the citizens government academy or seasonal decor is all now housed in there, so it's not a weekly round and go.

It's um it's really just for the different purposes.

The last space I worked on was a vacant office.

And right now they it does have extra things um that we are storing in there.

We're using it at the storage facility right now.

A lot of it is for uh summer events from the two fifty, so they will be eventually moved, but right now being a place for staff to quickly access them and grab them to work in the necessary events.

Um we also I also noticed that Mr.

Bruton had a lot of boxes that were falling apart.

They were too heavy, they were calling apart, so I reboxed all of the software.

Along with this project, I created spreadsheets corresponding with the different types of supplies so that I can have a big picture when I'm sitting on computer on where we are with supplies, also have visual walking into a room or uh cabinet, but I wanted to be able to quickly access where we orange supplies.

Um this project was really fun to find.

I had a great brain's been working on it.

It's also not finished, it's an ongoing process of maintaining and always making things better.

So this will continue on as I continue on the show.

Thank you.

One of the things that I've got is watching three projects.

And that's workspace.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

All right.