Let's do roll call.

Council Member Morel.

Council Member McKaren.

Council Member Harris.

Council Member Green.

Council Member Hughes.

We have a quorum or the record replacement.

Okay, let's come back into session.

We've got Councilmember Morel, Councilmember McCarron, Councilmember Harris, three members of the forum.

Steve Nelson's record works.

Come on now, Steve.

You have warp boots on?

Nope, no work boots either.

Man, that is that is bizarre.

Out of character, not prepared.

Okay.

Steve, you got someone working your power point, you're doing it yourself.

You can do it.

You can do you do whatever makes you happy, Steve.

Bless you.

It is an honor to be here.

I just wanted to say a few thank yous first, if I if I may take a moment of personal privilege.

Thank God for the opportunity to be here, calling my family and I back to New Orleans to the sewage and water board and to this job.

It's been the privilege of my personal career, my life, and it is my family's calling as well.

All of you there understand better than just about anybody else what that means.

And for my wife Lisa, who runs a sub-330 marathon.

I'm very proud of her and the work that she does.

For my three children, Benjamin, Rename, and Dominic.

I'd like to tell just a very brief story and try not to get too emotional.

The first week on the job, my daughter, I take them to school a couple days a week, and she said, Dad, we're gonna get ready early, and we're all gonna go together.

I don't want you taking two separate trips because you need to be at your job, able to serve the people and do your job.

So that's coming from the mouth of BADE.

So Rena May, baby, Benjamin, Dominic, you guys and all of you that have been at a council meeting or a public meeting, you're gonna get a package deal.

So the Nelson family is invested.

And I wanna thank some team members.

I got my deputy director of public works and also Andy Loy, who manages our lights, the men and women that work at the at the yard, the men and work women in the signal shop that are out there each and every day, seven days a week, moving barricades.

They got the barricade set for Mardi Gras.

This is just the second year they've done it, got it done ahead of schedule, and I am so proud to serve them and this family.

I mean, look at this family.

I am excited to be a part of it.

I'm proud of them, and I'm really excited to see how we grow and develop.

And that's what uh what this is all about here.

Uh the meeting that I I wanted to talk about, just a brief introduction, which I've more or less given, and then there's kind of three key initiatives, things that I would like to see developed uh throughout uh the tenure here that I have, and then of course open it up for some questions.

The first item is of course the lights on initiative.

Uh, Mayor Moreno announced this, and she was unequivocal when I sat down in the first meeting.

She said, Steve, the first week you're there, you better figure out how to turn on some lights, and you need to figure out how to get some paving in the ground.

And so that has been her uh her mantra, and it's not just about do these things, it's about equipping and giving the resources to make it happen.

So the lights on initiative is something she she we're turning on lights day one, her first full day in office.

We were in New Orleans East.

Uh, and that starts with looking at our existing assets.

We have 51,000 lights between 51 and 53, depending on how you count, that are maintained by the Department of Works.

That includes uh all of the bridges with the exception of the Ted Hickey Bridge, the Crescent City Connection, though we do manage the colored lights, and there will be a process for asking for colored light changes uh for folks here in the coming days.

We have 175 signalized intersections and some some important numbers to note in starting here.

We all we have zero electricians on staff to maintain our internal lights.

Now, All-Star Electric, we will always have a need for contractors.

That will never go away, and they've been a great partner.

They're responsive, they're helpful.

They've completed over 600 light repairs just in the first three weeks alone.

But we also need to be able to do work in-house, changing fuses as we find, and I'll show you in a graphic here shortly.

Just changing a couple fuses, making a couple connections, can turn on entire city blocks.

And so being able to do that in-house is really important.

And in fact, uh Shannon and Andy will be having interviews with our first hires uh starting next Wednesday.

We've pulled the requisitions, the budget has been set.

We're gonna start uh turning on lights with our own internal forces very, very soon.

Uh the contract that we have currently is uh two and a half million dollars that that Allstar is working on.

We have about 3300 uh open work orders for lights right now.

Uh and uh that's about 15.8 requests per day per day, and I would ask our customers to please have faith in the 311 system.

I know that is very difficult to ask.

The history there is challenging.

We fully recognize that.

Uh, but 311 does do a good job of capturing the work orders, and that's what we've got to start with, and that drives the data around average response times and where we need to do work.

And it will probably not come as a surprise to folks, but the average response time for repair on a street light is around 400 days.

That is not acceptable by any metric.

Uh, and that is something that we are going to be working both at a sprint and a marathon both.

We will talk about that in just a moment.

And the goal is to get that down to 30 days and to have outages on the range of one to two percent, not the five, ten, twenty percent that we see in some areas now.

All of this is guided by uh executive order HM2605 with an immediate focus on public safety.

Again, with that goal of getting us to one to three percent outages across the system, 30 days or less, and that's coupled by 30, 60, and 90 day operational plans and ongoing reporting and transparency initiatives uh that we're working on.

We're already had our first meeting on communications with council staff.

We intend to do that regularly, face to face on a monthly basis, uh, in addition to adding some communications protocols that should make things easier and more transparent uh for you all and the staff that you you have that work so hard uh as well.

The sprint, I mentioned a sprint and a marathon.

The next 30 to 60 days, we've all heard, I think, or most folks have heard the turn the term, the phrase, how do you eat an elephant?

The answer is one bite at a time.

And in a situation like we have now, where the budget is well reported, we have some serious general fund issues.

It is very important that we are strategic about which bites we eat first, and that's where looking at public safety.

Uh, there's a gentleman that you all are probably familiar with, Daniel Shanks, worked with the DA's office.

I believe he is here as well.

Um leveraging the resources that we have for the to turn lights on in neighborhoods immediately where safety and risk will be the greatest, most positively impacted by turning lights on is absolutely critical.

And so that's something we've already started.

I'll show a graphic here shortly of where we have turned lights on in the first uh first three weeks.

That marathon is that piece about hiring electricians and inspectors uh to be able to execute those basic repairs.

Like I said, we've got the registers pulled, we've got the names, and folks will be reaching out to individuals that are on those registers and completing that first round of interviews here next week.

Uh we want to continue to develop those baseline schedules.

I mentioned that average of 400 days.

We're gonna update that on a quarterly basis, looking at closed and open work orders, and we're gonna be reporting that publicly as well, so that there will be that level of accountability.

And my full expectation is that we will see those averages reduce uh dramatically until we get to a place where we are at a 30-day response time.

Council President.

Uh Steve, thank you so much for being here.

Um I want to talk about uh the lights and an asset management system.

I know that the DDD, for example, has a robust asset management system where people report 311 or just call the DDD or the DDD rangers go around and they can see when lights are on and off.

Do we have such a system?

We do.

That is a great question.

Thank you.

So previously, prior to about mid-year of last year, we were utilizing the 311 data, which which is good at capturing a complaint, but it does not manage a system.

So we have the open gov system right now with the cartograph engine that is not just capturing complaints, but it also we have all of our lighting assets in particular.

We started with lighting, so all the assets are mapped, the age of the asset is included.

We're able to start now.

We're starting to map out preventive maintenance.

We want to get from a reactive to a proactive stance, and so lighting is the first thing that went into that system.

So, yeah, that's that's been really helpful.

So, coupling that with Daniel's node ice data is how we were able to say, all right, we've got these lights out in these hot spots.

We want to hit it there first.

So, yeah, we've got we've got something in place.

Yeah, and look, you did uh yeah's job at Surin Waterboard of getting service cuts down from and Matthew could tell me exactly like years to you know under 60 days, and and so I have faith in you that you can get these lights on in a manner that's not 400 days or plus, I think probably some are plus.

Yeah, um, down to what did you say, 30 days?

We're gonna get to 30.

That's where we're where we're headed.

Okay, great.

Yeah, and it's again never about myself, it's about the team that we've got.

We're building a team there, and again, the mayor has put together uh a plan and a vision and said, Steve, you got to go find the resources, get the people and get it done as a team, and we're we're going to do that.

And that inspector role that you're hiring for, what exactly are they gonna do?

Yeah, so right now the inspectors that we have, they're they're inspecting street lights, street signs, well, not necessarily street lights, assigns, but lights and all of the paving.

So they're going out from like four to six in the morning, and then they're inspecting everything else that comes in on 311 throughout the rest of the day.

So the dedicated inspector position that we're hiring for now is going to be dedicated to light lighting, so it's gonna be dust till dawn.

Naturally, it makes more sense to inspect lights when it's dark.

Yeah.

Yeah, so great question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

This actually, so we don't have the heat map in this presentation.

I'm sorry.

Did I miss it?

Oh, wait.

Perhaps it'll come up later.

Excuse me.

I wanted to talk about uh citywide, the citywide street maintenance next.

So right now we have about a dozen uh internal staff.

We've got a backlog of about 2,000, and on the street lighting, we have about 3,000 open work orders out of the 51,000.

So you mentioned paving at the Surgeon Waterwood.

We had 3,000 open paving work orders.

We were able to get it down to about 300.

Uh and it took about 18 months to do so, but that's an elephant that I believe we can eat.

We apply the right resources.

I know we've talked about settlement monies.

The council has been incredibly cooperative and supportive, and just seeing the council and the administration work together to make these things happen.

That's that's the glue that's gonna make this stick together.

So backlog, uh, currently we have about 2,000 asphalt potholes.

We've got about uh 1,100 concrete sidewalk open repairs across the city.

Frankly, this is far fewer than I thought we would have.

Um we just poured the first in-house concrete repairs that had been done since Hurricane Katrina about two weeks ago.

We've got orders in for additional uh equipment and materials, and we'll be hiring additional staff uh to handle concrete and paving repairs.

Currently, we have about two to four crews each day that are split between paving and seasonal needs.

So right now it's it's to use the term a skeleton crew, they've been very much focused on barricade uh setting barricades out.

So if you notice the number of barricades that have been out on St.

Charles and Napoleon, that's all been uh DPW crews, so they have not been able to do as much pothole filling.

Um, but when we are out with the asphalt trucks, we're filling 500 to 1500 pot roll potholes a week.

So there is quite a bit of work going on.

It's just we want to change the type of work as well.

So we're doing sidewalks and we're doing full depth repairs as well.

So council uh president, uh on the serpentine barricades, which is in my district, and I drive that every day.

DPW is the organization putting those out.

That is correct.

I know at one point Mayor Morena was talking about we have National Guard here.

Could they be tapped to do that work rather than taking DPW offline to put out barricades?

I'm I think that's something we would love to get some additional support on.

The National Guard has been helpful with some of the manual labor.

Um I think in the future, if there's a way to get some equipment involved in the future, that would be outstanding.

Got it.

Thank you.

That's that would be great.

Um, we do also most of the work on the permanent paving uh is completed under our right-of-way contract and/or capital and bond projects.

Uh thankfully we have uh just been able to sell or we will be selling bonds.

It was authorized by the voters, about 260 million dollars in bond funds for uh infrastructure related projects, and we have started those conversations about the priority projects for each council district and look forward to issuing those bonds, selling them and starting that work uh immediately this year.

So some of the executive order deliverables around the paving program.

Uh the first within the first 10 days, we want to establish a program lead that will be shan.

That is Shannon Blanks.

She's the deputy director of public works.

Her reputation precedes her.

I'm very grateful for her and her team.

She works 24-7.

Uh within 30 days, we need to complete our inventory of in-house capacity.

Um we've kind of talked at a at a high level.

We're filling potholes, placing barricades, cleaning the fronts of catch basins, and we intend to have that report ready next week.

And then within 60 days, there'll be an analysis of contractor support along with an analysis of cost savings, budget impacts, and then a multi-year staffing equipment and budget analysis.

Uh, and we will have much more information around how we're going to fund salaries, fund equipment, and be able to do a lot more work in-house uh next week.

We anticipate having some big announcements around that plan.

The objectives, I mentioned lighting repairs around 400 days on average.

Uh paving pothole repairs, it's anywhere from 100 to 300 plus days on average.

We've got to get that down to 30.

Uh, and and frankly, a 30-day average is still pretty long in a lot of in a lot of respects, but we want to be able to get to that, and that again feeds into being able to rely on the system.

Our customers, when it's 400 plus days, and there's no average in in the system.

The assumption I we found this at Sewerage and Waterboard, the average was like 100 to 150 days for paving.

Our customers, our constituents simply assume that it's not there.

It disappeared, it's gone.

So we want to be transparent about even if the if the timelines are wholly unacceptable, we want to be honest about what they are and provide the roadmap to getting us to where we need to be.

So increased functionality and delivery.

I've already kind of mentioned this concrete paving, including sidewalks, curb.

We want to be able to handle uh street panel replacements at some point, some full depth asphalt repairs, and then eventually we want to be handling mill and overlay of full lanes and blocks in-house.

Now that's not going to happen in the first year.

It'll probably take 18 months to take delivery on the equipment itself, but that's the vision that we want to get into, is where we are able to do mill and overlay projects on full city blocks using internal crews.

The example I'll use on Magazine Street from City Park, or excuse me, from Ottoman Park to Jefferson, there was a mill and overlay project.

It took a day to mill it.

You could drive on it the same day, it was a day to overlay it, and you can roll the marble down it when you're finished.

There's a project, I believe it's bond funded that's going on behind Turo right now.

Same story.

You mill it, even if you have to leave, you can still drive over it.

The roads not closed, the businesses are nearly as disruptive.

You come back, you lay the asphalt in two days, and it's back open again.

Is there any option of uh and I know equipment purchase is gonna take a long time, but is there any option of borrowing or renting equipment in the meantime?

Um we we will what we will be doing in the meantime is issuing a contract for on call work for mill and overlay around the city so that we can be more nimble in the meantime.

We don't want to wait 18 months to be able to start doing mill and overlay.

That's probably what we're gonna end up having to do is is an interim contract for it.

Okay, thank you.

Um, resurfacing and maintenance, we've got 1,500 miles of roadway with with about 880 blocks that we want to be able to maintain each year so that we can get on a 30-year re uh 30-year resurfacing cycle.

I talked about this at the sewerage and water board.

The the life cycle of paving being about 30 years, it's the same story with subsurface infrastructure.

If a pipe only lasts a hundred years, and I say only a hundred years, if you're not replacing or rehabbing one percent of your system every single year, or in this case, 880 blocks a year, then you're setting yourself up to outlive that street's gonna be there longer than the life cycle of the paving.

So we've got to get into again a place where we are proactively maintaining and replacing streets.

Again, the path to delivery, developing internal staff uh with the ability to make concrete repairs.

We're gonna shift from some of that pothole patching to doing concrete repairs in-house.

We will still, of course, have have the uh the pothole fillers that's never gonna go away.

Uh we are in the purchase.

We actually have, I found this week, uh, quite a bit more paving equipment than I thought we had.

We've got a couple of excavators, we've got some some uh some rolling drum compactors, we've got bobcats already, we've got some milling attachments, we've got some concrete mixing equipment.

We just got to get the men and women who can operate it.

And frankly, that'll be fairly straightforward.

I've got a meeting with Amy Trapanier.

Uh, civil service has been outstanding.

They've been great partners.

Got a meeting with the before we move off this line.

So I I know that you were at Sewage and Waterboard during the hearings we had with the previous director of public works.

There is a tremendous personnel issue with the individuals in the yard.

As you know, that was like a long-standing, we have a hundred plus page report of chaos.

Yeah, and I would certainly encourage you to sit down with the members of the union and have a reset because I will tell you the hardest thing to do when it comes to hiring people on that yard, is if that yard continues to have a reputation for supervisors being abusive, whether it be verbally or otherwise.

The people that are gonna help you recruit new people are the people currently working there.

And I can tell you in my experience working with members of the unions, particularly from that yard, they wouldn't ask anyone to come work with them in the in the environment they currently have.

So I certainly hope you've engaged those union members.

You engage their union representatives and really talk about how going forward the culture there is gonna change because if you have people who are happy in their workplace, they are aggressively gonna advocate and encourage others to join the workplace.

You're you are absolutely spot on, Councilman.

I think Charles Schwab had a quote that said, I have yet to meet the man or woman in life, regardless of their station, who does not do more and better work with better effort under a spirit of encouragement than one of discipline or of discouragement.

I I've been on the shop on the yard now, I think four times every single Thursday morning.

I am personally on that yard at 7 a.m.

meeting with and talking to the men and women, and it's the simple things.

They need bottled water.

You know what?

We are going to make a way to get them bottled water.

We're going to make a way to get them boots, and if nothing else, they're going to hear thank you from the top on down.

And that includes the managers that are there too.

I need to encourage them too.

It's my job to lead and to equip that team, and it starts with myself just being there each and every week.

That was my favorite day at the Sewage and Waterboard was Thursday morning.

I'd be out of central yard and just being a part of the men and women that are out there doing the hardest work.

It's cold as all get out right now, and it's going to be hotter than you know what this summer.

They're going to be out there doing it, and for far less pay than many of us, myself included.

If I can't show up and say thank you face to face, then we got a problem, and that's where it's going to start.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate you mentioning that.

And yes, I folks will know they're valued.

The last thing that I wanted to talk about is the infrastructure coordination council.

We've all heard and seen the stories.

We've been involved in with them personally about the street being torn up, repaved, and a week or two later, somebody comes in and tears it up.

So we have had there's there's kind of two parts to the infrastructure coordination council.

There will be an advisory council with we've we've had um a couple of initial sit-downs, and then there will be the formal ICC itself, which will consist of a series of uh higher level meetings where we will report out on the information that's been pulled together.

Uh in the first 45 days, we're going to establish the members of that smaller council group.

We have already had uh some initial conversations with about 40 to 50 individuals, uh stakeholders across the city.

We've collected a list of capital programs and projects, totaling about two and a half billion dollars of ongoing and upcoming work.

That's not just completed work, but that's about two and a half billion dollars of work across 150 line items.

Uh the good news is that most of the the utility purveyors, whether it's entergy, the city, the sewage and water board, we all have GIS-based maps.

We've all got this work mapped out.

It's just in 15, 20, or 30 different locations.

So uh the latest that we have is that uh the the GI we have some GIS gurus here at the city.

They're going to be connecting with GIS gurus at the other stakeholders and utility purveyors, uh, and they will be working to map out all of these projects and their locations in one spot, overlaying all of these layers together, and then we're going to start looking at what's coming in the next six months, what's in the next year, what's in the next two years, uh, so that we can deliver this integrated work uh infrastructure work plan, and then each quarter we will be delivering a mayor's report, and we will be developing a public-facing dashboard, uh, and then creating a team that's not just a series of meetings.

There are plenty of meetings.

What we are trying to develop is a tool.

Uh, and the the interim superintendent Caitlin Timreck at the Surgeon Water Board had a great idea at our last sit down to start developing working groups around how do we map things.

So we have a group of GIS experts.

How do we mark different locations?

So when there's a cut in the street, I have a challenge sometimes figuring out who does it belong to.

Well, maybe it's something I'm just throwing out ideas that we talked about.

Maybe it's a sign, maybe it's a QR code that we can place it.

Maybe it's a spray painted something spray painted of a different color with a stencil, something so that the individual who is there on site doesn't have to go to six different dashboards and end up confused at the end of the day.

And we've gotten a lot of buy-in.

There's been no pushback.

There's it's been very, very productive thus far, and we look forward to releasing uh the framework for that, the first report, and then quarterly reports to this body and the public.

Um, with that, I mentioned a heat map.

I do not have that.

I apologize, but at this point, I do I do want to mention, I would be remiss if I didn't hold up some show and tell items.

So with lighting, I miss this entirely.

I want to be sure this is clear and public and loud.

We want to remove the incentive for stealing of cable from our lights.

Now it's not every issue, it's not every light that's out, it's not about theft.

So I don't want to gaslight a situation.

Sometimes we just have maintenance, and sometimes things get old.

But we do find that there is a lot of theft within the system.

And aluminum is worth what is it, Andy, seven times less?

Six times less.

Aluminum is worth six times less than copper.

It's significantly lighter.

It doesn't have quite as long a life.

It is a little shorter lived, and you do have to have a little bit larger cable.

But in instances where you have copper being stolen within weeks or days after you install it, that math is pretty easy to justify.

So we're going to remove the incentive for folks to go out and take that.

And I just want to be sure that that's clear and public that we are going back with aluminum, as are our neighbors who are experiencing the same issues.

With that, I would love to entertain any questions you may have.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve, for being here.

Um and and for the collaboration that we've already seen over the last few weeks, and especially last week when we had the little oopsie of the the uh road work potentially happening, and you all were great communicating with me and my staff and all as well as the neighbors, and I appreciate you know you guys coming to the neighborhood meeting and getting that situated.

I know it was a it was a fun one.

Absolutely, but we're we're glad that you are here.

Um I just have I saved kind of everything for last, so I'm just gonna go through a couple different things.

Um I appreciate the one map for the infrastructure coordination council, and I also appreciate including my staff.

That was something that um I had requested, um, and I know other council members can I'm sure can do the same thing, but it's helpful um, especially for the district council members to be in that room to understand what's happening um across the city and and that coordination because we see it all the time where it's you know, we no one knows what each other is doing.

So on the street lights, um, you know, I I of course this is a top priority for um me as well, and we are appreciative of this.

In fact, the latest 311 report that we received from District A is that um uh over half of our requests are for street lights, so people are are ready for those street lights, and I appreciate as climate chair you all using some of the solar lights as well.

So going back to that with the hiring of electricians, um, and you know, I know you're looking to hire additional capacity, but I would encourage you all to also potentially I'm open to partnering with you on connecting with our local IBEW on an apprenticeship program.

Um, I think it's vitally important to provide opportunities to young folks that need a job and and want to create that economic opportunity for them while also having a job and building that in-house capacity within DPW.

So I'm happy to work with you on that.

And same goes for the other in-house capacity.

I think you know, you and I have talked about this at length, that any time we can do in-house where you can be nimble and do these things is is important.

Um, back to uh ORS, Office of Resilience.

Um, I know that is you guys are working on an org chart.

Um, I would love to see that.

Um, and then if you have any additional ideas or information on how we are gonna be handling stuff like the benchmarking ordinance that the previous council passed and is supposed to be um implemented starting last month, and then who is gonna be handling the grants going forward because they have over 140 million worth of federal grants that we need to actually see move forward and handle and not get clawed back.

So, can you just kind of briefly talk about the plans for that office or how you are incorporating it throughout the city?

Yeah, absolutely great questions.

And uh IBEW uh incidentally is has reached out, would love to continue to partner with them and talk to you about that.

Yeah, ORS, the Office of Resilience is absolutely a key component of what Mayor Moreno has has consistently supported is sustainability and resilience, and she is elevating that office.

There is some very strong leadership there.

The org chart uh should be imminent, and we have personnel that are dedicated.

We've had conversations all week uh over the last two plus weeks about how do we execute it execute exactly those plans and make sure uh that leadership within that ORS group uh that will be a separate office and elevated uh will have the resources to be able to deliver on benchmarking in particular, as well as fleet projects like Lincoln Beach and others.

ORS is is a group that is very, very talented in bringing in funding, and I know the vision is to have ORS resilience and sustainability be applied across all departments.

And so my direction to folks within the Department of Public Works, for instance, and property management is well, instead of having ORS come to us with, well, here's you know, here's a project, help execute or whatever.

We need to be looking for opportunities for sustainability.

One an example I'll give uh light fixtures on Interstate 10 from Gannon Road to the parish line are high pressure sodium bulbs.

They haven't been converted to LEDs yet.

We've already had some conversations with ORS staff about well, let's see if we can find some funding to convert those to LEDs.

Lights in in this building and others, can we convert those to LEDs using funding from entergy and have ORS who are so talented at obtaining funding and managing grants, help find those things and help us manage that together across all departments, not just one department, but have everybody going to them as experts.

Council Barris.

Wait, I wasn't done.

Oh sorry?

Sorry.

Just flipping my thoughts.

Okay.

Um how is DPW going to work with the administration's external affairs team to ensure that residents and not just neighborhood meeting, neighborhood associations have insight into the road projects and standard maintenance.

Um, for example, maybe like a pizza tracker for you know your street works and making sure that we're wrapping into our um contracting uh time limits and time check-ins and two-week look-aheads, stuff like that.

How are we gonna incorporate that going forward and and working with residents and the council members?

Absolutely great question, and that is a key focus for us is getting the communications piece, not just to where we're providing information, but where there are the timelines.

I get wrapped around data sometimes, but I feel like I believe that timelines are critical for setting expectations and then also providing us with insight on where we need to focus.

Now, right now the focus is on everything maintenance-wise.

When you have averages of three to four hundred days on multiple items, well, you gotta address everything.

But uh relate relative to, and I didn't have a slide on this, the JIRR program.

So that's gonna sunset in 2028.

We have an extension through July.

Just over the last month, we've started getting getting two-week look-aheads and publishing those on the website.

Um, we're going to have a single point of contact for uh spoiler alert, Elise Williams will be a singular point of contact for all council personnel, so that you don't have multiple email inboxes that you're emailing issues to, and she can help guide and direct where those questions should go.

If it's a JIRR project, if it's a bond funded project, or a routine maintenance item.

And then ultimately the goal will be get our average response times into that 311 dashboard that's already publicly available so that customers can go and find that information themselves without having to call council or call our office directly.

So it's gonna start with now that we have the average response timelines for things, communicating that clearly along with the roadmap for lights, for instance.

We've got the monies from the settlement uh that we have, we're hiring individual electricians, we're gonna report that on a quarterly basis so that we can set expectations.

And what I found with paving, even as bad as timelines can be, if people know that yes, there is in fact a timeline, and I am under it.

It's not that I'm being ignored, it's just that the system's not where it should be, but also here's the hope and the roadmap for where it will be and the check-in point for the accountability next quarter to see if are we making it or are we missing it?

And if not, why thank you, and yay for Elise Williams.

We love her.

She's very, very good.

Yeah, I'm I I've been asking for that pizza tracker for the past four years and never got it.

So I'm excited to hear that there's some sort of uh system getting in place.

One of the things that we did get in place is what we call the Matthew Schoenberger ordinance that has never been implemented by DPW, which is a sign that clearly indicates the start date of a project, the anticipated end date of the project, the contact for that project, and what the project is, along with some sort of identification where you can go to a website to see where it is in progress.

Again, that is by ordinance that was passed by the past city council that has never been implemented by DPW.

So that is something that you must implement going forward.

Understood, duly noted, agreed, and yes, yes, madam councilwoman.

Thank you.

Um we did this because Matt, you know, often got the calls that required him to hunt down people.

You know, often got the calls that required him to hunt down people.

So I'm glad that there will be a single point of contact rather than him having to hunt down people rather than having to copy you and Shannon on emails because that's not the highest and best use of your time.

Agreed.

And again, getting back to that.

So there's a couple of different things like big projects, bond projects, JIR, that's signage.

I mean, that's kind of contractually required.

So you're gonna have to like do some double checking and Matthew at these ICC meetings would welcome council council presence.

I know Curo has been there, but if folks have six you know additional questions, whether it's if it's DPW sewer water board or otherwise, would love to continue to follow up on that.

And yes, the pizza tracker piece.

So people don't have to call their city council.

Correct.

They can just come online.

You can just find it and find it in one spot.

And even having a QR code, you know, everybody has QR codes down that takes you directly to whatever tracking electronic tracking measure you put in place, I think is critical.

Yeah, agreed.

Um, one of the things I did want to touch upon is where things are with the FEMA extension for JIRR.

Yes, so we have received an extension on the roadway work through July 1st.

There is a report due, there are two progress reports, one March 1st, and then the other, I believe, is in April, April or May.

I don't have the exact date, but there are two progress reports in advance of the July 1st uh deadline that we have, and we're also we're working right now to get the next extension request in here within the next one to two weeks because we're already up against it.

Uh I am I am an optimist nature, uh, and the reports that I have seen from the JRR team uh are are very good, they're clean reports, and they show us finishing on time on target in 2028.

Uh, but any encouragement that we can get at the federal level at the highest levels possible, um, and we are more than happy to report the goalposts on a weekly basis as necessary to make sure that we are delivering because I know that's been the big concern, and I believe that that is taking place.

The program management team there, Ryan Donegan is our internal lead on that.

I get reports from him weekly, uh, and the progress is happening, it's it's moving forward.

We just need to make sure that that's getting to the highest level so that next extension request comes in on time and not late.

I look, I I just wanted to just say broadly, because I've asked most of my questions that were prepared by Matt, um, that I've enjoyed our partnership at the Suriname Water Board.

You would come on walkarounds, we would take tours of road work and sites in District B.

Um with Shannon, we've done the same.

So I'm really looking forward to this partnership continuing.

I I when you told us we were so ecstatic that you are taking over uh this role.

I think again with Shannon and the rest of the team.

You can streamline communications, streamline services like you did previously, and I hope that we will continue have the to have the good partnership that we've had in the past.

So I'm really excited about you being here, this new team, the enthusiasm that you bring to it, and the open communication that I know you will bring to it as well.

Thank you very much.

My cell number isn't changing.

Thank you.

We have two public comment, uh, one from Don Abair.

And after that, we have one from Charles Marsala.

Hello, everyone.

My name is Dawn Abair, 6846 Lake Willow Drive.

I've been in contact with Steve Nelson over the years dealing with sewage and waterboard issues with residents of New Orleans East.

He has always been responsive and effective in listening to uh to concerns and actually sharing his cell phone number, which I give it to you.

Uh the city deserves an individual that not only acts to correct a problem but follows up on the corrections in the problems.

I look forward to public's work starting the lights on initiative by Mayor Moreno.

This initiative will positively affect our residents, neighbors, and travelers that come in and out of the city.

It is the these areas have been dark for too long.

I've got to say residents call 311, report them again and again.

So we're hoping that this will definitely change.

Stolen copper has always been the key reason for broken lights.

But so thank you for changing to aluminum and solar.

And I've got to say the blue lights are still a mystery to us.

I I don't we don't understand what's happening with them.

Residents feel unsafe within their neighborhoods driving along I-10 and service roads.

New Orleans East will definitely become a safer and welcoming area for visitors and potential developers.

So thank you for looking into this.

And I'm happy to see the willows was on one of your slides.

Thank you, because they're bordering my home.

Mr.

Nelson, you have a most daunting job ahead for you.

Uh with the lighting and infrastructure issues that have plagued neighborhoods for years due to unfinished projects, wishing you luck.

Thank you.

As a community member, I do want to say that um was happy to see part of that five million dollars is being used toward this event.

I just wonder what happened.

The other 2.2.

Yes, that my understanding is that was used for billing assistance and other projects previously.

Thank you.

Mr.

Marsala.

Thank you, uh JP.

Uh Steve, uh, as a fellow engineer and a former councilman, I thought your presentation was excellent, and I'm really glad to see the council bringing you forward and what you're working on.

As a citizen, this past weekend leaving downtown, my car broke down on the overpass at Carleton.

And I want to thank Department of Transportation.

You're right, it's very dark, and I'm glad to see what you guys are doing with the lights.

Um it's unsung hero.

Within minutes, somebody was out there, took care of what I needed to do so that I could move on, and you don't even get their name to thank them.

And I I publicly would like to thank them here at this meeting because that's a great service that's being provided to people who's who have a vehicle problem on our roads and bridges.

Um, on a couple of other notes, um, you know, we we talked about three years ago the signs for Tivoli.

I did go to Department of Public Works.

This is mine, I realize you guys got so many bigger things to handle, but we'd love to get those signs resolved, and they said that they had nothing named Tivoli to put a sign on.

So maybe you guys could work and we can figure out if we have something named Tivoli, or if not, we could create an ordinance naming something Tivoli so that we could get that rectified and have the signs put up uh for Tivoli Circle, which was what it was given in 1810.

And I believe we said that the outside was staying Tivoli, and we'd have a sign.

So that would be uh again, there was a lady who was trying to help me, but I know she's moved on.

The other thing I have is at West End, um, there's gates up right now where Breakwater Street is, and you can't get out to where the pelicans are.

And I don't think uh I went to ask if that's legal for somebody for the harbor people to have put up gates blocking breakwater drive, and no one knew the answer.

So we've been working on that for a couple of months, and finally they said we can't help you.

So maybe that's this thing we could clarify is can the municipal Yacht Harbor block breakwater drive from the public access.

Thank you for your time and appreciate all you're doing, and congratulations, Amy, on your election.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Um that clears the common cards, Steve, as I'm sure you've heard already.

It's been a pleasure to work with you at Two Winter Water Board.

You were the most responsive person at Sewage and Waterboard.

I've yet to found a find a responsive replacement at Swords and Waterboard for you, but I'm glad you're on here on the city side helping us with the daunting task, which inevitably will also involve how the city interacts with two or three waterboards.

So though you have left the sewage and waterboard, the sewage of water board is still your problem.

Um also I would also like to highlight something, which is that I can honestly and genuinely tell you that when I speak to people from all walks of life in the city of New Orleans who've interacted with sewage and waterboard, you are literally the common thread of when they wanted something done and it got done.

And as Mr.

Marcelo just said, you are truly entering, you have gone out of the fire plant, our the frying pan into the fire, probably to a burnt crisp at the bottom of the stove, but we appreciate you jumping on the side of the boat to work with us to solve these seemingly unsolvable problems.

You have one of the greatest teams I've ever seen assembled.

I mean, you Shannon was poached from us years before, but she's she's great.

Yes, and I really look forward to working with you and trying to solve the problems that plague our city and for once getting the apps and everything actually working so that people can have the agency of checking to see when their own repairs are gonna get done.

So I would also last plug Steve is not, I know he said this top at the top of this presentation.

311 reports are important.

Yes.

And I say this because when you make your 311 complaint, it does not go to a black hole.

It is part of an algorithm that helps us assign uh assign priority to getting repairs done.

And the squeaky wheel gets the oil.

So the 311 claim the 311 complaints are the squeaking.

So if you're not making those complaints, as they're trying to triage how they're going to resource, those 3 1 1 complaints are part of that triage process.

So it is not a waste of your time.

Depending on the department, like the backlog you have at DPW is quite significant.

Parks and parkways on tree complaints, they work fairly quickly if you've got a tree complaint.

So do 311, contact your council members, but always do the 311 because that is the dashboard that they are going to see and utilize.

And I don't think that is emphasized enough because I will tell you there are communities who have mastered the 311 block complaints where they all go on there next door and say, everyone call 311 about this parked car that is blocking a driveway, and you will be surprised from the way that system is managed, how that will move up in the queue.

So use 311 even if it seems like it's not helpful because it is actually part of the process.

Even if you call my cell phone and I answer directly, I will be putting a 3-1-1 request in next.

So short circuit all of that, and then call me with the case number or call a lease with the case number, right?

And you'll be good to go.

Alright.

Well, thank you, Steve.

I will move that we I know I beat you.

I'll move that we forward Steve for confirmation, seconded by Councilmember Harris, please let your machines.

Amy, are you holding out?

Okay.

Three A's, three A's, no nays.

We forward to the council confirmation favorably.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Harris moves to adjourn, seconded by Councilmember McCarran.

All there say aye.

Three A's, no nays.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.