Good afternoon.

We were now called to order this meeting of the public safety standing committee.

I'll begin by reading the announcements and guidelines.

Upon activation of the emergency alarm signal, all persons should immediately exit the building.

Please use the exit to the left right or front of the council chamber or the north or west stairwells outside of the rear doors of the chamber.

Do not use elevators or escalators.

At the exit in a building, security would direct everyone down 9th Street to the fenced area located between Clay and Lee Streets.

Able persons should assist visually and hearing impaired visitors with exiting the building.

Persons wishing to speak during the public comment period and all public hearings.

Are generally allowed three minutes to speak.

Persons appearing before the committee are not allowed to campaign for public office, promote by business ventures, use language of personal nature, which is also demeans any person, including comments directed at public officials or staff members that are not related to their official duties, or just a question, staff members directly.

All questions to be directed to the committee chair.

Seeing none, the public comment period is now closed.

We're now move on to the approval of the minutes.

The minutes to be approved from the May 28th, 2026 public safety standing committee meeting.

If there are no amendments or corrections, then those meeting minutes stand approved as presented.

Those minutes have been approved.

We now move on to our presentations.

We have hurricane season preparations with Edward Corner, Deputy Director of Emergency Communications Preparedness and Response.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here.

Let's see.

Okay, this is what we've got looking at for next season.

The outlook for hurricane season in 2026 is governed by a few different factors.

So we're showing it below normal season for reasons we'll get to in for a minute, but the outlook can continues to increase in accuracy as data gets better throughout the years.

Today we're looking at probably around 85% there with the ability to figure out what's going to happen now versus what happens at the end of the year.

This year we are impacted heavily by something called El Niño.

Um El Nino, and it in fact it's going to be probably El Super El Niño this year.

Uh impacts our weather kind of in a weird way just because it warms up the Pacific Ocean around the equator, two or three degrees, which changes the latitude of the um of the jet stream as it comes through and uh drastically changes our weather.

Um you can see the north or the um the top slide there.

That's basically a hurricane in the last 30 years based on La Niña, which is La Nina is a colder version of El Nino in the Pacific, whereas the one on the below is uh El Niño for the last 30 years.

Not to say that there won't be a hurricane with uh these these conditions, but the wind shear and the um the conditions won't show a uh a good pattern going forward uh during these conditions.

So El Niño is normally associated with increased heat, uh increased drought, and um heavy participant precipitation and flooding because of atmosphere loading.

Uh, it changes the location of the tropical Pacific's warmest water.

So that that shift alters the position of jet streams and storms around the world.

And for us, this really doesn't mean too much except to say that we're probably going to see an extended drought as a result because it brings down water saturation in the atmosphere well south of us.

So Louisiana, Texas, Florida.

Um, the influence is greater in the winter, actually, because of uh more storms coming from the south, increased cloud cover, and cooler daytime temperatures uh and above normal precipitation.

Um we'll get to that probably at the end of the year, and we might have a different uh different prognostic uh uh pronostication at that point.

Uh but you can think about like 1957, 1958, Richmond saw two and a half times normal snowfall.

83 was the president's day's snowfall around 16 inches, and the last super El Nina we had in 1997 saw statewide flooding and widespread damage uh as well as a snowmageddon snow uh snowmageddon in richmond received more than a foot of snow over five days so to recap last year's hurricane season uh we did have 13 named storms which of five of those were hurricanes and three category five hurricanes uh there's a couple in there I want to highlight uh made the um uh hurricane aaron actually never made landfall but killed nine people but based on uh rip tides and based on uh some of the other conditions that happened around islands and around the eastern sea or the United States.

Hurricane Melissa also was a cat five of just tremendous proportions.

It was a monster storm um that had uh and at one point it underwent extremely rapid intensification of 70 miles per hour in 24 hours um this this kind of storm is something that we can probably continue to expect just based on global warming and other factors uh so it's something that we really really need to prepare for and keep in mind so I want to highlight a few things too because we keep talking about Sam uh Safer Simpson and you know whenever whenever the hurricane comes in we see uh the weather channel and everybody else sensationalizing the fact that there is a lot of wind wind definitely is a factor within a hurricane and wind is something that can be destructive overall but the major factors that determine destruction are is water um here's a few things to chew on based on that uh flooding accounts are about 86% of direct hurricane fatalities uh while damage is generally more repairable what dam or water damage tends to destroy major infrastructure whether it's electrical water um schools you name it it is very it's a lot harder to recover from uh FEMA's rough rule and all this is uh between 60 and 90 percent of hurricane related losses are water whether it's surgeon flooding while only about uh 10 to 40 are are wind related um why is this all important and I mentioned this because there is a definite lack of people that are properly prepared for flooding within the city of Richmond and actually within the country writ large uh many people don't realize that if you do have a water based incident uh within your home your standard insurance will probably not cover it so it's something that uh we need to get out there we need to be prepared for um uh for those kind of events by buying uh national uh flood insurance the NFIP program which is uh is available to everybody within the city and is available to everybody nationwide um and it's something that I think last count that I uh that I researched a couple days ago only about two percent of the population of the city has it even though uh there are a lot more structures within that floodplain and uh in that flood zone and just kind of an illustration for that too is if if you do have an issue with with water if you do have issues with uh with the destruction of a house based on a water issue um if you're counting on FEMA to come to the rescue there is a lot of ambiguity with FEMA right now and we really don't know where that where they stand.

Also just based on on uh past experience the maximum individual assistance grants that FEMA can put out are somewhere in the range of about 43,600 for housing and then another 43,600 for other needs you know call them transportation call them uh food assistance that kind of thing so it's not high.

It's not something that will recover you and it's not something that will get you back to where you were before it's just a very basic level and it's uh it's not going to be something that uh that will make you whole um this is another another stream on that or another count on that uh that shows the impact of water on community while while wind can definitely be an emergency flooding has the potential to be the long-term disaster.

And bottom line 86% of direct hurricanes and tropical storm fatalities are attributed to water impacts.

And a couple couple here locally.

Isabel produced a peak storm surge of about nine feet in Richmond and Hurricane Juan uh a few years back caused the James to crest at 30 feet, 30 almost 31 feet.

So how are we preparing the city departments to address hurricane issues or hurricane threats?

We are currently finalizing a comprehensive emergency operation plan that was started last year as a kind of oblique result of the water crisis.

That will be presented to council sometime in late uh late summer, early fall.

It has some major changes in it.

We're very excited about some of the things that are in there.

We've also opened an emergency operation center, also what we're calling the MAC, which is designed about around the best practices that we have available to us, whether they're FEMA, state or local.

And we've used it quite extensively, actually.

We've used we've opened it for uh for thunderstorms coming through, we've opened it through uh winter weather, we've opened it for events uh just a sale fest a couple of weekends ago.

It uh it's it's uh it's really a game changer as far as uh as our ability to maintain situational awareness here within the city.

Um we are expanding and targeting better emergency management training throughout the throughout the city and throughout uh with our our partners, both in the state and other localities as well as FEMA when uh when we can.

This training is is designed to make sure that we are hitting the right elements that we need to do, that we need to have within the city uh to account for the threats that we are facing.

In that is also our emergency management liaisons that are embedded within each of our departments and divisions that help us be that conduit or that belly button in between emergencies and events and those individual departments that uh that provide assistance within that.

Where we work very closely with external partners, whether inside, outside the city, state, and federal.

Um, you know, some examples of that are like the senior centers within the city, feed more mercy kitchen, baptist ministries, team Uberubicon, housing authorities, on and on and on.

These are the kind of things that we we are constantly trying to be out in the community to make sure we are imparting a message of preparedness and uh and uh both on a personal and uh family uh basis.

Web EOC is currently our system of record for emergency management operations.

In that, then we put everything in uh that has happened in an event, has happened uh in a disaster, and uh that is our system of record to make sure that we are maintaining those records.

Continuity of operation plans have ramped up quite a bit uh within the last 12 months.

We are we are reaching down and touching every division, every every entity within the city, making sure they have their own individual operations plans in case they need to move out of where they're at, uh in case we have uh have a need to do our what we do on a daily basis outside of our normal operations spaces.

But and that's that includes many different things, whether it's continuity of government, whether it's uh you know the services that we provide to the community on and on.

Another big thing is after action reports.

Uh, we are we're establishing a large background of after action, um, the things that we have identified within these after action reports that allow us to get continuously better as we as we go along.

And these then get embedded into uh many of our other things that we do within the division uh to make sure that we are constantly improving, to make sure that we are keeping well abreast of the things that we really need to focus on.

Uh shelter operations plans is probably is highlighted this winter.

Um, they were critical in making sure that this was a fairly smooth operation based on people that needed the housing down in the down the south side of the city.

Uh we do quite a bit in verifying equipment, uh, making sure supply is is coordinated, staffing readiness, et cetera.

So uh that is a constantly evolving document and constantly evolving plan, which we exercise quite a bit with and uh which we have many, many different partners.

So, how do we prepare our residents?

Um we have an active search team, uh community emergency response team that is developing uh their own ability or it is expanding quite a bit and developing their own ability to make sure that they're taking care of their neighbors.

Civic organizations to share preparedness information.

We're doing that constantly, as well as partner with council districts to share important updates, listening to neighborhood concerns and making sure that we are addressing those concerns based on the things that they tell us.

The Office of Emergency Management provides hurricane preparedness and disaster preparedness talks to anybody that will listen.

So we've gone to senior centers, we've gone to uh events, we've gone to uh every every city event that we can possibly get invited to to impart that message and make sure that that people know uh know the best practices that they could both protect themselves and their family.

We're always looking for opportunities to engage and uh please, please.

If there's any events that you'd like us to go to, we are delighted to go.

Um public communications during emergency events is very critical, specifically during hurricanes because there is some there's a lot of sensationalism out there, and sometimes there's a there's there's information that is not very accurate.

So our PIOs or our public information officer uh coordinates messages to make sure they're clean and consistent and uh works with the uh with OSC to support press and social media.

We put out multi-channel outreach, whether it's websites, whether it's um uh media, whether it's uh civil or I'm sorry, um you name it in any different media or any different thing that we can put out there, we do.

Uh frequent real-time updates with safety info and resources.

Uh, we're make sure that everything is out, we're up there early, and that we that we're getting in front of any type of misinformation.

And uh two-way communication versus any via any type of medium that we have available to us.

And these are just some some of the uh some of the examples of web pages, you know, push notification to social media, online press conferences, uh Richmond Ready, uh, email notifications, press engagements, um, iPods we uh and uh direct phone calls from uh from Richmond Ready.

And since we're on it, let's talk about Richmond Ready because we at uh it's as of this morning we had 16,003 subscribers.

So it's going up every time every couple days we're we're getting you know 50, 100, and it's something that's being very well ingrained within the community and uh within within our ability to reach out to the community, especially.

Um it's it's accepted, it's trusted, and uh and we we're jealous about making sure that we what we put out there is right, that we make that what is put out there is uh is accurate and that it's getting in front of the information that might not be accurate in the background.

So it is a tremendous tool, and for those of you that haven't signed up yet, uh please go ahead and take a look at that, uh, because it really changes things uh for the community.

So a couple things about Richmond Ready, and and you've seen the difference between what a WIA or IPAWS uh is versus a Richmond Ready Alert.

Richmond Ready is something you have to sign up for, and it's something that you have to physically um put in your your uh your details and will only ring your phone or will only uh contact you if you have signed up, as opposed to Rio.

We are iPads and IPOs.

And some of the examples of that are um, you know, tornado warnings, uh, these threats that are getting this afternoon for uh uh thunderstorm warnings, that kind of thing comes directly from NWS or other sources that had that ability to reach down and and signal those phones within a certain area based on the threat vectoring.

Um so they're not based, they're not the same thing, but they kind of run the same function, um, and they are they are uh critical to our ability to communicate back and forth uh with the community.

So with that, I'd love to take any questions you have.

Thank you, Deputy Director.

Um just a few questions.

Uh we talked about flooding a little bit.

I would love to know sort of you know what our overall infrastructure flooding liability is like at this current state, and what are we doing to shore it up?

The as far as like city owned properties and and infrastructure.

So I know one of the things that the city is looking at is is burying um cable.

I mean, I would assume that that is something that could be an additional liability for flooding.

Um, this building is underground uh so could you give me like a little bit of a uh just like a 30,000 foot view on how we look at the city infrastructure liability around flooding since that is such a big issue.

There's a number of things that we can do to actually mitigate some of those things.

I know especially after the the water issues a couple years ago or less 18 months ago there has been a lot of of uh of input or just general awareness on where our critical infrastructure is we are mapping that out based on um how we can identify and best harden those those areas that really need to be hardened um as well to include requesting grants from the federal government for um hazard mitigation uh to make sure that we are are getting whatever funds we need to make it happen and uh right now I'm kind of at an awareness um point to find what those nodes are that that could really uh bite us.

So I just want to make sure so like at this point we're at kind of an evaluation of what our infrastructure is and where it's located and it's I think the first step is actually to really identify where those where those danger nodes are where those places are that could really um that could really be again impactful to the city as a whole whether it you know like the the water crisis was there's also the I'm sure there is others out there and that we just need to make sure that we know where they are and that we find and have a plan going forward on on how to mitigate um if if that would have if something would happen along those same lines with those so do we have like a sort of like our you know continuity of operation plan like do we have a plan for flood liability and mitigation for the city or do we have a timeline for that plan being created?

Within the COOP themselves each each um department and division is is generating their own coup right now or their own continuity of operation plan and when within those coup plans are those those mechanisms on how we how we have secondary and tertiary places where we where we can provide the services that we are that we are that we need to provide to the city um and and how those are and also within within coop is a is a liability point point on what are the things that are really going to hurt us should we lose you know XYZ um whether it's you know equipment itself or whether it's buildings within the within that realm.

I think when you um whoever if it's you or Director Willoughby that when that plan is presented to council I would love an additional emphasis on the flood portion of that and ensuring that we're covering all our bases with that that'd be possible.

Yes ma'am and then um thank you and then my other question is around around flood insurance for um I think it's important that you brought up to everyday residents that you know much of average homeowner insurance does not cover um flooding and flood damage and that could be that there's that your roof caves in and your house floods it doesn't have to be the like you know hundred year James River cresting kind of flood.

But I do know that recently they they updated the the hundred year and 50 year flood maps correct?

Correct and that's why it's extremely important that everybody kind of look at where they're at within those those new firm plan or firm maps they're called because those those things have moved a little bit and sometimes now you're inside a higher floodplain than you normally would have been before.

And so that's it that kind of awareness and that kind of preparedness is is really critical because if if they don't have that insurance, like as you mentioned um you know, water damage within the house uh it could could be um you know catastrophic for them financially and everywhere else.

Yeah, and uh so in the fourth district, we we are along the river in in Reedy Creek Basin.

Um, and so there are lots of people, myself included, who are in that area.

You know, I noticed in the floodplain maps that there are houses that are now in the 50 and 100 year floodplains that weren't before long-term homeowners, that flood insurance can be a significant additional cost that they were not anticipating.

Correct.

Are there programs on the state or federal level that can help homeowners who are now scooped up into that?

There if through through homeland mitigation funds or homeland mitigation uh uh grant programs, there are ways to be able to make sure to to be able to harden those for lack of a better word.

So um, you know, for just an example, city in Colorado took whole line of security funds and completely rerouted their their river system based on uh historical floods and based on his the history of stuff that had happened before and uh and completely changed the the way or the the whole posture of their city.

So there is ways to to make sure that that that is that is happening, but it is it takes a long time and it is very expensive.

But that's on like this that's on the city, like that's on the municipality infrastructure, not necessarily like Bob Smith in my neighborhood has lived there for 60 years, but now he's in the Reedy Creek floodplain.

He's gotta add an extra two hundred dollars a month to have flood insurance to cover for his house, which was never in it.

There's no program for that guy, right?

Not that I know of.

There's programs after the fact.

So if there is destruction in the house, and then you can go back and and uh especially if you are part of N FIP, they will real rebuild the house and then uh raise it, you know, to make sure that it is more hazard compliant.

But as uh as a whole, most of the hazard mitigation stuff on the front end has to do with uh hardening the city itself or hardening the infrastructure that makes for a large amount of people, not necessarily for individuals.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

We're talking about um the flood insurance.

Does the city offer that?

I'm trying to find it in.

No, ma'am, I not to my knowledge.

Uh the the flood insurance is under the NFIP, which is national flood insurance program, and uh the the reason it goes through the federal government is because it's just way one so expensive and it's very hard to it's it's very hard to find a company that will take that risk.

You can find commercial flood insurance out there, but it's extreme it's prohibitive.

It's it's extremely expensive.

So lot insurance companies say will not insure um if you're in a flooding in a flood zone or something, because I know that I've been getting a lot of calls because the citizens like over there off of Columbia Street, Lynn Haven, they're getting these letters from the city about they have to get in flood insurance.

They can't get the flood insurance because the insurance company won't give it to them.

So they brought it up at our meeting, I think in May.

What what are they supposed to do?

And are they being um penalized because they're getting these letters saying that they're in a floods area?

So how do I respond to them?

That's a tough one.

And and I can I can I'm not an insurance expert in that regard, but I know the NFIP has to be it there.

It is kind of the system of last resort, so they have to be able to provide something.

Um I can definitely get smart on that and and and attend that that meeting if you'd like.

Um, and have some further information.

But wouldn't that be um when the I guess the the city shouldn't they because I remember when we had Gaston or whatever when the bridge flooded out and we had a lot of flooding, um, couple of deaths that happened in that area when was with a bus driver.

Um, and maybe that's the posture that that they looked at to begin or to you know to front load this stuff is to protect the majority or the m most the largest amount of houses at the beginning um and and you know, making sure those areas are are well contained.

Well, if you could um could you get me some information on that?

Because we still have a lot of citizens that still live there, and every time it rains like it's did last night, we just I was getting calls, and then again now because the storm is coming back and they're scared to death, you know, every time it it rains like that they think that their homes over there um aften avenue Linhaven Columbia is going to get flooded out again like over there by um where those vacant apartments are yes ma'am what what uh area is that specifically it's in my district precinct eight oh six off of Richmond Highway Lynnhaven Columbia Afton Afton Afton Avenue A F T O N that whole area yes ma'am I'll get you some info immediately I'm sorry then part of Bell Meat is in the sixth and in the eighth they'll meet the Bill Mead area because we have a lot of vacants a lot of vacant land a lot of vacant houses um overgrown grass all of that okay but you can get me some information on that and then it was one more thing um a lot of my citizens do not have computers a lot of them don't have the they don't even they've called here to try to get on the um to have them get a call back number on a landline because some of them don't even have cell phones and they said that they're still not able to get the calls that their neighbors get because some of a lot of the young neighbors have it on the cell phone by the grace of God they do let them know if they're at home or if they'll come to the door if there's an emergency or if the police give them a warning that there's something going on in the neighborhood so how do we reach out to those um to the those group of of seniors or elderly people that are not don't don't have a computer don't have a cell phone how do we make sure that they do not get left out it's always been a challenge um and and it will continue to be a challenge but I think we've taken some of the suggestions you had uh earlier in uh in one of these in one of these meetings and um we've actually made paper paper sign ups for um for Richmond ready so that they can sign up on any type of communication device that they might have.

If they have a POTS line at I'm sorry a copper line at home or or some type of phone that's still on the wall we can make sure that we're calling them on that phone rather than than um rather than cell phones as well um we're we take every advantage to get out there to make sure that that that word is spread to make sure that we're signing people up for those notifications and uh seriously we'll we'll jump over backwards just to make sure that or to make sure that people are aware of what's going on.

Yeah because the last storm that we had when the power got knocked out if they had the the um they didn't have a landline they didn't have no communication.

So that's another thing they brought that up at at one of my meetings I think not last month, month before that in April.

Do you have any suggestions that we might be able to any anything that works that you think that we're going to be able to do if you can get me that form or whatever because I know last what on June the ninth I mean June the 11th we had about a hundred and seventy citizens and the children and a lot of them are grandmothers taking care of their children.

They have custody of the children and they feel like they get left out because they don't have the computer unless the child that's living there with them has one and many of them do not have the computers yeah because they can't afford them.

But if you can get me a form or something we can put that in the package get them or just hand them out at my next meeting on July the ninth which I'm expecting about a hundred and seventy citizens again.

We can definitely do that and uh would you would you mind if we attended that one as well can can you just email that to Rick.

Oh yes ma'am and then he can make the copies and put them in a package or give me the um some extra copies that I know where I can take them to the people and let them fill them out and bring them back to me.

Yes, ma'am.

And I can get them to you or to whoever.

We'll do.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you for this presentation.

I just want to make one last yes ma'am point um you you asked about like what what suggestions we have I I still think there is a lot of public confusion around um and and I know you've broke it down here with the distinction between the we uh IPAS, Richmond Ready, you know, DPU has an alert system for water main gas main work, uh, DPW sends out alerts.

For the everyday citizen, it just looks like the city of Richmond.

And so, even in my district with sophisticated tech savvy people, we have them saying, Well, like, why did I not get I got this thing saying that there's a thunderstorm coming in, but I didn't know that my road was closed for water main, or um, you know, I didn't know whatever.

I I think that there needs to be a concerted and strategic campaign around how can I mean it would be lovely if it was a singular platform that people could sign up for one time and decide what they want.

I'm I'm guessing that the vast majority of people would want all of the alerts.

Um, but this like go here and create a sign-on for this, go here, create an assignment for this.

It's just, I mean, again, for people who are tech native, it's it's arduous at best.

So I would say whatever the IT department can do to maybe, you know, create a single silo where it's an SSO that pushes out to all the other platforms, that would be ideal.

We have to make it seamless for the end user, not for the city.

Absolutely.

And it there's another kind of weird razor in that in that a lot of people don't want this.

The they want a specific amount of notifications, but they don't want the other ones.

Or they want you know certain things that that uh we might not be able to provide.

But it it's it's a whole missed bag of that kind of thing.

So having a central location or a central clearinghouse to that would actually be be beneficial and being able to make sure that they get the right information from that clearing house uh is imperative.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Okay, thank you.

We will now have a presentation regarding illegal dumping and graffiti by John Walsh programs and operations manager for the Department of Public Works.

Thank you all for um inviting us in.

Uh, we we we really appreciate this opportunity to get a chance to update you on some of these um issues.

I know that um trash is near and dear to everybody's heart in the city, so um basically what I want to do is want to kind of go through what we do, some of our processes, we'll talk about some hard numbers as far as what we do and and the and the number of of stops and collections that we make, and then we'll talk about some possible solutions to get ahead of some of this stuff.

So, in our efforts to remove the dump materials, the first thing we do is in whenever we get a complaint as we start with an investigation.

You typically that runs through our community enhancement department, and they will um go out, take a look at it.

They'll make a report as to what they find.

In some cases, um, like for instance, in the picture you see down the right, there's there's trash that is an accumulation of all sorts of stuff.

It's household trash, it's furniture, it's tires, it's it's all sorts of things.

And in a lot of cases, it is on both public and private property.

So we have some coordination that needs to happen between uh departments.

So what we started, we we investigate it, we create a report, and then if it is in the public right away, we will um uh move to abate that, have it collected, picked up.

If it's in the private uh space, code enforcement will take that and and issue a notice and try to get the the individual citizen to clean it up.

Oftentimes it's very difficult when these things are sitting in the pro in the public space to figure out where they came from if there's no identifying stuff in the and you know, I it's very glorious public works.

We get to dig through trash and try to find names and stuff, you know.

So um some, but but a lot of times that stuff is not there, and so it's very difficult to to figure out where it came from or who put it there, and so we end up um eating the cost of a lot of these abatements in the public right-of-way.

We do take a lot of efforts to try to prosecute illegal dumping if we can get to it or figure out who it is or where it came from.

Um, we work with uh the police department and other agencies to do that.

We, most notably code enforcement, the police department, uh, utilities has helped out some.

And if we can figure it out, we will do a prosecution.

We've had a couple this year to deal with tires.

Um we'll talk about that a little bit later in the presentation, but we have had a we've we've been successful in a couple of prosecutions that did result in some uh restitution and and fines.

We also look at graffiti, like dumping and and illegal dumping uh reports.

So graffiti starts sort of the same way.

We start with an investigation through our community enhancement team, we go out and we take a look at it.

One of the things that they do that's unique to them is is beyond the um public-private issue.

Um, we do have a dedicated abatement crew.

So when we identify stuff on the public um rights of way or on public buildings or underpasses or things like that, we have a crew that we that's dedicated to go and abate those things.

We do offer some limited assistance to private property owners with a liability waiver if they if it is it's determined that the graffiti is on private property now.

When I say limited assistance, basically what we do is if you're willing to sign a a waiver of liability for um the the graffiti, so that holds us harmless, and we can do that without putting our crews at risk.

Like for instance, it's not a third-story uh painting where you gotta hang off with safety rope or something like that.

We're just not prepared to do those things.

Anything we can reach from the ground level that we can paint with either ourselves or extensions or clean with power washers or things like that, we will do that and we'll we'll offer that assistance to homeowners.

Um, but again, we can't say that we're gonna do everything because there's some of these.

I I I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm quite amazed sometimes that some of these places things get painted.

I don't know how they got to where they were.

It's just it's really amazing how how some of that happens.

So we have to be very careful with that we don't put our workers, our employees in harm's way in those situations.

So one of the things that we've talked about doing to try to get ahead of some of this stuff was we we're looking at a pilot program for some some camera monitoring of areas where we're seeing repeated um dumping or graffiti placement and things of that nature.

Um, we're looking to develop this as a as both a deterrence and enforcement tool.

I think it's important to understand that there's a there's a deterrent error or area in this as you start to look at these things.

If somebody's going with a whole truckload of stuff to dump and they see a camera staring at them, hopefully they will not still dump it, although we it it it does happen.

Um I'll tell you a story about that in just a second.

Um, so what are we really looking at as far as the litter collection here goes?

Um, litter is really a big overarching term that covers everything.

If you look at your pictures here, you have everything from say on the lower right hand picture there where you have uh an accumulation area where stuff just sort of accumulates through wind and rain and and water runoff, but you also have like on the lower left where people dump stuff on purpose.

So within the litter collection stuff, we do have subcategory of what we consider um illegal dumping, which is your larger piles of trash, more purposely placed, those sorts of things.

But from a litter collection standpoint, the things that we have to do as public works, it covers more than that.

It covers everything.

It covers everything from tree debris to the clean outs of these um inlets to these accumulation areas areas like this.

So for some context, the numbers I'm gonna give you are basically this fiscal year.

We went back to July 1st of this past year of 2025 and pulled forward.

I will give the caveat that these numbers are very fluid.

They move that every day they change a little bit one way or the other.

So the numbers I'm gonna give you are probably about 30 days dated, but it it gives you a good idea of where we are and what we're doing.

So from a litter collection standpoint, since July 1st of last year, we've hit 677 locations where we were required to do some form of work.

Of those, eighty-three were repeat locations.

I've we put that number in there because that is important in helping us determine where we go with with some of these camera locations and things like that.

So if we're if we're going back to the same place time and time again, those are the ones that we want us to be looking at some advanced surveillance of.

Now, again, with repeat locations, you have you could have a situation like down here on the right where you have just an accumulation area where the where the water washes in and you get all this loose trash.

So what we need to do is we need to back up and look and see where that's coming from.

Is there a dumpster somewhere upstream that's or is there a neighborhood where people are throwing stuff out?

Is there, you know, some form of thing that's that's creating that that we can address through our um through communication and and and um education.

We also looked at the graffiti removal as far as some hard numbers goes for for 2025.

We had 652 public right-away graffiti locations where we had to go and and cover up or clean or do something to eliminate graffiti.

Um again, 55 of those were repeat locations.

Um I'm sure everybody sort of knows where they are.

They're the underpasses and the buildings in sort of the rural area or not rural, but more industrial areas where people can do this sort of tagging and not have to worry about somebody seeing them all the time.

Um, we also had 116 private property um graffiti situations where we where we helped with.

Um, and again, 17 of those are repeat locations.

Okay.

So within that, with as we talked about earlier, within that trash collection littering thing, we have the illegal dumping.

So we've struggled with this for for several years.

And um what you find is there are systematic um dumping spots where people come and dump things in certain places at the dead end alleys and things like that.

So just some some hard numbers.

Um we had 423 total complaints that would qualify as an illegal dumping, which is which is a really high number, quite frankly.

Um, we have handled 379 of those.

We have 44 that remain in in one state of abatement or another.

Either we're in the investigation period or we're scheduling the abatement for it.

Um, if you look, if you look at those, I know sometimes you throw out really big numbers, they don't seem to mean anything, but but if you really look at the time frame we're talking about, we're talking about a couple a day, a couple of business days.

Every every business day, every day we're here, we're getting a couple of these complaints.

We're getting a couple of graffiti complaints, we're getting a number of things.

So there's there's an awful lot of time, effort, and manpower that's directed towards this illegal dumping and graffiti issue.

Within the illegal dumping, we broke out tires because tires are a little bit different in that they really cost us money when we have to go get those.

Um, and we'll talk about that a little bit more.

But the city in the last year has collected 3,000 almost 3,500 individual tires.

That's tires that we've had to go pick up from one location or another.

We've had 33 different locations, 50% of them are repeat locations for obvious reasons.

If you have a whole truckload of tires and you need to dump them, you need a place where you can do it both where you're not necessarily seen or heard.

Dumping a truckload of tires is not quiet.

And so at the dead end alleys, vacant lots, those sorts of things, we end up going back.

We'll pick up the tires.

Um, you know, we've had one week, in fact, the the second week of July last week, we picked up a thousand tires in one week.

It was awful, um, and very time consuming and ate up a ton of resources.

So as these, and these are some of the pictures of of what we ran into in that time frame.

If you notice it's not one or two tires, we're talking about this was a concerted effort to put this many tires on the ground at one time.

This was this was intentional and and so we have to send somebody out and pick those up.

And that that's a that's a big drain on our resources and time.

So, as I mentioned earlier, we talked about departmental cooperation.

Um, this really is a citywide effort.

Um uh I would like to you know take a second here to talk to to you about this that the the police department, fire department, utilities, PDR through code enforcement, you know, they've always they've all been very helpful.

Um, one of the things when I was putting this together is I looked at an OSC, I put on the list, and and the initial thought is well, OSC doesn't have crews or anybody out collecting anything, but what OSC has done that has been very helpful to us is they have done some um public service announcements, they've done some education stuff, they've gotten the message out, they've helped us craft our messaging so that we can let people know that this is not what they should be doing.

Um RPD in particular, I think uh we talked earlier, they had two cases where we had we actually arrested somebody for for tire dumping and hauled them into court, went through the whole process, and we did get convictions on both of those.

They resulted in reimbursements, some abatement costs, and they got suspended jail times in both cases.

As an example of what it costs for one of these that went to court, um on Holly Springs Avenue, we we picked up 224 tires in one dump.

Okay, well, unfortunately, we don't get a break on the disposal of those.

We pay just like anybody else does.

So when we dispose of those tires, they cost us four dollars per tire to get rid of them.

So if you look at the breakdown of costs, that one collection, once you figure in your employees, the city time, the equipment, maintenance, appreciation, and all those sorts of things.

One collection cost the city about 2100.

Um, so if you start looking at those numbers over the 3,500 tires, it's almost $10 a tire.

We're talking about $35,000 we spent in the last nine months picking up just tires.

And while that doesn't seem like a huge number when you're talking about a budget the size of Richmond's, understand that that number is in addition to our normal everyday processes.

That's a number that you don't necessarily budget for.

We absorb it because we have to, but that's an additional thirty-five thousand dollars that you don't that you don't necessarily um plan on spending when you start your budget year.

Um, and that's in addition to all of those things that we're doing with with regular litter collection and whatnot.

So what are some of the things that we could do to sort of get ahead of some of this?

One of the things that we've been looking at for a little while is is we've been researching a pilot camera program.

The city has had for years a number of different programs where we've in the past done these sorts of things, but they've never really lasted over time.

Um when I first came to the city, um about 15 years ago now, um, the police department was doing some stuff in code enforcement.

We were working with them to do some stuff, the the and and put that put out some cameras, and it's sort of been a fit and start all along.

We would like to start looking at a program through public works where we could put out some cameras and get some real-time data and start doing some enforcement.

So, what are some of our considerations that we what we started when we started this?

So the first thing you always got to look at is can we do it?

Legally, can we can we do this?

So, looking through it and talking with the city attorney's office and doing a couple of different things, we realize that yeah, as long as we're looking at our property, you know, we we own property, we have the right to monitor our own property just like anybody else.

But what we you know, we can't go into an alley, for instance, and and set it up perpendicular so that the whole camera is looking in somebody's backyard.

Okay, well, there you have protections against that.

There's some Fourth Amendment protections and things like that that that I can't just set up a camera looking at your backyard.

If I set it up so that it looks down the alley, and we're looking primarily at our property, then that's a different sort of thing.

So we have to be careful as to how we put these up, but there's not really a legal challenge to it unless you misuse them.

And like with anything, if you misuse it, you can get yourself in trouble.

We intend not to do that.

Um we also looked at what resources it would require.

So here I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a little a break for a second because when we looked at equipment, when you're talking about camera equipment for a locality, there is a monstrous spectrum of what you can do.

Everything from small handheld cameras up to large towed behind a vehicle sort of camera setups with multiple lenses and extension poles and all sorts of things.

And the costs very widely.

So what we were trying to look for is something that was obviously we're not on that end of the spectrum as a pilot program.

We're kind of on the lower end trying to figure out some things that we can do, which also led us into cost.

Um as I said before, you can go anything from $50, $60 small units up to some of the some of those towed units are 70, 80, 90,000 rigs.

They're really and you could be anywhere in between.

So we're trying to look at those things and and be uh conscious of those.

We're also looking at the ongoing maintenance and expansion.

So, you know, what does it look like moving down the road?

Um, can we maintain these things?

How hard are they?

How easily broken are they, how easily stolen are they, how how easily, you know, do we need to update them every so often?

Are there software concerns?

All those sorts of things.

So, all of that sort of played into what we decided as far as trying to institute a pilot program.

So, what are the attributes?

I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of quickly go through this slide and then we'll jump back and look at some of the things individually.

So, some of the attributes we were looking at was we wanted something that was inexpensive, we didn't want to spend a lot of money to get into the program to start with.

We wanted something that was very mobile, we wanted to be able to move them around if we needed to, and we wanted to be simple to use.

If they're not simple to use, they don't do anybody any real good.

If you have to have specialized training and all that sort of stuff, then it's it makes the program more difficult.

So, what do we decide on for initially?

We decided we would go with something like a mobile cellular unit.

Um, I'll show you a picture of that in just a second, um, along with a solar panel for power.

I'll explain why we went through that too.

Our reasoning was pretty simple.

We these these types of solutions are you have an expedite exposition um acquisition.

They are readily available either online, they are or over the counter, you can pick them up, get them into use.

They're quickly deployable, and for our long term, this allows us to collect some data.

We're looking at this as a multi-layered approach, which I'll address in just a second, and then what is our future expansion?

Look like so.

Here's what comes in with these pictures is so going back to the to the uh attributes, the camera on the the far, I guess is you would be looking at the far right, that would be um an example of what the small camera would look like.

Just as a size comparison, they're probably six inches by four inches by a couple inches deep.

They're not big cameras, and they're the they're uh I think the solutions we're looking at are around $100 a piece.

They're not they're not expensive cameras.

Um, they have very good pictures, they run off of an app.

That's the simple to use part.

Once you put them up, you simply scan them in, and then you can go into the mobile app and it and set all the settings.

You can tell it how many pictures you want to take, when you want to take it, all that sort of thing.

We went with uh, and again, they're mobile.

You if if you put one up in an area and you realize that you're not really getting anything, you can really quickly go out, pull it off of the post, take it to another spot, set it back up.

It's it's it's very simple to do.

One of the reasons that we decided to go with the solar panels is that it's for lack of a better term, it's a greener solution.

Um, these things run off double A batteries, and if you if you run them off double A batteries, then you're you're replacing batteries about every four to six weeks, and that each one of them takes anywhere from eight to sixte batteries to run.

So you're going through a pile of batteries that you have to dispose of and and and pay for the solar units do away with that.

We can simply plug them in and leave them, and you don't need the batteries.

Um, one of the long-term, when we get down to the long-term solutions, one of the things that this does is we it allows us to start real-time data collection.

We can start talking about are they effective?

With these out in the public, can we can we deter people?

Because there's a deterrent factor that we want to have as much as we want to have an enforcement factor.

I think education and deterrences is as important to this as enforcement is.

So we get in the real-time data collection.

When we come back, we can say, hey, we had out so many cameras, we took so many pictures, we caught so many things, we did this, that, and the other, which we don't have that information now.

We just simply don't.

We everything is sort of we know where we went and we know what we picked up, but we don't have any idea how it got there or who put it there.

We also are looking at this because we are we are looking at this as a long-term program, not something we don't want to start and stop with this.

We want to have a long-term program.

So this is sort of the first step in what we would look at as sort of a multi-layered approach.

There may be situations where we want to have a more static camera.

A good example would be currently at Robin Hood Road Annex or the the convenience site there.

One of their towed pole cameras there.

Because we were having a problem with every Monday, we would come in and there would be this large pile of dumped boxes that were all from a local furniture store.

So what we found was they had hired a third-party delivery person who was doing deliveries on the weekend, and then they would come there in a big rental truck and just push the stuff out onto the ground.

All the boxes, cardboard, paper, packing paper, styrofoam, plastic, whatever.

Didn't he make any attempt to get it into the dumpster?

Just pushed it onto the ground.

So I told a kid with I said, you know, we're the only city in the world that has illegal dumping at the dump.

So it's just one of those things, you know.

So but by having that camera there, we were we caught the guy.

I mean, he did it right in front of the camera.

He just pulled this truck up and dumped the stuff right in front of the camera.

So there may be applications where we want to say, hey, at Robin Hood Road at Etrus East Richmond Road, because we do sometimes on Monday mornings, we come in on Monday mornings at East Richmond Road, and somebody over the weekend has come by and the gate's locked, so they just dump all their trash right in front of the gate.

So now we got guys picking up all the trash in front of the gate before we can get the gate open to get people in.

So there may be situations like that where we want to put in a higher value, more static type situation of a camera.

So that would be another layer of this, and we also want to look at future expansion.

Are there are there ways that we can work with RPD that we can work with strategic communication, that we can work with emergency communications, kind of blend some of the uh programs that are out there now together to have a more comprehensive coverage of the city and see what we can do as far as as putting these things together and having a more combined effort.

So there's a lot of there's a lot of things going on.

This is um what we're talking about with this camera program is is step one, um, and we'd like to get into that as quickly as possible and get moving forward.

Right now, it's it's just it's a program that we're sort of absorbing out of our own funds.

Um down the road.

If we start looking at more things in multi-layered and different approaches, we may we may actually make it a budgeted item, but that's that's down the roadways.

So that's really where we are.

That was some hard numbers about where what we're doing as far as the amount of work.

I mean, that's if you look over the last nine months, that's a whole lot of stops and a whole lot of things going on.

You know, we and there's a lot, I'm gonna be honest with you.

I'm gonna take a minute now to to uh sing our praises because we have a lot to be proud of with our public works, guys.

They do a lot of work, they do a ton of things, and most of it goes unnoticed.

I mean, we notice the things that that are a problem, and and and you get calls about, you know, those things happen, but these guys are out working like crazy every day doing a ton of work and getting a lot of stuff done, and the city has a lot to be proud of with those guys.

They really do a great job.

So that's sort of where we are.

Um I'll I I know I've got several uh people here from public works.

If any of them want to, if I missed anything or you want to add anything, right?

They're all giving me the good.

So what I'll do at that point, I'll go ahead and open it up to any questions that you may have, and and um I'll do my best to answer.

Well, first off, thank you.

I think uh I always say this that I think CPW is one of the toughest departments in all of the city because if things are going well, you will not hear about it, but the second things go even slightly wrong.

Uh it is very it is it is very apparent.

Um, and I know that uh illegal dumping and graffiti are definitely high on that list.

Um so I do appreciate sort of the innovations that we are taking.

Uh we we talked about this before, but is this problem unique to the city of Richmond, or do we see this in our surrounding localities?

And is there a regional approach to some of this illegal dumping?

I don't think it's unique to the city of Richmond from a city standpoint.

I think you see less of it in the counties, but I think it's it's a common city problem.

Um Fredericksburg, Alexandria, some of those cities, they they also deal with some of these issues, really.

It's it's it's it's an alley problem.

Where you have alleys, you have opportunity for these sorts of things to happen.

And so that's really in a lot of cases, we suffer that.

In fact, most of the people that we catch doing this aren't city people, they're coming in from the counties to dump in vacant alleys.

Um it is so you know, I love the idea of the the camera program.

Um my question would be like what are the sort of legal constraints around.

I mean, obviously, I know you can't point the cameras at private property, they have to be on publicly owned property, but are there any other like legal constraints in terms of and maybe this is an RPD question, like in terms of prosecution?

Um, like I know that RPD has to have or speed cameras has to have an officer validate that yes, that car was speeding.

What is what is the legal around that?

So there is some discussion around that related to the data storage.

So if in the event you can't show that the data storage is good, then you could have some chain of custody issues with the with the evidence.

In this case, because this is a cloud-based system and it is it it's it's very secured, and you have to have certain passwords and things to get into it.

Not anybody can just go into the system.

Um, the courts have been pretty consistent that those are those systems are are um good for evidence production.

Now, we do you have to check it every so often.

You have to make reasonable efforts to do it.

You can't let your data sit for six months and then go back and check it for the first time.

Sure.

You know, you can keep it for that long, but you have to you have to sort of update it, make sure that all of your updates are good, that your dates are good, that your collection is is being done proper.

Yeah.

And how many cameras do we currently have deployed around the city for monitoring illegal dumping?

Okay, so there are several different things going on at the moment.

Uh RPD has several cameras, but those are the larger on the pole kind of cameras.

As far as our program, we have um we have a handful of cameras somewhere between seven and ten.

We haven't deployed them yet because there's still a couple little internal things that we need to deal with, um, some SOP kind of related things.

Um, but we should have those things out of the way, and and I'm I'm hoping to start deploying sometime within the next couple of weeks.

And those are like the little wildlife cameras that you're the little wildlife to trail cameras, a lot of people call them.

And then would you like what is sort of I know that you talked a little bit about um you know, repeat locations.

So I'm assuming that those would be prioritized for for monitoring, but um is one of the things that you could also maybe prioritize, sort of the importance of the location.

So I again I'm I'm selfish and I'm thinking about Ready Creek.

Right.

Brady Creek gets apartment trash.

Sure.

I mean, apartment trash is is putting it gently, right?

Like people actively illegally dump into the basin of Reedy Creek, while all of that gets washed into the into Forest Hill Lake, which then again eventually goes into the James River and the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

So when I think about saving a piece of trash from going into Reedy Creek, it while it may not be the most prevalent dump site, it has ecological impact.

So, is that something that you all are considering in your calculus of where you put these cameras?

Yeah, so one of the things that we're trying to do is we're trying to be both sensitive to the dump sites as well as the environmental sites that that could be affected by them.

So, and they're close, they're more closely related than a lot of people think because what gets dumps here, it goes like the trout pile of trash that was next to the storm drain.

Well, guess what?

A bunch of that goes down the storm drain and right on out to the river.

And so we we are looking at a a metrics that would that would that would involve some environmental consideration as far as where they go now.

Obviously, with only eight or ten cameras, um, we've got to be pretty selective and get the most for our for our money.

Now, ultimately over time, does that mean we can't expand?

No, I mean we can expand as much as we want to, and now certainly I don't I don't want to be the one person handling a hundred cameras, but we can I'll have the fourth district crowdfund for you right now.

We'll get you five cameras.

That's right.

You just say the word, we'll get them for you.

That's right.

There you go.

So yeah, so I mean, there is there is there's a number of of evaluation factors that involve those things.

Plus, it also involves our ability to to keep up with them.

There's there's some resource availability that we need to that we need to look at to go on the down the road.

Thank you for all you're doing and your team is doing.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

John, I'm probably not gonna be as nice as my colleague.

I'm quite sure I'm not.

That's okay.

I've known you and I have known each other for 15 years.

We have.

Yeah.

And what do I complain about the most?

Precinct 806.

That's where in a hell I live.

Yes, ma'am.

I am sick and tired of the calls that I get seven days a week from Lancelot, Beauford Avenue, Cisco Avenue that I've given the CAO that I've not heard nothing back from him, and that bet I better get a response from him.

Because those business owners are mad, the citizens are mad.

It's horrible over there.

This smell, you can't even go down that street.

I've been turning this in for about two to three months and talking about it and asking for help.

Also on Cortland Street, Dana Street, um, Glasgow, where the lady just bought that house.

She's told me over and over, I won't mention her last name, but Lisa.

I wish the hell I never seen this area.

I wish the hell I never came to the city.

I bought something thinking I could make it better.

Yeah.

No, look what look what's going on.

I mean, they run broken to her place, throw the tires all over there, have sex on her porch, this and that, all this stuff, things that the that I see and I hear.

And I have witnesses that I can prove that I'm not making these stories up.

Over there on um Brady Street, Afton Avenue.

What is Sharon Eber doing about that property that I've been told since November?

Oh, it's under new ownership, it's in court, it's this that.

And I'm asking my city attorney to please help me.

I'm getting calls every single day.

Brady Square apartments vacant.

And I know it's been in court, but my God, the damn grass is taller than the buildings now.

Right.

You know, I have it's like, and I want to tell the mayor, I want to tell the mayor and the CA, not just hurting, you you can hurt me, but when you start hurting the people that I represent, that's a problem.

I've been doing this 26 years, and as I said, you and I've been talking for 15 years, same area, same street, same location.

Not a damn thing's getting done, size is getting worse.

And by the grace of God, I do have Karen Spencer that helps me.

I do have um Perez from First Precinct.

Karen's in second.

They think she can go to everywhere and anywhere.

She she can't.

She's assigned to second by the grace of God.

She helps me, gets the tires all up over there where they set the motel on fire, deluxe in behind.

Over there where now they've closed Captain D's.

Yeah, Captain D's is closed up.

Kentucky Fried Chicken closed up.

Taco Bell closed up.

And I'm quite sure Wendy's and Hardy's and Burger King's going to be next.

We changed the damn name from Jefferson Davis to Richmond Highway.

At least when it was Jefferson Davis, I still had the restaurants.

Didn't have all this other stuff that's going on.

Go over there by the pawn shop.

You come to my meeting to come down Rich Bills Road, Richmond Highway, Jefferson Davis to go to the satellite.

What do you see right behind there?

Them having sex out in broad daylight, pooping in the street, pooping on the medium strip, all of that.

Showing their boobs to everybody.

Father's Day, come down the street, because I've been on Cisco again.

What I see, she's decided to show me what she's got.

More than me, thank God.

But anyway, I'm like, wow.

Trying to get the customers to stop and help her.

The guy, what's he doing when you don't give him any money?

Hits the hood of your car.

All of that going on.

I am sick of it.

And that is my precinct, 806, that I've been there all of my life in that area.

I'm still there.

You know where I live.

Yep.

Yes, ma'am.

Know exactly where I live.

Yes, ma'am.

And I go up and down my street and clean it up and pick up the stuff in my vacant lot.

I pick it up with my picker in my gloves.

And by the grace of God, when I call Bobby or I call Scott Morse, they help me immediately when we have issues.

But this is just not a police issue to put Karen and those officers to get out there, do the walk, clean it up, and all of that.

Then you go back out there.

We've done some cleanups on Beauford.

Go back out there a week later, and the stuff is thrown right back out there again.

Drug dealing, this, that, sex, this, all kinds of stuff.

You know, what is Sharon Eber doing?

Is she your boss?

Or is it?

No, Bobby's my boss.

Who's your boss?

Bobby's your boss.

Well, you've got a good boss.

I'm I'm a I'm a team Bobby guy.

He's a good boss.

But you know, code enforcement falls under her and Kevin.

Then you're talking about code refresh, putting another 50,000 people in 8th and 9th district.

Because I'll tell you right now, that's what the hell is going on now.

12 developers building, not no little single family homes, but three and 400 apartments.

You know, what are we gonna do?

Say, Karen, you got this to clean up.

Um, major, you can you go out there, the deputy chief chief, can you go out there and help pick up all the trash back in the day when um I worked for the sheriff's office, Michelle Mitchell.

We had um the deputies that went out there and did and did some cleanups.

I get and and helped us.

When the seniors would call me when I did the program, called a UOK.

Can you pick up this?

Can you pick up these tires?

Whatever.

I know the deputy, I know the sheriff says she's probably short on deputies, same as our police office, same as our police department.

What do we do?

And I don't mean to fuss at you because like I said, every time I've called you, you've been out there, but when I got the same streets 15 years later, and Richmond Highway, the worst of the worst, just as bad as Melothian.

That's in a ninth, that's not in the eighth that everybody calls me.

Rosie's is not in the eighth, Rosie's in a ninth district.

So what are you going to do to help me when I call these people back and say, or the business owners say, Yeah, I talked to them today.

Guess what?

What do I say?

Yeah.

So here's so let me let me start by saying I understand your frustration.

Okay, we we've we suffer a lot of that too.

A lot of what you had addressed, we certainly would would need to work with other departments to address.

So let me say from our standpoint, you mentioned Karen.

Karen Spencer, Officer Karen Spencer has been a godsend to us.

She really has.

And Chief Edwards has been wonderful.

You know I've been here long enough to have been through a few police chiefs.

And typically, these type of of quality of life issues are really not very high on the police radar.

I will say that under Chief Edwards, his administration, every time we've called them, he has said, What can I do?

How can I help you?

What do you need from us?

He has been great to deal with.

We share some of those same frustrations, which is why we're trying to get ahead of some of this stuff to get some camera programs, to get some people to get some personnel to try to work on some of these things before they become problems.

If we can, if we and you know, you mentioned a lot of things that that are beyond our ability in public works to control, but we certainly want to get our heads and grasp around what we have, our public rights of way.

We certainly want to make sure they're cleaned up.

You know, it's very frustrating to us when we go clean up a tire pile, as I said in the presentation, 50% of repeat places.

We'll clean up 200 tires.

We cleaned up 200 tires from the same location twice.

Okay, that's as frustrating to us as it is to you, trust me, because I now have to pull a whole crew out of doing their normal work, like trash collection or bulk pickup and send them over to a new location to do things that we shouldn't have to do.

That's why we're trying to get ahead of some of these things.

That's why we want to have the camera program.

It's why we want to do all of these things that try to get us ahead of that.

I don't want to pick up tires from the same location three or four times.

None of us do.

Bobby doesn't want to do that.

He hates doing that, trust me.

We don't want we don't want to do that.

So we need to try to figure out how to get ahead of that.

And that's and that's what we're doing.

That's sort of the point of our presentation today.

Is here are some things that we want to do that will help us get ahead of some of these problems and try, try to get ahead of some of these repeat offenders and maybe get some of these people in court who are doing this.

We've we got a couple, we're working on a couple others.

The guy that dumped the boxes at when we had the dumping at the dump site.

Um we have issued the police department found him, they've issued him a ticket.

There's there's some things going on related to that.

It's too early in the process for you to talk too much about it.

But we are trying to do some of these things.

We are trying to get ahead of some of this stuff that we have struggled with for years.

I mean, we all share your frustration, trust me.

I don't like doing these things any more than you like hearing about.

I I've said for for a long time, if you want your phone to ring, don't pick up somebody's trash.

That's the fastest way to get the phone to ring in City Hall is not pick up the trash.

It it get it rings faster than anything else that happens.

So we understand that, we get it, we know that we have to keep on schedule, and we have a lot of things going on, and and we have a lot of guys who really like say, as I said earlier, our public works guys work like crazy to try to keep up.

I mean, we really do.

Um, some of the other issues that you addressed.

I I want to be very careful not to step into other people's um other directors.

You know what, John?

You know what, John?

That's why I brought it up because I want the others to hear what I'm saying, right here.

Because I understand.

Like I said, tall grass tires, and I know Logendale, that's my area.

That's my that's my district where you picked up the tires, and I know that over there behind the motel, my area, where they set it on fire at the back of it, my area, tall grass, my area, same streets, 15 years later, 20 years later, really.

So I can't, I think I believe I campaigned on that.

Seven motels in the grocery store.

Yeah.

Okay.

Seven motels, no grocery store 2026.

And I don't give a damn if it's a campaign piece because I'm telling the truth.

I'm telling the truth, but you know what?

I'm not in charge of economic development.

I'm not in charge of uh bringing some business owner here.

I talked to the guy yesterday from Publix from her and from the fourth district, he sees me in there all the time because I shop for my sister and all.

He even said, I saw you were shopping for your sister.

And I said, Yeah, and what did I say?

Can I have a public in my district?

I don't think so.

That's basically what I was really being told.

I said, Well, we just lost a captain D's.

Well, we just lost a chicken place, they've been there ever since I was like this.

The Taco Bell, that's gone.

What's next?

What's next?

Hardy's has to lock the doors at two o'clock because of all the crime and the stuff coming over there, and that, and then what the burger cane, you go in there.

They run after the customers in the bathroom.

Do I have to say more?

Do you know why I'm frustrated?

Do you know why I'm upset?

Because I'm the ones that gets the calls from the people that says, You're the only one I can talk to.

You're the only one that picks up the phone and crying on the phone because a car got stolen, or somebody towed the car, or this one got raped, or this one got a knife put to her to her neck.

That's the calls that I get.

I'm hungry, Riva.

Can you help me get some food?

Riva, can you help me get this grass cut next door?

Because I got snakes coming in my yard now.

I know it's in my neighborhood too.

Yeah, I'm frustrated.

I'm frustrated with the mayor and with the CAO because this falls.

These streets fall on them too.

Yes, ma'am.

But I appreciate you, and I appreciate Bobby and I appreciate Scott Morris, but I will tell you right now there's some other damn departments in here that I don't appreciate, and this is right here, and it's got to change, Scott.

And don't expect our police officers and our police department to do the jobs that you know other departments ought to be doing when they're out there running from call to call and taking calls that no other police chief and no other major and no other lieutenant would take, including some council members.

But I appreciate you and thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

And I'll call you.

Okay, I'm sure you will.

You know I will.

I got your number.

Thank you, John.

Anything else?

Thank you, Bob.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

There are no more items on today's agenda other than the staff report, and that was provided to you by excuse me.

I have a I have a question I need to ask the city attorney.

My heart's been very, very clear and dear as far as what's going on at John Marshall Court building along with my colleague.

And what happened last week?

I did not know what happened till I put it on Facebook and said I saw it on the Richmonder had wrote the story or something, and I said, you know, because the judge was asking for more assistance, more help.

And then they had an incident that I just found out yesterday that happened over there where an inmate, because I already knew about the inmate that had escaped, and he was found in in my district on 16th Street.

They got him, the police did.

Then we had a break-in at the at the courthouse where the person was there, and I guess scared of crapper to the judges and all.

Then we had another incident where the I guess the person was, I guess, fighting with the commonwealth attorney and threatening to kill the judge and the family.

So how do I and I see that the sheriff is here?

Don't know what I can ask, what I can't ask, but I I had put on Facebook last Friday that I was going to reach out to the judge and teach Justice Judge to find her what I could do to help.

But as my policy analyst Steve Taylor said, he reached out to Ed Jordan before and again yesterday, they're not able to talk to me because we're in court.

And I basically said, I don't care that we're being sued.

Doesn't matter.

I want to know what can we do to help her and those judges, our police officers and the citizens and the staff that are in the John Marshall court building.

What can it and the I think the sheriff has already said she doesn't have, she's trying to staff, she's trying to have more deputies than that, but she doesn't have it.

And I and I saw what our commonwealth attorney said, because I mean you could tell her heart was broken to what she witnessed and what she heard and seen.

What can we as this?

I guess this public safety, my us or my colleagues, help her so they can feel safe and be able to run those cases in that courtroom.

What can I ask and what can I not?

Talking to Mike.

This can council talk with Ms.

McKeachin, with Mr.

Jewett, with our sheriff, get their recommendations.

Once then, after that point, it becomes a legal and administrative issue to make those recommendations happen.

So she's not allowed, I'm not allowed to ask her any questions here today, the sheriff.

Security questions.

The sheriff may have some concerns with bringing security issues, very specific ones, before a public body.

One-on-one may be different.

Okay, I just wanted to bring it because I had so many calls last night in reference to they have cases coming up and they're scared to go in there now because they don't feel like they would be safe in the courtroom.

If that happened out there in front of the Commonwealth attorney who was there yesterday and if it's happened with the deputies or police officers in there, how do you how do how do I tell the person you have to go to court or you're gonna be you will be I guess locked up if you don't show up for a court case.

Is that true?

Yes.

The summons means a person who received the summons must go to court.

And if they don't feel safe they still have to show up.

Thank you.

They still have to show up yes.

Thank you.

I don't have any questions and you it's basically she's not gonna be able to answer any questions as far as security at the courtroom.

But I my heart goes out to the Chief Justice Judge and to all them over there.

No I'm not supposed to even say her name which I think that's pretty bad.

But thank you.

Thank you all the meetings that you