Something we specifically gave you.

I would also say a big intent of the Community Relations Commission is to have you help drive the discussion of what you think after listening to residents, talking to experts, what you believe are those issues.

So I really want to.

I mean, if you force me to, I would, but I really am hesitant to say this is the area I want you to spend the most time.

I I genuinely, I mean, we have a diverse group of people on this commission for a reason.

You're talking to all different folks and all different circles.

What are one or two common themes that you think you should focus on as a group that you continually hear in your you know social interactions when you're at neighborhood meetings, whatever that is, and help drive that here as opposed to me saying this is what I want.

I we drive a lot of the discussion at council and our aldermen do.

I I would love to see you guys driving more, like if it's a workforce piece, uh, you know, how are we getting more people into the trades that are reflective of our communities?

Whatever that is, I would like you to help drive some of that as opposed to me coming here saying this is what I want.

I'm a MacTimmer, I'd be happy to tell you everything I want, but I really do think it's important to hear from you about this is important to the committee and to help drive that.

Sorry.

Commissioners are there, yeah.

Well, you um you would apologize for taking so long.

We certainly appreciate your time.

Oh, throw the video.

I want to start with that.

We've touched on several things, and I'll try and encapsulate the questions I have.

Uh first off the bat, in our last strategic uh planning meeting, we talk exactly about what our accommission is and how this communication should work.

So I think this needs to be developed as a protocol.

So we have to work together on that.

And that's simply enough to say.

Um your last comment about advocating.

I had a meeting yesterday with uh uh significant developer in the area, and it's exactly what he said was that if you know when people come out with negatives, and the people that want to be against something are the loudest voice, and the people that are for just kind of sit back.

So we need to find out more of the things that we truly need to advocate for, and we need to be that voice.

So that's part of the protocol, I think, of working between this commission and the city and the council and and other players is what do we need to advocate for and what is on the table that we need to be aware of.

I think we're kind of sitting down here in a little black hole where we're not really aware of what all is going on.

Um to that issue, uh, like I say, I'm going to try and keep this very short, but you talked a lot about um development building, affordable housing.

Now, one of my challenges and one of my charges is to to try and develop um where we should fit into the opportunities and obstacles in affordable housing and building in Rockford.

And like I say, I had a meeting yesterday and I'm having meetings and I'm developing information.

But you've also mentioned a lot of things that I need to know more about.

So where do I, not just as a commission, but so that I can report to this commission, where do I go to get the information about what the city is doing so I'm not being redundant in my efforts of developing the opportunities and obstacles.

Who do I?

I mean, I know I was going to talk to Seth Summers about this, but you know, we I need to know what my best connections are to communicate with the city on this issue.

Yeah.

Uh I would say there's a number of different channels, uh, some easier and others.

Uh one, I do think uh Laura does a good job on our Facebook page to make people aware of what those areas are.

That doesn't get you all of your answers.

So I would say if it's uh housing or economic development, I would go direct to Sarah Lies.

She is our director.

She knows the importance of the commission.

She's been before the commission.

Um you now have that relationship.

If it is you're hearing lots of concerns, well, why did they pick this road in the Capital Improvement Plan?

You have Scott Director Scott Sanders to go direct to.

I think uh as commissioners, you I would genuinely just or generally just go to the department head that that falls under.

And if you ever have any concern, send me an email and say, hey, I'm want to know about this rebate program.

Who would I talk to?

I'm most happy to get you in connection.

It takes me two seconds.

You're not bothering.

That's why we have you and what we want done.

I would also say I look at I mean the loudest voice, it's really interesting.

I mean, I don't ever suggest reading the comments, but go to a post and just look at the I uh think of the likes and the comments.

There'll be 14 comments that are opposed to it, and that's the only people who have commented.

But there will be 200 likes.

And they have been silently just, yep, I like this.

And so I I mean, truthfully, I would not be elected based on comments.

Um I mean, no elected official would if you look at their pages.

Um I think turning some of those likes into a comment like, hey, this is good.

Uh those elected officials are looking at it, even when they say they're not, they're looking at it.

Mr.

Mayor.

Um the chair.

Um just a couple of things, Mr.

Mayor.

Um I know we talk about the housing crisis.

We always lump it into one thing, and you you've hit on a couple of things.

Um, but I do know that the the senior housing crisis because Rockford is an aging community.

So I know that's probably one of the things that's going to be looking, and I would I would love to see if it's already in the work or not, like a three to five year plan on how the city is is moving forward for senior housing.

Um we look at affordable housing.

We we kind of lump that in with low income.

Those are two different ones.

So I would like to see um how the plan is for senior housing, low income, and affordable housing.

Um you referred to the um one of the uh projects, I think it was a senior project.

I think that's the one that's across on South Main from Smokehouse.

That that so that's that's good.

Um the the second thing is um uh are you aware of the R three grant amendment um that is now being uh is pending um for that for the grant um and they're trying to expand it out.

So I just want to see.

The R three grant?

R three grant um amendment.

That's I think um our state representative is probably one of the co-sponsors of that, and and how would that affect what what we're trying to do within in the city.

Um the third thing would be the update on Barbara Coleman, uh the Barbara Coleman uh project.

And then uh finally um the the re the regrow discussion, and again, I met with you and I appreciate your time, Then and I also appreciate your time tonight.

Um, but it was very hurting that the fight of doing it and then for it to die without a plan behind it, not from you, but from city council on how to kind of utilize those funds to move forward.

Um, it was kind of hurting, and and how can we um since the funding is still there, utilize the funding to do you know uh other things.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Um so I believe, and I will double check this.

Uh do I call you like pastor commissioner?

Um Doctor, doctor Um.

So, Pastor, I will I believe that the housing I items should be outlined in the housing plan.

Okay, but I will re I will double check that and I will get something out.

Um as for R3, I know a lot about R3.

I spent uh I just got off the board of R3.

R3 is a restore, renew, reinvest uh program where they take about uh 25% of the state uh tax from recreational campus and put it into a board uh uh a group and they send it out to organizations across the state.

I am not aware of the amendment or how that would impact it.

Um I hope it has something about mandating certain portions of the revenue, go to certain parts of the state because a frustration I had as a board member was uh the board is great.

I think uh Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton does a phenomenal job uh with her efforts with R3.

Um and it kind of flies under the radar.

A frustration I have is a huge portion of those board members are from Chicago.

And they genuinely have no idea.

I did but half of that board has never been to Rockford.

And as a board member, one of the reasons I got off is I couldn't advocate as hard as I wanted to publicly at their board meetings for Rockford items because it was a conflict.

Um I mean at one point they literally gave money to a Chicago company to come here and do what our arts council was already doing.

And they didn't even communicate with the arts council.

I was like, guys, what are you doing?

Um but I got outvoted.

And it's because it was a well-known Chicago company or nonprofit.

And so I don't know that amendment.

Uh if you have a bill number, I'd be happy to I can send you I could send you the amendment.

That'd be awesome.

Thank you.

Um as it relates to Barbara Coleman.

Uh next Tuesday, I believe.

Yeah.

Next Tuesday at 9 a.m.

There'll be a press conference regarding Barbara Coleman update.

I'll try to be not as specific as I want.

ENC was a general contractor for Barbara Coleman.

And just so you're aware, Barbara Coleman was broken into phase 1A, phase 1B, and phase 2.

Phase 1A and phase 1B would take care of all of the historic structures that are there.

Phase 2 would build more town homes out front along South Main Street.

Phase 1A, this general contractor was ENC.

Quite a bit of work actually was done, contrary to what some people believe, but a lot of work was done.

It was all the buildings gutted out, as you can see now.

And that contractor was not uh performing at what J.

Jeffers wanted them to perform at.

Uh they wanted to make changes.

Uh obviously ENC had a contract and was very upset with those changes and had many reasons why they thought they were delayed.

Um therefore there became a lot of liens on those properties.

All of those liens, except for the ENC lien.

So all of the local contractors have now been paid.

Um all of the contractors have now been paid, except for my understanding, ENC.

Uh that is go that went through federal mediation and is now scheduled for federal arbitration.

That arbitration, I believe, will not be finalized.

This is all guessing game at this point.

Um my gut tells me is through this summer it still will not be finalized, which is terribly frustrating.

Meaning no work on that phase 1A.

Uh phase one B, what I would call phase one B.

Uh I think there's some incredibly exciting things uh that may or may not be announced in the coming days.

Uh they have switched contractors.

They now have a local contractor.

It's Ringland Johnson as a local contractor.

Uh that contractor is being aggressive.

Uh and I think we will see movement at the Barbara Coleman campus very soon.

And I would say I'd love to tell you every single thing if that camera wasn't on uh that we're gonna say on Tuesday.

Um so if any of one of you wanted additional information, I'm not I don't want to hide it from you.

Um, but we have a press conference for a reason.

And I I'm excited about what is taking place.

And I would also just want to reiterate, I think Jay Jeffers has been, you know, questions.

Well, are they still committed?

They're gonna walk away.

I'll tell you unequivocally, that is not happening.

Uh they are not walking away from this project.

They love the project, they will see this project through.

It is everyone has asked me, like, well, you must be worrying about this nonstop.

I'm not.

It is I I worry about a lot of stuff nonstop.

Barbara Coleman getting back uh construction started and getting completed.

I am upset and I worry about how long it has taken, but I do not worry will it be done.

Um regrow.

We did bring regrow forward.

Maybe it was too soon.

I mean, obviously there was some pretty passionate debate uh and concerns on all sides from good people.

Um and maybe we brought it forward too soon.

I think our stance was well, if you want to yell at us for not spending the money, I want to put it forward and say let's spend the money.

Um that was my thought.

Uh I think our council has had a lot of discussions.

I mean, a big driver is gonna be the Democrat caucus.

Uh there are members of our city council who do not like regrow at all and want to do away with regrow.

Most cities put their cannabis fund into their general fund.

That's just what most cities do.

And we have members of our city council who are like, just put into the general fund.

I this is nonsense.

We shouldn't be in the uh business of doning out this money to nonprofits, just put it into the general fund.

Um I still stand uh by supporting regrow.

Um we are having conversations.

I would say the difficulty that remains is the conversations that took place over the last two years.

We have 14 aldermen, uh probably 10 of them want regrow, and they all have really good ideas of what should be done with the regrow funds.

The problem is those 10 ideas don't all align and are not all the same.

And I need, as I've told them, I need at least seven of them to come to an agreement on what they want to spend those dollars on so that I can break the tie and get it moving.

Um so I would love it.

I I think there are a lot of worthy programs that exist, and I think there's some just in I've had good conversations with you, Pastor, about programs that should exist that these regrowth funds could help kick start.

But it's not dead.

I would say if you have input on it as a group, a thoughtfully written communication to me and at least the Democrat caucus, I think would be a really good place to start.

I think they are eager to hear your thoughts.

Thank you.

Just to clarify, that would be a public document, that email.

Anything anyone sends me is public.

Okay.

Yeah.

Figure.

Just wanted to clarify that.

Yep.

You know, spoken as a former journalist throwing it out there.

Yeah, don't send me stuff you don't want public.

Any other questions or thoughts, Commission?

Anything I could be doing to better assist you besides better communication and maybe more regular connections.

I appreciate Pair that you're offering to meet with us maybe on a quarterly basis and scheduling out some blocking out some time to meet with all of us.

That I think will be a big help.

I think the one thing, and I I don't know the exact rule, but um we could look into for those block times.

It may have to be two or three at most.

I I forget the I think we can't have a majority of you at it.

Um so whatever the legal team tells me I can meet with, we may have to block them out based on that.

So if two or three of you are really eager about housing or about some other topic, or just one on one is fine too.

Mayor I just want to touch on to go back to the communication and just give you a thought too.

Um of the things that we've noticed over the last year, especially as you've added new folks.

We haven't always known that folks are being added to the commission.

That would be helpful.

It would.

And we haven't always necessarily known who is on your desk as potential commissioners and where they are in that process.

Uh I I think we saw with like the last chair leaving.

Some of us were aware that that was happening.

Some of us weren't.

Um so I I think in addition to the other communication, that's just making sure that we know who you're working on and where they are in that process and when they will be joining us, because I know as the the current chair, I want to be able to reach out to them to say, you know, welcome to the commission.

What do you need?

Here is the information that we've been working on.

If we don't know they're coming, they come in with without any of that background.

So that's my fault.

You should have that.

Um we have two uh new members that'll join you today's February, middle of February.

So I think you will see them hopefully at your March meeting.

They have to be approved and then they also have to sign some documents.

Uh those two members would be uh Jah Johnson and Shamir uh Franklin Love.

I I know it's Shamir Love.

I believe it's Shanklin, thank you.

I keep saying Franklin.

Uh Shamir uh Shimir Love uh will be joining you.

Uh both are I think exceptional and will be good members and active members, both really want to be part of it.

Uh how I get members typically is either community calls uh and we do have a list of folks that we go through on uh from that.

I would say also have been really trying to push aldermen to give me names.

My thought there is one, I I want to make sure all the words can be reflected, but I also want some buy-in from the aldermen, and if they have someone they appointed, I feel like they have a little bit more buy-in.

Um we are weak in an area that if you know of people, I will take them.

We need Republicans.

Uh based on their voting records, Republicans.

Um we historically this commission has been light on Republicans, and it shouldn't be.

Uh it's, you know, 40 plus percent of our population, and it's an area that uh we need to do a better job representing if I like it or not.

We do.

Um we do.

Uh and it they should be represented.

Uh it's hard.

We have some on our city council, just so you're aware, I'm sure you've seen it, who will vote no on every appointment.

And they'll state it's not because they don't like any of you.

They don't like that we have this commission.

I mean, this commission, if you were not around, was not the smoothest thing to go through, Council.

Thank you for joining us.

You're welcome any time.

Thank you, guys.

Well, Chairman, can I make just one one addition on the uh as far as additions to the CRC, also departures?

It would be really nice, and I know we've talked about this before, but I just want to reiterate when people are getting ready to leave the commission, it would be great to do some sort of formal thank you, get it have an opportunity for that commissioner to reflect or whatever.

So that's a really good idea.

I'd be happy as we know that there someone may be exiting.

I'd be happy to come and personally thank them in front of you and live and make sure people know that.

I want the key to the city when I come off.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you, guys.

Appreciate all that you do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Commissioners, we will move to the next part of our agenda, and we will welcome Director Sanders from the Public Works Department to give us an update.

It's always a join to follow up the mayor.

Always sets me up.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Thank you very much for having me.

Thank you to this commission.

Thank you to everyone that's here.

Mr.

McMasters, I was gonna compliment the on the now apparently honorable Mr.

Myers, but he snuck out with the mayor.

My name is Scott Sanders.

I am the director of public works for the City of Rockford.

And real broadly, before we get into anything we want to talk about, in case you don't know, a little bit about public works, a little bit about me.

The public works department oversees three divisions.

We have engineering, streets, and water.

Sewer, as you guys probably know, is not a municipal utility.

We have four river sanitation authority.

We have a separate sanitary district that we work in cooperation with.

But water is a city utility.

Our engineering division, if you want to think about it this way, they're in charge of everything that gets built.

Really, that's the simplest way to describe it, and it's accurate.

Everything that gets built publicly in the city of Rockford.

So whether that is uh at the granular, our our um citywide sidewalk improvement program, which is sort of an organizational masterpiece trying to track that and put that out.

We would have a running three-year plan on that.

To our ward development plans, each of the 14 aldermen have a certain amount of money that is assigned to them equally proportioned to spend within their ward at their discretion.

We have additional ward money that's we call a priority allocation, just in case they have a project that's so big it's gonna wipe out their budget.

We don't want that to happen.

We don't want the rest of the ward to suffer.

So we have another million and a half set aside as neighborhood priority allocation to help with larger projects.

Uh and then that gets us into our capital improvement plan, and that's all the big stuff.

That's our our major roadway reconstructions, our bridge reconstructions, our water main replacement, building new wells, building new treatment facilities, all the big municipal public infrastructure projects.

As you guys probably know, we are in the midst once again.

We we we track our capital improvement plan over a multi-year plan.

And each year, this should be the last year when I can say this, but every year over the past few, we enter the largest public works plan we've ever had in the city's history.

Um it approaches the plan itself over four years approaches half a billion dollars.

Um this year alone, over a hundred thousand hundred million dollars in improvements.

Now that's not all, certainly not all City of Rockford money.

You know, we never want to spend we want to leverage our money.

We never want to get a dollar's worth of value for a dollar we spend, so a lot of these projects are leveraged against state and federal grants or our MFT funds that come in sometimes or programs through IDOT and MFT.

We're we're hopefully, you know, we're getting $10 of work for $2 spent.

Some of these are 2080 matches, some of them are 50-50 matches, but it's important to try to leverage and maximize the dollars we spend, especially in water, and I'll touch upon that a little bit later.

Umgineering is in charge of everything that you see get built.

And once it's built, then that becomes our streets department's kind of obligation to take care of and maintain.

Streets department has the obligation to, and the responsibility I should say, to take care of all of our public roads, public bridges, public sidewalks.

They're pothole patching.

They are replacing sections of sidewalk that aren't going to be replaced through a larger project.

The forestry department lives within streets departments, so tree trimming and cleanup and vegetation cleanup.

That's all in our streets department.

And of course, I think we'll talk a little bit more about this, snow removal is part of our streets department.

To be honest, it expands beyond that because we need all hands on deck.

So some of our employees in the water department also plow.

But it falls generally under the direction and authority of our streets department.

And then water is probably somewhat self-explanatory.

That is the what we call production.

You don't really produce water, but for us, production is the wells and the treatment facilities.

Making sure we have safe, clean drinking water.

We have 24 well, 26 well sites in the city, 24 active right now, and uh 24 treatment facilities.

So that water gets treated before it is dispersed through the water mains.

When water itself is divided, not to get too complicated into three departments the production, then distribution, that's the entire infrastructure, 800 miles of water main, and I don't know how many miles of lateral services, but 800 miles of public water main.

And then we have something called uh field services, and that's everything on the private side.

Well, while production and distribution are all within the public right of way, water mains out in our public rights of way.

Uh if your water doesn't go on when you turn your faucet on, or if it's coming out discolored, or something's happened, or your bill is wackadoo compared to your your meter, that's field services.

Field services does everything on the private side.

So they engage our residents, our water customer base.

Um that's everything from you know meter reading, um uh enforcement, uh, you know, payment enforcement and exploring all issues on the private side of water.

I can tell you, as director, it's been fascinating.

I get emails every time our on-call crews, which means you know, we work at generally speaking, the the bulk of our department is working during the work hours.

Now we're 24-7, obviously.

So we have on-call crews and we have people that are stationed to monitor 24-7, but I get to see how often we get called out in the night.

And I will tell you it's multiple, there's multiple breaks, multiple issues every single night.

There's not been a night that we haven't had people out dealing.

And uh last Wednesday, two weeks ago Wednesday, we had six water main breaks in one night.

Six water main breaks.

That was the night.

Well, we're feeling the after effects now.

That was the night of the um the water main break at Parkview and Spring Creek.

There was five others that same night.

Wow.

That's that is something.

So we have an on-call crew, and an on-call crew has a supervisor, uh, uh, a foreman, an equipment operator, and two maintenance workers.

They know they're called to one, and then there's another one, so we have to what we call force back a crew, a crew that wasn't on call that's home in their beds, probably.

We have to ask them to come back, and after that we start calling in the private sector.

And we had NTRAC come in, we had DPI come in, we had four crews, two of our own, two private out there working, and then some of them had to jump to second ones that same night.

So it's it's humbling and fascinating to watch.

I I got baptized, I I I go out as often as I can.

I like to go out at night and see what's going on.

And last night, I was fresh on the scene to a water main break, and maybe don't I'm not as acutely aware of the risks of everyone, but I stepped on what I thought was grow solid ground next to a break, and my foot dropped through, and I went all the way up to my belt buckle into the water.

Popped right back out, only one leg down, but it's um it's in sp it's awesome, it's inspiring, and I have a whole new appreciation for what our men and women do out there all night long, and it does not matter how cold it is.

There's no I'm not gonna go, you know, they're out there working.

Um a little bit about myself, just so you know who you'll be deal dealing with now, and hopefully for the future.

Um I come to the I've long I'm a lifelong Rockford resident.

I come from the private design side.

I am a landscape architect and civil engineer.

So I work private sector design for a long time, for the first 20 years of my career.

And I did a lot of work for the city of Rockford with the city of Rockford.

But I've also been sort of a friend of the program for a long time.

For the past 30 years, I've always been on some sort of border commission.

I did six years and then three more starting back in the 90s with our Historic Preservation Commission.

I was 12 years sitting, I think at uh Commissioner Garwick's seat at uh for our zoning board of appeals and our liquor advisory board.

Um I made a weird little uh mid-career lane shift.

I was doing consulting work for a number of smaller communities for land use planning and zoning administration.

One of them was the village of Roscoe to our north, and they uh back in 2016 they offered me the position of their village administrator, and I ended up taking that.

So I made this shift into public administration, and I was honored uh when the mayor asked if I'd be interested in and I never left Rockford, I was able to live in Rockford while I worked up there, but um it's been wonderful to come back and play a more official role in my hometown.

There's no greater job.

There's no greater job, I can tell you this than being a public works director in the city you grew up in and live in and be able to impact more aspects, more facets of community life than you ever thought that the job really touched upon.

Um I think you originally asked or reached out to talk about snow removal, and we can certainly do that.

So I'll pause though, I'll pause before I get into snow removal just to ask if there's any general comments or questions about public works and what we do and how we um integrate with both the public and with with um a commission like like yours.

Director, um what uh lead pipe we talk about that?

You're jumping right in, huh?

I'm jumping right in.

But I heard you ask the mayor, what are some things that you I think Commissioner McDonnell, you asked, what are some things you could start to speak about, advocate for be um fluent on.

Um what jumped to my mind immediately when you said that is that we have just we have spearheaded and concluded the initial public engagement phase of a pedestrian safety task force that will lead to the implementation, the adoption and implementation of a public pedestrian safety action plan.

So we've had we had a couple months worth of 14 meetings with a wonderful, unbelievable group of citizen-led leaders like yourselves in all walks of life that had something to do in one way or the other with pedestrian, bicycle vehicular safety.

As we start to roll out recommendations, that's going to be something that we would hope everyone will trumpet at every opportunity.

Lead service line replacement.

LSLR, that's what we call it, lead service line replacement.

So there is a mandate that all public water entities replace all lead in their infrastructure, whether that's water main or lateral services.

We talk about that being main to meter.

So those lines that go from the tap on our water main, and those will then go to the the buff the valve box you see by your sidewalk into the basement into your house, which is critical to this, connecting to the the meter in your basement.

Sometimes it's on an outside wall.

I have a very old home, it's in the center of my basement.

I haven't replaced mine yet.

When we do, like that's going to be a project.

They're gonna have to get a new service line to the center of my basement.

So there's been a couple different sets of regulations as to how this gets rolled out.

And initially, uh the state of Illinois and the EPA in general, I should say, not just the state of Illinois, had a mandate that all these had to be replaced in 30 years.

And these mandates all technically go into effect at the end of this year.

We're all doing it already, there's no point in waiting.

But from January 1 of 27 through December 31st of 36 of well, it was 30 years.

With 30 years to replace everything.

Well, the federal government, and this is not administration-based.

It was enacted under our previous administration, it was affirmed under the current administration, revised that to 10 years.

So it's January 1st, 27 through December 31st, 36.

10 years to replace all the lead service lines.

We are still looking at 30,000 service lines that need to be replaced.

To give you an idea of the pace we've been working at, we started doing this back in 2017, believe it or not.

We've ramped it up more aggressively the past couple years, but we have so far replaced about 4100 lead service lines in this city, 4,000, a little over 4,000.

30,000 more to do.

We have done this so far at zero cost to our to our ratepayers.

And I right and I and I think so far is an important part of that sentence.

Everything we have replaced so far has been done in one of two ways primarily.

Whether we can attach those lead service line replacements to another CIP project.

You know we're working on 11th Street.

We're working on Auburn Street.

When we do these projects at that same time, and as part of that project and part of that budget, we replace every single lead service line.

So we last year we tackled um 300 lead service lines through capital improvement projects.

The rest of them we're doing through EPA grant funded initiatives right now.

And those grants, we apply for various ones.

We apply generally in groups of either $4 million or $2 million.

Takes about 10 grand.

Takes about 10 grand to replace one.

But just today, I was learning more about the administrative costs with these and uh all of the legwork, all of the coordination, and you know, we're going into people's homes, so we have to meet with them, we have to visit them, we have to arrange a time.

We often have to get easement documentation so that we can do this work.

So really it's it gets more up to 14 or 15,000 apiece.

Um we're knocking off maybe four or five hundred a year right now.

This year, and in a ramp up to the mandate, um, we're gonna try to do 1,800.

And starting next year, we'll need to do 3,000 a year.

We'll need to do 3,000 a year.

So right now, that's this is being done through EPA grants that are either have principal forgiveness, meaning we don't have to pay it back at all.

And about 50 six, about 60 percent of our grants are principal forgiveness.

That's great.

The other 40 percent, we're able to pay back at uh very, very, very minimal interest, sometimes maybe zero interest, and we can do that over 40 years.

So it's a low, it's a it's a low debt service obligation.

But that I will tell you that EPA grant funding is only guaranteed through the end of this year.

We don't know.

We don't know starting next year if there'll be any EPA grant funding available.

We hope there will be, but we don't know.

So again, in hoping for the best but planning for the worst, I said so far there's been no cost share to our ratepayers at all so far.

But if grant funding goes away, we will have to look at its impact on rates.

Water utilities, not just in Rockford, but across the state of Illinois, they are all called, they are considered enterprise zones.

They are siloed.

They can only operate under revenues generated by their ratepayers or EPA grants.

We cannot push general fund or CIP funding into the water department.

It's not allowed.

Water departments have to be self-sufficient.

The grants have played a big role in that.

If the grants dry up, we are starting the process right now with a consultant who did our last every we've been doing it every seven years.

We'll see how much more frequently we do it now, but we do uh rate studies and we make projections for the next seven years as to what we think rate increases need to be over the next seven years.

We're doing that now.

Had a kickoff meeting yesterday.

And we have to look at that under a couple different models.

We'll have to look at it under a model where we continue to get uh a proportionate level of funding from the EPA, and we have to look at it if we don't.

So it's an it's a mighty obligation.

Another thing, just so you guys know, and this might become part of the public story about this, is that right now, so when we apply for these grants, they are often census track driven, which is wonderful, and we're trying to apply these grants to commun uh sectors of our community in the most need.

But no one's obligated right now to to say yes.

So we ask, we send out mailers to a whole track, we say would you know we we think we've identified that your property is lead, we're pretty sure based on we ask residents to every year, you probably get them.

You we send out things in the mail that ask you to send something back that helps us understand if you have lead pipes for sure or not, but we can guess more often than not.

Um, but it's still completely dependent on people saying yes.

And that's not automatic.

I don't know, you know, you might think, yeah, sure, I'm gonna yes, given the opportunity to have a free replacement, I'll do it.

That is not the case.

It is a tough sell sometime, and it is relationship building, it's trust building.

We have staff and we have consultants that will have multiple conversations and multiple site visits to build up a rapport with these residents that they feel safe to let a public entity come into their house, because that's what it means going into their basement.

There's a lot of people, my wife wouldn't want anyone in our basement right now.

I can tell you that.

Um, and I'll have to do a lot of work if in that basement if we're going to do this.

But that may but there's a there's a cost to that, and that we're doing them one here, one here, one here, one here, one here.

We might be we might do one at your house, but we don't, and you're we know your neighbor needs one, but we don't have their permission.

So then we come back a year later and do that one.

That starts to dovetail with our road surfacing programs.

We don't want to poke holes in new roads that we just paved.

You've seen the squares in the streets where these happen.

We have 30,000 of those.

Like that's they're turning our roads into Swiss cheese.

It's every problem is solvable.

We we're fighting to figure it out, but it's daunting, it's big, and that's why I said when you you said lead service, you open Pandora's box there, Commissioner Gorwick.

Um thing we're gonna try to do is to enact ordinance or even a temporary uh MOU, a memorized memorandum of understanding or something that would allow us to kind of force it to say we have we are targeting your block, we need to do everybody.

You have to say yes.

I mean, our only our only leverage would be that if you say no, we turn your water off.

That's you know so it's not perfect, but we're gonna to to undertake a project of this magnitude.

We can't just do one here, one here, one here, one here, one here.

So that is something that we'll be talking about with the mayor and city council throughout the coming year.

Uh this again, this feels like a ramp up year.

This is the year where we're starting to do a lot more, and we're gonna sort of to use a water term, we're gonna pressure test ourselves.

We're gonna find out how does this work?

How does this work for our internal permitting?

How does this work for our uh utility locating?

I don't have enough Julie locators to go out for these.

I'm gonna have to either staff up or or contract more utility locators.

How does this work for our customer service?

How does this you know orders of magnitude have a ripple effect?

And I think this year we'll start to learn more about what that impact is on us and be in a better position uh next year, just so you know numbers, we're talking about going from a four million dollar program the past couple years to a 20 million dollar program this year to a 40 to 50 million dollar program over the next 10 years.

That's what we're talking about.

So unless something gives, we are we are marching forward to comply.

Um we don't know the consequences of noncompliance, but it's been whispered, it's been more than whispered, it's been spoken unofficially that it could jeopardize your ability to get any future federal funding if you don't comply.

We don't want to find ourselves in that position.

Well, thank you, Director, for clarifying.

That was a lot, sorry.

It was a lot.

It was a lot.

And just so you know, I don't have 30 years.

And I'll I'll even chip in a couple bucks.

Okay.

Okay.

I want to change gears though.

Sure.

Uh is public works responsible for bike lanes and bike paths.

We are.

We are not.

That's funny you ask that.

We are not responsible as a responsible is a tricky term.

Um we are definitely responsible for what we call MUPs, multi-use paths.

Anything that's not a sidewalk, right?

If it's bituminous, if it's eight feet wide or wider, that's a multi-use path, and we are responsible for that.

I'd say we're responsible for sidewalks too, but not in the same way.

Like we have a requirement on all developers that they put in sidewalks as part of their development.

And we then have, like I referenced earlier, we have a multi-year sidewalk replacement plan where we're looking at both gaps in our citywide sidewalk network and sidewalks in poor condition, more often than not from tree roots heaving pieces of sidewalk or spalling or broken.

We're also in a citywide ADA ramp compliance program, and and we are putting forth the uh extreme, not uh significant efforts and significant monies and significant analysis to know what are where our compliance lies and and how we fund ramp replacement.

But we're not responsible for clearing sidewalks.

Everyone is responsible for clearing snow and debris off their own sidewalk.

But a bike paths we are.

On bike paths, we have to clear them.

We remove the snow, we keep an eye on them, we repair them as necessary on a more routine basis, even.

So once it's a once it's a multi-use path, and generally speaking, it's a difference between bituminous and concrete, and it's usually most of our sides are five feet, multi-use paths are eight to ten feet.

Any of those are our our the city's asset and our responsibility.

Well, I just want to say that I use MUPS all the time.

I've been all around the city, MUPS and bike lanes.

Yep.

I love it.

You're doing a great job.

I commute, I run errands on my bike, I I'm always out on my bike on the mups and in the bike lanes.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

Wonderful too.

Thank you.

It's a mission.

It's a um it we're intentional about it.

And every single capital improvement, every roadway reconstruction now includes multi-use paths.

Right.

Yeah.

So 11th Street, multi-use paths, Madison, multi-use paths, Auburn Street, multi- and and often, uh and I like this balance, um, shifting the balance from automotive transport to multimodal transport.

We're really big into road diets right now.

We are more focused on getting people where they're going safely than we are on getting there quickly.

And that ties into the pedestrian safety action plan as well.

We and almost every complaint we get about some of our lane width reductions or road diets, every complaint we get is it's going to take me longer to get somewhere.

And while I'm sympathetic to that, I'm okay with that complaint.

If we know that it's getting you there more safely, and it's getting the people biking and walking to where they need to go more safely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you for the I'm gonna pay you know I will absolutely pass that along to our team because we don't hear enough compliments.

Thank you.

Good, good.

Along those same lines, and just I I want to also um highlight the work that your team is doing related to uh those ADA curb ramps.

No, thank you, Chester.

And especially their commitment to prioritizing areas where folks with disabilities reach out to you and say that something is wrong.

You all prioritize those?

We do.

I think that that is important to highlight and let the community know that if they are running into an issue, just reach out to you and express that and thank you, Chairman.

That is that's I'm glad you say you I'm glad you said it instead of me, because that's it is this this multi-year, the sidewalk replacement plan we have is a three-year rolling plan.

And if an alderman comes to me and says, I need we have some sidewalk issues on Cumberland, um, I'd say, or Westchester or whatever.

I say, well, if you want to do it immediately, we'll make it part of your ward plan and your ward money go to it.

Otherwise, unless it's already on our list, it's probably a three-year wait, and we have to be honest about that.

Unless, and if we do find out that there is someone with accessibility needs, if there's just any kind of extenuating circumstance that's there, that can go to the front of the list, and we will sometimes act on those almost immediately.

Yes, thank you.

Yeah.

Yes.

Uh yeah, I've got yeah, we've got two subjects now, so I have a question on each one.

Okay.

Uh I will back up momentarily to the lead pipe replacement.

Um I'm copper, so you don't have to worry about me.

Okay, very good.

Thank you.

But uh I have a question about the the process.

Is there any significant cost difference between trenching versus push?

Uh is there?

Well, it's called well, there um everything we do will at some point involve some kind of a push.

So it's probably better to just push the whole way.

Um it's I'm not in the end, I can't I don't know if I can make it uh a qualified statement about cost.

Generally speaking, boring is more expensive than open trenching.

But in these specific runs of main to meter, it's not necessarily the case because the trenching comes with so much restoration cost and time costs.

We can be out of there much more cleanly, much more quickly if we directionally bore than if we would open trench.

Now there's no one size fits all though.

A lot of times we're fixing something that broke, and then we have to dig that up.

We have to find it.

So sometimes we end up trenching.

But in the end, we are boring through your basement wall or beneath your basement and up through the floor.

So there's we don't want to go dig up your basement.

I'll put it that way.

We certainly don't want to trench through the concrete floor of your basement.

So boring will always play a role.

But right now, if if these are scheduled replacements from the main to the cutoff box to your meter, we will almost entirely bore that.

There'll be a board, there'll be a hole dug in the road, usually 10 by 10 or 12 by 12, so that we can get down and put a new saddle valve onto the main, abandon the old one, cut it off.

We just do a side-by-side.

We tap a new valve, and then we will from that hole directionally bore under the yard into your house, so that we try not to disturb the private property too much.

So in the end, I bet it's cost comparable because of the restoration costs we face, but the dis the time savings and the disturbance lead us towards boring whenever we can.

I'm sorry, I'm going to clarify boring as push.

Is that what we're doing?

Yeah, same thing.

Yeah, yeah.

So the boring process is you've seen you we've probably all seen these like tractor robotic looking things, and what they do is they actually drill, they have a drill head on them, and they drill through the ground and you keep putting new segments of pipe of steel pipe.

So it's first thing it does is just drills a hole, and you stand there and you put okay, here's another 10 feet.

Here's another 10 feet.

But you can you can GPS locate and with ground penetrating radar know exactly where that head is.

So you could go up and down, you can bend a little bit if you know you have to get under.

You'll see we almost always what we call pothole, we expose the gas line.

They'll dig a hole to find the gas line, because that's mission critical to not hit a gas line.

So we'll know how deep that is.

And then once that cutting head gets to where it goes, we actually hook the new water surface on the other end of it and pull it back through as we extract that board head.

So it's truthfully more of a pull than a push, I guess.

But yeah, that's how it works.

Great, thank you.

Uh then to the sidewalk question.

Yeah.

Um the sidewalk replacement program uh for years and years and years and years, it was always if if I as a homeowner had an issue with my sidewalk, I could talk to the city about it, but it was a 50-50 proposition to replace the sidewalk.

What has changed there?

To my understanding, the 50-50 program has not been in effect for at least 10 years, maybe more.

I can't speak to why.

This is this is when I get to say I'm new.

Um I know communities do have a 50-50.

The city of Brockford just does not right now.

And that's a larger conversation with maybe perhaps our elected officials, but it's um we just we when when we replace, we bear the coal cost.

Um, but there's there's no longer a 50-50 program matching program.

Great, thank you.

Yep.

Quick question about if I'm curious about something.

For example, I did not know that what went on at Parkview and um Spring Creek was a water main issue.

I saw it this morning, I didn't know.

Best way is go to the website.

What do I when I have a well we I will tell the website will have it.

We always send out press releases.

Now that goes to our media.

Now I I know that last night I did see on the news, and uh you know it that's right in our path of driving our kids to school in the morning.

You know, that they they did put out word that with a big red line, this much of Spring Creek is going to be shut down or reduced to one lane tomorrow.

We hope to get that out through all of our print and video news outlets.

The morning shows usually run with that.

If you have any of the early morning shows on, uh, we get them out in time that they could incorporate those.

Um it is on the website.

We have a news and events button or uh or uh announcements button on the website.

Um and we also make sure we notify all of our aldermen.

Um not that they're gonna call everybody, but when in doubt, you can call them and say what's going on here.

Um but again, the uh like I said, there was six in one night, there's some every night.

Sometimes they're done before you wake up, and sometimes they're not.

And Spring Creek was a bad one.

Yeah.

And that ended up with, well, I will tell you uh that one not only in our efforts to fix it, after we had done all the Julie locates, and Julie is if I if I use that term, I don't know if you're familiar with it, it's an acronym, joint utility, location, information for excavators.

That's what Julie stands for.

Um not tattling, but it's just a reality.

NYCOR has pulled out of Julie.

So Nycor doesn't locate with Julie anymore.

They're gonna do their own locates.

And then while they're trying to figure it out, they take a while.

They're slowing us down.

It'll get better.

It will it'll get better.

But on Spring Creek and Park View, they missed a high pressure gas main, and we hit it.

And we hit it.

So that that's why that project has taken exceptionally long, is that we had a high pressure gas main during the initial excavation repair work and that took a couple days to repair.

And now we are.

Yep.

It looks like they're setting up for a pour.

Are they actually going to pour the uh the holes rather than the usual lousy black top on top of it?

Are they pouring the repair?

I I I can't say specifically.

Now we we run into all different road profiles.

A lot of these roads in Spring Creek might be one of them, will have a concrete base with a bituminous overlay.

If that's the case, we'll replace it the same way.

So maybe that if that's what you're seeing, if we're setting up for a pour, that's what that tells me, is that there was a concrete base course to that, and we'll match that.

And we might still, right now, although it's getting warmer and warmer, then cold patch the top couple inches.

In spring, when the hot mix plants open, we'll pull that cold patch out and we'll hot mix paper that.

We have cold mixed patches all over town, and they're lousy, but they're all we can do right now.

And we'll pull all of those out and they'll all go back with hot mix asphalt when the plants open.

Um in the interest of disclosure and honesty, I know that working on that intersection today.

Um, I'll say we, because it all falls under us.

We nicked um one of the signal control cables and the signals at Parkview and High Crest went out.

So we were in a stop on top of all of the lane reduction and all the headaches, we were in a stop sign condition for a good part of today.

It's up and running again now.

But if you can imagine, I know that my city engineer was trying to make it to an 8 a.m.

meeting this morning, and he was coming down to Spring Creek, and it was backed up from Anderson Gardens past Eisenhower.

Past Eisenhower this morning.

That's not I'm not proud of that, but that's what was happening this morning.

So he was a half hour late.

That's why I asked the questions.

I got some phone calls.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yep.

Let me talk about snow.

We talked, I know that that's um on everyone's mind.

Hopefully, you know what?

Maybe not anymore.

Who knows?

Maybe it's maybe we're done.

I don't think we're done.

We'll get another big one in March.

Um, but we got our butt kicked uh though the the weekend after Thanksgiving.

We did.

And I can just leave it at that and say we got our butt kicked a little bit.

Um I wanted, you know, in defense of my people and our contractors, I want to tell the story of of how unique that event was, you know, that that we went from warm summer-like weather leading up to Thanksgiving to a blizzard, and that it happened to coincide with a major public event downtown with roads closed, and that um people that we rely on in the uh for our sub for our consulting crews to do that are all construction workers who do snow plowing in the off season, and they were probably laying concrete or asphalt the day before.

Like it just it was a massive event.

It was a heavy, long snow, and I don't think the the consulting team uh that we hire to do residential streets weren't ramped up to full force yet.

And you saw the result.

Now I don't agree with every description of it.

I know that the word epic fail made it into the media.

That makes me feel great for my first snow event ever as a public works director.

But it wasn't an epic epic fails if we don't go out, epic fails if we don't respond.

Um it was a failure in that we didn't have a level of service delivery that we all want and deserve.

But I will tell you that that um a normal, so a little bit pullback, how we how we remove snow.

City of Rockford employees, public works drivers, streets department, and then if we have to do a second shift, it'll be water department people.

They plow all of the arterials and collectors, all the major roads.

It's all the big roads you'd think of, and then some that you might not think.

I happen to live on Westchester.

Westchester has enough traffic on it, and because it hits a signal at High Crest, it's considered a collector.

So there are some streets that might look like a residential street, but they have enough traffic volume on them, ADT, average daily traffic, um that they that they are plowed by our city.

And I'm very proud.

We were ready.

I think we other than some challenges downtown, again with the lane closures and the street closures, we met the call on our arterials and collectors.

For almost 20 years now, we have subbed out residential snow plowing.

That is bid every few years, I think on a three or five year cycle, that is bid.

Um that has changed uh over the we're currently in a contract with a company called RSS, residential snow services.

Um they are headquartered out of their ownership, is based in St.

Louis.

They have a big office in Schomburg.

All of the drivers are local.

I've heard a couple public speakers at times say something, hey, let's use a let's not use a Schaumburg company, let's use a local company.

The truth is the money is major is is going mostly to the pockets of local residents who are driving plows around.

There is no local company that bids on these.

We put these out for public bids.

Um one local has the the organizational capacity uh or the bonding ability, the pay the letter of credit ability to tackle these.

There's a number of great all of our contractors, all of our general contractors, uh Stenstrom, uh down to Maney to every, you know, they're all uh noise services, they all do snow removal, but they're already they're busy.

They have private contract, they have they're doing parking lots, they're doing banks, they're doing clinics, they have their own staff working.

What we get for our residential street removal is a company that can put a call out locally for drivers.

And they're pre-qualified.

But we need to have a company that's big enough.

These drivers, they're uh consider them all independent contractors.

Consider we have 150 independent contractors out driving the residential streets.

Now they're working for a company, but they're all their own entity, they're all driving their own personal vehicle with a plow on it.

And you can imagine they all want to get paid right away.

That's the way that works.

They don't want to wait a month to get paid.

They're not going to come out to the there's two snowfalls in a row, they're not going to come back out.

So one of the requirements we put on these companies to whom the bid on these is that they have to have a letter of credit sufficient to pay their drivers immediately while they wait for the city of Rockford to do a post-event evaluation, approve the invoices, get it approved through council, and pay them.

We don't want those drivers calling the city saying I didn't get paid yet.

So that's another burden put on the people to bid on that that not everyone can handle.

Not like if I was going to start a snow plowing company, I'm not going to be able to go get bonded for to pay out a million dollars or something.

Um order of magnitude, a general, a routine, two-inch snow removal process generally cost the city $300,000, $350,000 every time we call it out.

That's supposed to be done in 14 to 16 hours.

That snowfall after Thanksgiving, and also in their contract, they're not required to work more than 24 hours.

We can't have a driver work more than 12.

They can they can they can have people out for 24 hours.

And it's not the same guys out, guys and girls out the whole time.

Some people show up at the start and drop off, other people come in.

People plow as they can.

Catch us catch can, so to speak.

After 24 hours of that post-Thanksgiving snowfall, they reached out saying, We we gotta stop.

And even then, obviously by that point, so that was all day Sunday, all day month, you know, well, Sunday afternoon into Monday afternoon.

And I was getting a lot of calls from aldermen and residents saying, haven't seen anyone yet, haven't done my street yet.

They did one side of my street, doesn't look so great.

Um, and I knew that there was some.

We do have an interactive map on the website, and we should go to that.

It shows a uh green, yellow, red status of all of our sub zones.

The city is divided into 24 snow removal zones.

24 trans is corresponds to how many public works.

We send 24 drivers out.

Each one of those is split into four, so we have 96 residential sub zones.

So at any time you look at this map, you can see 96 squares, and they'll be red, yellow, green.

Red means they haven't touched it yet, yellow means they're working on it, green means it's done.

And we had far too many red zones after 24 hours, and I asked no, like you had like please clear up these remaining six red zones before you leave.

And then I went out and drove to see if they're doing it.

And so we kept them for 27 hours.

Um a lot of people did a lot of hard work, and it still wasn't quite enough.

It just wasn't.

And so what what that what happens is we go back, we look at the contract, we make sure are you really supplying enough driver?

You know, the drivers you said you were going to supply when we know it's gonna be a big storm event.

Do you have enough people in reserve?

Are you calling people in from your contracts in Indiana or Iowa and say, hey, come to Rockford and help with this?

Um lessons learned, and um I'd like to think that you know I think we've answered the call since that event, and I think we'll be in a better position moving forward.

And I will tell you that it's going out for bid this July again, and we'll um have a fresh chance to take a look at that contract and see if there's anything you want to tweak.

Yes, sir.

That's the director.

Thank you again for your time.

Um the the question I have is for the individuals that are uh subcontracted out.

Yep.

They're only required to push snow.

So what's the process of salt?

That's 100% us.

So this so City of Rockford handles all salting.

We do not have it is not a component of the residential snow clearing to salt.

We just want them plowing.

So we salt all of our again, it's not a one-size-fits-all answer.

We will, if it's a lot of snow, we will clear and salt all the arterials and collectors first.

We will wait and sometimes follow in progress behind the residential snow clearing and salt the residential roads.

If we don't think it's gonna, we only call the residential people out at two inches of snow.

Just that's something people should know too.

If we get and of course every snow prediction is one to three inches, so like uh, what do we do?

But if we get a dusting, if we get an inch of snow, we don't again, that's 300,000.

If I call them out, we don't do that for an inch of snow.

But we will salt.

If we do not call out the residential plows, we will salt every lane in the city, every road in the city of Rockford.

And if we think it's just gonna be an ice event, if we think we have freezing rain, we'll salt every road in the city of Brockford.

Um it takes about three hundred tons of salt to do all of our arterials and collectors, and another five hundred to six hundred to do all the residential roads.

Or if we go out, if the city of Rockford is salting doing what we call a full salt, salting every road, that could be seven to eight hundred tons of salt.

And salt, uh we've had some salt issues this year.

It's not supply, but it's delivery issues, and we've um we've even had to uh hire we'll get reimbursed for this through the contract, but we were having trouble with salt delivery and we were getting worried about our salt reserves, and we hired a trucking company to go into Palantine to bring 500 yards of salt, which is still 50 trucks.

It's a lot, I mean, yeah.

It's a it's crazy.

Um it's uh uh I when I took this job, everyone asked me right away, you know, people are asking how you like it, I love it, I love it, I love it.

Then we says, well, wait till you're for a snow season.

I get what they're saying, but I still love it.

But that's the the long the short answer to that very long answer, the short version is the city arrived for public works trucks salt every road.

Thank you.

I I think yeah, in in lieu of all that you have told us, and I'm I'm an advocate for the city and the plowing process, but um one of the questions I get asked frequently if is there a protocol that these subcontractors are given, because I'll go through some neighborhoods and I'll see where the intersections are are cleared and two-lane passable, and I'll go through some neighborhoods where they just went straight through and they left a wedge at every intersection.

Is there a protocol that these subcontractors should be held to?

There is.

There is, and that's that's another um area of emphasis that we're looking at.

Um it is up to us then to also go out.

Well, fortunately, we do get a lot of comments if that happens, but we should have people all going and looking at well.

We expect all intersections to be pushed back uh fully cleared, so but that it's both turning radiuses are clear and that no snow has been pushed up to provide a site obstruction to block oncoming traffic.

So intersections should all be fully cleared, and if they're not, we we'll either call them back out, as our contract allows, or we'll send trucks out and push back intersections ourselves.

What's interesting, something to talk about though, not to belabor the point, is you know, we have an odd even parking ordinance.

And we ask people uh when we when we need to be plowing the streets to park on the odd side of the street if the date is an odd date, even I think the imp the the the implication that people get is that okay, they'll do that side of the street, and then the next day they'll come do the other.

But that's not necessarily the case.

That might be the case if it's a two-day snow clearing event.

But what it does, why we do that is that we hope at least one side of the street can be clear and we can get trucks removing snow all the way to the curb line on at least one side.

But if I have these trucks out at $300,000 and they remove snow over 14 hours, I'm not necessarily calling them back the next day when the cars move over.

It's another 300,000 to have them clear the other side.

So if it's if it goes overnight, you know, if it's a multi-day event, then yes, we take advantage of the fact that those cars move from one side of the street to the other if they are if they comply, which is an issue.

Um what that the that rules in place to allow us to clear as much of the street as possible and to not swerve around parked cars to at least have one clear lane.

And um, if possible, we come back to the other side.

If it's really bad, if snow is again, we have we do a lot of what we I wish there was a better term, but we do a lot of what we call complaint ploughing.

So if someone calls and says there are piles of snow here where cars have been parked on the even side.

We'll send the city truck out to get that.

Um but we don't it's not a matter of we do the entire odd side, and then the next day we come back and do the entire even side.

That's just not the protocol.

I think uh I will just offer up because I've lived in the community since 1988, and and I would just say that this is probably an area you need to strengthen communication in because you're the first person who's ever that I've you know who's ever said that and I understand it now.

Okay.

Um you know it's taxpayer money, right?

Uh I think it's a balancing.

You know, it's the why, right?

I mean, if people understand the why, they're they're more apt to um not complain, I think.

Yep.

Can we cannot dispute that at all?

And then also um is is there a like a supervisor that makes sure that the individual that's doing what they're supposed to do is done.

Is there someone that comes around just to do that?

That's a that is.

That's the question.

That's the question that we're dealing with uh both with our consultants and internally.

Uh the they're supposed to provide the RSS, the company we contract with, is supposed to have supervisors both present at multiple locations throughout the city for the drivers to check in and check out.

Hey, I'm starting to plow, hey, I'm done plowing, and they're supposed to then drive around and monitor routes.

I'm not I don't know if that's been done to the extent it should be.

That's been something we've made sure that they need to be aware of, and to that end, um we will we'll probably we we have and we'll continue to assign a little bit more staff ourselves to go out and check.

Kind of stinks because most of those people are already in a plow anyway.

So we've had one already where I just had engineering department office staff all get in cars and go out, start driving around at the night and start looking, like all hands on deck.

But there is if it works right, supervisory obligations are on that contractor.

But we always got to check.

Okay.

Thank you.

Commissioners, any other questions?

Chairman, you have any?

I've been looking this way too much.

I keep forgetting to look back.

Thank you for joining us.

Absolutely.

You are also welcome here any time to share any other.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

I'll make a point of it.

I like this.

Thank you, Mr.

Director.

Thank you very much.

Any anything else while you got me?

All right, maybe next time.

Save them up.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Commissioner, we will now move to unfinished business and we'll continue our discussion on the 2026 action plan.

And know that Michaela has prepared for us a documents or have her kind of go over that with us and we'll take any questions from there.

I'll try to be brief.

Um I combed through all of our notes.

Um Larry helped me a lot by listening to different sections.

He's still trying to put together the minutes from our strategic planning.

Um, but pulling out things for me are big sheets.

I went through all of those and I developed the beginning of our action plan.

I do think that we need to beef it out a little bit more, especially for the remainder of the year.

Um, but I just kind of wanted to provide a quick summary of my thought process on this because it looks different than what we've been doing.

So the topic is going to be what we're doing.

That's the for the action calendar component.

That is going to be our um what's on our agenda.

That agenda item is what the action calendar is covering.

And then the speaker, I think that's self-explanatory, who's speaking.

Um the action item, I thought it would be important for you guys to know if it is it information only, is it discussion?

Is it uh draft version of a report?

Is it a final, that sort of thing?

Um, who's the lead for that item?

This is tied directly to our discussions at the strategic planning.

So any item that you guys volunteered for, you'll find your name in that column for those items.

And then the status.

So if it's a speaker, I'm putting confirmed.

If I've confirmed the speaker, I'm putting pending if that hasn't been confirmed yet, or if it's a review draft, that sort of thing.

Um any questions about the action calendar portion?

And then we have the implementation, which is kind of similar, but as I was trying to break this out, I knew we needed something that kind of defined our action steps that was a separate from our actual calendar of items.

So that's what the implementation is.

This is going to be a very fluid document.

Um as things come on to or get removed off of our action plan, it's gonna update our implementation plan as well.

Um, but that's where you're gonna find a little bit more information about those steps that need to be taken to make those things happen.

So one of the things we talked about is that potential ordinance um revision or adding items, one of those is that youth component that the mayor seemed in support of today.

Um so that just kind of lines out.

I put due dates in there and then who those leads were.

Um again, you'll find your names there.

If you have any questions about those items or any thoughts, please feel free to let us know.

Um, I'm happy to make any adjustments as far as that goes.

Um quick about the communication.

We talked about the potential Facebook page.

I met with our marketing director, and her recommendation was to really kind of hone in on what the CRC is doing.

So I gave her a copy of our action plan.

She's gonna be making some posts about that.

Her concern with starting a Facebook page is you have to do a lot of work to get a following for that page.

It wasn't an immediate no, uh, but she had some I thought really great ideas to really build a following for the CRC before we considered moving that route.

Um so our action plan or our I'm sorry, our annual report uh that you all put together, she's gonna be pulling out some pieces of that and start talking about what the CRC has been doing and then building up to what we what we're gonna be doing this year.

So we're gonna be doing more regular posts about the CRC.

Uh she's gonna post for us when there's a meeting coming up and letting people know that there's a meeting coming up.

We talked about potentially doing some press releases for meetings and things of that nature.

So I think that those ideas that she had will be really helpful to start um engaging the community more with the community relations commission.

Um so that was the the thought plan on that.

Um if there's I think I gathered everything from our strategic planning and placed it on here.

As you can see, February, March, and April are are pretty full.

I did get director updates built out through the year.

I try to match them with what we did in 2025.

So it's not like you're getting an update from a director after we had one six months ago.

Uh so I tried to follow that flow plan a little bit.

I added a workforce development round table to June, which is what we decided on our strategic planning.

Um I added that biannual report that we discussed as well for June.

The food and security panel discussion, we did not get a chance to discuss at our at our strategic planning.

I place that for August.

Um I do need leads for that, and I know that Alderman Bell, that's a passion item of his.

Um, so I don't know if somebody would like to think about that, if you'd like to volunteer for that now, but we do need um a commission volunteer to to kind of lead the charge on that.

Mark Pastor Martin.

Okay, thank you.

And Commissioner Brothers, thank you.

Oh, and Martin.

Okay.

All right.

Um, so other than that, like I said, I've got all of those director updates, any departments, any things, any of our regular annual items that we have to have on here.

So if there's anything else that you guys would like to add, um, please let me know, and we can kind of plug and play as we go, but please review this and send me any notes, any emails, any recommendations that you guys have so we make sure that this is a really solid working document going forward.

Any questions?

Well, the one thing I just want to emphasize, um I would love as is just sort of a matter of course when our um when our directors come and speak to us, I would love to know what they want from us.

Okay.

How how we can help them out in the community.

Okay.

What they think their biggest challenges are and how they would visualize or how they would envision the commissioners helping them.

Okay.

Also I just want to thank you and Larry, you all do so much work and we really appreciate what you all do.

Thank you.

Um also um just with the communication.

And I know I don't want you know, too many more emails in my inbox, but even when um our director of public works was here and he was talking about the lead, you know, it's it's a lot of things that's going on around that we just we just don't know.

Um and so just to have that level of communication, and I know that you all have a lot of different things that you are doing, um, but just so that we kind of get a heads up.

So if if the whoever the department head is coming, if we just have like bullet points of what's going on before the discussion, so at least we we're kind of abreast of what's going on and be able to handle.

Yeah, I um I've been kind of leaving that up to the individual director.

Some really like PowerPoints and things of that nature, some uh really enjoy speaking off the cuff.

Um but if we'd like a more standard format, I think especially as we start getting these and regular annual updates and because I feel like it's been a lot of introductions.

We've had some changeover with directors and things like that.

Um so I'm happy to do that.

I think that would be really great.

We can always have that point.

What do you need from the commission?

Are there any items we can help with?

And then some standard items or things like that.

I think that's a great idea.

Thank you.

And the reason why I I say that is because many of the they're asking us to basically be their brand ambassadors or to speak up for different projects.

But it's hard to speak up when we don't really kind of understand what's going on.

So agreed.

Thank you.

I I think on top of that, Pastor Burton, I think you'd probably agree.

I wonder if we can just get added to the press release emails, right?

Those go out from the city regularly.

Do we just get added to them?

It you're right, it adds extra emails for us, but at least then we are regularly informed when city staff are informed and when the aldermen are informed so that we can absolutely if we could just find out from uh from Laura Mayor how many go out.

Okay.

Um I mean, then at least we can set up our emails so that they would go to you know another folder you'll look at regularly, but you know, because I think it's more than than you think.

Yeah, right.

There's quite a few probably that go out in sure.

Okay.

I can I'll definitely ask that.

So commissioners, we have moved to commissioners' reports.

Is there any commissioner that has a report that they want to share?

One of my um staff members was at District One on this week.

I will be bringing back some notes from them.

Um she'll be back, they've invited her back again next week.

So um just things that they see in their area that they wanted, just a couple bullet points of their biggest question was how can they help?

So um that is something that we probably can keep in mind, and they meet, I believe, every Wednesday, and we are definitely welcome to go.

I think they go meet at 11 a.m.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Um I would just like to say that um make everybody aware that this this week is the snow sculpting competition at Cennissippi Park, which is a big deal for our park district, and um it's gonna be fifty-five degrees, so stone sculpting is gonna be a little difficult.

But uh if you feel like supporting it uh or any uh input you have to have, we changed we changed the entire you've ever been through snow sculpting, you're used to the fact that the last thirty-nine years, the path has been the same, the blocks have been in the same place, and this year they changed everything.

So if you have any input, even though there's probably gonna be some pretty soggy looking sculptures, if you have any input about the uh the new layout, if you've been part of the the previous uh snow sculptures, please let us know.

Please let the park district know if you liked or disliked the change in the uh format.

Thank you.

Brother Chair, I had a great opportunity to meet with our mayor in regards to um uh the regrow and and different ways of of how the community the community can um uh utilize the funds.

I was excited today to hear that there's a possibility that we can actually, as a commission bring some ideas back forward.

Um but I uh I did send over just recently to the the mayor the R three grant amendment, and I can send it to you, and then we can just disperse it how you how you feel.

Um but it my concern is that the the amendment that's being proposed put us in the same similar situation with the regrow.

It is so broad of what they're looking at trying to add.

Um, and that's one of the reasons why I asked the mayor, how does that look within the city?

Um, because it's a lot of money, it's a lot of funding, um, but they're they're really expanding, attempting to expand, it's pending right now.

Um, and so um I look forward to hearing how that's going to work and if it's approved, if the amendment is approved, passed.

Pastor Martin, do in light of what the mayor suggested, do we need to add an additional group to work on giving some guidance to I think he said that the Democratic Caucus was interested?

Do we think as a commission we need to assign some folks to that priority over the next possible possibly what the mayor said was was true?

The the conversation literally came from Chicago.

So I'm from Chicago, so there's it was a delegation of clergy that met in Chicago, and they're looking at trying to come up to Rockford and actually uh allowed me to bring Rockford clergy together, but looks like it's something that's already moving in Chicago, um, and they're trying to kind of get some more Rockfordians to be a part of it.

But this new movement, I mean, it it it it goes back to like a 1963 thing, you know, it's a lot of moving parts, and I just my concern is just like the regrow, it was so broad that it might hurt more than help what they're trying to do.

So I'll send it, I will actually send it to you.

It's three documents.

Awesome.

I'll send it to you and then you can disperse.

Do we do is there an interest though in providing some feedback to regrow specifically?

Because I think he also mentioned that the caucus, at least the Democratic Caucus was interested.

Are there a few of us that need to get together and start having that conversation?

There, I think was Chairman.

There's two questions that I have about this.

Number one, what are kind of the nuts and bolts to share anything with the Democratic Caucus?

Um, and then also and I maybe I misunderstood what the mayor said, it would be nice.

It's not always possible to find consensus, so maybe it would be most valuable if those of us who have opinions about the process would would be able to just offer those on our own.

Um, or maybe you're right, Chairman, and maybe we should come to consensus about it.

I I just don't know how long that process would be and I I don't I don't either, and I don't I don't know what the appropriate path is.

I think both are potential.

Do we submit something as the commission though?

With here are some ideas that the commission has, or do we individually want to reach out to the caucus?

I was just gonna say uh maybe just a letter of recommendation.

Um something simple because we really don't know where it's going.

Um, but maybe that we've all come together, maybe we have everybody come with the maybe a bullet point of what our thoughts are and do a letter of recommendation.

Uh anybody else want to, or I I I think we we're talking about this communication.

There needs to be some sort of connecting link.

So your question is to should there be a a group uh probably a group because more than one person, but there should there be a contact between the commission and the council, and caucus is the place to do it, then that's the place to do it.

But I think there needs to be something that goes and says, hey, here's what's being talked about, what do we think about it?

Take it back.

Here's what we thought about it.

I think there needs to be some sort of mechanism there, whatever we decide it is.

So we would appoint somebody then, and then all our communication as individual commission members would go to that commission.

Or somebody's yeah, right.

Then that makes that would be wonderful.

I guess I didn't really understand that.

Well, the caucus is an open session, and so we can all go to a caucus uh to to see you know where they're there might I mean I so I met with two of the caucus uh individuals that are for it, and there's some that think that it needs to be tweaked in the same caucus.

Um there's some that want to use the money for other things, and then you have a whole nother group that say we don't want the money for regrow, period.

So I think that the mayor was was was saying that we could start with the Democratic Caucus to kind of see where they are, then we can kind of glean from their discussion, bring it together, and then do a full recommendation to them, because at least we have that.

If we can get to seven, because now we're playing a numbers game, it's a voting game now, but at least we know kind of where their their minds are and and and come with something.

Um because right now there's nothing presented.

No.

It's just money there, it's nothing presented.

And so maybe we can kind of help them with some level of a presentation.

Do we have someone that wants to be that point person?

I mean, I'm happy to if if folks want to send their thoughts, I'm happy to collect them and put them into a document.

I also wonder though, to your point, uh, do we need someone from that caucus to come tell us what they're thinking so that we can help them?

Um I think if we go to their caucus, because they all if they're there, right?

And if you know, and and if we have relationships with individual on the caucus to to have that as a an item to discuss, um because the money has to go somewhere.

Right.

And so we want to try to just see where they are.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other commissioner reports or thoughts that we haven't expressed?

Okay.

We have reached adjournment.

Do I have a motion?

So move.

There are second.

Okay.

All in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed?

I wish they would.

See you all next month.

Oh.