We can go ahead and get started.

We have quorum.

Um, I'm gonna call the meeting to order.

It is February 17th at 6:31 p.m.

This is the uh transportation committee meeting, and uh we have on the call um uh vice chair Stone.

We have uh representative Weathers, Representative Sanford, Representative Politia, uh Representative Hughes, Representative Adams, and we have um our guest speakers, um Thomas Turk and Luke Buttonweiser.

My missing anybody, both from the transportation department.

So we have one item on the agenda, it's a review item, and uh, we're gonna be getting a presentation, uh, basically presenting an overview um of the uh transportation.

I've been anxious uh for this presentation for for a few months myself to uh really get in uh more in-depth knowledge of how um how things work within the city.

And I think that the timing is very timely.

Um, it's been a tough uh couple, it's been a tough winter.

Um, I know a lot of people working very hard, and we appreciate um you guys taking time after hours to be on the presentation with us uh tonight.

So um let's go ahead and get started.

So we are we going to you uh John.

Yeah, I'm uh excuse me.

I know the director Keonis wanted to start this.

I'm not sure where he is, but in the meantime, I can get us started on the presentation that Luke's gonna share with everybody.

Okay, and if he shows up, uh he'll probably just jump in.

I'll do my best to clarify what he was envisioning in the beginning of the slides, and then the rest of it's more informational on what I'm in charge of and what each department does.

So I'll get us started.

Let me share my screen.

All right, what is everyone's seeing?

There you go.

Good.

Okay, perfect.

All right.

All right, so the the new name of the collection of departments is called Transportation Department.

Before the road maintenance department was separate uh to basically everything else that was consolidated.

You can do the next slide, but uh, so the transportation department mission, enhanced safety, efficient resilient movement of people, vehicles, and water infrastructure.

Basically, to put in layman's term, it's everything to do with the roads and how to move people, cars and pedestrians around the city through the city as safely and as and as efficient as possible, and that includes capital improvements to make things better, as well as maintaining them such as pawholes and curbs and sidewalks, stuff like that.

Next, please.

All right, City of Stanford Transportation Department Unified Vision and Responsibilities.

Do you guys want me to read this slide so everybody can absorb it at the same time?

Or you want me to just let you read it.

Um you can you can uh we can read it while you're while you're speaking if you want to give just a you know high-level overview explanation to us, and we'll um and I'd also like to ask if we can have this presentation so we can enter it into the record uh following following as well.

So we can go back to it.

Yeah, I'll send it um after the presentation tonight, Jeff.

Great, thank you.

So I'll let you guys read the details, but what happened in general is that the previous bureau chief of transportation, Frank Patisse, which some of you may have known, may have not known.

Uh, he left on his own accord.

And I think it was slightly unexpected, but with that opening, which is not easy to fill, uh, the director and and the people in his administration were brainstorming on how things could be more efficient and better.

Uh, they approached me as the head of the road maintenance department.

Just so you guys know my background.

I started with the city in December of 2011, uh, as the road maintenance manager.

I've been in the same position for 14 years now.

I think this is my 15th winter.

So I've driven in just about every snowstorm for the last 15 years.

My estimate is about 200 of them, so I'm pretty good in the snow.

So they approached me because when hiring that position before, even in David Martin's administration, it was very difficult.

So I think they found it better to consolidate road maintenance with all the other road disciplines, such as traffic engineering, signs and lines, signals, parking, which by the way, when I first started, I was actually in charge of signs and lines, and I was also in charge of parking.

And about nine years ago, David Martin reorganized things and gave me all the capital improvements for paving, uh, which branched out into utility paving and sidewalk capital improvements.

And when I got the capital improvements, he consolidated signs and lines and parking into the new traffic department.

So I was no longer in charge of them, and I became in charge of the capital.

What's happening now is I'm getting everything back.

So I already had the familiarity with two-thirds of what they gave me, which I think is why I made the best candidate.

Because I ran that stuff for about six years.

So I was familiar with the people, I was familiar with the operations.

So I'm not trying to speak to what Kionis had in his head, but it basically just unified everything that had to do with the roads.

I was the right person at the right time to help lead that and implement their vision.

And what I've only been in the position for two weeks now.

But what's happening is I'm starting to consolidate things.

Communication between departments will get better.

I am the unofficial snow czar.

So not only road maintenance mobilizes when it snows for roads, signs and lines mobilizes for the sidewalks around town that are the city's responsibility.

Parking mobilizes whenever we have declared emergencies, which unfortunately we did about a month ago with that massive storm.

And when that happens, there's a lot of parking enforcement for the emergency snow routes and such, and they help us clean that up so we can pave and clean as best as possible.

So that's what's happening.

That's how everything became one big umbrella.

Next slide slide, please, Luke.

This is a very simple org chart to show what it used to be.

Is this one slide?

This is the new one, right?

Luke Transport Director of Transportation.

So I went from the road maintenance manager to now the director of transportation, which now the new title of the department is the transportation department, which includes road maintenance as one department, transportation planning as another, traffic maintenance as another.

Road maintenance has their own manager.

So I was replaced with another gentleman that's been there many many years and knows exactly what he's doing.

Luke has become the senior transportation planner for transportation and planning department.

That's basically all the capital work that we do around the city.

And then traffic maintenance has a new manager who uh was already the head of the signals that does all the street signals throughout the city, who is now also in charge of the signs and lines group.

So that is how it has been consolidated under one umbrella.

Next, please.

I had the leaf pickup program.

Stormwater, I don't know if any of you guys ever heard of Tyler Theater.

He is our stormwater guru, which basically he implements a massive permit from the state.

It's called the MS4, and it has all kinds of rules and regulations that we have to follow every five years, or whenever they issue a new permit.

He has his own little special group of nine operators that go around cleaning basins, maintaining the basins, and anything to do with stormwater throughout the city.

So under this org chart is about 45 to 50 people, and then combining everything into one is a little over 80, I believe, just to give you an idea of the manpower.

Next, please look.

This is the Bureau Chief Old Organizational Chart.

Uh, the Bureau Chief of Transportation Traffic and Parking no longer exist.

The new position is my position that encompasses road maintenance, which is called the director of transportation.

Under the Bureau Chief was the parking fund, traffic maintenance, which you see the breakdown of the operations foreman crew chief.

That's signs and lines.

That's the name of the department.

Signs meaning stop signs, one-way signs, street name signs, any any kind of sign on the street that's issued by the city.

And you think, well, why do you need to maintain them?

They're constantly getting hit, or rules change, or sometimes people like to steal the name of their street and they disappear.

So there's constant maintenance throughout the city.

They also do some striping.

So every spring summer, they'll go out, usually at four in the morning, and they'll redo the crosswalks or stop bars or typical simple lines on the streets.

And then the all the way to the right, transportation and planning.

That's Luke's group.

They do all these major capital projects.

The one that's probably the most glaring right now is on Bedford and Forest.

I'm sure most people have seen the construction right there, which is gonna be a massive improvement for that area.

Not only for cars, but especially for pedestrians.

They include traffic engineers and junior traffic, it's all the engineering group.

So that's the old chart.

Next, please.

Go into each department and what they do specifically.

And if you guys have any questions while I'm talking, feel free to stop and ask, especially if you have one for each department.

So road maintenance is exactly what it sounds like.

It is the maintenance of the roads.

It's not capital improvement.

Maintenance just means fixing up or making safe what already exists.

We don't have any masons, so you'll hear a lot of times people say, My sidewalk is unsafe.

Can you come fix it?

And they'll have a concrete sidewalk and we'll show up with asphalt, make it flat and safe enough to walk again, and then they get upset because now you have asphalt on concrete.

We only have the ability to do asphalt.

If we do concrete work, we have to hire contractors.

Sometimes we do that if it's bad enough, but typically it's going to be always asphalt.

Uh snow clearance, any kind of weather event, not just snow, it could be.

I was here for Sandy when the winds came and the storms, you could have flooding, trees down.

You know, usually they don't think of these guys as first responders.

That's typically fire, police, EMS.

We are usually out there before anybody else.

Fire police and EMS have to react to bad situations.

We're actually out there before the storm trying to be proactive.

Uh, for example, if it's gonna snow at 10 p.m.

tonight, we would be out there at 8 p.m.

and try to salt the whole city so that when it does start to snow, it's not really slippery in the beginning.

About 10 years ago, we would just react and wait for it to snow, but then it'd take us two, three hours to salt everything.

In the meantime, people are still driving around on slippery roads.

So we've learned to be more proactive.

You're not using any more resources, it's the same amount of salt, but if that salt is down first, it prevents it being slippery, it prevents the snow from bonding with the asphalt, making it much harder to plow off later.

We've become pretty efficient.

I'm sure most of you guys have noticed that our our snow response tends to be a little better than other towns, not to pat myself in the back a little.

Tom, we have a question.

Uh, representative weathers.

Go ahead.

Yes, ma'am.

Well, good evening.

I was going to ask why don't we have the masonry?

Is it because concrete is more expensive?

Years ago, I was gonna have it's it's a specialized position.

So you need a person who's actually a trained mason.

That would be a different union position.

You'd have to have a special truck with all the right specialty equipment.

We're just not equipped to do it, it's a specialty skill.

So it just I think the department had masons maybe 20 years ago, way before my time.

And I think it's just more efficient to use a contractor as needed.

Typically, we don't need them versus having a full-time employee on the books all the time with specialty equipment.

It just hasn't been there for years.

And honestly, I don't I don't think we really need one at the time.

If a sidewalk area is that bad that we have to patch it all the time, that's where Luke's department would jump in and create a capital project to just fix it long term instead of throwing band-aids at it all the time.

Um we have uh just before we go on to the next question.

I just wanted to recognize uh some other uh committee members that have joined um on the call.

Uh representative Gilbride um has joined, and we also have representatives uh price um who has joined, and representative uh Walston and Representative Wallston has a question, so go ahead.

You're mute there.

Okay, hi go ahead.

Um I would just like to say thank you to Mr.

The is it Theodore?

I think he's the one that was uh very instrumental in us getting the street cleaning on the west side.

And I was just wondering do we have to keep requesting to get street cleaning, or is it you know, is it like forever on the schedule?

If the only time it's on a schedule is if there's actually signs, the physical street signs posted stating the monthly, you know, every other Tuesday kind of thing once a month.

Otherwise, you would have to request it.

That's typically on roads that have heavily parked areas.

If it doesn't have a lot of parked cars, we we're sweeping anyway as much as we can throughout the year, but for heavily parked areas, you tend to have to request it because then we have to do what's called posting and towing where we put up temporary no parking signs, which people will get tickets and sometimes towed when we do that, so we try not to do it too often, and then we can we not only try to sweep, but we also try to clean and catch basins and do any other maintenance while the streets are available.

Okay, and another question.

Although we just had this big snowstorm, and like uh we have like some main roads on the mess on the west side that are heavily trafficked.

So I was just wondering, do we have to keep putting a ticket in?

And I'm like, I'm sure some of the city of Stanford employees they they hit the potholes and stuff and they see it, but do we have to keep putting a ticket in?

Like for like main like West Avenue, it's a main road, people use coming from the ridges, you know.

Maybe for pawhole repair, yeah.

I would the more the better, but just so you guys understand, we haven't been doing any pawholes since probably early January.

We have our 14th storm lined up for this weekend, and the storm doesn't end the next day for us.

Right.

I can't I can do a whole educational okay.

So Mr.

Tar, you're the new Frank Batisse.

Did we lose Tom?

It'll be from the test.

Yeah, he's he's still logged in.

Yeah, I'll text him right now.

Oh, there he goes.

He's back on.

I he's muted.

Oh, I don't know what just happened there.

Everything just glitched out.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, I can hear you.

Oh, I don't know what that was.

That's all right.

Welcome back.

So, Mr.

Tarkins.

Uh-huh.

Just a quick summary.

Let's say it snows tonight into tomorrow morning.

Once the snow stops, it takes us 12 more hours just to finish cleaning up the city.

Then the next day we got to clean up all the trucks and prep them again, and then make sure everything's ready for the next storm.

And this season it's been like every three days.

So we really haven't had a chance to go out and do anything else but clean up the snow and then clean up the machines and prep for the next snow.

It's it's been a ridiculous season, as you've all noticed.

We were just out Sunday into Monday, which probably a lot of people didn't know because it was such a light snow, but if we didn't do it, people will be sliding all over the place.

So yes, they should keep putting it in because the more we see, the more important we'll know, versus one just buried in the pile of potholes.

So it's not a lack of caring, we just haven't had a chance to do it yet.

Okay, so you're the you're the new Frank Petis.

I would hope the new and improved Frank Petis.

Yes.

Okay, okay.

Because I I established a really really good relationship with him.

So I'll establish one with you and already have a good one with Luke.

And while I have you guys on the call, could someone please put a note in for uh Corbal Corbal Terrace and Burr Street.

We need the birth street sign put up.

It's been knocked down and it's like sitting on top of this now.

I'll have it fixed uh tomorrow if it's available.

Okay, I yield and thank you so much.

And good to meet you, Mr.

Tart.

Yes, ma'am, thank you.

Mm-hmm.

All right, no more questions at the time.

Uh if you guys want me to move on to the next slide, pretty much everything they show is on there.

The one thing I would state for everybody so they understand this specific department.

So leaf pickup starts every year on or about uh November 12th.

You know, I say about in case the the Veterans Day lands on like a Friday or something, it's always right after Veterans Day, which is always November 11th.

When that happens, the entire department is dedicated to leaf pickup to the point where we have to hire 30 or 40 seasonals to help us.

And what that means is all other operational items, such as potholes or brush cutting or curbing, is on hold until after the program.

If there's a major safety issue, then we'll we'll make it happen somehow, like a pothole that's blowing tires.

But pretty much every day, 12 hours a day, Monday through Friday, for about a month and a half, two months, that's all we do.

So just keep in mind if you put in a request November 10th, and by January it didn't happen, it's not because of lack of caring or ignoring, it's just we're full force in leaf pickup.

And then again, if it's like this winter and it's just snow every three days, we're just not able to get to it.

It could be six months sometimes, depending on the weather.

So I just want everybody to understand how that operation works.

And there's a lot of road paving going on at the same time at that time of year, isn't there?

So road, the actual paving is between April and November.

You don't you can't really do it when it's too cold and you don't want to stripe new stripes when it's too cold.

So the physical paving April to October.

Okay, but we are working on it because you'll see crews out there in the colder months prepping the roads for paving.

And by that I mean they'll they're replacing bad piping in the ground or new catch basins or whatever we need to prep the road.

So it is a year-round process, but the actual paving you typically you're only gonna see in the spring and early fall.

Thank you.

All right, next slide there, Luke.

Traffic maintenance.

This is signals, street lights, the signs, the roadway painting.

These guys also respond to storms, and what I mentioned earlier, it's for sidewalks.

They don't do roads.

And why do we need them to do sidewalks?

The Springdale uh train station.

That's a city property.

City's responsible for keep taking care of the sidewalk in the snow, just like any other property owner.

And we have various properties, mainly around downtown and a few train stations that are only city responsibility.

We can't say some other tenant has to keep the sidewalk clear of snow.

So they respond just like the road maintenance does.

And then for flooding, when we need barricades to block off roads so people aren't driving into a flood, they're the ones with all the barricades and they'll put those out and keep people safe.

If a street light goes down and we need temporary stop signs, they'll throw those up.

Uh the signal guys are constantly on standby in case a signal light goes down for any number of reasons.

It could be a uh surge in electricity, somebody could hit the pole, any number of reasons, they're always at the ready.

And then special events when you know, it used to be for uh the summer stuff, the live at five, all those barricades that would go up, any kind of parades, uh, all kinds of special events that get involved with that too for the future.

We have two more questions, two more questions, if we could, Tom.

Um Vice Chair Stone, go ahead.

Do the does the removal of Christmas trees fall under the auspices of your department as part of debris removal, or is that some other part of operations?

Yes, it is under road maintenance.

Typically, that's like mid-January to early February that we make some kind of window that we tell this to the residents to please put their trees out.

It's a lot more difficult than leaf pickup, as crazy as that sounds, because everybody puts them out at a different time.

It's not like Leaves where everybody knows to be ready at a specific time.

So basically, what we do is we just take our maps and drive that area constantly.

Again, if you see a tree that's lingering too long, just put in a request.

I was gonna say, like today, I was out and saw some out on the street.

So I didn't know if you were done with it for the season, and I should just put in an elsewhere.

You could always so we've picked one up in July.

If you see one and it's not going away, just put in a request.

Well, we always keep an eye on the fix it system.

We literally print those out and hand them to the guys so they know exactly what to do.

It's the best way to get our attention.

We'll do.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Representative Gilbride.

Uh, do we just look oh representative Gilbride?

You're muted.

Sorry about that.

Um thank you, and congratulations, Tom.

Um, even somebody I've called, but now everybody's gonna know to call you.

So thank you, and thank you and sorry all at the same time.

Um, but regarding uh snow clearance, um, two things.

I noticed um sadly, people walking in the street on high ridge.

Um, because people have not cleared their walkways, um, and that concerns me a ton.

Uh, I saw a 10-year-old kid walking down High Ridge Road um on the edge.

And then um with that intersections is another concern.

I'm noticing a lot of snow pile up on intersections, or not intersections as much as they crosswalks.

Um, how is that even possible?

How are you guys tackling that?

Because that's I know that's tough, and I know you've got enough on your plate.

Um, but those things are a little dangerous, as you already know.

So first of all, this has been unusual for us to even deal with.

We've had pretty light winters for years, and we haven't really had snow banks build up anywhere that actually even lasted.

But this winter has been unique with the 18 inches in one storm, and then the subarctic weather for over a month now where nothing melts.

So the ordinances say if you are adjacent to that property, you're supposed to clean the sidewalk.

And the reason for that is Signs Alliance has six, seven guys, road maintenance has 40.

Not enough people in in the city to clean everything.

It's just not you got hundreds of miles of sidewalk.

That being said, when things aren't getting done, especially this season, they've been ramping it up.

There are enforcement officers, citation officers that have been going out posting people and letting them know, hey, you need to take care of this.

The typical response is I did it once and then the plow pushed it back.

You still need to help us out.

Worst case scenario, if we got to get involved, we'd try to get involved, but we don't want to make that a habit.

There's just too much everywhere.

So we're trying to train people, you know, it's part of a community thing.

It's help us out.

It doesn't have to be full width, you know, all five feet wide, just one pass down the middle with a snowblower.

It's typically good enough just to let people walk.

Uh so we're trying, we're doing enforcement.

We've done some physical removal, a lot of it's education.

We're working on it.

Are the corners the responsibility of the residents?

Anything that abuts it, yes.

The crosswalks and the pet ramps leading to them for some reason as a gray area.

We've been discussing of specifically putting that in the ordinance, because it's kind of silly, especially if you have a business to clear your sidewalk and then leave the crosswalk blocks and nobody can get to you.

So especially with this season, we're we're learning and we're trying to figure out how to prevent it from happening in future seasons.

And are you open to volunteer groups uh kind of helping out?

Because I know in past years, people friendly Stanford has offered to um, you know, shovel people in need on their own accord.

Um, you know, clearly I know there's insurance and you know, risk involved with that, but is that something we can consider is just kind of everybody shovels on the right away when they're doing a sidewalk.

You don't need permission to help somebody.

I mean, if they just want to go do it, they can go do it.

I think they would only need us involved if they needed help removing the snow, which you guys may have noticed.

We've done a lot of that downtown, mainly because it's the highest pedestrian population and for the parking because whether the space is full of snow or not, people are gonna park there and make it unsafe.

There's only so much we can remove at any one time.

We've already filled up West Beach.

If you guys ever have time, you can swing by and see the amount of snow that we have removed, which is bigger than houses.

It's crazy.

Yeah, it all came from my block.

And we barely barely scratched the surface of the city, too.

So it's been a tough season, but we're trying to learn from it and trying to make things better in the future.

And will down to wires um be in this conversation?

That's the fire department.

We don't touch wires for safety reasons.

Uh, even if we know it might be a cable line and low voltage, but the the we even us, we just call the fire department.

They'll get the response out of the utilities much faster than pretty much any other entity in the city, anyway.

So if you ever see that, just call the regular dispatch and and report it for the fire department.

Okay, I've got a ticket open since August that I've sent a second ticket about.

So is that fix it?

Yep.

No, I would call the fire department directly.

I wouldn't okay.

They might get lost in the fixed system because they should react the same day.

Yeah, no, it's in um I now have it photographed in all the seasons.

Yeah.

All right.

Um thank you, Tom.

Yes, ma'am.

Um, I'd like to uh uh recognize the director Cunionas is on the call, and we do have a question from Vice Chair Stone.

Um, we can go to Vice Chair Stone, I think, first.

Another just quick question of is it fire department or yours?

What about uh cleaning out fire by uh fire extinguishers?

Fire hydrants, rather.

Those guys have a lot of muscle and a lot of time, so it's actually on them.

And you might have I've seen them around town.

And and again, if you see that, just call dispatch and uh let you let them know your concern because there are thousands of those as well.

But the fire department goes around and clears those on the on their own.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, we can move on.

I don't know if Director Kionis wants to go back to the beginning and and put in his two cents, maybe fill in some blanks I might have left out.

Yeah, happy to sorry for um joining at this time.

I had this um mark at 7 p.m.

for start time, so that's my fault.

Um so apologies to the committee, but um happy uh to go back to that, or if you guys are already moving, um, you know, feel free to just continue with your your conversation.

Uh how would you guys like to proceed?

Should I just finish uh there's like three more slides left?

Should I just finish and then we can ask questions if you need to?

I think we can continue continue on with the presentation and then you know, and then maybe when we're done with the presentation, you can go back to the uh orb the the new org chart that you presented.

And okay, next slide, please, Luke.

Transportation planning.

So this is this is the group that does a lot of grants.

They submit a lot of requests for grants to the state, sometimes federally.

They these guys are really good at getting a lot of money for Stanford that sometimes we got to match a little, like 80%, and we match 20%.

But they they've been able to get a lot of work done on uh uh with state and federal funds.

So they'll do the planning, they do design, they'll get the construction started, uh land use coordination.

So it's not just about putting back what's already there.

We try to make improvements again for pedestrians, for bicyclists, for the cars, uh paving sidewalks.

So all that's paving sidewalks, utility coordination that used to be under me under road maintenance that is now transitioning to fully to the transportation planning department.

That's what these guys do anyway.

And then the manager for road maintenance is just gonna focus on their stuff.

So hopefully the fixed stuff gets better, we'll get more efficient, get more done because we're not pulling resources to worry about paving.

That'll be all under transportation and planning.

So any new stuff you see around town, that's transportation and planning for roads and corners and sidewalks, and even on new buildings that like a new apartment building goes up, it has to go through this group as well, and they're always trying to get sidewalk improvements or signal improvements, whatever they can out of the development to benefit the city and everything around it.

Any questions?

Nope.

I think we're good.

Is there more slides, Luke?

Parking.

Okay.

Parking Stanford has a few garages, Lower Summer, Bell Street, Bedford Annex, Bedford Garage, which you can't really see much right now with all the messy construction along Broad Street, right at Gay Street, which was the entrance, the southern entrance to the parking area.

That's all gonna get built up over the next 18 months or so.

There still will be an entrance off abroad.

It's just gonna look very different when that's done.

And that's a private development, so that's not really the city.

Uh on street parking enforcement, all the meters, all the tickets, all the booting.

Booting is for when people have three or more outstanding tickets that they never paid.

We used to just tow everybody.

That's a little extreme.

Booting is a lot more efficient.

So what'll happen if you have three or more tickets and the license plate reader or the ticket officer runs your plate and it pops up, they'll throw a boot on your car.

And when you find it, you gotta call a number, pay off the tickets, and then it'll give you a code to release the boot, and you're still on the hook to bring the boot back to the government center.

And if you choose not to, then they're just gonna charge you the cost of the boot.

So they kind of got you.

But it's a lot better than having your car towed and just showing up to an empty parking space and not knowing the hell's going on.

And then you call the police and you got towed.

So the this was implemented, I don't know, five, six years ago after I wasn't in charge anymore.

I think it's much more efficient.

Abandoned vehicles, I believe it's a 120 hour rule.

If you see a car not moving on your block and it's starting to collect dust and flat tires, put it in the fix it system, and then they'll red tag it, give it a little more time, and then they'll pull it out of there.

You can't just park your car forever on the street.

Snow emergencies, like I mentioned earlier.

Whenever we need them, they actually get involved involved in leaf pickups sometimes if we need traffic calming.

Some of these roads get a little crazy with that operation.

And then for the snow emergencies, some people leave on a snow emergency route, which means once the mayor declares an emergency, you gotta get your car off.

We try not to tow these guys that go out and put flyers on the windshields, they'll honk horns, they'll knock on doors, they'll give everybody an opportunity to move their car.

If it doesn't get moved, then it gets towed so we can clean as best as possible, especially in these large storms.

And then parking permits, they have those for the garages and various places.

So anything to do with meters and parking is all under that one umbrella.

We have a question from Representative Walston, and uh I know you also had a question in the uh group chat.

I don't know if that's the same question, but you can go ahead and ask both questions.

Uh, the first question that I have put in the group chat was about like um we have people with bad backs and the elderly.

If they're not able to shovel, uh could they call and ask for help?

Can they call the city?

Can we, you know, call 911 and ask, you know, I need some help to make it safe for everybody in the neighborhood.

So right now, unless Keonis has knows something I don't, we don't have specific come help me stuff.

That could be a thousand people.

There's a hundred and twenty thousand people in the city.

Again, we have limited resources.

I mean, if we have to, we could probably do something, but I have a story where our dispatcher, a lovely lady, got a call, said, Oh, my grandma's old, she can't shovel on her break from overnight.

She went out there to shovel, and as she's shoveling, a 20-year-old came out of the house to go to yoga.

So this that's a slippery slope.

Do we want to help?

Yes.

Is there a lot of people out there?

Yes, there are.

I think maybe the city could lead them to resources that can help them, but just having a you know, call us and we'll come do it thing.

I don't that's not how it works right now.

And I would hope neighbors would know who the elderly are and would help them.

I mean, if you can do in front of your sidewalk another 40 feet for your neighbor isn't a big deal, especially with a noblower, uh snowblower.

So I would start with your neighbors and then reach out to the city if you have to, and we'll try to find the resources, whether it's us or somebody else.

But that's a slippery slope.

Okay.

And my second question is I live on the West Side District 9, and uh we have the parking isn't that great over here anymore because we have like I'm gonna just give you an example on Delaware Avenue.

I don't understand how I thought we had an outside company who will go through at night who would issue tickets out of state plates.

They've been parking there for well over a year or more on our city street, and uh, you know, they were doing some other stuff, but they curtail themselves from doing, you know, I guess they received notice.

But I don't understand how out of state cars are constantly parking on the street overnight.

That's one.

Two, please help me understand how is it that in my neighborhood, people who don't live here, they'll come in the morning time with their with their regular car and pick up their work vehicle off Connecticut Avenue, drive off, time to come home, they'll park that work vehicle and go on.

So the residents of Connecticut Avenue, they don't have any place to park.

It's so many work truck here.

They parked every night.

I don't see any enforcement.

And I can't understand.

I thought that you know, we had outside people who are coming overnight ticketing.

Uh, I don't think you can get a ticket just for having an out-of-state plate.

That's more of a registration DMV thing.

I know if you live here and you have an out of state plate and you have like 30 days to change it, but I don't know if we have any enforcement on that.

Um if they're constantly moving their car, like I said, there's a parking rule about 120 hours that you gotta move your car.

But if they're just moving their cars on a public street, maybe Luke knows a little more about that than I do with the rules, but I'm not sure there's much we can do about it.

Yeah, so um the tax collector's department, they do actually have a company um on a contract that goes out and checks for vehicles that have a um, you know, if you're like if it's parked in your driveway every single night, uh, more than 30 days and have a register, then that's actually a tax violation.

You aren't supposed to register your vehicle um with your local municipality um within 30 days of moving here.

But at the end of the day, it's a public street.

I always tell people you can drive from California across the country, park right in front of your house and park there for five days continuously, and they did nothing wrong.

Um, it's a public street, people are allowed to park um, you know, in front of your house.

You don't necessarily own that space.

Um and then in relation to the commercial vehicles, if they are parking, you know, commercial vehicles in a private property or running a business out of a private property, that would be a zoning enforcement matter.

Um, if they are parking larger pickup trucks, dump body trucks, um, vehicles of that nature on a city street overnight, that would be a parking violation.

However, if it's uh, you know, a painter's van or a pickup truck, something like that, you are allowed to park that on the street overnight.

Um that wouldn't be considered a commercial vehicle violation.

So have you seen the numbers go up uh with the violations of these um these work trucks being parked on residential streets?

Um we do tend to um have sometimes um like early morning or late night patrols, right?

So we may come in uh have a ship coming at 4 a.m.

with parking enforcement before the trucks leave for work um to see if they're continu um considered uh commercial vehicles, but again, you know, we're still working class city.

Uh we're not gonna violate someone for parking a pickup truck or a van on the street.

Um, but those larger commercial vehicles could be more of a zoning violation than anything.

What um you're saying commercial van?

I'm like I'm talking about their the company name is on the truck.

And I thought if you're running a business, you're you're having your truck advertising your business.

I thought they're supposed to lock their trucks up on the, you know, it's not supposed to be parked on the residential street overnight with their company name and all of that.

That's more of a zoning violation if you're running a business out of your house.

If it's just an F 150 pickup truck, it could say, you know, Luke's painter is on the side of it.

That's not a parking violation, but it could be a zoning violation, depending on the zone.

No, it's not that they're running.

The workers are taking the truck home and they're parking their their company vehicle on our residential street.

And I thought if it's a company vehicle that's advertising and all, aren't they supposed to be locked up with the company and not on our residential street?

So there's two types of violations here.

There's the parking violation and the zoning violation.

A parking violation is about the vehicle, and usually really it's two things, right?

It's the size of the vehicle and the type of plate it has.

So if it's, you know, let's say I run a painting business out of my house, and it's Luke's painting pickup truck is parked out on the street.

That's not a parking violation.

If it's Luke's dump truck that's parked out on the street overnight, that's going to be a parking violation.

However, Luke running a business like a paint um business out of my own house and parking um, you know, vehicles in my house and things like that, that could be a zoning violation.

So it's not necessarily a parking violation, depending on the size of the vehicle and the type of plate it has, but it could be a zoning violation if you're running a vehicle out of it.

So that would be something for like the zoning office and um Monica Sims to look at, but might not be a parking violation.

The parking violation is based off the size of the vehicle parking on the street.

If if I could make a suggestion here, I think this is actually um very productive conversation to have.

I don't know whether tonight uh as we're getting an overview is the place to do it, but um I representative Wallston, I'd be happy to talk with you about this offline and maybe we can talk about um a future agenda item, or maybe we need to look at the ordinances or um the policies and rules.

But I I want to I want to stay focused on the presentation here, if that's okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um representative weather.

Chair Words, I'm happy to offer Representative Walson.

We'll we'll speak with parking enforcement and see if we can at least get out there so we can determine exactly what's going on at Conav and any other streets if you want to shoot me a note.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Canonius.

Um Representative Weathers, you had your hand up for a while.

Go ahead.

You're muted.

Thank you.

Who would you speak to in reference to a parking meeting?

I see parking meters are here.

If you think that a parking meter is causing traffic, and you think that parking meter should be removed.

Uh you can start with me.

Send me an email and I'll analyze it with my the parking guys.

If it's causing traffic.

Okay.

Because when you're on East Main, kind of like um by like where the where the wall greens and all that is.

It's it's an active lane.

First, there's lanes and the traffic is moving.

And then here comes parking meters and there's vehicles there.

Like when you're going like towards the Dollar Tree, that direction.

Yeah, that's a it's a weird situation.

That's a state road, though.

Luke, do we have any authority to change that?

Yeah.

So uh on-street parking on um state roads is something that the municipality has control over.

Um that was installed a little bit before my time, but my understanding is that it's helpful and essential to the local small businesses on the street over there.

So that is it's technically um peak off-peak parking, right?

So you're not supposed to park in the direction um on the street of you know, like during the rush hour period, basically, but you are allowed to park there during the off-peak hours.

Um, it's mainly helped the local businesses over there.

So that is something we have to try to balance, right?

It's supporting local small businesses and access for those small businesses as well as keeping traffic flowing over there.

Um, so you know, it's something that's been around for a little bit.

We're but we're happy to take another look at it as well.

Yeah, I think that should be taken another look at because I understand helping the small businesses, but at the end of the day, that flow of that traffic, you think you're in an active lane, and all of a sudden we're all merging, it's not a good thing.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh I don't see any other hands.

We can go ahead and continue.

Okay, I think that's the gist of parking.

Is uh we got any more slides there, Luke?

That's it.

So that's pretty much it.

If you want to go back to the org chart, uh so like I said earlier, the overall mission was just to consolidate disciplines and make things more efficient.

But I'll let uh director Kionas put his uh two cents on everything.

I think I think there's a couple things too.

If I could if I could just suggest on the the next slide was the org chart.

Um you you have the the roles but not the names of the individuals that are in those those roles.

And I don't I also think it would be good to have a little bit of a talk about the fix it system and and how that uh you know, I think maybe understanding how that works and how important that is.

Sure, yeah, happy to speak to that first and then go through a little bit of the justification in the org chart and and some of the the names associated with the roles.

Uh so fix it serves as um uh opportunity for residents and anyone who identifies issues uh within the city uh to be able to submit essentially a work ticket.

Um those are uh organized through a citizen service department um who reviews the tickets as they're submitted, uh, ensuring that kind of the description of whatever issue or problem uh aligns with the um intended department um for for solving such issue um potholes to road maintenance uh as one example.

So that can be accessed online.

It can also be accessed through a phone number as well.

And we do monitor the traffic flow of the fix it system and do our best to respond in a timely manner.

It's been an ongoing effort to kind of improve on our just overall service to residents and in response to that.

And we've made some progress there and still have some areas to improve.

Some of it comes down to availability of resources and certain issues that we do better than others.

Sometimes we are in receipt of what we would describe as more of seasonal type of complaints, leaf pickup season.

We certainly get a lot of traffic related to that program during snow activity.

We get a lot of traffic related to those events.

So year-round, you see a lot related to road maintenance, missed garbage or recycling pickup, things of that nature.

The system works, I think, from a standpoint of addressing kind of those one-off issues pretty well.

Some of the longer standing items that require more of a resource allocation and planning.

I don't think the system is necessarily designed to be as effective and engaging with residents.

So sidewalks is a good example.

I think it could be a cause of frustration.

We have a limited sidewalk budget and identify that there are areas that need to be addressed.

And sometimes it's just a matter of a resource allocation.

We have made, I think, significant strides in improving our response to zoning enforcement and street lights or two that jump out where we really should be at a place now where we're responding in live time.

Over the last few years, we had a significant amount of backlog that needed to be worked through and feel as though those are two examples of some places where we've caught up.

But definitely something that we uh continuously work on.

We have a monthly um synchronization meeting to review items or trends or uh any anything that um we're noticing within the system.

Um, and that is uh a meeting that's attended by uh pretty much all functions that um respond to to fix it inquiries.

So that's just a very high-level overview of fix it and how we use it and kind of the current state of how we're um seeking to improve and progress for that system.

Um speaking to the slide in front of you.

I think Thomas had mentioned that the consolidation of the transportation department really came out of uh opportunity for us to consolidate and create some efficiencies as it relates to how we're uh addressing conditions on our roads.

Um so you can see really three aspects of um our transportation department reflected here.

So for them to be kind of consolidated and under the purview of one uh leader, I think allows for better alignment.

So if you just think in the most simplest of terms, when we're going to plan future um roadway improvements, having the perspective of how we're going to maintain that from a traffic perspective as it relates to signals, street lights, um, signs and lines is an important perspective to have aligned in addition to how we're going to uh also uh provide the maintenance that our our highways team are often referred to as road maintenance team uh is tasked with.

Um so as those influence planning, I believe we will make better decisions and uh designs for our kind of complete streets approach and having kind of that alignment under one leader will allow for kind of those to be timely decisions that will allow us to move forward.

So seeing the comment here, what I think we can certainly do following uh this meeting is tomorrow.

I can send an email just specifically with everyone's name, uh contact information, uh phone and email.

So representatives have that uh within their inbox.

Previously, we had uh a bureau chief of uh uh overseeing kind of our transportation planning and traffic maintenance, and then we had a supervisor of our highways division, and those were kind of two separate senior leadership positions.

We had a vacancy within the bureau chief um role and is custom with any uh vacancy that we experience.

We take the time to kind of review that position and see if it's responsibilities and structure is still relevant to the organization at the time.

Um so in going through that exercise, uh, we identified this opportunity to establish the transportation department for the reasons I've outlined.

Uh, and in doing so, promoted uh Thomas Turk from our road maintenance supervisor uh position uh to this newly formed director of transportation.

Uh replacing uh many of his responsibilities was Doug Hoyt, who became our road maintenance manager.

Um Doug is a longstanding uh city uh employee who's been with the department for multiple decades, um, brings uh a whole wealth of experience to the role.

Um he in overseeing that department is not assuming all of the responsibilities that Thomas previously had.

So some of those tasks um and responsibilities continue with Thomas and his role as director, and what remains is the kind of scope of Mr.

Hoyt's uh manager role.

Transportation planning.

Um we were in a position to promote uh Luke, who you see here this evening.

Um, so he's serving as our senior transportation planner, overseeing a team of uh junior transportation planners um in kind of all of the the planning functions that we've discussed this evening.

Uh, and then we consolidated the uh traffic maintenance role that is primarily around street lights and signal um and consolidated that with the signs and lines team and and promoted uh Steve Fritz um who was a supervisor there.

Um this will be further outlined when we come before fiscal for our budget presentations.

Um this was a uh kind of cost neutral uh consolidation with some savings that uh have been achieved year over year when comparing the previous structure to this one.

Um so it's not one where we're increasing the budget to restructure um, but one that was really driven by kind of how we've described the elimination of these siloed departments under kind of one team.

So um I don't want to repeat too much of what uh I may have missed when when Thomas presented this, but that is a little bit of the justification and some of the names of the folks associated with those roles.

Um but uh as I mentioned before, uh follow-up um email uh will be sent tomorrow where you can have those names uh in writing and their contact information um should you have any follow-up questions or issues uh down the road that you want to speak with uh though those managers about.

Great, thank you.

That'd be very helpful.

Does anyone have any questions for Director Canyonis or uh Tom or Luke?

Representative Short, go ahead.

How's your salt supply holding up?

Oh, that's been a fun adventure this year.

I actually just spoke to Morton Salt today to try to get more answers out of them.

Luckily for us, we're unusual to the towns around us.

We have three salt domes, one north, one middle, one south.

And what we do at the end of every season is max them out so they're at full capacity, which is 4,000 south, 4,000 tons in the middle, 5,000 tons up north, 13,000 tons in total, which is a lot.

Thankfully, because of our practice like that.

When what I found out, it's not a salt shortage.

They told me their barges got locked in ice, and it was a moving the salt problem.

Luckily, that has started to free up, and uh we should start getting more salt this week.

Fingers crossed.

But we had enough to deal with everything that's been thrown on us right now.

We're a little low, but we have enough.

There's a storm coming this weekend, even if we don't get deliveries, we'll be all right.

But they owe us 4,000 tons that I've already ordered since December and January.

And uh we're low, but we should be fine.

And I'll just kind of pick piggybacking on that, uh, representative.

I think I'll just take the opportunity to make a plug for the the budget season coming up.

It usually is a question we answer each budget season is kind of where your your salt levels are um as uh representatives and the board of finance look for ways to to kind of reduce uh expenses.

Uh it is critical that we maintain kind of our our budget line there for these exact type seasons, um, so that we have the ability to order salt kind of out of season, get the best price possible and kind of start the year with with full domes, not knowing what kind of um season to expect.

So just put that plug out there because you might hear that debate coming up uh during budget season.

I could tell you right now, if we were not full at the beginning of the season, we'd be in trouble.

We'd be in big trouble.

But because we were at full capacity, like we try to be every year, it just kept us safe and and able to deal with the snow like everybody expects us to uh representative short, go ahead.

In a less snowy season, if you're left with a surplus, how does that carry over from a budget perspective?

That would typically feed uh uh overall um general operating surplus.

So uh for the last couple of years, there's been some fluctuation, but I think as a city we've been fortunate to uh produce about a 10 million dollar surplus.

So any other general operating fund that is uh uh ending the year um in the surplus kind of contributes to that big number um that then is presented to the boards uh for an allocation.

So uh that could be something contributing to a rainy day fund um, or it could be reallocated to a capital expense or some other fund, but it's it kind of gets rolled up in that big number.

Thanks, gentlemen.

The good news is too, even with the light winters.

If we don't use the salt, it doesn't go bad.

So better to have it and not need it.

That's good to know.

I do have a question uh myself.

Um speaking from constituent services, um you have just the transportation committee here, but is there anything that that the representative board could do um and with our constituency hats?

Is there anything that we should be doing or could do differently to help um to help you and your work?

I think general general go ahead, Thomas.

I'll go after you.

My first thoughts uh use fix it.

You want to document whatever problem you have so that it's in the system, and also keep in mind to educate them come November to like this season, November to April, we can't get much done.

So I just educate them so they're not annoyed and think that we're ignoring them when we're we're just trying to keep them safe, to be honest.

So use the fix it system.

We don't we use it every day, and then just let them know how things work.

November to April, we're we're just in the middle of stuff.

That way they don't have that massive frustration, which I would be too.

If I put it in October and come February, I don't hear anything.

You know, you get frustrated.

But if they know how things work, that'll use our mind and and people can have better expectations.

Got it.

All right, that's great.

Yeah, and I'll just add to that.

Um, that I think we will uh now that we have this team kind of established, as you've seen tonight in terms of this reorganization.

I think we will be working uh with this committee with a few proposed ordinance changes.

Um, so I I would imagine that you know we'll be looking to engage you all in discussion about some proposed changes for a couple of different areas.

So um just probably be working uh through the chair and and kind of coming back to you as the the months um approach here in the spring and into the summer.

We look forward to that.

Uh representative Adams, you have your hand up.

Go ahead.

Yes, I guess uh my comment is is to loop loop.

Um normally I would um put uh single light in um to fix it.

Uh in the past, I used to call Frank.

Um, the one on let low and Pacific.

That when the traffic comes down let low um it turned the light.

Um we keep having problem with that.

Um maybe you can send somebody out to you.

Sometimes it takes two and a half minutes.

Just just um put a light to change if it changed.

is to loop loop um normally i would um put the sting a light in um to fix it uh in the past i used to call frank um the one on let low and pacific are there's supposed to be a sensor that when the traffic come down let low um it turned the light um we keep having problem with that um maybe you can send somebody out to you sometimes it takes two and a half minutes just just um put a light to change if it changed a lot low terry yeah yeah yeah specifically and let low that light it normally got a sensor there especially like after 10 30 at night uh for whatever reason it stays green going down Pacific and when a cost of pool approach the air it's just supposed to turn the light but haven't been doing that lately because i'll uh i'll put that in a fix it for you all right yeah yeah i've been putting it in fix it but they haven't been doing anything okay thank you appreciate yeah it's my understanding with fix it that that should be the first generally unless it's an emergency if there's you know something has to be addressed immediately but uh fix it should be the go-to um and then escalation if necessary should follow that uh depending on on on what it is and you know i i would guess that within reason some things should be addressed same day and some things might take a week um you know depending on the priority of it but we'll we'll communicate on to the rest of the board uh those uh advice advice that you've given does anyone else have any questions um i want to thank uh director canonis and and uh thomas turk and luke buttonweiser for uh for your time tonight and your whole department and all the hard work that that that you've been doing especially the past uh the past couple months i know it's been quite uh quite crazy um we're that uh concludes our agenda items so i think we can uh we can conclude the meeting um it's just a review item so i don't believe we need a motion for for a conclusion but um i want to wish everyone uh happy uh evening thank you and just just be careful with your weekend plans because there's another large storm forecasted so not everybody pays attention to that but it's part of my job so yeah I think uh this weekend might get messy just be safe I hope you're wrong I hope I'm wrong too I don't mind being wrong yeah nice presentation thank you guys all right yes thank you for your time thank you everyone thank you thanks so much