That's funny.

Say, I'll tell you what.

I will.

Put your hand out.

I'm not paying you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you.

Oh, it says meeting.

I have a bunch of kids is not the answer in the major leader.

So we're going to have to do that.

How are you?

He wants his own market.

I don't care how much picture you can have, you can't hit the ball.

You can use it.

Good morning.

Let's start this meeting.

I'm joined by my colleague.

Hannah and and not the only one, Joe.

Aaron Ross Powell Every right.

Ever right.

Jimmy Monto.

And then here are presenters.

Ken Towski and Vinny Skippy on.

There you go.

Deep breath.

Thank you for joining us.

The purpose of this meeting today is to provide a comprehensive overview of the street light program.

We would like to review the current status of the program.

How many lights have been installed today to date?

And the plan moving forward, what does that look like?

So I'm gonna give it to you, Ken and Vinny, to walk us through this, and then we'll follow questions.

So there are no new lights to to install throughout the city.

Anything that we add will be the LED, but those will be additions versus what we did in the past.

So with that being said, um no lights need to be changed, and we have about 18,800 lights throughout the city, which covers both uh neighborhoods, the arterials, James, West Jenny, South Ave, Salina Street, uh the interstate, which is approximately 880 lights.

There'll be a lot more lights added with the 81 project as we go forward.

I don't know if you've seen a lot of the decoratives that the state is putting up, uh especially up at Bear Clinton down off of Erie Boulevard, and it also includes approximately 500 of our underpass lights.

Those are lights that go under the bridges uh that the city owns as well.

Those are uh lights that cannot be censored.

I'm working with uh various companies to possibly put sensors on them in the future, change them out as a as needed basis to go forward.

So for underpass lighting, that's one that we cannot use a smart city sensor for to determine the outage.

We base it off of city complaints on C Cleck Fix or uh call ins or whatnot.

Okay, quick question for you.

You said on the interstate.

So is the state actually helping us with those since we're doing them on the interstate?

No.

So the what the agreement is with the state when it comes to a municipality.

If the municipality wants lighting on an interstate, they will install it at their dime on their dime.

They'll put the lighting in and we have to maintain city's responsible to power them, pay for the power, and then maintain repair, replace as needed.

You know, a great example I give everybody when it comes to it is if you're going 690 west through the city.

We have our lights.

The minute you hit the city line and you enter Geddes, there are no lights on the highway.

The town of Gettys doesn't want the lights because they can't afford it.

They can't put forth the city does, so that's why you see what we do.

Uh for a full replacement, you're looking at about $2,000 for the fixture itself.

Uh the polls anywhere from three to five thousand, depending on the type of poll.

So Ken, um first of all, I want to say thank you for like being a real on point for putting lights, especially last year with the parks, and you know, you're really on it.

If I call and say a light is missing, your team gets right on it.

But in parts of the city of Syracuse, depending on where you are, right?

And I mean you would know more about it.

Some parts at nighttime are seems so dark, right?

I can go from one neighborhood and it's like, oh my gosh, and then I can go to the other neighborhood, it has more light, right?

Do we use different kinds of lighting depending, like say valley area, right?

Because it sits down versus on the hill, right?

Because it would be different.

Do we use different lighting in different neighborhoods because of how dark it is?

I think the wattage is different.

Uh that's the big thing to look at.

When we purchased these lights, uh National Grid had what I'd call a registry and the old high-pressure sodium lights, which were there, those were those big bulb lights.

Yes.

They had anywhere from a 400-watt light uh down to a hundred watt.

So during the purchase, and uh the power authority did um a study, what would that 400 watt HPS be for?

An LED light.

So it would either be 110 watt or an 80 watt, all the way down to a 35 watt light.

Um so I think the wattage might be a little different when it comes to areas based on what was existing versus what the standard is.

I don't think the standard is much different than what it was 10 years ago before we purchased it, so we're we just following suit on that.

There are some areas, uh I worked with the police department multiple times in the past couple years.

Uh Delaware Street and Richmond have our two rem uh examples where high crime and when we went, uh we went with a a different color light.

So more of a white light, uh, same wattage, but it gives a brighter feel to it.

So if you ever get a chance to drive one of those two streets at night, you'll see a definite difference on those blocks than you will other smaller blocks throughout the city.

So is there any way with that being said, if we realize and we recognize that those lights are sh brightening the neighborhood and showing it, right?

Because uh, you know, I I believe when there's more light, bright, right, it changes that whole feeling of you know safety, but also in the neighborhood, right?

You want to be able to see um is there any way that there's other neighbors in different streets that we can get lighting?

Because I when I I went riding through the city at nighttime just looking, right?

And in some of the streets, I mean it is dark, dark, right?

Like really dark.

Um, and a part of it might be because this neighbors don't have porch lights, right?

Because other neighbors have porch lights, but the street lights, like in the community, is so dark.

Um, is there any way that some of those lights could be changed too uh just to brighten up the community and brighten it up via safety?

So a couple of things I'm working with is with SPD right now throughout their move, going into uh Fayette Street, working on their parking lots.

Um we want to take that to the next level with what we've already done in the last couple years.

So they'll work with me probably late summer, early fall to come up with another area, uh more areas where we can change them out.

Um that is something that I've looked at and I noticed it myself.

It's you know, you've been doing this for five years.

It's I have a tendency just to look at lights that some areas where I think there could be a higher wattage.

Um, but I also got to be uh cognizant of vehicle traffic too.

You can't blind the vehicles.

So that's the big thing that we've got to look at.

So when we do, when I do a study, I use a certain meter to give me what the actual looms are.

It's actually the candles that call the light, the actual light output of the light on the street.

And if it's within that range, I won't touch it.

But if I know there's light traffic, I may go with a higher color uh color light, not a more wattage because you don't want, like I said, you don't want to have it too bright.

I I also do have some concerns.

I I hear the need for safety and well-lit streets.

Um, but light pollution is an issue, and street lights can also affect people's circadian rhythms if they are too bright in terms of sleep.

Um, so I just want to make sure that we are making sure that our residential neighborhoods are safe but also comfortable.

So, what we have too, we have shades.

So we don't put them on all the lights.

So when I do receive a complaint, I've received multiple complaints since I started.

We'll put shields on.

Well, they'll deflect the deflect the light from their homes and either give it a straight down uh cone shape or it'll push out more towards the street than at their house.

Thank you.

Um, like we know South Salina is gonna really switch, right?

Because of the transition.

Are we changing those lighting to are those going to be the same?

So wherever the project takes itself, whatever the states involved with, they will change the lights out.

We met with them what four or five, three, four years ago, maybe, to discuss the lighting.

So, for example, Salina Street will say up until the old Burger King was by the uh by the new high school.

Yep.

Maybe that's where 81 ends.

Okay.

From that point, we don't have any plans changing anything going forward.

Uh other areas direction right coming going further south.

Um, other areas, uh Adams Street, the whole new uh neighborhood project down there.

We met with them where we wanted that transition to be the same as what is currently there.

So if you look at um like Harrison Street has the decorative pendant style, we asked for their main thoroughfares be uh state, townson, and almond street, whatever, whatever it's gonna be at that time to meet those same standards.

Um so there are some areas that we are following through, but there are some areas that we won't.

But those are things that we can address after the fact, too.

Thank you.

And Ken, this is gonna be my last question for you.

When you talked about the poles being put up, I'm getting a lot of calls from the folks at Hop's church.

They're saying that there were four poles put up in front of their church and they weren't notified.

I got I got notified on that as well.

That was national grid.

So there's a project right across the street from the church.

They're the power lines ran on the east side of State Street.

With that new building, the fire department couldn't have the power lines there because they couldn't get their apparatus in line.

So the discussion was to move them across the street to the west side of State Street.

Um that would that had no bearing on me.

I had no say in it.

All I would do is just follow suit and put the lights on those poles as well.

So that would be a national grid.

Uh the customer, contractor, developer, that's their decision that they made.

I don't know if any of those parties reached out to the neighbors in regards to that.

From what I'm understanding, no.

I'm gonna assume no as well, based on the calls, but that's what uh was decided at that time, and that's that's something that's happening more and more frequently with uh uh especially high rises being built, anything more than three stories because you have the power lines all overhead.

Um they're putting either either relocating or putting them underground.

But are they not reaching out to you before they stick to the room?

There's there's no reason for me because I'm actually a tenant on those poles.

We rent those poles.

We don't own the wood pole itself, we only own the arm and the light.

Which brings me to my to follow on that question.

How much interaction do you go through with natural grid if you're putting up a light daily?

Daily.

So how is that relationship?

What is the efficiency of it?

It's getting better, is the best way to look at it.

Um, say if you have a light that you want to put up, yeah.

Roughly, what is the estimation of time that it takes to put it on?

Six months, six months.

Yeah, it's no different than the police cameras with their outlets.

So they've told you why it takes that long.

So there's three applications or three processes that we have to go through to add a light to their wood pole.

And I'll get into you what we're looking what I've been doing to avoid that.

But we have to apply to um a lot of these poles are joint-owned, meaning grid and verizon own the pole.

So the first process I have to go through is Verizon with an application, uh, give them all the specifications, they'll do their assessment of the pole itself, um, all the specific uh specific weights, the type of arm, the type of fixture, they'll give me their okay.

That's a relatively quick process, maybe no more than a month.

Once I have their approval, I attach that to the national grid application where it goes through two, goes through the third-party attachment group, and it goes through two parties.

One, it does the structural assessment of the pole.

So is the pole in good shape?

Will it hold the new arm?

Will it hold a new light?

Does it need to be replaced?

Uh all that stuff is being done, and they have up to 90 to 120 days to come back with an answer.

Second thing they go through is an electrical assessment.

Is the additional power going to be used for that light going to affect the residential neighbors?

Um, can the circuitry hold?

Will it cause any problems?

That can take 90 to 120 days.

That side of it is quicker now because as I mentioned earlier, the old wattage, say it was a 400 watt, and I'm putting an 80 watt in, I have 320 watts to play with.

I'm not affecting that circuitry.

Their circuitry was built to handle the 400, not the 80.

Or 400, so it's gonna handle an 80, I can add a hundred.

I can put four of them up there, and it won't affect that.

So that's a little quicker.

But then I get all that process, and sometimes it takes about to six months, and then they'll give the approval to do it.

What I've been doing working with the police department, and then even adding our own lights is putting in our own wood poles.

Now I don't have to go through the national grid process.

I go through, is it in the right away?

Yep.

I go through the U dig, we set the pole, we put our light, I ask for an attachment from grid.

I don't have to go through a third-party attachment.

All they're doing is running their power from the nearest pole to the pole that we installed, and now we've avoided it.

How long does that take for them to do that little portion where they are wiring your pole?

That I can call today and get it done by the end of the week.

Oh.

All right.

All right.

So the problem we run into is that you can't just keep adding our own wood poles.

Aesthetically, you've got to be if you look at off of Delaware, all those side streets, Clark, Gala, uh, Grace, Kellogg, we added, I think 17 wood poles in various intersections due to lighting and cameras.

Um it didn't affect the neighborhood as a whole because there wasn't a lot of wood poles in the first place.

Now, if you go to some place like say Gatas Street by the reservoir, you got a wood pole every 90 foot.

Adding our own poles is gonna make it look even worse.

So, with that, then how do we improve this relationship with natural grid?

Because I'm saying that because when I was the district counselor, this was a frustration for any district counselor, Jimmy and and Donami attest to this, right?

This was a frustration for many of us when you get a call, show that's these light.

I I remember a story on Arden and get and on uh South Ghana right there.

It took long, long, long time to put something in there because and it wasn't the city or you or any it was the natural grid time warner or or at least spectrum now, I guess, right?

And once again, that's challenging.

And that's something I've been working with Chris Gorman on over National Grid, trying to expediate this process.

Um can't help a bureaucracy.

You can't.

Um, and it's just it's the process we gotta go through, and you know, you try to do the best you can, you push them as much as you can.

Um, what I'll do is before I send any applications in is just do an assessment myself.

Am I looking at the right wood pole?

Maybe I gotta say, this one isn't in great shape.

Let's go to this one.

This looks relatively new.

I know that that assessment's gonna take each, it's gonna be quicker than it will be bringing out an inspector looking at this or whatever they've got to do on their end before they give their approval.

So there's things I'll do on my end, thinking that it may be quicker, but it still takes a little while.

And are we doing a study?

And I know I've back to that again.

Um just just being very transparent that in certain neighborhoods, like in my neighborhood now, I have special lighting, right?

I have a beautiful pole.

Yes, we pay extra taxes, and it's bright, right?

My neighborhood at nighttime, you can still walk and it's bright.

But in a previous neighborhood I had, at nighttime it's dark, right?

So are we gonna do like a study across the city to figure out because like you said on Grace and over there?

I know that was dark, like you guys didn't put some more poles.

Are we going to do a study on where we should be adding more poles or like you know, making sure that the city is equally lit, safe with safe lighting, but where people can feel comfortable, you know, if they're coming out at night?

Because I I know, and and I hate to keep saying that in some neighborhoods, it's so dark.

Like I went over there, like I see from near to there was like, whoa, is you know what I mean?

It's um uncomfortably dark.

There isn't any plans to do this.

No, um, it doesn't mean it can't be done.

Doesn't mean that once again, if we have areas, you know, I'm very accessible.

I'm more than happy to go check things myself.

Um, ideally, if if money wasn't an option, I would change all the existing lights with these newer whiter lights.

Uh but uh that that's an undertaking that what would that cost?

Here I say, yeah.

Like what would it cost for us to do a comprehensive like light change?

Ballpark.

I guess 15, 10 to 15 million.

But we just did it seven years ago, and that's that's probably not an appetite we want to do.

That's why it's more of a I I use this term loosely, but it's complaint driven.

You know, it's more the lines of when you have an issue, counselor, or a neighbor calls me that you know this dead end is dark, or we have this fork in the road.

What can we do?

And those are places where I've added solar lights, it's places where I've added my own light.

And there are, you know, I think in the last two years I've requested 24 additional lights scattered throughout the city, so through national grid.

So it's not that we're not following through on it.

Absolutely.

But I just think doing a full assessment is part of it is the infrastructure too that we gotta deal with.

And to counselor Cardwell point, can if if it is 10 to 15 million estimation, is it's a lot of money.

But if we give ourselves five years to get there, just like we did.

I think that that can that can be accomplished.

Absolutely and and to say that is to say, you know, lighting has a lot to do.

And in terms of crimes, too.

It affect that's because a street that is well lit, it it it does reduce crime, it does reduce activities that may not be welcome to a neighborhood, right?

So I think you know, making such an investment, it's it's it's not as it's the cost is there, but overall, it's it's a public safety, there's a benefit to it.

I want to make sure that we're solving problems that we have though as well.

Um yeah, I understand.

But in terms of infrastructure, buried infrastructure is easier to withstand in terms of storm surges and things of that nature.

No, you don't think so?

No, not that.

I think that when it breaks, it's difficult to find.

But the existing infrastructure we have uh, and it's the overhead power and it's the underground.

Both of them are antiquated, poor at best is the best way to look at it.

It's just it's old.

And you know, the original install was done 40, 50, 60 years ago.

And it rots.

And we do have the leaks, small leaks, but water and metal, what happens?

It rusts.

And then you got an electrical current going through there.

So something happens, that conduit breaks, ground shifts, it breaks that conduit, it touches that wire, all of a sudden that wire arcs and it welds to the conduit.

Now you're done.

You got no power.

So now you gotta redig.

So the infrastructure as a whole, if we wanted to talk about changing out infrastructure, you're looking at similar to the water department, hundreds of millions of dollars because it's just it's scattered throughout the city.

So those are we fix on a case by case basis.

So we have changes.

I just wanted to appreciate that, counselor.

Um to your question or your point about um, you know, taking years to uh build up over time, and uh each of these fixtures, right, have a life expectancy to them.

As Ken mentioned, we just put these in only a handful of years ago.

I don't know, Ken, if you know off top of your head, the the average life expectancy for one of these fixtures, is it 10 to 15?

Okay, so 15 to 20 years, right?

So if we're seven years into that now, um it's not far off, maybe from the timeline that's in your head, but uh I I think there's um and I'll let Ken speak to the day-to-day operations, but as fixtures fail, right?

You know, you replace a fixture, but also the fact that we did all of these at one time, you know, six or seven years ago, there's probably gonna be uh you know, a uh larger amount that could potentially be reaching end of life or ready for replacement at some point in time to you know down the road in that time frame that you mentioned to be able to you know swap out as needed.

But um, just uh in terms of I I get I say that for that uh maybe that silver lining of potential for down the road through normal routine maintenance opportunities to get there and as opposed to doing another upfront investment uh an outlay of that capital, uh get waiting to a point where one it's a little bit more easier to stomach that investment because we're at a natural point in the lifespan of that system to switch over to uh you know these more preferred uh uh fixture uh models, right?

So and Devin's point I just want to add too is that we're looking at two different types of fixtures throughout the city.

We have the decorative fixtures, uh, Councilor Callwell mentioned like her neighborhood, we know where those are all located right out city hall, and then you got what we call the cobra heads that are on top of the wood poles or the aluminum poles.

If something goes bad within the fixture of the decoratives, there's so many parts involved with it, we just buy the part.

I'm not buying a brand new fixture unless it gets into an accident and it gets destroyed, then I gotta buy a new one.

But if the array starts going bad, which pushes out the light, I just buy the new array.

I don't buy the whole new fixture.

The cobra heads, anything happens in those, it's gone, and we put up a new one.

Jim I don't remember what I was gonna say.

So you know what one of the other things um just why I just think about it.

Yeah, very however you want to look at it with the new transformation highway.

But you know, when you get you're going um right there in front of the gas station and the speedway, it's not a speedway, excuse me.

The gas station right there going off Salina just before pleasant and corning right there.

Okay, yep, yep, yep, yep.

There's been at least seven incidents shootings, car accidents, uh major incidents on that I coming through, and it's dark too.

So if you coming down at night or going up, it is like really dark.

So is there any way we can also look at that lighting in that area?

That area is being redone with the 81 project.

Oh, okay.

So we did we just did address a couple of the areas to get some power there.

Uh one other thing that's gonna be added there is a license plate reader camera.

So as you're going up Keltrop before you get on the 81, right there is gonna be a license plate reader camera.

Awesome.

Question for you, right?

It may be in the literature you have, but how well since we took over a lot of the poles the city took over, how many have we installed actually?

The which ones?

We the ones we bought from National Grid.

Um based on accidents, I would say since we started 75.

That's it.

Yeah.

Well, and just to clarify too, from the a terminology standpoint.

You asked your in your question, how many, you know, when we bought the poles you said from National Grid, but to be clarify, we didn't buy the poles, right?

You know, National Grid still owns them.

The arms, pretty much for the Cobrahead ones, right?

You gotta be careful what we're saying.

So the wooden most of the woods.

So that's that's I think the problem is we all look at it as is the light on a pole, and we think we bought the pole.

So there's about 13,000 wood poles.

Best way to look at it.

Well, 13,000 wood poles.

There's about 500 of those 13,000 that we end up being we ended up becoming the owners of scattered throughout the city.

So there's now from there, there's about 1,500 aluminum poles that we completely own from ground, underground all the way to the top.

And then there's 3,000 decorative fixtures scattered throughout the city that we own from underground to the top as well.

So when I say change out a pole, those are changing out any wood poles that we own, which we just did one last week on Celina Street.

Any of the aluminum poles that have gone bad or because of accidents, we've changed those out.

That's on us.

And then the decorative poles, like I said, basically about 75 of those three types is about what we changed out since we started.

So Ken, I had um a few probably about a month or so ago, I had asked about um about certain poles crowding in some areas, and some of them actually like impeded in the ADA um area.

They're the aluminum poles.

So those are ours.

Those are ours.

Okay, so if there's if there's working to be done and they're gonna have to address the ADA, then those are things that'll be engineered by that engineer to relocate or remove based on what they say.

A good example of that, and probably not Apples, though, it might be Apples and Oranges, but West Jenny, when they reconstructed West Genesee Street and all the ADA corners, uh all the intersections became ADA compliant.

There were multiple wood poles owned by National Grid that were in the way.

Those had to be taken down and relocated by National Grid to meet those requirements.

If there's gonna be a project to where that intersection is gonna be done, then that's gonna have to be engineered as well.

Okay, so we I don't know.

We just it's I'll start making a list.

I just haven't done it yet, but it looks crazy.

So um as long as I know the areas, I can take a look.

We can figure out another an optimal solution, or or not.

I mean, it's just it's a matter of actually getting my eyes on it and taking a look.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So do we own the um small cell or something?

I mean, when the work is done, someone goes there and approves it, correct?

I've seen that downtown where maybe them.

Yeah, so there's some there are some uh their metal poles and fixtures we'll call them where uh I know there's some downtown uh right here where they have a larger case at the bottom of them, it's a rounded cylinder.

We don't own those ones.

That's a um a Verizon pole for that.

That's that's them.

Yeah, that's a that's a Verizon like it looked like for a crown at the end of the day.

There's telecom equipment in the base of that, and then at the top of it, there's uh uh antennas for cellular networks, and uh that's owned by what's at the top.

I just know it's in the way.

Yeah, yeah.

So those all went through the the permitting process with the central permit office.

So uh they got their approvals to install them where they were.

Okay.

All right.

So do we have uh again maybe I haven't I didn't I didn't catch this, but is there a comprehensive plan that is written somewhere about life?

We got nothing.

Okay.

Uh and I know that's that's a cost to it, right?

If we were to do that, we got we got uh I think we it all the counselors here were alluding to it.

How would we go about it to do something like that?

I we'd have to go neighborhood by neighborhood.

Uh so what do we got?

32 total neighborhoods throughout the city, and we'd have to do an assessment of each individual one.

Can we start?

Would because I'm asking this because to Godwell point earlier that that neighborhood that I just dark and and and usually those neighborhood that I usually underlighted, the chances of of crime there, there's a that's a correlation, right?

I think looking forward, it it makes sense to really do something about that.

And and I'm wondering what it would take to really come up with a comprehensive plan that is futuristic in a sense.

And and get get there.

We may not get there in year one, yeah, two, year three, but year five, we may be able to really complete something.

How do we get there?

Especially in those neighborhoods that estimate it where there's more poverty, you know, less, you know, action, where we're be truthful.

We're we're not doing a lot in there where people really need lighting.

I can name about 15 streets from north to south that are so dark that made me nervous, right?

Just you know, going down the street because it was dark.

Like I couldn't see, you know.

Um, and I just wonder how that makes a person feel, you know, coming out the house and they can't see their self, right?

And I know in my neighborhood is lighting.

So to make it fair across the city, we gotta figure out a way to make sure that the north, the south, the east, the west, and east will everybody has like equal lighting and feel comfortable, you know, regardless of where you live at in the neighborhood.

Is this new whatever you're proposing today?

Does that help us get there?

So I was just gonna talk about that, counselor.

Um the proposal that we're we're looking to go in front of you guys is to purchase a new uh vendor for the smart city sensors.

Um that's off the thing.

But the uh existing one we have uh no longer manufactures any hardware, so any sensors that we need, we don't we can't get them anymore.

Software starting to go by the wayside.

The maintenance cost itself are skyrocketing.

So we need to go with a new vendor.

Um we've selected ubiquitous.

Um it's more of a cell-based hardware um, the software will do the work that uh currently that you know I've used for the last four or five years, being more proactive.

Uh, but we have to go put the new sensors in.

So to your point about what can we do as a plan?

If I know I can't without driving every single block at night myself, uh, if you got some areas, we can start slow.

When I go do a block and change out sensors, say we have one on, you know, with a hundred block of main street, you call dark.

Share that with me.

When we go change out those sensors, before I do it, I can take a drive down there and say, all right, maybe we need to go from a 55 to an 80 watt here.

Or maybe I just gotta go to the white light.

So when we change the sensor out, I could just have them put a new picture in as well.

It could be part of this process as we go forward.

I'm not doing it for 18,000 lights, but it's a slow process, and then we can start seeing the difference.

As we go forward, counselor, it's now it's all right.

So now we need to go wider.

How do we handle it wider?

And those are things that we'll have to sit, we'll have to talk about internally.

You know, what's the what is the overall cost of this?

Small areas, yeah.

I think that's not a problem going forward.

We're gonna be there changing these sensors out anyway.

We're gonna do a proper mapping, proper asset inventory.

All that stuff will be done with this new software.

So what's the dollars and cents of this this proposal?

You're on the back side.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just trying to get my director on the clearing.

There's two different dollar figures that you're gonna see.

But um, the one on the front is from Ken's uh operations on a yearly basis.

You can see it says there, right?

The physical infrastructure maintenance staff time, including city electricians, materials, and traffic control.

That's like an all-in for Ken to maintain operations, right?

On the back side, as you were just pointing out, this is the cost of that new platform itself.

Uh the uh the sensors, the hardware that we would be putting onto the lights uh to be able to manage them, monitor them.

So Ken during his day-to-day operations can understand and be proactive, right, about the work that he's doing and not uh without it essentially, right?

You're waiting for a constituent to call you and say, hey, you know, I've got a light out or I've got a concern, etc.

To you know, uh show you some data related to that.

If you look on the front, right in the top center, you'll see 2025 site visits here.

Uh, you know, Ken had approximately 2,308 total site visits to to light fixtures uh over last year.

Only about 233 or 10% of those came from C click fix or you know, City Line uh and uh constituent calls.

The remainder of that was because of the system that we employ, right?

So Ken can be proactive and not wait.

I mean, I'm sure you can remember too.

Before we took over the lighting system, it was you know either national well, national grid service to them, right?

It was calling them up and waiting for them to come out and service it, et cetera.

So um that figure on the back of the page there to uh you know, just to conclude there, is the uh cost over three years or what we uh um project to be a three-year timeline to convert over to the new platform and get us all uh up to date.

And you know, the I had it up briefly.

We can pull it up again in a in a few here if uh if it's of interest to see, but comes with an entirely new software platform, new tools for Ken, you know, to be able to again monitor the different aspects of the infrastructure, uh, and uh ensure that we we're being proactive.

It is the new um vendor is that from an RFP?

Yes, we we did an RFP, we got 12 responses.

We brought four vendors in for interviews.

We did a show and tell, they came in, they showed us how to connect our fixtures.

Oh, yeah, they showed us our you know how they would connect our fixture or uh, you know, how we would go about it's like a train the trainer model, right?

And uh went through that and we identified uh uh you know, uh a finalist that we uh feel is um the best partner that we could go with.

Um I don't think with that partner with the partner that we're proposing, we'll end up in a situation like we are now, whereas you know, you know, they're they're dissolving, they're they're getting out of this industry.

The partner we selected has significant market share and uh is large enough to where there's uh not we don't that was part of our evaluation criteria essentially is making sure we weren't going to select someone who uh you know was uh um didn't have a long enough track record to make us feel comfortable getting into uh uh an agreement with them.

If any license plate reader, um, or I don't know which one's that can it or you but the license plate reader part that's through the police, right?

Yep, okay.

Because and I asked because um 2022, I believe it was.

Um, there was some cameras being um put in regular police cameras, and then they added two license plate reader cameras.

As of last year, I don't know when they basically those camera, those license plate reader cameras when all of the stuff was going on with Flock and we were identifying where those were the two on South Salinas Street near uh one is near Claw and I think one is near Castle somewhere.

Um, those weren't in it.

And when I asked about it, they they had completely forgot about those for years.

They no one even knew who was monitoring them.

So I just want to make sure that we don't end up in the same situation that there's um you know stuff out there that that we're not aware of.

Yeah, when I say sensor, it's uh we're using that term a little bit in interchangeably with the word controller, which is that device where if you go out and look at a cobra head right now, you'll see right on the top of it, it's a little twist lock device that you know locks into the top of it.

That's what communicates and and sends the the data to Ken and he can send commands to the lights, et cetera.

So that's that's what we're describing here, is just those.

Oh, yeah, no, no.

Yeah, so those controllers in particular, and those when they're connected, we know where they are and you know, uh the status of the city.

I just want to make sure that uh as far as the license plate reader that it's with our police department and not and it's being monitored.

So once once we go through changing these out, I mentioned a proper asset inventory.

If I go to a pole and we've got a light, what's the length of the arm?

What's the type of the pole?

What's the waters of the fixture?

Are there any other attachment?

Is it a police cops camera?

Is it a license plate reader camera?

Is it something downtown?

Whatever's on that pole, is we're gonna keep track of those assets.

So now we'll know exactly what's on a pole.

But if I lose power for some whatever reason, we'll also know I can reach out to SPD saying, all right, you you lost this cop's camera, give us 24 hours to fix or whatever.

So though those are things that we'll know as we go forward.

And the other thing with with this company we're going with ubiquitous, they work with how do you say it again?

Ubiquia.

They work with Axon, who's going to be the provider of our uh license plate reader cameras that their camera attaches to our light poles on some of these instances.

So they're so it all gonna be interchanged with one uh one vendor.

So I I some of us can have known you for a long time, you know, your days with code transitioning, and you have always been fantastic.

Always been fantastic.

Yeah.

Now, here is where I'm going with this.

I don't know if I'm gonna live.

Yeah, here's where I'm going with this.

Um, assume today somebody takes you away and you leave.

What happened to us with all of this?

That that is that's my feeling, right?

Would somebody be able to walk in and start from scratch, or do you have something, a blueprint somewhere?

I do have a blueprint.

Okay, you've ridden it.

I've worked with it, I've written it up, I work with the administration.

Okay.

Um, there's a way to do it.

Um, you just gotta have the bodies in place to do this.

I'm not going anywhere for a few years.

Okay, but thank God.

Um but June 30th, 2029.

That's a fact.

That's when my wife retires out of the school.

So that's what I thought.

So that day set in stone.

Um June 30th, 2029.

You better get out of but the plan would be is that you bring in the right lineman to do the work that we have to have, get them trained up on this.

It is similar to any other career.

Because who has the interest in doing this?

You show them how the software works.

The beauty of the software is it.

The old one was great in regards to this.

This one new one's gonna be good.

The mobile app.

So the guys out in the field will have a tablet that we supply, so they'll be able to use it, they'll understand it, they'll learn the infrastructure that we have out there.

So it's not like this.

I'm gonna I would recommend to the city bring in somebody completely green.

You want to have first of all, you've got to have an electrical background.

You've got to have some type of electrical background to do this work.

If you don't, you start off, you're starting off in the behind the eight ball.

So can we go back to the dollars about what's coming in front of us?

So just so I understand what what we're being asked for.

Yes, uh, so over uh a three-year period, this is uh you know, uh a one-time investment up front here to uh purchase all of that new hardware for those fixtures, the controllers, as we were saying, uh and there's uh uh a strategy that Ken has put together in terms of the approach where um one are decorative fixtures, and and this is also being informed by our current system that we use.

There are some risks around that given that this company is going out of business, we're no longer getting you know the level of support that really any support from the company that's going out of business and some other technical uh um you know dependencies that are out of our control or uh that are very costly to upkeep.

And so we are uh um strategizing a way to uh um position ourselves best where if this system is you know end of life sooner than we hope, uh we can be in a comfortable position to continue operation.

So that said, uh in year one, can looking to uh you know start off strong with our decorative fixtures, uh, because uh at the end of the day, if uh um if so if one of the cobra head uh you know controllers or the connectivity of that controller goes away, there's a photo cell in there where uh when it gets dark out as a safeguard, it will just turn on, you know, it when it gets dark enough.

We of course have schedules that we can set within the software to make sure that if there's you know special uh uh circumstances that we want it you know on longer or off longer, etc.

We can do that.

So uh year number one, uh replacing the decorative fixtures uh um with Ken's crew and and and uh existing service contracts and uh a handful of cobra headlights as well.

So that's where we're gonna see the and some of those cost, you know, the decoratives cost more to uh retrofit, and that's why the dollar amount is greater as well during that time.

And that's the one point four yep, is that budgeted in 2627?

There's CIP dollars that we can use to uh um get that moving, yeah.

Um a bond.

Um I'm not sure.

I might give that CIP dollars covering out of that.

So we have two so when we started this RP process a while back, we had to have an account money, somebody.

So I have CIP that was approved by the council for interstate highway lighting for I think it was 500,000.

The plan was to use that 500,000 to start buying sensors for the 81 project.

So like I said, you see areas where they got decorative polls up, we've got to get the sensors in there.

That's the city's responsibility for the 81 project is to supply the sensors.

We're gonna have to go back and take fixtures off and put the sensors in, but I want to get these sooner than later so I can give them to the contractor and they'll install those before they put the fixture up.

But that that was the original plan.

And then the second point was we also have a CIP for 2627 as part of this uh part of the agenda to cover the full cost of this.

Okay, okay, okay.

Now I got it.

Yep.

So you want to get out ahead of it right now.

This is in 2627, but you want to move faster.

Correct.

Okay, I gotcha.

Now I understand.

I think we'll see.

Or my retirement things are your retirement day.

It's right.

I get it.

Okay.

Um other questions on the money?

Katie's up is it both?

I had two questions.

Is it a bond?

Is it what this money or no?

It's just it is.

Okay.

Okay.

I have one question and one um just uh um.

I know we were supposed to be doing like additional lighting off the highways or something like when you come off the off ramps.

Is this included in that?

That's that's all part of the that's all part of this as we go forward.

Okay, okay.

Um, and back to the polls in the ADA.

I just think that if it's like how does it affect the snowplow people on the main, you know, like our snow plow in the case.

The sidewalk clearing?

Yeah, sidewalk clearing.

Yeah.

So just putting that out there.

Okay.

All right.

Any other questions?

Okay.

Well, can we and Vinny?

We want to thank you.

Do you have anything else?

Are you all sad?

Um, I don't know, in in terms of timeline here, you can see there is and as Ken was saying, there's some time sensitivity around uh getting this moving because of uh the 81 project already underway.

And as he said, if we don't supply these uh uh sooner rather than later, then we'll have to incur the cost of going back and installing them ourselves versus you know nice not doing that.

Uh, the current partner exit when are they like sunsetting or are they?

We're gonna be running parallel for a while.

Yeah, okay so when when we're completely changed over, I'll leave it to Vinny and the administration however they want to just cut ties with them.

Yeah, and and the current provider exiting is less of the the pressure here, right?

It's that we can't get hardware from them.

We need hardware for the 81 project, and that's who the what the new provider will be able to offer us.

So um that being said, um, you know, there is time sensitivity around this.

Uh you know, we can see what the best uh method is.

I mean we would like to see this on an agenda as soon as possible.

I don't know if um you know waivers are uh is something we can consider for this upcoming.

Yeah, we'll talk about that.

Okay, figure it out figure it out.

Appreciate that.

Yeah, the questions.

You're not retiring in June of 29.

I'm not retiring in June 2029, no.

Okay.

Thank you all.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Um motion to adjourn.

Second, last move.

Second.

Yeah.

All right, all adjourned.

I mean.