Good afternoon.

Welcome to the Public Works February meeting.

City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Chairwoman Burke here.

Vice Chair Andrew Bowen.

Here.

Councilmember Clark.

Here.

And Councilmember Taylor.

Present.

Thank you.

We have two consent items.

Uh committee members.

Are there any uh consent agenda items you would like to have pulled?

Madam Chair, if there are none, I move for approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

Okay.

It has uh we've had a motion and a second.

Let us uh take a vote.

All in favor of approving the consent agenda.

Let it be known by saying aye.

Aye.

That's unanimous.

It passes.

City clerk, would you please read general item number one?

Item G1.

Request for a public hearing to consider Vogue Towers to LLC entering into a long-term lease agreement with the City of Winston-Salem for land located in Shaffner Park.

Public hearing for March 2nd.

Thank you.

We'll hear from uh city manager, assistant city manager Aaron King.

Easy there, Councilmember.

I saw Pet.

Look.

As you should.

Um well good afternoon, Chair Burke and Council members.

Um this is a request of Vogue Towers LLC.

This is um this is an area over off Silas Creek Parkway, Yorkshire Road, um, and Shaffner Park that has had challenges in getting cell service to the surroundings of heavy residential area and their challenges in finding a sites to locate a cell tower in there to serve the area.

So the city was approached by Vogue Towers LSE to gauge our interest in seeing if we had any excess space over in Shaffner Park where a tower could be located to serve some of the demand in this area.

And so what you see on the screen there before you outlined in yellow essentially represents um kind of what is before you today.

So I'm looking at at Shaffner Park there on the east side of Silas Creek Parkway.

What is shown in yellow is essentially a 60, the square end of that is a 60 by 60 area where the cell tower would be located.

And we'd be looking at a hundred and fifty foot tall cell tower that would be a mono pine.

So that's a cell tower that's essentially disguised to look like a pine tree.

You've probably seen those around.

And then the yellow piece that connects back out to Yorkshire Road would be essentially their the rights to to access the tower site through the parkland.

Um so that is what is before you today.

Um what is um Vogue Towers is offered is essentially a um uh thousand dollars for a year-long option to explore this with the option for a second year at another thousand dollar rate.

If they were to move forward with the tower, uh they would pay the city thirteen hundred and fifty dollars per month rent um for that area moving forward, and that would be for a five-year lease with seven five-year options on top of it.

So a total of 40 years if this was to move forward.

For um uh for our purposes today, there's two kind of functions that council has.

One is sort of approval of the lease terms, and then the second piece is this is city park land.

And so as we've kind of gone through recently, there is a process of when the city disposes of or long-term leases city park land.

And so the first step in that process is it goes to the recreation and parks commission for their review, and that was done on uh November the fourth, and they recommended approval of this matter.

The second step in that process is to go to the city county planning board for their review and discussion there.

So that was done on December 5th, and they recommended approval to you as well.

So we're here at committee today, um, really with those two items on the table for your consideration.

The last step in that process is to come for a public hearing in front of the full city council, um, which would be basically slated for March 2nd to move forward.

So that would be the last step in the process.

So again, this would be for a 150-foot tall monopond there, kind of the area shown in yellow.

When we work with the designer on this, we were trying to locate it in a place that did not interfere with the regular use of the city park.

So it's hard to see on this image, but they're typically soccer fields laid out on this park, and so this was located basically south of the edge of those soccer fields.

So you could still lay out the soccer fields the same way they are today, have the tower there and then not interfere with the soccer fields as they would traditionally be used.

I think that's the gist of it.

I'm glad to answer any questions.

And Tom Johnson, who is here with Vogue Towers LLC is also here in case you have any questions of him.

Thank you, Aaron.

Any questions?

Yes.

There we go.

This is in the West Ward.

I cannot speak to other wards, but in the West Ward, we have a number of dead zones.

This town is a little hillier than maybe people think it is sometimes.

But we certainly am supportive of this project because we do not need any dead zones.

I'm not going to take a survey, but I'd be surprised if there's not more than two or three people in this room that do not have a that have a landline anymore.

I know the park very well.

There's somewhat of a service road already that first the from the S down, and there's some large boulders there that keep people from driving into the ditch.

Those are pickleball courts and tennis ball courts and a nice play area that are used extensively.

And the soccer fields do fit nicely in there.

I think it's two soccer fields.

So I am supportive of it.

Don't like to give up parkland, but I will tell you, and I've got some other places that have dead zones, and they're literally there's no unused land here.

So you're gonna have probably have to put them in parks or places like that or schools.

I've got a terrible one.

I don't know if anybody eats at uh Diamondback at College Village.

That is a bad dead zone.

Uh so if you have a heart attack, don't have it there.

Okay.

But anyway, I'm supportive.

Uh this does back up to for Sife Country Club.

I have not heard anything from them either, nor do they get a veto here, uh, even though I am a member.

Uh it is in that back one.

I will tell you the golf course is probably 20 or 30 feet higher than that point.

Uh so I I think it'll have minimal disruption.

And you won't recognize it anyway, because it just looks like a tall tree.

So anyway, my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Andrew Bowen.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um thank you for adding the extra pictures that that came out last week.

I appreciate that.

Um it may be in the report.

Is there gonna be any kind of fencing going around the pole that that's kind of like a protective away from the community?

I'm locked out, but yes, they're gonna finish the comments so the folks can't hear that interview with those putting it in there.

So yes, that was that shouldn't be called for plantscape of the key because it's not a unattractive area for folks in the park.

Thank you very much.

I look forward to the March 2nd uh public comment.

So council member Sipio.

Uh yes, I had a question about the boundaries for the park.

Is it the creek bed?

The the boundaries for the park or is it it's larger than that, Councilmember Scipio, the Shaftner Park area, the boundaries of the park actually extend quite a bit further, I think than that.

Uh and I can there's a map in our thing on if you need to call that uh can give me one second here.

I can find that the whole park.

The whole park.

I didn't see it.

It might be.

I think I've got it here.

So if we can go back to the well park.

Yeah.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

It goes all the way down there.

Okay.

So it really is not uh taking up a whole lot of the park, and I guess that part of the park is undeveloped.

Nothing there, walking trails or anything like that.

The other issue, and it's tough to see on this map, Council Recipio, is you've got a lot of floodplain that comes along the creek right there as well.

So even our the the city's ability to do anything in that space would be limited anyway about a floodplain that uh that basically runs through there for Silas Creek.

So this cell tower, it would it serve all cell providers.

I'll let Mr.

Johnson speak to that piece of it.

Sure.

Thank you for the question.

The initial um tenant will be Verizon, but it will be open to all the other carriers to come on.

And our experience is once we get the tower up, it's easy for them to come on and get on the tower.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay.

We're ready for a vote.

Can I get a motion to approve G1?

Second.

Second.

Okay.

Oh, that uh we did get a motion and a second.

Now it's time for voice of vote.

All in favor, let us know by saying aye.

Aye.

That's unanimous.

It passes.

City clerk, would you read G2?

Item G2 resolution authorizing a contract for design of the Brewer Road Sidewalk Project.

Okay.

We'll hear from uh Mr.

Jeff Fansler.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, members of the committee and city council.

Jeff Fansler, Director of Transportation.

So the item before you is essentially the awarding of a design contract to AMT for the Brewer Road sidewalk.

You've heard us talk at nausea about rural road needs for sidewalk, and for many years we've been trying to secure funding for these project.

This project was submitted for in prioritization for funding consideration, was funded through that process with a contributing local match.

So we have uh done our our work on the budget side to fund this project.

And the item before you essentially is to award this contract for curb and gutter and sidewalk on the west side of Brewer Road from West Clementville Road to the roundabout.

One thing not shown on this map intentionally because when we started really scoping this project with the consultant, what we found was like you know, there's a small section there that connects to some existing sidewalk sidewalk at Parkland.

So let's just do right by this project and make that spur connection on there as well.

So there is where Brewer Road makes that left-hand turn as you go northbound and goes towards Peters Creek Parkway.

We do include a small section there to directly connect this to uh Parkland High School, which does then uh open up that access to this residential area directly to the school and some of the adjacent infrastructure there.

So I'm happy to take any questions.

This contract will or this approval of this would authorize just under $700,000 design contract, so a costly project.

But again, uh some of those costs are associated with uh some extensive drainage needs, right-of-way impacts, etc.

Because this is a comprehensive sidewalk project that will include the closed drainage system.

Happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Fansler.

Any questions?

Councilmember Scipio.

Um, Mr.

Fansler, uh so I was gonna ask this does connect so the you the students can go from uh the roundabout walk down to the school, and therefore it goes to the corner of Peters Creek Parkway.

It connects to that point.

It doesn't go all the way to Peters Creek Parkway, and this is scope creep a little bit already.

And so that if you recall, we talked about the sidewalk needs in this area several months ago about you know some issues around Parkland High School.

We had indicated there's multiple phases of sidewalk infrastructure projects around Parkland High School.

And the piece you're referring to is another phase competing for future funding, which actually carries it across Peters Creek Parkway to South Park.

So the project you're specifically referring to is takes it from Parkland High School across Peters Creek to South Park.

This takes it down to the Parkland at this point.

That's correct.

And yes, that's correct.

That's exactly right.

Thank you.

Councilmember Taylor.

Yeah, Mr.

Fansler, uh, you have at least two graduates from Parkland High School sitting here, and there's been a lot of chatter around it.

So we just say want to say we appreciate you helping to get this project done.

And Madam Chair, I wanted to make that comment and just to get a motion on the floor, I move for approval of item G2.

Thank you.

Uh just a minute.

Uh uh Councilmember Andrew Bowen has something to say, but thank you.

I think Madam Chair, and I will be happy to second when we're done.

Okay.

Um we've had a lot of comment about this this section of the the city.

Um is there a timeline of when this this stretch of sidewalk should either begin and hopefully be completed?

Well, you know, you notice some dates in this item, right?

This project has been funded for some time.

There you've heard me talk in the past, and this is complicated when we go through the federal funding process and require some concurrence from the NC DOT, and that process took longer than normal.

So we're a little bit slower in getting the project started.

But I'm happy to say where we are today, this is a nine or ten month design window.

From there, we do expect some complicated right-of-way acquisition phasing because some of these is great issues out there.

That could take another several months.

And so to answer your question, is we should be in construction in 2027, but probably in the summertime, not necessarily early 2027.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Councilmember Joiner.

Thank you, Chair.

Um this particular uh project is in the South Ward, and I will say that there are a lot of individuals that use that path um to without sidewalks.

So they're walking in the road to either get to the grocery store down at the food line, or um coming back up towards the uh the pool during the summertime and parkland for education.

So I am definitely in support of, and I I hope that the rest of those pieces can come online sooner than later.

But something is better than nothing at this point.

So thank you so much for what your efforts, Jim.

Thank you, Mr.

Fansler, and I do want to say I am uh a Parkland alum, and uh I am really happy about this uh sidewalk addition.

This will make uh traveling as council member joyner said a lot safer for the students uh who go back and forth to school and not only to school, but there are a lot of commercial uh businesses in this area that people have to walk to, and they've been doing it without a sidewalk.

So this is a much needed improvement.

We already have a motion and uh second.

Second.

Okay, we're ready for a vote.

All in favor, please let us know by uh voiced vote of aye.

Aye.

Unanimous, it passes.

Thank you.

City clerk, would you please read general item three?

Item G3, consideration of items related to additional funding for the replacement of bridge number 296 on West First Street.

Okay, we'll hear from Mr.

Michael Stover.

Good afternoon, Chair Burke, members of council.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Michael Stover, uh City Engineer.

It's probably my first time in front of you all, so thank you for having me.

Uh this bridge in question um carries traffic on West First Street over top of North Norfolk Southern Railroad and between Northwest Boulevard and Springdale Avenue.

As you can tell, that this project has been in the works for quite a while.

Uh a little over a year ago, project staff they were evaluating the design and they realized there was a project deficit in the budget of about 3.7 million dollars.

About this time last year, there was an opportunity for to request funding to the local Winston Salem area TPO.

We requested that budget deficit of $3.7 million and received the additional funding from the state for uh $2,91,000, which requires a 20% match uh by the city, which equates to about $742,000.

Out of that 20% match, there's already about $320,000 available and it's already been appropriated, leaving a deficit of $420,000.

What this item essentially does is three things.

It authorizes the city manager to manager to execute a supplemental agreement with NCDOT.

It appropriates the additional federal funding uh for this project, and it also allows for the transfer of the uh the deficit for the 20% match.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Any questions?

Oh, Councilmember Clark.

Oh, the total 10 point six million, how much of that does the city pay?

Uh 20 percent.

Um which would be a little over two million dollars.

And let me say if there's a bridge in town that needs to be replacing, it's this bridge.

It looks like it's been in a war.

Yeah.

Uh matter of fact, the guardrail that keeps you from falling off has got one of those barrier things.

But I will tell you that bridge is not that big, and 10 and a half million.

Uh it is what it is, but that just is just amazing.

But it needs to be done.

It's terrible.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other I'm only there, Councilmember Scipio.

What's our timetable once we get this action taken care of for that bridge request?

Great, great question.

We're wrapping up design now.

DOT has to give us this to review the final design plans.

We expect that to be done the next 30, 45 days.

We're gonna let this project in the April May time frame.

Uh then it'll come to the council for approval in June or July, I think.

And there's roughly about a 12 to 18 month uh time frame for construction.

Okay.

Okay.

Councilmember Andrew Bowen.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um will be will the the will we close the entire bridge to complete it, or would the they do one lane, one lane.

What's the process there?

Closing the whole bridge, right?

Yeah, the whole bridge will be closed.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We're ready for a vote.

Um can I get a motion to approve G3?

So moved.

Second.

Okay.

We're ready for a voice vote.

All in favor, let us note by saying aye.

Aye.

Unanimous, it passes.

Well, that concludes our agenda for public works.

And before we end it, we're gonna hear from assistant city manager Aaron King uh to uh discuss this uh last uh winter storm that we've been dealing with.

City manager.

Well, thanks.

Um thank you, Chair Burke.

So, yes, it is nice to have some warmer temperatures today.

Um that feels like a heat wave out there, so that that is very nice.

Um fortunately, we're I think past um a lot of the the dealing with and scraping the streets and salt and from the bad weather we've had for the last two plus weeks.

Um I know each of you have gotten a lot of concerns that have been raised to you, um, a lot of constituents reaching out.

Um, and we're gonna go over this in probably a little more detail on Monday's um presentation to city council, so so I won't spoil too much of it now, other than that to say one um your crews, especially your street crews have been working around the clock essentially since this started.

Um that first ice event was particularly difficult to to deal with, and I think you got a lot of comments there that the city's not doing enough, or you're you're not getting by street.

And frankly, when you get two inches of ice and sub-25 degree temperatures for 17 hours a day, there's not much you're gonna be able to do there.

So in those days, our crews were only able to work about six hours a day to make any production.

So in a traditional snow event, we worked 24 hours, it took us you know four days to make up one day's worth of production.

And so you can figure out why folks were feeling like we weren't getting to them and we weren't seeing them because those conditions were just there's frankly not much you can do with that.

You can't plow ice and salt's not working or really having any meaningful impact at those temperatures.

So that was a little bit of kind of round one, and fortunately things started to break three at the end of that week, and we were able to make some progress and and and really start to hit that fortunately.

And then round two came and we got eight inches of snow, and we were right back, and before we could get to all the folks in all the residential areas, we basically had to go back and duplicate our efforts on the majors and collectors and all the areas that we had cleaned previously to get done.

So it was kind of rinse and repeat.

Um fortunately, the snow is a whole lot easier to get up than the ice is.

So our crews really did um an outstanding job of kind of sticking with this and showing a lot of resilience and perseverance in some less than ideal conditions out there.

So all the credit goes to them for sticking with this.

For for you as council members, some things to think about.

You know, we have certainly learned some lessons from this that we're gonna be working through and preparing kind of an after action debrief to work through ways we can always try to sharpen the saw and get better for the next time around so that we can respond a little better for our residents.

So that's kind of the phase that we're in right now, is really um starting that process once we can kind of catch our breath, diving in to figure out those areas that we can improve in so we can come back to you with some recommendations to to making sure we're we're performing the best we can for our residents.

So I know one of the things that was mentioned was kind of an interactive map, so folks almost like with leaf collection where folks can kind of see where we've been and where we're going.

We we've got remnants of that, but it needs a little tuning up.

That's kind of underway right now.

I think that will help moving forward.

Um hopefully you found the briefings that Deb was sending out every day, the situation rep comments and reports helpful to you to let you know what's going on and kind of give you a cross section of the activity that was going out there.

So good relationship, good working with the media this time, getting information out on that.

But there are some things we'll continue to kind of work forward and work to improve.

Um if you have anything else.

Uh councilmember Sipio.

Um thank you, um Mr.

King.

I thought that was a great great update.

It was uh once in 40-year occurrence, and people want us to still be excellent, and we do attempt that.

Um at one point in time when I first came on a council.

We didn't have enough equipment.

We didn't have trucks working.

I think we purchased enough trucks.

So my question is do we have adequate equipment?

And we is this one of the departments that may be short staff that we need to fill, or were we operating at our capacity?

I think there's a there's a several layers to that, Council Recipium, those are good questions.

So we did purchase some dump trucks to come in, and those are replacements for existing assets.

So we actually got those the week before the um event happened, but we couldn't put them on the road because they've got to go through and get tags and title and everything else, and so they were not ready.

But but those um dump trucks that we got were really replacements for what's there.

So that's not addition to that's a replacement of.

So our our crews that were out there and the equipment that the dump trucks and the plows and everything out there, they're out there, and a lot of that equipment's got some age on it, hence the replacement for it.

And when you're out there plowing and salting in those environments, it is very tough on the equipment.

So what you get is you might start out with 20 trucks, and after shift one, you might be down to 15.

And then you get some repaired, and then some come back in service, and then some others go out, and it's a constant cycle of that.

This is why it is so important that we really stay on top of our replacement schedule so that we've got good reliable equipment when times like this show up.

Um we have to put those assets into service.

Um, I think from a staffing standpoint, Keith's department, TFO has been probably when Scott shown his information at budget time, they've been at the top of the list somewhere in the 40-ish percent vacancy range for a while.

I want to say they're down to 25-ish percent.

So they've had a lot of those those positions filled.

Not every one of those folks has a CDL.

Um we were able to call in some resources from other departments to kind of help plug some gaps.

So I I think we had a we had a good amount of resources to throw at this storm.

Is there opportunity for improvement and being able to expand our capacity?

Yes, and that's what we're ultimately trying to get to from this.

And I think some of those efforts are probably as we order new equipment when it comes up on the replacement schedule to make sure that what we're ordering has the ability to be upfit and used for plowing snow and salting and all those kinds of good things, so that if we need to, we can adapt it and get more assets off the yard.

So just uh one more follow-up question to that.

Um, yesterday in our public safety uh committee, we learned that uh the fire department, of course, they have a maintenance uh facility on Palmer Lane, but what happened with the ice and snow, the chains on the truck were tearing up on the newly plowed uh pavement, and so they had to be creative and someone internally was able to do replacement chains because we couldn't buy them.

Um so the question is do in our maintenance facility for public works.

Do we have a strong mechanical area that can repair these trucks as they get worn out on the road in these kinds of emergencies?

Yeah, we do, Councilmember Scipio.

I will tell you our fleet director, Angus Thomas is doing a heck of a job down there, and his team over in heavy equipment.

Um they're absolutely doing the best they can.

He's got some very talented folks down there, and I will tell you from talking to Keith through this event, they were able to get these trucks turned around and back into service probably quicker, quicker than we have in previous events.

So, yes, I think I believe fully in the team that we've got down there.

Yeah, well, we need to celebrate them because I believe they did an excellent job in horrible conditions.

Um so I do celebrate them and I I thank them publicly for their service and also the hours that they have to work.

These are people who are on that job, almost 24 hours trying to get our city back up to par.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Andrew Bowen.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um kind of reiterate what um Councilmember Scipio said.

Uh, there is always gonna be room for improvement.

We we will discuss that as we do move forward.

But um just just congratulations and to thank the the staff and crew that have kind of from the police department, fire department to the field operations, and I think the DOT was out doing some stuff for for for things.

So just everybody who stepped foot out into the the bad weather, we just were grateful for the service they did and um thank you very much.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Well, I would like to say that um I publicly I want to thank staff for going out in the most hazardous, dangerous conditions to work to try to clear our streets and make uh travel safely for our citizens.

A huge thank you.

And Deb, is that okay?

There you are.

I want to say thank you also for providing us with the updates and we could share that information with our constituents.

You did an outstanding job, your entire department.

Um I like the questions that council member Scipio asked.

We we really do need to take this uh as a as a time to reflect.

And Aaron, I thank you, because you asked me about any suggestions, and you said you would ask all of the council members.

And I think that um you probably said this, just touched on it.

Daily updates for our citizens, daily updates so that they will know where we have already cleared, what uh what the plan is uh as far as the area to clear next, just keeping them informed.

If there's any way we can have any kind of interactive map uh to show, uh put it out there daily.

If we have to work with our local um TV stations because a lot of our um, especially older adults get their news and their updates from uh local news.

We need to have something on YouTube daily just to let everybody know with transparency where we are, where we have been, and where we plan to go next.

So a huge thank you, but um thank you for uh thinking about areas where we can do better.

Any if there's nothing else?

Finance is four.

Okay.

That concludes the public works meeting.

Thank you all for coming.