WEBVTT

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 It's nine o'clock, so let's start the February 11th, 2019 Public Utilities Board meeting.

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 The first item on the agenda is a work session to receive a report on solid waste department's

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 residential and commercial recycling. Good morning, members of the board. My name is Ethan Cox.

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 I'm the Director for Solid Waste for the City of Denton. It's my pleasure to bring this to you

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 this morning. This is one in a series of business case analyses as we turn them, where we look at

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 all the operations out at solid waste and kind of give you an update on how they're performing and

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 take any direction or feedback in terms of program improvements. This is kind of a dense

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 presentation this morning, so I'm going to try to go through it fairly quickly. If you need me to

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 slow down and kind of dive a little bit deeper into something, let me know. I'm happy to do that. I do

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 have a couple of folks with me this morning I want to introduce you to. Eugene McKinney is our new

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 Operations and Collections Manager. He comes to us by way of Alabama, spent some time on the

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 East Coast. He's been doing an excellent job helping us improve the efficiency and effectiveness

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 of our collection programs. We also have Brandy Neal. She's our Commercial Accounts Coordinator.

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 So we're going to talk a lot about commercial recycling today. We're going to talk about

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 contamination, trying to improve the adoption of recycling citywide. She's playing a pivotal role

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 in that. So before we dive into the presentation, I'll just say recycling's obviously been in the

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 headlines quite a bit over the last year with China pulling out of the market. So we are going

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 to be talking a bit about the market impacts from the China green sword. We'll also be talking

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 quite a bit about contamination and how that's impacting our program. And then lastly, we'll

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 spend some time talking about how do we increase adoption among commercial and multifamily accounts.

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 As we've gone through these BCAs, one of the things we try to do is give you an update on what are the

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 objectives and the purpose of the programs. Our departmental objective is we are a growing

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 community. We want to try to reduce the per capita waste that goes into the landfill as our

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 community grows. And recycling certainly fits that mold. It helps you reduce waste into the

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 landfills. It also has a number of other environmental benefits, most notably preserving

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 natural resources and saving energy and preventing pollution for the sourcing of raw materials to

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 create new products. The participants in our program from a customer standpoint, we're going to be

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 talking about residential and commercial collections. We also have some drop-off sites that we

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 manage. And from an operations perspective, we've got our collections team obviously involved. We

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 also have our recovery facility. You're going to hear me call that a MRF as we go through the

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 presentation. And you obviously have the landfill. In terms of scope, we're not going to be looking

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 at any of our other ancillary collection programs. We're really going to be focused just on

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 recyclables and our drop-off locations. Definitions are pretty straightforward, but a couple of things

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 I do want to hit on here. Talking about the recovery facility, this is a key partner for you.

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 Again, I'll call it the MRF. This is the facility that is responsible for basically sorting all your

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 recyclable materials. We run a single source program, which means everyone puts all the

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 recyclables in the blue bin. The MRF is there to make sure that it's sorted out and transported

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 to the proper facility. Contamination is another definition I want to make sure we're all clear on.

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 Contamination happens when one of two things occurs. A non-recyclable material is put into a

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 recycling can. You can also call it a non-program material. Not all programs can collect all kinds

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 of recyclables. You also have dirty recyclable items. The dirty peanut butter jar or the pizza

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 box that has some grease on it, that's also contamination. So we'll dive into that in a bit

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 as well. So whenever we talk about the disruption in the recycling industry, one of the things that

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 makes us a little bit insulated to some of the chaos that's happened in the market is we do have

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 a contract with an on-site material recovery facility. Our partner in this is Pratt Industries.

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 We've been in contract with them for both a lease as well as processing agreements since 2012.

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 That doesn't expire until 2027. So while we've seen a lot of disruption in the market, we have

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 been fairly sheltered relatively speaking. That helps us in a couple of different ways, not just

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 from a revenue standpoint, but also from a program material standpoint. As you read the news clippings,

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 you'll see a lot of programs are having to dial back the number of materials that their program

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 accepts. And a lot of that is just because it's really difficult to move it in the market right

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 now. So for us, we still have these as our program materials. We also have a contamination

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 provision within the contract that states that Pratt may reject any load with greater than 15%

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 contamination by weight. They've been a good partner with us. They're typically not doing that

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 unless it's a really heavily contaminated load. Lastly, councils ask a lot of questions about

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 outside waste. And so we do have, Pratt does have the ability to accept non-dent recyclables,

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 but they pay us a fee of $5 per ton for each load that they accept.

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 I'm going to go through kind of a high level process overview just to kind of give you an

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 idea of how the recycling process works. And also I think this will be useful as we talk about the

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 effect that the China decision has made, not just domestically, but how it ripples back to the local

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 impact. So over here on the left, starting left to right, you have our collection operations. So

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 you've got residential, commercial, and our recycling drop-offs. All of our trucks transport

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 to Pratt Industries. Again, that's our on-site MRF. Pratt basically goes through, sorts that,

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 loads of materials up into various trucks, and they transport that to market. One of the things

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 that's unique about Pratt is they own their own paper mill. So for all of the paper and cardboard

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 that we collect in our program, it goes straight to their own mill. So they too are somewhat

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 insulated to some of the fluctuations in the market. That paper mill is located in Louisiana,

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 and so one of the things we tell folks on our tour is it's not unusual for us to collect a

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 piece of cardboard and it to be back in the DFW area on a shelf in two weeks. That's how efficient

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 they are at turning that back around. Unlike the paper and cardboard, Pratt does have to get

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 exposed to the market on plastics, glass, and metals. They deal with a variety of third-party

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 recyclers, and that's where they've seen some challenges on their end is we've had periods of

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 time where they couldn't move loads of glass or plastic because some of the processors were going

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 out of business or they were placing a hold on material acceptance. As we talk about commodities,

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 it's also important to know that as these third-party recyclers are dealing with

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 exposure to the markets, they are blacklisting some haulers and MRFs that are bringing them

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 heavily contaminated loads, and so really makes it incumbent on the MRF to make sure that they're

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 doing an effective job sorting materials. The last thing that can happen through the sorting

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 process is that contamination that we talk about. That actually goes straight into our landfill,

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 and so right now our contamination rate ranges typically from about 30 to 40 percent on a tonnage

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 basis. So in terms of the global ban by China, so that happened in January 2018. China has such

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 a big footprint in the recycling industry when they put in their ban, and essentially what they

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 did is they said, look, anything less than 0.5 contamination is going to be rejected, or anything

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 more than 0.5 percent. So, for all intents and purposes, it's an outright ban, and so as soon as

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 that happened, the demand for recyclable material globally dropped about 40 percent. There's been

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 some other countries that have picked up the slack, Vietnam, some other countries in that region.

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 However, those are short-term contracts that they're going to be expiring in the next one to

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 two years, and so from a global scale, folks are kind of scrambling to say, well, where are we going

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 to move our material to? And that really puts pressure on us to have a domestic market that gets

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 firmed up. So supply and demand, simple law, supply and demand says excess materials without

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 a demand there means low commodity prices, and commodity prices kind of shot through the floor.

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 Over here on the right-hand side, you can kind of see the effect that we saw on mixed paper and

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 cardboard. You go from $56 a ton down to $750. Actually, that's pretty good from a Texas standpoint.

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 On the East Coast, they were basically paying $5 a ton to move paper at one point. So the market's

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 seen some stabilization since then. The low commodity prices, how does that ripple effect

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 come back to us? Well, the low prices, like I mentioned, is the processors, their revenues

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 have gone through the floor, and so either they cut expense or they go out of business, and so the

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 thing that they can afford to do is spend a lot of money and time cleaning and excessive sorting.

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 So what they do is they place a ban on contaminated materials coming from haulers in the Murphs.

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 And for that, that affects Pratt, and Pratt in turn tells us we're going to start deducting more

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 contamination until you clean up your act. We're not alone in this. This is all across the country

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 right now, and it's really kind of the kind of the dirty secret of the recycling industry is we

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 haven't been taking as good a care of our own behaviors as we should have, and this kind of

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 pulled the veil back on that a little bit. A couple of things I'll say on this, too. So we

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 talked about the mixed paper and cardboard. Our single stream, as part of our contract, Pratt pays us

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 $15 per ton for single stream, and that's the contracted rate. So again, we're fairly insulated

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 from the market fluctuations. If we were to go out and try to bid this contract right now in Texas,

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 we'd probably be paying our Murph $25 to $90 per ton to move the recyclable materials. A source of

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 revenue turns to a pretty large expense category. Fortunately, we're not there. We have about nine

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 years to go on this contract, so our hope is that the market firms up domestically and we're not

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 having to face that decision. In terms of the financial overview from a commodity revenue

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 standpoint, we've seen about $170,000 step down year over year, '16-'17 to '17-'18. Essentially,

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 we've been able to cover that just by reducing operating expenditures. Again, if we were looking

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 at what some cities are faced with of having to pay $25 to $90 a ton, what you typically see is

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 we'd have to start charging a processing fee to each resident and commercial entity that's in the

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 recycling program. For us right now, over here on the right-hand side is the standard residential

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 bill. So our residents right now with a large cart pay $7.20 a month for residential collection

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 for recycling. They also pay a similar fee for refuse collection. The thing that's always made

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 recycling a good deal is they're not having to pay this disposal fee right here, and that's for

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 transporting and taking the waste to the landfill and actually processing it. If the markets don't

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 turn around, then that's the type of fee that we probably see added to the bill. And that's what a

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 lot of cities are starting to take a look at is the cost-benefit balance has kind of changed a

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 little bit for recycling. So their residents, their commercial businesses are having to take on

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 additional expense, and then they're also seeing that the number of materials being accepted is

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 starting to drop as well. So that kind of mutes the environmental benefits that you're seeing with

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 the program. Again, we're not in a great position, but we're in a great position relative to what

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 others are experiencing in the market. When you look at recycling there's a number of environmental

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 considerations, and I'm going to blow through these pretty quick, but it's essentially, you know,

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 kind of trade-offs. And so you look at it and say, well, what's my net benefit from an environmental

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 perspective? So when we talk about preserving natural resources and saving energy, like I said

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 earlier, we're not using raw materials or energy for new products, but what we are using raw materials

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 for is our collection trucks, our containers, the rolling stock that we put out there on the road.

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 You also have the energy used for equipment to collect, sort, and transport that material,

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 so you want to keep that in mind. Pollution prevention and reducing waste sent to the landfill,

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 you do have the pollution associated with sourcing and transporting raw materials, that's gone,

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 but you also have the methane output from decomposition of paper and cardboard.

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 And so for us, we do run a modern landfill, so we can kind of mute the effect that that has

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 environmentally, but that's still there. And then for last year, we saved about 16,000 cubic yards

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 of landfill airspace by diverting and recycling this material. The trade-off that you have there

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 is you have the emissions from our solid waste fleet, as well as the emissions for anything

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 associated with the MRF and the transportation of materials to market. So a lot to take in,

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 but what you do with all that information is there's a waste reduction model that the EPA

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 publishes. You can go in and plug in all these variables, take a look at the specifics for our

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 landfill, the specifics of our recycling program, and it kind of gives you an idea of what do we do

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 from an environmental and emissions standpoint. Our program for '17-'18, we removed essentially

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 about 4,700 passenger vehicles from the road in terms of emissions. And then from an energy usage,

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 we removed the annual energy usage of about 874 homes. So we are having a net positive environmental

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 impact. A few other ways that we look at the program performance, I'll walk through these

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 kind of one by one. So you have your customer classes here, residential and commercial.

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 One of the things we look at is adoption, and our definition of adoption is you have a City of Denton

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 recycling container. If you have one, you've adopted the program. We're at 100% for residential

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 because it's a bundled rate. All of our residences have a recycling cart, whether they wish to use

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 it or not. From a commercial standpoint, it's a voluntary program. The other thing I'll note

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 on a commercial is it is an open market to recycling, meaning you can choose to recycle,

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 but you may not be doing it with us. You may be doing it with another hauler. We're also seeing

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 more and more businesses kind of have this closed loop system of, you know, I take in the cardboard

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 from the supplier, and then when they come up with my next delivery, I hand the cardboard back to them,

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 and they take care of it for me. Amazon's a really good example of that. They have kind of a circular

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 economy for their cardboard. Participation, kind of building off of adoption, participation is

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 I have a container, and I'm actively setting it out, and so we do route audits every year.

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 Residentially, we see about 67% of the folks with the container set out. Keep in mind that only about

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 82% of folks with a refuse container are setting that out, so you may have a container, but you're

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 not always using it. A commercial, those containers are always out, available to lift. It doesn't mean

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 they're always full, though, and that's kind of the trick with commercial containers.

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 Contamination, we've talked about. This is on average what we're looking at in each of the

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 customer classes, so contamination of about 33% for residential and closer to 40% for our commercial

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 customers, and then your diversion is essentially just the weight of recyclables that we diverted

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 away from the landfill relative to the total waste output for residential and commercial.

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 Sir, I don't understand the 100% participation. So commercial containers essentially are your

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 dumpsters and your big boxes. Those go on a regular schedule, much like residential. You're

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 not rolling them out to the curb, so when we look at participation, because we can't really say that

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 container was a third full or a half full, it's available for pickup, and we're actively lifting

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 it, so we're saying that they're getting 100% participation. Okay. Although only 27% have

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 adopted recycling. Yes. It doesn't mean that... It's probably the more important figure in this.

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 I think the way I would probably say that, Mr. Sheik, is participation may not be efficient

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 participation, meaning that container may be almost empty when we lift it,

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 but it's available for collection when we swing by. Do you have any way of finding out what

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 commercial entities are contracting with other sources? Not currently. That's hard to find out,

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 I'm sure. You know, we'll talk a little bit about mandatory recycling ordinance here in a little

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 bit, and that's a factor for someone like Austin who's pushing that out of Dallas, is you really

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 have a full compliance arm that is you have to register as a hauler. You have to basically tell

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 us all of your customers. It's a pretty involved process to get that type of information. It's not

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 impossible, but there's some work that has to be done to get it. Since you have the figures for

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 contamination of commercial containers, do you have a calculation of how much you're collecting

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 from commercial recycling? In terms of tonnage? Yeah, I mean, because that percentage is based

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 on that, isn't that right? We do. So the percentages are a little different here because

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 this is relative to all of our waste accepted at our facility. So from a commercial standpoint,

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 you've got commercial recycling about 2,800 tons. This is fiscal year '17-'18.

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 There's residential recycling at about 5,800. Okay. Thank you. You bet.

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 So the biggest challenge facing our program right now is the contamination figures that you see

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 right here. That mutes the environmental impact that we have. An otherwise clean load with one

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 bad actor can throw something wrong in their container and ruin almost a whole truckload,

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 depending on the conditions. So I want to talk a little bit about what contamination is,

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 what are we seeing, and then what we're doing to try to address it. On the left-hand side here,

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 this is the wrong/non-program materials that we talked about. A couple things I'll point out

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 that are common mistakes is you see some plastics in here. You've got laundry containers. You've got

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 a water jug. Those are all plastic materials, but they're not program materials. Hardshell plastics

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 like your Fisher-Prest playgrounds and things like that, those are common things that folks

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 will throw in there and say, "Well, it's plastic. It'll go." Not so much. So some of those can be

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 recycled, just not through our program. So we need to do a better job of getting education out to

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 folks saying, "Here's where you can take that to recycle it." Obviously, we prefer reuse on that

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 type of stuff as opposed to recycling, if possible. Some other things in here, you've got some

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 electrical cables, cords, Christmas lights, or the bane of any Murph, because it gets tangled into

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 some of the machinery in there. We took a council member on a tour the other day.

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 Christmas lights were tangled on the bottom. They were down for two hours. And so it adds to expense.

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 And then also, you also have that stuff that just can't be recycled in our program. You've got

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 textiles, furniture, wood. Things like that are common to see in here. Hangers. Those are all

00:19:07.760 --> 00:19:11.920
 things that folks think, "Well, it's metal. It's aluminum. It ought to go." And it doesn't.

00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:17.600
 On the other hand, you also have dirty materials. And these are more of what I associate with.

00:19:17.600 --> 00:19:21.920
 This is not wish-cycling. This is someone was a bad actor and did something irresponsible.

00:19:22.800 --> 00:19:28.480
 So this was an otherwise clean load. We do certain routes for commercial that are just cardboard.

00:19:28.480 --> 00:19:33.600
 Someone threw a bag of food waste in there. All of our trucks compress. And when that happens,

00:19:33.600 --> 00:19:38.560
 it blows all over the place. They empty the load, and it's basically written off as 100% contamination.

00:19:38.560 --> 00:19:44.160
 This is the stuff that we've got to do a better job of stopping when we can. Education and outreach

00:19:44.160 --> 00:19:51.360
 can affect this. This is typically more of an abuse of the process. One of the things we're

00:19:51.360 --> 00:19:56.240
 trying to do is kind of triangulate where our issues are or where they're the highest in terms

00:19:56.240 --> 00:20:01.520
 of contamination. So we've partnered with tech services to give us kind of a GIS map, if you will,

00:20:01.520 --> 00:20:05.520
 of where, on average, which routes are performing well, which ones are not performing well.

00:20:05.520 --> 00:20:10.880
 You'll notice there's not a lot of green in this map because it's not there. On average, our routes

00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:17.520
 are above 15% contamination. We do have a few routes, residentially, on the outskirts of town

00:20:17.520 --> 00:20:21.920
 that are doing pretty well from a contamination standpoint. But, by and large, most of them are

00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:27.520
 in this 30 to 45% range. It doesn't mean that there's not folks doing it right. It means that

00:20:27.520 --> 00:20:31.920
 they are getting mixed in with some of the folks that aren't doing it as well, maybe.

00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:38.960
 We also have some hot spots where it's 45% and above. You see those highlighted here,

00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:44.640
 residentially. In commercial, it's a little spread out. So what we're doing with this information,

00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:49.360
 this is where Brandy's spending a lot of her time, is doing targeted commercial audits,

00:20:49.360 --> 00:20:53.840
 is we're going out to those routes and essentially lifting the lid to see what are we seeing in here.

00:20:53.840 --> 00:20:58.240
 Is this someone that needs a little bit of education? Are they a bad actor? Are they doing

00:20:58.240 --> 00:21:04.240
 a really nice job? And so what Brandy does, she does the targeted audit. About 50% of the time,

00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:08.320
 a little bit less than 50% of the time, we're seeing less than 10% contamination.

00:21:08.320 --> 00:21:13.520
 For the loads where there is higher than 10% contamination, Brandy and the public outreach

00:21:13.520 --> 00:21:18.320
 office are performing what we call an educational intervention. We basically go into their office,

00:21:18.320 --> 00:21:22.880
 show them the pictures. Hey, this material doesn't go in there or if you continue to do this,

00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:28.480
 it's going to cause problems. Deliver them some educational material. For businesses,

00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:33.200
 it's usually just going direct to the owner or the manager. For multifamily establishments,

00:21:33.200 --> 00:21:38.160
 it's also trying to help them establish education for their tenants. And so that can be a little bit

00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:44.000
 more involved. Of the 54 that we tried to do an intervention on, only about half of those were

00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:50.160
 receptive, meaning we got a call back and they were like, okay, we'll hear you out. And then on

00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:54.800
 those, it's kind of been 50/50 on that is I think we've got some properties that are really trying

00:21:54.800 --> 00:22:00.240
 hard to turn this around and their tenants aren't being cooperative. And I'll show you kind of some

00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:05.280
 successes and some challenges here and then I'll share some thoughts on where we are. So this is a

00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:11.200
 shared container on the square. This was in November 2018. This is what we got before. This is

00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:16.800
 a cardboard only container, if I'm not mistaken. And so you can see bags and bags and bags of

00:22:16.800 --> 00:22:21.600
 food waste. Obviously that's going to be 100% contaminated. Brandy went out there and twisted

00:22:21.600 --> 00:22:28.160
 their arm and went back a couple of weeks later and this is what we saw. So a pretty dramatic

00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:33.280
 turnaround. Mr. Chigas, I mentioned earlier, this is the type of load that we would want to adjust

00:22:33.280 --> 00:22:38.160
 the collection frequency because it's not efficient for us to go collect, you know, a third or half

00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:44.160
 full loads. But this is what I see. This means the education and intervention is working.

00:22:44.160 --> 00:22:52.320
 Likewise, with multifamily, I'm sorry. On the commercial though, they're getting charged

00:22:52.320 --> 00:22:57.840
 every time you come out and pick that up, right? Our rate schedule scales to the frequency of

00:22:57.840 --> 00:23:03.040
 pickups so there is a financial benefit to them not being collected as frequently. Right. So

00:23:03.040 --> 00:23:09.200
 again, education, no business wants to pay for something that is inefficient. And that's a lot

00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:14.720
 of times what our sales pitch is on the recycling is look, we can cut down your frequency and save

00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:19.760
 you a little bit of money to boot. Some cases that's true, some cases it's not. It just depends on

00:23:19.760 --> 00:23:26.560
 the waste profile and what they're generating. Thank you. Multifamily, these are some properties

00:23:26.560 --> 00:23:32.480
 that are really doing it well. I think these are off of Bell. So here, breaking down boxes,

00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:36.720
 cleaning out. I mean, I think you've got a honey jar somewhere in here that got cleaned out, which

00:23:36.720 --> 00:23:41.520
 is really impressive. That's hard to do. You've got a salsa jar cleaned out. I mean, this is ideal

00:23:41.520 --> 00:23:45.760
 what you would want to see when you lift a recycling container. This is another good load,

00:23:45.760 --> 00:23:49.680
 although this one would probably be over your 15% contamination because you have the hard shell

00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:55.200
 plastic back here. But all in all, this is a really nice load, just a little bit of education.

00:23:55.200 --> 00:23:59.680
 This one doesn't have the boxes broken down. It's got a plastic bag in there. But all in all,

00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:06.800
 a pretty clean load, all things considered. Multifamily is particularly some of our more

00:24:06.800 --> 00:24:10.640
 challenging areas just because you're not just educating that one person. You're trying to

00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:16.320
 educate 300 or 400 people. This load over here, obviously you've got plastics, plastic bags,

00:24:16.320 --> 00:24:21.680
 which are a big no-no in the recycling program. The other thing that's problematic here is you've

00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:26.320
 got water in the floor of this container. Someone left the lid open when it was raining. Now any

00:24:26.320 --> 00:24:32.320
 cardboard that contacts that has not had the ability to be recycled. And so that's, again,

00:24:32.320 --> 00:24:37.840
 part of the education campaign there. This is a problematic property because they're basically

00:24:37.840 --> 00:24:42.960
 just treating their recycling bin as another waste dumpster. You've got folks throwing ashes in there.

00:24:42.960 --> 00:24:49.280
 You've got electronics, styrofoam, yard waste. And so some of this is education. Some of it is

00:24:49.280 --> 00:24:55.040
 just a bad act or not doing their part and actually causing problems in the program.

00:24:57.120 --> 00:25:01.920
 So one of the things that we want to propose and try to get a recommendation out of the PV on is

00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:07.440
 how can we go beyond just the education piece. Understand that from a commercial standpoint,

00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:12.400
 we can do the targeted audits. We have, you know, a couple thousand commercial properties.

00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:17.360
 When you switch it over to residential, you're dealing with about 40,000 cans out there in the

00:25:17.360 --> 00:25:22.080
 field. And so no matter how hard we try, we're not going to be able to hit all those. Our goal

00:25:22.080 --> 00:25:27.200
 really is for the person that is obviously a bad actor and is blatant abuse is we want to have some

00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:34.080
 type of kind of compliance, if you will, to where we're not harming the program and they get the

00:25:34.080 --> 00:25:39.840
 message. So Chapter 24 of our ordinance says it's unlawful for any person to place any non-recyclable

00:25:39.840 --> 00:25:45.680
 waste into a recycling receptacle. Now, that gives us the authority to write fines and penalties and

00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:51.680
 all that. Our stance on this from a department is that's not necessarily effective because that

00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:57.120
 fine is going to come 30 or 45 days after you did what you did and you may not even recognize it.

00:25:57.120 --> 00:26:03.120
 What we prefer to do is whenever we run across a container like this, this is a pic from one of our

00:26:03.120 --> 00:26:08.560
 drivers, is we put a contamination notice on it, tell them to clean it up, put it in the right

00:26:08.560 --> 00:26:14.320
 container, and we'll be back next week. That's not going to be a very popular decision for some

00:26:14.320 --> 00:26:19.600
 of these folks, but that's the most efficient way that we found in the industry to really affect

00:26:19.600 --> 00:26:24.240
 change here. Folks will only have that happen to them once or twice and then they'll get tired

00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:29.520
 of cleaning up their own mess. The alternative is we clean it up for them in the field or we lift it,

00:26:29.520 --> 00:26:36.000
 contaminate the load, and then allow the MRF to try to sort it out. So to me, if you make the mess,

00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:43.520
 you clean up the mess. Have a statistic of how often that happens? Not residentially. I mean,

00:26:43.520 --> 00:26:48.480
 from a commercial standpoint, like I said, it's about 50/50 and we wouldn't be tagging 50 percent

00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:52.480
 of the commercial loads. It's really just that blatant, I mean, it would be something like this

00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:56.880
 right here that we would tag and step. We probably wouldn't notice this because we're not going to be

00:26:56.880 --> 00:27:01.200
 getting out and lifting every container or opening every container. That will probably end up going

00:27:01.200 --> 00:27:08.640
 in the truck. This would not. This right here, unless the container lid is flipped open, we

00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:13.680
 wouldn't notice it. And so that's why I think commercially the targeted audits need to continue.

00:27:13.680 --> 00:27:17.600
 Residentially, I think this is probably the most efficient way to approach it.

00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:23.520
 Last thing I want to touch on, and then I'll do wrap up and take any recommendations you have,

00:27:23.520 --> 00:27:28.320
 is so one of the key components is kind of expanding the reach of recycling and trying

00:27:28.320 --> 00:27:33.120
 to get adoption out there in the commercial and multifamily areas. So right now we've broken this

00:27:33.120 --> 00:27:39.600
 apart here. Commercials at about 25 percent. Like I said earlier, they may be recycling using other

00:27:39.600 --> 00:27:46.400
 means or another provider. Multifamily are at about 35 percent. One of the ways we've been trying to

00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:51.280
 affect change in this area is we're doing direct marketing efforts, essentially targeting properties

00:27:51.280 --> 00:27:57.040
 where we think their waste profile would make a good case. Performing cold calls and site visits,

00:27:57.040 --> 00:28:03.280
 and then hopefully getting them to adopt. Over the last three to four months, we've had 57 accounts

00:28:03.280 --> 00:28:09.760
 we've targeted. Nine of those were converted into recycling adoption. Another nine were actually

00:28:09.760 --> 00:28:14.320
 using some other means. And so when you combine those together, it's about 33 percent success rate.

00:28:14.320 --> 00:28:21.440
 That's how we'd look at that. We certainly want to continue this effort. One of the things that we

00:28:21.440 --> 00:28:25.920
 talked to the committee on the environment about is some cities are doing mandatory recycling

00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:31.120
 ordinances. If we want to pursue that, what we would recommend from the staff level is let's do

00:28:31.120 --> 00:28:37.840
 a case analysis on that on its own. The reason why is it is kind of a delicate balance in terms

00:28:37.840 --> 00:28:42.080
 of cost benefit, especially with where the industry is right now. We'd have to look at

00:28:42.080 --> 00:28:46.640
 the environmental benefits versus the truck emissions. You also have your investments in

00:28:46.640 --> 00:28:51.920
 terms of containers and trucks that you'd have to put out there. The contamination, the recycling

00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:56.320
 market are all factors. One of the other things that I'd put out there is that we do have some

00:28:56.320 --> 00:29:00.800
 space for additional containers. We're struggling right now with some of the containers in the

00:29:00.800 --> 00:29:06.640
 right-of-way trying to make sure that we have enough space for one container. We may be creating

00:29:06.640 --> 00:29:11.040
 an issue where now we're having to find space for two. Some of the other considerations you'll

00:29:11.040 --> 00:29:16.080
 hear from customers is additional costs and responsibilities. I know as Brandy has offered

00:29:16.080 --> 00:29:20.720
 this up to some folks voluntarily, this is kind of the deal killer for them is I don't want the

00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:25.920
 additional cost or having to deal with it. I'm not saying that's right or wrong. It's just some of

00:29:25.920 --> 00:29:34.080
 the stuff that I think we'll have to take into account. With that, I'm going to wrap up. In terms

00:29:34.080 --> 00:29:38.640
 of cost containment, I know one of the things when our consultant was here last year, they recommended

00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:42.880
 bi-weekly collection. Based on what we've seen from our route audits, we don't think that's a

00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:47.600
 good idea. We want to maintain weekly collection, but we do need to resize our collection routes to

00:29:47.600 --> 00:29:51.920
 make them more efficient, make sure we're not emptying half empty or half full containers.

00:29:51.920 --> 00:29:57.120
 In terms of contamination, we do want to continue our audits and education campaigns. We want to

00:29:57.120 --> 00:30:02.560
 recognize the institutions that are doing it right on social media, on the website. We do have a

00:30:02.560 --> 00:30:06.480
 number of businesses and citizens that are going to great lengths to do this correctly, and we want

00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:11.520
 to make sure they get some recognition for their efforts. Lastly, we do want to recommend the

00:30:11.520 --> 00:30:16.720
 compliance and enforcement. If it's contaminated, we're not lifting it. And I think for the PB,

00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:20.400
 the council, you will get some pushback and some complaints about that, I would anticipate.

00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:27.200
 But our goal is long-term success of the program, and it may mean some folks have to clean up their

00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:31.680
 act a little bit in the interim. In terms of increasing adoption and participation, we do

00:30:31.680 --> 00:30:36.160
 want to continue with the direct marketing efforts, educate new and existing participants,

00:30:36.160 --> 00:30:40.800
 celebrate the successes when they occur. And like I said, if we want to pursue the recycling

00:30:40.800 --> 00:30:45.040
 ordinance, we'd recommend that we circle back with this body as well as the council

00:30:45.040 --> 00:30:51.360
 to give you kind of a fuller, deeper dive into that. We met with the committee on the environment.

00:30:51.360 --> 00:30:55.440
 There's a few additional things that they recommended. From a contamination standpoint,

00:30:55.440 --> 00:31:00.160
 looking at replacing containers in parks and public areas. We're looking at the square. Some

00:31:00.160 --> 00:31:03.440
 of the parks are already purchasing new containers. And so that's something that

00:31:04.080 --> 00:31:08.320
 just by the container selection, you can restrict contamination in some cases.

00:31:08.320 --> 00:31:15.360
 They did recommend evaluating the mandatory recycling ordinance. And they also had some

00:31:15.360 --> 00:31:20.400
 additional recommendations in terms of education, outreach, and right sizing all of our containers

00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:26.800
 proactively. With that, I will be happy to stand for any questions and take any recommendations

00:31:26.800 --> 00:31:33.520
 that you have. >> I was just wondering if you're prepared to coordinate with code enforcement if

00:31:33.520 --> 00:31:40.800
 you stop picking up trash. Because judging from Austin, for instance, people will just leave it

00:31:40.800 --> 00:31:46.400
 out there. >> Right. We haven't talked about it, but we will follow up with code enforcement.

00:31:46.400 --> 00:31:49.680
 >> I'll have community improvement services. >> Yes.

00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:52.720
 >> Thank you. Yes. Community improvement services. Thank you for the reaction.

00:31:52.720 --> 00:31:56.240
 >> They always change the names. >> You know, one of the things that we've

00:31:56.240 --> 00:32:00.240
 talked a little bit about in I don't think we're going to load it into this year's budget. We're

00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:05.760
 just not ready yet. But an environmental compliance officer, if you will, not just for some of our

00:32:05.760 --> 00:32:10.400
 issues, but some other issues in the community that kind of more proactively go out there and

00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:13.920
 address this. Brandy is kind of a one man army right now. One woman army, I'm sorry.

00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:21.120
 Basically tackling all these issues. And I think we want to see how this starts to kind of turn

00:32:21.120 --> 00:32:25.680
 with us not lifting the contaminated loads. If it continues to be a problem, that may be something

00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:30.720
 we circle back to the PB and the council on is we need a little bit more horsepower to affect the

00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:35.280
 change that we need. And I think to that end, we can certainly have that person or persons coordinate

00:32:35.280 --> 00:32:41.520
 with community improvement. It's a good suggestion. >> Could you pull up that map again about

00:32:41.520 --> 00:32:51.040
 contamination? >> Mm-hm. >> So is most of this residential or a combination of residential

00:32:51.040 --> 00:32:55.120
 and commercial? >> Commercial is more contaminated than residential is right now.

00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:03.120
 >> Okay. >> I think the type of contamination you're seeing, it really varies. I think on

00:33:03.120 --> 00:33:07.760
 the commercial side, when you're dealing with restaurants, automotive places, that's where

00:33:07.760 --> 00:33:14.880
 we're seeing dirty material in there. Some of that is like a pencil can. We really can't take

00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:18.800
 that in a recycling program. That needs to be treated differently. That's kind of hazardous

00:33:18.800 --> 00:33:24.080
 waste. On the residential side, I think you get more what we call wish cycling is it looks like

00:33:24.080 --> 00:33:28.960
 it's about right. So I'm going to throw it in there and take a chance. There are a couple areas

00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:32.720
 in town, and our drivers will probably tell you the neighborhood. I'm not going to shame anyone

00:33:32.720 --> 00:33:38.000
 here today. But they will tell you that every can they go down that street is contaminated.

00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:41.840
 And it's not because they don't know how. It's because they have so much waste and they don't

00:33:41.840 --> 00:33:47.280
 want to pay for an extra container. It overflows. >> Sure. >> And so I think those are going to be

00:33:47.280 --> 00:33:54.240
 the areas where this effort in terms of compliance really has the biggest impact. I think the one

00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:59.120
 thing that will be a bit of a challenge there is we are not removing containers. And that's

00:33:59.120 --> 00:34:03.200
 something that we probably kind of plan to see and say, is that something we need to think about?

00:34:03.200 --> 00:34:08.720
 I know we want to have mandatory recycling, but if it's someone that is truly abusing the program,

00:34:08.720 --> 00:34:15.280
 do we continue to keep them on board? And that's a question I think we just kind of leave open to

00:34:15.280 --> 00:34:23.680
 the PAB and the council. >> Yeah, it's a tough balance between mandatory and, yeah, that's

00:34:23.680 --> 00:34:30.400
 lived through that before. That's tough. >> It is tough. >> Ethan, I've heard through

00:34:30.400 --> 00:34:35.200
 the great plan, obviously, that you've changed the way you're recycling your paving products.

00:34:35.200 --> 00:34:40.880
 So how's that happening now? What are you doing about your concrete and your asphalt and the

00:34:40.880 --> 00:34:47.760
 steel that comes in concrete? >> Billy, you need your mic. >> I got you. >> You got me. >> So

00:34:47.760 --> 00:34:53.200
 asking about recycling concrete and such is really there is a small use for concrete and asphalt

00:34:53.200 --> 00:34:57.520
 millings and stuff like that on site. You know, metal products we're separating out. We have a

00:34:57.520 --> 00:35:01.200
 public disposal area where once that hits the ground for our small contractors and stuff,

00:35:01.200 --> 00:35:05.680
 our staff is pulling that aside. For concrete, what we're trying to do is limit the amount of

00:35:05.680 --> 00:35:10.240
 stuff that's coming across the scales. Right now we have probably five years worth of stockpiles.

00:35:10.240 --> 00:35:15.760
 It's highly contaminated and it's really basically a burden for us and we're running the risk of that

00:35:15.760 --> 00:35:20.240
 actually eating up landfill airspace as opposed to saving it. So kind of the rule of thumb that

00:35:20.240 --> 00:35:25.200
 we've used is we divert 100% of the material we don't accept. So for that piece, we're only

00:35:25.200 --> 00:35:31.360
 accepting what we think we can use on site. For our city operations, we will accept it but we did

00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:36.240
 put in contamination standards on it. It is basically anything more than 5% contaminated.

00:35:36.240 --> 00:35:40.320
 We're not going to accept it. If we do, we're going to treat it as wasted and we'll be billed as such.

00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:45.280
 And so I think it's probably going to be three or four years before we look at really diving back

00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:51.040
 into that. And then I think at that point it's going to be a matter of are we better off just

00:35:51.040 --> 00:35:56.080
 purchasing, you know, the millings for the use in our internal roads and tipping pads or should we

00:35:56.080 --> 00:36:02.000
 look at recycling ourselves? In the meantime, we have about five years worth of kind of metered out

00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:05.440
 processing that we're going to have to do to burn through the stockpiles that we have because we've

00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:13.840
 got to move it out of the way. So now you're charging the other departments to take that

00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:18.800
 material. I don't think you were before, correct? We were charging but it was a very low rate and

00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:23.760
 we still accept it at a discounted rate but it's got to meet those contamination standards.

00:36:23.760 --> 00:36:28.720
 Less than 5% contaminated. The other thing too is there are other processors out there in the market.

00:36:28.720 --> 00:36:35.120
 May not be quite as convenient as us but there are processors out there that take it free of charge if

00:36:35.120 --> 00:36:42.720
 it meets their contamination standards. I think there's a couple in Louisville. I'd have to take

00:36:42.720 --> 00:36:46.080
 a look but we have a list typically that we provide to folks crossing the scales that says

00:36:46.080 --> 00:36:51.360
 here's where you can go if you don't want to pay this rate. So we're still taking rumble?

00:36:51.360 --> 00:36:57.680
 We do from city departments if it's under a certain contamination limit. We want clean product that's

00:36:57.680 --> 00:37:02.000
 easy to because what we're having to do, Brendan, is we're having to not just pay the process that

00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:06.720
 we're having to pay to resort it and we'd prefer that folks perform a field sort before bringing

00:37:06.720 --> 00:37:14.880
 it to us. Just try not to take on the other problems. Can you go to the financial overview

00:37:14.880 --> 00:37:21.680
 slide for me? Sure. I think you were talking about this as I strolled in five to ten minutes late.

00:37:21.680 --> 00:37:32.640
 Sorry. Is this a recycling cart that we're covering or just generally what is the 3120? Is that for a

00:37:32.640 --> 00:37:38.960
 large recycling cart? It's your bundled service. If you get the large cart bundle this is your cost

00:37:38.960 --> 00:37:43.360
 of service and what we've done here in this pie charter we've broken it out for all the components

00:37:43.360 --> 00:37:49.280
 that go into that rate in essence. So out of that 3120 it's about seven dollars and 20 cents for

00:37:49.280 --> 00:37:55.040
 recycling collection. Seven dollars and 16 cents for refuse. You've got your yard waste service,

00:37:55.040 --> 00:38:00.880
 your disposal fees, and then you got some smaller ancillary services like HCC, bulky items,

00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:05.680
 and then you have your overhead which is your franchise fees, your transfers to other departments,

00:38:05.680 --> 00:38:06.560
 things of that nature.

00:38:06.560 --> 00:38:14.560
 Okay. I guess I'm still a little bit confused. I kind of thought that they were built separately,

00:38:14.560 --> 00:38:20.000
 a trash cart and the recycling cart because you can have a small recycling cart and a big

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:23.520
 so they're not broken up separately. We have bundles and so you have the larger bundle,

00:38:23.520 --> 00:38:28.560
 the mid-size, and the small and this is just one of those. This is a large bundle,

00:38:28.560 --> 00:38:35.280
 large recycling, large refuse. Okay, okay. The cameras on the collection vehicles,

00:38:35.280 --> 00:38:42.880
 are they suitable for assessing whether or not the cart is contaminated when you dump it? They can.

00:38:42.880 --> 00:38:47.520
 Now Eugene, correct me if I'm wrong, we don't, not all of our vehicles are outfitted with cameras

00:38:47.520 --> 00:38:52.720
 that will be. So I think that's something that we're going to be taking a look as we spec out our

00:38:52.720 --> 00:38:59.040
 vehicles is route optimization as well as the cameras aren't just there for contamination and

00:38:59.040 --> 00:39:03.280
 kind of taking a picture of the evidence if you will. They're also there for safety features and

00:39:03.280 --> 00:39:08.240
 things like that. So that is something that we're going to probably be looking into moving forward.

00:39:08.240 --> 00:39:16.160
 It seemed like this group had approved a suite of software and hardware that the trucks were

00:39:16.160 --> 00:39:21.760
 supposed to be outfitted with that would help them understand things about the address as well

00:39:21.760 --> 00:39:27.840
 as cameras that were supposed to be. There was a pilot project that went for about 60 days on that.

00:39:27.840 --> 00:39:33.840
 Now we've placed that on hold for a couple of reasons. Number one is the essentially the

00:39:35.040 --> 00:39:39.920
 software that that would be dependent on. We have had a number of audits and we're finding that

00:39:39.920 --> 00:39:45.760
 software incredibly lacking and so we're going to and the reason why that's important is we would

00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:51.440
 have to upgrade that software in order for that new system to work and so we've put the camera

00:39:51.440 --> 00:39:57.280
 system on hold while we evaluate this other system and once we get a final system in place that we're

00:39:57.280 --> 00:40:01.120
 comfortable with that provides everything we need then we'll reevaluate that piece. Does that make

00:40:01.120 --> 00:40:08.880
 sense? What I was leading up to and like Susan pointed out is people are motivated not just

00:40:08.880 --> 00:40:15.840
 commercial entities but individuals are motivated with dollars and if you could actually somehow

00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:22.560
 demonstrate that people were recycling well and reward them somehow by charging less to collect their

00:40:22.560 --> 00:40:28.960
 less contaminated recyclables then you might be able to work something out like that. The other

00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:33.920
 thing it seems like you could do that nobody really has brought up is maybe a tertiary

00:40:33.920 --> 00:40:42.480
 collection bin that is your maybe partner with residences where a residence contacts the solid

00:40:42.480 --> 00:40:49.520
 waste and says I want to recycle I'm going to do it right and then that way those colored bins you

00:40:49.520 --> 00:40:55.600
 know they have five percent collection you can sit a different vehicle like you do for the for the

00:40:56.800 --> 00:41:01.280
 bulky items or the yard waste because they the yard waste vehicle it just kind of drives around

00:41:01.280 --> 00:41:05.760
 and looks for weight yard waste drive that's something we're going to be talking about in a

00:41:05.760 --> 00:41:12.400
 month or so I mean it does it just drives it looks for you know so if you had bins that you knew were

00:41:12.400 --> 00:41:21.440
 people that partnered with the city to do proper recycling I don't know and then the other thing

00:41:21.440 --> 00:41:27.040
 that I wanted to mention I've been to the recite I've toured the recycling facility about four times

00:41:27.040 --> 00:41:36.240
 and each time the educator at the time said if in doubt recycle and that's just wrong right I mean

00:41:36.240 --> 00:41:40.480
 that's wrong now I mean if in doubt you should throw it in the trash I think that was probably

00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:46.000
 a holdover from where the industry was sure absolutely and a half ago absolutely and somehow

00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:51.840
 we got to beat something new into everybody's head so because if in doubt it should go in the trash

00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:57.120
 right yeah I think we started out with everyone separating at home to just throw it in the bin

00:41:57.120 --> 00:42:03.920
 and we'll sort it out to now we're kind of having to pay for that mentality and for wishful recycling

00:42:03.920 --> 00:42:08.160
 yeah and I think there are yeah I think there are some entities out there that are really going back

00:42:08.160 --> 00:42:15.040
 to source separating a lot of this now and that's we're not there don't worry but you know that that

00:42:15.040 --> 00:42:18.960
 is one of those things is kind of being kicked around out there is if we can't get rid of

00:42:18.960 --> 00:42:23.760
 contamination in single source do we need to evaluate another model and we're not going to

00:42:23.760 --> 00:42:28.000
 step out on a ledge on that we'll let the industry decide which way we need to go and decide if we

00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:35.440
 want to jump so I really appreciate this because I had I think three or three questions for you and

00:42:35.440 --> 00:42:43.280
 you seem to combine them all into one presentation so I appreciate that so thank you we'll be

00:42:43.280 --> 00:42:46.720
 bringing this to council tomorrow is there any other recommendations that puv you would like to

00:42:46.720 --> 00:42:54.400
 add beyond what we've put up well I think some efforts need to be made in community education

00:42:54.400 --> 00:43:00.720
 you know educating everybody but I would support an ordinance telling people they had to do it

00:43:00.720 --> 00:43:03.600
 okay personally I would

00:43:03.600 --> 00:43:11.440
 so with us basically telling or asking us here to come back with an analysis is that what you'd like

00:43:11.440 --> 00:43:18.640
 to see first or do you support it without that I would do analysis first but I don't know what

00:43:18.640 --> 00:43:24.640
 Brendan's thinking I've lived through it and I already do it was doing it before y'all did it

00:43:24.640 --> 00:43:30.880
 you know so I don't really have that big of a problem with it so you know you told no you've

00:43:30.880 --> 00:43:36.240
 already been doing what recycling yeah I just you know yeah yeah my house was that way too yeah

00:43:39.120 --> 00:43:44.880
 how many customers do you have for residential we're 40 000 commercial brandy help me out

00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:53.200
 3000 so when you're talking mandatory you're going to start with mandatory residential

00:43:53.200 --> 00:43:57.680
 residential yeah that's really right now it's already mandatory already mandatory

00:43:57.680 --> 00:44:03.680
 and so really what you're looking at is commercial and multifamily and when we talk to the committee

00:44:03.680 --> 00:44:07.840
 on the environment we ask them we can separate these out and do mandatory for one or the other

00:44:07.840 --> 00:44:13.760
 and I think they want the analysis for both commercial and multifamily it's mandatory with

00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:21.760
 punitive any kind of recourse if they don't do it properly I think that's something that you've

00:44:21.760 --> 00:44:26.080
 got to start taking into consideration you know there's been some discussion about the

00:44:26.080 --> 00:44:30.320
 development code and putting it in there and really for us we you really have to craft an

00:44:30.320 --> 00:44:34.880
 ordinance and that ordinance is going to have to have some provisions in there we talked earlier

00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:39.120
 about someone that's recycling with another entity we're going to have to have some provisions on how

00:44:39.120 --> 00:44:43.920
 do we find that out how do we make sure that they're registered on a regular basis you you

00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:49.360
 run into some cities where they're doing token efforts by that I mean it's a 500 unit apartment

00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:53.920
 complex and they have one cart not dumpster they have one cart to say we're recycling

00:44:53.920 --> 00:44:58.320
 and so there's there's some loopholes and some things that we can learn from other cities if we

00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:04.160
 go down that path I think Austin and a few others that have been fairly successful with that they

00:45:04.160 --> 00:45:10.160
 phase in over you know six or seven years it's not a we decided we're going to do it because you do

00:45:10.160 --> 00:45:13.440
 have some of those issues that you've got to work through like your space considerations

00:45:13.440 --> 00:45:18.560
 new properties it's a little bit easier but for your grandfather doing properties you're

00:45:18.560 --> 00:45:21.680
 going to have some challenges that you're going to have to work through on how they get that

00:45:21.680 --> 00:45:27.840
 get that done so Austin has mandatory recycling they do they're they're probably out of the folks

00:45:27.840 --> 00:45:31.520
 in the state as my understanding they're they're about as far along as anyone okay I think they've

00:45:31.520 --> 00:45:37.520
 recently added composting to their collection as well yeah I mean I'm down there when I'm moving

00:45:37.520 --> 00:45:44.400
 my daughter in and out of college and they could really improve improve their solid waste it's you

00:45:44.400 --> 00:45:51.680
 can't drive down some streets when you've got all those kids you know discarding the stuff that they

00:45:51.680 --> 00:45:56.160
 don't want to move right college move in and move out through yeah challenge a challenge

00:45:58.720 --> 00:46:02.240
 and these are you know these are bright-eyed bushy-tailed

00:46:02.240 --> 00:46:08.400
 young college students who are all into low impact lifestyles you know they're still trashing the

00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:16.960
 streets so yeah if it's not easy to do sometimes people just don't do it yeah right well while

00:46:16.960 --> 00:46:21.680
 we're on the topic we didn't really cover it but but we have talked about it in the past I'm going

00:46:21.680 --> 00:46:27.200
 to bring it up the areas where we provide containers for people to bring their cars

00:46:27.200 --> 00:46:39.840
 and recycle stuff I wonder if as an example perhaps the city could manage those areas better

00:46:39.840 --> 00:46:49.840
 so we could take pride in our recycling situation they're often like that you know and I believe

00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:54.960
 one of the reasons why and you didn't grab a picture of it I have one on my phone of the pole

00:46:55.680 --> 00:47:01.360
 where the cameras used to be that has the sign that says they're monitored by cameras right well

00:47:01.360 --> 00:47:05.680
 it did take an idiot to realize there aren't any cameras there anymore because they're gone

00:47:05.680 --> 00:47:10.880
 we actually had a camera at this location yeah was monitoring it and it didn't stop folks

00:47:10.880 --> 00:47:15.760
 yeah so much and so this is one of the things that well you have to look at the footage

00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:20.080
 you have to be able to get you know tag numbers and you actually have to have a

00:47:20.080 --> 00:47:25.280
 budget for somebody to follow up on those tag numbers and sure find them and things like that

00:47:25.280 --> 00:47:29.680
 so I was actually going to bring this up with our budget presentation as we get into those is

00:47:29.680 --> 00:47:35.760
 so this is the recycling drop-off at North Lakes several months ago we talked to you all about

00:47:35.760 --> 00:47:40.320
 here's what we're seeing at the drop-off site at the landfill we moved to monitored access behind

00:47:40.320 --> 00:47:47.440
 the scales and this is your before and after so to your point after we removed that most of the

00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:54.160
 illegal dumping shifted to this site and between our staff and parks it's an ongoing battle you've

00:47:54.160 --> 00:47:59.040
 got windblown litter the fences aren't doing much to knock it down when it when it's at this scale

00:47:59.040 --> 00:48:03.520
 this site's going to have to move because the tennis centers are going to be constructed here

00:48:03.520 --> 00:48:07.680
 and so as part of our budget one of the supplemental packages will be

00:48:07.680 --> 00:48:14.560
 to locate this at a different property and then build it to where it can kind of knock down some

00:48:14.560 --> 00:48:19.760
 of the issues we're seeing here on the low end you know you can instruct enclosures lock it up

00:48:19.760 --> 00:48:24.960
 after hours put cameras on it and then prosecute if someone's illegal dumping the next step beyond

00:48:24.960 --> 00:48:31.360
 that is having a manned station and it's not cheap you know the one thing that I would say on this

00:48:31.360 --> 00:48:36.400
 is it's not necessarily providing access to folks that don't have recycling everyone has

00:48:36.400 --> 00:48:42.560
 access to recycling it's just driving out here and utilizing that facility and so it's a convenience

00:48:42.560 --> 00:48:47.120
 factor and you know I think that's something that we'd want the PV and the council to weigh on

00:48:47.680 --> 00:48:51.520
 weigh in on as we look at our budget that will be part of the supplementals.

00:48:51.520 --> 00:49:00.160
 One more question on going mandatory for multifamily and commercial have you talked to

00:49:00.160 --> 00:49:06.640
 landlords and commercial businesses to get there? I believe our public outreach group I know Brandy

00:49:06.640 --> 00:49:11.280
 you've talked to a few folks have you broached the subject with them on mandatory at all?

00:49:11.280 --> 00:49:17.120
 I think that's something we'd probably need if we get serious about this especially if we're

00:49:17.120 --> 00:49:22.240
 going to be doing a case analysis that'll be a step that we take as we survey them and it's

00:49:22.240 --> 00:49:26.720
 not just would you support this or not it's what would you have to do to support this is really

00:49:26.720 --> 00:49:30.640
 what we're going to be interested in because a lot of times when we do site visits on this

00:49:30.640 --> 00:49:36.560
 it's trying to fit a square peg into a round hole in terms of space in terms of accessibility

00:49:36.560 --> 00:49:40.640
 things of that nature I'm not saying it can't be done but that's that's where we probably want

00:49:40.640 --> 00:49:49.360
 to get their opinion. Commercial might be easier than multifamily. Thank you. Thank you.

00:49:49.360 --> 00:49:58.640
 Any other questions? All right our next item is to hold a discussion

00:49:58.640 --> 00:50:03.600
 on reducing or eliminating utility poles along Dallas Drive and Teasley Lane.

00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:14.480
 Good morning everyone George Morrow DME General Manager I have the have the easy job this morning

00:50:14.480 --> 00:50:20.720
 I'm going to introduce our guest speaker Jerry Fielder is with us Jerry's our manager of

00:50:20.720 --> 00:50:27.440
 distribution engineering he came to DME about six years ago where he headed up engineering for

00:50:27.440 --> 00:50:33.360
 co-serve so he's been in the neighborhood a while and knows his his business we had a request from a

00:50:34.560 --> 00:50:42.080
 council request to look at the what I would call pole blight the aesthetics of the power poles

00:50:42.080 --> 00:50:49.120
 and the telephone poles in the vicinity of Dallas Drive and Teasley Lane so Jerry and his folks did

00:50:49.120 --> 00:50:55.600
 that for for us we made a presentation on this last week in response to that inquiry to the council

00:50:55.600 --> 00:51:01.440
 and wanted to keep you in the loop so this is the kind of information that we provided to the council

00:51:01.440 --> 00:51:06.000
 on this item and Jerry will let you know kind of where we ended up and see what your thoughts are

00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:08.240
 about this so okay.

00:51:08.240 --> 00:51:22.320
 Good morning. Good morning. So we'll get right into the slide basically the background associated

00:51:22.320 --> 00:51:28.400
 with this investigation that we did was that the council had approved some money for a median park

00:51:28.400 --> 00:51:33.840
 at the intersection of Dallas Drive and Teasley Lane and what they had asked us to do is look into

00:51:33.840 --> 00:51:41.280
 the possibility of reducing the number of poles along in that median park and because some other

00:51:41.280 --> 00:51:48.000
 conversations that we had with the investigation had extended itself up to Smith Drive down to

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:53.600
 I-35 access road along Dallas Drive and then a little bit north of Teasley

00:51:54.880 --> 00:52:02.080
 north on Teasley and then south of Teasley to the apartment complex entrance.

00:52:02.080 --> 00:52:10.800
 So to kind of fill you in a little bit on what's been done so far on January 4th 2019 DME

00:52:10.800 --> 00:52:15.200
 representatives had met with representatives of Frontier and Charter and at this meeting we

00:52:15.200 --> 00:52:20.800
 discussed two different options. Number one was transferring all of their existing overhead plant

00:52:21.760 --> 00:52:27.760
 that they have currently on the topped off poles to the DME poles and number two was converting

00:52:27.760 --> 00:52:33.200
 the overhead plant to underground their overhead plant to underground. So as an outcome of this

00:52:33.200 --> 00:52:38.320
 just at the request of DME Charter has already transferred their assets off the top left poles

00:52:38.320 --> 00:52:46.160
 along Dallas Drive which has allowed us to remove five poles thus far. DME has removed those five poles.

00:52:48.880 --> 00:52:54.080
 This is the study area that we are we're going to talk about. We've got Dallas Drives from Smith

00:52:54.080 --> 00:53:00.640
 Street southeast to the I-35 entrance ramp and we have Teasley Lane just south of the Woodhill

00:53:00.640 --> 00:53:08.080
 Camino Del Sol apartment entrance northeast to about 200 feet from Duncan Road. In this area DME has

00:53:08.080 --> 00:53:13.760
 double circuit main feeders along the northeast side of Dallas Drive from Smith Street to Teasley

00:53:13.760 --> 00:53:19.440
 Lane. We have a single circuit main feeder along the southwest side of Dallas Drive from Smith

00:53:19.440 --> 00:53:25.280
 Street to Teasley and we have single circuit main feeders on the northeast and southwest side of

00:53:25.280 --> 00:53:31.200
 Dallas Drive from Teasley Lane to I-35 access. We have a double circuit main feeder along the

00:53:31.200 --> 00:53:37.040
 northwest side of Teasley Lane from the Woodhill apartments to Duncan Street and there are a number

00:53:37.040 --> 00:53:41.920
 of topped off poles in the study area with communications conductors on them and again

00:53:41.920 --> 00:53:46.960
 charter has already transferred their equipment over to DME poles which has allowed us to remove

00:53:46.960 --> 00:53:52.480
 five poles. So to do the study we separated this area into seven different segments and we'll talk

00:53:52.480 --> 00:53:58.160
 about each one of these segments. Segment one is the segment that's probably the most interesting

00:53:58.160 --> 00:54:04.240
 because it is in the immediate vicinity of the median part that they have. The other six segments

00:54:04.240 --> 00:54:10.880
 that we'll talk about are kind of spread out along this entire study area. So to let you know the

00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:15.360
 current conditions that you can see out there there's a lot of stub poles. You see stub

00:54:15.360 --> 00:54:22.640
 poles directly adjacent to DME poles. You see stub poles about 50-60 feet off of DME's main line

00:54:22.640 --> 00:54:29.680
 so the area does have a lot of stub poles and DME poles. So the option one that we talked to them

00:54:29.680 --> 00:54:34.480
 about was to remove the stub poles. Again we worked with Verizon and Charter, Frontier and Charter

00:54:34.480 --> 00:54:38.960
 to move their stuff over. This was the first conversation we have and as a result of that

00:54:38.960 --> 00:54:46.240
 Charter moved their stuff over and it has allowed us to remove five poles. So this is a little graphic

00:54:46.240 --> 00:54:50.400
 that we've put together for you guys to kind of show an idea of what this option looks like. If

00:54:50.400 --> 00:54:54.560
 you get rid of the stub poles, these are the stub poles that I'm talking about. You see them here,

00:54:54.560 --> 00:55:01.040
 you see them here. So if we, this is the before, get rid of stub poles and everything moves over,

00:55:01.040 --> 00:55:07.760
 this is the after. I'll do that one more time because kind of see the the differences that we

00:55:07.760 --> 00:55:14.160
 have in there. So that was option one. Now we did talk to Frontier and Charter about this and

00:55:14.160 --> 00:55:19.840
 Frontier has indicated that the feasibility for them to eliminate or to move over would only

00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:26.160
 eliminate two stub poles because they have cable slack and splice box issues and their cost to

00:55:26.160 --> 00:55:31.760
 underground the remainder would be significantly expensive quote unquote. And again Charter has

00:55:31.760 --> 00:55:38.560
 moved over so they're already accommodating things out there. To kind of give you an idea of the

00:55:38.560 --> 00:55:44.720
 projected cost for this option one, you see the seven different segments. DME's cost is minimal.

00:55:44.720 --> 00:55:50.480
 Usually DME will just remove the pole. Whether we own the pole or not, if it's been cleared off of,

00:55:50.480 --> 00:55:56.400
 DME removes the pole. Charter and Verizon have not been able to provide us yet a full cost of

00:55:56.400 --> 00:56:04.560
 doing the work for this option one. Option two was to underground this entire section so we'll

00:56:04.560 --> 00:56:10.240
 talk about each one of these segments separately. The first to kind of let you know a little bit

00:56:10.240 --> 00:56:14.480
 about this area, as I've mentioned there's a lot of feeders, a lot of main feeders in this area and

00:56:14.480 --> 00:56:19.200
 this is a major switching junction for DME's reliability. There are a number of switches

00:56:19.200 --> 00:56:25.360
 in this that let us make the load flow in different directions. So it times two substations,

00:56:25.360 --> 00:56:30.240
 several substation transformers and several different feeders together in this area. So

00:56:30.240 --> 00:56:38.160
 it's a major area of switching for us. Segment option one, segment option two, segment one,

00:56:38.160 --> 00:56:43.760
 which is the area just adjacent to the park would have cost, it will cost about 1.2 million dollars

00:56:43.760 --> 00:56:49.120
 to put that all in underground. On the right hand side is a little bit of list of everything that

00:56:49.120 --> 00:56:52.960
 DME will have to do to accommodate that. I'm not going to go through each one of those steps,

00:56:52.960 --> 00:56:57.040
 but to let you show a little bit about the complexity of what it takes to do this for us.

00:56:57.040 --> 00:57:04.800
 So segment one, which is the park area, is 1.2 million dollars. Again we have some visuals here

00:57:04.800 --> 00:57:10.800
 to kind of show you the benefit of what that might look like. So this is the before. If you take out

00:57:10.800 --> 00:57:15.680
 all the DME poles and the parks department helped us by adding the park in there, so we'll kind of

00:57:15.680 --> 00:57:29.920
 go back and forth a couple of times on this one. A different view of the same area and then this

00:57:29.920 --> 00:57:35.040
 final one is kind of will be up Dallas Drive. We actually cannot just do everything immediately

00:57:35.040 --> 00:57:40.000
 next to the park because we had to have land area for us to actually come up and put down guys in.

00:57:40.000 --> 00:57:44.880
 So we actually have to go up near the tire shop before we can actually pop our utilities back up.

00:57:45.440 --> 00:57:47.280
 But this is what that area would look like.

00:57:47.280 --> 00:57:57.600
 All right, so now we're just going to go through the other segments and step through them. So

00:57:57.600 --> 00:58:03.600
 to do option two, segment two would cost an additional 1.89 million dollars.

00:58:03.600 --> 00:58:11.840
 Segment three is additional 1.1 million dollars. Segment four, which is the area of Teasley Drive,

00:58:12.480 --> 00:58:19.360
 would cost an additional $222,000 for us to put that in underground. Segment five, which is going

00:58:19.360 --> 00:58:29.280
 down Dallas Drive towards the I-35 to Hopkins. That's a $570,000 project for us. To take that

00:58:29.280 --> 00:58:36.000
 from Hopkins all the way to 35 would add another 1.9 million dollars to the cost of the project.

00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:41.680
 And then to take it down Teasley to the apartments is about 1 million dollars extra.

00:58:42.480 --> 00:58:47.600
 So this is the cost associated with all of that. To put this entire area underground would cost

00:58:47.600 --> 00:58:52.800
 about 7.8 million dollars and we still don't know if there would be any costs associated with

00:58:52.800 --> 00:58:59.600
 charter and Verizon doing that also. So this is the summary. This gives you option one and option

00:58:59.600 --> 00:59:04.480
 two put together so you can kind of see some of the costs and some of the poles and top-top poles

00:59:04.480 --> 00:59:10.960
 that would be removed from this standpoint. Again, the option one is a minimal cost to DME, to the

00:59:10.960 --> 00:59:17.680
 city, and option two underground is about a 7.8 million dollar project. The key points that we'd

00:59:17.680 --> 00:59:22.320
 like to bring to this is DME has initiated conversations already with Verizon and charter

00:59:22.320 --> 00:59:27.520
 to eliminate the top-top poles and five poles have been removed. The projected cost for DME

00:59:27.520 --> 00:59:33.040
 just to remove and put our facilities in underground at the park is 1.2 million dollars, projected to be

00:59:33.040 --> 00:59:39.920
 1.2 million dollars, and to convert the entire area of our overhead plant underground for all

00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:44.880
 seven segments is a 7.8 million dollars. Again, we don't know anything about potential costs

00:59:44.880 --> 00:59:50.880
 from charter or Verizon associated with that. So the options that we brought to the city council,

00:59:50.880 --> 00:59:55.760
 we asked if option one, just removing the step holes is chosen, DME will continue to work with

00:59:55.760 --> 01:00:00.560
 the telecommunication providers to scope the project in further detail and implement this as

01:00:00.560 --> 01:00:06.400
 practical. If the council told us option two, the underground chosen, then phase one would involve

01:00:06.400 --> 01:00:13.120
 the detailed engineering and cost estimation for segment one, the Dallas Drive, Teasley Park,

01:00:13.120 --> 01:00:19.520
 and further work with telecommunication providers to get their participation and potential cost,

01:00:19.520 --> 01:00:23.600
 and then if that is successful, we would continue with additional phases

01:00:23.600 --> 01:00:30.240
 to be considered after the completion of phase one. Now the council direction to us at the time

01:00:30.240 --> 01:00:35.120
 was to continue working with telecommunication providers who have cables on step poles and

01:00:35.840 --> 01:00:41.120
 try to persuade them to move over to DME's poles, allowing DME to remove the step

01:00:41.120 --> 01:00:46.320
 poles along Dallas Drive and Teasley in the area study. That was their final recommendation to us.

01:00:46.320 --> 01:00:49.520
 So with that, that's the last slide. Any questions?

01:00:49.520 --> 01:00:56.720
 So what's the life left in the existing poles that are there right now?

01:00:56.720 --> 01:01:01.360
 The line out there has been built within the past six years, so it's only about a fifth

01:01:01.360 --> 01:01:06.720
 depreciated right now, and so yes, they still have several years left in them. They all, the

01:01:06.720 --> 01:01:12.240
 poles are all in fairly good shape. Creosote's good on them. We don't see any issues with

01:01:12.240 --> 01:01:17.600
 deterioration right now in those poles. And next question, remember years ago,

01:01:17.600 --> 01:01:23.440
 you had, or DME had a lot of problems with some of the underground lines around town.

01:01:23.440 --> 01:01:28.480
 Is this different technology that we're talking about than the stuff like that was at Forest Ridge?

01:01:29.920 --> 01:01:35.760
 Well, I'm making an assumption here, Forest Ridge is probably what we call aging deteriorated. The

01:01:35.760 --> 01:01:40.960
 cables have been underground for an extended period of time, and so they just start to fail.

01:01:40.960 --> 01:01:46.160
 And we already have an active program that we try to identify before that fails, and we try to

01:01:46.160 --> 01:01:51.120
 replace that in the deal. I think we've done about five or six different areas within Denton right

01:01:51.120 --> 01:01:54.960
 now. So now when you replace those, you go in with, you don't do direct burial, right?

01:01:54.960 --> 01:02:02.320
 No, no. This would all be in a duct bank conduit system, so this is, you know, for four con,

01:02:02.320 --> 01:02:10.640
 for four feeders would be a 16 conduit, six inch type, or it'd be eight, eight, six inches

01:02:10.640 --> 01:02:14.560
 in concrete in case, so it's a fairly major structure that has to be put in underground.

01:02:14.560 --> 01:02:21.520
 But this is the cheaper solution that the council told you to do?

01:02:21.520 --> 01:02:27.920
 Yes. The council didn't show any interest at this time to follow up with any underground,

01:02:27.920 --> 01:02:33.120
 and they just said we'll continue working with Telecom to get them to move over and remove the

01:02:33.120 --> 01:02:35.040
 stub poles in the area. Okay, good.

01:02:35.040 --> 01:02:39.920
 Jerry, if you go back to your option one slide and look at that.

01:02:39.920 --> 01:02:45.200
 The stub poles in the immediate area of the park.

01:02:49.760 --> 01:02:52.560
 This one? Yeah, yes. Okay.

01:02:52.560 --> 01:02:58.400
 Right in the immediate area of where they want the park, how many of those did Frontier say they

01:02:58.400 --> 01:03:05.920
 cannot move off of? Frontier said that they could only see that two of them they could move off of,

01:03:05.920 --> 01:03:09.920
 and so the rest of them would have to stay because they say that the way their facilities are built,

01:03:09.920 --> 01:03:13.360
 and I don't mean to be speaking for them, but my understanding is the way their facilities are built,

01:03:13.360 --> 01:03:18.960
 they can't physically move over to our poles, and so underground would be the only option they had,

01:03:18.960 --> 01:03:21.920
 and that would be quote "significantly expensive."

01:03:21.920 --> 01:03:34.960
 So I'm kind of having a stumbling block with the park. I mean I know that's not really what

01:03:34.960 --> 01:03:41.920
 we're talking about, but it's not really a pedestrian area. Is it just a green space,

01:03:41.920 --> 01:03:47.520
 or is it really a park? There's not even crosswalks at the Teasley Lane,

01:03:47.520 --> 01:03:53.600
 Dallas Drive intersection there. I was just, can anybody speak to that? Why they wanted to,

01:03:53.600 --> 01:03:59.120
 I mean I could see putting grass there because it's a where our old recycling place was, so but.

01:03:59.120 --> 01:04:05.280
 It was a, if I may, based on the information that we've been given, it was it was a request from

01:04:05.280 --> 01:04:09.680
 City Council to clean up that area and look at some options, or they're looking at that location

01:04:09.680 --> 01:04:16.240
 and the location in downtown area, and so Parks Department came in with some cost estimates on how

01:04:16.240 --> 01:04:21.600
 to how to make that improvement, just just again to clean up the area and just just make it nicer.

01:04:21.600 --> 01:04:26.160
 Okay. Green space. Green space. Yeah. Does anybody know when we're going to widen

01:04:26.160 --> 01:04:33.120
 Dallas Drive to three lanes on both sides there? I spoke with uh Text Dot, it is a Text Dot road,

01:04:33.120 --> 01:04:37.280
 they say it's not in any immediate plans for them, so there's not, it's going to be a while

01:04:37.280 --> 01:04:41.040
 before Text Dot actually does anything. So I'd talk to the street department if I was you,

01:04:41.040 --> 01:04:44.320
 because I think they had some other plans. Oh okay, well he may know something more.

01:04:46.720 --> 01:04:53.840
 But currently, tied us to City Engineer, currently that segment that we're talking about on

01:04:53.840 --> 01:04:59.920
 Dallas Drive is not planned to go to six lanes. We don't have a projection for that. Where we're

01:04:59.920 --> 01:05:03.840
 working with Text Dot currently is to turn that facility over to the city, it'd be a four lane

01:05:03.840 --> 01:05:09.520
 divided thoroughfare as it is, but we will be anticipating putting in medians down the middle

01:05:09.520 --> 01:05:14.480
 so that we can start to control some of the access on both sides. Okay.

01:05:16.880 --> 01:05:20.640
 Any other questions?

01:05:20.640 --> 01:05:24.480
 Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

01:05:24.480 --> 01:05:34.560
 All right. The next item is consent agenda. We have only one item, item A.

01:05:34.560 --> 01:05:41.200
 And I'm not going to read the whole thing. Anybody wish to pull it?

01:05:45.280 --> 01:05:52.800
 Hearing none. Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I'll recommend approval.

01:05:52.800 --> 01:06:04.160
 I'll second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Carries. All right. Next item is approval of the

01:06:04.160 --> 01:06:11.600
 public utility board's minute, meeting minutes of January 28th. Do we have any changes or corrections?

01:06:14.320 --> 01:06:22.080
 Hearing none. We'll approve as presented. And then items for individual consideration. Consider

01:06:22.080 --> 01:06:26.080
 recommending an adoption of an ordinance to the city of Denton, a Texas home rule

01:06:26.080 --> 01:06:31.440
 for the eighth amendment to professional service agreement between the city of Denton and Fries and

01:06:31.440 --> 01:06:37.680
 Nichols. Good morning. My name is Lee Perry. I'm in the engineering group in charge of capital

01:06:37.680 --> 01:06:43.520
 project delivery. I'm here today to talk about PEC 4 drainage project phase one and two, specifically

01:06:43.520 --> 01:06:52.720
 amendment eight to the design contract. So just an overview of the project. So in red on this map

01:06:52.720 --> 01:06:59.440
 is the PEC 4 phases one and two drainage improvement locations. The area in blue are

01:06:59.440 --> 01:07:06.000
 utility replacements or relocations for Elm and Locust, which was a separate project,

01:07:06.000 --> 01:07:09.360
 but it relates to one of the amendments in this contract.

01:07:14.000 --> 01:07:17.440
 So this contract was awarded in 2009 to Fries and Nichols. This is probably

01:07:17.440 --> 01:07:23.520
 our oldest design contract of almost $303,000 was the original amount.

01:07:23.520 --> 01:07:29.680
 Amendments one through five occurred between June of '09 and August 2015

01:07:29.680 --> 01:07:36.320
 for approximately $100,000. These were amendments that these were related to survey and design

01:07:37.200 --> 01:07:48.320
 additions. These were before me, but I can get y'all some information if I can on these.

01:07:48.320 --> 01:07:57.760
 So amendment six was approved in November 2017 for $62,000 and this was to finalize Elm and

01:07:57.760 --> 01:08:04.320
 Locust utility plans, add in fiber conduit design and facilities to along Elm and Locust

01:08:05.200 --> 01:08:10.080
 and combine this with the drainage project. The Elm and Locust utility project was originally

01:08:10.080 --> 01:08:16.240
 being designed in-house and we had our consultant finalize the design and then combine it with the

01:08:16.240 --> 01:08:25.120
 drainage project. Amendment number seven was approved in April 2018 for $19,000.

01:08:25.120 --> 01:08:30.800
 So at the beginning of last year we did an update to our drainage criteria manual

01:08:31.760 --> 01:08:36.480
 and we asked our consultant on this project to go back and do some modeling and look at the box,

01:08:36.480 --> 01:08:41.040
 the underground drainage box size that we had designed on this and as it turned out we needed

01:08:41.040 --> 01:08:46.080
 to upsize slightly the design of the box in phase two. So that's what that amendment was for.

01:08:46.080 --> 01:08:58.560
 So the current amendment, amendment eight, back in October we bid this project and we only received

01:08:58.560 --> 01:09:03.200
 one bid and it was higher than our estimate so we came back in December and had the bid.

01:09:03.200 --> 01:09:08.320
 The bid was approved to reject and so now we're currently rebidding the project and so this

01:09:08.320 --> 01:09:14.400
 amendment is for, we had our consultant go back and do some initial analysis and put in some

01:09:14.400 --> 01:09:19.920
 alternate construction methods to try to generate some interest, some more interest in the contracting

01:09:19.920 --> 01:09:27.360
 community to get some more bids on the project, help out with the cost and also we have services

01:09:27.360 --> 01:09:34.880
 in here for, during the bid project, the bid process, sorry, and then we've also added in

01:09:34.880 --> 01:09:40.880
 construction phase services so the original contract it only had limited involvement from

01:09:40.880 --> 01:09:47.680
 the consultant so we have added in construction phase services mainly to include additional site

01:09:47.680 --> 01:09:52.080
 visits because this project is going to take two years to build. I think the original contract only

01:09:52.080 --> 01:09:57.360
 had four site visits from the consultant which is once every six months. That's not a lot of

01:09:57.360 --> 01:10:02.400
 involvement from your consultant so we've added in some services for them to be out there

01:10:02.400 --> 01:10:10.320
 at least two or three times a month to stay involved in the project. So we're recommending

01:10:10.320 --> 01:10:15.520
 approval of the of this amendment for $182,315 to freezing nickels.

01:10:18.640 --> 01:10:21.840
 And if you have any questions? Questions?

01:10:21.840 --> 01:10:29.920
 I have one. Okay. It's not a criticism. It's a 10-year contract. At what point do we just

01:10:29.920 --> 01:10:39.120
 close that out and start all over again? Well the project, this project is very far along in

01:10:39.120 --> 01:10:42.320
 design. Okay so you don't really want to bring anybody else in. I mean we're remitting the project

01:10:42.320 --> 01:10:47.440
 now for construction if we, yeah we wouldn't want to start over so yes. Just have to ask.

01:10:47.440 --> 01:10:53.360
 And you only got one bidder anyway right? Well on the original bid, we had one bid. Yeah.

01:10:53.360 --> 01:10:58.960
 So yeah so we've it's currently rebidding. I think the bid opens February 19th. Okay.

01:10:58.960 --> 01:11:03.360
 How many contracts do we have with freezing nickels? Their name comes up quite a bit.

01:11:03.360 --> 01:11:11.520
 A fair amount. Yes ma'am. That's the official number. Hopefully we won't have to come back.

01:11:11.520 --> 01:11:18.640
 Terribly unusual. Hopefully we won't have to come back for amendment 9. Yeah okay. Any other questions?

01:11:18.640 --> 01:11:21.680
 Do we have a motion to approve?

01:11:21.680 --> 01:11:32.720
 Move. Second. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay motion carries.

01:11:34.160 --> 01:11:41.360
 ACM update. Yes good morning madam chairman and members of the board. In your packet you have a

01:11:41.360 --> 01:11:46.400
 number of items. One of those is the pay as you go, the prepaid utilities public launch. It's a

01:11:46.400 --> 01:11:51.680
 program that we've been working on with a number of months now. Really excited about getting that

01:11:51.680 --> 01:11:55.760
 going. If you all have any questions about that program Tiffany Thompson is here to answer

01:11:55.760 --> 01:12:01.280
 any specific any specifics you may have but we're very excited about offering this

01:12:02.240 --> 01:12:08.640
 program to our citizens so that they can establish service and get in a timely fashion.

01:12:08.640 --> 01:12:14.560
 The other is just a application status on the indirect reuse permit.

01:12:14.560 --> 01:12:20.320
 I won't be able to answer specific questions but we do have folks here that can and then the last

01:12:20.320 --> 01:12:24.800
 item is a geo-funded projects. We had presented this information at the last board meeting. I

01:12:24.800 --> 01:12:30.960
 actually handed it out and so just wanted to put it in the packet so it's there in the historical

01:12:30.960 --> 01:12:37.280
 record and going forward then the next bond oversight committee is on February the 20th

01:12:37.280 --> 01:12:42.480
 and the thought would be is to bring that same report to the PUB the following meeting. So that

01:12:42.480 --> 01:12:48.240
 would be I believe 26 so that way keep you apprised right after those after that committee is is

01:12:48.240 --> 01:12:54.240
 briefed on on that information. Outside of that I'm happy to answer any questions or have staff

01:12:54.240 --> 01:13:00.720
 answer questions specifically to these items. I was curious about what other programs there

01:13:00.720 --> 01:13:08.800
 are for low-income users of the utilities. The pay as you go seems aimed at people who have trouble

01:13:08.800 --> 01:13:15.680
 paying their bills. Good morning Tiffany Thompson director of customer service. So in addition to

01:13:15.680 --> 01:13:20.720
 the prepay program just a little bit information on that it isn't just for customers that may be

01:13:20.720 --> 01:13:25.600
 experiencing challenges with finances it's also for those customers who want to get more insight

01:13:25.600 --> 01:13:31.680
 and visibility to their accounts because they can get real-time consumption usage and so initially

01:13:31.680 --> 01:13:36.320
 we did kind of target it during the pilot for those people that were struggling with it and

01:13:36.320 --> 01:13:42.240
 have seen great results as the report has indicated but we do anticipate some people getting on board

01:13:42.240 --> 01:13:47.440
 too they just want to have additional again oversight over their account. The other programs

01:13:47.440 --> 01:13:53.120
 that we have for people struggling to pay for their utilities is our plus one program which

01:13:53.120 --> 01:13:58.240
 is prevent loss of utility services. We have a contract with interfaith ministries. We give

01:13:58.240 --> 01:14:05.920
 about $125,000 a year to them where families can go and seek assistance for utilities and so we did

01:14:05.920 --> 01:14:11.760
 change some of the parameters about a year ago for that program so they have that program with us as

01:14:11.760 --> 01:14:17.840
 well. But the prepay program again just to really excited about it but this prevents late fees,

01:14:17.840 --> 01:14:23.280
 disconnection charges, deposits on accounts so we're finding it to be a great solution

01:14:23.280 --> 01:14:30.880
 for those families that may be struggling. Is the additional overview over your usage available to

01:14:30.880 --> 01:14:37.760
 regular customers or just pay as you go customers? Are we going to be offering that to everyone?

01:14:37.760 --> 01:14:44.000
 Should be. My usage? Yes well no we're not we're actually not going to offer it right now but we

01:14:44.000 --> 01:14:51.280
 I wanted to clarify that with Rita real fast. Rita Herrera is our system ops administrator. I'd be

01:14:51.280 --> 01:14:56.880
 remiss not to you know highlight her and Kimberly Heston our billing supervisor who's been working

01:14:56.880 --> 01:15:02.480
 so diligently on this program so thank you for clarifying that. So initially it is just going

01:15:02.480 --> 01:15:08.560
 to be for our prepay customers with that but we hope to add that to anybody even on post-pay to

01:15:08.560 --> 01:15:12.400
 be able to get that. The only thing they would have to have is electric on their account because

01:15:12.400 --> 01:15:18.000
 that's the trigger for them to to do that so once we start getting adoption and getting we want to

01:15:18.000 --> 01:15:24.000
 make sure that everything's working appropriately and as of right now it is with that so we hope to

01:15:24.000 --> 01:15:28.320
 additionally add that with that but we'll keep you posted as those things progress with the program.

01:15:28.320 --> 01:15:35.200
 That technology is tied to the smart meter too though correct? Yes absolutely it has to have electric and a smart meter correct.

01:15:35.200 --> 01:15:42.480
 Can you remind me again how many customers did we have in the pilot? We have 50 in the pilot. Okay thank you.

01:15:42.480 --> 01:15:46.080
 Any other questions? Any other? Thank you.

01:15:46.080 --> 01:15:54.480
 All right concluding items are there any items that one of the members would like

01:15:54.480 --> 01:15:56.800
 to be placed on the agenda in the future?

01:15:56.800 --> 01:16:02.400
 Hearing none do we have a motion to adjourn?

01:16:06.160 --> 01:16:07.360
 We're adjourned.

01:16:07.360 --> 01:16:08.400
 It didn't take long.