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<br /> a CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK
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<br /> Committee Chair White stated, Thank you. And what I will do, probably after every fifth (5th)
<br /> presentation, I will ask the Council if they have any general questions. But again,then we'll move
<br /> forward.
<br /> Eric Horvath, Director of Public Works with offices located on the 13th floor of the County-City
<br /> Building, stated, Good afternoon, I'll jump into 2019 accomplishments. So far, as part of the
<br /> Council allocation program for sidewalks, we've bid out $500,000 for curbs and sidewalks to
<br /> contractors. That work is starting. In addition to that, City crews have been installing sidewalks as
<br /> well. They're about halfway through the portion that they do, which is they're on track for fifty
<br /> percent (50%) more than they've done in the years past. So, again, thank you to the Council for
<br /> supporting those additional staff members to make that possible.Without that,that would not have
<br /> been possible, nor would have, if you jump one (1) down there (referencing a slide in the
<br /> presentation),the crack sealing.That was another part of that deal was we hadn't been doing crack
<br /> sealing. The crews are twenty(20) lane miles in on crack sealing. They will finish probably, well
<br /> over forty(40) lane miles this year,by the end of the year the way they're currently tracking it.
<br /> He continued, In addition to that, we revamped our reimbursement program on sidewalks. So,
<br /> there's three (3) different categories of reimbursement. There's the traditional one (1) that we've
<br /> had all along,which is the homeowner-occupied reimbursement program where they sign up,they
<br /> get a licensed contractor, they put it in, and then we reimburse per lineal foot of sidewalk in front
<br /> of their home. In addition to that, at a reduced rate, we've now allowed for non-homeowners to do
<br /> that as well. The idea is that this serves a public purpose. We want to get as many people
<br /> participating in upgrading sidewalks as possible. Their reimbursement rate isn't as high as the
<br /> homeowners, but that's available for non-residential or commercial or non-owner-occupied
<br /> properties. In addition to that,we also picked out some target areas. We've got two(2)target areas.
<br /> Hopefully, you've seen the brochure. And if you do it in those target areas, we have a higher rate
<br /> of reimbursement so that they actually get a greater reimbursement. These are areas where the
<br /> Census tracts had a high proportion of economically disadvantaged residents as well as areas where
<br /> we had a particularly high incident of bad sidewalk. So, we targeted those areas as areas that we
<br /> would really like to see more investment in sidewalks. For paving, we've paved about eight (8)
<br /> lane miles,and they are on track to meet their twenty(20)lane miles this year.Their goal is twenty
<br /> (20) lane miles. They had a little wet start in June, but have had some good weather, although it's
<br /> very hot now, to get some pavement down, and they're doing a great job keeping up with that. In
<br /> addition, on the roads side, we applied for and secured a grant with Community Crossings. That's
<br /> $600,000 in additional paving funding that the City will be receiving, which is going to allow us
<br /> to do another four-point-eight (4.8) lane miles of road. That's Corby, Jefferson, Linden, and
<br /> Riverside Drive will all be recipients of the crossings grant that we've secured.
<br /> He went on,We've completed the first(1st)phase of the Quiet Zone on the west side.We're excited
<br /> about that. So, the Norfolk Southern Line is in place. So, the crossings there, we've been able to
<br /> reduce the risk index there so that we now have a Quiet Zone on those particular crossings. As you
<br /> know,we've updated you with the Canadian National Line,we still need to work on the west side,
<br /> and the NICTD Line. So,we still have a couple of things that we need to do by the end of the year
<br /> to complete the west side Quiet Zone, but it's on its way. We launched the Lamppost Lighting
<br /> Program. Again, we changed this up. The standard program was a two hundred and fifty dollars
<br /> ($250) cost share. So, the homeowner would pay two hundred and fifty dollars ($250) and we'd
<br /> give them a lamppost to install in their front yard. This year, we set two (2) target areas, again,
<br /> looking at the economically disadvantaged areas. We have a cost share on that program of fifty
<br /> EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT
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