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CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK much salt as we were anticipating. Hopefully it could save us on that end create a safer situation for our roads. And secondly, we're trying to, of course,patch potholes. That is always an issue for us. We have crews that do this on a consistent basis. We're trying a pilot program to find a better method to maybe have these pothole patches last a little longer. We're going to try to use some hot patch material and see if we can't get a better material that will last a lot longer. He went on, Sustainability. Thank you, Jo, for mentioning the Climate Action Pan. We will be bringing something to the Council here in a month along with Councilmember Broden. I would appreciate your support on that. It's an important part of being a more resilient City but also looking out for future generations. Again, we budgeted for two (2) strategies in this budget for 2020 and we'll be rolling out what those strategies are in the Climate Action Plan. In addition, we'll have some goals that are in there. We've also budgeted for a vulnerability assessment as preparation for our Adaptation Plan, and then we will be updating the Greenhouse Gas Inventory. He continued, We'll continue to grow and strengthen the South Bend Green Corps program and expand our electrical vehicle charging network. Obviously,transportation is one third(1/3) of our greenhouse gas emissions. We need to start out figuring out a way to eliminate some of those. In addition to doing things like renewable gases, we need to look at electric vehicles. Streetlight modernization, we're working with AEP both on their lights and our lights to try to convert them to LED. We would love to have every light in the City be LED. It would help us not only with energy and greenhouse gas emissions, but also with just operation maintenance so we're not replacing lights as frequently. And then finally partnering with folks, just continuing to be a catalyst for change and to help the environment. He went on, Finally, the last initiative I'm going to go over is monitoring utilities that we've been working with our Fire Department on. A significant part of making sure that we have fire protection in the City and we have a strong ISO rating is making sure you have adequate fire hydrants and flow in those fire hydrants. We recently have inspected every single one of our hydrants in our system,public hydrants. We've made over three hundred (300)repairs to hydrants and we replaced fifty-one (51) hydrants. We have about thirty-five (35) more that need to be replaced and about two (2) more in need of repair. That will be done in the next a month and a half. Big shout out to our construction and maintenance work group at Water Works who has just done a fabulous job on this. In addition to that, we're looking at flow testing hydrants as well. We ensure not only that the hydrants work but that they can provide adequate flow when we need it when we have fires. Then finally, a huge lift that also needs a shout out is the implementation of the new customer service and billing software we've been working on, for, what it feels like multiple years, but after twenty(20) years of the software, it was well past it's time. Not only will it help with our operations, but it will improve the customer experience. We'll have a much better web portal. You'll be able to pay on that. You'll also be able to use the phone and do IVR to pay, but we will also include this system, a number of retail locations that you can go and pay at. We won't be open just eight(8)to five(5).You'll be able to go at night to retail locations and pay your water bill. This will all post real time. By posting real time, we make sure that people don't get shut off then. If they come at midnight or on a weekend and they pay their bill and it's set for shut off,let's say,Monday morning,our crews will know that bill was paid before they go to shut it off. Committee Chair White stated, That's good. Excellent. Thank you so much for the update on the special initiatives and all the work that you and your staff and others, that you're doing and we appreciate that. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Ovid South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TfD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 26