11-25-13 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 25, 2013 ANNOUNCEMENT: REPRESENTING THE CITY ADMINISTRATION WILL BE CHIEF OF STAFF KATHRYN ROOS REPORTS OF CITY OFFICES —MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG Mayor Pete gave an update on city activities. RESOLVE INTO THE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE At 7:03 p.m. Councilmember Oliver Davis made a motion to resolve into the Committee of the Whole. Councilmember Varner seconded the motion which carried by a voice vote of nine (9) ayes. Councilmember White, Chairperson, presiding. Councilmember White, explained the procedures to be followed for tonight's meeting in accordance with Article 1, Section 2-11 of the South Bend Municipal Code. Councilmember White stated that a brochure may be found on the railing in the Council Chambers explaining those procedures. PUBLIC HEARINGS BILL NO. 64-13 PUBLIC HEARING ON A BILL OF THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SOUTH BEND, INDIANA AMENDING VARIOUS SECTIONS OF CHAPTER 17, ARTICLE 2, OF THE SOUTH BEND MUNICIPAL CODE TO ADJUST SEWER RATES AND CHARGES INCREMENTALLY THROUGH 2017 Councilmember Schey, Chairperson, Utilities Committee, reported that this committee met this afternoon on this bill and sends it to the full Council with no recommendation. Eric Horvath, Director, Public Works, 13th Floor County-City Building, 227 W. Jefferson Blvd., South Bend, Indiana,made the presentation for this bill. Chairperson White: For the public that is present, I would like to make mention that we have had a number of meetings in which we have asked for public input regarding Bill 64-13. Eric Horvath, Director, Public Works, 13th Floor County-City Building, 227 W. Jefferson Blvd., South Bend, Indiana, made the presentation for this bill. As you have indicated we have had a number of meetings here. I would like to go over some detail again, and I'll try to be a little more brief just so that folks who have not been a part of those meetings understand what we are talking about. (Referring to Power Point Presentation) Here is a beautiful picture of the city and we are finally realizing that the River that flows through the middle of the city is really just a tremendous resource for us. It's an asset that we have to count on, in a way it has always been an asset for the city,but 100 years ago it was an asset that it was basically a sewer pipe that took the sewage away from our streets and out of the city. Over time we took and built a treatment plant and starting intercepting some of those sewers and taking them off the river. But it's still an issue today and it's something that we feel we need to protect and continue to try to make sure that we are treating this as the asset that it is and terms of economic development for us as well as the residential development you've seen occurring downtown along the river. So here's our motivation, I mentioned before that there are 4,000 deaths each day from water borne illnesses, that's South Bend's population in less than a month dies due to water borne illnesses. And so it's something that we can take for granted from time to time, because we are very blessed with having technology and systems in place that we are protecting human health and the environment as much as possible. However,having said that, I think a lot of people when I talk to them are amazed to understand that we have 60 to 70 times each year in a typical year that we've got these sewer overflows that go into the river. So our system is got 36 different places in the City where these overflows occur and as much as a billion gallons of sewage into the river each year which is a tremendous amount of untreated sewage. Here is another part of our motivation (referring to Power Point)We have a number of homes in the area that when these sewer surcharge backflow into basements and we recently did a survey of some areas that we knew we had problems and we surveyed 376 homes and 225 of those homes at least had 1 time a year that they had sewage backing up in their basement. Many of those multiple times a year, so this is part of why we are going to talk about the long Mini control plan and what the next steps are for us. To give you an 4