08-29-16 Personnel and Finance - Laserfiche WebLink

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We currently have three (3) different alternative phase two (2) options now being refined. Each offers large cost savings compared to the previous plan. We our intending to have a finalized phase two (2) plan due by the fourth quarter of 2016. At that point we will be able to sit down in earnest with the EPA, Department of Justice, and IDEM. As part of this process, the Administration and the Council created an ordinance regarding disconnecting downspouts. Mr. Horvath asked all present to continue to get the word out regarding that ordinance because we have a couple thousand downspouts still connected. There is still significant work to do even though we have been really pushing this out to the community but a lot of people still don't know about the program. The good thing for residents is the City will do it for them for free up until the end of 2017 but after that during 2018 they have to do it on their own at their own cost. After 2018 everyone should be disconnected. Councilmember Jo M. Broden asked if there are any public service announcements being given for this and what is the overall marketing push. Mr. Horvath responded surely they could do public service announcements and he wasn't sure if they had done any but that is a great idea and he will look into it. Essentially we are still building our case and a large community coalition to clearly do what is right for the City and environment in terms of cleaning up the river but we just want to do it at a rate that is affordable for our citizens. We are also trying to demonstrate this will have a greater disparate impact on some areas of the town than others. We are really trying to show this will have a significant impact on some of the people in this community. We will have another update on the plan at the end of September and go into some more detail then. Mr. Horvath moved onto the Solid Waste portion of the presentation. Solid Waste delivers collection services for trash, yard waste, and bulky items for all City residents. We did an ongoing amnesty program for the recent flood. If folks had a bunch of stuff damaged they can take it out to the curb and call 311 and we will pick it up on the same day as their trash pickup. We have had about two - hundred (200) a day so far which shows the extent of the damage from that rainfall. Over half of our fleet has been converted to compressed natural gas (CNG). It is not only cleaner burning but saves us money as well. We started a new yard waste program with the help of the Council. The container program has been hugely successful as being a more efficient system for us and not having our guys handling heavy bags of wet leaves. To date, we have delivered about 7,000 yard waste containers this year. That leaves us with a total of 15,000 containers out in our system now. Also, at the same time we have reduced our trash misses by thirty -nine percent (39 %) and increased the efficiency of our extra pickups by thirty -seven percent (37 %). These are all things with 311 we are able to track now where previously we did not have that capability. We average about 33,000 customers and about 29,000 tons yearly. We have had about 3,000 extra pickups for yard waste. This is the program where once a month you can do a special pickup beyond what will fit in the container. We also have extra trash pickups available. There