08-15-18 Personnel and Finance (#3)

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®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK He went on, Big picture, there is one (1) additional FTE for inspection for engineering, four (4) for Streets for curbs and sidewalk,and then one(1)FTE is moving from Engineering to Innovation and Technology. We've tried as best as we could to listen to the needs we are hearing in the community and from the Council and move the needle a little bit in some of those areas. We know we aren't moving it as much as we've needed to but we are at least making significant strides in trying to get more sustainable assets. Committee Chair White stated, We thank you so much for your presentation. We thank all of your staff in terms of what you do to ensure the services we have for our citizens are in the best shape possible. We know we will probably need more time to ask some more questions. She then opened the floor to members of the public wishing to speak. Sue Kesim, 4022 Kennedy Drive, stated, Eric, I don't know how you do it. You had mentioned there being lateral lines that are over one hundred (100) years old. I'm wondering how big a problem that is. Is it just in a small area? Does there need to be additional funding? Smart sewers are great but my understanding is that there isn't always a drainage field to go to. Am I correct in my understanding? I'm wondering where you are with drainage fields. And I have a lot of questions that a lot of people bring up. One (1)of them is what is the cost per foot for a curb?And what is the cost per foot for a sidewalk? If they are going to pay for half of it they want to know what a reasonable cost would be. Mr. Horvath replied, In terms of the laterals, we have sewer mains and water mains which are public infrastructure.Now we've got these private lines that come off to homes. Laterals are what we call the sewer connections to the home. It is common that if we have a water main that is from 1875, that service line is probably similar in age. It may be a little newer depending on what has happened but the issue is we are trying to do a better job in figuring out what those assets are,what their risks are, what their vulnerabilities are so we can replace them. Age is not even a good indicator. I say that because we actually find that some of the older ones are actually less likely to break than some of the 1940s ones. Ms. Kesim interjected, Can you put, like, liners in them, or no? Mr. Horvath replied, You can on the sewer side and we are doing that. We have a sewer lining program we do every year. We also have a manhole lining program where we line brick manholes so the bricks don't fall in. We also have a sewer and water insurance program for this specific reason. It is really expensive to have a fix. If you have a fix on the sewer line that is in the road, it could be $15,000. So the City would pick that up through the insurance program. On the smart sewers, I will say we have had some really good meetings with the EPA and IDEM on our new LTCP. They are really excited about what we've done with the smart sewers. In fact the Region Five (5)Director of the EPA said she is inspired and impressed and would like us to be doing this across the nation. We have three (3) tanks in the program and our new program is a$200 million program. It is not inexpensive, but, it was a $713 million program. So this is significantly more affordable than the previous program but will still be quite a bit of investment we will need to put in. What we are trying to do with that program is really get big environmental benefit early through some things and get the low hanging fruit and the low cost stuff out first (I"). We are trying to optimize the existing system and do that with smart sewer technology. The most expensive infrastructure will need to follow later. EXCELLENCE ( ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION ( INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If574.235.91731TTD574.235.5567Iwww.southbendin.gov 19