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

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK To put that in dollars, that would be about$38 million worth of sidewalk construction to get all of those up to speed. So obviously we are fully making a dent in that. We have been helped significantly by some Federal dollars as well as our Safe Routes to Schools Program. We worked with Council to increase the allocations and the amount of curbs and sidewalk we are doing every year. We continue to push that every year. Street paving and pot holes is another priority. According to the community survey, these are important to the residents and they also feel like they are not being addressed well enough. So we feel like these things have to be a top priority for us in 2019. Street paving, again, we have about one hundred (100) miles of street that, when we look at the PACER Rating,are a four(4)or below. That is the level at which we will start repaving the road. It is one hundred (100) lane miles. That is about$10 million dollars of paving work. He went on, Streetlights are an ongoing issue. Light Up South Bend has been a big partnership program with the Council. That program attempts to convert the streetlights to LEDs as well as adding new lights. We have some solar lamp posts as well. Traffic calming in neighborhoods is another priority. We opened that door up a couple years back because we were getting a lot of requests from neighborhoods as people were speeding through. We've put an emphasis on trying to figure that out. After we've done a couple of them, there are more requests. There is a huge backlog of requests for traffic calming in neighborhoods. We are doing our best to try and get caught up on that so you will see some additional funding in this year's budget to help us address some of those issues. And then street sweeping and drainage issues were also on the list. The drainage issue is something that continues to come up as a high priority for the community. It is something that we have a proposal on establishing a storm water utility rate. It is a huge issue in the City and is in most areas because it's a hidden utility. It is underfunded like a lot of our other long-term assets are. In this particular case for South Bend, it's not really underfunded as it is just unfunded. So there is no dedicated fee for storm water. The majority of cities have specific fees for storm water. In the past years,we have taken money from other dedicated funds and have used them for storm water. Most commonly, we've taken road dollars or wastewater dollars. So before I start talking about sustainability, are there any general overview questions at this time? Committee Chair White asked, In regards to AEP, I want to make sure I have the number correct, that is 20,000? Mr. Horvath replied, Yes, and I will get you an exact number. It may be a little less than that because I think it is 20,000 total and we maintain about 3,000. Committee Chair White followed up, And what is the maintenance process when lights are out that are owned by AEP? Mr. Horvath replied, In short, we've got a process where we determine if it is a City light or if it is an AEP light. Then a work order system is in place to follow up with AEP to get them to fix it. One (1) of the difficulties you have is sometimes it is not an easy fix, regardless of it being a City or an AEP light. Some people get frustrated and think it is as easy as changing the light bulb. It might actually be more electrical. I know there are a couple outstanding areas we are trying to address issues. The general process is that 311 will make sure it will get taken care of, whether it is AEP or the City, and that should be a pretty short turnaround time. Committeemember John Voorde asked, Did I hear correctly four(4) additional people in Streets? EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building''227 W.Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221,f574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 3