Sign Rhode Island Terms of Use Agreement Fast

Document type sign terms of use agreement rhode island fast

hey go ahead okay all set like to call this meeting of the providence public works committee to order uh today is uh tuesday september 8 at 5 pm uh madam clerk if you can please follow our role vice chairwoman harris president [Music] if i may uh if i can have the uh city solicitor adrian southgate uh just uh briefly uh state whether or not this uh meeting is in compliance with the governor's executive order yes i'd like to confirm that the meeting today is being held in full conformance with the governor's executive order and all other open meetings act requirements thank you madam solicitor well at this time can i entertain a motion to take a couple of items out of uh order if we can not have a motion to take item number two out of order nations directed by uh council woman harris second invite councilman naduchi and councilman taylor all those in favor dated march 12 2020 submitting an easement to enable 26 sidewalk security dollars on the benefit street sidewalks are budding the leech judicial complex located on assessors plat 12 lot 119 250 benefit street uh this matter was uh before the public works committee prior to this uh uh pandemic i believe uh and we uh had some questions that we asked uh to go back uh regarding the uh maintenance of the sidewalk once these uh security ballads were uh installed uh have we have somebody uh that would uh like to speak on this if they could just identify themselves from the uh court sure good evening everyone i'm julie hamill despite what the name tag says there i just logged in as joe um but i am general counsel to the rhode island supreme court i appeared before the city council um prior to now on the same request and um uh council president correa is correct that we had submitted an application back or a petition back in march for security bollards we did go back after the council had some concerns or wanted us to follow up with the solicitor's office regarding um the maintenance of those bollards and we worked on an agreement um it has not yet been signed but i think it's in good shape we also submitted an application for encroachment at the direction of bill bombard um and that i think was received on july 21st 2020 um so as far as i know and perhaps attorney southgate can speak on this too um we're in good shape we have agreed to the terms proposed by the city for the maintenance of the ballers thank you madam solicitor would you like to speak yes i can confirm what general counsel hamill has said to the committee eddie lee schaub from my office who normally staffs this committee has been working to develop the maintenance agreement with the courts and they have reached agreement i am think we're all set to execute i'm sorry that i can't tell you as i said here right this moment that it has been executed at our end but we are prepared to do so could somebody just speak briefly on what the uh agreement is uh is the agreement is generally that we will maintain the um bollards we will take care of replacing the um the bollards themselves and i believe any adjacent sidewalk areas that the bollards are connected to um so that is in summon substance we're agreeing to that um to take on that responsibility uh snow maintenance uh snow removal things of that nature we will we will maintain that um i'm hearing that there's an agreement made or talked about but i also heard that this agreement has not been signed um i don't know if it's something we can that i feel comfortable moving on if if i know it as an agreement but it's the agreement's not signed because what stops it from getting passed through this committee tonight and then all of a sudden the agreement for whatever reason does not get signed then we're back to square one and now we have no authority over it you know so if i yeah i certainly understand that i think we have a chicken in the egg problem at least from where i'm sitting because you know the judiciary the administrative office of state courts probably we would not sign an agreement unless we knew that we had the green light from the city to actually install these things but i can tell you as an officer of the court um that you know we hammered out language and details and you know i think the intent was just to wait until we had the approval and then execute that now if you want to pass a resolution you know pending your advice from your able counsel that is approved pending the agreement being signed you know i'm comfortable with that um if that's something that you know uh this body typically does um but that's kind of i think we're kind of in that catch-22 position so madame uh uh madam clerk that's what i was going to ask we could pass this subject to uh getting this uh letter of agreement over to the clerk's office prior to this going on the docket for the next council yes i would just pass it by adrian because daca deadline would be uh 10 o'clock on the 11th for the for this to be put on the council meeting of the 17th or another possible approach if i make uh council uh president pro tem is to uh insert a provision in the uh resolution itself saying that uh one of the conditions is that the agreement shall be received and recorded not later than 90 days after the date of passage of the resolution we often do that as you know with abandonments and so forth where they have to file a survey by a professional land surveyor in order for the uh abandoned to become operative so we can insert a provision like that which would perhaps take some of the pressure off trying to make sure that this happens by friday it's as you know been a little challenging with various work share days and days on which facilities are closed for deep cleaning to make sure the ducts get lined up in an appropriate time frame and i'm a little concerned about that i know the court system would like to be able to move forward and i certainly understand their concern that they not bind themselves to a maintenance agreement if the city isn't willing to grant them this easement understandable uh mr parrata would you like to add anything yeah based upon my knowledge of the situation as long as law department is fine with the agreement our department is also in agreement and we are willing to accept uh um the installation of the bollards as as agreed upon okay committee members uh mr chair may i ask a clarifying kit uh question this is just from uh just trying to learn the process thank you um if this committee except this body have been given this issue to vet and we are at this position right now um with being able to just insert the language itself do we have to do uh i i know that uh we have legal advice that we can insert maybe a paragraph or something in our some language in there seeing about you know how the conditions based on the conditions isn't that the reason we as a body are looking into this to try to figure it out so i think just using that um that i advi i'm just saying using that advice will be what is needed if that's the only thing needed i think i remember some of this when we entertained the last time but is that the only piece that's missing right there is the agreement between uh the maintenance yes councilman that is the only piece of the puzzle that we were missing and uh unfortunately at the last meeting uh you know people that were on could not make that commitment without first going back and checking with uh you know the uh higher ups there uh that had the authority to grant them permission to enter into this agreement so uh it seems that we have have the agreement uh we could pass this uh on the recommendations that were stated by uh solicitor southgate and uh we can proceed from there thank you because i think i calling made a really great point i appreciate councilman nature's uh making sure that we value this process so thanks thank you so at this time can i entertain a motion to uh approve item number two i'll make the motion so based on the recommendations of city solicitor south gate second ocean has been made by councilman seconded by councilman taylor all those in favor [Music] you'll have that resolution by friday for me i will be in on thursdays sherry so if you send me something and remind me to do it i will be sure to get it done okay i'll make a note so uh thank you so much you're very welcome i'll send it to you thursday thank you great but i believe we also have uh we're giving them 90 days to get that correct um well but the resolution in order to go on the countdown has to go to her so that's what she's talking about yes the agreement we will get signed within 90 days i hope we'll get it signed within the week but once you know once it goes to council i think they'll probably be content to sign it julie is that your understanding absolutely yes yeah okay thank you so the uh madness uh chairman adrian we're going to get of the original copy correct in my office the agreement once there is an original yes i will be sure that you get the original okay thank you appreciate it sure okay the mat has uh been uh second in and uh passed uh so uh madam clerk if we can go on to item number three thank you all thanks julie petition from andrew m tights esquire aicp earth hello tight and rich limited to williams street providence rhode island02903 requesting a permanent underground easement below a portion of brook street do uh have anybody here that like to speak on it yes uh this is andrew tights uh attorney for brown university um actually there's two of us listed um paul diedle is also here under my name i guess because i had forwarded him the link to call in and we have an engineer jonathan staubach who is uh listed without a photo but is available um by phone for any questions um this is just um an underground conduit going under the street to serve the new wellness storm and uh building that's being built they are similar to the previous one we had gone to i believe you have all the information submitted as required apparently we're waiting a while for the assessors computation which we finally received and um i can i'm happy to provide more information or have mr staubach answer any technical questions or mr deedle answer any questions if the committee would like uh committee members all right just uh so there's no i would just recommend if the committee members could uh look through your doc documents to make sure that uh you don't have any concerns with anything can you please refresh my mind i remember this but then we left off something we left when we we requested something else this is the first time i believe it's been before the committee really yes there was a brown university doing because i think i remember something underground there was another one well go ahead andrew sure this is andy tights again uh councilwoman harris um we were there before you we had um a cushing street we were looking for an underground easement for cushing street to service this same building and then it was only later that we also realized we needed the connection through brook street um and then covid came and that's what delayed it we had actually been hoping maybe we could try to squeeze the brook street one in at the same time in the cushing street and i think i had given you a heads up at the cushing street hearing that we'd be coming back um and so now we're back for this thank you i know i remembered you from before so thank you i know deja vu okay same building different street thank you german if i may not do thank you i'm looking at the uh figure two and i'm looking at brook street where they got the black line going across um then obviously right above it you're gonna click the cushion street intersection is this lock number 314 is that the area that's going to be serviced um which which plan are you looking at i'm sorry it says on this it's uh figure 2 vhb project location area brooks brook street brown university i think you can also find it on the street line section map that was submitted on august 24th that might be an easier way to take a look at it since that's the one that will be cited in the resolution and which one i'm sorry you you should have received something from dpw from the engineering department uh with the proposed easement area outlined and you're correct it's uh professors plat 13 lot 314 and across the street uh is assessors flat 13 lot 40. testify to that if you want any further information um mr deedle can you confirm that they're both brown properties are you looking for a better explanation yeah just look just just a little better okay rasheed okay um could i ask mr paul dietl who first give your name for the record and spell it since it's not there on the screen um and then if necessary we'll have mr styleback as well sorry about the name confusion i am logged in on andy's link uh paul diedel that's d-i-e-t-l assistant vice president for planning design and construction at brown university and i can confirm with you that brown university owns the property on both sides of the street the street with an arrogance at national grid equipment will be located is called pembroke field and the equipment is going uh adjacent to the pembroke field house and the duck bank in question will bring secondary power from the transformer to the new wellness residence hall on the other side of the street i believe the former street address was 450 brook street which is a paris loan by brown university thank you welcome okay so i have a looking at the paperwork i've seen it there's no objection from the police department fire department in the department of public works just if somebody can just speak to the uh june 25th 2020 letter uh from national grid that is outlining two concerns uh do we know if that's gonna address uh the first one is that uh national day let me see here the grantee easement shall in no way exclude or restrict national grid its agents and success within the science to conduct any activities just goes on uh in the easy area in two all proposed construction the national bridge facilities to be done in accordance with national group standards and specifications somebody can speak on that construction manager or andrew um yeah i mean i guess i can i can have the other basically um they're saying we're not going to exclude or restrict them in fact you know we're putting power through here it's their facilities connected which we're connected to anyway um and yes we will be meeting all their standards and specifications or they won't let us plug into them if you will okay i can have mr staubach address that if you also if you want no i mean it's you're good enough i mean you're their legal counsel we have everything on record so uh the other thing is a june 18th letter by uh verizon uh they're stating that i guess a portion of this brook street presently has uh aerial facilities on set portion of brook street right and we're going underground so we're not gonna i mean we're running the electrical power underground so we're not touching any of verizon's stuff that's in the air and we're not bothering any of their poles okay so basically uh then it's um i'm everything here looks good there is uh one um the letter here from the tax assessor's office in order for this to get approved you'd have to have a check to get this on the next console docket like 10 o'clock on friday and looking for the page so the tax assessors have come up with a uh valuation would be 3 375 and we would need a check by 10 am this friday to get it on the next docket for the council yes we we understand that and are fully prepared to do that okay thank you andrew if you could just um have it to the office made out to the city of providence and that amount i'd appreciate it right sherry is that your voice that i'm hearing that's me okay okay yes adriana city the uh war department yourself or addie had the chance to go over all this and everything's been good to your satisfaction it is to my satisfaction i will ask sherry to send me or to to scan and send me a complete packet because i did not perhaps eddie has but i did not see the national grid or the verizon letters and i just want to make sure that i have those as well as the assessor's valuation since i'll need to prepare a resolution absolutely i'll scan everything into you tomorrow and send it over got it thanks you're welcome comm ttee members any questions i thank you uh andrew paul uh councilman naducci there's no other items to vote on so thank you very much oh i know we have number one and number four but there's nothing to vote on for him uh okay so all right madam clerk if you can read item number one into the record resolution requesting the director of public property submitted timeline for the new department of public works facilities so at this time uh uh you know during the pandemic it's turned the entire world into uh chaos so there's been some time time uh restraints that haven't been met regarding this building i know that uh some of my colleagues are asking like where where do we stand and whatnot i've been in some communications with uh public property uh they're giving me uh some updates but we're gonna let them uh explain where we stand and uh where we are so i don't know who wants to go first i know that we have uh al buko kevin mahoney here so which one would like to go first well who wants to speak on it i'll be happy to go first can you just uh uh identify yourself and uh your title for the record police okay albuco manager of facilities and operations department of public property proceed so uh just to get into uh where we currently are um mr chairman um we're currently in the demo phase uh the demolition uh team has completed all of the interior uh asbestos removal uh and received clearances for all the interior rooms um that was as of last week uh they're currently moving into the roof dismantling this week um which is a going to be a section by section mechanical separation of the roof membrane and the um the concrete structure substructure of the roof um and then he's estimating one month for that entire roof to be dismantled after the roof's dismantled he's going to proceed to dismantling the rest of the building um which is not which does not contain any hazardous materials that's all been remediated completion day we're looking at end of november uh approximately uh it could be could be earlier than that but uh you know we've gotten down until the end of november for completion of the demo um and then as far as the new facilities concerned um we've recently uh completed the uh or we're completing um the feasibility study which uh would include cost estimating equipment lists basic floor plans and elevations and and just renderings uh for the new building uh those are going to be uh completed this october um and then we're going to move into phase two site remediation um which will uh which essentially is the um the removable uh an underground storage tank that's on site um looking for completion on that early spring 21 um at the same time we'll be soliciting for uh architect and engineer of record um for the uh for the full design um using the uh feasibility study um information to inform the uh the full design um that is going to take us to approximately december of 2021 at which time we will uh put it out to bid in in procure um mobilization looking to begin in spring 22 with construction starting spring of 22 through summer of 23. chairman you're muted sorry that's okay thank you uh mr bu al buko for that uh councilman naduchi thank you i just um i just don't know why we haven't started the design phase um back what maybe a year ago a little more than a year ago when we first started this process i mean it's been being kicked around for a while and from what you just said ali when we're waiting for the design and then we want to put it out to bid to see i guess uh who we picked to design the building i mean why why couldn't this portion of the project be done like i said earlier way back when well we just received funding for this about a month ago well yeah we give it we we i thought we had set aside the funding back when so if i may i mean yeah and it's this this funding has been put in the uh capital improvement thing for like since like last year right yeah but i didn't i didn't keep working i'm sorry i'm sorry no i mean uh we've gone through this prior with uh the previous uh uh uh directors up there in public property and uh uh you know we were told that things were moving along and you know we were gonna be working with an architect we would be doing this and that there and we're in this phase of this phase and now we get a whole different timeline put forth by yourself which i'm going to you know no fault of yours but i'm going to we know that something's going to end up happening with this timeline once uh you know with your uh departure coming uh october we're gonna have a new a new director in there that who knows what's going to happen now like everything is going to be all back dates are going to get all done so i mean we are concerned with with what's happening right now so there is there is a moment so to answer the first part of that um the funding for this is in the 2020 uh cip which while it may have gotten approval some time ago the actual dollars to go ahead and spend we didn't get the okay for that until about a month ago um so you know it's whenever they sold the bonds or whatever that happened i don't have any part of that but you know [Music] that's sorry about that yeah so uh once we get the okay we you know we move forward um with with the uh with the process um but i didn't have a method to actually procure design um until just recently we've been working with an architect on the preliminary part which is the you know the feasibility study which does which will which it does have renderings and you know kind of an uh of a an idea of what the building will look like but it is not going to be the actual uh construction document this is a uh an early phase document so are we still working off the plans or the design of a building that was done like 10 years ago that director told us that we have a set of plans we have a building but we can't use those plans because they're outdated yeah that was the initial study done i think narragansett bay i think helped us with that uh back in 2007 um which which outlined a uh a plan um to re-build that uh that complex which had a lot of information that that helps to inform this current uh uh feasibility study but you know things had to be updated cost estimating had to be put has to be put in place um and then you know things have changed since 2007 there's a lot of modern you know um updates in in the way buildings are made since then as well um so um the issue the document we're working with now um is the feasibility study that will inform the uh the set of design documents that that will be the bid documents thank you i just like i said i just find it odd because uh you know unless it's me uh i i can't remember director box saying how that buildings are gonna be down within three to four months um and that was jesus christ later a year ago it may be longer the bill is not done um plans of a new building again i just uh now i'm not blaming you believe me i'm not i'm going to put all the blame on you know uh let's face it jordan you know jordan was the one playing with the set money and doing what she was supposed to do i mean you know i mean but these projects we should definitely not be still waiting on design improvements for i mean um i said it before to uh director bark that uh i see brown university putting up buildings in the matter of months and here we are as a city um that it takes and i know the money's a little different i understand that but a city that takes three years just to get a building demolished i mean i just i just think it's uh ludicrous to be very honest with you we can only move as fast as the funds come to us um and that's what i'm saying that's why i said what i said in the beginning so al uh any discussions that have been going on regarding the design or anything with a new building has the current director been involved in these conversations regarding any type of design or anything what what the needs are that that building has well when you say the current director director of dpw or yeah the director of dpw i mean i you know i i don't want to you know i want to i don't want to it was before my time like i don't want to go back to the public safety complex we built the public safety complex and then like a couple years later they're like this building's no good you know it wasn't built to our specifications it's this it's that we've already outgrown it i was you know and i i wasn't the council person but i was involved in stuff and they were like you know we already outgrown it i was like but the building's not even two years old a year and a half old but nobody never listened to us they didn't come to us and say what do you need they just built this building and they were like here's your new building so i i i just want to make sure that this doesn't happen to this you know i don't want to see mr perata or whoever is there when i'm going in in two or three years and they come back and say wait a minute well you built this building but it doesn't meet our needs yes i would say that um we when it goes into actual design document um that's when we would you know we really should solicit information from the from the people that are the operators of the building i mean you know they're the ones that know the best what what they need um perhaps even visit other dpws that have been built recently i mean we know they've been several built in the last few years i know attleboro uh was one um there's a few others that are uh that are within a few miles you know of providence that can be can be visited um and help inform what this design looks like i think we should have some uh engagement with the folks that are that are working there um in a reveal to show them this is what this is what we're thinking um this is what the designers have come up with give us your input and then you know that's when it goes to a final design document in in construction document that's how i would do this and that's how i would recommend anyone going forward to do this um i would defer heavily to the dpw director leo um you know uh certainly your imp is weighs heavily on this along with your staff so um that's how i would approach it and that's that's how i hope it it continues to be uh handled so and and i i agree with you 100 percent on that outlet i know that few of our previous directors in in bosses from dpw have visited several different locations such as at attleboro site and i think there was another one in milford mass or something that they looked at uh as well as a couple of uh facilities that we put up that the state put up here in rhode island one right on the uh east providence seacon line there as you get off uh they looked at i think that's just a uh uh a truck and salt bond or whatever that they installed there i know that we've looked at that so uh i just want to uh we'll have you as i know your plate is extremely full you're still muted but uh okay uh have you had the opportunity yet to visit any of these facilities or start putting like a wish list together with your uh engineers and highway division and sewer division to make sure that they have the adequate space in in a facility that is going to work for them the mechanics to make sure that they have enough space i know that we bought a paint machine or something that is still we never utilized yet because of a new facility you know we're talking about a mattress shredder so we need to make sure that we have the facility that that is going to be the state-of-the-art facility and something that we're not going to build in uh the same as like in two years we're going to say wait a minute this isn't big enough we've outgrown this so right now i agree mr chairman um we have taken into account a lot of the uh the thoughts that you just uh put forward and we've spoken to you know the mainline staff whether it's the mechanics or the highway superintendent and even the uh general staff in terms of what they need on a regular basis um we had a preliminary in uh discussion with i think it was sort of like a conceptual design with uh someone that the city had retained and we talked to them about how they were going to put this together and we made some critiques at that moment in terms of if it was to be phased what section of the building should be done first um because we felt you know certain things needed to be done prior to um um some sections need to be done prior to other sections just to make sure that vehicles were safe and that they weren't left out in the cold so we've had those initial discussions and we'll be uh well involved throughout the process and i'm sure with the public properties they will keep us informed and we will make our voice heard in terms of what is needed for public works not just what we need today but looking forward to the future we can't just plan for what's good for today but we need to plan for five ten years down the road thank you committee members any questions mr chair i would like some reason i don't remember the proposed location of my new facility so to my knowledge the proposed uh location is still like an act uh 700 allen's avenue as well as uh earnest street uh property that is already owned by the city where the current facility uh already is now they're in the process of uh as uh mr bucco stated they're in the process of uh knocking down one of the buildings that's already there that used to house the venn station traffic engineering sewer division and i believe some other storage facilities and stuff that were in there so that's going to be one part of where the building uh uh will be constructed uh there on site and then as we go on i believe the other building next to it uh that is currently has that the storage the cold storage side uh the highway division and the mechanics and all that uh once that building is done the new one they'll probably knock that one down and we can construct something over on that site so that's that's where we are councilwoman okay thank you so i just have one other quick thing that i wanted so as we're working through all this and i had a conversation with uh several people from within the mayor's administration uh as well as the mayor himself when i went to a ribbon cutting at uh pro at uh the parks department uh on the uh opening of their new uh maintenance facility uh that burnt down leo i know that uh some of the concern since we moved everybody all in everybody is in tight close quarters and it's it's it's a real bad situation tight situation uh we had a matter of fact i believe our councilman naduchi was involved in this conversation with me i brought it to his uh his attention currently at the parks department we have uh two or three uh uh office trailers that were down that they were utilizing there in the parks department for their employees uh we were told that i think the contract is set to expire on september 18th uh correct me if i'm wrong councilman naduchi nope that's correct and we were told that the contract was uh set to expire on september 18th and uh we made a recommendation that uh they should have some conversations with uh director parata and the staff down there to see if this would be something that we could relocate from the parks there on site at dpw to take some of the people out such as the sewer division and put them in one trailer or traffic engineering uh so that they're all not scattered all over the place and uh thing is this something that or has anybody come to you uh leo or public property on this uh not at this point but you know obviously you know space is always an issue um placing i'm not sure what the administration's plans are for the trailers and um what the capacity is but obviously placing them at our location it will be uh will be a challenge as we're currently constituted because parking is a premium and we are limited but um you know we always we welcome you know exploring that and if it becomes an option if it's feasible um and workable for the administration and for us we're more than happy to look at it um yeah i know i think we're good on space but you know we don't know what's going to happen in the next few months um things could get worse with the virus we don't know so um we'll keep an open mind about it so i mean this is something that that you know you should keep in uh keep in the back of your mind and keep it uh there uh you know i've been i've been down there i looked around i was there uh to follow up with the uh uh demolition contractor you know just to see the progress of what's happening uh i thought about you know if if we were to utilize those trailers they could probably go over and i call it i guess the boneyard or whatever there's a bunch of uh broken down trucks and whatnot i don't know why uh they're there if we move them to academy avenue you could probably relocate the trailers to that side just something to think about uh you know we brought it to the attention of the administration uh you know we don't know as you stated what's gonna happen with the virus and stuff but uh you know we currently are in in a contract uh with this trailer company uh it's it's best if something that we were gonna do we do before the 18th all we need to do is take it before the board of contract and supply and just uh extend the uh contract on the trailers and get them relocated to uh burning street so just something to think about councilman because chairman if uh from what i understood too talking to joey winowski uh it might even be more cost efficient towards if if we rolled over the contra tractors that'll let the contract expire so thank you just something to uh think about any other questions on uh uh item number one at this time can i entertain a motion to continue item number one what you mean motion's been made by councilman naducci seconded by deputy majority leader harris and councilman taylor all those in favor aye aye all right thank you mr bucco uh thank you uh mr mahoney and uh mr bucco it's been a pleasure in case we don't have the opportunity to see you again uh but i i wish you the very best on your uh future uh maneuvers and uh you know it's been a pleasure working with you and this is a great great loss to this city uh with your institutional knowledge um so uh if there's anything for president pro-tem uh the pledge has really been all mine um in all honesty uh i'm really gonna miss working with some great people here um i will be here through the end of the month so i'm sure i'll be working with you guys and it's a lot of projects that we're working on together uh that needs some some closure in uh um i know councilman taylor's ready to chime in pretty soon with some lockers that i need to buy for him but uh uh yeah so it's it's been a pleasure really has and uh i look forward to uh seeing you all and working with you all uh in the future as well kevin by the way i'd like i'd like to second uh pro temp what you said i think it's a uh i think the loss of al will be more down the road than it is now and you can shake your head out but he's been uh it's to to understand what al does when you work with him every day you finally realize what he does and it will be a great loss so kevin i said that i said that when uh uh alan cepe west uh left us and it's allen i always said allen knew which which piece of duct tape to take off the wall and what screw the tape also nothing collapsed and he's like don't worry about it al knows the same thing i tried i taught him good and now we have nobody so yeah we're going to be careful on what we what screw we take out and what piece of tape we remove because it's about duct tape protect if i may just quick um i never said it about lcp but i'm definitely going to say it about albuquerque one thing i always respected in you was no matter when i called you and you know what some of the issues i've had with windmill street school i've called you on freaking sunday nights uh holidays like this holiday just passed and you've always called me back and i got all the respect and will for you always willing and again god bless you moving forward i gotta share one last thing if i was in a position to to keep you on for my next term i would i would give you whatever raise that you possibly needed to get us through this uh because we have a lot of cip projects going on school construction and everything and you know we're going to be in a gym you're going to be greatly greatly missed out all right so this is on the record right it is yes pro tem if i met okay uh al um my lockers no my kid i like you i'd like to just reiterate what everybody's saying um i think it's a great loss to the city plus um working with you when i was a fireman through the fire department not only the city council the fire department i know it's going to be a big loss for them because you were the go-to guy to get things done to in the fire stations that have always been there um so it's not only a loss just for us at the city council it's going to be a loss throughout every department in the city um i wish you well um we should change your minds hopefully maybe councilman correa can work on getting you a big raise or something i don't know but uh i i tried i tried in a finance meeting but um i i thank you i i thank you for your service and and you will be greatly missed and hey good luck in your future endeavors you already opened the bar in the bahamas mr chairman councilman harris yes mia chow man um i i want to say yes it is a great loss i think we learn a lot from each other in in the city and that's one thing al took a minute to do was like just take a minute to explain to us process and what that process mean you know councilman naduchi just said oh look at brown university and pop things up but we have a hard time getting buildings up in our own city and the process as a new council person discourage you so i want to thank you for not only being a good um uh a good a person for us as a seated city leader but also as a good friend thank you very kind word i wanted to rough you up a little more but i guess you're gonna run out before my two years is up no no no so i know we got we go we got some major things happening in your award uh with davey lopes um and there's some big things over there very very shortly i appreciate you thank you so much and i wish you a lot of love final thought yes uh chairman i i just have to go and somebody just uh reach out to me about this we will get back to you on the street sweeping you're breaking up yeah thank you i'll see you guys later so i'll make sure that the sweepers get there in the spring of 2021. well hey well i know i know things will be different in in two years anyway when we have a new mayor all right thank you councilman all right so uh thank you al thank you kevin oh thank you madam clerk if you can read item number four into the record discussion relative to street sweeping the following have been invited leo parata director sal solomon superintendent of highway all right so this matters uh before us uh there's been several resolutions several amendments to uh an ordinance or an audience that has been submitted to the ordinance committee uh a lot of council members have questions and concerns regarding street sweeping the number of times it's being done uh just the overall conditions of our streets people are not being properly notified with parking parking permits they continue to park down the street uh signage or uh when the street sweepers are coming uh etc so will what do you wanna start off [Music] thank you mr chairman so we've made a number of improvements um i know that notifying residents and um getting the message out has always been problematic for the department and we've made some changes to the way we've done things first off i'd like to say that where we are today if you look at we have a um a live sort of map on the city's website on where we stand with street sweeping it tells you the last date that we were sweeping in a particular area of the city um gives you a good sense of what we've accomplished right now we're on our second pass city wide that's just in the neighborhoods on the mains we've done them six seven eight times nine times or more so we we've done um a lot of sweeping and we started very early this year we were able to do it and starting in january uh due to the uh very mild winter that we've had um with that said with the map now what we do is we send that link to the map to every single overnight permit holder on a regular basis and we try to do it on a monthly basis for all renewals so when people so it acts as a reminder so if your permit is about to expire in the month of september at the end of august we would send the link to that map out to all those people who have their own walls letting them know here's the map here's the schedule pay attention to when we're in your area try to park an alternate street alternate area to comply with that um and it has been beneficial to some extent i'm not sure how many people pay attention to it but we do get some emails back thanking us for the map and thanking us for the information the good thing is we've been pretty much on schedule this year so if you were to look at the map we are almost done with our second pass of ward 15 and we're scheduled to go to ward 6 starting next week so we haven't been too far off the schedule which is very helpful we've been very fortunate there's been very little rain this summer so that's kept us on schedule as um a sign of good faith the administration has agreed to uh put out to bid um a contract for additional street sweeping services um for the city that went before the board of contract and supply uh at our last meeting we expect bids to be received by september 28th it remains to be seen as to how much that will cost i don't want to venture a guess um i hate to do that with the bids being out there but if the council and the administration come to some sort of agreement then that can be an additional mechanism that we can use to supplement what we currently do right now we have three sweepers um typically in one evening we could have one to two sweepers working per night we have more flexibility we're hoping to get some daytime sweeping done we've been talking about it for a while we're going to be working with the schools to take care of their parking lots and while we do that we'll be venturing out into the neighborhoods to help supplement what we currently do during the evening hours so one second councilman uh madam clerk if you can let the record show that councilman anthony is present oh no to chairman oh thank you chairman thank you councilman councilman taylor uh leo you're talking about the a couple things is cranston street considered a main yes it is yes so i would disagree with you that it's been done six times not every stream no i i i will agree with you there not every street done once this year it's it's filthy so you when you say that the mains are done six times a year i've already been done six times i question that because um it hasn't been done i don't believe once it's filthy over there it's terrible they got you guys went out and had the crosswalks painted new crosswalk signs new lines painted and the garbage it just takes away from the whole thing that you guys did on the main street that's one number two is uh the [Music] contract you're talking about is that is that subbing it out to someone else like we used to have exactly so that would be in addition to the work that we do would be a contractor that the city would retain and basically do the mains and the residential streets similar to what dpw does it would be in addition to what we do and how would that be uh i guess i'm jumping the gun but how would that be divided up in the city [Applause] the way the uh the rfp reads is basically they'll be responsible for doing the um awards on a monthly basis and the mains on a weekly basis if i remember correctly that's correct why why wouldn't we keep them like we did before and have them do the whole thing so councilman i think what we're looking at is is expanding uh the program uh back to the way that we originally had it the vendor would come in and also work with the city's two uh sweepers if um correct leo that's correct so it would be in addition to what we currently do so we would still have the capacity to go out there and sweep a particular ward or sweep a particular section or mains and then the other crew which would be contracted out would be working elsewhere and we would just have to coordinate our efforts because we would need obviously an additional dump truck or coordinate for a dump truck to be able to take those sweepings from that vendor and bring them to our facility which would then be brought to central landfill eventually so um we can do both it's just a question of what does the price come in at and uh so councilman what it would look like is is prior we used to have the vendor would have four machines a night and we would have our two so we would end up having six machines out sweeping the streets or sweeping the entire city at night time uh currently we only have two uh machines that go out sometimes uh only one so putting it back up we would it would benefit so i guess my one question would be if we the room we're talking the uh work share if we extend that to the end of the year how does that affect the uh in other words the street sweepers that are out there if we get four of theirs or two four of theirs they're not probably going to be on work chair they're going to be out every night so this currently what are we going to do for our trucks that they're going to need if our guys are on a work chair program so currently right now and i i mean i i i'm not a hundred percent on it but there is discussions regarding uh the work share officially ended i believe this this work week correctly that's correct that's for this week we don't know what the future weeks will bring we don't know what's happening and we've been in discussions with uh when i say we the council uh leadership has been in discussions with the administration as well as uh mr parata uh making the department of public works uh essential and and and not having them participate in this uh work share program the same as uh they do in the parks department but that is still in negotiations i believe okay so when when would we if uh the thing passes when would we expect those other four or those of the other company out there in october the bids are due september 28th so we would have to go through those and then have it approved by border contract and supply potentially even approved by city council depending upon the pricing um so you're probably talking um october november but that's not unusual the last time this went out to bid looking back at the history of it it was similar to that and they were able to sweep we've been able to sweep through december and january once it you know either you get snow on the ground or just you get ice then it becomes problematic but looking back at last winter we were very fortunate we swept through january we swept in february if we're able to call in whether it's our guys or a private vendor if the weather is good we bring them in um we see no reason why we shouldn't do it during the winter months as long as we're able to uh perform the way the sweepers uh you know allowing them to function properly so and councilman you have to also understand that once once this contract uh the bids come in uh being awarded uh to a specific vendor uh is uh contingent on funding as well right thank you councilwoman harris oh i'm sorry uh councilman were you done i'm all set i'm all set thank you all right um two things is the new subcontractors we're bringing in is that uh we we often talked about dry sweeping on wet sweep or what is that what who are we in seoul dry sweepers wet sweepers i mean from what i'm being told and then when y'all can can address it councilwoman is that we currently have one wet sweeper and one dry sweeper uh we prefer a wet sweeper uh i guess the we bought a dry sweeper because it was much cheaper but it's not uh i guess effective for uh the use on our city streets uh i i don't know leo you wanna sure so right now we actually have two wet sweepers and one dry sweeper the dry sweeper we obtained through a grant um partially paid for by i believe was rhode island dem it was part of an agreement that we made with them and i believe with the consent agreement that they prefer to have a dry sweeper um and we purchase it in that fashion um i think it's just a there's a couple of issues i thi k some of it is learning some of the guys are more familiar with the wet sweeper um some people believe that the wet sweeper is more effective it picks up a little bit more some people believe that the dry sweeper is more effective in like parking lots and smaller areas um i think they're both useful um it's just a matter of proper usage we do use both pieces of equipment and with the vendor we can specify what type of sweeper we prefer to have so that is flexible is there a different cost between dry and wet to be honest with you i don't think so that's something that i would have to discuss with the vendor finally when they uh put in a bit but i can't imagine the operation is very very similar the only difference obviously is that the wet sweeper needs to be hooked up to some water at some point to get water in the system so that's the only major difference it's a chair may i continue cultural council councilman taylor was traveling down that lane about how many times you know the numbers that you gave us about the sweep and how many times uh the city itself have been swept um i was trying to get those i was trying to get those numbers down does that mean that even during this crisis this health crisis and this in the work share this work is still moving along according to the the timeline that you gave us uh if we looked at the website and said where the streets uh streets are going to be swept is the timeline itself really up to date on on the website are we moving accordingly then is those numbers did those numbers change or those was those numbers does this number is those numbers any difference by health crisis with the work share and everything else that we know the city yes current council we've been very fortunate we've been able to keep up the schedule as posted we created the schedule back in april may when the pandemic was just starting we didn't know how long it was going to go um so i give a lot of credit to the to the staff they've been out there you know even with the work share almost every night obviously they do have one night off um that they typically would not have but we've been fortunate because we've had very little rain rain is typically what will shut us down for an evening we've been very fortunate in terms of the sweepers themselves we've had a few sweepers go down here and there brushes shoes etc needing repairs but we've been able to keep up with three sweepers we've been able to always have one or two up during an evening so right now we are pretty much on schedule if we had you know an additional private vendor that would just give us an added layer of sweeping that we would be able to provide to the public um you know i always look at it this way can we always do better absolutely it just becomes a question of yeah what are our resources what are our time what's our manpower and what is going to be you know what the city can afford so can we always do better absolutely and we always strive to do that so i think that's the bottom line we want to see the streets as clean as possible i think our crew it takes a lot of pride in what they do and they've been out there on a regular basis and they've been able to keep up with the schedule which is great well i'm glad to hear that i i believe we need the extra we definitely need the extra some somewhere the other the city seems to get be getting more filthier i don't know maybe it's the atmosphere right now i don't know what it is but that's everywhere i'll second that one oh is that a motion [Laughter] pro tem thank you mr chair you want me thank you councilwoman anthony thank you so much but i have no questions thank you you have no questions i really appreciate it thank you so much okay so leo if i just may go back uh i just want to echo the same words that councilman taylor uh has mentioned and also some concerns from multiple colleagues of mine uh and you've been involved in some of these offline discussions that we've had have had so you know man avenue is the same way uh you know my colleague council president is is complaining gaily about the amount of trash that's on mountain avenue and we keeps you know telling her that it's been swept and it's this and we've just done it two days ago or whatever uh you know i find it hard to believe that that a lot of these second mains are getting swept six seven eight times i know as you stated not everyone but i don't know which ones are getting swept six seven eight times when some of these streets are going uh it seems you know i've gotten at wells avenue and that's that's a busy busy street and you know i see that when you say that it gets swept i see that you know the sweeper went and swept at wells avenue but they only went from like downtown to harris avenue and they go back what about the rest of the street you know i know that okay we did the business district which is great you know it's a tourist attraction or whatnot but why why didn't we send the machine the whole entire length of apple's avenue you know then we get calls from our constituents or the sweeper goes in and does only he'll square but it only goes on netting avenue as far as uh as far as uh the lane street and then turns around and goes back because why does it just do the whole the whole stretch of manhattan what happens happening i understand i can talk to the highway superintendent you know a lot of times it's they do the business districts they do them in a grouping you know they'll do the federal hill section and they'll do broadway and they'll do um the uh business section of uh man um because they do get a little dirtier so it does take a little bit more time to do those they clump them together um but can we always do more absolutely figuring out how we do that i think is the trick um we'll see how the what happens with the bids that come in and if it's uh something that the administration and the council can agree upon in terms of you know funding etc that'll give us the additional leg up keep in mind um we did set a schedule we're trying our best to keep up with that given the resources that we currently have and um you know it's it's a challenge but we're doing it and thank you and also to go back on you mentioned that we're going to begin sweeping the schools uh why why are we doing that now what i mean by that should have been done like we had since march during the pandemic i mean you know now the kids are going to be going back on the 14th and whatnot teachers are already in there with cards so now we're going to take away from sleeping at nighttime to go do the schools at night i mean when we could have done this all summer spring summer and when during the day when there was nobody there in the parking lots well actually we just got the requests last week from the school department and working with them and we will be doing it our plan is doing doing it during the day before we can uh before the schools open up and they're being coordinated with the school department so that we can handle it and not take away from our nighttime sweeping so it's our plan to do that and get it done as quickly as possible okay and the other questions is that what can uh what can we do to better notify people i mean so i look at some of the other municipalities like i i went i looked in in like boston boston has uh uh they have signage up that states about street sweeping the hours that it's done in tow zones and they if you look on their website they post the streets that are going to be done and if there's cars that are popular like if people fail to move the cars they told them i mean i don't want to start towing people's cars you know so you know a couple of my colleagues asked about signage better cars uh you know try to get the cars off the road is there something that we i don't know what we can do like you know uh you know you look at some of the streets where you see the street sweeper and it's like it zigzags out of in and out of cars or just misses entire lengths i mean what can we do to try to better notify it's the same thing as snow removal basically yeah you know your comments are well taken i mean i think it's an expensive proposition and time consuming to put up permanent signage um as you can imagine there are hundreds of miles of roads and you pretty much have to double it too many signs out of poles now i mean you don't know what sign to look at when you look out right how many signs right so it you know you get sign overload um so we've attempted to at least you know make it at least more uh predictable with the mapping and sending that mapping to our overnight permit holders so they are aware of what's going on on a regular basis and they can actually see when streets are swept i think the next phase of that as we become more predictable in terms of what we do is being able to send that out on a regular basis to people um obviously you know we have to be very accurate in other words we're going to say that we're going to sweep um see the plat where uh uh grove and ring and tell and penn street in uh ward 13. if we're gonna do that on a particular evening i think we need to be very accurate and predictable for the residents to say yes we're doing it that evening and make it so that it's going to happen because you know the last thing we want to do is say we're going to do it that evening a week in advance or maybe three or four days in advance and then not have it happen for a couple of weeks because then we just end up aggravating people and putting people off in terms of where they can park and um they get you know put out and it just becomes more of an aggravation so i think the more predictable we can make it the more accurate we can make it the better off we'll be i think we're getting there i think the map is a step in the right direction and having dates um associated with the timing of it is better i think as we get closer to refining how close we can be to an area i think the better we'll be but we're still always from that okay uh finally for me i want to use that wolves avenue man avenue too are you aware of like on adwords avenue we've uh captain san lucas from the police department has been out tagging the cars here because we have we've been screened with cars on on at wells avenue from lake valley to me i mean this could be a reason why tourist sweeper doesn't want to come down and we've been tagging an average between 30 to 47 cars overnight parking just on atwell's avenue alone during this small stretch i mean i i see this as as a problem that's that's going to hamper not just the street sweeping but snow falling as well so just something that you can be aware of and i don't know what we try to do well right that is an issue i mean unfortunately you know the mapping and the messaging is going out to those people who are in compliance with the law right so they are the ones who taken this step to get a permit acknowledge that they need to get a permit park overnight and they're being responsible it's those other people that you just mentioned that either a they don't pay attention to the current ordinance traffic regulation um for whatever reason they um haven't availed themselves to the process of getting a permit don't believe in it whatever their reason is or they may be just visiting for the night and not be totally aware that they need to obtain a permit um so maybe making the permit process easier will solve some of that but that will always be a problem whether it's now while we're sweeping or during snow plowing operations obviously if people do not comply with the city ordinances about getting a permit they're never going to be notified that you know you can't be on a certain street because we're sweeping it or we're plowing it yeah they may hear it on the radio or for snow plowing or they may see it on tv but you know and i know um typically we have to set the tone very early in the winter months with the assistance of the police department we get a major storm it's very important we set the tone early on that we tag in tow on that first storm if we don't then we pretty much lose it for the rest of the winter we set the tone early on i think the message gets out pretty quickly that the city means business that we don't want you on the street and we're plowing it's it's not good for us in terms of our effectiveness and it's not good for public safety okay and then just my final thing is i just want to uh you know i i know that we've been in discussions about uh putting a sweeper out during the day uh i i get what people want to do they want to you know show that we're out there we are sweeping just my own personal thought i i think that it's it's a waste of manpower in in in doing it during the day i mean there's way too many cars on our mains and secondary streets uh i mean there's a lot of traffic uh during the day i i just don't see it being very productive but that that that's my opinion uh you know i know that some of my colleagues want to see it done i know that you know the taxpayers are asking um but i i don't see you know trying to put a machine in in a six wheel or a ten wheel dump truck out on on the streets to sweep and and there's so much traffic and we end up in a liability issue because we end up in motor vehicle accidents or something like that there so just that's just my thought but again i look forward to i mean if you're going to implement it uh whatever but i i i i just question the effectiveness of it i am all set thank you spousal harris i'm all set chairman councilman councilwoman anthony i'm all set thank you very much mr chairman so at this time uh i would just ask uh we can continue uh no no we don't need to continue it just just let it go right so i you know i just uh i look forward to the further discussion that's going to be taking place uh regarding an ordinance that was submitted in the ordinance committee regarding street sweeping so i would just uh be prepared for that and that what other other uh policies and procedures that you would like to implement mr parrata with that and i look forward to having you know further discussions once we get this uh rfp uh come at the next borders contract and supply so with that with there being no further business uh before this uh public works community can i entertain a motion to adjourn the world here well she's been made by executive regina leader harris seconded by councilman taylor all those in favor aye aye all suppose the eyes have it thank you everyone and have a