Here’s the unedited version of the recommendations that were discussed at and the notes from the final meeting of the snow committee with [bk comments.].
GETTING STARTED
Chris Schmidt, Paul Skidmore, Tim Bruer and Mark Clear are there. Marsha Rummel and Bryon Eagon, the downtown representation on the committee, missed this meeting like many of the other meetings, many of them scheduled at 3:00 I know Rummel was at work. And I think they conflicted with a class for Eagon. Lauren Cnare also absent.
Staff present were Al Schumacher and Chris Kelley from Streets, Sarah Edgerton from IT, George Hank from Building Inspection, Chuck Kamp from Madison Metro, Rob Phillips (late) from Engineering, Ray Harmon from the Mayor’s Office and Lisa Veldran from the Council Office.
They approve the minutes.
REVIEWING THE REPORT
Alder Schmidt and Cnare did the draft of the report. [And the did a great job – its a quick easy read.]
Schmidt says he worked on the short descriptions and attached costs the best they could and Cnare put tougher background materials and that is how they assembled it. He says they should look at the recommendations that should not be in there or let him know if they missed something, then prioritize them. Thinks they can get it done today unless there are major problems.
Clear says they should be judicious about what keep in and not keep in. Goal is to have information for mayor for his budget, or for department requests, they should be careful about if put it in there because we are saying to department heads to put it in their budget and for mayor to include it, or we might add it later. If ambivalent, we might want to keep it out of the report.
Bruer asks Skidmore if he has any. He has none.
Schmidt said they can do rankings was to stratify this so they don’t get bogged down in the details, they should not throw it out, if they looked at it they should keep it in, just prioritize it.
Clear agrees where don’t have costs they should keep it in to continue to look at it and it will provide us with more info as part of budget request.
Schmidt asks if there are any errors?
Edgerton points out a typo. It says fire instead of five on page 2. She also points out that for some of the items they should indicate which department they want to work on the issue since they will need to put it in their budget. The decide to go through the items in the communications section to determine what department should work on it and what the costs are.
Increase Overall Winter General Information
The website will be done by IT, publication costs from streets and building inspection.
Schumacher says Seattle has some good stuff, including how to prepare for winter, warnings to get your tires fixed, etc. Interactive web information is more difficult, but a map can be provided on website.
Veldran asks what it will costs.
Edgerton says mostly staff time.
Inform Neighbors How to Help Each Other During Snow Events
Edgerton is concerned that a registry is subject to open records, it can expose a vulnerable population, she has had the conversation about doing a registration with Lucia Nunez and since it is an open record they would ask that we don’t do it.
Hank says we could encourage people to assist groups around the city they could promote agencies on a list.
They decide they can ask neighborhood associations to put it in their newsletters and ask alders to include it as well.
Hank asks about PSA’s.
Schumacher says good luck they’ll run them at 2 a.m.
Edgerton says that we can put it on facebook and the web.
Veldran asks what it will cost.
Staff time for IT.
Process
They ask how the report is going to get finished. Clear and Schmidt will work on it. Harmon offers the Mayor’s office could help with [Read: Would like to help control the spin on x]it
Back to Neighbors helping Neighbors
Skidmore says that private snow contractors are still a concern. [I wonder if he has a conflict of interest here given that he works/worked with Landscaping companies that do snow removal in the winter. Right now, he’s a security guard at Menards tho.]
Schmidt says the whole thing gets replaced.
Clear says they are just providing a list of what we do in other places, where are people who take this kind of materials, here is people who would provide services.
Skidmore asks if they will be prequalified and if not what liability does the city have it we don’t prequalify them. He says shouldn’t prequalify.
Clear says that is not in the recommendations.
Edgerton asks how decide who is listed and who is not? She says they could just list the TimeBank.
Clear suggests they decide to limit it to non-profits. [Sure, if the city can’t do it, they just shuffle it off to non-profits and don’t provide them any new money, because somehow non-profits can just magically make things happen without money.]
Veldran asks the cost.
They say just staff time.
E-Communications
– Text messaging
They ask if it will be zones vs. general notices, they don’t know if they can do zones in the city.
Clear asks if one big lists or multiple lists and then they can just have people sign up for the list they want, does that increase the cost?
Edgerton says they don’t pay for per text message, just the service, no limit on number of messages.
Schumacher says lots of staff time if they do it by zone, how often would they need to do it.
Edgerton says that there would be programming costs too.
Harmon asks why doing it?
Schumacher says Cnare wants to know when street will be plowed?
Harmon asks how they will benefit.
Kelley says know when to move cars.
Clear says they could know when to shovel driveway says clear.
Edgerton is concerned it is so real time.
Schmidt says don’t have infrastructure to make that work.
Clear says it is tied to GPS.
Harmon asks if it is something constituents were asking fo?
Hank says hearing it from a lot of people.
Clear says its one of those “can’t you just” ideas.
Skidmore says operationally it will be different depending upon when snow starts.
Someone asks who’s reading text message at 3 in the morning. They mostly agree that is a good point. [At this point I’m sure I had a funny look on my face. Um, people, not everyone works 8 – 4 or 9 – 5 or 7 – 3.]
Veldran asks what it would cost.
The committee seems to agree they can’t do it.
Skidmore says it is not effective.
Kelley says they already send out text messages.
Harmon says they also have Schumacher’s updates.
Edgerton says that they don’t have notices for when they are plowing. And wonders if they could at least have a north, south, east, west specific text messages.
Schumacher doesn’t want to do that, prefer citywide plowing updates.
Edgerton says they can have a text message version of updates, with link to the full update.
Hank asks if they can notify people on the progress. i.e. “We’re half done”
Clear (?) asks if they can know that.
Schumacher says yes, they have supervisors.
They decide if they can provide that information they should do it.
Schumacher says they don’t want to do updates at 2 or 3 in the morning, it’ll just wake people up.
Clear says not everyone sleeps at 2 in the morning, give them the choice.
They decide to do citywide plowing updates via text message and do it more frequently.
Text crawl on city channel
Harmon asks where city channel is, he says he can’t find it. [Wow, normally Harmon just sits there quietly and doesn’t say anything while he checks his email/text messages on his phone. Maybe he should just go back to doing that, cuz every time he opens his mouth, it just becomes more clear he doesn’t really pay much attention. Seriously, someone in the Mayor’s office doesn’t know what channel the city television station is on?]
They tell him channel 98, then go on to say it has a very small audience base.
Clear says city channel can use the technology for other stuff. He says when Council is in room 260 they can’t put any kind of info on the screen, just raw video, they have only one character generator and its in room 201.
Edgerton seems confused and thinks Clear might have that wrong.
Clear says regardless, it has other uses.
Edgerton says that should go into their budget.
Clear wants it in with explanation that is is not just for this.
Skidmore says if three commercial stations could put the crawl for school closings why not one for snow? He says that would be no cost.
Clear says he thinks some of them do.
Edgerton says they do snow emergencies, they add it to the crawl and announce it.
Clear says usually on the evening ones.
Schumacher says they have no say in if they do it.
Schmidt says they can ask.
Skidmore asks them to encourage it.
Harmon says they should keep it in the report since they might pick this up. He asks if there is something else the media can do?
Schmidt says that need to encourage them.
Harmon says be careful not to blame them. He asks what can they specifically do?
Skidmore says radio you could do more.
Edgerton says Isthmus and Madison.com could be contacted to put information on their websites like the UW.
Bruer says they need better collaboration and they should coordinate that.
Clear jokes that they can have the “city communications department” work on it.
Edgerton says she and Hank can work on it.
Clear says Rachel in the Mayor’s office can do it.
Schumacher likes it coming from mayor’s office, the media pay more attention to that than George Dreckmann.
Edgerton says they can follow up after that.
Report a problem addition
They talk about what is already there.
Hank says that the message will not go to parks only, depends upon which crew doing the snow removal.
They decide people don’t need to know who is responsible for the snow removal, they can sort that out internally. Schumacher or he will make sure it gets to the right place.
Clear says it sounds like this is already done.
Edgerton says it is in two places.
The committee delete this recommendation.
UW
IT gets assigned to work on this.
Edgerton says she looked for the Seattle info, she couldn’t find it. They tell her to get it from Eagon.
Narrow Street Alert
Schumacher grumbles it could just be lake to lake river to Proudfit.
Edgerton asks what is the definition of narrow steer?
Skidmore not comfortable with this.[Basically, it might help the downtown, so he instinctively hates it, but can’t articulate why. ]
Schumacher grumbles again that parking, police, fire and streets decide if the streets are too narrow by looking at if they can get plows and emergency vehicles down the street, not that someone can’t drive 50 miles and hour down the street. [Wow, there is an attitude on this one.]
Clear says it is to let them know when they invoke the plow package.
Schumacher asks if additional means to get the word out.
Edgerton says they could do a tow alert.
Skidmore says he still has issues. [But still doesn’t articulate why.]
Clear says it just makes sure they get the word, they’d rather get them to move their vehicles.
Skidmore still doesn’t like it. [But doesn’t articulate why. Maybe he just want the jobs for the police department and the revenue from the tickets? Or he just hates anything that goes for the downtown, I can’t figure it out and he really doesn’t say what the issue is.]
Schumacher says that costs us $20 to plow a block if no cars, $200 if cars are towed while they are plowing, $2000 if they have to post signs and haul the snow out. The more notification the better.
Edgerton says they can text and email and use social media. She asks if it is just the Isthmus?
Schumacher says it is used on the near east and near west too, but seldom.
Skidmore says he understands the concept, but he is skeptical. He says it could work, if they do it, he wants to see some feedback at a reporting time about if it works or not, he has seen there is virtually no compliance.
At this point, I have to speak up and say that people often thank me for posting that information on my blog and tell me it has saved them from getting a ticket, that they generally don’t know where to get that information and the media doesn’t go into detail about what streets they are going to tow on. If they know there is towing, they are less likely to play the parking roulette and think they might not get a ticket.
Veldran asks how much it will cost.
Edgerton says it is all set up, just changes to the text. She wonders if they can call it “tow alert” because it is less characters and the committee agrees that they can.
Clear thought this item was only for the 48 hour post and tow.
Schumacher says that they need to be reminded them the second night. More poeple move the first night because it is snowing but forget to move the second night. He wants to do it even if they don’t put up the orange signs.
They agree to do it for both.
Increased uses of liquids as pre-wetting agents and anti-icing agents
Schumacher says they already have more brine trucks, through capital replacement, its $9800 a piece add this equipment to a truck. They got 4 for $39K.
Clear says couldn’t do prewetting before.
Schumacher says that instead of plow, they get spray bars too, last year they used 62,571 gallons of brine. He says they are using liquids, he wants to use Geomelt. [He has an attachment, will attach it if I remember. Scanner at home is experiencing technical difficulties. ] He says they use a 80/20 blend, its 80 cents to $1 dollar per gallon, it lowers the salt brine used which is good because it is organic. It’s $16 – 20k per truck plus for storage tanks are $4900 apiece, includes pumps and equipment necessary. Mostly is operational costs, extra materials, geomelt and salt bring and purchase of tanks. They will do it for 2011, he says it is key to decrease use of salt and increase bare pavement, can uses geomelt at colder temps, this is the way to go says Schumacher.
They will work on the language and say they are piloting it now, talk about the environmental initiatives. Bruer wants to make it clear there is serious interest in pursuing this.
Pavement temperature measurements and forecasts
They ask if any have been installed or are planned.
Schumacher says it will have to be in the capital budget.
Schmidt thougth they were addition on to University and Midvale while it was all torn up.
Phillips says there may be savings if already torn up – now is the time on University Avenue.
Schumacher says they can do it over a period of years over reconstruction.
Schmidt says there could be 5 in one year given all the construction.
Philips asks how they get info back from the sensors.
Schumacher says they are web based through traffic signals.
Clear says if need budget amendment now, thinks there are sponsors.
Phillips says that is not a lot of money, he’ll see what he can do.
Schumacher says forecast RFPs are out and are due back on Friday, pavement temperature forecasting is a main topic.
Clear asks how they know.
Schumacher says it is guess work.
Plow blades
Schumacher says that they will work with vendors and try to demo some different blades this year.
Increase salt routes
They are checking on the costs.
Clear wants to make it obvious that if they do this, these same people can help with scheduled brush collection as well?
Schumacher says yes, they would be available for that, still have equipment for that.
Schmidt says that he used $50K per person.
Schumacher says they also have to include trucks.
Clear wants to add that they can supplement services, such as brush collection in the report.
Schumacher asks if many brush complaints.
Harmon says the Mayor’s office is getting compliments.
Clear says he only had one, a very obvious one.
Bruer says he has some.
Plow at 2 inches or 3 inches
Schmidt says this may increase it from 5 plowings per year to 9 plowings but averages are hard to have accurate read of what going on.
Clear worried about the expectation, will it happen?
Bruer says that the alders who represent multiple jurisdictions hear about it a lot. [I wonder what other jurisdiction he thinks he represents? Town of Madison?]
They ask if this is going to CCOC or straight to council. Some think they should leave it in to have debate there.
Schmidt says its fuel for debate, he says they can rank it low.
Residential bus pad clearing
Schmidt says it is a stand alone ordinance and they can take it out and only discuss it once.
Harmon asks what the Realtors want, has there been any push back?
Schmidt says they push back on everything
They take it out of the report.
Kamp says they should see improvement because the extra signage that Verveer wanted to make it more clear where people could and could not park means there will be two signs and the second one will be where the pad is so that the contractors will be able to find it.
Schumacher says there is a cost to city, George needs to enforce it and there would have to be public education.
Personnel
They talk about the Snow Plow Contractor RFP and how GPS got back in there.
Veldran says it was added from the minutes.
They take it out or took it out. I think they had an updated draft, but I was unclear.
Schumacher says the draft RFQ is written, it was an RFP but they changed to a RFQ. He asks if anyone wants to review it.
Skidmore says yes. Clear says he’s best qualified. Bruer says Clear should look at it too. [Interesting, I’m wondering if Bruer is picking up on a conflict of interest issue?]
They are worried about the $1M for this item, they say it should be implemented over several years.
Skidmore wants more city employees than private contractors, he gets few complaints about city employees, more on contractors, who are good 90% of time. He says the difference is that city employees keep working, contractors don’t if there is something wrong.
Schumacher says better control when our people do the job.
Kelley says our guys see it the roads every day and know it better.
Bruer asks about the numbers.
Schumacher says $1M is only bodies, capital equipment is broken down, this is not quite true, what is better if they add up the stuff in the attachments.
They agree to refine the numbers.
Skidmore says that its a question of if we spend money on contractors or invest in our future with people who work for city.
Schmidt says they can debate it later.
Schumacher says that in last 10 years, streets is down 9 employees, police are up 153, fire up 55. they are down 9 and have added efficiencies in automated trash and recycling pick up, brush and large item changes, but that doesn’t help on snow and ice.
Bruer says that he wanted to mention this when they were asking about Overture, but he did not.
Clear says its ironic that $800,000 per year is the same as the costs to maintain the Overture per year.
Skidmore says that they don’t have private contractors in police and fire or parks. He wants to know how much they spend on private snow contractors, this is an investment in the city. He won’t slam contractors, but could on a few of them.
RANKING
Should they do it now or by email?
Skidmore says only 4 of 7 committee members are here.
Schmidt says they should do it by email, one person compile input to go to CCOC. He says they can’t discuss by email, asks other members to develop their ranking submit to central point (Veldran) and have them determine the ranking. Bruer says they can do it like CDBG and OCS.
Veldran asks about if they are ranking in the areas they are divided up into or altogether.
Clear says over all, money is fungible.
Veldran asks what the question is?
What do you want to see happen first, what is the priority is what they say.
Skidmore wants it done a week before CCOC, Kamp quickly points out that would be tomorrow. They discuss and eventually there is a motion.
Harmon wants to see the report with all the changes when it is all done. [Go figure. Mayor. must. control.]
Veldran suggests they do a special CCOC on the 20th, there is enough to discuss here.
Bruer also offers to look at draft. [Must. Help. Control.]
Schmidt makes a motion that ends up being that Alder Clear and he will add notes from meeting to report, hand off to Veldran, she will distribute to members with ranking sheet, they will introduce it on the 6th, 20th it will go to special CCOC meeting and then back to Council.
Clear adjourns sine die. [Kills the committee.]
