I think our report speaks to that. We did as large an area --
I want it for the record, I want it for the record. Was the money sufficient to go towards the causation of all of the different factors of the problem? Did you need more money to go more in depth?
Largely for area extent. Insofar as the causation, we are comfortable 99 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 with. That we are comfortable with some of the basic mapping that we have done and that we've paid USGS on our account -- that's another agency.
Well, what do you feel uncomfortable with that was not achieved?
Now, we have some money in hand as we speak, but we -- and this other testimony spoke to it. We still have an internal -- I'll call it a "bureaucratic problem" in our agency to reconcile our understanding of where the local people want to go with the restrictions that our Congress and the leadership in Washington will allow us to go.
Did you find any situations that was an imminently dangerous situation in your study?
Okay, I'm trying to put into perspective where we're coming from. I mean, we would hope to remain involved. What I'm trying to say is, it isn't up to the civil servants at all times if we remain involved. That's what I'm trying to see. When we approached the problem, I think we built upon existing information from various City agencies, and in some cases, their professional consultants. I want to say, we had nothing but cooperation and help from these groups. We engaged the US Geological Service, who had also been asked by Congress to help but wasn't necessarily fund sufficiently well. We provided some money to allow their maps to become a matter of public record, and they have been published. 101 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 We used what we call geographic information systems to integrate a lot of information that was out there. It was good information and it was well-accomplished by the City, but maybe not all brought onto one map. We did that, that's been disseminated. We've also done some limited field work; that is, subsurface testing. And this goes directly to verifying the maps and trying to understand the depths of fill. And we've also looked where possible at building exterior reviews.
One of the testifiers -- I think one of the women pointed out the very real problem that you can have a well-kept house but you're two or three doors away from something that's fallen into abandonment or partial use, and that can allow some incipient problems. I mean, it's the water meeting this ash fill that is the culprit; there's not much dispute about that. 102 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 When we produced the July report, it actually was probably early fall when we disseminated it. There's some fancy color graphics. We've gone back to the delegation with that and we've provided that to Risk Management, among others. I believe it's posted on our Website, and we're in the Wanamaker Building. For somebody who wanted to see -- and, again, it's got colored information, which is helpful for clarity, and they can come by and see it. And right now -- it was mentioned by the interfaith group that there is some additional money coming at hand in the year we are in, and we are trying to reconcile the advice of the Congress, the legalese with the way that money came about, with the known desires of everybody to expand at least in the Feltonville area. And that's where that matter rests. The final point I would make, and the clergy has just testified, is that our system is very much premised on cooperation with local interests, and it moves as fast or as slow as local interests can drive it. At the same time, if the State becomes involved, that can help and 103 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 that can lead to a larger partnership. We remain very much controlled and governed by an unusual problem where the extent of our legal authority as the Corps of Engineers isn't necessarily all that clear as of yet. That may emerge and get clarified as we go, but right now today, we don't know that for sure. So we're attempting to go in fits and starts as far as we can as to funding and any instructions which the funding allow.
Okay. And it was included in the July report. We worked in a subsection of Feltonville: Fourth Street on the east, Wyoming to the north, Eighth Street and Boulevard on the west, and Cayuga Street on the south. We produced what we call a topographic change map to show the distribution of fill. We go back as far as a century and show at different locations where the fill is known to be. 104 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 We did investigations by drilling, going out on the streets in selected areas, verifying in fact what's down there at those particular spots. As people would appreciate, it's not homogeneous, it came in in a random way, and we know as much as we know, but more funds would allow improved precision and a growing into other areas where we didn't have the funding and opportunity to poke holes. We took digital images of sewer lines from City agencies. We folded them into this master map -- again, geographic system map, if you will. And we've been trying to marry water, gas, sewer mains that may have been in different formats and we've tried to bring them into a uniform format. Here and there, where we detected a problem -- and Reese Street has been mentioned. I should say that when we learned of things and observed things firsthand, we went back to the Water Department and got very timely cooperation from them. They were very interested and they start to do take things further. So we tried collaboration throughout 105 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 where something was very apparent, and many times, it wasn't all that apparent.
Well, we looked at the dip, we took the addresses, and the engineers on our staff said, this is suggesting that --
That there's a hole. We went to the City Water Department and learned as a matter of routine they have the skills and the tools and the equipment to prove that out, confirm that. And I think, to their credit, they moved out quickly and ran a camera and what have you and found that they would need to take some action.
Did they know how long that hole had been there? Or had they ever been there before? Or when was the last time the Water Department had been around to check those mains and those pipes?
I don't recall offhand. I 106 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 think it was fairly recent information. I'm just saying that they have the standing ability to --
Oh, it could because they rotate around the City with the mapping unit. And so when the --
And so for years, the water could have been seeping into that silt and so on.
And that could have then led to a progressive sinking of the different foundations in that area.
Well, we had to stop short of that because we ourselves did not firsthand go through that, okay. All I -- we would bring that to their attention as -- well, just the ability of people getting this information on where sewers and other things just were, I thought the folks were quite cooperative.
Well, I would imagine that they would have to be cooperative. We got a Congressional delegation bringing in 107 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 money to do a study, and I would hope that our agencies would then cooperate with you to be able to do that. You didn't expect cooperation?
Well, no, but I would say that as outsiders working in a consulting capacity, I think we had to be respecting of the professionals that are in place, just like where some folks were very kind and opened their doors to us --
Did you find any other areas such as the one hole that you found in this particular part?
That was one that I recall because I'm not doing this work firsthand but through others, but we were also concerned that some folks who were good enough to extend an open invitation to see their home firsthand also had to fret over the fact that maybe it wasn't apparent who was a federal civil engineer and who was somebody from L&I who might have to issue, by duty, condemnation papers. So it's been a very delicate area to get facts and technical information, provide to it 108 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 decision-makers who can do the best with it, and not get into some sort of cop state. Because we were not directed by Congress to work as some sort of police capacity.
Again, working with the Water Department, we had sewer line lateral inspections performed on ten homes, and as I mentioned, the main on Reese Street. And that -- that -- these are not new materials, they were in our report, and they've been briefed to the delegation. We've made a lot of preliminary suggestions, you know, such as street trees and such as keeping an eye on abandoned homes or vacant homes that may have downspouts that then contribute water disproportionately to a neighbor's foundation that you do well to try and jury rig-it if need be to keep it away from your foundation. So our expectation is to attempt, with the monies we've yet been given, to expand the area and enlarge it and go from there. My only recent clarification before is 109 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 unlike a classic Corps study that is sanctioned as a routine business of the Corps and a non-federal sponsor, the funding of this will tend to be in fits and starts because it does not fit the parameters of a classically authorized undertaking.
Can we get from the -- and maybe you need more money to be able to come to this conclusion. Can we get from the Army Corps of Engineers as to a conclusion as to how much would it take to make these houses salvageable? Or is the conclusion is that all of these homes are going to have to be torn down? Or can these houses be saved? And what is it -- from the engineering perspective, what is it going to take to be able to bring this to a situation in which it can be rebuilt?
It would be hard for us to speak and offer a general rule throughout the whole area because some of the ironies are at times when you think a home would have severe threats, you go out and observe, and it appears to have weathered everything, and it's not clear how that could be. 110 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 And I'm not trying to make a pitch for a large stream of money as much as a coordinated approach that would be larger than just federal and that would have different sets of expert eyes doing different things. We can see on a given house that if it's not known that the fill is exactly this much and if it's known that this much water got there, well, on that individual house, you might be faced with this type of remediation, but the problem is, it's next door, a joiner on either side would be altogether different, and we don't have the genius that would allow us to make that differentiation. And it would take quite a while to do that. What we've been trying to do is kind of marshal information or not-easily-had technical information and bring it before local interests so that it would be a piece of their future approach to design a fix.
But we need the information to be able to make the public-policy decision.
As to how this 111 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 problem is managed.
And we can't wait twenty years to come to a conclusion about this. And we saw it in Logan in a way that people were just taken out and the homes razed. We have a situation that we want to be able to see what is it that has to be brought to bear from the City and the state and the federal government to make sure that this neighborhood survives.
What we're trying to make is that we have a neighborhood of good people, of people who have invested, and we need to know from the engineers, from the experts what is it and in what direction and what investment the City needs to make in order to save a neighborhood.
And that we need information from you. I thought -- you know, what is it going to take for us to be able to save this neighborhood?
Well, thus far, I would 112 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 say that from the year 2000 report --
If your conclusion is that from your study and your finding that these houses are not in imminently dangerous situation, what would it then take for us to be able to prevent them from becoming imminently dangerous?
Mm-hmm. Well, so far, what we have done and what I'm aware of -- and there could be more -- our information has fed into the Mayor's Office where they've come up with a protocol to start dealing with things. And I would expect, as we did more work and we spin off more results, that they'll be able to refine the protocol. That's the way we've been operating so far. Now, we had 150 spent, we have 150 in the present year.
A strategy, a series of 113 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 steps, and the assigning of which agency, which level of government would do thus and so to confront the problem head-on. As I say, we are very much as federals somewhat circumstanced about no matter what the issue is, how far into a local matter we can ever go. In this case, we've tried to be ambitious, we've tried to think outside the box, but we turn the information over to others who have the rules and regulations to implement things.
Who are the others that you turn the rules and regulations over to?
The City. Are you saying that you've turned over your suggestions to City officials?
Yeah. We published our report, we provided a copy to the City and to the requesting delegation. 114 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175
Well, as I say, from what published things I have come across, I think some of it has gone into effect as the City executive department starts to define how it's going to move from this point.
From your vantage point, what would you see as the next step that would have to occur to make forward progress here?
I think it's already been well-testified to by the interfaith action minister, the gentleman, the reverend that sat in this seat here, and that is that it would probably take local and state and federal government working in some sort of consolidated way to address the various aspects of the problem, keeping in mind that we, Corps of Engineers, are largely technicians. We are not necessarily the money managers and insurance expertise and the way to comprehensively attack the problem.
Who should develop the next few steps? Who would you say -- 115 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175
Can we take five minutes. (Break taken.) - - - (Proceedings resume.)
Joseph Perrello Robert Solvibile, and Commissioner Richard Roy. (Witnesses come forward.)
Good afternoon, guys. I want to thank you all for coming and being so patient and staying and listening to what was said. I imagine that many of the things were no surprise, but let's see if we can begin to get into the situation of where is it that we got to go in essence. I read your testimony, we'll make it a part of the record. I want to know, really, from the three 116 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 of you right now, because I think I respect Mr. Solvibile, and with Mr. Perrello, we have been through a lot. The Water Commissioner is new, we haven't been through as much.
We need to be able to go where it is we're going. Obviously, we have a Neighborhood Transformation Initiative that we're talking about. We have a neighborhood. I don't know how to label that neighborhood -- a neighborhood in transition, a neighborhood in despair? Given all of the definitions that we've gotten, it is a neighborhood of working-class people. We have the experience the Logan, and Mr. Solvibile and this Council has gone through that, and we saw it today and we had that. And obviously, it's not a history that we want to repeat. I think we put in a lot of money and we wasted a lot of money. We don't want to see a devastation occur. I think this Council's focus is to save the been neighborhood. If you're going to begin a 117 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 blight program and a Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, I think this neighborhood can either prove that you can do it or prove that you can't. It's almost like a test case. And so, to me, these are people who have made an investment in the City. They stayed, they went through all of the problems of North Philadelphia, they educated their kids. And now it's our responsibility to give them some hope. And hope I hope we can begin giving them as of today. So, who's going to go, Mr. Solvibile?
Councilman Ortiz, my name is Joseph R. Perrello. I'm the Deputy Director of Finance for Risk Management. With me today are Commissioner Roy from the Water Department and Deputy Commissioner Robert Solvibile from Licenses and Inspections. Rather than going over my written testimony, which you alluded to -- you do have a copy of it and you have read it -- I will just paraphrase some of the things and highlight some of the things that are important from it. Our first involvement -- Risk 118 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 Management's first involvement in the subsidence issue actually started in 1999 with the Wissinoming situation. And based on the results of the situation in Wissinoming, we realized that the concern and the problems with subsidence throughout the City needed to be addressed. As a result of that, the Rendell Administration, in late 1999, commissioned a task force, which was comprised of Risk Management, Licenses and Inspections, Water and Capital Programs, to look at the problem on a citywide basis. That task force was continued on with the present administration, and we have been looking at trying to deal with the issues of subsidence since December of 1999. The present focus of the task force has been to work with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the US Geological Service to try to come up with, number one, answers to the problems both in Wissinoming and in Feltonville, and to come up with responses to the recommendations that the Army Corps of Engineers has made. We have included our responses to the Army Corps's recommendations in the update, which 119 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 we included with our testimony. And we've also put together a --
Is that the homeowner's manual, the maintenance handbook?
Yes, the City Update on Sinking Homes Task Force recommendations of May 9, 2001. We've also put together a draft of we call "The Homeowner's Maintenance Manual," or maintenance handbook, and we intend to distribute this handbook on a citywide basis. And the focus on handbook is not so much -- and we heard a lot of testimony today from the residents and homeowners about trying the maintain their homes, and the maintenance manual is in no way suggesting to say that these people are not maintaining their homes. What the maintenance manual is intended to do is help people recognize things that they may not have considered or may not be looking for on a daily basis and help to educate them and 120 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 educate the community and the community constituencies and groups on how to find and maintain problems that may not be so conspicuous to the layperson. These are things that will be included in that manual. We have maintained ongoing relationships with the Army Corps and the USGS since the winter of 1999. We have been in constant communication with them. We have asked the US Geological Service to work together with us in sponsoring a study, using Professor Ann Spurn (ph.), who is now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was at University of Pennsylvania. She's an exert on buried flood plains and she's put out a report for HUD dealing with this issue. Last week, we were able to talk to Dr. Spurn and we were able to get her to agree to participate in helping us to expand the national flood insurance program that's offered by FEMA and also the mine subsidence program offered by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to try to include the subsidence problem in Philadelphia in those two insurance 121 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 programs. We are also trying to work with several state and local representatives to get some private-sector insurance companies to develop an interest in the program and maybe even work with the State Guarantee Fund to try to find some additional funding. We are reaching out to both the federal level, through our Councilmen and our Congressman to try to work on the state and federal level to find out additional sources of monies to work with HUD and work with all of the housing agencies to help us to find both city, state, and local funding that we can put together to address this problem. And I think the one part of the handbook and also of the update that we presented to you is the fact that the mission of the task force that we're working on is exactly as you stated, which is to preserve the neighborhoods and not to demolish them. And so we're trying to do is find ways and means and funding to put programs in place that will assist the homeowners to maintain their 122 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 properties and to preserve their neighborhoods rather than tear them down. And we're here to answer any questions you may have.
We have a problem. You describe it, and it's very good. We know the problem. We know that we have in many areas of the City a subsidence problem. But we have a problem right here. Many families right now in this area are looking to you, not for a theoretical framework and not for some aspect into the year 2010. They're looking for us right now for a solution to their despair. You heard the testimony. Twenty-five years in a house. A woman wakes up every morning thinking as to what is going to be happening to her and her family. They are not coming down here 123 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 and they haven't been for the last three or four years organizing and writing letters to the Water Department, to L&I, to the Mayor because they're not concerned; they are concerned. And we have to this point not given them a satisfactory answer to their problem, other than we could go in and we probably may have to evict you and take you out of the home. And that doesn't answer their question, because where are they going to go? And that creates a bigger problem for us because where are we going to put 'em?
So to me, where we begin today with you is, what are we going to do with the Feltonville problem and how are we going to proceed? Because I think -- I think, depending on how we deal with this problem, we'll decide and make -- the plan and the strategy will be the way we are going to deal with the problem that Councilman Rizzo mentioned in terms of the 4th Councilmatic District or another problem that may occur in another area of the City. And we can't wait until a disaster happens. An explosion has 124 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 happened in Logan. How are we going to deal with the problem? We have it, it's not theoretical, it is real. What strategy, what plan are we going to put into place so that these families, Philadelphians -- we have a Neighborhood Transformation Initiative coming up. Their neighborhood is being transformed -- not to their liking. How can we begin with you in this hearing and in the subsequent hearings we will have, because this will not be the last one. How do we begin to put together that strategy? This is all what this is for. They need to go home tonight with some sense that we may not have the answer maybe right now, but they have to go home tonight with a sense that we're not going to abandon that neighborhood and that we are going to come up with an answer and if we have to bring in the State, if we have to bring in the federal government. They don't care where it comes from. They understand that they're citizens of the City and the City has a responsibility. So what do we tell them? 125 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 I think the testimony can be very short. The questions and answers don't have to be very extensive. It is-- and I think Bob understands, we cannot go through this -- fifteen years after the fact, Logan is still without answers to many other issues, after $33 million is spent. I think we can do it for much less than $33 million. But after $33 million, we still don't have the answer at Logan. I don't want to go through the same process. So tell me.
My first response, Councilman, would be, you're correct, we don't have an answer today. The encouragement, if there is encouragement, is that the City is not neglecting this neighborhood, the City is not ignoring this neighborhood. Feltonville has been on the minds of our three departments on a daily basis and in the meetings that we've had with the Mayor's Office. And we are working with the Army Corps of Engineers and with the US Geological Service to come up with solutions and come up with funding mechanisms through both the federal and the state levels to help us deal with this 126 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 problem. And we also do not want to go in and evict these people and chase them out of their homes. We would prefer to be able to help them stay in their homes and work with them to save their neighborhoods. And that's what the goal is. We don't have the answer today, but we're trying to put it together and get an answer for you as quickly as possible.
I think, Councilman, that Dr. Spurn is going to be very big in helping us find the solution to the problem in working with her. She has a national reputation, I believe, in Boston?
She was successful in putting together a plan for that community to help preserve it. So I think she is going to be a big first step in helping us come up with a solution to this problem.
When can we expect some sort of a response, even the schematics of a plan to deal with the Feltonville homes? Not even a full-fledged-out plan, but a plan? 127 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175
I think we can go back and work with Licenses and Inspections and the Mayor's Office to put together a plan within the next several weeks.
Again, I need a timeline. I don't think they go home every night -- they need to know that at a certain time, a certain date, they're going to hear from the City about a certain -- at least a plan that may come up.
Unfortunately, we don't have access to Dr. Spurn until after the 4th of June.
But I don't think you need just Dr. Spurn present to be able to at least start coming up with some semblance of a plan to deal with this problem.
No, we have been working on a plan throughout basically based on what we have with the Army Corps of Engineers report and our responses to the Army Corps of Engineers and some of the work that the Water Department has already done in that regard. Basically, the City's update on sinking 128 5/9/01 PUBLIC SAFETY - RES. 010175 homes basically says that, you know, we are going through all of these steps to put together a plan and that it will be developed here within the next -- here again, I can't be more specific than I could say the next several weeks to a month.
Let's say that June 10th -- that's a Sunday, that's no good. Let's say June 12th. We'll recess this committee till June 12th, and on June 12th, we'll have the community, we'll have folks here once again, and you'll come back again and then we can ask questions because we'll have something in front of us. All right?
Okay. All right, this meeting stands in recess until June 12th at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. (Adjourned 4:10 p.m.) 129 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Wednesday, May 9, 2001, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY RES. NO. 010175 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter