Of the sea wall. So if you go down to the Navy Yard down to Broad Street, you'll see the wall that's running the river. It's 100 years old. It's falling apart. So that's actually an Army Corps of Engineers project that we're cost sharing with them. But the way we do it in terms of our participation is, we go to the OEO Office, we coordinate with them and say, This is our project, what ranges would 167 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 you like for this project. We put them in the contract, and we always meet our goals there. So every project is kind of submitted on an individual basis, and that's how we get our ranges, and we put it in our bid work, and we haven't had a problem with that.
So the process you just stipulated, that is in place for the sea wall and so you've already had the discussion with OEO?
Yes. Now, the sea wall is a slightly different case, because that's actually an Army Corps of Engineers project. They actually will bid that project out themselves. That's rare. We normally -- PIDC will normally do that. They bid it out. They come up with federal ranges for that. So that's slightly different. But everything else goes through the OEO Office, and whatever ranges they ask for, we put it in, whether it's professional services or construction activities, and we get those 168 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 ranges.
So at the juncture that the Commerce Department comes before us, we'll look to what has already been indicated by your leadership, that we'll get that broken down.
Could I ask Dr. Schwarz to just come up for a second, because he tells me I wasn't wholly correct on something.
Don Schwarz, Deputy Mayor for Health and Opportunity. I don't want to in any way 169 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 contradict. I think you were correct, and I understood the Councilwoman's question. This regards non-profit MBEC information for DHS and Behavioral Health. I want to be clear. We don't have agreed-upon criteria, and the issue, as we've talked about before -- and I want to make it clear so that you're not disappointed in any way about this -- we need to figure out -- and other cities around the country haven't figured this out either -- whether we look at -- because there's no ownership in a non-profit. For for-profits, we look at ownership and minority, women or disabled ownership, which is capital that people have at home. Because non-profits don't have ownership, it's an open question whether we look at Board composition, we look at who the Executive Director or executive staff are, who the staff in general are or who the clients served are. And we don't have criteria. And other cities are struggling with the same 170 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 thing.
So I don't want you to think or Council to think that we can come back and easily say, It's X proportion minority, whatever, because it's not owned.
Okay. So my only follow-up briefly is, for organizations that are receiving X percentage of dollars from the City, whatever that number is, then there are many of us on this Council who then care about what the Board looks like, does it look like Philadelphia, those entities that they subcontract to, are they subcontracting with local-owned MBE, WBEs. And I have asked repeatedly for information on PHMC. I'm still waiting for it a year later.
So we do already provide you with subcontracts that are for-profit. So if we contract with a non-profit and they subcontract with a 171 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 for-profit, so there's ownership, we already provide Council with the information for OEO-related status for those for-profits.
We will come back for our agencies with Board composition proportions for you.
That matters. Thank you again. Thank you, Madam President.
You're welcome. Mr. Greenberger, on you mention that $1.5 million --
Okay. Go ahead. Sorry. 172 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116
-- (continued) is recommended for GreenPlan Philadelphia initiatives. Can you detail these initiatives and their locations?
I can try. I know that the head of the Mayor's Office of Sustainability was not available today, but let me -- just give me a moment, please.
Good afternoon. I'm Alan Urek from the City Planning Commission. I'll try to articulate some. In the past year, a fair amount of the budgeted amount was used for Parkway improvements. There also is several hundred thousand dollars previously spent on matching grants to community organizations that do greening projects, and we work through the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to screen those 173 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 applications. And those are generally the kinds of things that the GreenPlan line item supports.
Thank you. Also on it is being recommended that the Philadelphia Prison System use $2 million in new City funds for an automatic lock security system at the House of Corrections facilities. Are we replacing the automatic security locks or are they new? (Witness approached witness table.)
And you mean we haven't had anything like this before if they're new? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER GAINEY: Madam President, Clyde Gainey, Deputy Commissioner for the Philadelphia Prison System. The project that we're speaking about is a life-safety project to replace approximately 60- to 70-year-old locks 174 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 and bring them into code so that we can gang release the locks in case of an emergency.
Thank you. I was just wondering if it was a replacement issue or a new issue, and I thought how could it be a new issue if -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER GAINEY: We've been trying to get it done for a while.
Wonderful. Well, thank you. Do we have any other member that wishes to be recognized? Councilman Jones. I'm sorry.
I was still seeking the answer about the Youth Study Center, but in the meantime, last year we asked the question of PIDC, the Redevelopment Authority to do an analysis of City-owned or quasi-owned properties and to give us a valuation of those properties so that members and government officials could better market them to 175 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 potential developers. Considering our budget crisis then and considering our budget crisis now, that is an opportunity to gain revenue. I wanted to know how we have done thus far in value of the properties that we have in our inventory.
I know that -- what I'm going to do is ask Terry Gillen, the Executive Director of the Redevelopment Authority, to give you a report on that. I do know that she's been working over the course of the year -- no, I don't think she's here, if you're looking around. Sorry.
I mean, we've been waiting for that report for a year. And we're talking about revenue enhancements, which is a nice way of saying taxing the people, when we don't even know what the resources are within our own coffers. And it is frustrating 176 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 for developers who may want to come in and do something and we don't even know what we own, how much it is worth in order for us to even kind of put it on the market. I mean, we've been waiting for that for a year, so, I mean --
We go through the testimony to see what question we asked and whether we ever got an answer a year later, and in this case, we have not.
That's why I want to ask her to get you a report on what she's done during the year, because I do know -- I don't know the details of it because it's within the Redevelopment Authority system, but I do know that she's found, as she started to look at it, the same problems that you found, and she's been pulling together -- trying to pull together a system that brings us up to date on what do we -- all the things 177 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 you said, what do we own, what's it worth, what do other agencies own, because Redevelopment Authority isn't the only one that owns public property. And I don't have that in hand, but I'm going to talk to her about that and try to get you a report. I apologize. That's the best I can do.
I mean, Madam President, I'm frustrated that we're halfway through an administration and we've asked for that property report consistently during budget, Operating Budget, during Capital Budget. It doesn't take -- we could use a calculator and do it by that amount of time. And with all of the high-powered consultants we have, that answer just doesn't cut it. And, seriously, when we -- but we are ready to ask people to pay a trash fee, we're ready to ask people to deal with their sugar consumption through beverages, but we are not prepared internally to say what our inventory and 178 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 assets are. Thank you, Madam President. DEPUTY
I'm sorry, Councilman. I'm sorry, Madam President. I was brought forward. You had a question about the Youth Study Center? I wasn't in the room. I'm sorry.
I just wanted to hear the good news about the construction of the new facility. DEPUTY
We are still on target. We did have a delay as a result of the snow and there was an issue with water in the foundations, but we have dealt with that and we're moving forward. I do not believe that it has delayed us in any way with the schedule that I have previously provided to the Councilman. 179 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116
That's good news. That's the second best news I got today. Thank you, Madam President.
I have to agree with my colleague. I think we all feel the same frustration. Do you have any indication as to when we will be getting the information from the Redevelopment Authority?
I wish I could tell you that I did, but I don't. But I will ask that question.
Thank you. Are there any other questions from members of the Committee? Councilman Jones.
The Health 180 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 Department, Dr. Schwarz, I still have no 3 health centers, City-owned health centers, in my district. That's okay. But I wanted to ask questions about the electronic health records and how that was proceeding. (Witness approached witness table.)
It's going well. We posted a request for proposals in the fall. We've done a review of contractors. We hope to announce a particular contractor by the end of the month. That is slightly ahead of our schedule. We will then need to get to a contract and begin implementation. We hope to begin implementation in July, with a pilot in one location by probably late next winter, and then roll out all the health centers through the remainder of the Fiscal Year '12, to be followed by other parts of the public Health Department, the STD clinic and things like that. 181 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116
Now, this will be able to be interfaced with private hospitals, things like that, to aid in the understanding of a patient's actual condition, pre-existing and otherwise?
It will have the capability and we're happy to do it. The issue is that sort of interconnectable network among hospitals needs to be built.
I had an opportunity to see one of the federally funded health centers in my district, and one of the scariest ideas was that there was a room maybe a third the size of this Chamber filled with physical files, everybody's health condition that actually came to that area. Now, if someone is rushed to the hospital and they need a procedure, to have to physically Pony Express that to a hospital is a frightening thought, because sometimes conditions and 182 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 treatment is determined by a pre-existing condition or a history that a patient has. The second issue is that, isn't that federal stimulus money that was applied to that?
There's federal stimulus money that some is out and some has yet to come out. You may know that when the stimulus act was written, about two-thirds of the text of the act was the creation of a federal-level health information technology department or area within the Department of Health and Human Services. So that there was a lot of money invested and a lot of planning that went into that, and it will roll out over time. We've had relatively small amounts of money available, largely for either state initiatives or private initiatives related to hospitals, which the Health Department in the City has been a partner, and we're hoping that 183 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 there will be interconnectability among hospitals here. We're also waiting for larger amounts of money to come either from the federal government or the state.
Were there any eligibility criteria that would allow for telemedicine?
I don't think -- I don't know that there were for us in the City. I'm not aware of any. If you are, I'm happy to hear, but I don't know.
That was a sincere question, because, again, in some underserved parts of my district, that is a valuable tool, where conceivably a van or a mobile unit can pull up to a public housing unit and right in a rec center open up in a manner of an hour or two and be able to service all of the people of that district. I think those are the 184 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 kinds of technological investments that, as I say, if we're not going to build a health center in my district, then we can convert, and one of the things that the Mayor talked about early on was multi-purpose buildings, buildings that had different uses and could be converted from recreation to a health center, if need be. And I think those kinds of investments in technology would be something that my colleague, Bill Green, always talks about, which is investing in technology, that we might want to follow up and see if there is an opportunity at the federal level to do some beta testing of that kind of concept. Thank you, Doctor.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown. 185 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116
Thank you, Madam President. My question was triggered by my colleague, Councilman Jones, wherein his interest is in how do we -- vacant buildings, multi-purpose use for vacant buildings. Do you know if there are any models in the country, Dr. Schwarz, where --
That's all right. -- (continued) where a City agency partners with an independent school, for example, that has everything that a healthcare center would need, but the city doesn't have the resources to make that real? So it partners with an independent school that has everything it needs, the facility and the like. What type of impediments might exist for that kind of partnership?
You may know that 186 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 we have had school-based health centers and we still have some in Philadelphia, although fewer than we did a decade or two decades ago.
There are two significant reasons for that, both related to funding. The first is that there have been federal dollars for school-based initiatives which the Commonwealth has gone after to some extent, not as much as some other states, for a whole host of reasons, and has not chosen to invest heavily in Philadelphia, in part because we have, compared to other parts of Pennsylvania, a fairly rich network of health providers. And the second is that we have what's called managed care for Medicaid. What that means is that each person who is in the Medicaid program is assigned to a particular primary care provider, and that means that for children at school, if the school becomes their primary care 187 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 provider, the school-based site must be able to provide care 24/7, and there are very few school-based sites that can do that because of scope. Even though there are many children in the school, not every child usually will want to go to that health provider, and when you look at the actual numbers, even in big schools in Philadelphia, there hasn't been a good break-even for that kind of programming. Now, we have had federally qualified health centers that have had satellite sites in schools where the federally qualified health center is the site that receives the capitated -- the money from Medicaid as the primary care provider and they've done outreach into a school. It's not precisely the same, but it at least gives some idea of that kind of model.
Surely. My last follow-up question would be, it's so difficult for working mommies and 188 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 daddies to get their children to physicians 9:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday. Do you know of any models in the country that accommodate weekend hours and/or evening hours?
So our own health centers do that. Every health center has evening hours and most have -- some have weekend hours. We expanded during the H1N1 epidemic to be able to accommodate people in more sites. And a number of the federally qualified health centers also have evening or weekend hours, and some of the institution-based sites do, but not quite as many.
There's mixed opinion if you poll people about whether people would like to come out at night, for instance, to go and after dinner. Families that are working families, there's -- the medical literature is not clear and I can tell you from talking to colleagues in Philadelphia because of 189 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 thinking about the health centers and what our experience is in the health centers, there's mixed opinion about whether people would come, whether it's a convenience or an inconvenience for a lot of families. They would prefer not to go to the doctor on Saturday, for instance. And where we've seen probably the biggest issue is emergency care. So many people end up in the emergency room because there's no urgent care in primary care sites.
Exactly. Thank you, Dr. Schwarz. Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you for your indulgence, Madam President. Just for the record, there are 713 publicly owned properties in the 4th Councilmanic District, and I couldn't tell you what one of them was worth. So 190 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 that we know. Second thing is, Water Department, bio-retention basins, rain gardens. I would like to get an update on where we are with that. (Witness approached witness table.)
It's my understanding we have a $1.6 billion plan to deal with our storm water management, and a subset of that plan is rain gardens and bio-retention basins to capture some of the rainwater runoff, and I want to understand where we are in that capital project. COMMISSIONER BRUNWASSER: Well, we're -- I'm Bernard Brunwasser, Water Commissioner. Councilman, we're at the very early stages. The plan that we have proposed is one that needs to be approved by the Department of Environmental Protection in Pennsylvania and also by the Environmental Protection Agency. At 191 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 this point in time, they are reviewing our plan, which is in excess of 3,000 pages long, with lots of charts and so forth, and we're in discussion with these regulatory agencies as to whether they agree that we should go down this path. We believe that this is the way for Philadelphia to meet its requirements as far as storm water management and also combined sewer overflows, and we believe that this is a superior way to handle this water, superior to building tanks and deep tunnels throughout the City at many billions of dollars, unfortunately, to meet the requirements of the federal government. We would rather do most of this capture and keeping storm water out of those old systems by doing much more greening on the land. Now, as far as these types of projects are concerned, we have seen what's being done in other parts of the country. We have done some demonstration projects ourselves, and we are working 192 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 with our design staff and consultants to come up with the best way to get the most bang out of our dollars in the future. But it is a work in progress.
I remember in our previous meeting you told me this, but what percentage of the City has the dual systems? COMMISSIONER BRUNWASSER: Well, yeah. The one type in the street, the one large sewer pipe in the street that handles both sanitary sewage and also storm water, that's approximately 60 percent of the City. Now, those sewers are predominantly in the older sections of the City, those where the housing stock and the factories and commercial development goes back prior to World War II. Since World War II, by and large, areas that were built out like the Far Northeast and Roxborough and Eastwick have the separate systems, one large sewer main in the street for storm water and a smaller one for the sanitary, and 193 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 the sanitary storm water goes directly to the wastewater treatment plant and the separate storm water pipe goes directly to the river or the creek. In the older sections of the City, during dry periods, all of the flow goes to the sewage plant to be treated. The problem comes into effect when there's heavy rain like we just had and these combined sewers, the one big pipe in the street, gets full of water and the diluted sewage goes to the river and the creek because it would overload the plant at the time and there's not that capacity. So that's what we're dealing with. That was the science of the past, and this was the accepted engineering solution to cities and their runoff. The federal government says that is no longer acceptable and we have to move to keep that diluted sewage out of our streams and rivers.
What 194 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 percentage of our piping infrastructure gets replaced annually? COMMISSIONER BRUNWASSER: Excuse me?
What percentage of the pipes get replaced annually? COMMISSIONER BRUNWASSER: We're replacing a little more than half a percent of the pipes. Over the last 12 years, we have been averaging about 19 to 13 20 miles of water main replacement a year 14 and a lesser amount of sewer main. Sewer 15 main is --
And there was no stimulus money that could have doubled, tripled that amount of pipe replacement that we could have gone after? COMMISSIONER BRUNWASSER: No. 22 The federal government determined that for water and sewer infrastructure, they were going to work with the already-developed state offices for 195 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 revolving loan funds for water and sewer infrastructure. In our case out of Harrisburg it's Pennvest, is the office, and they in turn -- they received about $240 million worth of grant money for water and sewer infrastructure, and we received loans that were normal Pennvest loans in the amount of close to $200 million, but we have to pay those back.
It just seems that 60 percent of our infrastructure is an environmental catastrophe to our streams, even though we do the best we can with the engineering of a century or so ago. COMMISSIONER BRUNWASSER: Absolutely.
I know we're one of the best systems in America. I get that drilled into me, and I agree, but wouldn't it be wonderful if we could make a project out of replacing that? A young person graduating from high school today could retire off of that work. 196 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 COMMISSIONER BRUNWASSER: Oh, yeah.
I mean, if we just looked at how we can get public benefit from improving the environment and stimulating our economy, that's right beneath our feet. COMMISSIONER BRUNWASSER: Absolutely. One of the other things that we're doing is, we are reallocating the way we charge for storm water to commercial, industrial parcels. What we've been using ever since the Water Department took over storm water is, we use the surrogate of meter size. The larger the meter, the larger the parcel. But it's not always true, of course, in reality. So what we're doing is, we're moving towards the larger and more impervious the parcel, the higher the cost. The smaller the parcel or the more pervious takes on more storm water, infiltrates it, the lower the cost. And we have, as part of the rollout of this 197 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 program, incentives for commercial, industrial customers to reduce -- get credits for reducing the flow that comes off their parcel. So there are going to be a lot of private jobs, I would imagine, in Philadelphia for installation of storm water retention basins and perhaps new parking lots, pervious parking lots, islands of grass and plants, things of that nature, in order for large companies to actually reduce their storm water burden to the Water Department. And so there are jobs out of this. Jobs will be created in the public sector, the Water Department, Streets Department, places that will do things to the streetscape and to the public -- to public lands, and then there'll be jobs coming about in the private sector in reaction to the cost of storm water runoff.
Again, I posed this question earlier on the capital projects. There needs to be an 198 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 analysis to see how much we contract out to the private sector versus what jobs we can do internally that we can control the job creation. Rain gardens, bio-retention basins are the kinds of projects that if you take it to an industrial high school and train young people, you get a number of key essential skill-sets. You become part masonry, you become part plumber, you become part botanist, you become part geologist. You have to know a little bit about insects and what types of plants not to plant, and in so doing, you create, as you mentioned, a cottage industry that is Philadelphia based. COMMISSIONER BRUNWASSER: Correct.
And I just think that we have these opportunities before us and we need to take maximum advantage of them. I appreciate what you're doing in the Water Department. I know about 199 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 the effort to do the rain gardens, and in part of my district where we have flooding problems, where we have soil erosion problems, sinking home problems, these solutions may be the difference between us making a small fix today versus a huge relocation, like Logan, tomorrow, and I think it's important that we have forward-thinking in this. So thank you. COMMISSIONER BRUNWASSER: Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any other questions from members of the Committee? (No response.)
Seeing none, this Committee will stand in recess until tomorrow, Wednesday, March the 17th at 10:00 a.m. Thank you very much. 200 3/16/10 - WHOLE - BILLS 100115 & 100116 (Committee of the Whole recessed at 2:00 p.m.) - - - 201 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on March 16, 2010, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)