1071 COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING BEFORE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE FY02 OPERATING BUDGET - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, February 20, 2001 9:30 a.m. - - - underscore BILL NO. 010005 RE: FY02 OPERATING BUDGET PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN DAVID COHEN COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN COUNCILMAN W. WILSON GOODE, JR. COUNCILMAN ANGEL ORTIZ COUNCILMAN FRANK DICICCO COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN THACHER LONGSTRETH COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 1072 I N D E X William Johnson, Commissioner, Streets Department. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1073 Clarena Tolson, Deputy Commissioner, Streets Department. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1083 Councilman Frank Rizzo. . . . . . . . . . . . 1088 Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell . . . . . . . . 1093 Councilman Blondell Reynolds Brown. . . . . . 1099 Charlie Trainor, Chief Traffic Engineer . . . 1103 Councilman Darrell Clarke . . . . . . . . . . 1109 Larry Moy, Streets Department . . . . . . . . 1110 Joseph Doyle, Chief Streetlighting Engineer . 1132 Councilman Angel Ortiz. . . . . . . . . . . . 1139 Councilman Frank DiCicco. . . . . . . . . . . 1149 Councilman Michael Nutter . . . . . . . . . . 1159 Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller. . . . . . . . 1172 Councilman David Cohen. . . . . . . . . . . . 1178 Michael Zacagni, HR Director, Streets Department. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1190 Councilwoman Marian Tasco . . . . . . . . . . 1207 Robert Dubow, Acting Budget Director. . . . . 1214 Councilman James Kenney . . . . . . . . . . . 1224 Andres Perez, Jr., Commissioner, Department of Public Property . . . . . . . . 1246 Riley P. Harrison, Fleet Manager, Waste Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1345 Richard Tyler, Historic Preservation Officer, Philadelphia Historical Commission. . . . . . 1357 Edward J. McLaughlin, Commissioner, Department of Licenses & Inspections. . . . . 1358 Richard Felgus, Administrative Director, Board of Licenses & Inspections . . . . . . . 1424 Richard Felgus, Administrative Director, Board of Building Standards . . . . . . . . . 1425 Richard Felgus, Administrative Director, Zoning Board of Adjustment. . . . . . . . . . 1426 Richard Roy, Commissioner, Water Department . 1428 1073 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
Good morning. This is the Committee of the Whole regarding Bill 4 No. 010005. The first department to be called this morning is the Streets Department. Good morning, Commissioner. Please identify yourself for the record. And may I suggest before you start your testimony that we do have copies of your testimony. The stenographer also has a copy. If you would simply summarize your testimony, we would appreciate it. The stenographer will, in fact, print your testimony in whole. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Good morning, President Verna, Members of City Council, ladies and gentlemen. My name is William M. Johnson, Commissioner of the Department of Streets. I'm here this morning to present testimony on behalf of the Streets Department's proposed fiscal year 2002 Operating Budget. We're requesting a General Fund appropriation of $116,821,073, and an all-funds appropriation of $146,562,073. Our proposed budget reflects a net 1074 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings General Fund decrease of $1,645,044 from fiscal year 2001 estimated obligations. The overall request for the Department for all funds, General, County Liquid Fuels, Special Gasoline Tax and Grants Revenue is $36,824 higher than our fiscal year 2001 estimated obligations. A net decrease in the General Fund of overestimated obligations is the result of reductions in temporary seasonal hires, one-time bonuses in 2001 and reductions in overtime. These reductions more than offset contract increases in sanitation for landfill fees plus full funding of wage increases through 2002 and increments in longevity pay. The Streets Department's authorized position levels remains 2,232, the same as our 2001 budgeted level. With this budget, the Department will continue to provide in 2002 the levels of service that it will achieve in 2001. I would like to briefly highlight some of the goals that have been achieved in the areas of refuse collection, street cleaning, recycling and street maintenance. 1075 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Our Sanitation Division has maintained on-time collection at a rate of 95 percent for the year 2000. A number of recent winter storms have affected the 2001 on-time percentage, which would have reached 96 percent in 2001. We project to maintain on-time collection at 96 percent in 2002. 72 tons per crew for the year 2000 to tons in 2001 and 2002. 12 In 2002's request for sanitation funds, 13 the current scheduled cleaning program for arterial 14 and commercial corridors and the neighborhood cleaning programs initiated last year, the redeployment of mechanical broom fleet and mechanical broom purchases has enabled the Department to increase the cleaning frequency in commercial corridors from monthly to bi-weekly to weekly. In 2000, 44,978 tons of recyclables were collected, and the current projections for 2001 and 2002 of 44,682 and 46,700 tons respectively. Due to favorable market conditions during the first half of 2001, the City received 1076 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings $311,826 for the sale of recyclables. The Department launched a pilot program in May 1999 to test the effect that switching from bi-weekly to weekly collection of curbside recyclables has on participation rates, the amount of recyclables collected and net tons. The pilot program targeted neighborhoods with varying levels of participation as Center City and the Northwest sections of the City totaling 85,910 households. The areas included in the pilot have generated an additional 2,201 tons of recyclables since the beginning of the program. This recycling expansion was facilitated through the acquisition of vehicles with 90 16 percent of the cost of the vehicles being provide 17 through State grant funds. 18 In 1999, businesses recycled 288,875 19 tons, up from 204,596 tons in '98 as the Department took a number of steps to improve compliance with the City's commercial recycling regulations including intensive field education, building inspections and code enforcement.
6 percent in 1999 excluding construction and demolition debris. 4 percent. The Highway Division resurfaced 154 miles of streets in the year 2000 and plans to resurface 156 miles in 2001 and 2002. We also expect to line stripe 2500 intersections and perform 7500 ditch restorations in both 2001 and 2002. The Department repaired 16,023 potholes in the year 2000 and projects to repair 30,000 in 2001, an increase due, primarily, to harsh winter weather conditions. We performed over million linear feet of crack sealing, a maintenance technique that extends the life cycle of the City's streets. This procedure prevents water from entering the sub-base of the street which is a major cause of potholes. Each time the street is opened by a 1078 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings utility or telecom company, it significantly shortens the useful life of the street. The Department is currently working with the Department of Public Property, the Law Department, the Managing Director's Office to develop new regulatory mechanisms, update regulations and improve workflows to better coordinate street openings and minimize the number of times that streets are opened. In addition, the Department is working with City utilities in an effort to coordinate their routine maintenance work with the City's resurfacing program so that utility maintenance can be done in conjunction with the street repair process. The Streets Department worked with the Managing Director's Office and the Office of Fleet Management to revise the City's snow fighting plan in order to increase the ability of the City to plow neighborhood streets. Under the new plan, which the Mayor announced in December, the City is now plowing over 900 miles tertiary residential streets during significant snow storms for the first time in the City's history. 1079 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings By the end of the year 2000, the Department replaced over 6500 lights as part of its ongoing Citywide program to replace obsolete light fixtures. Under the program, old lights are being replaced with energy-efficient, high-pressure sodium fixtures. When the entire program is completed approximately over the next six years, the Departments projects that a total of 75,000 lights will have been replaced. In addition to being more energy-efficient, the new fixtures require fewer repairs than do the old ones. As a result of the program, streetlight repairs decreased dramatically to 15,000 in the fiscal year 2001. The need for major maintenance repairs will continue to decline as more of the replacement program is completed. A major goal of the Streets Department is to respond quickly, courteously and efficiently to customer requests for service. To this end, the fiscal year 2001, we improved our call center by installing a 1080 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings state-of-the-art automated call distribution center. With this system we now automatically distribute incoming calls to the next available representative, thereby reducing wait time for citizens. We also monitor the quality of our customer service handling. In addition, in fiscal year 2001, the Department installed an E-mail based service request tracking and recording system for all City Council's service requests from inception to completion. In summary, the employees of the Streets Department will continue to work diligently to deliver the services to our citizens and neighborhoods and to improve the quality of life in our City. Therefore, we request your favorable consideration of this budget request. I'm available to answer questions at this time.
Thank you, Commissioner. What is the total amount of delay in filling of new positions reflected in your General Fund accounts? I believe it's over $3 million. 1081 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings How many positions does this represent on an annualized basis? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We would have to calculate the number of positions that it represents. But I will say, Madam President, that we focused on seasonal hiring and overtime as a means of reducing our Class 100 expense.
By our calculation, it would indicate that $1,743,000 is in Sanitation alone. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That's correct. That may be correct. In Sanitation we go through a seasonal hiring process where the volume of waste generated fluctuates with weather conditions and the time of year. So, typically, in our Sanitation Division we will increase our staffing as we go into the spring and through the summer.
But, Commissioner, it would appear that your overtime is really being reduced quite a bit, and your seasonal employment is also being reduced to about half of what you had last year. 1082 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Are you telling us you have sufficient funding to meet your service goals and objectives as you identified for FY02 and that you will not be requesting additional funding for your department later in the year? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We believe that we'll be able to manage overtime and to manage our work force in a way that we won't need as much seasonal hiring and won't incur as much overtime, given normal operations. Obviously, during inclement weather, we do incur a lot more overtime than anticipated as evidenced by our performance over the last month or so. But given normal operating conditions, we think that we'll be able to manage.
Okay. Commissioner, on of your testimony, it has a section titled "EXPANDED STREET CLEANING." Yet you state, "The FY2002 request for Sanitation funds the current scheduled cleaning program for arterial and commercial corridors, and the neighborhood cleaning programs initiated last year." Are you intending to expand street 1083 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings cleaning in FY2002? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We don't have sufficient funding to substantially expand street cleaning. We plan to continue to work with the pilot program that we have operating right now and to continue to try to improve some of the conditions that we're running into in the pilot program before we were to look at aggressively expanding it.
(Inaudible) Councilmatic District Pilot Program for street cleaning? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes.
When was the pilot program for expanded recycling initiated? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I'm going to ask Deputy Commissioner Clarena Tolson to address the specifics.
Thank you. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER TOLSON: Good morning. Clarena Tolson, Deputy Streets Commissioner. The recycling pilot began in FY99.
'98? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER TOLSON: 98. I'm 1084 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings sorry. Yes.
What are the findings and recommendations based on the pilot program? Why are you only requesting funding for the continuation of the pilot program and not for its expansion? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: The pilot program -- the weekly recycling pilot program?
Yes. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: -- (continued) did show in those areas that there was an increase, I believe, of percent in the amount of material 14 actually collected. 15 So there was a slight increase in the 16 amount of materials set out for recycling. However, 17 the cost of collecting those materials is over $300 18 a ton. 19 We are also looking at some other 20 modifications that we're going to be testing during 21 the next physical year to look at ways to decrease 22 the cost of actually collecting the recycling. 23 It would not be prudent at this point to 24 look at trying to expand the program Citywide at the current cost. 1085 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
Why is it costing so much? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Well, recycling is an expensive proposition. One reason that it's expensive is because you never will get to the point where a hundred percent of the people are recycling every week. And when you look at the tonnage that's placed out at the curbside for collection, it's always going to be less than the total tons of waste that's placed out for collection. So when you measure it based on the cost per ton, it's always going to be more. There are some collection methodologies that we're looking at where we're going to test the concept of co-collection which would include potentially collecting recyclables and solid waste at the same time in the same truck. We think that if it's successful, it will substantially decrease the cost of collecting recyclables and make it a more viable option to look at expanding weekly recycling Citywide.
Your testimony on deals with a new multiyear comprehensive solid waste management plan. 1086 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Your second objective is to develop pride in neighborhoods by forming partnerships with community groups to help keep streets clean and ensure that residents follow refuse and recycling guidelines. These partnerships will feature more aggressive outreach, educational campaigns and a greater emphasis on customer service. What funding has be provided to your Department to accomplish this objective in the FY02 budget and the out years for the five-year plan? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We are taking our existing operating dollars and looking at how we provide service with existing operating dollars to fund the program. This is a new approach or a different approach, but it's basically providing the same services that we provide but looking at a different way of doing it. A couple of the things that we're doing is we're taking some of the work that's currently being done, for example, through the Philadelphia More Beautiful Committee and asking the people that are doing those things to refocus their time and their efforts on recruiting and promoting the program, trying to heighten awareness of a lot of 1087 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings the things that are going on and just have not been, in my opinion, adequately communicated to our communities or adequately pushed in our communities to get more people to participate and be active and to take pride and where they live.
Thank you. What are the response times to repair potholes and ditches, traffic lights and streetlights in the current fiscal year, and what are your projected times for FY02? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: The response times for potholes were currently running three to four days. We anticipate that the response time will remain about the same for next year.
How about ditches? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Potholes and ditches --
Three or four days? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, ma'am.
Traffic lights? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Traffic lights -- 1088 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings one moment, please. Traffic lights, we a have repair person there within eight hours, and, usually, it's repaired within that time.
I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: For traffic lights, we have a repair person there within approximately eight hours, and it's usually repaired within that time.
How about streetlights? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Streetlights, our goal is hours. 16
Do you have a 17 point of order, Councilman? 18 The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo. 19
Commissioner, 20 occasionally we get a situation -- you said a 21 pothole response could be three to four days. 22 Occasionally, we get a situation that is 23 damaging. 24 Nothing upsets me more than when I see a pothole that is causing people to have broken rims 1089 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings and blowout tires and we need almost an instantaneous response to correct a very dangerous highway condition. Is the Department prepared at o'clock 6 at night -- Councilmember, police officer -- and I 7 know I'm talking to you about maybe getting a little 8 more proactive with engineering students -- to go out and look and see the same things that I see? 8 o'clock at night, we have a situation that five or six cars are severely damaged, hubcaps all over the place, cars disabled. How do we get that condition fixed as quickly as possibly? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, Councilman. The Streets Department makes every effort to be responsive to what we consider emergency situations. A prime example occurred last week where there was a pothole situation that we considered dangerous that was actually aired on a news broadcast. And on an emergency basis we were able to rally a crew of people to come out and repair a pothole that really was not even the City's responsibility. We were just proactive in going out and taking care of that right away. And that was 1090 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings done on the same night as soon as we became aware of the situation.
That's great. Because there's times when we'll see a situation like that, see vehicles being damaged and call municipal radio, call the supervisor in the switchboard room and just say, 'Please do whatever you can do.' And then two days later you ride by, and it's still there. So it's good to here that we'll try to get to those things quickly. Thank you. Thank you President Verna.
You're welcome. Commissioner, I've been asking for a list of what streets in my district have been resurfaced during this last year, and I'd also like a list of what streets are planned to be resurfaced for FY02. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, ma'am.
Would you see that I get a copy of that, please? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I will. In fact, 1091 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings I came prepared with a list of streets by district and maps by district.
For resurfacing? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: For resurfacing for the current year and proposed for fiscal year 2002.
Wonderful. I'll just take mine. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: There should be one there for each Councilmatic District.
Commissioner, as part of your modernization and repair of streetlights, will you be increasing the number of streetlights in the City? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We are taking advantage of opportunities to increase streetlights where we can. We have a program we look at where there's a request for additional streetlighting. And there may be wooden poles owned by PECO that do not currently have streetlights on them. In some cases, we're able to go out and actually add a streetlight on some of those wooden 1092 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings poles. We don't have capital funding to do a Citywide broad-scale program. That's something we looked at and that we recommended, but we were not able to obtain funding to do that program in the current year. But we're hoping we will be able to do a program like that in future years.
So we're simply putting new streetlights on existing utility poles? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: In locations where there's a deficit of streetlighting and where we can locate an existing wooden PECO pole, we have added streetlights, yes.
Thank you. Commissioner, again, I'm going to ask how are you reducing your General Fund over time by $6,200 -- $62,000 in FY02? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Some of the overtime that we incur is by design. During holiday weeks where our collection schedules are shifted, the work that occurs either on a holiday or on a Saturday is overtime by design. There are other times when we incur 1093 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings overtime in trying to keep up with our on-time collection schedule, if you will. If there's inclement weather and we have to call on our Sanitation Division, for example, to go into a snowplowing operation, we can't collect the trash during those periods. What we're trying do is to stay ahead, if we can, of our regular collection schedules so that if we do run into a situation like that, we'll be able to recover without incurring substantial overtime in the future.
Thank you. And, Commissioner, I want to publicly thank you for being very cooperative to the needs of my district. And people thought that you would never meet me at 7 o'clock in the morning to walk through a certain portion of my district. And I truly want to thank you for that and for all the cooperation you have shown thus far. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell.
Thank you, Madam President. 1094 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings I'm really very excited about this repaving schedule. Thank you. We have an excellent relationship with Commissioner Moy, and we appreciate the ongoing excellent relationship. You're doing a great job. And, certainly, Miss Tolson is as well. We're very, very glad to hear about four scheduled cleanings per year which is very good. My question in that regard is: For commercial corridors, the main one in my district is, of course, 52nd Street and then 60th Street. They the two main ones. And then we have Chester Avenue, Woodland Avenue, Spruce Street, Baltimore Avenue. Can we have a regular schedule for them? We're trying to, with OHCD, do some revitalization of our commercial corridors again. And I think if there's a way that it can be regular -- our biggest problem has been over the years -- I mean, I've been here in my own right since 1992. But long before that when former Congressman Blackwell was in City Council, I think the biggest issue has been, you scream and you get it cleaned, but then after you get it cleaned and the trash is removed, we don't 1095 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings have a regular program for commercial corridors. So we would ask if that could be considered. That would make life a lot easier. I wouldn't even mind supplementing them if we need to in between if we knew that at X time that our commercial corridors would regularly be cleaned. Then you know how to work with your business association and all that stuff. So that would be a big, big, big help. Many years ago -- this is just a general question on solid waste management. Many years ago in the City, we had problems, and as you know, we had a ship with waste on it out in the sea for a while and all that sort of thing. With all the new hotels and everything we have, how do we deal with our disposal? Do we have extra sites, other places in the country, or what do we do in that regard? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We currently have contracts with private companies to provide us with waste transfer and disposal options for the waste generated within the City limits. Those contracts, 1096 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings I believe, have an additional five years or so remaining in life. As we come to the end of those existing contracts, we'll need to take a look at the overall waste system here and decide whether or not we want to bid for what I consider short-term disposal or long-term disposal options. Many cities look at 20-plus year disposal contracts, provide long-term security for Cities' disposal.
Commissioner, I'm just going through the list that you gave me for the resurfacing. I'm having a little difficulty in trying to figure out what streets have been resurfaced and if they haven't been resurfaced when it is anticipated that they will be resurfaced. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: The maps that were provided is a distinct map by district.
We have the maps. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: And on that map you should see a legend that should show the 1097 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings proposed streets that will be paved under --
But one of the lists is from the year 2000. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Madam President, all of the streets identified if your packet are proposed.
So none of these have been resurfaced? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Those are the proposed for resurfacing under fiscal year 2002. We can provide you with a list of all the streets that have been done for the current year and all the streets that will be done once we start resurfacing again probably next month or April, as the weather continues to break, under the current fiscal year.
I would appreciate getting a list of what has been completed. Also, if we could be told when the street will be resurfaced, I think we could advise our constituents so they don't park their cars and get tickets and it deters you from doing the work that you're supposed to be doing. 1098 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: First of all, I would remind you that the schedules that we provide you in advance are tentative schedules because part of the scheduling process is outside the control of the City. We work a lot with the Federal Highway Administration and with PennDot, and there are other approvals that have to take place. But those are the best projections we have at the time. What we will do to try to improve our communication in terms of when the work is actually being done is try to give you periodic updates on major resurfacing and reconstruction projects and also try to notify you a week or two in advance --
That would be wonderful. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: -- of when construction is going to start.
But I notice that there is a bid number all of these, so I assume that all of these have gone out for bid? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Many of them have gone out for bid.
I beg your 1099 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings pardon? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Many of them have gone out for bid. In some cases bids have been -- or will be -- there's an anticipated date when bids will be received.
Thank you. Commissioner, what we have here is the year 2000 and 2001. I know you can't give it to us now, but if you would let us know what's being proposed for 2002, it would be appreciated. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.
Good morning. Let me first comment on the discussion that you give on of your testimony, last paragraph, to improve management responsiveness to citizens. I should let you know that the staff persons in our office have been extremely encouraged by exactly what you say here, to respond quickly and courteously. And, specifically, I need to mention to you Laird Lewis, who has been truly responsive to our office. You simply need to know that we 1100 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings appreciate that very, very much. Secondly, as a follow up to the Council President's questions regarding the analysis you're currently undertaking with regard to the pilot, program, you mentioned outreach efforts that you're doing around the recycling pilot program. And you indicate that you're doing advertising to local community newspapers as well as community groups. With regard to your outreach, have you considered school cluster leaders in the targeted pilot areas, informing them of what is happening with the recycling program? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes. We are currently working with the School District in looking at school clusters for education purposes and the comprehensive program.
And I should assume from that that includes those cluster leaders that are in the selected geographic areas where you have the pilot program implemented, correct? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That would be correct.
You also responded that, currently, given the cost of the pilot 1101 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings program, it's just cost-prohibitive to expand it. How long anticipate your analysis as the program currently exists? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: The analysis of the changes that we're going to be making in the new program would take to months to complete. 8 Some of the things that we'll be look 9 looking at is a new type of vehicle that we're going 10 to try to introduce, again, to try to co-collect 11 some of these materials. We already know that that 12 vehicle probably won't work in all parts of the City, but we're going to look at what sections of the City we think it will be a viable option in. And that's going to determine how quickly we'll be able to expand and to what extent we might be able to expand.
Also in your testimony there's discussion of the SWEEP program, . And you mention, and I quote, the SWEEP program currently is divided into commercial corridors and educating residents in the recycling street cleaning project. What does that mean when you say you're educating residents, specific about what happens 1102 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings when you do that? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I'm going to defer that question to Clarena Tolson.
Sure. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER TOLSON: Good morning, Councilwoman.
Good morning. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER TOLSON: The SWEEP program is intended to educate citizens regarding the code and enforce the code were necessary. SWEEP officers who are uniformed go through our communities, particularly where we have the pilot programs going on, and they educate with regard to things such as the appropriate day to put out trash, how to properly containerize trash, how to properly sweep sidewalks and be good neighbors in our community. They specifically address quality-of-life issues that also impact our operations. Through intensive education, door-to-door talks with citizens, printed literature, attending community meetings, they make the efforts to communicate, Government to citizen, 1103 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings with regard to the laws and the code so that the community can be impacted in a positive way with a cleaner community.
I would like forwarded to the Chair specifics about those clusters that you're currently working with. So I simply want to be informed to what degree the School District is involved and what are we doing with regards to educating the next set of taxpayers around this whole issue of recycling. So if you can provide that to the Chair, it would be appreciated. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER TOLSON: Yes.
Finally, could you, Street Commissioner, or a member of your team please speak to policy and/or procedure around the installation of school traffic signals, the 15-miles-per-hour school traffic signals? Could someone please speak to the policy procedure around that? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes. I'm going to ask Charlie Trainor to come up.
Good morning, Councilwoman. Good morning, Council President. Charlie Trainor, Chief Traffic Engineer. 1104 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings The school flasher program started approximately 1997 when Council passed an ordinance 4 basically having the City install the flashers, and the school maintained the flashers. The installation is done from Capital Funds. We receive applications from a school for the flasher. Prior to our putting out a contract for the installation of the flashers, we will draw a line, basically, as to accepting applications. We're actually still accepting them, but if they come in after a certain date and we don't advertise that date, they won't be considered for the contract that we're putting together. We then take those applications and we prioritize them by Council District from 1 through whatever number there happens to be. We have the City Council Districts review the list while the contract is being bid, et cetera. When we start construction, we start at, shall we say, Council District 1, and we do the first school on that list for Council District 1. 1105 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings We then go to District 2, all the way out to 10. 3 And then we start back at 1, and we continue the same process all the way to 10 until we run out of money. If a particular district runs out of schools, we skip that district. If we have additional funding when we run out of schools, any applications that came in after our date, we then reprioritize it and just continue on.
I'm trying to follow the number of steps you outlined. So there's one date per year that community groups must apply if they're interested in having a traffic light installed?
The application must be received from the school, and it must be signed by the school principal. And, yes, there is one date, and it's a floating date based on our funding and our anticipated contract aspect.
We do not advertise that 1106 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings date. Right now, Councilwoman, we have approximately 42 schools' applications on hand that we will be putting into our next contract already. That's more schools than we have funding for.
I'm sure. I'm sure. Why don't you have to advertise? I'm curious.
As I said, we have 42 schools already that are waiting for the flashers.
Yes. Last year we did get a contact within the School District, itself, rather than from their Government agency, the Government group, rather than their maintenance group. And they did speak to, I believe, the cluster leaders and the principals. They were talking about putting it into the Principal handbooks as to the availability of the flasher and the need to get an application in. If we don't have an application, we can't even consider the school. 1107 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
Excuse me. Of the 42 applications you have, how many do anticipate installing?
I believe we asked for approximately $500,000 for school flashers. And they run about $15,000 apiece. So 30 would give us $450,000. So we're around 33 schools or something like that. We haven't necessarily designed or even estimated each individual school yet.
If we do one per year -- it seems to be an expensive item, though. If we do one per year per school, my problem is, for example, we had a child, an elementary school child -- a first grader I think it was -- hit by a car, and the school had in an application for flashing light. Now, we can't tell them, 'It's going to take ten years for you to get it,' especially when an emergency occurs. 1108 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings So I don't know what we do. Can we make some kind of allowances for emergencies? What I've been trying to do is ask them if they think other signs will help since this a big money item. And this is a problem. Obviously, it's fair to do one per district, but if you have over 200 schools, we could be into years getting every school to get what 10 they need. 11 So we need to consider maybe some kind 12 of system for emergencies and/or some kind of 13 process maybe for outreach if there is an accident 14 or a really, really -- obviously, if people ask for 15 flashing lights, they think all the corners are bad. 16 But that's a problem for us. 17 We need some king of system for 18 emergency situations. 19
Doing approximately 30 20 schools, if you will, at $15,000 apiece or $450,000 total, that averages out to about three per district.
If we have the 1109 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings applications for the district.
So we can get three and not one but three per district per year?
If we only have one application from that district, it's only one school. But if we have three applications, we can get three schools done in that district.
Okay. I'll take it, and I'll be quiet. Thank you. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I would just like to add that the funding for our school program comes from the Capital Budget. It's a Capital Budget issue. We requested about 750,000, and we were actually funded 500,000 for the program this year.
And 300,000 for FY003. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That's correct.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning. 1110 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Can you give me an update on the Avenue of the Arts North streetscape? I need to know what the schedule is. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Avenue of the Arts North. Bids are scheduled to be opened in June of 2001. We anticipate that we'll be able to start construction around October of 2001. That's going to go into inclement weather. And construction is anticipated to be completed by December of 2002.
So it's pushed back. I thought we were going to start earlier, like the spring of 2001. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We have an estimated bid opening date of June 2001.
What's the first phase going to be? Is it going to be the installation of the street poles, or is it going to be the sidewalk reconstruction work? How are they going to phase it? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I'm going to defer that question to Larry Moy. He might be able to give you more specifics on the different phases of the project.
Good morning, Councilman, 1111 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Council President. My name is Larry Moy, and the answer, Councilman, is that we got probably the lighting and the sidewalk that will be done. And then we will coordinate with the State on the signal work followed by, finally, the resurfacing. There was a delay, we acknowledge, in terms of the plan development. And our target is June, the proposal being received and then starting in the fall.
Commissioner, earlier on, I think I may have had some discussions with you somewhere. I understand you had a lot of creative ideas associated with the service delivery. One of the things I never understood or -- my understanding on a sanitation crew is there's three people on a crew? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: (Shakes head.)
There's, like, one driver and two people who collect refuse. I always wondered why we didn't have a driver -- since those sanitation crews travel every street in the City of Philadelphia -- why we don't have them take down problem issues. As an example, they ride down a block 1112 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings and see a vacant house or an abandoned lot that needs to be cleaned or some other City-associated problem, why they don't have a sheet, like a trouble sheet, where they write that down and at end of the day they turn that in and it's forwarded to the appropriate department. Because the realty is that we're never in a position where we get enough phone calls from the citizens or the Inspector. We just don't have enough City Inspectors from L & I or whatever other department to go around and write up all these various problems. Would it make sense to have the driver -- because based on what I see, he moves maybe 10, 15 feet and stops and waits for the guys to pick up the refuse and throw it in the truck. And they say, "Yo," and he moves ahead 15 more feet. Would it make sense for the driver to maybe have like a trouble sheet where he can take down these various problems throughout the block and then have that referred to the appropriate departments? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, it would make a lot of sense to be able to do something 1113 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings like that. There are a couple of things that we often don't really understand about what it's like to be a sanitation worker. It varies from crew to crew. In some locations we have drivers who not only drive the truck, but they get out and they throw trash in inclement weather, in the heat, all day long. And their goal is to get done as quickly as they can. It's probably one of the most physically demanding jobs that the City has to offer.
I agree. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: And when we start asking our sanitation crews to take on more responsibility, their first reaction is, 'Well, gee, do you really understand how hard my job is already?' So in answering your question, yes, I think it would be a great benefit if we could gain that level of cooperation with our sanitation crews. And we're looking at and working with our unions and talking about how we can provide our laborers and our drivers with more incentives to want to finish their work sooner, to want to do more work than they've historically done and to take on more 1114 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings responsibility. So we are looking at that opportunities to get more productivity, if you will, out of the work that's already going on in the field. But it is very demanding work, and it's kind of a sensitive issue for our sanitation workers.
PennDot, I understand -- and, Mr. Trainor, you may want to step up here for this one. PennDot, in my years in government, I've always been told that certain things associated with what constituents or Councilpeople or staffers have asked for regulated by PennDot. And I'm assuming that PennDot has some uniform rules associated with the governance of traffic lights and other things within their realm of responsibility. But sometimes those things simply don't make sense in a City like Philadelphia as opposed to some small city in the middle part of the state. And my question is: Do we have the ability to have PennDot alter or give us authorization to do some things here differently in the City of Philadelphia? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I think what 1115 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings you're referring to are the warrants that are set up by State regulation to determine where a traffic signal might be warranted or whether or not a stop sign or four-way stop might be warranted.
That's the main one. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: And I've questioned this issue since I've been here. And it's my understanding that we are obligated to follow State guidelines on warrants for placement of traffic signals. My first question was whether or not a warrant meant that it was justified or if we had the ability to say we could place these traffic control devices as locations where they are not justified. And it's my understanding that when we do that, if there's an accident or something occurs at that intersection, the City has taken on a tremendous amount of liability as a result because that traffic control device was never warranted by the State, and we did something outside of State mandate or State --
So who takes the responsibility when we don't place a light and there's an accident and in most people's minds, it 1116 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings happened as a result of there not being a light? Is the State then responsible for that? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Well, I think without speaking out of turn, I think what happens is if an accident occurs at a location where there wasn't a control device warranted, then there's probably some other reason for that accident occurring besides the fact that there wasn't a traffic light or a stop sign there. There was probably some driver error or some other reason that may have caused that accident. I know this is a sensitive issue and it's a very hot issue in the City given the number of requests that come through my office for four-way stops and stop signals and turn signals and all kinds of things. But the City has an obligation to follow State guidelines when it comes to that.
So do we have the wherewithal, or do we care about possibly asking for some of these warrants to be changed? Because we simply get PennDot, PennDot regulations, no more discussion. Sometimes that just doesn't work. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I agree. 1117 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
Are we proactively seeking to change -- I mean some of these regs go back 45, 50 years. I mean, the City of Philadelphia has changed particularly in the Center City area and some of the outlying areas. We have more pedestrians in certain areas as opposed to prior years. And at some point you need to look at this and possibly change some of these PennDot regs or at least ask them to change them. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I think that's probably going to require a greater discussion and include people from both our Law Department and definitely some folks from PennDot to explore what other alternatives we might have and what opportunities we might have to go to PennDot and say that we need exceptions or that we need certain warrants or some of the merits of some of the warrants looked at.
Can you initiate that as the Streets Commissioner, that discussion, the minimum? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes. We can initiate that. 1118 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
This is, in fact, a pet peeve of mine. What is the law governing the placement of a stop light? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: There are a number of warrants. I'm going to ask Charlie to come up and walk us through. I'm going to ask Charlie to be brief in walking us through those warrants because there's a lot of detail involved in them.
Councilman, for a traffic signal, currently there's approximately, I believe, eight warrants now recognized in the Federal manual on uniform traffic controls. But, basically, I'll go over the top three. The first one requires 500 vehicles per hour on the main street plus 150 vehicles an hour on the cross-street for each hour of eight hours. They don't have to be consecutive eight hours but have to have eight hours there. The second warrant is --
Of eight hours. 1119 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings So if you had up the eight hours, the main street needs 4000 vehicles on it. The second warrant is 750 vehicles per hour on a main street plus 75 on the minor for each hour of eight hours. The third warrant is 200 pedestrians crossing with 600 vehicles on the main street. And I'm not sure of the hours aspect of that. So, again, that's per hour per X number of hours.
So it would be either of those. It doesn't have to be all three.
Either of those will justify it. So if you have 80 percent of one or two -- but you have to have both -- you can justify a signal. If you have five accidents that are correctable, reportable, they could reduce the numbers that you need.
It requires a cross-street, yes. 1120 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
Why is there a light on the southwest corner of City Hall?
The traffic signal at the southwest corner of City Hall, basically at South 6 Penn Square and Ranstead was installed many, many 7 years ago. It was discontinued as a result of the 8 Meridian fire. 9 The anticipation of the Meridian 10 building coming down or new use coming for it, we 11 included it in the southwest quadrant upgrade for 12 traffic signals. That signal, basically, is for 13 pedestrians crossing specifically from the 15th 14 South Penn Square side over to City Hall. 15 Prior to the fire, there was a heavy pedestrian activity crossing there.
That met, I believe, the third warrant, which is the pedestrian one. At that particular time, there were 600 pedestrians crossing there an hour.
Back then, but they're not now. You just put the light back up, right? 1121 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
With the closure of the sidewalk from the result of the Meridian fire, no, we did not have any pedestrians crossing because no 5 one was crossing right to that point. But we do anticipate that to come about again.
So if you anticipate that, then you can put the light up?
Yes. That's one of those lower warrants, but at the same time, you have to go back and check it six months later.
So that could very well be a temporary light. So six months from now, if they're not -- what did you say? -- 500 people crossing --
-- 600 people crossing that intersection, that light is no 19 longer warranted?
Then that light is no longer warranted. 1122 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
Councilman, can this be your last question until we have the second go around? There are a number of Councilmembers waiting.
I'm going to try. 33rd and Berks, there's been a request for something to be done about that corner for a long time. And there have been numerous accidents most associated with speed. You get that run from Norris Street and they see that light down there at Cecil B. Moore, and they try and make that green light. And they travel upwards of a hundred miles an hour. I'm not going to say what Councilwoman Tasco said. And I've actually asked for something to be done about that intersection. And based on the numbers you just gave me, I'm willing to bet that we 1123 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings meet, number one, with respect to the amount of traffic at 33rd Street, particularly in the morning rush hour and the evening rush hour. What's going to be done about that? I asked again.
Councilman, when we studied this, it's not just the traffic that's on 33rd Street, but it would be the traffic that would be on Berks. And, usually, when we study an intersection, especially one that's meeting an arterial street, the traffic on the arterial will meet the criteria. It's the traffic on the cross-street that is way below the criteria.
But there's no 16 cross-street over there on the southwest corner of City Hall, and you just put a light up.
We reinstalled the light that was there many years ago. And with the opening of that sidewalk area, the anticipation and the use of that sidewalk for pedestrians coming over to City Hall here is what we're putting that light there before.
I don't understand how you can -- that makes no sense to me. 1124 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings You can anticipate how many people are going to walk across there, but, yet, you have 4000 cars going down 33rd Street a day, and you're going to say that doesn't qualify. But because you anticipate that pedestrian walkway is going to have whatever number of people, then that qualifies? I don't understand that.
The pedestrians are crossing in front of the traffic. The problem on 33rd Street --
There's no 13 pedestrians on 33rd Street because people don't want to get killed.
And, unfortunately, an intersection control device which is there to assign the right-of-way at the intersection is not a speed control device.
Proper speed limits posted 1125 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings and enforcement of those speed limits.
That I cannot answer, but I assume that they are there. I can have them double check.
Well, then it's not working. There's a problem here, Charlie. They have accidents every month there. People are going a hundred miles an hour. You ask these little old ladies to catch the "A" Bus, the 32 or whatever it is, and they can't across the street. People riding down the middle of the lane three abreast. It is ridiculous up there, Charlie. I keep asking you to do something about it, and you keep telling me about PennDot regs. At some point you got to do something about it. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, may I suggest that our Department will take a look -- I'll take a personal interest in this particular corridor. We'll take a fresh look at what can be done in terms of calming traffic and in terms of looking at what we can do to slow traffic down and 1126 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings make that corridor more safe. And we'll get back to you within the next 30 days on this issue.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you, Madam Chair . Commissioner, I just want to hit on momentarily the cost-effectiveness of the recycling program. We sold our recyclables for around $312,000. If we it would have just paid to get rid of 45,000 tons of trash -- and, again, this isn't a fair question, so we have to do the mathematics -- how much would it have cost the City to get rid of 45, 000 tons of trash? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I think we're paying $45 a ton right now, $44 and change, per ton for disposal. But you can't really look at this years fortunate situation where we were actually generating revenue from recyclables. As you may know, the recyclable markets are highly volatile. There have been a number of 1127 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings years where we actually paid money to get rid of recyclables, not really to get rid of them, but a processing fee for processing them. And the net result was that we still ended up owing the contractors that are processing our recyclables because they aren't receiving enough revenue from the sale of those recyclables to even cover the cost of sorting them and packing them up to shipping them to market. So this year we've been in a fortunate situation where net revenue from the sale of recyclables has been positive. We've seen that start to drop off here recently in the last few months, and there's just no selling where the market is going to go two, three, four months from now. We may be paying again.
Are there any municipalities, major cities, that don't recycle? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I think across the country, most major cities do recycle. They do have recycling programs. And part of the reason for that is because the public demands it and it's absolutely the right thing to do. But they don't recycle at all costs. 1128 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Many cities and many communities actually charge a fee for the recycling service provided. By then again, in many communities, people actual pay a fee for the waste service that's provided too.
Commissioner, you just said people demand recycling. Some people demand recycling. I know that most people in this City, if you told them they didn't have to have their little recycling bucket, they would be just thrilled to throw the soda bottle in the trash and other things that get recycled in the trash. I understand the political ramification of recycling because it would be terrible if we didn't have a program like that. But, obviously, this program is costing the Streets Department money to manage, to operate. Even though you've made a small amount of money in selling the recyclables, it's probably cost us -- do you have a feel for what the recycling program truly costs the Streets Department? Do you know how much money you spend to make $311,000? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Our total budget 1129 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings is approximately $10,000,000, and that includes about million in grants, and an additional 5 4 million in operating. 5
Does that make good sense? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Most states have state laws that were passed to try to divert waste material from landfills. Landfill space across the country is somewhat limited. The City of Philadelphia has had its own very personal experience with situations where we ended up with waste that was generated and we didn't have a place to put it. We don't want to find ourselves in that situation again. And part one of the strategies to prevent that is to have very aggressive recycling programs to divert waste from landfills and also to conserve on the use of our natural resources. Recycling is something that has become part of the fabric of America, and I think the City of Philadelphia is going to have to continue to try to find ways to make recycling more cost-effective as opposed to abandoning the concept altogether. That's what we're going to try to do. 1130 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
Commissioner, I have a list of things here that I want to review with you. The list time I think we went through this process, we found that we had a potential problem with the number of streetlights that are out throughout the City of Philadelphia. There's a lot of problems associated with the streetlights that are out. We pay the utility company for a light that's not on. Not many people are aware of that, but we do. And I'm sure a there's a credit process. But I would appreciate you addressing and talking a little bit about the condition because being a Councilmember at Large, I'm in every neighborhood of the City, and I see that we have JFK that's been out for months going up to 30th Street Station, a major artery in Center City with no 19 streetlights. We have Kelly Drive -- and I met with you -- that has wires tied off to trees which is dangerous and just not a condition that should exist. West River Drive, we have streetlights out there, a dangerous, curvy roadway. 1131 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Where are we? Again, it's a big task to keep a major municipal streetlight system operational. But could you bring your Streetlighting Engineer to give us a report, or if you'd like to, on exactly where are we and why in every neighborhood -- I could understand a streetlight being out here for a week, but I can't understand streetlights -- we're talking about more. I'd be happy with the ones we have being on. And the last time at this hearing, I pointed out a location at Shawmont and Ridge. The streetlight at that corner was out for a long time, and unfortunately, it fell through the cracks or there was just a mistake. We can understand that. But Kelly Drive, that job has been hanging -- tied off the trees -- streetlight standards for years. JFK, as we leave work at night, West River Drive. Where are we with all these projects, and how many streetlights do we have out? Because I think the last time we asked that question, we were quite surprised to hear how many streetlights were 1132 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings out. And I know shifted contractors. So could you just give us a report on where we are, please? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, a couple of quick comments. As you know we maintain over a hundred thousand streetlights here in the City of Philadelphia. And I know that the Kelly Drive project has been one that's been going on for a while with PECO. Our best information in this case is we should be receiving bids this month for that project, and we anticipate that construction should be able to start around May or June. For the remainder of your questions, I would defer to Joe Doyle.
Good morning. I'm Joseph 19 Doyle, Chief Streetlighting Engineer. 20 Councilman, I guess the questions that 21 you raise are sort of broad in the sense that 22 there's three major components of the maintenance 23 and operation of the City streetlighting system. The City, of course, owns and maintains the -- or is responsible for the entire lighting 1133 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings system, but we have a maintenance contractor, who currently is Asplundh, who maintains and performs nighttime service and is really the party of first investigation of all outages. Secondly, there's PECO Energy, the utility that is responsible for the underground electrical distribution system for the lighting. And, thirdly, it's our own City forces who perform the balance of the triad, if you will, for maintenance. Right now we are experiencing and PECO is experiencing a severe maintenance problem of outages, and the majority of the locations that you just mentioned kind of fall into their realm. I'm not here to pass blame at PECO because this is the season of the year, as you're well aware from past experience, when the rain, the snow, the freeze, the thaw, all of those factors are very destructive to underground electrical cable and the connections that provide to the streetlighting system. Specifically, the cases that you just described -- as the Commissioner mentioned, Kelly Drive, one of our longstanding problems, those bids 1134 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings are going to be opened; i think it's actually tomorrow. And we're looking forward to that contract starting shortly and will replace the entire lighting system. That will correct all of the aerial cable that we've seen and really have a reliable lighting system out there. Some of other specific problems that you mentioned, JFK Boulevard, that actually was repaired on Friday, by the was that is burning.
You knew I was going to ask the question, Mr. Doyle, thank you. Just kidding.
We try to provide a high level of service, Councilman, that worked out --
-- in that direction. So those lights are burning. Some of the other the locations, the fact that we've had some communication with your office, have been back on. But PECO has given us a plan where over the next month, by April 1, they guaranteed that a significant improvement -- and I underline the word "significant" -- will be made on their part to 1135 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings correct the outages, particularly the wrong circuits and JFK Boulevard type situations where they need to devote some considerably additional manpower resources to correct. And then from that point on, they have guaranteed that they will keep the number of outages to a minimum so that we do not have to experience this same cycle as we seem to be doing now.
Henry Avenue is included in the short-term and the long-term -- PECO is attempting to create not only a short-term plan but a long-term plan. Some of the corridors that we've seen before have continuing and chronic outages, Henry Avenue being one of our favorite candidates there. There is an intention to keep them on short term even if they have to provide temporary services. But a long-term plan of either replacing the entire lighting system as we've seen on Kelly Drive is definitely in the works here. Either through a PECO project or a City project, we are 1136 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings going to move ahead on that.
I hear the buzzer, so I assume my time is up, but I just want to ask this question. The problem that PECO Energy is having -- and I understand their problem. I think I understand it better than most people this room -- that they have a contractual -- am I correct? They have -- it's nice to say that they don't have the people, but, contractually, do they have a responsibility to respond within a period? They are a business, and if we're their customer, are they contractually responsible -- or are they supposed to be giving us credits for all these streetlights that don't work? If they're contractually responsible to respond to put streetlights back in service that could cause serious injury, what do we do about that? What do we do to get their attention?
Well, we have gotten their attention. What's happened is, I guess, all of the factors affecting the utility industry are kind of long documented. But what's happened with 1137 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Philadelphia and the streetlighting system is that because of these continuous outages, we have been meeting with them on a regular basis. They have been recognizing the importance of the City's lighting system. And, in fact, streetlighting is the number one maintenance priority of PECO Energy. That's been determined. And we've been assigned that priority for the very reasons that we've been discussing. They definitely are committed to improving customer service. They see us as very important customer. And we have worked with them through their senior management staff to develop a plan to address the problems, not only the short term but in the long term as well.
Again, contractually, do they have an obligation to respond or repair these lights? I'm not talking about their willingness. I would like to know do they have a contract with the City of Philadelphia to respond in an appropriate period of time? Do they have a requirement in that contract or that relationship to bring in subcontractors, which there are dozens of, to help them? 1138 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings The personal relationship -- and you have a good one with them. I want to know what we have in writing that requires them to respond. If we don't have it, we should have it. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, I'll address that question. Anytime we contract for services as a customer, we have the ability to look at whether or not those contractual obligations are being met. And if those contractual obligations are not being met, then we have the ability to take more aggressive steps with whoever we're in a contract with for service or product that we're buying from them to deal with those issues. And we're not obligated to continue to, I guess, accept a substandard level of service. So if we determine that we're not getting what we're paying for from whoever we've contracted with, we always have options to look at and ways to get their attention. If there's some specific issues that we need to address with PECO, then we're certainly open to sitting down and working with them. But we are a very, very large customer of theirs. And when 1139 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings you're a large customer, you can typically carry a pretty big stick and get people's attention.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Ortiz.
Good morning, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Good morning.
Commissioner, Speak about the Pilot Recycling Program. That must be a new program? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: There's an old program that's going to be changed in a lot of ways to be totally different.
No longer a pilot. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: No. It's still a pilot.
I think it should be called a limited program. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Well, the thing is that --
It began, when '97, 1140 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings '98?
So it's no longer a pilot. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I think that over the years, the City has looked at and tested a number of things and collected a lot of data. Some of the things that we're going to be looking at and tested haven't been tested before. And our purpose is to look at ways to be more efficient as we move forward, not to see just what the results are going to be in terms of participation rates or tonnages diverted but more how we can reduce the actual operating costs so that we would have as a viable option the option of expanding and eliminating the concept of the pilot and making it part of our ongoing operating program.
Well, after four years and I think more -- I think -- Madam Chair, I think we've been talking about recycling in this Council now since the mid-'80s when we first passed the recycling legislation. And from that point to this point and in your testimony, you say that with commercial and 1141 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings residential, we only have 35 percent -- we have achieved a level of 35 percent recycling. Is that true? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That's including the commercial, yes. Councilman, I would say without --
I know that you're new. I'm not -- COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I would just say that I've come here from a state that probably recycles more than any state in the nation. And I will tell you that while we have goals -- or while the State of California, I should say, has goals of diverting 50 percent of its waste stream, you won't find most big cities ever reaching 50 percent. They're going to have aggressive programs. They're going to divert on a commercial waste stream. They're going to add the diversion of yard waste and grain waste and lawn clippings and construction demolition debris. But it's very, very difficult to hit 50 percent diversion. 35 percent diversion is a respectable number. 23 percent diversion is a respectable number. 1142 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings I also know that historically here in Philadelphia, people really focused on just what is being diverted from the Curbside Collection Program, but I would venture to say that there's not 50 percent of the recyclables of the total waste stream you can't even find in the residential. So when we start looking at diversion rates for a City like Philadelphia, we should be looking at a combination of what is diverted from the residential programs --
So what is the percentage of residential recycling without the commercial, residential recycling that is now going on? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: The diversion rate?
Recycling. You talked to me -- COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We measure -- when you measure recycling --
What percentage of residences in the City of Philadelphia today can have recycling picked up -- cans, plastics, if plastics are part of it, bottles and so on -- what 1143 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings percentage of residential Philadelphia can you say that they have a recycling schedule in their neighborhood? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, there are a couple of things. A hundred percent of the residential population that has waste collection service has scheduled recycling. There's a different percentage -- and I don't know what percentage that is -- for the people that actively do it every week. And then there's the diversion percentage which is how much of the total residential waste stream is actually pulled out. The diversion percentage is roughly six percent. The number of people that actually participate every week is a number I don't have here today but we can probably get. And in terms of total recycling, I don't have a number for what the total percentage of recyclable materials that are available in the residential waste stream, but it's not 50 percent of the total waste in the City of Philadelphia. I can tell you that.
I'd like to get an 1144 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings understanding of really what type of recycling program we have. You say that we have a hundred percent recycling across the City. And then you say that we have actually achieved 35 percent recycling with commercial involved, the commercial stream involved. And you say we have this pilot program that is no longer a pilot, and we're not expanding it or applying it across the board. So if we are not at 50 percent, explain to me -- and I know some people do not put out -- separate their waste in different neighborhoods. But explain to me how it is we don't have a greater percentage of the recycling program in place if we're supposed to be having recycling in every neighborhood. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Recycling is available to all residents.
Explain "available" to me. Does that mean that on Thursday on 24th and Cambridge there will be a recycling truck that goes through that street? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That means that as part of your regular garbage service, waste 1145 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings collection service, you have the ability to recycle in most parts of the City on a schedule that occurs once every other week today. What we would like to get to is a point where that's available in most parts of the City every week. That's our goal. Today we can't do it every week because we haven't been able to find a way to do it that would be cost-effective. Right now, it would cost us about $300 a ton in order to expand that service to ever week.
So every other week a recycling truck goes by all of the neighborhoods of the City? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, sir.
Through every street of the City? My staff person here says he hasn't had one in months -- in a month. And you live where? You live in the Northeast. He says he hasn't had one in a month. So every other week a recycling truck is theoretically supposed to go through every 1146 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings neighborhood in the City? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Let me address your first comment, that you staff person hasn't had one in a month.
Right. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: One of the things that we've down as a result of the inclement weather is we've pulled a lot of our work crews from certain areas of the work in order to get caught up on regular waste collection, and we have experienced some delays in some areas of our service as a result of a lot of the inclement weather. So it's not unthinkable that some services may not have been delivered on their regular. But when we're on our regular schedule, your statement is correct, that, in theory, a recycling truck would go down every street at least once every other week to collect recyclables.
Does the lack of participation then come down on a lack of information given to the public? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: The lack of participation occurs, in my opinion, for a couple of 1147 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings reasons. One, because the schedules need to be more regular for people. The idea of increasing participation rates in recycling has to come down to a matter of convenience the people that are using the service. And you may notice that every week consistently people know that if your trash collection day is on Monday, people consistently put their trash out on Monday, we consistently come by and pick it up on Monday. What we would like to do is get recycling to that same type of consistent schedule where if your day is Monday, when you put your trash out, you put your recycling out and a truck comes by and picks up your trash and a truck comes by and picks up your recycling. Or it could be a single truck comes by and picks up both.
But the people know the truck will be there. That's why they put the garbage out. With the recycling, they may not know this truck is going to be there. That's why they don't put there recyclables out. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I agree with you, 1148 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Councilman, and that's what we're trying to find a way to do in a more cost-effective manner. Right now, in order to do that, it would cost us $300 a ton. It would cost the City about $300 a ton. That makes it prohibitive at this point.
To do what? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: To expand weekly recycling under the current system Citywide.
But even every other week, if people knew the recyclables were going to be picked up at a certain time every other week just like with the garbage, a huge majority of the people, I would say, would have it out if they had certain assurances. And the issue is: Why don't they, and is it because they don't have that assurance that those things will be picked up? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: There are a couple of reasons. One of the main reasons is that an every-other-week schedule can be confusing. When people miss a week, they may forget whether it's their week or it's going to be the next week, and that causes them to not put it out or put it out on 1149 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings the wrong day. We are trying to put more resources and more effort into increasing our education and communication to our residents on not only when their recycling days might occur but also the importance of participating and trying to work with schools and start people off at a much younger age to get them into the habit and get them used to recycling. But we do issue schedules to our residents, calendar schedules, that tell them what week they're supposed to recycle on. But it's got to be more of a combined effort that combines aggressive education, regular scheduling and every effort that we can do to make it just routine and convenient to get people to start participating more actively.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman DiCicco.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Good morning. 1150 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
It seems like recycling is the topic of the day. In my neighborhood, directly in the area where I live, I notice on recycling day -- we do every other week -- only a small percentage of people actually participate in recycling. And it may have to do with the fact that sometimes people get confused. Even I get confused, and I consider myself a pretty diligent person when it comes to recycling. What if anything is being done about enforcement? I know that we have from time to time put information out to educate people about the recycling program. And there's that magnetic calendar that I think was distributed about a year or so ago. Hopefully, people put it somewhere where they would pay attention to it. But I notice there's very little participation in it, and I was wondering what if anything we're doing. And I hear you saying from time to time during the testimony that it's not cost-efficient to be able to do the recycling that we would like to do. 1151 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Increasing the tonnage that is collected doesn't help that in any way, does it, or would it? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Increasing the tonnage collected would he somewhat. There are a couple ways to do that. (A) Through expanding the number or types of materials that we collect every week, make more materials available to the individual resident to place out for collection and finding ways to increase, as you alluded to, the number of people in the neighborhood that are actually participating every week. And the only way that I've known to be successful in doing that is to increase the convenience factor around the recycling and also to really focus in on increasing the educational component of the program. It's almost like safety. Recycling has to become part of the attitude of a community to want to do it. And the way that you make it part of the attitude is it's got to be something that's discussed and talked about and embraced in community groups and not just in flyers but in community groups, in the schools, in promotional opportunities 1152 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings and all kind of things. And we are as a department looking at how we can increase those concepts as part of our program to try to get more people to participate.
I'm glad to hear that. And if there's anything I can do in my capacity as the Councilperson and the Chair of the Streets and Services Committee, please reach out for me. Because nothing for me is more depressing than to see the folks where I live in a little complex of six apartments and six houses -- we do a pretty good job of recycling on a weekly basis. And then you look down the rest of the block and maybe see one or two cans out there and occasionally some newspapers that are bundled up. And we really need to do something more about that. The other question I have is -- and I raised this probably before you came on as Commissioner. When a street is being either reconstructed or resurfaced, some activity is being done, oftentimes, a lot of the debris -- the cinders 1153 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings and material that is either brought to the site or removed from the site -- generally find their way on the street surface in and around the general area of where that activity is taking place. And I asked this in the past year or years actually. Is there anything that we're doing that requires the contractor to go through the immediate area with the mechanical street sweepers that they have? Because, generally, if it's a milling job and they're going to resurface, when they mill, they come through with the mechanical sweepers to get whatever debris is left behind so that the new blacktop, obviously, has a better adherence. But they don't go beyond that. And I'm not talk about a little bit of debris that's on the street. I'm talking about a significant amount of cinders that are left maybe a block or two outside of that general area. And I think that has a disturbing effect on people who live there. And in the case where we do have a weekly street cleaning program, obviously, that is eliminated. But where we don't have it, is there 1154 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings anything we're doing, or are we making that a requirement? Because the contractor obviously has the equipment out. And why should the City have to send out separate crews? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, I don't know what we're actively doing at this point about that problem, but that's something that we can definitely --
I think it would be very helpful. I think it's one of those quality of life issues where -- with all good intentions. I think the Department has done a great job over the last few years in resurfacing streets. It's probably the most I've seen in a long, long time. So I'm not condemning what is happening out there. I just thought we might be able to do a little bit more at least for the adjacent communities or adjacent streets and do something to maintain those a little bit better. The discussion came up about the traffic signal at the northwest quadrant, I guess that is, of City Hall where it's been reinstalled. A couple of years ago, I think I met 1155 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings with Charlie Trainor and maybe Joe Syrnick and a few others. And I asked that they look into the possibility of installing a traffic signal at the southeast quadrant of City Hall. And that's, basically, if you're crossing from City Hall over to Juniper Street, which would be the side entrance to the Wanamaker Building, most people including myself, I will admit, use that as a shortcut. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, none of has have been injured to date. ) smiling back there. I would ask that if you would look into that and maybe submit a report to the Chair as what the possibility for that is. And as now Chestnut Street is open to vehicular traffic and it's becoming a more pedestrian-friendly street, Chestnut Street, more people are using that shortcut to get from one side of City Hall, Broad Street, over to the other side. There are courtrooms in that building in addition to the retail of Lord and Taylor. If you stood out there, you could get a real appreciation for what I'm saying. I think it's something that we need to look at. 1156 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings And one other thing comes to mind. I'm always dealing with issues on street furniture and kind of creating some kind of order out there with newsstands and honor boxes and corrals for honor boxes. I notice in a number of locations there are newsstands that are literally right on top of the area, within the area, which are the staging areas for SEPTA buses and trolleys. I believe the Code says that newsstands and other types of fixtures are not supposed to be within feet of that zone. The zone could be the 14 bus zone, whatever it is. I'm not sure what the bus 15 zone is; maybe 40 feet in length. 16 But I'll give you an example. At the 17 Northeast corner of Broad and Snyder, there's a bus 18 staging area. There's the entrance to the subway, 19 and the newsstand has been there for years. And I 20 guess the more I'm involved in this stuff, the more 21 aware I'm become of things. It's been there for a 22 number of years. 23 Who makes those decisions as to where 24 those newsstands basically -- where do they get 25 placed? 1157 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings The southwest corner of Broad and Chestnut, the same situation. Next to one of our new bus shelters, one of those really gorgeous stainless steal state-of-the-art bus shelters, there's a newsstand. It's probably been there for long time. But it's right where people have to get on and off busses. And it really poses a public safety issue, forgetting the aesthetics, which is one thing. But it's a public safety issue. And someone told me that in a number of these cases, the Streets Department over the years basically made the decision that that's where these newsstands would go. Is that true, and what can we do about it? Could the District Council people -- if we have an issue, how do we go about maybe relocating some of those stands? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, Councilman. The Streets Department through its Right-of-Way unit is responsible for the placement of furniture, if you will, on the right-of-way. And we do look at newsstands and street vendors and other things, other businesses that set up shop on the sidewalks and issue permits or are involved in the permitting 1158 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings process for that.
Many of the newsstands that are out there today as you indicated probably have been there for years. And we would have to look at any specific situations that you may have in your district with our Right-of-Way unit. Nancy Sen and John Cunningham would be the people that you would work with on those. And we could send inspectors out and look at the placement. And if they're outside of code, we could work with you and work with those vendors to get them in compliance.
Thank you. Just in closing, I want to commend you and thank you for the job you've done in the year so -- it's about a year, isn't it? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: In May it will be a year.
In May it will be a year. One of the highlights of your Administration has been the quick response to everything whether it's favorable or not favorable. But the response is rather quick, and I want to 1159 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings thank you for that. You've done a great job. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Thank you.
Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Nutter, do you want to be recognized?
Good morning, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Good morning.
Commissioner, I wanted to talk about there's been some discussion earlier about lighting, and I wanted to talk about streetlights. And I know that in a response to the Chair earlier, I think you talked about either how many lights we have or any replacement of lights. And I think we're only doing replacement as opposed to any upgrading of lights throughout the City; is that correct? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We are upgrading lights where we are replacing old lights with a new type of light that has a longer maintenance life and greater illumination. 1160 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
And you and I have had some discussion in your time here about streetlights. There was a report that came out or it was attached to a letter that talked about additional lights and maybe even some different column heads. Are we getting away from the cobra-type lights or cobra heads and going to a different standard, or can you give us a little information about that? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I will let Joe Doyle give you kind of on overview of our streetlighting program.
As far as any changes to the type of equipment that we're using, we have in the past had -- the vast majority of the City's lighting system has been a cobra-type fixture. We are essentially replacing those existing cobra fixtures with newer versions of cobra fixtures. They are more efficient and easier to maintain and the other advantages of modern technology. But they are the same style of fixture, 1161 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings and that is a replacement for them. There are an entire array of more ornamental-looking fixtures that --
A large array of ornamental-looking fixtures. I have catalogs full of ornamental-looking fixtures and would be glad to share them with you. But, overall, we have taken an operating policy, if you will, of replacing existing cobra fixtures with the type of equipment.
And, Mr. Doyle and the Commissioner -- I'm assuming, Mr. Doyle, that this was your work. I received this report. I have a whole lot of commentary with it. Streetlighting system upgrade, there's a listing by Council District laying out some street length in feet and you're going to add lights and add poles. And then there's Plan A, Plan B, C and D. As I said, not a lot of info came along with this, and it was a little difficult to try to understand just what was going on here. 1162 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Is this something that you're planning to do? Have you picked one of these plans? Are all plans operational? What is the story with this? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: What we did is we looked at the location of the streetlights across the City based on a standard, I believe, of about 100 feet and came up with a summary of how many streetlights we would look at under a program where were adding additional lights, how many streetlights we would look at adding per district, and came up with some very expensive numbers for doing a program like that, looked at what we could do within reason, short term. And I believe Plan A was about a $6.5 million expenditure for adding additional residential lights. And that looked at an aggressive program of taking existing PECO poles and simply adding lights where there weren't on existing poles that might be in our community. Again, this was something that we looking at and proposing to do as part of your capital budgeting process. That program was not funded for the next fiscal year under the capital budgeting program. 1163 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings So at this point, we have no funds to do the program.
For any of the scenarios? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That's correct.
Well, does this need to be done? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I think the study was done as part of a request from Council about a year ago, as I recall. So we completed the study and provided the information and in our interest to be responsive looked at, under the circumstances, what would be the most cost-effective way of adding the greatest number of lights in the City. And, again, it was something that we proposed that we weren't successful in getting the program funded under the capital budgeting process.
So this was proposed to City Planning or CPO? I mean, who reviewed this, and who denied the request? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: It was part of our Capital Budget request, our initial Capital Budget request, but it was not a program that we 1164 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings were able to find the capital dollars for this year.
Let me ask this question. When you sent the document out or compiled this -- and I do remember the request. I may have been one of a number of requesting parties. The October 6 letter -- which I will make an assumption that all Councilmembers received this -- was there any discussion with Councilmembers about this, about trying to push for funding for this? I mean, I cannot imagine a year when the Streets Department has come up and a number of us have raised the streetlighting issue. And you are correct; this was from about a year ago. And there's some other stuff from about a year ago in the streetlighting area. And, I mean, I did receive it, and I have in originals right here. There was no 20 commentary that went with it, and I never heard any more about it. So, I mean, I would at least share with you that, I guess, if I had an understanding that any one of these A, B, C or D programs or projects that you were trying to move forward, if there was 1165 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings some opportunity to get something, I guess I can only suggest to you that maybe some discussion with many of us who really care about these kinds of issues may have possibly resulted in somewhat of a different scenario. Was there any outreach, either Commissioner or Mr. Doyle, to any of us? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: There was not specific discussion with Council on the program. We attempted to respond to Council's request from a year ago and provide the information and after we completed the analysis, included a request if our Capital Budget that was not approved.
Okay. Let's talk about some other lights and other light requests. Now, it's two days short of a year ago, on February 22, 2000, that I also made some requests with regard to examination of the streetlight level or light power in various parts of my district. And to this day and to the best of my knowledge -- and we called about this a couple of times -- my response back to you based on the October letter and data that you supplied again pointed out that I was supposed to get a random sampling of foot candle 1166 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings readings in various parts of my district. And we talked last year -- I understand, Commissioner, you were here; the other folks that are with you were -- that many of your streets were just dark. And I wanted to get an understanding of this foot candle power level or reading and be able to compare that on high foot candle power streets versus some of the lower ones. I'm a little perplexed as to why that has not been responded to. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: The letter that you have before you from October of last year in some ways would address -- while it wouldn't give you what the specific data on what the foot candle readings are, it would address any area within your district that may fall short in terms of the number of lights. As we add more lights, we would raise the total level of lighting on the streets in your district.
Well, I understand that, and I appreciate that, but I will not direct my question to Mr. Doyle because he and I had this discussion last year. And I left that hearing with the belief and an understanding that I would get 1167 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings certain information that I had asked for. I believe Mr. Doyle, on behalf of the Department, agreed to provide that information, and I do not understand why I don't have it. So, Mr. Doyle, can you tell me what happened a year ago and what's happened since and why I don't have the information I asked for?
Yes. First of all, Councilman, we took your request very seriously. And, in fact, we developed the plan that was submitted to you as a result of that for the Streets Department, the Streetlighting Division, to really give an overview of the entire City's lighting system. One of the problems that's always existed is getting good data. We have a lot of paper maps, a lot of paper records of the lighting system. And what we have been doing over the last several years is trying to upgrade our information gathering to provide a more accurate indication of where our lighting system is. We have been working on a GIS, a geographic information system. It's a computer-based data collection. It was provided 1168 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings several years ago by the Water Department as part of a fly-over of Philadelphia. What that end-game resulted in is a map of the City's lighting system as far as the location of each lighting pole in Philadelphia. What we have been working on over the past year is adding data to that to provide the luminar size and the other specifics of the system that we need to add to provide the kind of overall view that I think ultimately City Council is requesting. Unfortunately, that's taking a lot longer than we thought it would. And we wanted to be comprehensive. We wanted to try to collect the data correctly, and we wanted to present it to you in an organized fashion. So I apologize for the delay on it, but it is not something that is going without any action at all. We have been moving ahead on the data collection ourselves to provide a true, accurate overlay of what the City's lighting system is, where its deficiencies are, what type of needs we can establish and how we're going to proceed with that. So right now we are continuing to work on that update. 1169 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings We can provide a few selected blocks for you if that specifically is your request. In the near term, we can do that for you.
Mr. Doyle, that was my request a year ago. And I appreciate the more comprehensive review and analysis. If you produce a report, I'm sure I will read it. But I asked you for some information a year ago that was specific to the issue I was raising so I could better understand the situation and be able to represent the concerns of constituents. I received no response. I received no 15 explanation. It wasn't for lack of trying because I have called about this and written about this. And I'll take you at your word, that you took the project in comprehensive way seriously. On the other hand, I don't particularly get the impression that you took the specific and more narrow request too seriously because if you had, I'd have it by now. We had a fairly long back-and-forth about this issue. We talked about the Avenue of the Arts, and we talked about Walnut Street and what the 1170 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings foot candle power is in the neighborhoods versus what it is on Walnut Street and which street would you like to walk down and which is brighter and which is safer. Do you remember any of that?
Okay. When will I get the information that I asked for?
Councilman, I will gather the information. I will present it to the Commissioner, and we will get it to you as soon as he feels is the time. I will provide it to him within the next two weeks, and then we will move ahead with that.
So you're going to get it to Commissioner in two weeks? Two weeks from today, Commissioner Johnson is going to have this information?
He will then make his determination once he's had chance to review it. And then, Commissioner, you will then get it to me? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, sir, we'll get it to you. Two weeks -- we'll do our best to 1171 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings get it to you.
This is going to be a sampling of different streets in different parts of the district, and you're going to be able to tell me what the foot candle rating is on that particular block because that's what I asked for. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: If it would be acceptable, I'd like to make sure that I understand the scope of what your question and that it's reasonable to get it to you within two weeks before we commit to delivering it within two weeks. But I will commit to this: That within the next week, we will have sat down with someone from your Office to make sure we understand the scope of this request, and then we'll get back to you with a date -
And I'll be glad to do that, and I will also give you a copy of the Notes of Testimony from last year because I don't think that I could have been more clear. It was a long discussion with examples. But I'd be glad to go back through that. I'm just making a request. I don't necessarily know that it's the most complicated thing in the world, but 1172 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings I've never done it. But I don't think it takes this long. Thank you, Commissioner. And, Madam Chair, I know the timer has gone off, and I'll come back.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Miller.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Commissioner Johnson. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Good morning.
And welcome to Philadelphia and your first budget presentation. I'd actually like to thank you too for the cooperation of your Office and the Streets Department. You've always been very responsive, and I'd like to particularly thank you and your staff for the efforts regarding snow removal. And I was so glad to hear that one of the areas of the areas that you were targeting with extra effort and extra force was the Northwest because we certainly do get a whole lot of snow in that section. 1173 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Sometimes when I leave my house, I need boots, and when I get to Center City, I don't need boots. So I'm really glad that there was particular attention paid to parts of my district. My questions are pretty much primarily regarding enforcement in neighborhoods, people that are putting trash out on the incorrect days or just throwing debris out. And they just think it's a normal way of life. I just happened to be sitting outside one day and someone was getting ready to put their trash out on a Sunday. And I said, "You can't do that." And they looked at me like I was nuts and said, "Why not?" I said, "Because it's not trash day." So this continues to be an ongoing issue, and lots of residents are speaking up. On my block we kind of keep watch, and people will take it back in when it happens. I was wondering, do you really have enough staff to do enforcement in neighborhoods regarding people that are putting trash and other debris out on just any day? And I know we can call 1174 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings the Sanitation Office. But sometimes I think it's going to take more than that particularly as it relates to neighborhood transformation. The City can come in and do demolitions, and we can do a lot of things, but if people in neighborhoods are really getting back into the habit of putting trash out on regular days, I don't think it's going to make much of a difference. So is there a need for additional people? Does SWEEP or will SWEEP be going out more as it relates to neighborhood transformation activities? I'd like to understand the role your Department will play in neighborhood transformation. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, Councilwoman. We are projecting in the current year, in 2001, we wrote approximately 14,400 citations, if you will. We're projecting that number to go up to increase by about percent in 20 the next year's budget. 21 In looking at our SWEEP program, we have 22 historically focused on commercial corridors, and I 23 think we have some pilot areas where we're going 24 into residential corridors. 25 In order to expand our coverage, the 1175 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings coverage of the SWEEP officers, we really need to look at and we are looking at ways to improve their ability to get around the City. Many of our SWEEP officers take the bus to get to locations where they're going to work. And then they're primarily on foot walking through neighborhoods. And when I look at what we do in areas of where we're probably most efficient, writing tickets, we have officers who have vehicles at least to allow themselves to cover a larger area. So one thing that we would look at doing is look at ways to get our SWEEP officers to be a little bit more mobile so they can cover bigger areas. But I do agree that this is probably one area where we receive a number of complaints from residents who are conscientious and who are following the rules about residents on their block or in their neighborhoods who are not following rules, who are putting trash out on the day after their collection and it sits out for a whole week and blows all over the streets and creates problems in our neighborhoods. 1176 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings So to answer your question, we can always use more people, but before we start adding people, you want to try and find ways to help the people that we have be a lot more efficient in what they do.
And having a car or vehicle will help with that efficiency; am I not correct? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, ma'am. I think if we can find ways to help them be more mobile -- we even looked at some of our officers riding bicycles in some of these communities so they can cover a larger area than you could if you were on foot all day.
Well, I think that's important because sometimes when you just ride the streets of Philadelphia, particularly in the spring and summer, and you see lots of weeds that neighbors should cut and trash on sidewalks that people should sweep up -- isn't there a law that says you're responsible for your sidewalk, for sweeping sidewalks? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, there is.
The other thing 1177 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings I'm going to bring to your attention is -- I don't know. This is an issue that I talked to Clarena about as it relates to bus stops and trash, and particularly at a corner like Broad and Erie. And SEPTA -- I know it's the responsibility of the business person, but, also, if there's a bus stop there, then it would seem to me that SEPTA and the Streets Department should also have some joint responsibility. And I do know that the Streets Department will come out and put a receptacle there at some corners. But it's an ongoing problem, and I guess we'll need to talk about that and meet again about it because if the area doesn't have, as most areas don't have, a special service district, then the trash is just an ongoing and ongoing problem. So that's an issue that I'd really like to talk about further. And I'm also very pleased to see in your testimony on that you'll be putting additional money in or increase the funding for materials and supplies needed to support the Philadelphia More Beautiful Block Cleaning Program. Because at times, it is a little 1178 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings difficult or you might call and they run out of trash bags. And maybe some group is going to have some type of neighborhood clean up. So it's really good to know. And, hopefully, you'll be getting more bags so that won't happen. But I'd just like to see more aggressive enforcement in neighborhoods particularly as it results to trash, snow removal and putting out of debris anytime someone feels like they just want to do that. And that's basically my concerns. I think the Streets Department has worked well with my Office, and I hope that we will continue to have a good working relationship for the balance of the year. Thank you. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Thank you.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Cohen.
Thank you, Madam President. 1179 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Just to follow up on what Councilwoman Miller raised, in many areas of the City, community organizations try to help and get neighbors to work together in cleaning their pavements and steps and front porches. It would help us a great deal if Councilwoman Miller's position could be supported because it would then help the community organizations in their other activities in building a clean neighborhood. If neighborhoods see City enforcement on the City's part, it helps the neighborhood organizations then take it even further. So I think her proposal is a very important one to try to carry out. Now, on bicycle paths, coming from somebody who is a strong supporter of bicycle paths, I'm flabbergasted at seeing the streets painted for bicycle paths in areas where I never see anybody ride on bicycles, where I see suddenly traffic jams forming because people don't ride in the bicycle paths where the two-lane streets become one-lane streets. And whenever there are busy times, they get very clogged up with traffic. 1180 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings And I kind of don't understand. I favor bicycle paths. I think bicycle riders have rights. But to put them everywhere where they're not being used, I wonder what is driving that? What is causing that to take place? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: The City is currently working on a bicycle network that's a plan that was laid out that was starting a year or two ago. And as we go through and resurface streets where it makes sense, we're installing bike lanes. Bike lanes also being installed in communities. We purposely narrowed down the travel lanes for cars -- or reduced the number of travel lanes for cars in order to help slow traffic down. Often, in response to communities, the people that live in those communities or to businesses or to people who work in those communities who have asked us to look at ways to slow traffic down -- and we do that often -- as an alternative to installing more stoplights or stop signs in areas where those devices are not warranted or where the issue is not really controlling traffic but more calming traffic. I know that there are some specific 1181 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings corridors, one in particular right now is Ogontz Avenue where I received I can want tell you how many E-mail messages and letters from persons who want to see bike lanes on Ogontz Avenue. And there's probably another coalition of drivers out there saying, 'Well, gee, you're creating traffic jams.' So we get comments from different, I guess, groups with different interests often when he look at installing bike lanes. So we really look at those as part of our policy. We want to install them wherever they make seasons and where they're going to be used. We don't want to install them in areas where they don't make sense or it's going to actually be more unsafe. But we've been fairly successful in doing those around the City.
Well, excuse my cynicism, but over many years, I find that the stated reason is not always the real reason. So let me first go after, is there any special funding the City gets from any source that's tied in with these bike paths? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes. I'm going 1182 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings to ask Larry -- he left? Councilman, the person that I had here to answer questions about our funding sources for a lot of your bike lanes and the bike network has stepped away, but I will get the answer to that question over to your office. We receive monies.
The reason I ask that is my concern is where there is the existence of bike paths that seem to make no sense. That you get complaints, I think that's easy. The bike lobby is a healthy lobby, and we like that because it's important that there be bike paths. But the residents in Ogontz area all along Ogontz Avenue are bitterly complaining. Sometimes the traffic is so heavy, it's hard to get out of a parking spot that you're in. The lines of traffic are very long all-day long and not moving. Would there be a way if we inquired, what was the reason on Ogontz Avenue so it makes some sense? We don't see anybody. I can understand the safety measures, but it seems the residents would like those flashing lights that Councilman Nutter took leadership on beginning to provide near 1183 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings our schools. But we don't see real energy by the City often moving ahead to provide children's safety in that line. So it's a little hard to take without a lot of salt, the story that these are being put in to slow drown traffic near schools. But would your Office be able to identify the reason for the specific bike paths in areas? We'd like to know on Ogontz Avenue. It just jams the traffic up terribly. And there are almost no bike users on that road. I lived there for forty-eight and a half years. I've never seen a bike rider on Ogontz Avenue. I assume there may be some on occasion, but it must be extremely rare. It's my home area where I travel a great deal, and I don't see a need for it there. There are other places we drive around. We see bike paths on York Road, further north, say, as you're heading outside the City going north, north of 66th Avenue. The lines of traffic on York Road headed toward Jenkintown are often very heavy within the City because of these bike paths. There are other places, and I don't see 1184 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings any bike riders. So I would like to get that information on the funding source to know whether or not there is a funding source. That's something I can understand, if there are grants that are made available for purposes which carry the requirement of funding for bike paths. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, there are grants. I just don't have the exact amounts for you.
If you furnish it to the Council President then, we'll get it. Second, you talked about the clean-up areas near business strips. And the Broad and Olney area where the Fern Rock Olney Boulevard Community Development Corporation has been very active in trying to promote the cleanliness for that area, can anything be gone to beef up that area? It's a very heavy area. It's also very messed up. Occasionally, you see one person cleaning, and by the time, I guess, that person finishes their tour of duty, the mess is all there again. Could I ask you to look at that area 1185 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings and see if there's any way of beefing up the support given to that area? We're trying very hard to re-invigorate that commercial strip. It begins about a block south of Olney Avenue and runs up toward Chelton Avenue. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, our department is actively working with Mrs. Rice and the community group there looking at --
Shirley Stevenson, Mrs. Rice, Elizabeth Rice? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes.
Whatever you can do on that be would be appreciated. Is there a policy on posting of No 17 Parking signs on the street near a park? Are there any special requirements to get them? There's a place where there's been a lot of trailers parked on Lindley Avenue right on the side of a park. And what happens is there are all kinds of dumping of trash. People can't see who is doing it because these trailer trucks are parked there. Is there a provision which says -- which 1186 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings bars the printing of signs of No Parking? What would be needed to achieve that? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: What usually happens is we receive a request for No Parking signs with some idea of a specific location. And then our traffic group will go out and review it. And usually within a few weeks, we know whether or not we can issue a work order to post signs there. So if you have a specific location where you would like to see us posting No Parking signs, we can definitely take that request.
And you know of no 14 special rules prohibiting those signs near parks? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: In some areas or some cases, there may be rules, but we usually can take that request and review it and let you know within a week or two whether or not we'll be able to post one and when that sign would actually be replaced.
Here's one easier question. Your employees are covered by the City's health plan, right, employees of the Streets Department? 1187 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That's correct.
Are there any Streets Department employees who have anything to do with helping to carry out that health plan? Is there someone in the Streets Department, say, if a person has a problem getting a prescription or they're told that somebody is in the hospital and it's not a covered condition, is there any one in the Streets Department who can give advice to the employee who has a complaint of non-responsive coverage? Is there anybody who can take up the issue on behalf of the employee? Is there anybody that the Streets Department employees who takes as a duty that kind of work, or do you just refer to people to personnel, or do you do nothing? Are you familiar with that aspect? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: If I'm understanding your question, I think we would provide the employee with information on what is covered and not covered through the service provider, through the health care provider, depending on what specific plan the then employee selected. And then from there it's really between 1188 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings them and their health care provider and discussing what items are covered and not covered. We don't have a specific person in-house that would be like the advocate for the employee to go and work with insurance companies on their behalf, if that's what your asking.
Well, I'm asking because health care providers are notoriously restricted with respect to coverage because that means dollars out of whatever funding they have. So that in many cases, employees find that there are problems. And having that employee talk directly to the health provider is often a fruitless effort. They'll get an explanation as to why the health provider says no. 18 Wouldn't it be helpful if there were an advocate? Do you have a separate personnel department in the Streets Departments? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, we do.
Do they accept any responsibilities in that area? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: They basically provide employees with information on the different 1189 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings types of coverage available. And the employee makes that decision on which health care provider they're going to select. And then that relationship becomes between them and their health care provider as opposed to the City being like a third party between them and their health care provider.
So you're saying the time that comes into play is the end of the year when employees have to pick which plan they're going to have for the following chronologic year beginning January the 1st? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That's correct. And I think there are two or three different providers that they can select from. And in a lot of ways, if a provider has been difficult to work with during the course of the year, it's almost like election time comes around again and people get to vote with their dollars to move and go with a different provider that may be more responsive.
Well, in the City we only have one provider for health care, and that's Blue Cross/Blue Shield. And prescription coverage is through Rite Aid and an assortment of so-called independents. We're not clear exactly how that 1190 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings works. But there's nobody in the Streets Department really to assist the employee? If there's a dispute, it has to be ironed out between employee and health care company? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: To the best of my knowledge, that's correct.
Is the head your personnel department here, do you know? Would there will be somebody in your department who has firsthand knowledge? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes. Mike Zaccagni is our HR director.
Councilman, Michael Zaccagni. With those types of issues, normally, if there's any type of intervention that comes from the City, it's usually from our central agency who really manages the benefits. So what we're there for at the department level is a source of information. But any type of normal -- the Commissioner is correct. If you're having problems, as most of us probably have had throughout our careers, you usually deal 1191 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings directly with the provider. However, if there's any issues, that's usually handled by our Central Personnel Agency who manages the benefits structure. And there are actually several choices for people who are in City-administered plans to choose from as to provider cares. There's point of services; there's HMO's. So there is some selection there they can have --
Yes. For anybody in a City-administered plan, that's correct.
But if during the course of that year there is a problem --
Again, they would deal primarily with the provider. If any intervention occurs, that is normally through our Central Personnel Office, not the departmental.
If there is some problem, we could refer someone to one of the central 1192 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings agencies and they would get involved. But I would not be able to speak directly to how they manage that.
Linda Seyda is the personnel director, but she has a unit under her that deals with the employee benefits.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, I have a question going back to the cleanliness of the business districts and the City in its entirety. I've discussed this before, and I think that even a resolution or a bill was introduced to deal with the situation. I notice personally that on trash day, on collection day, people just toss out in the business districts and residential districts a plastic bag. 1193 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings And that commercial on television about the drum, it's not true. Those bags break open. Dogs get into them, spread the trash all over the neighborhood. Where you came from, in your experience -- and I know there are municipalities that have a rigid container requirement. And I know there's production losses when you have to actually physically empty a container. But is there a payback in that loss of productivity? Have you thought about a pilot program? I know prior to you, we had a truck that had a little arm, and people were given this big cumbersome container to put out that was provided by the City, and I don't know whether that program died or is still in place. But the communities that have a rigid container requirement seem to be cleaner places. And I know that there's a process where you have to have a sweeper or people sweeping up behind your people that collect the trash. But I'm talking about even before your people get there, the situation that develops when trash is just thrown 1194 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings out at the curb in these plastic bags. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, Councilman. Your observation is correct, that there are communities that have container requirements and communities that actually provide in some cases a rigid container with a lid. And what it does is it literally takes the trash off the sidewalk. There are communities who are exploring the possibility now of going to containers that have historically not had containers. The City of New York is looking at the possibility of adding containers in their community as a way of combating the rats and rodent problem that they've had recently that you heard about so much in the news. The City of Philadelphia -- one of my first observations when I got here was people literally put trash on the sidewalk in plastic bags. Some of the bags are the little small grocery bags. People throw them out of second-story windows, and they just break open on the sidewalk, and people just seem to walk past those like it's just part of life here. We as a department are looking at the 1195 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings possibility of piloting or testing containers. In some communities, it's in the very preliminary stages. And we know that a City like Philadelphia will have some areas where that might be viable and some areas where we're going to have to do more research to figure out what type of container or where people would put a container if we were to propose a program like that. So we're moving quickly but deliberately in evaluating the possibility of doing something like that in the City of Philadelphia. And from a productivity standpoint, this City is really not conducive to what we call a fully automated collection system where a mechanical arm would go out and lift a container and dump it simply because there's so many problems with on-street parking in the City of Philadelphia. And people don't have alternatives, really, to move their cars and park anywhere else. So we would have to look at what we call semiautomated collection. And that would mean a container, but it would also be a little more labor-intensive than a fully automated system. So to answer your question, yes, we are 1196 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings looking at all of these things, and we do think that it could go a long way in cleaning up the appearance of litter and trash on our streets and sidewalks in Philadelphia.
Thank you for that. That's my personal observation, when I drive through Center City especially. Many of the businesses just toss out the trash bag. And you come by a couple hours later, especially if it's a rainy day, there's the bag broken all over the street. The other issue, when you talked about the coordination with the various utility companies, Commissioner, when PGW investigates a leak of gas, they send out a crew, and that crew drills holes and in some cases to locate the leak, dozens of holes that are maybe two, two and a half inches in diameter. I believe that there's a requirement that they put a plug in there. Could you tell me from your experience if those holes are not filled, what can it do other than create a dangerous situation for someone to trip in? What does it to the streets if all those dozens of holes are left uncapped, and what happens to that street after two years, three years, four 1197 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings years? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Well, as you know, the City of Philadelphia is an older City. It has an aging infrastructure. And oftentimes, our utility companies have what we consider emergencies, and they have to go out and open the street in order to alleviate a washout or gas leak or some emergency related to the supply of electrical power. But every time that street is opened, it deteriorates the useful life of that street. We are trying to coordinate for all scheduled street openings with all utilities to try and minimize the number of times we go in and actually open up the street. But every time that a street is opened for whatever purpose, the useful life of that street is deteriorated, and we're looking at introducing some legislation down the line in cooperation with the Managing Director's Office, the Law Department and Public Property Department to help the City address this issue of utilities that have to open the streets and what kind of requirements we should really have to try to preserve the life of the street or at least have the City be adequately 1198 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings compensated so that we are in a position to go back and resurface that street and bring the life of that street back up.
Commissioner, maybe I didn't make myself as clear as I could have. When PGW responds to a gas leak, they have a test device as you're aware of. It has a rod that goes in the ground and determines whether there's a gas leaking. They'll come into a neighborhood and drill a hole in the street two and a half, three inches in diameter. They'll drill a hole. They'll put that probe down there. If that doesn't detective gas, then they'll drill another hole three feet away, another two and a half inch hole. They put the probe in there. If they can't locate the leak -- they could drill in any one neighborhood -- and many of you in this room walk through your neighborhoods and you see all these holes drilled in the street, and that's what it is. It's the gas company drilling to investigate -- From what I understand, they're required to put a wood plug back in that hole they drilled. And if they drilled 20 of them, they're required 1199 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings before they leave to put a wood cap or whatever they are supposed to hammer into that hole -- My question is: I've been told, 'No big deal.' I know a person that fell. A female with a high shoe on fell in one of holes crossing the street. But because it's only two and a half inches in diameter, it's a clean hole, in my opinion, it's got to eventually after water cascading into that hole month after month, year after year cause undermining of that particular street. I'm hoping, I guess, as a result of this conversation that somebody really says to PGW that they need to make those repairs of after they drill that hole in the street. Again, the main concern is pedestrian safety, but, secondarily, what is it doing after two or three years of that whole being there? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Well, Councilman, you're correct. Anytime a penetration takes place in the street, it creates an avenue for water and moisture to get into the street. And as we go through severe freeze/thaw cycles here in the City, 1200 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings it creates havoc anytime water can get into that street. So it's very important that those holes be plugged and sealed. And we should take a closer look at our coordination with PGW and make sure that those things are being done. We have inspectors available to go out and check and look at the work is being done, and we probably need to coordinate that a little better.
Thank you, Commissioner. And, again, the new reporting system is working real well. My Office also reminded me to tell you the great response we're getting with the constituent requests. Thanks. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, there was some discussion earlier about -- I know you have a contract with PECO. You may have some with others. A lot of that discussion revolved around Kelly Drive and maybe 1201 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings some other areas. In terms of regular residential streetlighting, when a light is out, we used to dial what I'm virtually certain was a non-City number. And was there a change recently to a City number for streetlight outages, and are we doing that work, or are you centralizing it all to a kind of a Government location and then you're farming it out? What is going on with that? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I know that we do some of the work, but we do have a third-party contractor that we do a lot of work through. I'll let Joe Doyle again respond to that question.
Councilman, on September the 1st last year, our maintenance contractor changed. Previously it had been PECO Exelon for the four years prior to that, and, subsequently, it's Asplundh, a tree expert company in Willow Grove. As part of the maintenance contractor's responsibility, he takes all customer service calls and then directs his forces to investigate the problem. And there's a process that follows from there. 1202 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings But, basically, all customer service calls are directed to the maintenance contractor. Now, there's --
So do we call them, or do we call this 685 number? Who do we call?
The maintenance contractor has their own telephone number, and, traditionally, this number is used for publication in the phone book and to your office and to everyone else. This has invariably resulted in a problem anytime the number changed. If the contractor changes or relocates his office to another area of the City, the phone number changes. To avoid this problem, what we implemented in September was a one-call number or continuously-called number that would be a 686 number. It's actually 686-5610. Now, that number was established with out communications people as basically a call-forwarding system. And so that effectively 1203 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings that number will be always the complaint intake number. The actual electronic system or the telephonic system is it passed that caller through directly to the maintenance contractor, whoever they may be at any time in the future. And so that it's much like they advertise from Bell Atlantic. It's a call-forwarding system. We've had a couple glitches with that system. If that's what you're referring to, where there's been a long number of rings and the call doesn't get --
Do you get patched through to a live person, or are you on a voice mail, voice loop system?
Depending on the time of day, it's a live person. But late night it's actually an answering service. It's not intended at any time to be a voice mail system except if there's an occasional backup.
The change in the phone number? 1204 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
Yes. It would have been. The initial problems with the 686 number, because it wasn't working very well, kind of created a little bit of an impasse. I was hesitant to give you a new system if the new system wasn't working, but that system has -- we've been in discussions with communications to get the glitch corrected, which was a long ring. It was taking too many rings before it would pass through. Just in the past week, we've talked to them. So once that's clearly established -- I apologize for not passing it through, but we really wanting the new system to work really well before we advertise it. But shortly it will be. So what we hope now is one phone number will be the continuously used phone number for all streetlighting complaints.
I appreciate that. and if you could, let us know what the new number is and maybe little information package on what the 1205 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings system is, who we're calling, what it's all about. And I would just mention to you off to the side that we did have an occasion where it became apparent that the number at the time, which I believe this was back in the fall, had changed. We sought to find out what it was, and a Streets Department person also did not know the change had been made and I think dialed into a message saying that this number has been disconnected, end of discussion. It may not seem like it especially under these circumstances from time to time, but I do operate on the basic philosophy that we are all on the same team and if all the team members get all the information, we can actually help each other in what it is that we're doing. So whenever the information comes through, I would appreciate it.
Thank you. Councilman Cohen had raised an issue. This is not in my district, but it's an area that I travel through on a fairly frequent basis. This 1206 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings goes back to striping and lines and bike lanes and the like. It's just a wonderful experience when you're going west on Market Street and it's two lanes past the Post Office and all that area out there. And then when you get to 38th Street, I believe, virtually, without warning, it all of a sudden becomes one lane for vehicles. And then, naturally, there's a new bike lane; and as the Councilman said, at a place where I've never seen a cyclist. I travel the street numerous days, numerous hours. I never see anyone. And I guess I'd just like to understand. I mean, unless Councilman Blackwell asked for it, what was anybody thinking in taking two lanes of traffic on Market Street down to one at that particular location? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: The best answer, really, at this point to all the questions regarding specific locations where bike lanes -- there may be some disagreement on whether or not there should be a bike lane there. Our Office is open to sit down with you and talk to you about how the design came 1207 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings about, who was involved in making the decisions, whether we were working with the universities or whoever and also talk about if it's a situation that just does not work, what can be done about it.
Again, I don't have anything against cyclists. I might take that up this year. I believe in fitness a great deal. But, I mean, there are some places. I mean, Lancaster Avenue seems like a fairly wide street. It is for the most part. But after 52nd Street or so -- I mean, there's a trolley out there. I don't think it's that great of a street to be on a bike when you're competing with cars and trolleys and whatever else -- a lot of trucks and whatever other traffic may be out there. So we can have that discussion.
Traffic calming. No. It's called getting run over. Commissioner, I understand there was also some discussion earlier, and I want to clarify one point with regard to flashing lights. I do know that there is a list, and I also know that there's $500,000 in the Capital 1208 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Budget for flashing lights. What's not crystal clear to me is, is the current list and its implementation waiting for that $500,000, which you won't effectively have at the earliest until July 1 and actually later? Or are there dollars available presently to deal with the current list, and the $500,000 is pretty much going to be for going forward? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: There's a list that was scheduled under this year's contract, this physical fiscal year's contract, that we're continuing to work on through this fiscal year's dollars. There is a list or backlog of schools that are on a list that would be funded under the $500,000 that's been requested for the next fiscal year. So to answer your question, there is a list already for that that exceeds the total dollars that have been appropriated for the next fiscal year.
In terms of the $500,000, that's in this year's Capital Budget. That's going to be, I guess, a ballot question in 1209 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings November. You might have the money next February, March, depending on when they go to market? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: That's correct.
So you're not going to be doing anything with the $500,000 that's in this year's Capital Budget until next year. How many lights are going to get done, and how does that affect the ability to deal with the backlog for either what we have now or the request that comes in next week? And, naturally, people want their lights, obviously, as quickly as possible, but there are some key points in time that we really try to get these kinds of projects done either prior to school opening in September, or, often, you might be able to sneak a few in for January when the kids return. Tell me what you think is actually going to happen in the course of -- let's not talk about fiscal years; let's talk about calendar year 2001 -- how many lights get done and what's the impact of not having access to the $500,000 until calendar year '02. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, I'm 1210 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings going to ask Charlie Trainor to respond to that particular question.
Councilman, what we're doing right now, we are doing schools as an 6 amendment to the FY2000 contract using money that 7 was rolled over from that year into the current 8 fiscal year. We have 11 schools that we are 9 presently laying out. The contractor is ordering 10 equipment, and we will be installing those 11 11 schools. It's approximately one school per district. The reason why there's 11 is there's one location where there are two schools across the street from each other. So we're picking up on both.
How many are on the current list? How many applications are sitting in front of us presently including the 11?
So you're going to get the 11 done by the end of the summer prior to the September '01 school year? 1211 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
I believe we're on hold until somewhere in April, end of March, for material. The layouts have been done or are in the process of being done. Some of the schools are going to be installed before the end of the school year. The rest should be installed before the beginning of the new school year of those 11.
And you won't have any money until February of '02. So I just want to make sure I understand this. You're going to do the 11. Hopefully, they get done in the course of the current school year or before the September '01 school year. That's the 11. Then we're done. Then we have no money for 42 schools on the list, and we won't have any money until February, if we're lucky, '02. Then you have to order materials and supplies. 1212 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
You can't order it until you have the money available.
I understand. Now, how many schools get taken care of with $500,000?
Approximately 35 to 37. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: It's approximately 15,000.
Got you. Now, are you going to be able to do that number of schools -- you get your money in February, buy supplies, equipment, personnel, just the physical amount of time it takes to do this. When do you think the 35 get done? Are they ready for September '02?
Because it's too much? 1213 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
It's too much, yes. It will probably take months to finish them off. 4
Let me ask this 5 question. 6 Maybe I'll get the guy who will give the 7 most confusing answer. Maybe I'll get Rob Dubow up 8 here. 9 Is there any way to either move some 10 capital dollars around in order to keep activity 11 going? 12 I mean, you, basically, are literally going to be out of business for six to eight months on flashing lights. When you're done the 11 in September, you're finished, right?
Again, we would be finished until we receive the funding. You're making the assumption that we wouldn't have the money until February. Whether we would have that money in July or August, I'm not sure when we would have that funding available to us.
Well, I'm dealing with February because you have $500,000 in the '02 Capital Budget. The voters won't approve that 1214 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings offering for going out into the market until November. Then they'll do a bond offering somewhere in the November/December time period, right?
Rob Dubow, the City's Budget Director. It's correct that we would have to wait for voter authorization. I think once there's a voter authorization, there's enough cash on hand from the issue that went to market in January that we'd be able to start funding projects. In other words, you don't have to wait for the next bond issue.
So if you're saying we don't have to wait for the $500,000, then is there away to just continually keep this activity going?
We have to wait for voter authorization. We can't start spending against that budget until the voters authorize it.
I understand that part. That's why I was asking you, are there any 1215 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings other dollars that are available to move around.
It's a question of projects being authorized. But that's right. We could move around dollars around for any projects that are authorized. If they've run through all of their authorized projects, then they have to stop. If they still have authorized projects, then can still keep spending against them.
And are you saying that these 11 are the only authorized projects?
I don't think the Capital Budget for whatever year got rolled over is site specific. I mean, they don't know.
I think that's right. Charlie would have to answer that, but I think you're right.
So we're in this business, and if we have capital dollars available and if some adjustment or shifting around of capital dollars can be made, which you know you're then going to be able to be pay back once you get the $500,000, we could keep this process moving. 1216 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings We're not doing this work; is that correct, Mr. Trainor? The City is not doing this work, right?
City forces are not doing this work except for the layout and the administration of --
Okay. So what is the real capacity? If money were not an issue or at least dollars available, how many schools could get done in the course of a school year? Excepting out unusual situations and circumstances, two schools nearby, or instead of two sets of lights, you've got some situations with because you've got boulevards and all that kind of stuff, what is our capacity, for instance, to knock out the current list if all dollars were available?
It appears that in calendar year 2000 plus the first month of 2001, we completed and put in operation 36 schools.
Councilman, I cannot 1217 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings answer that. I don't really have that number.
It's a layout aspect. It's a contractor aspect. It's the resources the contractor puts into the job.
A contractor will do as many as we ask him to do if the material and the money is available, right?
I'd really like to have little more discussion about it. We don't necessarily have to have it right now, but I think you know that a lot of us care very deeply about this. This is not criticism of the Department; this is just how can we move something around that we are obviously committed to. For those 53 on the list, do we have signed agreements for all of those schools?
I know we have signed agreements with the 11 that are ready to go at this 1218 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings time. Of the 42 that are remaining, I know we do not have them all because three just came in this morning. The other ones, I don't know if we have signed agreements. As we are moving forward --
But a substantial number of the schools have signed agreements with us?
And they are looking forward to anticipating -- I don't know how long they've had their agreements in, but I think you understand my point. We've got folks out there with a certain level of expectation. It is not an unreasonable expectation. We've fought all the battles about who is who is doing what and what our program is. We have a live program. We have the dollars available. We have contractors. We've got signed agreements with people. I want to keep this thing going, and we 1219 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings can get it over with. At some point, we'll pretty much -- we won't have these kinds of numbers. There are only so many schools.
I think our numbers were 400 schools, so we still have a number of years to go.
Right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Dubow, we'll continue this discussion with Commissioner Johnson.
Mr. Trainor, can we have a list of where these flashing lights are going to be located, please?
One last question. One question which will probably stretch into two. Commissioner, there was a lot of discussion earlier about recycling. I'm not going 1220 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings to take you through once a week, twice a week. I think Councilman Ortiz covered a lot of that. I continue to utilize my neighbor next door as the best indicator of whether it's my recycling week. When he does it, I put my stuff out. That's the calendar that I'm on. When we have a new housing development in the City, and from time to time we actual do, how does the Department either get any kind of notification about that and make sure that people who are relatively new to the City both get a bucket, whether it's the old ones with the handle or the new super ones -- which when you fill them, naturally, it's too much stuff to carry, but we'll put that off to the side -- how do we make sure that people get buckets especially when we have new housing developments in the City? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Just one moment. I'm going to have Clarena Tolson respond to that question. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER TOLSON: Good morning. We're working with the Greater Philadelphia Commercial Recycling Council to get our 1221 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings message about activity for apartment buildings to participate in recycling, those that have City services. For them we'll make available cans and provide collection as we would for their neighbors, single-family neighbors on the block.
The specific situation I was referring to was about a year or so ago, there was a fairly significant housing development in the Roxborough section of my district, and some of the folks got buckets; some people didn't. The houses were being built as demand indicated. It is fully built out. But everyone didn't get a bucket. People are calling -- I think it's actually in a section that has weekly recycling. How do you know that, other than the folks driving up and down the street, that there's 70 new houses here. Who are these folks? What are they all about? I assume that we're picking up their trash, but most of them didn't get buckets. And we can go through some of the details. But I just wondered. I'm hoping this will be a little bit of 1222 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings a phenomenon in the City. And I guess as we talk about neighborhood transformation and those kinds of initiatives, some of us are actually expecting there will be some new housing in the City. And I was just wondering how people know. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER TOLSON: Usually, when we have a new development, the developers contact our offices, first, to make sure that they're eligible for City collection. When they do that, they also advice us when they're ready to start receiving buckets or other services. And we deliver buckets door to door, or we ask them to have the residents pick them up at the nearest location.
I'd like to coordinate with you. Commissioner, my last question is: Can you give us an update on what the current status is of the situation with retaining walls and driveways? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, I think there was a resolution passed on retaining walls. Our department --
It was a bill. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes. Our Department worked as part of a coordinated team with 1223 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings the Managing Director's Office and the Law Department to come up with a concept of how a program could work. And I believe that we're at a point now where we are still waiting and looking for potential funding sources to kind of prime the pump to start that process. Beyond that, I don't really have anything new to report but I think have a good system, a good theoretical system, that would work if we were able to find resources to start the process.
Okay. Well, one, let me say thank you at least for something. I've asked you a whole lot of questions today. Thank you for the hard work and effort put forward by your Department. And I know Paul Lonie spent a lot of time working on this. Again, many of use have these issues throughout the City and care a great deal about this. And I will continue to work with you and the Managing Director's Office and Finance and Law -- I know the Council President cares about this as well -- to see if we can get that pump primed and work on what is a very, very serious issue in many 1224 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings neighborhoods throughout our City. Some of the City is actually falling apart. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We look forward to working with you.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney.
Thank you, Madam Chairperson. First, I'd like to think the Commissioner and his staff. Your ability to respond to constituent requests and complaints is really amazing. We get a quick response. It's not always the answer we want, but at least we have information that we can pass on to people to let them know that at least their issues have been looked at and addressed. And it comes back quickly, and it comes back in a form that we can even actually send to people, and they can understand how the process works. So I really want to commend you and thank you for your interest in that area. I mean, even though I'm an At-Large 1225 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Member, all the At-Large Members get maybe not as many constituent requests as District Councilpeople, but we do get a volume of it. A lot of our staff is dealing with it on a regular basis, and the response of your Department has been tremendous over the last year. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Thank you.
Thank you. I'd also like to thank you for your desire to look at new technology when it comes to traffic calming and traffic control. And one of the things you've done at my request and I think has been very effective at least from a visual standpoint is the installation of the strong yellow green fluorescent crosswalk signs on one of the most treacherous highways in the nation, and that's Roosevelt Boulevard. As I drive up Roosevelt Boulevard from the Roosevelt Expressway, you really begin to see from a much greater distance those crosswalk signs. It's an interesting color. It makes you think. It changes in many ways -- even subliminally, changes the mind-set that you have as you're driving up that highway. It makes you think that people are 1226 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings actually there and you have to take some care. And they do stand out much greater than the traditional yellow signs. And I want to thank you for your openness in dealing with that. I would like to move to what Councilman Nutter was talking about, the flashing lights. I have an opinion these days that red lights, yield signs, flashing lights are virtually meaningless to people. I walk outside here around City Hall, and it's amazing to me that someone hasn't been killed yet. People just ignore the red light and continue on through the intersection on a regular basis. And I know that it's an issue of enforcement. But when it comes to the School District crossings that Councilman Nutter is pursuing, this issue of getting these flashing lights installed as best we can, what's the possibility -- I think we talked about it preliminarily -- of using the strong yellow green school crossing signs in anticipation of the flashing signs being installed but to try to do something quickly? Because I think for a reasonably small amount of money, compared to cost of the flashing 1227 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings lights, we could probably have every intersection around every school signed with the strong yellow green fluorescent signage. Is there a possibility of you pursuing it? What can we do? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, one of the things that we have discussed internally was the possibility of looking at some of those schools that are way down on the list for the flashing light installation and talking to a principal to see if we could test using the fluorescent yellow green signs in lieu of perhaps the installation of the flashing yellow lights. I think when you talk about safety, one of the main keys of safety is a heightened sense of awareness. And as you alluded to earlier, the fluorescent yellow green signs really heighten your awareness as you're driving down the street that, first of all, something is going on. It forces you to really look at those signs and pay attention. And if those signs were to indicate that you were now going into a school zone, would prompt you to slow down perhaps as much or maybe even more than a flashing yellow light. 1228 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings I know that's what we're used to when we see school zones, but it may be worthwhile testing if there were a school out there willing to test it because we think we could do a school with fluorescent yellow green signs for about 2500, to $3000 per school as opposed to $15,000 for a flashing yellow light. When you compare the cost of the fluorescent yellow green signs to the regular signage, it's about ten times more expensive. But when you compare it to the cost of installing instead a flashing yellow light, it's much less expensive and may be equally as effective.
You indicated that a strong yellow green fluorescent is more expensive than the traditional signage that we use, but is that not set off in some degree with the durability of the warrantee that comes with the sign, itself, and do we wind up replacing those signs less? Obviously, if they're vandalized or graffitied in some way, we'd have to replace them. But just under normal use, wouldn't they last longer and have more effect than our normally painted signs? 1229 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: To be honest, I don't have any solid information to support that, but I do know that we are again looking at a very limited Capital Budget. And the fluorescent yellow green signs would be, again part, of our Capital Budget appropriation. And we only have so much money available. So we would really be in a position where we'd look at opportunities to save money without compromising the effectiveness of what we were installing.
When do you think that analysis would be completed as to the use of strong yellow green fluorescent in lieu of or in anticipation of the ultimate installation of the flashing light? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Well, I think the way to approach it would be to look at the list of schools that we have appropriated funding for and see if a school might be willing to test it with us if it didn't mean that they would give up the opportunity to get a yellow green sign.
A flashing sign. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, a flashing 1230 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings sign. But if the effect were there, it may support us being able to sell the concept to other schools because we'd have something we could point to where we had favorable results.
What kind of coordinations on the same line of pedestrian safety and vehicular safety do we coordinate with the Philadelphia Police Department in issues of enforcement? I listened to Mr. Trainor's testimony, and I agree with the fact that we have certain warrants, certain things that we have to do from a National Highway, State Highway perspective. But it really comes down to somebody enforcing the law. And when people who -- people in general but people who have no respect for the law know it's not going to be enforced, speed limits, stoplights, stop signs, sealed signs just have no meaning because they simply just ignore them. Do we look at intersections that have experienced large numbers of accidents -- pedestrian and auto/auto -- and coordinate with the Highway Patrol and with the Districts as to enforcement 1231 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings procedures, and how is that accomplished? COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, Councilman, we look at data on the intersections within the City where we have the most accidents and the most problems, and we communicate with police departments and also within our own group to look at what can be done to improve the safety in those areas. When it comes to enforcement, the City as a whole has all of its resources being stretched in a lot of different directions, and traffic enforcement in the City is an area, as are many areas, that can always be improved. What we've tried to do by introducing some new technology concepts and exploring new technology concepts was to find ways to try to supplement enforcement efforts. Some of those efforts, I think we need to do a little more research on. One of the big ones that relates directly to pedestrian safety and to accidents that occur at intersections has to do with the red light running concept. We've been working closely with the State to explore our ability to introduce something like that in the City of Philadelphia. We have been 1232 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings coordinating with a number of agencies, talking to law enforcement, to the Law Department, to attorneys about the pros and cons of how it's done and doing a lot of research on how those things are accomplished in other cities. For example, in San Francisco I know there was a huge problem related to pedestrian safety specifically due to people who were running through red lights. And if you get caught, you get a ticket if a police officer were there. More often than not, because resources are stretched, a police officer may not be standing there. So you're getting away with it, and you continue to do it. But where technology can replace a police officer or supplement a police officer's efforts, not replace him but more supplement those efforts, and you run a light and you're going to get a ticket whether an officer is there or not, it acts as a tremendous deterrent. But those are things we need to look at in more detail and provide Council and the Administration with more detail on before we can make a decision on moving forward. 1233 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings
This might be an additional discussion we have with the Police Department, but recently the Police Department created its own Weighmaster truck weighing unit on Interstate 95 and 76. It's a special unit of the Highway Patrol that was set up solely to do what's done on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and other State roads to weigh overweight trucks and to inspect trucks that are not equipped properly with safety devices. That unit has really made money for the City. The fines that are imposed upon these truckers and trucking companies are phenomenally high when it comes to an overweight truck and those kinds of things. And I'm wondering whether or not, with the Police Department, we could be able to establish a unit within Highway Patrol or within some special unit that would be targeted to go and to do a three-, four-, five-week program at an intersection that may have a school, may have some of the problems that Councilmember Clarke was talking about when it comes to the types of drivers and speeds that people are exceeding and to kind of target 1234 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings those units to write massive amounts of tickets. Because I really do believe that while I agree with the technology aspect of giving people tickets with the police officer not there -- I think that's worth pursuing -- one of the things the police officers can do when making the traffic stop is investigate other issues that may be involved in these people's behavior that relate to why they're speeding around the City, why they may not be registered, why they may not be insured, not licensed properly. So I'm going to talk with the Commissioner's Office of the Police Department, and I would just like you to be available to be cooperative in some type of way to target enforcement of traffic violations in the City because it just really has come to the point where people just -- they're totally meaningless. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I think we could be readily available and be supportive in terms of providing information on some of the hot spots, if you will, in the City.
Just as a sideline -- I know it's not your direct responsibility, but 1235 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings the double-parking issue on East Chestnut Street relative to the bus lane/bike line -- it is unbelievable. It is one of the most difficult streets to traverse east at rush hour or other times of the day between legitimate people stopping -- UPS and Federal Express and other delivery people. The people just pulling up and collecting their relatives or stopping in stores, I wind up driving down that bus lane more than I'd like to. I know the right-hand turn is another issue that's dealt with from the Federal Government, and perhaps there's some way to pursue some changes there because that's also a real inconvenience. But the whole effect having Chestnut Street open and the continued double-parking there is just -- we ought to go back to the transit way again. That's how bad it is. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I would say, personally, I drive Chestnut Street almost every day, and the right-hand turns that aren't supposed to take place that really take place are happening all up and down Chestnut Street. The double-parking, blocking the travel lane, it's a system I think that, you know, in 1236 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings theory somebody put together and said, 'Gee, this looks great.' But from a functional standpoint as a driver and as a person that uses the street, I just don't think it works very well. And I have initiated discussions through communications with the Federal Transit Authority and with all of our folks to look at what else can be done to try and improve that situation because it's a bad situation and everyone wants to stand back and say, 'Gee, there should be more enforcement, more enforcement, more enforcement.' But if the facts of life are that we're all stretched with limited resources, we shouldn't design a system that you've got to enforce the heck out of to make it work. It just doesn't work, and we need to do something about it.
Well, I agree with you, and thank you. Finally, one of the most disappointing things about living in this City -- and I think you alluded to it in prior questions, and you're not a native Philadelphian, but I am -- is the overall belief amongst the population that the way in which 1237 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings you get rid of piece of paper if your hand is to simply throw in the street. It is extremely frustrating to watch people of all ages -- children, adults, grandparents, middle-aged people -- simply think that the way they remove trash from their car is to throw it out of their window, the way that they get rid of their candy wrapper at the bus stop is to drop it at their feet. I don't know where it came from. I know it's been around since I was a kid and probably before that somehow there was appropriate. I've watched people stand in their doorway and eat a candy bar or eat something and throw the trash out the -- I've watched people peel oranges at the door and throw their orange peels in the street. A lot of this, I think, is behavior modification and education. What are we doing from the Streets Department standpoint to coordinate with the School District, the Rec Department, the private and parochial schools, public service announcements, perhaps grant-funded program to really make people 1238 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings aware of how bad it looks, how irresponsible they are in doing this? My car is full of trash because most of the time whatever I have, I dump in the back seat or on the floor, and my kids wil get in our car and be, like, complaining about how much trash is on the floor in the back seat. And I say, "Well, it's better than being on the sidewalk or on the curb." It may be an impossible task. How do we change the mind-set from youth -- I don't do it because my ears got boxed if I did it in front of my parents, and that's how I wound up with the kind of trash ethic that I have in my personal life. But if it's not taught at home, if it's not taught in schools, if it's not made available by television cable network TV, we're never going to get our arms around it, and we're going to continually be spending resources to mechanically broom sweep streets, to have individuals out there doing the actual sweeping in business districts. I don't think people are even cognizant sometimes of how sloppy and rude they are in disposing of their trash. 1239 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Councilman, I agree with your comments wholeheartedly. I think one thing we have to do is be clear and that is that this City will never have enough resources to go around and clean up behind people in these neighborhoods who have this attitude about the places they live in. I think there are a couple of components that we're looking at right now, and one is to build a strong network of very aggressive block captains and through those block captains try to do more organizing of people who live on these blocks around the issue of taking pride in where they live and making sure the people that come in or come through those neighborhoods know and understand that, 'Our neighbor is clean because we took pride in it and because we worked to make it that way, and you don't come into any neighborhood and throw your trash on the ground.' That's really got to be a mentality that we focus on with the older generation.
There's nothing better than watching a guy with a New Jersey license plate throw a cigarette package out the window. 1240 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Exactly.
And in these days of people toting guns, it makes you hesitate to interface with them; however, from time to time, it's almost a requirement. But I had one motorist who I confronted with it who told me, "I don't live in Jersey. I just have Jersey tags." That's another whole story. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: The other thing, though, is to focus on the younger generation, the school-aged kids. The point at which kids learn the most is when they first enter school they start learning. And to focus on education at that level and to have a long-term commitment and view. Because what we're really doing is we're trying to modify the behavior of something that's been going on here for hundreds of years. That's got to happen very early in the schools, and it's going to take a long time and a long-term commitment to do it. We're trying to work with some community-based organizations to try to put together a coalition to help us to put together that kind of 1241 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings campaign to try to start addressing it.
Have we looked at the possibility of doing something from a multimedia standpoint, perhaps engaging someone in the community that's high-profile. A person that comes to mind is like a Pat Croce. I know he's stretched in every direction, but that type of individual who could be a spokesperson who we could perhaps obtain some grant money, either Federally or State, to put on commercials on television with this individuals maybe in an interesting format that gets people's attention. I have an idea for a commercial. I've always wanted to do this. I wanted to have a commercial where everybody who threw anything into the street from their hand, it immediately came up and stuck to their head. So at the end of the commercial, you would have people walking around with candy wrappers stuck to them and even maybe a guy with maybe a couch that he dumped under 95 kind of strapped to his back. And everything that actually left your hands wound up stuck to your body in some way. 1242 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Commercials like that would maybe even be a little comical but would get peoples attention as to what it is they're doing in their neighborhoods. And not only that, but what it's costing us to clean up that mess on an annual basis. I really would like to work with you and try to find some outside money outside the City Government to try to maybe institutionalize that kind of program because I think education and public awareness could go a long way in helping us keep our streets clean. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: I think I know that we've received some conceptual proposals from some groups that would incorporate bringing in high-profile celebrities and creating kind of an ongoing campaign. Our biggest barrier right now is finding the funding. So I would really look forward to working with you.
One of the things that I would suggest is that because this message is probably only going to the region similarly to what we did with "Philadelphia loves you back, the City that loves you back" -- and we're doing that 1243 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings nationally all over the country -- cable television in Philadelphia is relatively reasonable when it comes to advertising rates. And it is widely watched in Philadelphia. I know when I've done by own campaigns, no one can afford really to do -- unless you're running for mayor or governor -- afford to do network television. But cable TV seems to be very effective, especially as it relates to programming that's done on children's networks, Disney and the Cartoon Network. Those kinds of things are really ways to get kids in their houses while they're sitting in front of the TV. So anything you have that you would need me or want to work with me to try to find some dollars and to try to coordinate that program, I would be happy to do so. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Thank you.
Thank you. Councilman Rizzo, did you want to be recognized?
Thank you, Madam 1244 2/20/01 Capital Budget Hearings Chair.
The commissioner has been testifying now for four hours. I think he deserves a little break, so if you could be brief, I think he'd appreciate it. 1245 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
We've been told that we can't use rumble strips for traffic problem measures to slow traffic down. In the suburbs in New Jersey and other states, Atlantic City, they use those rumble strips to slow you down. Are we being told that rumble strips or those devices, whatever you'd like to call them -- I'm not suggesting that a high-back device is needed. Could somebody reinvestigate the law to see if they are permissible for use on our city streets? Because I'm thinking that I'm hearing like a wive's tale on that particular issue. They seem to be very effective in areas that I've driven. If there's a sharp curve, they put maybe five or six rows of these very, very -- they appear to be half an inch high, but they certainly bring your attention quickly, and I don't need to go into it too long. I think everybody here knows exactly what I'm talking about. They've experienced it. But we've been told here we can't use these on our streets because it's not legal. So maybe we need a fresh look at that to see if something has changed, because they're all over the 1246 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET place.
Yes, Councilman, we'll look into that and get a report submitted within 30 days or so.
That was a good one. That was very good. Thank you. Are there any other questions for members of the committee? (No response.)
Thank you for your patience. Public Property will testify next. Good afternoon, Commissioner.
We all have copies of your testimony. A copy of your testimony will be given to the stenographer, will be transcribed in full. I would ask you to please 1247 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET summarize your testimony.
-- and members of Council. My name is Andres Perez, A-N-D-R-E-S, P-E-R-E-Z, commissioner of the Department of Public Property, and it's a pleasure again to appear before Council in support of Public Property's budget request for fiscal year 2002. Accompanying me today are Joe James, deputy commissioner for communications; John Herzins, deputy commissioner for administration; Joan Schlotterbeck, facilities management director; and George Hee, fiscal officer; Chris Zearfoss, director of transit operations and planning. I will very briefly outline the department's budget requirements for the fourth coming year. And in the most summary fashion that I can think of, the overall budget represents virtually no change from the prior year, except where those changes have come about from contract-related expenses, personnel salary 1248 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET adjustments and so on. The package of services that we deliver, the stabilization of the lease expenses have afforded us the luxury of concentrating our effort on holding the line over existing expenses. Our Class 100 request is a decrease of $332,918. Our Class 200 is also a decrease of approximately $600,000. Our Class 300 is a no-change situation, and Class 400 is no change from our current projection for our year end expenses. Class 800, which is other funds, water and aviation, does represent a million dollar increase. I had mentioned that our space utilization program really continues into effect year after year. We're looking at some shifting of spaces between departments and agencies this year and the beginning of next year. There are no really new initiatives there, other than pursuing the relocation of the special victims unit for the police department, and that is budgeted within our Class 200. The committee, which monitors the city-wide use, reuse of space, continues into effect every two weeks, and, again, we use this method to 1249 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET evaluate, analyze and control other departments' perceived needs for space and expansion. Our major project, of course, continues currently on schedule. That's the 800 megahertz program. We should be seeing distribution of equipment in the next couple of months beginning with, I believe, the Water Department. Facilities maintenance, again, it's primarily the contract that services in our high-rise buildings, as well as a number of maintenance support activities with smaller buildings scattered throughout the city under a number of other departments. We expect to pick up some responsibilities as some other facilities come on line, and as they come on line, we would, of course, adjust our contracting services to support those. And, again, we've made some projections in our budget to cover what those expenses could be. The department has been working with other departments on this complicated right-of-way issue, which a number of Council people have discussed in other departmental testimony. We're just another department in that collection working with law. We anticipate, as Managing Director Martz 1250 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET had promised, to be providing Council with an ordinance addressing right-of-way issues in the spring. We have, again, continued our 9-1-1 support activities, not just the special efforts associated with the 800 megahertz changeover, but more normal equipment changeovers have occurred, all of which are expected to eventually converge with the full implementation of the 800 megahertz system in the near future and particularly during the next fiscal year. Special events, our other major area of activity, we anticipate that we will be expected to support roughly the same number of events. During this past year, we had some unusual millennium-related activity, City Hall celebration activity. We're looking to realize our cost control in the area of man-hours used within the various responsibility areas of the department.
The bulk of our overtime does go to special events, and so we'll be looking at very close management of special event support to keep within our targeted budget lines. And on that note, again, as is usually the case, transit operations and planning is incorporated into 1251 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET my testimony, but Mr. Zearfoss is available for any questions related to those issues.
Commissioner, who is on the committee for the space allocation?
There's a managing director's representative, deputy finance director and staff, several Public Property, myself, plus capital program office planning personnel. That is the standing committee. As projects require other involvement by other departments or additional personnel from within our departments, the committee temporarily grows and shrinks, depending on how complicated.
It is rumored that many of the judges who are presently housed at Lord & Taylor will be moving back to City Hall. Is that true?
There is a plan. The first judicial district does have a plan to relocate some or all, I believe, of the Lord & Taylor space back into City Hall spaces. We are collaborating with them, as well as the capital program office facility 1252 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET planning group, to the extent that they need our help, to make rooms available, engage in the renovation. They anticipate doing it virtually by themselves. The details would have to be provided by the district.
I'm very sorry. Can I ask one related question on that particular issue?
Thank you. Commissioner, has there been any discussion with the Wanamaker Building management with regard to this proposal or this plan, and what is the timetable?
It is not a Public Property lease, so from my perspective, I've had no 19 discussions. It is a first judicial district lease through the state office that supports their operation, and I presume that they have had appropriate discussions with the building owner.
I'm not so sure about that. That's why I asked the question. What's your sense of the timetable? 1253 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Originally I believe they wanted to serve notice and be out in the current cycle. I don't recall what the dates of their annual renewal cycle is. They weren't able to do that, and they're in there for about another year. I don't know what the term date for that year is. I thought it was spring. So if they missed this spring's opportunity, let me presume that it will be by next spring.
Thank you. Commissioner, in your testimony, you indicate that there are opportunities for space rental savings in the future. What are the options you are looking at, and can you talk about Atwater Kent Museum, who owns the present museum, and why would we be relocating them?
In your 1254 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET testimony, you mentioned the Atwater Kent Museum.
The museum itself is a city-owned space. We also have leased spaces for storage of Atwater Kent artifacts.
We have some storage space that we lease for Atwater Kent, which is privately owned space. The building itself is a city-owned facility.
Well, what are the opportunities for space rental savings that you're referring to?
We have a number of leases which had been not part of the original space consolidation or occurred early enough that we are now, as we near ten years of this effort, we're getting to those option renewals where we need to take a look at what would the cost be of relocating somewhere else versus staying in the same place at a higher -- at a program rate increase. In addition, there's also been either shrinkage or growth in the agencies that we may have put in, and there's been more growth than shrinkage. 1255 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Case in point, the DA, we had to acquire additional space in an adjacent building to expand DA's space. Those types of leases are coming to term for notice or renewal or an extension at various dates during the next several years, and the time to plan for those things is this early, two to three years in advance of the date rolling over on us, because of the enormous cost implications.
Why is the master maintenance agreement for 3033 South 63rd Street increasing by over a million dollars, and can you tell us, why is the maintenance agreement at this location so expensive?
Good afternoon. I'm Joan Schlotterbeck, facilities director for the Department of Public Property. Madam President, I'm not familiar with what you're speaking about. We do not have a contract currently.
I believe it's 1256 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET on -33 in the budget.
The intent when we occupy the facility will be to do the general maintenance with city employees and to do the custodial work with the contract.
For a million dollars more? It's increasing by over a million dollars. And there was such hurry to get, I guess, blate management into that location over a year ago, and I understand no one is occupying that ground as we speak.
We do not have a contract currently, so it must be an error.
Regarding the status of the facility, use of it was not anticipated until some preliminary work had been done. All of it is capital. There was a fiscal '01 capital project 1257 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET which began with the separation that was asked for by the community, the line of site separation on one end of it, and some preparation for the work to follow, such as a salt dome and a small mobile --
It has. I happened to have driven by last week and the berm is in. The trees are planted. We weren't able to do it in the fall planning, but we did get it in. And it appears to be thriving, to the best of my ability. The maintenance contract as we currently use it will be on an as-needed basis for items that can't be done by our own work force, with the exception of custodial. The increase may be for all of the related projects that use the maintenance contract, and I don't know why it got tagged to 63rd Street, because it's just not that big. It isn't. It's a very -- it's a big facility, but it's a fairly small custodial responsibility.
Well, what is the million dollars for? It's over a million 1258 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET dollars.
We are going to be rebidding the overall maintenance contract, the contracted maintenance, which is primarily for our high-rise Center City facilities, but does include options to support certain other facilities, such as the first police district, the fourth coming 24th, 25th police district, the fourth coming --
That is already in the budget. That's in the budget for the maintenance at 24th and 25th police district, $301,000.
I had a minute to look over the numbers again. Basically what we're anticipating, it's not necessarily just the custodial of the inside facility, meaning the actual work areas. There's quite a bit of money in there to upkeep all of the grounds around there.
The ground maintenance around that facility. 1259 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
63rd Street. So the $1 million includes the anticipated cost to totally maintain, custodial speaking, the grounds and the interior of the building.
Commissioner, you just said that the ground isn't that large. Now suddenly it grew to the point that it's going to cost us over a million dollars to take care of the grounds and custodial work in the buildings. I'd like a breakdown of that, please.
Can you tell us, what does the city spend in total on master maintenance agreements and are we satisfied that this is the most effective way to go?
The current total we're looking at, including the prison, about $18 1260 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET million, I believe. And as far as the prison, the Curran Fromhold Prison, as well as the triplex, it's been a very successful endeavor by the Department of Public Property. The contract of services have been above what -- our anticipated levels have been met and exceeded in some instances.
Commissioner, you made mention of the fact that you're working on the public right-of-way legislation. To the best of your knowledge, when you've been at a meeting, has anyone been represented from City Council? (Brief interruption for power going out.)
In your testimony, Commissioner, you mentioned that you're working on the proposed public right-of-way legislation. To the best of your knowledge, has anyone in Council been present at any of the meetings or has anyone been involved?
And, if so, can you tell me who in City Council has been involved? 1261 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Good afternoon, Council President. My name is Joseph James, deputy commissioner for communications. To date, no one from City Council has participated and been part of the discussions on the formulation of the ordinance, but I would say that we did in September of last year have a briefing session with members of Council staff to discuss much of the information we had accumulated to date and also to have an opportunity to have some dialogue about issues that they viewed related to what City Council would find to be important issues that should be included into the design of the right-of-way ordinance. But specifically to your question, no 17 one from Council is part of that committee and no 18 one from Council has been involved in the design of the ordinance to date.
Well, I would strongly suggest that the next time you meet, that perhaps it would be wise to have someone from the technical staff there who you've worked with in the past.
Yes. Like I said, we've had 1262 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET discussion with members of the staff, and as we get closer to putting together the actual legislation before we send it up to you, we will have an opportunity to have the staff members involved.
Thank you. Commissioner, you said in your testimony that your department administers the 9-1-1 surcharge program.
How much revenue is projected to be collected in FY02?
Councilwoman, it's been holding pretty steady at a million dollars a month, and we projected 12 million for the fourth coming year.
I think you're projecting a little more than that.
Is this budgeted in your grant's revenue fund as a payment to other funds collected? 1263 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Let me ask Vince Costello to come forward, director of communications for the department.
For the record, Vincent Costello, Department of Public Property. Madam Chair, in answer to your question, as you may recall, for a number of years we had been putting away the bulk of the 9-1-1 surcharge to account for the fairly high cost of the new radio communication system. By law, the city is allowed to spend up to 70 percent of the money it takes in for the surcharge to account for public safety, generally fire, EMS and police salaries and benefits. We had, as I said, been collecting the money, put it in a separate interest-bearing account to pay for the bulk of the 800 megahertz system. By law, the city -- I'll repeat what I said before. The city is allowed to apply 70 percent of the revenue from the surcharge directly to the salaries and benefits of police, fire and EMS personnel. All 1264 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET of those, in other words, engaged in 9-1-1 services. We have been using the 60 percent figure for salaries and benefits and applying the other 40 percent to the capital account to pay for the 9-1-1 system -- pay for the 800 megahertz system. Excuse me.
How much revenue is included in the five-year plan from this surcharge?
As the commissioner indicated, we're averaging about $1 million a month, so it would be 12 million a year times five years. I mean, we don't see a radical change.
But I think your budget indicates that you would be collecting in FY02 $16.5 million.
Well, let's check on -51. While we're looking for that -- do you have that, Mr. Costello, -51? As I read it, it says, "Funding for the enhanced 9-1-1 emergency response system." 1265 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Madam Chair, we're advised by our budget director that the million 4 figure represents not only the yearly 9-1-1 5 surcharge contribution, but also the money collected 6 in the past from the PCS operators, Sprint and AT&T 7 Wireless. They had actually paid the city 8 approximately $5 million for the city's two 9 gigahertz frequencies. That was part of the 10 settlement going back. 11
Can you tell 12 me, what are the restrictions, if any, placed on the 13 use of these funds? 14
In Act 78, which is the 15 guiding legislation, there is a fairly detailed list 16 of eligible and non-eligible costs. Eligible costs include equipment used in 9-1-1, maintenance to that equipment, service to that equipment, salaries, benefits, overtime costs, all financial costs associated with the operation of the 9-1-1 system. That includes the salaries of dispatchers, call-takers, uniformed personnel, non-uniformed supervisory personnel in fire, police and EMS service.
But, Councilwoman, that fund 1266 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET is subject to periodic audits under the state rules. Those audits are conducted closely with close coordination of the city's controller, and we'll be glad to provide you a copy of the most recent audit that's been done.
Well, what fund are you going to be turning the $16.5 million over to?
With the exception of the surcharge, it all goes to the general fund.
Once again, it's the 60/40 split that I was referring to earlier, where 60 percent --
As I was referring earlier to the 60/40 split that the city has historically applied to the funding split, 60 percent goes to cover the salaries of 9-1-1-related personnel and the other 40 percent goes to the capital fund to pay for capital purchases, such as the 800 megahertz radio system.
Okay. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter. 1267 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn't start out with a question in this area, but, Mr. Costello, did I just understand your testimony to be that some of the dollar surcharge goes to pay the public employees who are involved in the operation of the 9-1-1 system? Did you just say that?
Okay. How did we pay these folks before -- when did the 9-1-1 surcharge go into effect?
And we obviously operated or maintained the 9-1-1 system prior to that? We always had.
And state law allows 1268 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET you to take 60 percent of it and pay salaries. The other 40 goes to?
State law actually now allows you to take 70 percent. We have historically been using 60 percent of the money for salaries and benefits.
Let me go back to the right-of-way legislative process. I thought I understood from the questions the Council President asked that there is -- is there like a working group or a task force or somebody working on this?
The working group is representatives from Public Property, Streets Department and the Law Department and the managing director's office.
And how long have you been working? 1269 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
I'd say we've probably been at it for about two years as a formalized working group, with the assistance of a consultant to help us in the legislation. We've actually been discussing the issue ever since the telecommunications act of '96.
A company called River Oaks. They were part of the presentation we did in September. They came along with us.
Their expertise is in working with municipalities who are dealing with this various issue of developing some form of either regulations or policies on how to effectively manage the right-of-way.
We expect to be able to have that bill ready for Council within 30 days.
And up to at least including today, so far there's been no Council involvement in the development of this legislation?
Because part of the process has been in developing a lot of the background material associated with formulating the regulations. Because one of the critical aspects of any kind of regulations that we've seen in other jurisdictions have all been challenged along the lines of either legal standing or the effective -- the fees that you come with have to be justifiable. So in part of our -- the spending the last two years have been dealing with all of the background on what is the right format for our regulations, what have been the experiences in other jurisdictions along the legal lines of what they've been either been successful or not been successful.
I appreciate the 1271 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET answer. What does that have to do with whether City Council is involved in the process or not?
Well, I thought it would be -- and I think it's important before we sit down with members of Council that we effectively know the subject matter fairly well that we can speak in an intelligent manner about the issue and how it would impact the regulations that exist within the departments, then sit down with Council and have discussion along the issues of legislation and how it effectively should be legislated.
Well, how about the concept of everybody learning together at the same time as opposed to you bring in a bill, naturally it will have to be done, less the city fall apart, and you will then spend your time quietly and publicly expressing frustration that we can't seem to understand what it is that you're trying to explain to us in a very short period of time for something that you took two years to learn?
Or if you send it over, we should just pass it, because you guys are 1272 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET geniuses and you figured out all the answers, we don't know anything and we should just take it as it comes to us?
Not at all. I think what we anticipate is some long and lengthy discussions with members of Council on the background material associated with the regulations. Part of that -- as I said before, in September of last year, we sat down and we sent out a notice to members of Council that we were having a briefing session to talk about where we were up to date at that particular point on what we've discovered, what issues that we've seen that have been very important on the formulation of the regulation and kind of the issues of the focus of our intent with any kind of legislation, so that we would have opportunity to discuss that before we come in.
Pardon me? I don't 1273 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET understand the question.
Have been there any update materials sent to us since September?
I guess on this particular point what I might want to say to you is, we recently went through one of these torturous experiences on another item that the department spent about two years working on, and then it came over to us and we were then basically supposed to become somewhat expert in a particular provision of the telecommunications act of 1996 known as the open video system or OVS, and, again, to your frustration, you spent a fair amount of time trying to explain to us what this thing was and what it was about and what its particulars are. I can only imagine that right-of-way issues are potentially equally complicated. I'd like to not see a replay of that particular scenario and all the finger-pointing that goes with it. So I can only encourage you, even if you don't have it all together and don't know all the answers to all the possible questions, you might 1274 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET want to have some preliminary involvement or given the fact that you're about to wrap it up and send it to us in whatever form it's going to be, you might want to have some involvement even now in the waning days, at the tail end, right before the train comes into the station, to get a sense of either what we know, what we don't know, what we're interested in as we go through this process so we don't end up you're going to send it to us in 30 days, more than likely that means it will come to us in 60 days. Before you know it, it will be May, and then you've got to have it in June and why are we obstructionists, would be the question for something that we just got.
I understand the concern over the experience that we just went through. I will go back to what I said before, is that part of us having that discussion is, of course, knowing the subject matter. And probably last summer we went around and probably talked to several members of 1275 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Council on the streets committee, because this various issue came up with a bill for Cavalier that was before the streets committee for a right-of-way issue, which brought out the various issue of how do you effectively manage it, what are the regulations, and we did kind of make the rounds at that time. And, I agree, before we send anything over, we should come back and make the rounds again.
I understand that and I appreciate that, but let me say this, Mr. James, and I know that you're trying to do your job: Talking to members of the streets committee last summer or having a briefing last September, it was so long ago. I don't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. And so this is going to be a very complicated issue. You will want to get something done. We will probably want to get something done as well, if we can understand it. So you'll have two years of knowledge and wealth of knowledge and information, trying to pour it into our brains in a compact way and then be frustrated that we're not ready to move along with you because you are two years ahead of us, but then expect us to do what you 1276 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET want.
I don't think it's our expectation for you to rush through this.
So I'm only laying out to you a bit of legislative advice from someone who might have to vote on something, that I'd like to understand it. I'd like to not go back through the recent experience, because it was unnecessary, and I just kind of anticipate that we might be in the same situation.
Thank you. Let me ask about on -34 of the budget book, there's an item in here, City Hall custodial services, $1.4 million, pest control, restroom sanitation and window washer. Now, who is covered by the City Hall custodial services and the restroom sanitation and all those items? It's my impression that there are a number of different entities that cover different parts of the whole.
Well, that's correct, broadly speaking. There is a Department of Public Property contract for services. There is a first 1277 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET judicial district contract for services. I believe Council has its own smaller maintenance support staff. Generally we're responsible for all the areas that are not taken care of by the other two. The courts do not include common areas in their contract, so all the common areas of the building are under Public Property's jurisdiction, hallways and bathrooms and stairways.
Do we have, I guess, standards for cleanliness in the building and in the common areas and in the bathrooms?
Does someone check to make sure that things are in place?
Let me ask Mrs. Schlotterbeck to explain how this contract evolved and how we manage it.
Councilman, yes, there are standards. There's a spec, which is very detailed on what we expect of the vendor, and there is someone that does manage it.
There's two layers of management. We expect the vendor to have professional managers. We also have our own staff 1278 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET people in the building that are responsible for oversight of the contract to have their eyes wide open all the time. In addition, we have municipal guards which roam through the building during the regular business day and bring problems to our attention or to the vendor's attention for follow-up.
I mean, I've been in a couple situations and I've also had reports from staff about paper towels, other paper products, soap dispensers, in a couple situations apparently we've got still bars of soap in certain facilities. I mean, we're like in the midst of flu season. Why would we, or at any particular point in time, commonly use bars of soap? I mean, it's not like around your house or something.
Councilman, I'm going to have someone check. As far as I know, there shouldn't be no bar of soap anywhere in this building or any other city building. We have had trouble --
For sanitation standards and reasons, we abandoned the individual bars of soap years ago. We can't stop people from bringing in things and leaving them behind, but --
No. These are bars that they're all the same, they all have the same marking on them.
I mean, it's not Ivory, it's not Zest. It's whatever it is, but I don't know anybody that's running around supplying the bathrooms with bars of soap on their own.
They really shouldn't be there, not even as an emergency in case we run out of liquid soap. They shouldn't be there, and we certainly would like to follow up.
Okay. Be glad to. Are you involved in the Youth Study Center new construction project site selection?
I will be at the point where 1280 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET I'm told to proceed to secure a site.
Of course programmatically it was under my jurisdiction before the architecture and engineering group was split off on its own. It's been revived as a planning objective and as a project. However, it's primarily in the hands of the capital program office, the managing director's office and the human services cluster.
I want to talk a little bit about property disposal. From time to time, the city disposes of parcels of property. We go through, it's my understanding, an auction process once there's been a memo usually circulated saying the city has an interest in disposing of this piece of property, do you care, do you have an interest.
And more often times than not, wait for some response. Commissioner, you know that we've had a couple instances where properties ended up on the auction list with no 25 approval or authorization. These are properties 1281 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET that are in the district that I represent. And I would like to hope that we could have some understanding or some agreement. I don't think we've ever unreasonably or unnecessarily held back on disposal of property unless there was some unresolved community issue or other unique circumstance.
I would like to get a better sense from you that the standards of the department are such that if you're going to take the time to send out a notice asking people their opinion about what you're going to do, that somebody might actually wait until they got a response back as opposed to handle everything, I guess I'll go and do whatever it is I want to do. That's not unreasonable, is it?
By default of action. So if there's no response, we assume it's okay and have moved forward, and, of course, we've created some other problems for ourselves. 1282 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Commissioner, as my father told me many, many years ago, you know what assume does.
Okay. At least for myself, I would like our agreement and our understanding and our standard to be if I get a request, I always respond to it. Sometimes I need an additional piece of information from potentially affected neighbors.
And so until I affirmatively respond back to you, whatever that response may be, I would like no action to be taken.
Thank you. What's the nature of our relationship in this process with people who are in the real estate community? Do we contact them and let them know that we may be auctioning property? Are they kind of always chasing us around and asking on a daily, weekly basis, You got any properties this week, and how do they get involved in the sale of a city property?
We at one time not too long 1283 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET ago did try to have regularly scheduled sales of city properties. The results were erratic. The effort was always the same. It didn't matter whether it was a ten-acre parcel or 100 square feet. We had to go through the very same level of effort, appraisals and so on, advertising. And so we started looking at the prospective value versus the cost of bringing it to sale, and recently we've only packaged properties that have interest. Now, what I mean by that is, a real estate professional may have contacted the office and told us you own XYZ property, it appears to be surplus, are you going to sell it, please let me know if and when. Private citizens do the same. We have walk-ins. We have people calling in. But in the majority of the cases, they're just neighborhood properties that may be available for an individual's use as a side yard or backyard of someone. Public Property, as you know, under the charter can only dispose of them through a public auction, except where the other two avenues are available, which is transferring them to another public agency, Redevelopment Authority and Philadelphia Industrial 1284 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Development Corporation, for a more selective negotiated disposition, and we're out of it, because we actually transfer our deed to them. So, yes. If we've got interest and there's a note, a phone message, a letter from somebody in the professional community or the local community, we will try to give them notice as we proceed to the end stage where we're actually preparing advertising for sale.
If an appraisal is done of a property, who does it and how do we determine who does the appraisal? What's that process?
Every year we select a small number of appraisals -- appraisers, I'm sorry, solicit appraisers, and issue a few contracts. It varies year to year. It's a professional service, as you know, usually small scale.
They represent different capabilities. So we may give -- for lack of a better word, a small operator might get non-really valuable or uncomplicated property appraisals.
Does the person have 1285 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET a territory or an area or a portion of the city that they deal with versus somebody else has another portion? How do we decide who gets what parcels to appraise, and is it a flat contract or do they get paid per appraisal?
It's a flat contract, but each use must have the equivalent of a proposal. So if I have -- if we have -- we try to keep it under the miscellaneous purchase order amount so it doesn't have to go to a full contract bureaucratic process. And if we have a property, every property requires a specific appraisal proposal before we initiate it. It could be a cluster of properties if we have a row or --
How do you decide which appraiser gets which properties? Is there a rotation system? Is it comparable to the Kirby Puckett standard, you're every other week and if you're a green week, a blue week, it's your week, you get a property, next week you don't? I mean, how do you know?
It really varies. It varies because sometimes it requires a very sophisticated appraiser, and there's only one or two who are 1286 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET willing to do business with the city on a regular basis.
Why are people reluctant to do business with us? We have money. We pay our bills. We run a pretty decent operation here.
Okay. Well, I was intrigued in one situation where a property ended up on the list, not authorized, off the list, and I got a copy of what appeared to be an agreement of sale for this particular parcel with a dollar amount in the agreement. And I guess I was somewhat intrigued as to, one, what the involvement was of a particular realtor, what's their role in this, because I guess I mistakenly was under the impression that it was a sale between the city and the individual.
That's correct. To the best of my knowledge, in the 11 years that I've been commissioner, the only time we used a middleman 1287 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET agent to actually facilitate -- and it was for acquisition purposes, not for sale purposes -- was as part of this massive space consolidation, obviously the Binswanger Company at the time.
Right. So why would the realtor have an agreement of sale document with a dollar amount in the document for a property that was going to auction -- I think no one knows what the price is ultimately going to be -- and it never went? Why would such a document exist?
I don't have a good answer for you. It doesn't sound like a situation that should have existed unless the agent was misrepresenting his interests or hers.
Well, the agent had been in touch with Public Property.
Well, I'd like to see the documents and take appropriate action.
Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Rizzo, you're next. 1288 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Absolutely. Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds-Brown.
You mentioned in your testimony that the department has experienced significant savings from competitively contracting out custodial operations. Who is the current contractor for City Hall custodial work?
I believe it's called Colins Services, headquartered in New York, but they have a local office.
Might you be able to tell me the status of that contract, how old it is, how far along we are in it? Have there been recent negotiations?
We just recently awarded through the procurement bid process the 1289 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET third contract, and I believe we're looking at ten years.
Might you know how much the custodial workers are paid on average, and does the contract call for regular raises?
The contract as we prepared the schedule with the labor office has an hourly wage per year, with a wage increase stated in the document. I'm not 100 percent sure what the wage is for City Hall.
However, the wages are considered to be prevailing based on the local labor agreements.
I ask those questions for this reason: I see them every day walking in City Hall, and for me it's a sad commentary if they are in a circumstance where they're not given regular raises and the like. So 1290 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET my hope is that when you say the department is experiencing significant savings, that it is not done on the back of those who are paid at the lowest end of the scale. So then what are the significant savings attributed to?
The savings are attributed to doing an analysis early on where we determined how many city employees it would take and what the cost would be if we were including the productivity losses with more vacation time. See, when you have a contract, you state the number of employees you want per the contract, and regardless of whether or not they're on vacation, it's the contractor's responsibility to replace that person. So we're never down any time. And no, Councilwoman, there has been -- the wages stated in there, as commissioner stated, they're dealt with on a prevailing wage with the market standards and it's actually part of the union. It's a totally unionized work force.
And the raises that you speak of, it would be in the lap of the contractor, Colins, to make sure that those raises are actually happening at the agreed-upon 1291 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET date, correct?
Yes. And they do happen. And if there's ever a complaint on the contract by any individual, they do come to my office, and we automatically refer them to the office of labor, the mayor's office.
Labor standards. And any complaint is always acted on and followed up, and they do a complete investigation.
I appreciate that, and I will do some additional follow-up off the record between your office and our office. I thank you for that. Let's move to, if we could, this notion of public access and all that that means. Public Property is responsible for public access; is that correct?
In a manner of speaking. I mean, we are the department with the communications division and which the original ordinances assigned the responsibility for. I mean, that's as much as I could answer right now.
The role 1292 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET of the school district with regards to public access, currently are there any other entities, institutions that are using it in addition to the school district?
Councilwoman, if I understand your question, if you're talking about public access, which is a different degree of cable access than educational access and the third being government access, the school district, the community college, LaSalle and Drexel currently provide educational access on four cable channels throughout the cable franchises.
Help me along. And what's the role of Public Property towards that end?
Our role has been to assist those entities with making sure that they have the right insurance and that they are on the air, and if they have technical issues related to the franchise operator as far as broadcasting their signal, then we provide a role to advocate to try to get that corrected.
That's very helpful. So if my personal view that student 1293 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET participation is low, I should take that up with? Complete the sentence for me.
The answer is, take it up with us, meaning Public Property, which would require some involvement by representatives of the --
Okay, then. We'll do an additional follow-up on that item as well. You mention on that Public Property is working on Suburban Station with a master plan or in the construction of a master plan with both the MDO's office and SEPTA. You may or may not be aware that there was concern expressed last year with regards to SEPTA and its subcontractor, V Tech, and since Public Property -- this is one of the areas that you're responsible for, we just want to make it clear to 1294 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET the record that we do not want SEPTA or the building owners to in any way interfere with the rights of those workers there to unionize. Do you follow me?
No, I don't. However, my department's role with SEPTA in this is as the owner of some of the properties. SEPTA's plan includes a substantial amount of private property, not just the Public Property pieces, which tend to be common areas, by the way. We tend to have the common areas. And there's also SEPTA's involvement in capital programs, which have their own union, and which involves the city's share of the funding for those projects. Now, we do try to collaborate on maintenance issues that are not capital where it makes sense to do that.
Okay, then. My response to that is that we'll do a follow-up with SEPTA to see that they honor their role in making sure that the subcontractor, V Tech -- because we still get irregular calls in our office that that particular subcontractor is not honoring its role with regards to the workers being 1295 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET able to join the union. You're soon to put out an RFP for the use of public property, including city-owned radio towers for wireless facilities? Could you provide to the Chair a copy of that RFP so that we may have an opportunity to look at it? And what properties are being considered for this wireless communication use?
Councilwoman, we can certainly provide you a copy of the RFP. We originally put the RFP out in '96. We included about 600 individual pieces of property. Just about anything that was public property was on that list, so that the service providers could select from that, and we would probably have a similar list attached to the RFP for them to select from or identify an interest in.
Okay. I thank you for that. That concludes my questioning for Public Property. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Councilman Rizzo is ready, and then, 1296 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Councilman Cohen, you'll be after him.
I would like to go back to the 9-1-1, the monies. You indicated that 60 percent and now it's 70 percent -- we're still working at the 60 percent level -- that that is the pay salaries and other associated costs for operating that system. When that 60 percent was factored in, did the police and fire department and I assume municipal radio is getting a piece of that action. Not at all?
Well, you would think municipal radio would, because it supports the fire and police department. So you would hope that they would be in the loop there. Were the budgets in the fire department, police department reduced as a result of that funding?
60 percent of the monies, could you tell me how much money 60 percent 1297 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET is?
And 60 percent of 9 that went to the fire department and the police 10 department, but we didn't reduce any budget at all 11 in either of those departments? 12
No. I'll let Mr. Costello give a fuller answer, but basically when the law was passed, it allowed us to reimburse ourselves for up to 60 percent. You have to keep in mind that the surcharge never neutralized the total cost of 9-1-1 support services, and the eligibility requirements, they weren't blanket requirements. It wasn't any police officer or any fire fighter. It's the personnel that are most closely involved in public safety and fire rescue. The real cost of the most direct charges is probably in excess of million, and it's just 24 incorporated into the departmental's budget, 25 departmental budgeting. 1298 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
So the funding for the 9-1-1 dispatchers and call-takers and computers and all that are now being supported --
-- by the 9-1-1, but none of the money that once was budgeted for that department -- that's not your department. You have enough headaches without worrying about the budget, I assume, of the police and fire department, but it's hard for me to believe that none of that money, there was never an adjustment to the budget. We'll talk more about that. I believe they'll be here in the next week or so to talk about that, talk about their budget. I'd like to know, you have at least rented space at the Public Ledger Building?
I understand that there's many dozen employees of the mental health and mental retardation department that work in that facility that rented space, that that site has been condemned and they were without office space. Commissioner, could you tell us about that and what we plan to do about recovering the impact that 1299 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET that's having?
-- South 7th Street. Let me ask Mrs. Schlotterbeck, who has been working on the triage of this problem since last Friday, to bring us up to date to the extent that she can. And let me preference that by saying that we did become aware of the need to vacate that one floor, not the entire rental package, but the one floor -- and I don't recall which floor it is -- due to structurally unsound ceiling, meaning plaster was falling, chunks of plaster was coming from the original roof and breaking through the false ceiling and, therefore, posing a hazard to a number of workers, which I believe is about 130 workers.
So we have 130 city employees that can't occupy a floor in the Public Ledger Building?
That is the condition at the 1300 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET moment. The owner had promised repairs through the three-day weekend. Those repairs did not materialize. We made alternate arrangements for temporary accommodation of those employees, and at the moment, we're depending on our conference room 7 spaces in One Parkway and primarily Municipal Services Building. It looks like this is going to go on for more than a couple days, and we're working with the health department for a little longer term accommodation, pending the landlord coming through and making the space usable again.
Now, I would assume -- and I heard what Councilman Nutter said about assuming -- that when we do a lease, if we're not able to occupy a space, we're entitled to some recovery if it's not our fault?
It's not automatic. It usually ends up in litigation. And risk management, law department, L&I will all be part of the follow-up here.
Why wouldn't that be something that's in our deals, in our leases? Maybe you ought to consider putting it in there if it's not -- that could avoid litigation and spending city 1301 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET money to litigate. If it's in there in black and white, that if what occurred occurred, then they don't get their rent and they have to pay us -- obviously this is going to cost us a lot of money to relocate these people.
There are clauses that deal with the prospect of a catastrophic loss of the space. That's a little different than this temporary problem which is fixable. We've tried. I mean, I'll say that we've tried to get that kind of more open-ended get-back or offset. No corporate attorney ever accepts that on behalf of the owners, and in the end, we've negotiated what we could out of it, to the extent that there's recovery in worst case scenarios. Litigation, in instances where we have found the lease to be, in retrospect, unacceptable for whatever reasons, owners' behavior, management problems, we have resorted to renegotiation and/or litigation to solve our problem.
My last -- and I apologize if you already discussed this. I'll just read the notes of testimony. Every year I guess it 1302 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET wouldn't be a budget hearing if we didn't talk about the public access. Have you discussed that today?
You almost got through it without it, right? Could you just bring us up to speed, because obviously we have lots of folks that are interested and they're here referencing public access. Are we anywhere?
The answer is that my budget does not include any funding related to public access that would be departmental funding. And obviously in the face of budget targets which represent reductions from prior year spending levels and reductions in staffing, which is where our expense would most likely occur in supporting public access -- when I say "reduction," I mean attrition. We have vacancies that I'm not going to fill in 19 order to stay inside my Class 100 allocation. 20
So it's fair to say if you've not anticipated any money in the budget, you're basing any possibility on reductions in budget that public access isn't on the radar screen, right?
Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks, Commissioner. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Councilman Rizzo, were you finished?
I may or may not be repetitive with respect to the question about the workers and custodial services who are not city employees. I think at least those in City Hall I understand are employed by a company called Colins or something of that sort. I don't know if it's one L or two L's.
I thought that might be an unusual spelling. 1304 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET We understand that the salaries they receive are lower than the salaries provided for in the union agreements that have been arrived at with private landlords in the city. Is that an accurate statement or am I wrong on that?
I'm really not in a position to say that that's an accurate statement, but what I understand the situation to be is that Colins was once again the successful bidder, as we recently had put the contract out for rebid. The wage rates, which were prevailing wage rates that were part of the bid, were accepted by Colins when they accepted the contract award. And apparently there is some difference between Colins and the representatives of the workers regarding an increase that occurred or was supposed to occur sometime after the award of our contract. Our contract does incorporate programmed wage increases.
It does. The amount of that increase apparently is the basis of the dispute, if you want to call it that, between the two parties. It does affect us to the extent that people believe we're the ones who are causing this problem, but 1305 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET this was a public bid advertised. Everyone knew what the playing field was before they ever put their bid in, and it was based on whatever the service workers union prevailing wage rates were at the time.
Is there any term in the contract between Colins and the city which requires Colins to pay the prevailing wage rate?
Councilman, the city stated, Department of Public Property stated, in the bid exactly what the wage would be each year with an appropriate increase. So the bid went out and it was awarded and won by Colins again. So what I'm saying is that Colins has to pay what's stated in the bid.
The bid specification, our bid specification. They're obligated to pay that. If they pay less than that, of course, we have labor 1306 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET standards office for intervention purposes. If they have an agreement with a union that requires more than that, legally it's their problem, because if we, for obvious -- obvious implication is, anybody can low-bid us, they can low-bid us and work something else out later to make it better for the work force, and that would just result in litigation after litigation after litigation by every vendor who thought they could do the job on a million-square-foot building. So our position is, we put it out there. It was advertised. Everybody knew what the rate was. We expect the vendor to live up to the bid. Notwithstanding that set of circumstances, the managing director and the labor standards director are trying to help work out this problem, to the extent that the city can participate. And I'm not privy to what those discussions are.
Councilman Cohen, can I ask a follow-up question?
Not yet, Councilwoman Brown, until I understand this question, and then I will yield to you.
You all ought to be lawyers, because I'm really not sure what you're saying. I think I heard every word you said, yet good lawyers -- and I think I'm one -- sometimes can effectively answer a question in such a way that nobody knows what the answer is. There was a time a few months ago when on Market Street there was a big mass meeting of service employees, international union people, and I was enthralled by the language of Councilman Ortiz exhorting everyone to stand firm and they would get a fair contract in Philadelphia. Remember that day?
I followed him, but following Councilman Ortiz is very tough. He was in top form. And then within a day or two -- miraculously I say it's because of his speech -- the contract was signed and the union was happy. That set some kind of a rate. Now, did our contract with Colins require that the company pay that rate?
I think the answer is no, 1308 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET and we can ask the law department for a definitive opinion. What appears to have happened is that the private sector owners reached an agreement, and that agreement was reached after our contract was bid and awarded. And there is a difference, in some respects, there's a difference between the city's wage on this contract versus private owners right around us.
I'm sorry. There's also a jurisdictional dividing line. There's a service workers group east of broad and a service workers group west of Broad, and you have owners on either side that add a little twist to this.
Whether east or west, our contract stands the way it is. And I think it's different than what has recently been negotiated with the larger group of private owners.
Is there anything 1309 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET that stops the City of Philadelphia from saying, When we negotiate, when we put out our bid, the prices were say $10 an hour. We understand now that it's $12 an hour. Therefore, we estimate there's so many hours involved. In fairness to working people, we are going to pay an additional amount to cover that differential. Is there anything that stops the city from saying that?
I think we're looking at whatever the legally acceptable options are, short of rebidding. Rebidding is a disruptive process and it doesn't really help very much.
Well, it wouldn't have to be rebidding. Couldn't there be an evaluation of how much it would cost to raise that prevailing wage to the current prevailing wage? Apparently the contract may have been based on the last contract's prevailing wage.
I would appreciate getting it. We would like to get it resolved, including, I think -- I don't think we ought to be in what I would regard as shameful positions of 1310 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET paying less than private industry pays for the same kind of services. And if in the settlement of the major contract the prevailing wage was raised, I think the city ought to show that it is acting in good faith with labor. You can't blame that on the Colins company, because they were putting their bid in on what we were putting out what we said were the rates that were equivalent or applicable at the time of the bid, but I think we do have a responsibility. I would like, sir, if you could follow up with your information.
We would like to see the matter resolved so that we're not embarrassed when we go out to meet with labor roots and are told that Philadelphia is kind of at the bottom of the barrel on wage rates for custodial workers. Councilwoman Brown, I would yield to you on the matter of Colins.
On this matter particularly. Thank you. 1311 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET On this very specific matter, what provisions does your department have in place when you engage in a contract with the vendor and they don't honor it? Are there any kind of penalties that are in the provisions of the contracts?
Our maintenance contracts, including custodial, have performance penalties. Now, I'll make that a distinction from whatever the existing package is of labor standards type enforcement regarding underpayment or inappropriate payment by class. If there's a provision and if there's a specification that requires this table to be waxed once a week and we learn that it isn't waxed once a week, there's a corresponding penalty, financial penalty. We deduct from the next invoice rather than make it some kind of extended arbitration. Whatever we've assessed as a penalty comes off the top of the next invoice that lands on our desk for payment. That's the basic approach. Of course, the more serious something is, it may require letters and it may require phone calls and threatening an aggressive kind of language, but by and large, people forget things from time to time and we catch 1312 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET up with them as long as we learn of the mis-step where our managers catch it or reports from Council staffers and other tenants in the building letting us know that they don't think something is quite right.
What about penalties as outlined by Councilman Cohen; what type of provisions do you have where there's that kind of breach with regards to payment for salaries?
Well, wearing my former hat as deputy managing director and having included in my portfolio the labor standards unit, the penalties that were enforced were based on largely federal law. The bottom line is, if John Doe was supposed to get paid 7.52 an hour and was routinely paid 7.50 an hour, he or she must get the difference with interest. That was our approach. Now, you do have a different labor standards office. It would be a more appropriate discussion with the current deputy overseeing that. Additional penalties had to do with 1313 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET protracted and repeated offenses. So if we had a vendor who made a habit of shorting his people, of misreporting payroll records, there were federally-based penalties that could be imposed, short of litigation, and in severe cases, we would do that, or we would try to do that. And no one ever really took us to the full court on this, because in the end they paid with interest or they didn't see another city contract.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman Cohen.
Commissioner, I live in a portion of Northwest Philadelphia. I'm the democratic leader of the seventh board, which is totally serviced by the 35th police district, and I think will remain so even after the change on March 1st. The major problem exists among my constituents who hound me to death quite properly that calling the 35th district and reaching somebody is a very iffy, usually impossible situation. In meeting with the police captain, lieutenant and the inspector that oversees four divisions, I learned 1314 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET that several years ago a replacement started in the telephone system that wires are still hanging in the basement of the police district, Broad and Champlost, that have never been fully connected, that the job has never been replaced, that from time to time somebody shows up, does work for a day or two and then disappears, and the job is still unfinished, and constituents in my own ward, as well as in the Council area, are not being serviced. And I'm told that maybe something is going to be happening soon. Do you have any information on that? I know the complaint because I gave it directly to someone in the -- I believe in the police department, who were going to be in touch with the Public Property department. Did I speak to you, sir?
You are correct. The 35th is one of the four districts to be completed in the next three months. Actually, the work that has been in place up there has just been patching together a very, very old phone system. Your 1315 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET characterizations of wires dangling I'm sure is absolutely correct. The last time I was up there, probably over a year ago, the situation was pretty bad. I mean, we spent a lot of time working in there just trying to patch together an old system. Money has been allocated this year to replace the entire phone system and put a --
To replace the entire phone system, including all the wiring, which is really our major problem in that building and many of the old buildings throughout the city.
And you say that's all going to be done within the next three months?
So if I tell people, Just wait for three months, you're going to be able to reach the police station, I'll be telling them the truth, right?
That's better than the answer we had when we never knew when. And we appreciate whatever you can do, if possible, to speed it up. On that question, I'll yield to Councilman Rizzo on that question.
Thank you. I just want to clarify something. Most of the police districts have two phone numbers that are associated with the district that's public. If a person looks in their manual, they call the 35th, it would be 3350. Enhancing that phone system won't make that problem go away, because if you only have two numbers that are public to the municipal switch board and the public, there's still only two telephone lines that give the constituents in the northwest access to the district. So unless you're going to add more lines that give two people, three people, four people the ability to call the district simultaneously, but based on the configuration of the district telephone numbers, two people can get through. The captain may have a line. The operations people may have a line, but two numbers 1317 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET are available for in-bound calls to most police districts, most detective divisions. So a new telephone system is going to look pretty and it's going to possibly give consolidation of numbers on one instrument, but the public calling a district still have two numbers in many cases to do business.
Councilman, you are correct. I think there's actually two answers to that question. First of all, the existing equipment and the wiring in that building is way past its useful life. We recognize that, but we recognize that in a number of buildings still in the city inventory. So, I mean, there's only so much money and so much time in a given year to replace them. If we have replaced them -- as I said to Councilman Cohen, we plan on replacing four police districts within the next three months. It's all very doable. In regards to the number of lines in any given police district, the city operates around the 9-1-1 system. So, in a sense, there's a desire to route the majority of calls through 9-1-1. So there's an "in" record and an "out" record and an 1318 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET overall police record of the service of the public. Not to say that the calls to the district are discouraged, because some have to come through, but by and large, there's always been an emphasis to try and push those calls to 9-1-1.
But, Mr. Costello, if people want to do day-to-day business, if they want to speak to their police captain, the community only knows one phone number or possibly two if they're not hunted numbers to communicate with the captain. If they're having an event and they want to get a barricade, that call really doesn't go to 9-1-1. If they want to speak with the captain or the administrative lieutenant, they need to call the district. And if there's only two numbers, because the operations people are using those same phones to call police radio, they're using those same two lines to call other operating departments to do business and 99 -- if you ever did a busy study on those numbers, I think you'd find that they're busy 99 percent of the day. It's almost impossible unless you know the inside numbers, which I do, to call the various police districts. So I know how frustrating it must be for the average citizen to 1319 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET want to speak to congratulate the captain about one of the fine jobs that one of their police officers did and they just give up because they can't get through.
But that's no 9 disrespect to you, because if they don't have the personnel to answer the phones, five lines will become inefficient in itself. They'll just ring or be put on hold forever. So it's a matter of the needs, and really the police department should be the one, in my opinion, to decide the needs for telephone lines in their district.
I was going to say that, Councilman. It really is up to the police department to determine if the number of lines in there is far below that needed to run an effective operation.
But then I've been told that the police department asks for additional lines and they're told -- and I doubt very much the communication division is saying you don't need it. It's apparently the police department that says we 1320 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET don't need another line. So that's why for 20, 30 years we still have the same number of telephone lines as we did 30 years ago in each of the police districts, at least the ones that are advertised to the public.
On that issue of the telephone. What will happen as a result of the replacement? Will the constituents be able to reach the 35th district better than they do now or will they have no impact?
It's kind of like a question similar to Councilman Rizzo's, in the sense that what we are replacing is an aged phone system which constantly needs repair. So the few phones that they do have up there are constantly broken. 1321 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET So we're running around in a situation where replacement parts for the equipment that's up there are harder to come by. We're kind of patching together an old beat-up system. Whether or not constituents are able to get through any better is a function of how many people can answer the phone and how many lines are available to ring in there.
The new equipment will presumably allow greater hunt capabilities across whatever lines are functioning?
Well, has that been decided yet, how many new lines will be available?
I mean, they're operating, they told me, meeting with the captain and the inspector, that there will be no problems, and that's what they expect is going to happen, that they'll be ready-access, that the number of lines will be increased and the access will be greater than when the current system is used and working. Because if all we're going to is get the old 1322 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET system -- get the level of efficiency in the old system when it's working, it's not going to do the job at all. The problem isn't just when the phones aren't working. The problem also exists when the phones are working, you can't get through.
Councilman, I am familiar with the plans to upgrade the system, but I will research this and get back to you.
Would you do that so that we can find out whether we're wasting our time asking questions and anticipating the coming of a new day? Because I think we've got to be able to get access to the 35th district. But taking one step, I think they're separating the district up in Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill. They're going to have a different district, so the pressure on 35th district is going to be reduced by a very heavy number of calls, but we got to make sure that the 35th district as it remains can handle what is has to. If you check that and let me know, I'd be very appreciative.
Now, on the final series of matters, on public access. I'm not going 1323 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET to talk about educational access or government access. I see a lot of channels on the air. At times I turn the knob or push the button of the remote control and I see members of Council listed, but I don't see anything that adds to real public access, and so I'd like to ask you some questions at least for the record, because I think we're all going to be facing a new push. First on money, isn't it a fact -- tell me if's not true -- that the money the city now receives includes a sum of money that was supposed to be devoted to public access?
What the city receives and has received since, let's say, 1986, I believe, the first year in which some of the cable operators were operating, is a five percent franchise fee, five percent of gross revenues. Prior to 1984, it was anticipated that cable operators in the city would be contributing monies over and above the franchise fees due and payable to the city to the public access corporation. That requirement was, in a sense, 1324 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET outlawed by the 1984 cable communications act, which, in effect, stated that if cities, counties, municipalities, whatever, felt that public access, certain educational access monies were good bona fide ideas, that money needed to come from the five percent franchise fee payable to the government entity. That essentially was where public access stopped in Philadelphia and that essentially is where we are today.
All right. I think there may be some question. That was not the way it was explained to us at the time your ordinance was passed. We understood that the five percent -- and that's what the cable companies tell us, that they are paying a five percent fee, that they have met their commitment, except for capital investment that they stand ready to make whenever the city says we're ready to go with public access. They say that their price includes that five percent for public access. You're saying the city says they're not getting any money for public access for the operating expense.
There's no dedicated 1325 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET funding for public access. I guess that's the best answer, Councilman.
They're paying five percent to the city. If the city would choose to use some of that five percent franchise fee to fund public access or whatever else, the city is free to do so, but there's nothing over and above the five percent and never has been.
We'll let others take that further, if they wish to. I think there's a lot of disagreement about that. At that time, when the bill was passed, weren't there channels referred to in the original agreement with respect to what would be available for public access?
In the city's original specification, I believe there was to be five public access channels, five educational channels, two government channels and a local origination channel.
With respect to the public access channels, were they specifically numbered? Were they identified as to which would be public access? 1326 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
I don't recall that level of specificity, Councilman. I do recall the gross number being allocated for public access.
Could you check and see whether there was understanding as to which channels were specifically designed or whether it was all combined sort of in wholesale form or grouped together?
Because I would like to know whether those channels would still be available at the current time if we awoke public access.
I can tell you that there's very few, if any, open channel spaces. Regardless, the cable companies are still obligated to provide channel space for public access if the city goes forward and creates a public access entity.
Well, tell me in that background, what has been the position of Comcast with respect to the availability and public access? If you're saying that they are utilizing those channels, presumably earning money, it would seem to 1327 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET me very likely that they may be a force in opposition to making available these channels for public access, from which they would get no income. Has that been your experience with them?
I really don't know the answer. I still feel our position is if we need the channels, if public access is created, Comcast and Urban Cable Works in Area 2 will have to provide a channel or channels.
Because they tell us in every meeting we had with Comcast on the subject, they tell us that they stand ready to meet public access needs as soon as the city makes clear it intends to do so. From your experience, is that an accurate assessment?
In your opinion, would it be necessary right now -- as we understand it, there were articles of incorporation all prepared by the law department, presumably with the concurrence of the Public Property department and the managing director's office.
We've passed the 1328 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET legislation.
And Council passed the ad providing for it setting forth actually the articles of corporation and the bylaws. To activate it, in your judgment, is all that's necessary to get the two parties, the mayor and the president of City Council, to sign it?
But City Council, the president signing it alone does no good. It's got to be both; is that accurate?
Councilman, I really have to go back to the law department, but it's my recollection that certainly the City Council president, the mayor, the Public Property commission had an active role in pushing that legislation into effect.
They all worked together at the time. Councilman Ortiz, do you want me to 1329 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET yield to you?
Councilman Ortiz, you are next, and I know you have been waiting now for more than ten minutes.
If and when we ever get it, we should name it the John Anderson public access channel or corporation, since he was the main individual in this Council that really structured the whole cable franchise deal and he didn't have an opportunity to see it through. I believe that if John had lived, we would have public access as other cities have it today across the city. And, in fact, Boston and the City Council of Boston are ready to pursue and enlarge the current public access franchise that they have. If I remember correctly, every cable channel that has come before us over the years has stated their commitment to public access. Each of those channels is incredibly profitable, and obviously they don't want to give it up. And I think Council passed the legislation that gave the authority to the Council President and the mayor to move ahead and structure it, and I don't see why we 1330 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET need to go through the whole process, except maybe to appropriate the money.
Well, except that you have to file articles of incorporation at the state levels and they have to be signed off to them to get legislation on the mayor and City Council President. And our understanding is that the delay has been at the mayor's office. And from the days when Mayor Goode was mayor, the papers would lie on the mayor's desk then and they would come to City Council and the president said it's on the mayor's desk. No 13 comment?
Have you as a department ever made a survey of the utilities and public access? Why are we --
Councilman, your microphone is not on. Now it is.
Has your department ever made a study of the usefulness of it? For example, if it were available, very selfishly, to City Council members, it would be a useful tool for us to have debates outside of City Council chambers 1331 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET on issues. Neighborhood associations could discuss their issues. Senior citizens could have discussion groups on senior citizen problems. None of that exists in Philadelphia. The only way I ever see anything like that is on C-span when they give us a version of what takes place in another city where there are discussion groups. If a neighborhood group wanted to explain how great Mount Airy is or Overbrook Farms or West Philadelphia or any part of the city, there's nowhere they can go. Public access would give the opportunity without cost to these groups, and the cable companies would be obligated to help in the preparation of the TV's performances on cable TV. Isn't that right? Wouldn't the cable companies be obligated to help people who don't know about the technology to learn enough to be able to perform? Isn't that part of the concept of helping communities make their voices heard more effectively?
I don't doubt that if the public access corporation was created, that the cable companies would lend some help. The actual concept of public access, as I recall and I think as 1332 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Councilman Ortiz recalls, was that the corporation would be created. It would be in the sense an oversight board. An executive director or director would be hired. Staff would be hired, and actually that staff would work with members of the particular community in which the public access studio is situated to actually train them, help them edit whatever productions were made and generally work along with the people who were trying to make a production.
Has there ever been an analysis of what the cost might be to the city?
We've done that periodically over the years, because the question comes up generally when we testify on our operating budget. I think the best barometer is really to look at other cities and see what they do and what the yearly cost is. I mean, we had at one time used a range of anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million. I don't know that they are really bad numbers. I think they're probably on the mark for a city of our size, if not conservative.
I take it in the 1333 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET current agreement with Comcast, there is no precise provision for additional services by Comcast to a public access channel?
But that doesn't bar the city and Comcast from coming together on an agreement, because I think it very likely that Comcast, being the good corporate citizen it is, would want to participate in the development of public access if the city showed a willingness. Have you ever discussed that with Comcast?
At this point, I'm going to conclude the questions on that. I just think that's a very useful area to engage in. Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you. 1334 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Councilman Ortiz.
Thank you. They don't have discussions because the issue is not on the table, but it would be a good -- like I said, it would be a good memorial for John Anderson for us to create the public access corporation and establish those facilities. Every other city that I know of, either major and minor, Reading has a public access channel. I don't see why Philadelphia is in the backwaters of this movement. Actually, we're years behind. 13 Commissioner, V Tech is up for a 14 contract in terms of the MDO and SEPTA. We don't 15 have a prevailing wage for janitorial workers in the 16 city, and we should, because we passed that for the 17 building trades, I believe, in terms of the service 18 industry. We should be able to take care of that in 19 this term. But V Tech is up for a contract, and 20 V Tech really has been a corporation in terms of its union relations that has been very antagonistic to the workers and the workers' rights to be able to organize and to live by the letter and the spirit of the contracts that they get. I think they're up for a contract and they're probably going to get it from 1335 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET the MDO and SEPTA; is that true?
Could you please look at that and see if you can get back to us? Because V Tech is one of the corporate entities that is bidding for those contracts and the type of corporate citizen that I don't think should be welcome, if they underbid, as they usually do. Also, the janitorial services of City Hall -- I don't know if you've been asked this question, but I know that either they're not in negotiations -- are there contract negotiations going on right now with that janitorial staff?
The contract has been rebid with a wage scale. It was advertised and bid with a wage scale associated with it. I don't recall what that scale is at the moment, but it is based on the 1336 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET SEU prevailing rates at the time the package was prepared.
Yes. There are programmed increases. There are programmed increases. It's a three-year contract, renewable every year until the next time that it's bid. Apparently the private sector owners in an independent fashion reached some agreement which provides a wage rate that is different than ours, meaning the city's contract with Colins and the sign-off by the SEU --
-- SEIU organization. So something has happened after the fact out there in the market that apparently they want us to equalize, and we can't do that, at least I haven't been informed that we can do that yet.
You can't do that in the current time because you already bid the contract out?
So you can't do that because legally what prevents you from doing that? You already bid the contract with Colins?
Right. They were put in for level playing field purposes. That's what they were put in for.
So you would have to wait until Colins runs out, its contract, in order to be able to --
Yeah. Or the hypothetical other option is to not renew and to rebid with a different wage rate. That would mean that we intentionally increase our cost and, of course, modifies the five-year plan figures and our budget FY02 and 03.
It's there. We have only used it in punitive situations; that is, we've not renewed a contract for failure to perform and large 1338 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET non-performance penalties.
So paying role or wages then, the current standard across the city, would not be a cost for not renewing?
We are looking at whatever options are available to us without overly complicating our bid.
So if we would have -- and your other hat was at the labor standards. If we would pass for service workers a similar legislation as we passed for the building trades in terms of prevailing wages, then the level and the base that you would have to begin in bidding any contract would be that prevailing wage in terms of service contracts?
It would. I mean, we try to plan our way around these potential conflicts in the sense that we've done the best we can to adjust renewal cycles to points where we know the industry. We will be past industry negotiations, so that the wage rates are more or less set before we go into 1339 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET the market. It didn't happen this time. We got into the market first because we were on the end of our three-year cycle. And it's not out of the ordinary for unions to make specific contract-related agreements that are different than prevailing wage.
When you enter into these bid contracts, how far do you go in investigating each of the bidders in terms of their reputation in the field and in the market and so on? Because not every low bidder should be the individual that gets the contract, and I don't believe that that's the only criteria that we should use.
Councilman, it's not the only criteria. We actually state in any contract, whether it's an RFP or a bid, what it is that we, the city, expect the potential vendor to have in terms of experience and background.
Well, for example, like V Tech, which for years V Tech has had an awful reputation with the workers in terms of exploiting, in terms of its treatment of the workers, in terms of the way it deals with the work force, and it 1340 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET seems that we continuously are considering them for a contract. We should say to them, You don't meet these standards. Not just low bid, but you don't meet these standards. They should be a list of not being able to accept any bids from a company like that.
Well, Councilman, we as Public Property in some instances had reported to either procurement and law instances where vendors weren't complying, as the commissioner mentioned earlier, either in performance or in the area of labor. So we do take action when needed. I don't know anything about V Tech.
I mean, we're not familiar, because they're not doing business with Public Property. They may be doing business with SEPTA, which --
But if they go through the MDO, don't they have to go through you?
I don't know what the MDO involvement is. I really don't. SEPTA is its own entity.
No, but the managing director's office. Wouldn't that be going through 1341 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET you? Don't those contracts have to go through the Public Property department?
No. Managing director's office is a legally constituted entity within the structure of government. The difference is that he's the appointing authority and the contract authority for his agency, as I'm the contracting and the appointing authority for my department.
So the managing directors can negotiate a separate contract without going through Public Property?
We should ask that question, then, of the MDO about V Tech. Point well taken. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Cohen. 1342 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
At the time the bids went out, do you know when that was?
Wouldn't the office have available if anybody researched it the knowledge if there was a new date coming up for collected bargaining in the private field or the likelihood that there would be a change in the rate?
The reason I raise that question is, it seems to me not that something happened after we put out the bid and maybe even entered on a contract, but that what the city tried to do was to take advantage of a situation thinking it would slip into a situation where it has used an old prevailing wage rate and for a three-year period did not have to deal with the new wage rate. Certainly people in the labor office must have known about what is going on in the private field. Did you have union approval when you put this out to bid? Did SEIU say, That seems fair to us?
No, Councilman. Our procedure is that the procurement department, if 1343 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET it's a bid -- and in this case it was -- and the labor standards folks and myself, we meet and we discuss what we're going to put in as a prevailing wage, regardless of what the contract service is. So to answer your question, procurement commissioner and the director of labor standards and I met with the commissioner, and we discussed what we were going to request as a prevailing wage. And it was higher than the existing wage and it has an increase every year, if there is a renewal of the contract.
Why could it not have been pegged to any increases that may occur in the private field? Why are we in this position where we're underpaying? Because we're clearly underpaying --
Well, if I could respond. Underpayment is a fact in retrospect. When we a year ago were looking at the three-year span, obviously our obligation is to control our spending and project it to the extent that we can.
That's not your only obligation. Your obligation is also to pay fair wages.
And not to take advantage of gimmicks like an old contract is about to expire, let's put out a bid now on under those prices and maybe we can kind of manage the contract.
Well, I can appreciate the situation you're in and the position you're taking. We've got to lock in our expenses. We don't have flexibility in the budget. That is a year-long extended process, and we're basically locked into whatever we estimate for the year's time. There was a scale in the three years, and because of circumstances outside of our control, the scale that was an increase and favorable a year ago isn't as favorable as it is now because of this other market sector.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think this is an area that we're going to have to consider some legislation on to both give you protection in your contract for work and to make sure we get fair pay for the employees. Thanks. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Are there any other questions from 1345 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET members of the committee? (No response.)
Thank you. Waste Management will be next. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for your patience. Mr. Harrison, we do have a copy of your testimony, which will be given to the stenographer. It will be transcribed in full. May I request that you summarize your testimony, please.
Yes, Madam Chair. President Verna and distinguished members of City Council, my name is Riley Harrison. I'm the fleet manager for the City of Philadelphia. With me today is Robert Fox, my director of administrative services, and we thank you for the opportunity to present testimony supporting our FY2002 budget request for the general fund of $57 million. In addition to that, we're requesting the water fund of 6.7 million and the aviation fund budget for $7.4 million. 1346 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Currently OFM maintains an act of fleet of 6,003 vehicles. We have a very diverse fleet. It represents a significant investment of public funds. The present book value exceeds $248 million. OFM has always emphasized preventive maintenance as an important component of effective fleet management. Over the past seven years, vehicle availability and reliability has improved dramatically and OFM contributes this in significant measure to preventive maintenance. We will continue our education and high school internship program. In fact, as of today, 10 percent of our technical work force is the product of the high school internship program. We will continue the expansion of our automotive service excellence program, our Master's program, and to date, 30 percent of our technical work force is Master-certified. In conclusion, OFM will continue to provide quality service in a fiscally prudent manner. Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. 1347 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Thank you very much. Mr. Harrison, please elaborate on the fleet reduction program. Is this program targeted for the whole fleet or is it just the city's general fund fleet? And can you tell us, what is the criteria you will be using in making your recommendations for reductions?
Thank you. First of all, the fleet reduction program is for both the general fund, the water fund and the aviation fund. It's an opportunity for us to look and for each department to look within their fleet based on their core missions to look at how their vehicles are being utilized, what vehicles may be underutilized or if there's a need for less or more redundancy. A one percent target per year over five years is a very conservative percentage. Factors such as fuel utilization, mileage utilization, idling time are now available where we can provide each operating department with the statistics on how various classes of vehicles are being utilized. They look within their dispatch and look within their core mission and they decide what vehicles should be targeted for reduction. 1348 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Can you tell us a breakdown of the city's fleet by fund, please? I think you said that earlier, but can you just tell us again?
For the general fund, it's $57 million, for the water fund, it's 6.7 million, and for the aviation fund, it's 7.4 million.
Thank you. What is the projected breakdown of the general fund fleet purchases in FY01 and FY02?
I'll have to get back to you on the FY01. I can submit a copy of our ad board request and the plan purchases for fiscal year 2001. And 2002, we wait until the operating department's feed back information to us on what vehicles they've determined needing replacement. We meet with each of the principal departments and then we develop a plan for 2002. But I can give you 2001's schedule, and I'll make sure that your office receives that.
Thank you. What is the current policy with regards to vehicle life cycle and replacement? 1349 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
The present policy is that each class of vehicle within the city's fleet -- and there's over 150 different classes of vehicles. Each class of vehicle operates differently under different conditions for different departments. We have 42 different departments, boards and agencies of vehicles that we have to support. So we look at each class of vehicle based on its usage and then we determine a life cycle for that class of vehicle for that particular department. In general, it can range from a high-intensity-used vehicle, such as a street sweeper, six to eight years for its life cycle. A radio patrol car could range from four to five years for its life cycle. Principally our philosophy is where the vehicle is properly specified, properly maintained, that piece of equipment, whether it be a vehicle or special equipment, should last until obsolescence.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Just two questions. 1350 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET On , bottom paragraph, you state that you have an active fleet of 6,003 vehicles, and then on , top paragraph, you say that the city's fleet must be contained at its January 8th, 2001 size, 5,200 vehicles. Help me understand the discrepancy.
Okay. The 6,003 includes 748 pieces of specialized equipment. Specialized equipment is similar to paving machines, compressors, heavy construction equipment, and we have 748 pieces of that type of equipment. If you take out the specialized equipment and you look at our fleet size as of January 8th, vehicles alone, vehicles that require an operator or require a license to drive, indicated 5,255. So that's what we're looking at the target for mission, for usage and try to reduce that one percent per year for five years.
And then, secondly, you did indicate the fleet reduction initiative where you expect to shed from 50 to 60 vehicles from your inventory. How will you be able to do that without disrupting or diminishing city services? 1351 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
That's one of the keys, is that the operating departments were given the mandate from the managing director's office and fleet management that they will look at their fleet. They will look within their fleet in terms of looking at their core mission, their delivery of city services, and then they will feed back information in terms of what they consider to be a vehicle that's underutilized or a vehicle that can be pulled, let's say taking two vehicles and keeping one and pulling it and sharing it with another department. So there's opportunities across agencies with sharing of equipment that will give us opportunities to reduce the fleet in the long term.
Very well. And, of course, if there's a reduction, then hopefully there's less expenditures in dollars attached to that, correct?
That's correct. Again, after we get through with the exercise -- and it's an exercise that's ongoing -- there may be opportunities to reduce some expenditures.
Thank you very much. 1352 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Thank you, Madam President.
You're welcome. Are there any other questions? The Chair recognizes Councilman Cohen.
Yes. Just to mention it again, I think fleet management does an outstanding job in the area that I and City Council come in contact with in time of need when the car won't start, usually because I've left the lights on the night before, something of that kind, and I find their service outstanding. They're always prompt, and I just think it's a wonderful service to have. And they come wherever you are and do it efficiently, quickly, and I want to express my thanks.
The kind of service I wish all departments could provide.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you, Madam President. 1353 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET I said what I had on my mind last week, and I'm sure you won't forget what I said, so I won't tell the story again. But it was interesting during the course of conversation, we talked about the fact that there's one police car pretty much now used throughout the country, is the Ford Crown Victoria. Riley, do we have another vehicle that's kind of poised to take over? I know the traffic jeeps, they just look great, and I assume that they are a lot more expensive than a Crown Victoria. The Ford Explorer, is it?
The Ford Explorer is a multi-purpose type vehicle that's being used by several law enforcement agencies nationwide. You're right. The Ford Crown Victoria is the only full-size rear-wheel drive sedan that is available. There are other manufacturers that are looking at reintroducing a General Motors version. I'm sure Chrysler would look at introducing a law enforcement vehicle. But I don't see that happening in the next two or three years. We either have to look at the law enforcement package that's offered by Ford Motor Company, the Crown Victoria, or the Ford multi-purpose vehicle, the sport utility offered by 1354 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Ford. And, again, you're right, the cost of the sport utility is a little more than the Crown Victoria. But, again, depending on the mission, we've got the police using the full-size sedan, they're using the sport utility multi-purpose vehicle, they're using three-wheel scooters, they're using motorcycles, they're using a lot of unmarked sedans for their missions. So there's a blend of equipment that's available to them to accomplish their mission.
I guess the only two modes of transportation that fleet management doesn't take care of is the horses and the bikes. So I guess there's not much left for you, unless you want the horses.
No. We do service the horse trailers and the vehicles that tow the trailers.
I had a feeling you'd bring that up. The other question I had was -- well, you're going to be here a minute. If I can recollect what it was, it was in reference to the police vehicles. 1355 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET I got it. And this is just some constructive not even criticism, just a comment. I on occasion stop and talk to police officers in their vehicles, and, Riley, something really has to be done about that computer terminal. I understand Commissioner Timoney told me an officer was just seriously injured in the 15th district in a vehicle accident. That recorder, the passenger side seat, I would not want to be in a serious vehicle accident being in that seat with that computer terminal right at your chest level. We just saw that terrible wreck over the weekend in an automobile race, but I'll tell you, our police officers responding, that computer terminal needs to be -- I know there's not very many places to put it, but apparently that computer terminal was directly responsible for the serious injury, at least that's what I've been led to believe. So it's something -- maybe you need to get together with risk management and come up with an alternative, move the seat back, because that computer terminal in those Ford Explorers are right at the officer's chest level. So I think it's a very dangerous situation and something needs to be 1356 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET done with it quickly, and I know you'll figure it out quickly.
I'll work with whatever entity it is, whether it's the police department or Public Property, to look at different bracketing for what they call the mobile data terminal.
Honestly, if you asked me to figure out how to deal with my observation, I would have a tough time figuring it out, but I can tell you one thing, if I were a police officer, I'd be very concerned about any event, even with a seat belt on.
Thank you. Are there any other questions? (No response.)
Thank you very much. 1357 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
The Historical Commission is next. Dr. Tyler, how are you?
Fine, thanks. Thank you for your patience. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Richard Tyler, historic preservation officer for the Philadelphia Historical Commission. The proposed budget for Fiscal 2002 requests $256,663, an increase of $204 over the commission's FY2001 approved target. With this budget, the commission can reasonably expect to maintain its present service levels of permit review under the historic preservation ordinance and under the commercial revitalization ordinance, as well as conduct the federally mandated historic preservation resource assessments. I would be pleased to attempt to answer any questions you or your colleagues may have.
I don't have 1358 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET any questions. I just have a comment, and that is to publicly thank you for all of the wonderful work you're doing. You're very, very conscientious about your job and you do it well, and I thank you.
Are there any questions from members of the committee? (No response.)
Thank you, Doctor. Licenses and Inspections. Good afternoon. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Good afternoon.
Commissioner, I would suggest that you summarize your testimony. A copy of your testimony will be given to the stenographer and it will be transcribed in full. So kindly identify yourself for the record and proceed. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Good afternoon, Council President Verna and members of Council. I am Edward J. McLaughlin, commissioner of the Department of Licenses and Inspections. Accompanying me here today is my senior management team, First Deputy Commissioner Robert Solvibile, Deputy Commissioner 1359 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Dave Perri, Dominic Verdi and Oliver Thornton. With me also is my administrative director, Richard Felgus. With his help, we've put this report together, and we appreciate the opportunity to present our Fiscal Year '02 budget request to City Council and to provide you with information about the department's recent accomplishments and our plans for the upcoming fiscal year. The Department of Licenses and Inspections is requesting a total Fiscal Year '02 budget of $25,995,071, of which $23,498,067 will be provided through the city's general fund. In our general fund budget, we have a net decrease of $14,510,540 from our Fiscal Year '01 estimated obligations. 8 million of the decrease represents the transfer of demolition funding from our department to debt service to support the neighborhood transformation initiative. The remaining decrease in our Class 100 appropriation reflects primarily the non-recurring bonus to employees. This budget supports general fund staffing of 445 positions for the department. The department's revenues in Fiscal Year '00 were $32,178,000, an increase of over 100 1360 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET percent from Fiscal Year 1992. Permit revenues from construction renovation and rehabilitation of office buildings into hotels, condominiums and apartment buildings continue to generate significant revenues. The department's accelerated review program, which started in 1995, has continued to grow and now generates almost a million dollars in revenues. The department is projecting revenues of $34,053,000 for both Fiscal Year '01 and '02. 2 percent increase over Fiscal Year 1999, when 1,059 demolitions were completed. A major reason for this increase was due to the increase in string demolitions from Fiscal Year 1999, 406, to Fiscal Year '00, 615. In Fiscal Year '01, the department projects that we will demolish 1,520 buildings, which includes 118 buildings in State Representative Keller's district, for which we received a special grant. This will all be done under the direction of First Deputy Commissioner Bob Solvibile, better known as Mr. Demolition. Regarding our public safety activities, 1361 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET fire safety, the National Fire Protection Association states that the key to an effective life safety program is to get people out of buildings in an emergency. L&I has the responsibility to make sure that our codes and enforcement programs are designed to insure people do in fact get out of buildings safely in an emergency. Our recent efforts to upgrade city codes by increasing the use of smoke detectors, fire alarms and sprinkler systems have greatly enhanced safety in both residential and commercial high-rise buildings. The department's multi-family inspection program, along with our record number of demolitions, clean and seals and encapsulations over the past 12 years, are key factors in the reduction of deaths and building fires. Under the direction of Deputy Commissioner Dave Perri we initiated our pier inspection programs after the tragedy that we all know about on Pier 34. We have identified a total of 144 piers along both the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. We're working now to get safety inspections on all of them, and most of those people are in 1362 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET compliance. The ones that don't comply will go to court. I'd like to talk to you about code violation notices.
Inspectors from the department's business compliance and commercial and industrial fire units are continuing to write code violation notices or tickets for violations of the Philadelphia Fire Code and other provisions within the code for which immediate summary action should be taken by the department. For Fiscal Year '01, approximately 1,400 tickets were issued, which generated fine revenues of 108,875. We project that the number of tickets written during Fiscal Year '02 will reach 2,800. What we're seeing in relation to these tickets is better immediate compliance with a lot of the public nuisance violations. Consumer protection, under the direction of Deputy Commissioner Dominic Verdi, this year we inspected 728 locations where scanners are used to price items. 355 stores were found in violation. Whenever a violation was found, a summary fine was levied against the store, the items were removed from sale and the inspector made sure that the scanner was immediately changed to reflect the 1363 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET correct price. We did this very specifically during November and December to catch people who were gouging the public around the holidays. That same attitude of consumer protection drove us to do surprise inspections on 35 fuel trucks where our inspectors actually went out and stopped them on the street to inspect their delivery tickets. The trick there is to pre-print delivery tickets and then deliver less fuel oil. We found one truck in violation. That's the good news. As part of an overall strategic planning process, the department has been examining its internal operations and processes with the intention of reengineering its business practices and introducing information technology to improve efficiency. This is being done under the direction of Deputy Commissioner Oliver Thornton. At this time, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the members of City Council for the support and cooperation that you have extended to members of my department and to me in the past. I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have at this time. 1364 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Commissioner, would you please explain about the encapsulation project or program? And I notice in your testimony that this has been in operation since 1998? MR. McLAUGHLIN: That's correct. And it's a program that allows us to go onto a block that isn't a blighted block, but has a building or two that is abandoned for reasons usually related to family illness or maybe a fire and people just can't spend the money to stabilize the property. We'll come in. We'll stabilize the property. We'll do things like the roof, the plumbing system. We've been known to do some windows and to do anything we can to make that property look like it's part of the rest of the community. We'll paint it. We'll do whatever is necessary to blend it in so it doesn't deteriorate.
Can you tell us how this program is funded and what is the proposed funding for FY02?
The program has been funded through the community development program, and we are hoping that it will continue to be funded both through that and possibly through the neighborhood 1365 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET initiative that the mayor's office proposes.
What role will your department play in the neighborhood transformation initiative, and can you tell us, when do you expect that the NTI funding will be available? MR. McLAUGHLIN: We haven't gotten our final instructions yet. We're doing a lot of preliminary work. We're preparing with plans on how to proceed with our different areas, but we haven't gotten any real direction on the -- final direction on the kick-off date yet.
So you don't know whether the funding would come through community development or through the general fund? MR. McLAUGHLIN: Because the encapsulation program is mentioned in neighborhood transition, I expect that --
Through community development? MR. McLAUGHLIN: Go ahead, Bob.
Council President, the neighborhood transition will be funding encapsulation in areas of the city for the blight 1366 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET program.
Through the bond or the loan, the loan that -- after approval of working --
Is that reflected in the budget that we're presently considering?
It's reflected in the fact that the monies that formerly were given to L&I for demolition are now going to be utilized to fund the debt service on the bonds when they're eventually put out. We don't have the details of that, but we do know that our demolition funding was transferred over. Rob, do you want to speak to that?
I think this relates to the conversation we had last week about how we were displaying funding for demolitions and encapsulation in the budget. We had originally anticipated that RDA would enter into contract for demolition and for encapsulations, and so we weren't showing that 1367 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET running through Licenses and Inspections appropriations, but we agreed last week that we would change that as part of this process so that by the time we're done, that will show in L&I's budget.
Thank you, gentleman. Mine is easy. We just wanted to say thanks for all that you get done for us. It's a big job, but I think we're making great progress. Thank you. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Thank you. Right back to you, Councilwoman, for all your help.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I too want to echo Councilwoman Blackwell's remarks and just to commend you on the initiatives that have taken place in the department, and I want to ask about one specifically that you discuss on , this notion of license consolidation and ask, as the, you call it, the regulatory reform committee looks at the 1368 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET over 200 licenses, could you please give some thought at or action to the number of licenses that must be completed by a child care service provider to make their life a little less cumbersome as they move towards starting up a small business? And then, secondly, along this number of initiatives, do you at some point see an L&I on the Internet long range? Where you might you be in that process?
Right now we're going through a process of automating our manual processes. We've looked at the possibilities in the future of offering all of our services via the Internet through the city-net connection. Presently the physical infrastructure exists to do that, and as soon as we have a system in-house -- right now if someone was to go in and do something on the Internet, we would still have to process it manually in our shop. As soon as we're able to finish our automation project, those 1369 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET offerings will be available over the Internet.
And if you have to project a win, when might that be?
We have an implementation schedule of about months for our automation, and 7 I would say soon thereafter, because we'll be 8 approaching the ability to do it as we do our 9 project. 10
Would that 11 then mean an increase in the overall department 12 budget request? 13
No. We're looking 14 outside of the general fund to fund the project, and 15 we're working closely with the managing director's 16 office and the budget office to find the funding to 17 do the project. 18
Okay, then. Thank you very much. Let me ask a more specific question around license consolidation. Given where you are in the process, are the licenses for child care providers one of the areas you're looking to consolidate? Is that on the agenda? MR. McLAUGHLIN: Absolutely. We have 1370 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET people in our housing function, in our housing division, working very specifically with advocates on that issue.
Okay. MR. McLAUGHLIN: And that would be one of the businesses that we look at, in addition to, say, for example, a restaurant, to give a restaurant license that would have the components in it that you needed to have to be a restaurant --
To make it real. MR. McLAUGHLIN: -- instead of the nine or ten different licenses that sometimes come due at different times, to consolidate all that. Interestingly enough, we're working with the reinventing government initiative, the union, you know, city worker initiative that is geared to showing how we can operate more efficiently. That's one of the main issues on their plate.
And once you've completed your analysis and/or I guess action plan or game plan for he various businesses that can do better at getting licenses, you at some juncture plan to make the world aware of that, correct? 1371 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET MR. McLAUGHLIN: Your world very specifically. We won't be doing that without you, City Council.
Any read on when that might happen? Within this fiscal year, next fiscal year, just for my own knowledge base? Because I recognize that's a process. MR. McLAUGHLIN: I would say that we're starting that process now, so you should see some within the next couple of months.
Okay, then. Thank you very much. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Because we got to get through the law department and everything.
Sure. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam President.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Clarke.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, gentlemen. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Good afternoon. 1372 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
With respect to the neighborhood transformation program, it's my understanding that as a part of this program as an ongoing practice, there will be enhanced code enforcement, understanding that in some of these neighborhoods a lot of the problems associated with the conditions tend to be individuals' inability to police themselves, certain buildings that are operating not in an appropriate past deed, certain issues with respect to people putting out trash on an ongoing basis on the wrong day, and there's a number of things associated with the code enforcements. My understanding from the mayor's office is that we're going to be extremely vigilant on enforcing the existing regs. Are you guys involved in that process? Is there somebody coordinating that process?
We will be -- as it revolves around buildings, we will be involved deteriorating buildings in neighborhoods that need enforcement. Our housing people would go out, but they have to make sure -- and this is -- the people driving the process will be the Pat Smith and the neighborhood transformation people. 1373 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET They have to make sure that there's also in place a parachute from OH, Office of Housing and Community Development, or any other agencies to help people in the neighborhood that may need loans or help to make the repairs. Of course, as you know, if we went out and strictly enforced our code city-wide, we would cause a lot of phone calls. And people need help. They just can't on their own survive and comply with codes without some entity, government agency helping them.
Will there be some relaxation? Right now I know a number of particular codes you're given like a 30-day notice to comply where the city can't come in and abate the nuisance and lien the property for that particular problem. Will there be some relaxation in that time frame as it relates to abating a nuisance, if in fact we're going to put resources on the table to --
We would probably not go in and have housing, Dominic Verdi's staff, make the inspections until the system was all in place. And if it took some relaxation, yes, we would relax some of the 30 days to 60 days, things like that. MR. McLAUGHLIN: I would just like to 1374 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET say that that applies to all of our violations, that if we find some reasonable person coming forward and giving us an idea that they intend to comply and if they need a little more time, we're always willing to do that. Our main focus is on compliance.
With respect to the demolition issue, in earlier testimony you indicated that you will have site managers, individuals who will be out to answer questions when we start doing these large-scale demolitions or deal with problems associated with those demolitions. Will they be L&I employees or are we going to contract that out?
Part of the plan being put together in the managing director's office is for an L&I employee to be at each site. We intend in the neighborhoods to have, after approval from Council if they agree with the plan, to have demolition done in like tight areas instead of scattered all throughout the district and that the L&I inspector will be there with an L&I jacket on, so any of the citizens that may want to discuss a complaint or talk to L&I, the inspector will know --
Will there be a number? Because if you're talking that one person 1375 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET could be in a ten-square-block area, you may miss the guy when he walks down your block. Is there a number you can call?
There will also be a number. Prior to any demolition on any block, Councilman, we intend at least 48 hours, maybe 72 -- that time hasn't been decided yet -- to put a flyer in each door in every occupied house on the block of the addresses of the buildings that will be demolished and the day that we expect the demolition to start and a phone number where the people can call and/or go to to make a complaint in the community. That's absolute. We've hoped we've learned from all the problems that we get now from demolition and inspectors and people not being there, and we're trying to put all that into a program to make it easier on the public to get their point across to us.
Okay. One last question, and this may have to be shared between you and risk management. As you know, Mr. Solvibile, from time to time we have a demolition and sometimes that demolition causes some collateral damage to the 1376 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET adjacent property owner, and then we have a situation where we have to find out who is responsible, is it the contractor, was it a condition that was in the house prior to the demolition. And my understanding in the past, Licenses and Inspections would be responsible, but I have heard through an unofficial source that that policy may change as a result of an order from risk management that it will then be the responsibility of that property owner to have the interaction between the demolition contractor, and I'm hoping that is in fact not true.
That's not true. L&I will be involved. We intend to put a team of inspectors out in every area wherever we're going to make demolitions, take pictures, inspect the houses for any pre-condition that we may be able to observe, to determine the safety of the occupants in the house prior to demolition, and we intend to have our complaint system, as I said, intact right there. And the inspector every day -- if an inspector who is assigned to that area is sick, there will be an inspector to fill in for that person to be there. There is going to be two or three levels of 1377 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET supervision that where if we cannot find an inspector to fill in who is out sick that day, the boss -- we've hired a district manager. We picked the district manager to be overseeing the inspectors for the demolition program. He'll go to that site himself.
And I'm not necessarily talking about the transformation program. I'm just talking about generally. There will be no change in policy as it relates to the entity who follows up on collateral damage to properties? That will not be the responsibility of the homeowner?
As is now. There's no 16 change in that at all. It's L&I, Councilman, and we do interrelate with risk, but we're the driving proponent of that.
Councilman, I will add that all of our contractors do have to have bonds, and we have to sign off before they get final payment, so 1378 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET that we would be enforcing the provision to make sure that everything is in order before they get their payment.
Also, Councilman, the insurance policy and the bonds are checked by risk and procurement. The insurance -- the bond by procurement -- it has to be an approved bonding company -- and the insurance by risk management and Licenses and Inspections to insure there is proper coverage so we can protect the people that are to be protected by the insurance policies.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner and the fine array of personnel that you have with you, we've had an opportunity to work on a lot of projects over time, so let me in a general way say thank you for the great response that our office has enjoyed. We have had some unusual situations that have gone beyond the kind of day-to-day activities that take place 1379 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET around the city, and I've been the beneficiary and my constituents even more so have received good response and service. We obviously have on an ongoing basis day-to-day issues that still need to be resolved, but I know that the effort and the commitment is there, and often it's more a situation of resources and trying to do the best that we can with what we have. Also, we come from different places and have different ideas, different views and perspectives, and I think we're constantly trying to remind ourselves that we're all working for the same people in trying to get to the same place. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Thank you, Councilman.
You're welcome. An item that's been discussed in the past -- and I didn't pick up much in the testimony, but I know, Commissioner, it's been a topic of our conversation from time to time or on the few occasions you've had to hold the phone away from your ear, although you weren't having any trouble hearing me, is the computerization of the department. I seem to recall some number of budgets ago a proposal by the department to upgrade 1380 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET computerization, make it easier to get information that's needed on a timely basis. I also seem to recall that in some of the previous years' testimony, there's been discussion about, for instance, a productivity bank loan to make that computerization happen. Can you give me an update on that proposal or that project or the status of what I think is an important effort by yourself and your deputies and administration to at least bring most of the department into the latter part of at least the 20th century? MR. McLAUGHLIN: Well, I'd just like to say that, yes, we have talked about this before, and I'm more excited now about the possibility of our automation being a reality. We're not talking about whether we should automate L&I any longer. This administration is talking about how to fund the automation of L&I. So we are now embarking on a study by the Gardener Group just to make sure that over this period of time that L&I has been concentrating on our vendor of choice, the Hanson Technology system, to make sure nothing else has come up on the horizon, although Deputy Commissioner 1381 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Thornton has kept his eyes and ears open in that regard and assures us through his visits to other cities and through his sources that there is nothing yet better than what we want to buy.
Well, can you give me a sense of the scope of this project, maybe the Cliffs notes version of it, what it will do, as well as a timetable for implementation? What are the funding issues and what's been the problem in terms of securing the necessary funds? There are other departments that have been able to get productivity loans when they needed it. MR. McLAUGHLIN: I'll let you talk to the man who is going to make that happen.
Oliver Thornton, L&I. What we've concentrated on initially was, we found that the equipment that we had in-house was not adequate to use in with a lot of new technology that's available. So what we spent the last couple of years doing is upgrading the computer systems, making sure that the computer systems would run any application that we want it to run, to make sure that the physical lines were there from -- we're in more than one place and we have the 1382 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET district offices, we have the clean and seal office on South Street. So we worked with Public Property and MOIS to get the physical connections to those places. So that part is done. So all of the physical infrastructure work is done right now.
Did you work with the guy with the dark hair and glasses on this project?
There is a gentleman in MOIS with dark hair and glasses. He works on a number of projects with various departments, but if you're not aware of him, we can move on.
So right now we're looking at a few possible options, the productivity bank being one of them. We've looked at -- some of the vendors have come forward in their presentations with funding sources that they have available to them. So right now we're working with the budget office and the managing director's office, and we're doing two things. The Gardener Group is validating basically what we've done in terms of business process review and those types of things, and we're looking at the different ways that we could fund something like this.
In terms of funding? Well, the last we talked about $3.7 million.
And this is for full computerization of the department?
Of the licenses, permits and inspections. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Just to mention, we already have automated our complaint intake process 1384 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET with Hanson Technologies.
Well, the department is working on it. I started the project -- I came into the department in 1998.
Other than our most critical life safety departments, police, fire, DHS, health department, it is beyond me to understand, other than for the normal research and information and assessments and hiring of consultants and the like, to understand why there would ever really be a question about the need for -- I'm not talking about the mechanics, but the need for computerization at L&I, and only a person who never dealt with the department from a customer service standpoint in trying to provide service to constituents would ever think that this was a question of should we do this, why are we talking about this. I mean, it is astounding to me given the role that the department plays on a day-to-day basis, the impact that it has and can have on people's lives out in the community, it really is beyond me to understand what the issue has been for so long. What do you think 1385 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET implementation date start to finish will be?
Well, the Gardener Group study is supposed to be finished in 30 days. So at the end of that period, we'll have a management presentation of what their findings are, and depending on how soon we get the funding -- once we start, we're looking at months for 9 implementation. 10
And are you still 11 going the productivity bank route or is this now a 12 capital budget item? Is this something that's being 13 done out of the operating budget? What's the 14 identified funding source? 15
We're looking at outside 16 funding sources, outside loans, and we're looking at 17 the productivity bank. We're comparing the terms of 18 the two loans.
They dealt with other 1386 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET municipalities and provided funding through this source.
Okay. Commissioner, let me ask you a question in the area of training and education and inspectors and kind of how do we keep skills at a high level and also cross-training of people. We try to minimize those situations where we ask a person to go out and look at X and Y. They may only be trained in X and they don't really know that much about Y, and now we got to get another person to come and then they missed each other and the one is on an earlier shift. I mean, all of that stuff, as opposed to we got one person, I know a lot of stuff, let me figure out what's going on here, we write up all the violations and move on with life. What are we doing in that area to enhance skills for our employees? MR. McLAUGHLIN: Go ahead.
Richard Felgus, administrative services director. Councilman, we have what we think is to be a fairly aggressive extensive training program going on in the Department of Licenses and 1387 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Inspections. We concentrate an awful lot of our activities on a number of areas, induction training to new people, skills people to our existing inspectors and public relations, service representative type skills to a lot of our clerical people to try to improve their performance with the public. The big thing that we're into right now, so that you know, state law just was passed a few years ago mandating all of our trades inspectors to be certified. There's a new state-wide code that we're going to have to be abiding with. We are in the process now of developing training courses to make sure that all of our people will be state certified. So that's an important thing. We have over the years tried as best we could to provide developmental training to a lot of our people to enable them to move up from a business regulatory inspector, for instance, to a housing inspector up to a fire inspector. That type of training means that we have people who are versed in multiple codes in multiple areas of the department. So that we're constantly doing training. We just had an excellent program put on 1388 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET on fire training and things of that nature. So that we're constantly doing training, sprinkler training, standpipes, all of this type of training, the skills training that our people need to go out and do the job. And we're very proud of what we're accomplishing in the training program and we think that -- at the point that you're getting to about having our people, I guess, what we could call the consolidated inspector who would be able to make multiple inspections is something that we are going to be looking into, particularly in the construction trades area, the idea of trying to get people who are capable of doing building inspections to also be able to do some plumbing inspecting, some of the less complicated electrical inspections. That would resolve a lot of the complaints that we sometimes hear about people saying, I've been visited by 17 different inspectors this month. You know, when are you guys going to leave me alone. So we recognize that, and we have been working towards that. Dominic?
Dominic Verdi, deputy commissioner. Councilman, I'll just add to that issue. 1389 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET We discussed this, I think, at our meeting once before. A lot of the complaints that did come in that were multiple inspections involved housing. So we now have -- in my unit I have two electrical inspectors on staff, and thanks to Deputy Commissioner Perri, I know have a plumbing inspector on staff. What we did with the electrical inspections, I had the electrical inspectors do a small class with our housing inspectors, and now certain violations they write. In case of an emergency, I have those two gentlemen on hand that can go directly to the location if in an emergency. If not, they'll most likely respond the next day. And hopefully we're looking into doing the same thing with the plumbing inspector, having him doing some training with our housing inspectors, to make it much more easier to write those violations on the property maintenance code.
Thank you. Commissioner, on of your testimony, you talk about the encapsulation program and cleaning and sealing. What's the total budget for the encapsulation program? I couldn't, at least 1390 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET out of the testimony, I couldn't completely figure that out, although I guess I could do the multiplication.
Right now the budget in the department coming from the community development program, we have approximately $450,000 that we can spend from that and --
For encapsulation and other repairs. Encapsulation right now is the major item that we spend the money on.
Conceptually the program, that idea is great. My concern is -- and excluding the imminently dangerous or even the dangerous designation, because we don't get much choice on those buildings. And certainly if a building is ID, it needs to come down. My concern about this particular item is actually while we may not be able to fund it at the level that we would like, my question, I guess, is, within our means are we really doing enough? There obviously were more than 37 buildings during the course of this fiscal year that needed to be done or 1391 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET your anticipated 75 or even next year 100. I mean, do we have any estimate on -- I know we know how many vacant buildings there are. I know we know how many lots there are. Do we have any estimate, ballpark figures, on how many potential encapsulation buildings there are and what that cost would be? MR. McLAUGHLIN: We're developing that number right now. We're using the vacant survey information to -- we have that information in a database. We now have people programming the computer that will tell us, for example, which block only has one vacant house in it. That block deserves an inspector to go take a look at it to see if there's a property there that qualifies for encapsulation. We've gone so far to try to generate information with the encapsulation program to address the board of realtors and to try to get them to -- when they have a salesman who can't move a house on a block, an otherwise strong block because of a blighted property on that block, that they should be eyes and ears of L&I and report that property to us. 1392 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET So, I mean, it is about getting the word out and having people tell us where that situation -- we have something that -- we're working with the CDCs, and some of the better CDC -- the more active CDC people are feeding us information all the time for encapsulation.
Talk to me about fences. What are we doing with fences? Are we doing any fences? MR. McLAUGHLIN: I'm sorry?
Fences. Silver, chain link. MR. McLAUGHLIN: I understand.
Upon request. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Upon request. We're responding upon request.
I'm glad you told the commissioner that one. I greatly appreciate that.
Right. So the current policy is, this is in accordance with the legislation, that if you have a 1393 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET demolition or if you know you're going to have a demolition, requests can and should be made either to yourself or to Bob that with this demolition when they're finished, when they're done the stucco, when they've water-proofed, water-sealed adjoining properties and the like, we'd like a fence front and back, and you're saying that we are adhering to that and that those fences will come along shortly after all the other work is done? MR. McLAUGHLIN: I'm saying I think the ordinance puts us in the position of evaluating whether it's a fence that belongs there or something else to control the situation. So we'll abide by the ordinance, and any requests that have come in, we've done that.
Okay. I want to talk about 41 and 42 North Hobart Street.
They are gone. No 22 more house. Code violation notice section on , at the bottom of that section -- some of these things I don't like to talk about in public, but the 1394 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET quality of life problems, trash and debris and other unsanitary conditions, who do you recall about this and who actually goes out and gives the violation notice?
Councilman, we just trained all our housing inspectors on the use of CVNs. When Council passed the ordinance a few years ago in reference to code violation notices being allowed to be used on any violations of the city code, we started out with business compliance and C&I and expanded that to property maintenance. They've just been re-trained, and they started to basically write, for the most part, violations in the last month. And it's basically to call it in to call L&I. And if a violation is to a point where we could use a CVN, it seems like we're getting much quicker compliance when we hand someone a ticket for $25 instead of them getting a piece of paper in the mail and waiting 30 days.
Madam Chair, I have three last questions and then I will go away, if you'd rather do it that way.
Thank you. On the same page, the revised permit fees section, I understand that you're proposing that the fees will drop, and it's a wonderful day in the government if we can drop a fee. What I didn't understand in the testimony was, it says, "These permit fee cost reductions are achieved by changing fee structure the method of calculating fees from using estimated costs to utilizing the square footage of the work which is being performed." What I didn't understand in that -- and there may be a word missing, but also how does the new fee structure take into consideration the square footage versus it just appears that the fees are dropping? What's the connection between the two?
Councilman, David Perri, deputy commissioner. We restructured the fee schedules. The bottom line on the restructured fees is that they are revenue neutral. What we found was permit fees for an alteration project were 1396 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET approximately four times higher than a permit fee to build the building brand new. The reason being is, the new construction fees were based on a flat fee program that hadn't changed in about eight years, but the alteration fees each year with inflation, those fees were going higher and higher. So finally they got so far out of whack that we redid our entire fee schedule. We also wanted to simplify it and also level the playing field at the same time. So we got away from our previous practice, which was to ask for contractors to submit to us estimated costs of what the construction project is, and based the fees on the contractor's estimate. We now look at it based upon what the square footage of the altered area is and we are able to come up with a fair permit fee that way. It's a permit fee that would be consistent amongst contractors and there's less need for us to have to go and audit permit fees. It also simplifies the process, in that they don't need to submit the form for the estimated cost. They don't need to submit to us a contract, and we don't need people reviewing all these extraneous documents. So, yes, we're able to reduce the fees 1397 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET on the alterations side, but truth be known, the fees on the new construction side did go up to compensate.
All right. My last issue is in the area of illegal conversions. This is in the residential housing area where people are illegally converting their houses into, in many instances, either just rental housing above the code limitation of more than three unrelated adults or in the student housing realm. Now, first, again, Commissioner, we have received great support from both Dominic as well as Otis and other people in L&I. The managing director's office has been working with us and we've, I think, made some progress. At the same time, I do need to get some sense of an update. The North Light leadership team in the Manayunk area kind of working on Roxborough/Manayunk issues, as well as a number of civic groups in the Wynnefield and Overbrook area have been inundated with illegal conversion problems, whether student related or non-student related, and with that, some behavioral issues that are causing some pretty serious conflicts in the community. 1398 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET Can you let us know or let me know what's going on with that? It's not just a fourth district problem. These issues go on all over the city, and I guess I just need some reassurance that we're going to push this to a conclusion.
Councilman, I have to apologize to you. I do owe you a list of updates on the North Light Community Center. It's been extensive.
I didn't forget, and we have people working on it for you. But, again, as we discussed at our meetings, in some cases, like North Light Community Center, you have a group of people that are well-versed in what's going on in their neighborhood and things of that nature. What's tough for us in some cases is that we're not getting information quick enough from other areas sometimes. Some people see just kids moving into a building. It doesn't mean anything to them. But in some cases it's an indication of what is happening to the neighborhood. We have spoken to a couple other groups recently. And I'm not sure what their names are. 1399 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET I've spoken to them on the phone the other day. But we've been keeping in close contact. I did contact -- in reference to what we discussed, I had contacted the police district in surrounding North Light, and to give that a for instance, we're going to now get copies of any nuisance complaints against those properties sent directly to my office. We're going to compile a list of these nuisance properties and send out letters to the owners to make them be aware of the fact that there are these types of activities, parties, trash, debris. And, again, the use of the ticket, we don't -- we're going to give a ticket to not only the tenant of that location, which he'll probably throw it away since he's a student, we're going to send one to the owner on a daily basis for every day the trash is out there. So I think with stepping up those type of enforcement efforts and once that view gets around to these owners that they just can't do this and it's going to cost them out-of-pocket money, we should get some further results.
Okay. Commissioner, let -- MR. McLAUGHLIN: I think the advice also 1400 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET is to make sure that people have a sense that they're creating the record of the nuisance, and the way to do that is to call L&I, log in complaints at L&I, call the police, log in complaints with the police. That way we capture all that information and are able to establish that in fact this is a nuisance in the neighborhood.
Okay. Commissioner, I need you to provide me with a response later in a full report on what was found with regard to the incident that we had shortly before Christmas in the use and transportation of dynamite up in a portion of my district where a development was proposed, both what, if any, investigation has taken place or will take place, as well as what the findings were, any suggestions for legislative changes so that we can better monitor how those kinds of explosives are not only used but also transported in Philadelphia, notice requirements and an array of operational procedures that are automatically put in place, which naturally involve not only the department but the police department, fire department and other necessary agencies, as well as a public notice process. And I'd like to work with you on that, but 1401 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET I do need to follow up on that on behalf of my constituents. MR. McLAUGHLIN: We have been working on that, and we will give you a report.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Miller.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Commissioner. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Good afternoon, Councilwoman.
And all your deputies and all your staff from L&I. I too want to thank you for being very responsive in helping to resolve many of the issues that impacts our constituents in the eighth councilmanic district. I have a couple of questions and some of them are -- some of my colleagues have identified some of the issues, but I have a couple follow-up 1402 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET questions. And I just want to start with, do you have the list of addresses that goes along with the survey of all the abandoned properties and lots for each council district? Do you have the addresses that goes along with that? We have the census track information, but there's some groups that are calling me wanting to take tours and they want to know if I can give them addresses of what's vacant, and certainly I cannot. MR. McLAUGHLIN: We are working on that. We will get that to you.
Do you know how long it's going to be? A month, two months, whatever?
Councilwoman, the managing director's office is -- my name is Bob Solvibile, first deputy commissioner, Licenses and Inspections. The managing director's office and us are working on a presentation to Council, along with the addresses by wards and maps and locations. So right now we could give you a list city-wide not broken down by councilmanic district, but not -- we couldn't give you a list broken down by district, 1403 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET but we could produce a list by city, by the city.
No. I think I'll wait. It's probably too cumbersome to try to get through and go through all the different addresses and put them in the council district. MR. McLAUGHLIN: We'll look into that and get back to you with an answer.
What do you mean by you and the managing director are going to present at the City Council? You mean we're going to have a hearing and you're going to come or you're going to come and give it to each Council person? Bob?
-- the administration comes. That is going to part of the presentation, mapping of where the vacants are.
And do you have a list of the imminently dangerous properties that you're proposing to demolish? When we get this list that you're referring to, will the list also contain information as to the imminently dangerous properties that are scheduled for demolition?
That was going to be my next question. And I guess those properties, most of those, were identified by the helicopter?
A lot of them were, Councilwoman. We worked in the Sussex tracks, the 100 Sussex tracks, with the most dangerous buildings in it were all surveyed by helicopter, along with our building inspectors on ground. And by using the helicopter provided through the managing director's office and obviously the police department, we were able to pick up an additional 800 buildings that we could not determine from ground level that were imminently dangerous. So it was a pretty successful program for us. But to answer your question -- I believe Council President Verna asked it. We will be able 1405 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET to identify, along with the vacants, next to a vacant address we will tell you if it's imminently dangerous or dangerous within your councilmanic districts, yes.
Okay. Moving on down, of your testimony about the encapsulation program. Just to follow up on Councilman Nutter's question, it's just amazing to me that out of 26,000 vacant properties only at this time 100 will kind of fall in the category of being described as one that needs to be or can be encapsulated. I'm sure there are hundreds more. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Well, again, the whole concept of encapsulation is not to spend money in areas that would get treated in some other way, but to find properties on a block that is otherwise a strong block. I sent an encapsulation job down to a street in South Philadelphia where the person who had called me called me back and told me that if getting elected mayor meant getting all the votes on that street, then I'd be mayor today. So it's that type of urgency that exists with an otherwise viable block when you got one or two houses that are tearing that block down. 1406 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET So, happily, where we have stronger blocks in Philadelphia, we don't have that problem. They're usually taken on by investors or owners who are willing to spend the money, but in those cases where that doesn't happen, we should be called, and that's something that we really invite Council people to help us in that, because it is something that is relegated to knowledge within the individual neighborhoods. So it's harder for us to see that kind of stuff.
Councilwoman, I'm sorry, can I just follow up on that, please?
Because I don't think that this is very clear in my mind. Once you encapsulate this building, would you put it up for sheriff's sale? What will the procedure be? I'm sure liens will be put against the property. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Yes.
Will it be put up for sheriff's sale at that time if it's 1407 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET delinquent or would you put it up for sheriff's sale prior to? How is this being done?
Every property, Council President, that we encapsulate, we forward the address to Office of Housing and Community Development for them to put into their programs in working with CDCs to start the process of having it acquired and eventually rehabilitated. The encapsulation hopes to buy several years, so the property does not further deteriorate and become dangerous for the various programs that would make it get rehabilitated work or take place.
Now, say you have encapsulated the property. It's tax delinquent. Give me the process of what you're going to be following from then on.
We would further put an 1408 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET additional lien for the encapsulation and the Office of Housing and Community Development would follow through on having various agencies acquire it or work with community development corporations to acquire it and get it into the rehab system. The encapsulation is meant to stop deterioration.
Somebody has to own the property before we can give it to anyone. Who will own the property? Is it going to be put up for sheriff's sale and the city will then acquire the property and then it will be given to the community development? MR. McLAUGHLIN: I think the issue for us is, you're outside of L&I and we don't have a good answer for you in that regard. We can find out.
Well, with the 100 properties that you intend to do or the amount that you have done in FY01, give me the process of what you followed heretofore. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Our process is what we've said. It's we do the mechanical stuff. We fix the building up and we make sure the lien gets put on it. We notify the agency that should get the 1409 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET next notification on that. Beyond that, all -- my involvement in this has been John Kromer or somebody else calling me and saying, We're trying to sell this property, will you authorize waiving this amount of money or that amount of money. We usually don't like to waive the demolition money, because that money goes back into the pot for us to use -- not demolition. The encapsulation money, because when we get that money back, it goes back into the pot to use again, and that's a best case scenario. If that happens, it makes a whole lot of sense to do this.
I'm sorry, Councilwoman Miller. I just wanted to try to get something clear in my own mind.
That's fine. MR. McLAUGHLIN: We'll get that answer for you.
So we can just give you a call and say, We're recommending for encapsulation. Where are the 37 buildings that you have encapsulated to date this year? 1410 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET MR. McLAUGHLIN: City-wide.
City-wide, okay. And most of those were initiated through CDCs or just individuals or your people in the street doing surveys? MR. McLAUGHLIN: That's absolutely right.
Some were initiated by the commissioner himself taking community tours, you know, going out, or any deputy here or any employee. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Or the mayor.
We have let our employees know that we want them to tell us, especially our inspectional force, where we have buildings, one vacant on a block, let us know if they think it's good for encapsulation, be proactive on it.
Moving on to of your testimony, I guess I have not so much -- well, I do have a small question, but just more of a statement around the pier safety project. Deanne White that was one of the young women that was killed in Pier 34 happened to be the sister of a very dear friend of mine, and I saw that 1411 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET family suffered the pain and whatnot that we all go through when we lose someone that we really love, and I'm glad to see that the department is doing or making the owners of the piers do an engineering report about structural integrity. Once those come in, they're actually saying whether the pier is sound and doesn't propose a danger or a threat to injury or loss of life? Because I had lots of friends on that pier that day, as a matter of fact, lots of friends. In fact, a couple of my committee people -- I'm a board leader -- a couple of them were also attending the birthday party for Deanne White, and so this is something that I'm really kind of concerned about. MR. McLAUGHLIN: The engineering report does address the structural integrity of the pier and it schedules any maintenance work into the future that would be necessary to maintain that level of safety.
I'm just really concerned that no other Philadelphians would lose their life or have serious injury as it relates to whatever happened there at Pier 34, because it just appeared to me that the owners were just real shoddy 1412 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET people, because they were just trying to cover up things that were wrong there, and too many lives were impacted by this whole tragedy. So I'd be interested in knowing when the other piers -- and 6 if they don't respond, what are you going to do, 7 shut them down, if they don't respond at all by June 8 1st? 9 MR. McLAUGHLIN: We're going to be 10 taking them to municipal court. We've had a couple 11 of them already go to court, and the judge orders 12 them to protect their piers against public access. 13
Which means? 14 MR. McLAUGHLIN: We issue a certificate 15 of restricted use. That means you've posted it both 16 from land and water and marked it against trespass 17 so that the police then can arrest for violation of 18 that trespass notification. 19
Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. To follow up on a question on as it relates to code violation notices, I get a little bit confused here, because Streets Department also has operation sweep that will come out in neighborhoods and give people tickets for trash and 1413 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET for putting out debris and all that kind of stuff. And so you're saying you do the same thing, L&I does the same thing, or do you kind of combine it? What happens?
In most cases, Councilwoman, our violations are written within the property line. We can write certain violations on the sidewalk if it extends into the sidewalk. We work within the property line and most of the times rear yards and front porches, front yards, things of that nature.
So then if people aren't cutting their weeds and their grass is growing too high, you take care of that; Streets Department does sidewalk trash and all the other stuff?
Because one of the problems I know in my district -- and I think it's what Councilman Nutter didn't want to say -- it relates to the animal feces. People constantly get cited for that, but they just ignore it. They just tend to ignore it. And we constantly get constituents that call us back, and L&I goes out there and you issue a citation, and people just kind 1414 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET of ignore them. So I would like to see more aggressive or forceful enforcement. I mean, maybe the next step would be MC court.
Councilwoman, the tickets that we're issuing, if there's a problem and our inspectors are aware of a major problem in respect to which you just mentioned, this ticket allows -- that CVN allows us to write one ticket every 10 hours for a $25 fee. So by the end of the week, at 11 $125 dollars, if you don't want to clean your yard, 12 then we might want to be taking you into court. 13 MR. McLAUGHLIN: These are the same 14 people that handle your parking tickets. So it's 15 not like municipal court, a lengthy process. It is 16 the same outfit that handles the parking tickets. 17
Down at 9th and 18 Filbert? 19 MR. McLAUGHLIN: Right. So the 20 complaints you got about L&I where L&I would go out 21 and issue a 30-day notice or a ten-day clean-up 22 order or some other paper-oriented thing where 23 people said, This is just another city notice and 24 threw it away, now they're getting a ticket. So we should start -- we've only been 1415 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET doing this a year, a little less than a year really. We're getting up speed in doing it. The whole objective is just that area where people have not been complying with the code. We're trying to make people comply to the code.
Well, that's really good. On as it relates to code enforcement for -- people that own these multi-family dwellings -- and you know that I guess for the last four years that I have problems in my district with many troubled buildings and landlords that appear to just think that they can just skate by and do the bare minimum to stay out of court. And, finally, we do have one in equity court and it's a situation where we can probably end up in equity court five more times with the other five buildings that these people own. So I guess in this area, I want to set up a meeting so we can figure out what we can do. How many people work for L&I, how many employees are there? You have hundreds of employees, I imagine. MR. McLAUGHLIN: 445.
Right. Well, I 1416 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET have eight staff people. I cannot afford to have one of my staff people just dedicate so much time to these troubled buildings. I'm personally very tired of them. We spend a lot of time dealing with these shoddy landlords. We will fight them. I mean, if we have to dedicate the time, we will. In fact, I've recruited some other people to help my staff kind of stay on top of these landlords, because this takes a lot of time. One person can spend all day out at one of these apartment complexes that doesn't have any heat or the plumbing is bad or the ceilings are falling in. And when you have one landlord that owns six troubled buildings in your district, it's a lot of work. So I need to figure out a more aggressive way to deal with these people. We have been satisfied pretty much with what's happening in equity court, but we turn around and we can continue to go to equity court five more times for all of those other five buildings. And I just want to make a statement today for the record that this is very time consuming. We will fight them as long as we have to fight them, but I guess we need some direction from your department, from the law department, and we're going to get community 1417 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET legal service involved to see what we can do. I mean, we went through two years of long hard work to deal with the Manheim Gardens, which is now Cricket Court Commons, which you all know, you guys know, it took two years' worth of work. And, quite frankly, I'm just a little tired of it. And these are important issues that really impacts the quality of life. We're not talking about apartment buildings that are in blight-ridden neighborhoods. Some of these apartment buildings in my district -- I mean, we have one building that we're dealing with now in equity court, it's two blocks from Lincoln Drive, two blocks off of Lincoln Drive. And you know and I know that that's a very fair market rent neighborhood. So these owners, it's my understanding, live in New York, have lots of money and they just do a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but that's not good enough. We just need to do something to be more aggressive, and I'd want to find out what happened with that state law as it relates to putting these type of buildings into receivership. I don't think it was passed in the Senate last year, but that's something that I'd like 1418 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET us to really seriously look into. Okay? Thank you. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Yes, Councilwoman.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Goode.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, Commissioner. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Good afternoon, Councilman.
Last week I spoke with the managing director briefly about the issue of streamlining business regulations. I told him that my office had intended on doing a policy report related to that and offer our involvement, which we will forward formally through the President's office, but I wanted to ask a little bit about that process. In addition to the managing director's office, the commerce department, the city 1419 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET solicitor's office and whatever involvement City Council will have, what involvement is expected from the private sector in terms of chambers of commerce or small business development centers who often deal with business start-ups and know what they would face in terms of regulatory burdens? MR. McLAUGHLIN: I know that we're very open to participation with those groups. I mean, we currently meet with various business groups to hear their concerns, to better understand how we can relate and make our practices better for them. An example that I might give you is that instead of us just creating regulations out of our heads in regard to these piers that we have just been talking about, we called a representative group of small pier owners and large pier owners together. We're working on regulations that we would implement for the future on how people would care for their piers and what L&I's relationship to them would be. And for that particular draft copy of those regulations, those folks were all in agreement that that would be a business-friendly thing for them.
In this particular case, I mean, is there already anticipated 1420 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET involvement from the Greater Philadelphia chamber of commerce, the African-American chamber of commerce, the warden small business development center, LaSalle small business, all those groups that in the end deal with business start-ups, deal with really defining whether this is a business-friendly city or not? I mean, is there really anticipation of their direct involvement in this process. MR. McLAUGHLIN: Absolutely.
How so? MR. McLAUGHLIN: I mean, we do things now for people, bring them in ahead of time, set them down at a table. If doing your business is a simple matter of just getting a couple of licenses and setting up in a property that's already there, that's pretty simple, and that's the kind of help that we can get through our permit directories and the printing that we've done in the past and are actually working on right now to make that process more easy to comply with. Also, we spoke earlier about the Internet. You can find a lot of the information on what you have to do to start a business on the Internet. So we're reaching out now. And if 1421 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET there's a suggestion that you could form something that we could buy into and find out more that we could do --
I guess I'm not being fully clear. The conversation I had with the managing director last week talked about beyond just the automation of licenses and permits. Actually when we would get down to the business, actually taking regulations off of the books. The fact that businesses feel overburdened, not so much by particular regulations but by the whole wealth of regulations that exist and what business groups you're going to work with to make sure that at the end of this process, at the end of supposedly streamlining business regulations, that we are in fact considered a business-friendly city.
Councilman, I'd just like to add something. I've been working on this for a number of years. We've looked over the years at what regulations and laws we have. From a revenue standpoint, licenses generate the bulk of the 23 city's fee revenues. We would very much like to see 24 a streamlining of all the various licenses so that, 25 for instance, as the Commissioner mentioned to you 1422 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET before, if we have a restaurant, one restaurant license covers seven or eight different required activities, and the idea would be that if there's information we need from a restaurant for different things they're doing, put that all on the form, but only have them get one license. Information is one thing. Having all these different myriad of licenses people have is another, because then we constantly are rebilling people for different licenses at different times. Most of the amounts are relatively small, but it's bothersome to the business. It's cumbersome to have to get all these different things. So we're very much in tune with that. One of the things that we have to keep in mind is that we're dealing -- L&I enforces the general code of ordinances. They're your ordinances. We want to work with City Council to try to streamline those ordinances down to a minimum number of licenses, and we're going to be coming to Council and looking to the help of City Council, yourself particularly since you're very interested in this, to see what we can do to make it very easy for people to come into Philadelphia and do business 1423 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET here.
I appreciate that. I look forward to working with you. I guess my last question is, we were looking forward to producing a policy report and then initiating this as part of the legislative agenda. It's my understanding from the mayor's speech at the chamber luncheon that he's looking for a report I think by the fall for a fall legislative agenda. I guess my last question is, is this going to be an ongoing process beyond whatever we discover can be taken off of the books and can be simplified between a time? Is this going to be a process that goes beyond this year legislatively from your angle in terms of what you're looking to do?
I can say that we're prepared to go. We have eliminated a number of licenses over the years. I guess right now in the last session of Council, we eliminated, I believe, something like 16 different licenses. We're prepared to eliminate more. You have to recognize, many of the licenses -- we issue 200 different licenses and permits. Some of those we issue maybe one or two 1424 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET licenses per year. I mean, we really have to question whether or not there's any impact or any good really being served by those licenses. And we're perfectly willing and want to get this thing moving as quickly as possible. I'm in the drop program, courtesy of City Council. I'll be leaving here in a few years. I would love nothing more than to see the city issuing licenses a year when I leave. 11
Thank you. I look 12 forward to working with you. 13 Thank you, Madam President. 14
Thank you. 15 Are there any other questions? 16 (No response.) 17
Gentlemen, 18 thank you very much. 19 MR. McLAUGHLIN: Thank you. 20
The Board of 21 L&I Review. 22 Mr. Felgus, are you going to testify on 23 this? 24
Yes. Counsel President 25 Verna, members of Council, I am Richard Felgus. I'm 1425 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET here to testify on behalf of the Board of Licenses and Inspection Review. We are requesting a budget for the board of $207,877, an increase of $168 over FY01 estimated obligations. This budget will support three employees of the board, along with six board members. During the past year, the board rendered decisions in 857 cases. This board does have a very important role in city government, particularly now with gun permits. So that it is a -- they do perform a very significant function for the City of Philadelphia. I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone may have at this time.
Thank you. Are there any questions from members of committee? (No response.)
Thank you, Mr. Felgus. The Board of Building Standards.
Again, Council President Verna, members of Council, I am Richard Felgus testifying on behalf of the Board of Building Standards. I'm here to request an FY02 budget of 1426 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET $117,236, an increase of $111 over the FY01 appropriation. This funding will support two full-time employees and four board members. The Board of Building Standards considers variances from requirements of the Philadelphia Building Code and approves new materials and things of that nature. During the past year, we had 180 cases presented to the board. And, again, we feel this board performs a very useful purpose to the City of Philadelphia.
Thank you. Any questions from members of the committee? (No response.)
Mr. Felgus, can we now address the Zoning Board of Adjustment?
Yes. Council President Verna, members of Council, I am Richard Felgus here on behalf of the Zoning Board of Adjustment. We are requesting a budget for this board of $517,670, an increase of $408 over the FY01 estimated obligations. The budget for the board will support a full-time staff of six employees and five board 1427 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET members. The Zoning Board of Adjustment is probably the most active of all city boards. It conducts 250 meetings per year. Approximately 1,980 cases will be heard in FY02. The board has a tremendous impact on the City of Philadelphia, its economic well-being, and we believe the board does an outstanding job, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.
Thank you. Any questions from members of the committee? (No response.)
Thank you. In fact, I heard you say that you're under the drop program. How many years have you been with the city?
Thank you. The stenographer has to put new tape in her machine, but the Water Department is next, so I 1428 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET would suggest they do come up to the witness table. Good afternoon. Mr. Roy, we have a copy of your testimony. It will be given to the stenographer and it will be transcribed in full. We would request that you summarize your testimony.
Good afternoon, Council President Verna and members of City Council. I am Richard Roy, acting commissioner for the Water Department. I am here to give testimony for the Water Department's operating budget for FY02. Joining me here at the table today are Sue Lior, deputy commissioner for information science and technology; Michael Hogan, deputy commissioner for operations; and Bernie Brumwasser, deputy commissioner for finance. million for all the water fund activities, including Water Revenue Bureau, debt service payments and central agency support. percent. This budget request for the first time since 1992 will require a rate adjustment. In the years past, the department has shared many of our successes in cost containments and revenue enhancements with you. These efforts have saved the Water Department and its rate payers many millions of dollars in operating costs. Virtually all of these savings have been maintained in the proposed FY02 budget. 1 percent increase in chemical costs. 4 percent. During this same period, the customer base has shrunk from approximately 503,000 accounts in 1992 to approximately 476,000 accounts today. In addition, state and federal drinking water in pollution prevention regulatory programs are requiring more sophisticated water treatment and greater collection of storm water and treatment of 1430 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET that storm water. 23 per month per year for the typical residential customer and even less for senior citizen households. These rates will keep us well below the rates in the surrounding area and below many of the major cities throughout the country. We continue to operate our wastewater treatment facilities in award-winning fashion. This is important to the continued economic development of the riverfronts, and we have been able to achieve greater flows throughout the wastewater facilities during storm events without interfering with treatment goals. This, along with utilizing our in-place sewer infrastructure, will allow us to attain requirement of our long-term storm water control plan without spending the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars that other cities have had to spend. Over the past three years, we have been able to attain research data from our water treatment pilot plants that have allowed us to move 1431 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET forward with capital improvements and process modifications to the water treatment plants. With these improvements and modifications, we will meet the requirements of the federal interim enhanced surface water treatment rule. The cost of these improvements are millions of dollars less than we had anticipated when the rule was first announced. Additional research at the pilot plans will allow us to contain costs as the requirements become more stringent in future years. Over the past several years we have seen many service improvements. This will continue as we increase our technological ability. We have completed a strategic plan for the department's GIS, or geographical information system. Our base system is in place and we're beginning to develop applications to provide productivity increases throughout the department. The computerized maintenance management system that was introduced at our southwest water pollution control plant has been expanded to all seven treatment plants, our pumping division and our building maintenance unit. We will be working with the same 1432 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET software company to develop a street-side system that will allow us to capture and utilize much of our current stand-alone databases. This will give us a much more powerful tool to schedule maintenance, react to customer complaints and service calls and maintain valuable information. We are presently utilizing a computer modeling technique for the evaluation of our sewer system that will allow us to make better decisions on capital improvements.
We have been able to use these techniques in managing our storm water program leading to lower cost solutions to capture and treatment problems. In the near future, we will be looking to model the distribution system as well. Once in place, we will be able to manage adequate flows throughout the city while downsizing our piping infrastructure. Please be assured that I have no great pleasure announcing today that a rate adjustment is pending. For the last five years, I have been able to sit here with my predecessor, Mr. Kishinchand, and feel good about being able to say, Again, we will not need a rate increase this year. My staff 1433 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET believes that the modest increases that are sought are necessary to maintain the fiscal viability of the Water Department. At this time, we will be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Thank you, Mr. Roy. What are the water rate assumptions contained in both the FY02 budget and the five-year plan?
Before we begin, may I just say that in the adjustment rate process, the responsibility for adjusting rates fall onto my shoulders. There is a process that goes forward with this, and to keep myself out of the ongoing process, my staff -- we're divided into two parts. One is recommending the rate adjustments, and then the one side has to make this final --
--rate. The process begins with a letter to you announcing that we have to go forward with this. Then a hearing examiner is selected by the Council President, mayor and the city control room. Once that's in place, then there will be a series of hearings, public hearings, and 1434 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET testimony given that supports and/or questions the need for a rate increase. And then once that's in place, those recommendations then come forward to me and it becomes my responsibility to make those final rate decisions. To keep myself from becoming prejudiced during that hearing process, I would defer those questions to my deputy for finance.
Good afternoon, Madam President. I guess the question is -- my name is Bernard Brunwasser. I'm the deputy water commissioner for finance and administration. I believe the question was what are the department's assumptions for rates for the next --
-- FY02 and the five-year plan. There is a table in the five-year plan where we have something called a projected revenue and requirements table or Table 11. That table indicates that we believe that revenues must increase by 6 percent in the coming fiscal year, 02, 1435 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET and increase by approximately 7 percent for the remainder of the plan. Those higher revenue levels, however, are not indicative of what a residential customer will be paying. What we believe a typical residential customer will be paying is approximately $1.23 more per month or about a 3.1 percent average increase over each of the next three years. A typical senior citizen would be paying an average increase of about 1.9 percent per year, and those seniors, with a percent discount, their average 13 increase of 1.9 percent per year is indicative of 46 14 cents a month increase. 15
What is the 16 average bill that this is based on? 17
For a typical 18 residential customer, $38.47 a month. 19
Okay. When do 20 you project the new rates will become effective? 21
It's the department's 22 intent to make these new rates effective on July 1st 23 or shortly thereafter. The hearing process itself 24 is expected to take four to five months. 25
What are the 1436 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET projected revenues to be generated by the proposed increases?
We project to -- the three proposed rate increases are projected to raise $134.8 million in revenue over the three-year period.
The projected rate increases are meant to raise $134.8 million over the next three-year period.
Thank you. At this time, the Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Thank you. Commissioner, I won't go back over the areas that we already covered last week, because I assume those questions that were asked will be responded to the Chair.
So we won't go back there. Just out of curiosity, were you planning to reveal that there's going to be a rate adjustment 1437 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET today? Did you plan that two weeks ago or did you just decide to reveal that because of the conversation we had last week? Did you plan to do that today?
It was revealed in the five-year plan. It was revealed when we submitted our budget. I certainly would have hoped to have had word out before today, but it certainly has to come out today.
I'd like to talk a bit about a question that we had discussed maybe two, three -- maybe two years ago about the fact that we sell water to some of our suburban communities, and I believe one of those communities buys water. I wish our citizens could buy the water as cheaply as those companies do. And at that time, it was stated that, I think I can recollect, that we should look at that to see if that rate that we charge these suburban companies, maybe we ought to adjust the price upward. I understand Bucks County buys water from Philadelphia. What do they pay? Because there was some concern that maybe they're getting too good a deal. 1438 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
Councilman, we do sell water wholesale to Bucks County and the price is about 45 cents a thousand gallons.
What does a commercial customer pay for a thousand gallons of water?
Well, it would be probably a bit higher than that. Some of our large commercials, their rates probably are in the area of 80 to 90 cents per thousand gallons, off the top of my head. Now, one of the things you have to remember is that the way we charge, they distribute the water. A large component of our cost is the distribution through 3,300 miles of water main and pumping stations, et cetera, that we have to have in place in order to provide the water. The water itself is not all that expensive for us, but I should point out that the 45 cents per thousand gallons to Bucks County has up until now recovered all of our costs, plus a 10 percent management fee. 1439 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
You would think these contractual deals wouldn't be tied to a rate increase. What's the relevance of a rate increase when you're talking about a commercial deal like a contractual deal like this?
What happens is that we determine rates when we decide that we are not recovering adequately, and we have commissioned a rate study which indicates now that rates are going to have to go up beginning this July, and it will certainly go up for Bucks County water. And we will -- we can raise rates to them under the contract with 90 days' notice.
So you feel as though we'll be recovering more than 45 cents per thousand?
We have recently, this past June, signed a second wholesale water agreement 1440 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET with DELCORA -- excuse me; not DELCORA. With Philadelphia Suburban Water. And we're going to be supplying them with up to six and a half million gallons per day when their pipeline is complete. They're supplying water to a power plant that's being constructed in Eddystone, Pennsylvania.
Wait until the suburbanites that fleed Philadelphia find out when they turn on their water in Chester County and Montgomery County that they're drinking Philadelphia water. That should really please them.
The reason for this discussion is the fact that I've been led to believe that this is one deal that may be too good a deal, so I'm hoping that we revisit the fact that -- I've gotten a couple of letters from people that are in this business and know a little bit about this pricing and they said you're basically giving it away. 1441 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
The contract that we've negotiated with Philadelphia Suburban is quite a bit higher than the contract with Bucks. Bucks' contract goes back to 1966, I believe.
And I would continue to add that we do have excess capacity in our three water treatment plants, and it is our intention to continue to seek ways of selling that water wholesale outside the city. We have discussed this with the mayor, and I think we're going to try to push this effort a lot more. I mean, New Castle County in Delaware certainly has water problems. In New Jersey they certainly have water problems with their wells, and we have the capacity to supply them, so we will pursue these so that we can help contain the rates for our customers here in the city.
Thank you. Are there any questions from members of the committee? (No response.) 1442 2/20/01 OPERATING BUDGET
The Committee of the Whole will be in recess until tomorrow, Wednesday, February 21st at 9:00 a.m. Thank you very much. (Hearing adjourned 5:05 p.m.) - - - 1443 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 Tuesday, February 20, 2001, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON FY02 OPERATING BUDGET _____________________________ CARMEN J. BUCCA Professional Reporter and Commissioner of Deeds ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public