COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, April 10, 2024 10:09 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILMEMBER NINA AHMAD COUNCILMEMBER CINDY BASS COUNCILMEMBER MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILMEMBER JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILMEMBER JIM HARRITY COUNCILMEMBER RUE LANDAU COUNCILMEMBER QUETCY LOZADA COUNCILMEMBER BRIAN J. O'NEILL COUNCILMEMBER NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMEMBER ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMEMBER MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMEMBER ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMEMBER JEFFERY YOUNG, JR. BILLS 240179, 240180, 240181, and 240182 RESOLUTION 240193 - - - 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
This is the public hearing and public meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bills No. 240179, 240180, 240181, 240182, and Resolution No. 10 240193. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the roll to take attendance.
Councilmember Young. (No response.) 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Present. Thank you. A quorum of the Committee is present and this hearing is now called to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the title of the resolutions.
Bill No. 240179, an 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. ordinance to adopt the Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Bill No. 240180, an ordinance 5 amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "School Tax Authorization," to provide for an increase in the tax that the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia is authorized to impose on real estate; and amending Chapter 12 19-1300, entitled "Real Estate Taxes," to establish an equivalent reduction in the tax rate for the City real estate tax; and making technical changes, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 240181, an ordinance 18 to adopt a Fiscal Year 2025 Capital Budget. Bill No. 240182, an ordinance 21 to adopt a Capital Program for the six Fiscal Years 2025 to 2030 inclusive. Resolution No. 240193, providing for the approval by the Council of the City of Philadelphia of a Revised 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Five Year Financial Plan for the City of Philadelphia covering Fiscal Years 2025 through 2029, and incorporating revisions with respect to Fiscal Year 2024, which is to be submitted by the Mayor to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority pursuant to an Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement by and between the City and the Authority.
Today we will continue the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole to consider the bills read by the Clerk that constitute proposed operating and capital spending measures for Fiscal Year 2025, a Capital Program, and a forward-looking Capital Plan for Fiscal Year 2025 through Fiscal Year 2030. This morning we will hear from the Streets Department, Fleet Services, and Public Property, and then also depending on our time, for this afternoon we will also hear from Office of Clean 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. and Green Initiatives, Philadelphia Energy Authority, Sustainability, and City Commissioners. I'm going to revise one or two, but what I'm going to ask for the Streets Department to come up with the Fleets Department as well as Public Property to start off their testimony together, and members are allowed to ask questions of all three of those departments at the same time, and then I'm going to put, as I mentioned, Clean and Green Initiatives and Philadelphia Energy Authority and Sustainability together as well. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the first witnesses to testify from the Administration.
Kristin Del Rossi, Streets Commissioner; Joseph Rosati, Commissioner for the Department of Fleet Services; and Bridget Collins-Greenwald for Public Property. (Witnesses approached witness table.) 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Welcome back, Bridget. Good morning, everyone. Before we get started, just want to thank you. Congratulations to Kristin Del Rossi, South Philadelphia. Also give a shout-out to Joe Brasky, Interim Commissioner of the Department of Public Property, South Philadelphia. In all seriousness, I do want to congratulate all of you for your new positions, but we're going to go ahead and get started. And so begin your testimony, and we will start with our line of questioning. Ladies first. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Good morning, President Johnson and members of City Council. I am Kristin Del Rossi, Streets Commissioner. Joining me today are Richard Montanez, Deputy Commissioner for Transportation, and Christopher Newman, Deputy Commissioner for Administration. I am pleased to provide 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. testimony on Streets Department Fiscal Year 2025 Operating Budget. As you know, this Administration has created a new Department of Sanitation working under the auspices of Office of Clean and Green Initiatives. We are excited for our colleagues and will continue to support their success. In the meantime, we are grateful for the opportunity to give our full attention to building and maintaining the world-class infrastructure that our residents deserve. 5 million as reflected in the budget ordinance for our department. This budget follows a considerable appropriations increase over the prior two fiscal years to expand infrastructure improvement staff and resources supporting a massive investment in newly federally supported 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. transportation infrastructure projects; transitioning the City's entire school crossing guard program to Streets; establishment of a new public safety -- public traffic safety enforcement program; the formation of new in-house ADA ramp construction crew; and additional support for managing and regulating new outdoor dining establishments. This year's FY25 budget allows the Department to continue building on these prior investments while working to achieve our Vision Zero goal to eliminate traffic fatalities and our mission to construct and maintain the safest transportation network possible for all multi-modal users in the City. It is important to point out that existence of a new transportation enterprise fund, which Council approved last year and is the focus of this budget's testimony, provides essential support ensuring we maintain dedicated 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. sources of funding to pursue our mission and goal. With this budget, the Department feels poised and excited to build on our progress moving forward and to embark on our new many varied and highly ambitious initiatives and plans. This concludes continuing to achieve our Vision Zero strategic objectives, operationalizing efforts to improve traffic safety while capitalizing on the Administration's recent substantial Capital Program investment of an additional 50 million for paving so that we can significantly increase roadway surfacing operations this upcoming fiscal year for safer and higher quality roadways. Similarly, our Philly Streetlight Improvement Project has greatly accelerated the City's LED efforts and convert the entire City street lighting system to higher visibility and more energy efficient and 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. effective LED lights. The Department is on track to manage over 560 million in transportation public work projects over the next several years for much-needed roadway, bridge, and traffic infrastructure construction and upgrades.
We have successfully transitioned the school crossing guard program to the Streets Department and will work actively to increase the impact and effectiveness of this program through a Safe Routes to School strategy framework, and we will build on traffic safety and right-of-way enforcement efforts by enhancing the new public safety enforcement program and operationalizing new technologies to curtail illegal and potentially dangerous right-of-way concerns. The Streets Department and its employees look forward to providing yet another year of exemplary service working to create and maintain a safe, effective 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. transportation network. Our budget request today allows us to continue to pursue our objectives in this regard. We, therefore, request your favorable consideration of this budget request, and we thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. The deputies, staff, and I are happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you. Next. COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Good morning, Council President Johnson and members of City Council. I am Joe Brasky, the newly named Interim Commissioner of Public Property. With me today is Bridget Collins-Greenwald, the former Commissioner of Public Property. I am very grateful to Mayor Parker for appointing me into this role last week. Because I am so new to the position, we thought it would be very helpful to you 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. and the former -- to have the former Commissioner up here as well so we can both answer any questions you may have. It is a pleasure to appear before City Council today in support of Public Property's FY25 budget request. As you have our written testimony, which highlights the many accomplishments and plans of the Department, I would only like to add one thing that is not in the written testimony about our team. It's nothing the veterans of the legislative body have not heard from former Commissioner Greenwald say before. The Department of Public Property has many outstanding employees that tend to fly under the radar, and I would like to acknowledge them publicly for their commitment to public service. I am very proud to work in a place where employees show such a genuine sense of care and commitment to their profession, with the absolute mindset to get things done by following our core mission of 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. responsibility serving the City's workforce and community by providing quality facilities and workspaces of which we are proud of. DPP staff are the unsung heroes of the City. Since the announcement last week, I received so much outreach and support from DPP telling me that they are here for me for whatever I need. It is nothing less than I expected from such a dedicated team, and it reinforced my confidence that we will accomplish great things together. Thank you for indulging me. We are happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you. Just state your name and title for the record and please begin your testimony. COMMISSIONER ROSATI: Good morning, Council President Johnson and distinguished members of City Council. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I'm Joseph Rosati, Commissioner for the Department of Fleet Services. Joining me today are Dr. K Wilson, Deputy Commissioner for Administration, and John DeLeo, Deputy Commissioner for Operations. Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony in support of FY25 Operating Budget request for the Department of Fleet Services. The Department of Fleet Services' FY25 General Fund budget request is $56.6 million, which is 41.4 million less than FY24 estimated obligations. FY25 Operating Budget request includes 21.1 million in Class 100, 6.4 million in Class 200, and 29.1 million in Class 300 and 400. DFS has completed 31 years of its high school internship program. Since the program's inception in 1993, DFS has enrolled 168 high school students, 112 of which have graduated. Seventy of these graduates have accepted permanent civil service positions with 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the City. In FY25, DFS plans to enroll 30 high school students into the internship program. Students enrolled in this paid internship receive $15 per hour. DFS encourages and focuses on hiring minority students, and historically 88 percent of the interns were hired from minority groups, which has reduced the racial disparity amongst our automotive technical staff. The Department of Fleet Services has 339 dedicated employees who work diligently to provide safe and reliable vehicles and equipment to the operating departments and work towards the Mayor's vision of a safer, cleaner, greener Philadelphia, with economic opportunity for all. Thank you for -- you have my detailed written testimony. I would be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.
4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Thank you. So I will start off our questioning. Department of Streets, I know that a core part of the budget request is going toward paving in the City of Philadelphia. So can you specify the actual amount that's going toward the paving and how many miles of street paving will be done? And the last part is how are we making sure that the contract and work that we're going to be doing with the repaving is diverse and inclusive in terms of minority participation goals? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: I'm going to have Deputy Commissioner Montanez to answer that question. (Witness approached witness table.) DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: Good morning, Council President --
Good morning. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. -- fellow Councilmembers. My name is Richard Montanez. I'm the Deputy Commissioner for Transportation. Our goal this year is to get 100 miles of paving. Our ultimate goals within the five years is to get 131 miles. The Streets Department is trying to ramp up its crews, so we currently have two crews for paving and we're trying to hire a third crew. Hopefully by FY25 will be the third paving crew. We're trying to do as much as we can inhouse, with minimal outside contracts.
And so I just want to clarify. So most of the work that we're doing is inhouse, we're not doing outside contracting, correct? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: The only thing we contract out is the milling, the manhole adjustments, and the ADA ramps. We are trying -- everything 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. paving-wise stays inhouse that we do from City capital funds.
Good. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: We do contract out federal jobs, which is federal funds that the City gets, and those are contracted out for federal paving.
And what's our plan to make sure that process as well as the milling and the ADA ramps is diverse and inclusive? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: So we do put a 30 percent minority participation on all our contracts. I believe, we can verify, but we've been exceeding that. I think we're somewhere running around 35 percent, and we do make sure that we do abide by the --
If you can get those numbers for the Chair for my members. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I'll get my staff to put those numbers together and send them to you.
Another question is -- and, again, a significant part of the budget is going towards paving, which I think is great, right? No one wants to have potholes in the City of Philadelphia, so I think that's awesome. But also I got service delivery, and there's a significant amount of unfulfilled positions. To be honest, a lot of the departments that have come before us, we've seen that there's a lot of vacancy, right, but there's also still a request for a significant portion of the budget to continue service delivery. So what's the strategy and the plan to ramp up the actual manpower to actually get the job done in terms of service delivery? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: Let me turn that over to Deputy Commissioner Newman. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. (Witness approached witness table.) DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: Good morning, Council President. My name is Chris Newman. I'm the Deputy Commissioner for Administration in the Streets Department. So primarily our strategy is to rely on our Future Track workforce development program. As you know, we've hired -- we actually hired 206 people this year in the Future Track program. Those individuals, once they go into occupational tracks, will go into entry-level full-time civil service positions, both in Sanitation Department as well as the Streets Department Transportation Divisions. There's going to be -- most of them will go into Sanitation, but a good number will go into Streets. And then we have a budget for another 200 next fiscal year. So for our lower skilled, semi-skilled positions, that is what 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. we're relying on. For our professional positions, we've worked with the Office of Human Resources to create an intern-to-hire program where we have engineers and planners come in and do internships. The internship is actually the civil service assessment for them to get on lists, and that's been largely successful as well.
Awesome. I'm a super fan of Future Track, so continue to keep going in that direction, whatever we can do to be supportive. For those who may or may not know, Future Track is a program that will give young people a pathway into the City irregardless of their background. So when we talk about addressing the issue of gun violence or public safety here in the City of Philadelphia, this is a prime opportunity for young people to get involved on a career pathway with self-sustaining wages and a career. So 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. definitely want to be supportive of those efforts as a way to not only increase our workforce but also address the issue of public safety from getting people involved with a job and a career perspective. And the last question is, when we talk about addressing the issue of potholes and the damaging of streets when it comes to construction, how are we coordinating or is there a process where we are monitoring when developers come through, they tear the streets up, right, and the neighborhood is just left to kind of figure out who to call to get their street repaved? Especially in areas where we see a significant amount of development, we see this happening. And you'll come out, you'll pave the street, and the street will be great, nice and smooth, and then you'll have like four or five developments on the same block, right, and I guess they dig up the street, and we sit and wait to kind of 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. get everybody back on the same page to redo the block. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: DC Montanez is going to be answering that question, Council President. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: Good morning, Council President and members of Council. So the Streets Department uses a program called GPIS, Guaranteed Pavement Information System, where we put not only our five-year capital plan of paving, but also PWD's and PGW's. Also, all new private development that's happening gets inputted in there. That helps us create our paving list, our five-year planning paving list. Also there is a City law in place that anybody cutting a City street that has been paved recently, within five years, must repave that street curb to curb. After five years, they can just restore the trench, but anything that's done within five years, the street must 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. be restored as if it was new.
Okay. And last question and I'll relax my time, and I don't know if it's L&I or the Streets Department, but who deals with when developers build and they take over the whole pavement and women with children or seniors with their shopping carts have to walk in the street? Is that L&I or is that Streets or that's combined? That I'm not sure who will be responsible for that. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: Are you asking if a developer closes the sidewalk?
When they close the sidewalk. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: So that is a Streets Department permit. We are looking at the fees to disincentivize that. If the developer provides a walkway and all that, it's actually a lower fee than when they do a full closure. So we are revisiting all 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. our fees to make sure that we incentivize the pedestrian and disincentivize the full closures.
Is there a penalty when -- you also have a lot of people who are disabled in wheelchairs, right? And, again, I live in Point Breeze, so I'm talking from experience in terms of certain times where me and my kids have to go inside a street or I'm watching somebody that's disabled have to go in the middle of the street as opposed of being able to go through the sidewalk. So when they don't comply, what's our monitoring for it? What are we doing to enforce the law in terms of holding those type of unscrupulous contractors/developers accountable? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: So the Streets Department goes out and inspects and issues a CVN to a developer. The CVN is only $50. If we have multiple CVNs, then we involve License and 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Inspections, and they come out and do a full inspection of the site.
Okay. That's all I have. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. And good morning, everyone. (Good morning.)
I recently participated in the City's Vision Zero conference and was also present when the Mayor signed the pursuant executive order which emphasized the City's continued commitment to decreasing traffic fatalities. Council has also worked hard to expand the areas where Streets can install traffic calming around facilities such as senior homes and rec centers where our vulnerable populations need it the most, but I am noticing the decrease in funding for Class 200 services related 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to this effort. So can you clarify what is the FY25 traffic-calming budget and how much will these facilities, senior homes, rec centers, be prioritized? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question. I'm going to turn that over to Deputy Commissioner Chris Newman. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: Good morning, Councilmember. Our Vision Zero budget is actually divided into Capital Program as well as Operating. Under the Operating fund, there's about 11.9 million total budgeted, and under the Capital Program, we have about 25.15 million.
Okay. And how do those numbers relate to the prior budget year? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: Prior year -- Capital funds actually went up, I believe, $2 million. The Operating funds did go down somewhat. There was 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. two caucus infusions from last fiscal year for traffic calming, and that was not carried over into this fiscal year.
Okay. How will the budget proposal allow you to really make good on the commitment of reducing traffic fatalities, particularly around spaces like rec centers, senior homes? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: Well, it was actually kind of an adjustment when you look at it. Instead of the Vision Zero for speed cushions, for example, being in our Operating Budget, it was primarily shifted to Capital. So for the first time, we actually have a Capital Budget line item for speed cushions.
Okay. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: Whereas last year we had to kind of cobble it together from a variety of different sources in our Operating Budget. So we're still going to use some 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. of the Operating Budget for speed cushions, about a million, but now we have a dedicated source in Capital for it as well.
So will this budget allow us to do more than we have in the past? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: I think it's about the same. So Mike Carroll just gave me some information. It will probably be more because we'll be able to get matched federal capital funds because it's in Capital. So it will allow us to do more speed cushions going forward.
Thank you. When can we expect the next round of speed cushions around schools to be installed? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: That's a Deputy Commissioner Montanez question. I'm going to refer to him. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. you, Councilwoman, for your question. We are actually in the process of getting the list together and we are -- we just recently got a contract to start doing it. So we are -- we're actually starting. So our next 50 is in the works.
Can you in terms of timeline? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We will be -- we're actively going to be installing through the summer.
Okay. Thank you. And I also know that Streets has launched a new front-facing platform where residents can submit traffic-calming requests. When will you start implementing traffic-calming requests that come through this new system and how many blocks do you expect to be able to get to in FY25? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question. We are looking at 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. traffic-calming efforts while we're paving. So during our next round of paving contracts, we will be incorporating traffic calming into our contracts. That's the speed cushions. We are also -- we received a 3-1-1 request from the residents for traffic calming, so we're actively conducting the studies, and when we find that different signs that are needed for the studies or whatever means and methods, we install them at that time.
I'm more so asking about our new front-facing system for residents. So we implemented this new, easier, hopefully faster system around getting requests for traffic-calming interventions from our residents. Have we started using this new system? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We are using the 3-1-1. We are seeing an uptick in requests. We receive anywhere from 30 to 50 a day. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I believe that in some neighborhoods, we need to get the message out, because some individuals do not use the 3-1-1 system online and when you call. So we just have to get our message out there more that we do have a way to put in a request that is a lot easier than it was in the past.
All righty. And my last question is for Public Property. By our own count, the City owns about percent of the 14 approximately 40,000 vacant lots here in 15 Philadelphia, and when these lots are 16 unkempt and unattended, we know that they 17 could be magnets for crime and trash and 18 become eyesores in the community where 19 they exist, and I think we all believe 20 that it's imperative that the City be a 21 model for how we want other land and 22 property owners to behave. 23 So can you talk to us about the 24 role that Public Property plays in making 25 sure that these City-owned lots are 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. returned -- are, one, clean and green and secure and returned to their best and highest use? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Sure. I don't know if the microphone is working here. Thank you, Councilmember, for the question. We do work with CLIP on taking care of our vacant lots, and we have -- we're going through our vacant lots to get more -- to see the numbers on it and what districts they are in, and we will be sending out crews to do evaluation of what is needed to the vacant lots and make sure it's up-kept and taken care of.
What's the process of understanding the status of those lots in every place that they exist in the City? Like what is Public Property's process for just keeping track of it, keeping track of condition and going out to clean and green and secure lots where that is needed? 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Right now it goes through the LAMA system, which it's PHDC, and we're also -- we're trying to come up with a plan to narrow down that map and really focus on and try to incorporate some pictures, like an interactive map, so we can actually go through it and see what is needed, and we're also talking about sending crews out to evaluate the sites and to make sure we're keeping up on the lands, and if anything is needed, we will send crews out to fix it.
Do you have a process where we proactively sort of survey our sites and we know the condition, and if so, how does that work? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Not yet. We've had some staffing issues, but we've been hiring some people and we have a nice crew gathered, so we're going to implement some new things that will help us out in that area.
Is 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. that a priority for this budget, and if so, what resources will be dedicated to that? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: It is a priority, and we actually have a special events crew that we use. So on the off season, they will go out, upkeep whatever is needed. And then even during their special events season, they will still be a part of taking care of any weed whacking or anything that needs to be done.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you, Council President. Thanks, everybody, for being here. I'm going to take this in chunks, 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. so I'm going to start mostly with Streets. And I would love for us to get a better understanding of the coordination of what happens when -- I like that you said that there is the GPIS model where we have PGW, Water, and private developers, we're supposed to know what's happening with development in the street at all times. First question is, can you make that public facing so the rest of us can know? And the second question is, so we have that information and what are we doing with it, right? There's so many times that we repave a street and suddenly there's a hole again and the hole could have been because PGW didn't fill it properly or something like that. It's one thing to gather the information and it's another thing to do something about it. So I'm curious, one, can you make it public facing and, two, what kind of -- what work are you doing with the information you have? 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question. The GPIS system is currently used for the internal and external partners where the projects are put in. Once the projects are put in and projects then are implemented on the street, we have StreetSmartPHL, which is a location where you can find our PavePHL. You can see where we're paving. I'm going to put one up for Sanitation. Trash collection is also in there. Our PermitPHL is in there and snow removal is in there. So it's public-facing information for anyone who wants to know when their trash was collected, what permits are actively going on in their neighborhoods, and if we are plowing the snow and paving in those areas. So there's already a public-facing system in play. It's called SmartPHL -- SmartPavePHL.
Say it again. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: I'm 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. sorry. StreetSmartPHL.
Okay. Do you do any follow-up when PGW had a project or the Water Department had a project to make sure that they -- we know there's a large construction project, to know that they -- I don't know the technical language, but filled the hole properly so that it doesn't fall again in six months? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: So basically for plumbing issues, the plumbers will pull permits, and once their permit is done, it will then turn over to us for us to top it. In some cases -- which is finish the layer on the top with asphalt. In some cases, there are locations out there we may not be aware that someone was working in that area, but we definitely have some work to do in that area, but we do coordinate and communicate and top off the streets when they're necessary. Sometimes, depending on the 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. weather or the conditions, if there's snow and we're plowing and dropping salt, they can sometimes break apart. So we would just have to go back and repair it again until the final repair is conducted.
So I hear that you give a CVN, for example, on the sidewalks if the construction is blocking the sidewalks. Can you notify L&I sooner so that they don't -- a construction company is not going to care about a $50 ticket, but they will care if L&I starts coming out. Can you front end telling L&I and make them come out sooner for the blocking of the sidewalk? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: I'm sure we can work with them on something.
Thank you. I like that. So I had some questions about -- let's see. Wanted to, of course -- I'm going to follow up on streeteries. You know I'm an outdoor 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. dining gal. Love this. And wanted to make sure that -- we had this hearing. Your office was present. Wanted to make sure that we're looking to streamline the process for small businesses, and the goal would be to make it more streamlined. And so are there any funds available to add some staffing or support to that area? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: So the Streets Department currently has a streetery division. We have employees dedicated to reviewing and addressing the streeteries that come through our department. We have a unit.
What's the Streets Department -- do you have a plan to ensure that the implementation to getting our license is equitable for folks who don't have as much access to the internet? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question. I'm going to turn it to Mike Carroll. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. (Witness approached witness table.)
Excuse me. Could you for the microphones just put one all the way on the right side and one all the way on the left side and y'all can have separate mics, because when they're close together, they're muting each other out. Thank you very much. Please proceed. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: Thank you, Council President. I'm Mike Carroll, the Deputy Managing Director for the Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainability. So just understanding your question, I think what you're trying to get at is the equity question with streetery?
Yes. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: And so that's not necessarily going to fall squarely on Streets Department, but as 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the Administration works with City Council to develop the policy for managing outdoor dining, I can assure you that equity is something that the Parker Administration is going to want to focus on. We think it's probably going to come down to some changes from the legislation that City Council passed in 2022 or became effective in 2022, and we'll certainly work through the Streets Department, L&I, all the departments to make sure that we're providing the feedback, the input that makes equity a priority.
Thank you. While you're here, can I ask a question that I believe is overarching for Streets and Fleet. I appreciate very much you having these apprenticeship programs of Future Track and now we have a new class of folks coming in to Fleet who seems to be much more diverse, and I love that it's a pathway for folks to 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. have good careers. How does that look on the supervisory level of all of these departments, and is there a path to excel to supervisory? COMMISSIONER ROSATI: Joe Rosati, Commissioner for Fleet. Do you mean how the supervisors manage or the career ladder?
To me diversifying a staff is a very intentional act, and I wanted to know if Fleet and Streets have thought through how to help support that path to supervisor so that we don't just bring people in on the ground level and they don't have a path to excel. COMMISSIONER ROSATI: In Fleet, in our department, you need to go through the different civil service levels in order to get to team leader and supervisor and district manager. So when the kids come in, they start out as high school intern. They do two years. They spend one day a week in 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the shop, full day, and when they're seniors, they spend two full days a week, and that's like their classroom. And so after the two years, if they're successful, they graduate from the program, they become -- they receive a civil service job as an automotive apprentice, and then they can promote from there. After they get experience and licenses, they can promote to automotive technician, heavy-duty technician, then to supervisory positions like team leader, supervisor, district manager and so forth.
Do you know the demographic racial breakdown of your supervisors? COMMISSIONER ROSATI: I don't have that with me, but --
If you can provide it to the Chair and we'll provide it to the members.
Thank you. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I'll stop for now. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Jim Harrity.
Thank you, Council President. Nice to see everybody again. Joe, I'm glad to see you up there, man. I remember coming to see you on Richmond Street years ago during the Street Administration. So it's good stuff to see somebody that worked their way up through the ranks. I guess you could see there's a lot of talk about the potholes, because during the campaign season, there was a poll done that said the top three issues in Philadelphia of course was crime, schools, but number three by far was potholes. And being a highway worker by trade, I know that a lot of the stuff that they're calling potholes are not actually potholes. They're construction holes that were done by contractors 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. illegally. So with that being said, we do have a bill going through the process right now that will give us the ability to find these bad actors and also suspend their license until they rectify the situations they have going on, but right now how can we reduce the pothole response time other than increasing staffing? Right now I think the current wait time is about three days or so, which I actually don't think is that bad, but I would like to know other than staffing up, because I know we have a staffing shortage, is there any way that we can try to shave that a little bit? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question. We can look into that. Once we start paving more streets and we start to get to the 131 miles, that will automatically start to shave itself, because the streets will be in better condition and we'll see less of 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. it.
You know, and also I know it depends on what else is going on and what's causing -- we had my whole street collapse, because the new ADA compliance is four feet for the box on the pavement. It used to be three on my block. So right away on each side we lost a foot. And then the curb used to be four inches. It's now eight inches. There's another eight inches total. So we lost almost three feet off our block. So everybody has to park catty-corner on the actual pavement. You used to be able to get away with just parking on the curb, which are inches 18 thick, but the pavement is only three to 19 four, so when you get a push on the 20 pavement, it collapses the pipes going 21 in -- the laterals going into the houses. 22 Is there anything that we could 23 do to kind of shave the pavements on some 24 of these smaller streets in order to be able to actually fit cars to park 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. regularly? Because when I asked about it, the thing I got was, well, they shouldn't be parking on that block, but in a neighborhood like mine, that's not an option. We have no parking as it is. Do you know any way -- is there any way we can cut anything off of that or would we have to legislate that? Because I know it was ADA. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We have surveys of all our street widths. Essentially when there is any type of reconstruction to your block, they are supposed to be restored in kind. If your block was 24-foot wide with six-inch curbs, then it's to return back 24-foot wide with six-inch curbs. In some cases, they may not, and I guess we would just have to survey that again to see -- you said your block was reconstructed?
Yeah. My block was done probably about ten or so years ago, maybe even longer than that now. It was a big to-do too because 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. apparently there was a mistake with the bid and they didn't actually have the money -- the contractor didn't have it budgeted to pave it. They didn't know they had to pave it. So then that took about two years before they finally settled it, and they had to come back and actually pave it. But a lot of this stuff that's going on with -- like they had to redo my whole block. They had to come in, do the laterals. A couple of the people had insurance and were able to do it, but what happens is, it keeps happening. So we have one neighbor where it happened three times in a month and a half. The insurance company paid for it the first time. The City program that we have for laterals paid for it the first time. The second time they denied it. He had to pay out of pocket. Third time they actually fixed it again. But this is going to be an ongoing problem on some of these blocks where it's not actually wide 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. enough. When they did my block, it's messed up. It actually gets wider as you go down to the other end. So it's smaller at the one end and as you go down the street, it gets a little wider as you go down, but still not wide enough to actually park regular on the pavement. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Okay. Deputy Montanez reminded me that the sidewalk widths are federally mandated.
That's what I was saying. So it's nothing we can do about it. That's the new ADA and we're stuck with it. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Council President. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Mark Squilla.
Thank 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I ask questions, I'd just like to announce we have a guest here today, Ara Shakes (ph), who is here today from New Foundation Charter School, 8th grader here, wanting to get involved in the civic process. So everybody give Ara a round of applause for being here. - - - (Applause.) - - -
Thank you. And thank you for being here. Obviously Streets and Public Property are two important businesses here in the City of Philadelphia, and I want to ask two questions, one to each real quick. One is on streets, and I know we said in the testimony of the budget that the streets are going to be repaved up to, is it, 120 miles? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: The 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. goal is 131.
131 miles. And before we do that, though, we still have restriping and crosswalks that need to be done from previous paving. So that will be, I guess, done now through the spring to catch up for the paving that was not completed as far as the stripings? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We just recently started milling, and once the milling is done, the paving -- the line striping will follow.
There's been streets that have already been milled and covered already. So there's still blocks that have been done that don't have crosswalks or striping. Is that something that will be done before the next projects start? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Councilman, they just reminded me that the streets that are being discovered were from last year's paving when we had 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to end the paving season and then re-pick it back up this spring. So we will be getting to those streets during this paving season.
Thank you. Thank you so much for that. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you.
Public Property, there's been a project going on and we were just at the ribbon cutting for Ladder 11 opening up the new station down there in South Philly. In Port Richmond, Engine 6, they have granted to reopen Engine 6. Do we know what the status is of that project and if that will be available this coming year? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Thank you, Councilmember. Yeah, Engine 6 is supposed -- the construction is supposed to start on 4/29, and the work includes apparatus, floor, new watch desk, new bathrooms, new flooring, roof repairs, and it's expected to last 12 to 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. 15 months.
Okay. So next year hopefully we'll have a ribbon cutting for Engine to be in Port 6 Richmond? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Hopefully, yes.
Thank you so much. That's been a project that has been waited on for a long time. We really appreciate Public Property, and I do want to thank Bridget and Joe for all your diligence and work and always responsiveness and answer to Streets too, Kristin and Richie and the team, Steve Lorenz, Mike Carroll and them for always getting back to our never-ending requests for things to get done, and you guys have been great doing that, whether it's o'clock in the morning or o'clock in the morning. So thank you all for your work, and looking forward to continue working with you in this. Keep up the great work. Thanks. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. COMMISSIONER BRASKY: Thank you. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you.
Well, in that same spirit, I'm going to give a shout-out to Rich Montanez, Steve Lorenz, and Mike Carroll, because I do them weekend calls too, especially around that pothole. I see something, I'm like, yo, let me get out and take a picture now and let me send it over so we could address this. But thank you as well. We do appreciate you all. Next the Chair recognizes Councilmember Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. Question is about -- I see that now the crossing guards are under Streets and that they have seemed to have been passed around from PPD, MDO, and I wanted to know what role you folks 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. are playing in the safe passage effort and if the crossing guards are connected to that effort at all to make sure there's safety around the schools? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: Good morning, Council President and members of Council. My name is Richard Montanez, Deputy Commissioner of Streets. I'm assuming you're asking about the project -- or the work we got going about Safe Routes to School where the Streets Department, Police Department, School District, and School Police are all working together to create safe passages? Yes. We are all part of that. The idea would be to utilize all our resources to disburse among safe corridors and letting everybody know that that is the preferred walkable way to school for all the students.
Is there -- I don't know who is the lead in this project, but is there a timeline of where all these safe corridors are set 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. up? Are they across the City? What's your role in that? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: So we're currently in the planning stage with Kelley Yemen. Sorry. She was Office of Complete Streets and she just changed her name, so I apologize. Multi-Modal Planning Office. So we're getting all the data together and we'll be putting all that and coming out to Council.
So budgeting for that is included in -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: There is some budget to implement some corridors this year, yes.
And crossing guards will be a part of that? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: So the crossing guard, yes. And as part of the process in Streets Department, we've been ramping up. We're up to 739 crossing guards right now. The next class, I believe it begins in two weeks. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. So we are constantly hiring and we're trying to get to the goal of 1,000.
Great. Okay. The next question is about you're requesting 820 positions funded through the Transportation Fund. Are these an overlap with the cleaning and greening space? Like are you sharing people, or where exactly are these 820 positions going to be? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: I'm sorry. 820 positions for?
Through the Transportation Fund has been allocated for 820 positions. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: Good morning, Councilmember.
Good morning. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: So effectively the two organizations have been split apart. Those 822 positions are under the Transportation Fund 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. specifically in the transportation divisions of the Streets Department. There is some overlap. So, for example, Office of Clean and Green has some quality-of-life services that they're responsible for, and of course what we do in Transportation overlaps with Office of Clean and Green. So there's going to be a lot of coordination between the two sides, but technically they're split.
So these 820 are under your -- these are your hires? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: Correct. They're not part of Office of Clean and Green.
Got you. So just to -- there's so much going on now with so much overlap. It's just a matter of how we are optimizing that overlap to deliver of course for our constituents. So thank you for that. I have a question for the 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Public Property. I see there's an increase of 13.5 million in your 286.5 million budget, and this seems to be due to increase in SEPTA contributions, percent state match. 7 So what is that like -- and in terms of 8 coming out of Class 200, is that -- 9 that's the purchase of services, so I'm 10 not clear what that is. 11 COMMISSIONER BRASKY: It's 12 not -- it actually comes from the state. 13 It's a formula by the state. It comes 14 from us. It's a state -- 15
Requirement? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: It's state managed, yes.
So I'm just curious why it comes out of purchase of services. Like are we expecting SEPTA to do X, Y, Z for getting that money? When you do a match, you can still have a requirement of what SEPTA will do for that money. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. COMMISSIONER GREENWALD: Hello. Bridget Collins-Greenwald. I'm here to support Public Property, former Commissioner of Public Property. So it is the state's -- it's the City's match for the County of Philadelphia, right. So we match whatever the formula says we match. So we don't figure that out in Public Property, but someone does, I guess.
Do we ask any questions of SEPTA? COMMISSIONER GREENWALD: They provide us a list of all the projects that they work on that are paid for with this money. So we get it on an annual basis.
So you're just classifying it under purchase of services? COMMISSIONER GREENWALD: Yeah.
Because it just has to go somewhere. COMMISSIONER GREENWALD: That's 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. just, yeah, sort of the class we put it in, but they do provide us information every year.
Okay. And then the question was about a decrease, right, due to transfer to program of the newly formed Capital Projects. So those are 140 budgeted positions that went over? Can you explain that, please? What went to the new Capital Project? COMMISSIONER GREENWALD: So it's not 140 positions. I think it's about 36. Joe just told me it's 36. So they went from our capital -- the Department of Public Property's Capital Program Division, which was a piece of Public Property, and now are going over to the newly formed Capital Projects Office.
You're going to still have your own capital projects? COMMISSIONER GREENWALD: No. 1 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. From my understanding is the Capital Projects Office will contain or it will be centralized, so all the capital projects will go there.
10 Thank you. 11 The Chair recognizes 12 Councilmember Phillips. 13
Good 14 morning, Council President. 15 Thank you. Thank you, 16 Commissioner of Streets and Public 17 Property and Fleet for your testimony. I 18 want to begin by asking a question around 19 the no truck parking legislation. 20 Recently in the City of 21 Philadelphia last year, we banned 22 tractor-trailer parking in the City of 23 Philadelphia, and that requires that 24 basically in every area where there's a 25 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. zoning sign, there 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. should be a no truck parking sign and general sign. What are we doing to make sure that we have enough not only signs but also to make sure that wherever there's a no truck parking sign 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. sign, that it's being replaced with no truck parking all together? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: If you send us the locations, we can get them replaced. We're actively replacing signs as we go through, but the 6:00 to 6:00 are still out there.
Great. If we send you the locations, how quickly are you able to get those done? Because I was hoping that maybe you already knew where the locations are so we don't have to like go around our districts looking for them, but it's possible. Like how quickly can you get those up? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We are actually partnering with PPA, and they're doing them within two weeks. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Okay. Thank you. The next question that is also really important is that there's -- to follow up on Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier, there is a number of residents in the City of Philadelphia who are requesting speed-calming measures, particularly speed humps in the City of Philadelphia. Is it possible for -- you all said you're getting 30 to 50 requests a day. We want to just know the number of how many you could possibly do a year, because if the residents are feeling like they're being ignored, then is there a way that your department can work on a mass communication about the process of when they're going to finally get not only a study but potentially get their speed humps installed but also do a mass communication to those who receive -- who do the petitions and so forth for the study to be done from your department's end to let them know that they're not 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. being ignored, right? So are we doing a better communications plan to them? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We are talking internally about a transparent process for the external people, for residents and anyone who puts in a request. We heard your concern when we were at Vision Zero, and we are talking internally about how we can make that a reality. Any time we have available funds in projects, we kind of look at it from a holistic approach to incorporate whatever we can under the projects as the funding is available. So like I had mentioned earlier with our paving, we are actively looking at our next round of paving that goes out. We'll incorporate the speed cushions as we're paving the corridors and things like that. So we're coming up with ideas for projects as funding is available.
Thank you. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Do you have a sense of maybe when we'll have maybe a response on that? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We'll talk internally and I can get you a response.
Okay. Thank you. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you.
The next question I just wanted to really -- that was important, enforcement officers in the City of Philadelphia. Could you please provide the current number of public traffic safety enforcement officers? Additionally, could you provide an explanation of like the hiring process for these officers and any community engagement initiatives and that filling these positions? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: Good morning, Councilmember. We are budgeted for 20 public traffic safety enforcement officers. We 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. have right now. We've had some retention issues over the year since the program got started last spring. We've hired probably over 30 actually but lost quite a number as time has gone on. What we've done is, we've looked at the pay rate for the public traffic safety officers and noticed that there was a discrepancy with other enforcement officers in the City of Philadelphia. Working with the Office of Human Resources, we've since corrected that. So they've gotten about a $5,000 increase in pay fairly recently, which we think is going to help with the retention issue. We are also pairing the public traffic safety officers with our Future Track program that I mentioned a little while ago. We created an occupational track in partnership with the Office of Human Resources where individuals will be able to go from Future Track into an occupational track, get trained for three 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. months and then if they're successful within that three-month training, they'll be able to get on the civil service hiring list for public traffic safety officer. We think we'll be able to fill all of our positions and more next fiscal year as a result.
Thank you. I just wanted to mention that. That's incredibly important. Obviously if we can't get as many speed cushions out, you know, which we really want, the residents really want, the public traffic safety enforcement is going to be key. And is still not enough probably 17 around the City of Philadelphia, so I'm 18 just trying to figure out how we can 19 support our hiring process for that and 20 also making that a bigger line item in the budget. Thank you. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER NEWMAN: Thank you.
4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke.
Thank you, Council President. First questions will be -- well, first question will be for Streets Department. Ms. Rossi, blessings. Good morning. I care deeply about making sure that our streets are safe -- I'm sure I'm obviously not the only one here -- more particularly for pedestrians, for bikers, for public transit users, drivers. And while I get the joy and challenges of car ownership, I do see also this is an opportunity to meet the clean and green moment by trying to get more cars off the road. So more commuting by foot, bicycle, public transit makes our city safer, reduces carbon emissions, increases foot traffic for small local businesses. I can bear witness to that, especially in light of being named the 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. most walkable city in the U.S. by USA Today, which I thought was pretty interesting. What is the Streets Department planning to do to incentivize Philadelphians to use cars less and to walk, bike, and use public transit more? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: I will turn that question over to Deputy Commissioner Montanez. Thank you for your question.
Thank you. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: Thank you, Councilmember. My name is Richard Montanez, Deputy Commissioner.
Blessings, Deputy. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: So we are working with the Philadelphia Parking Authority. One of the things we are looking at is increasing meter rates within the City. This is something that has not been done in about ten years 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. right now, so trying to increase it. The other thing we're looking at is similar to other cities, which is active dynamic pricing. So I don't know if you've ever been to San Francisco, but --
Once. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: -- San Francisco is one of the ones we give as an example. If you go to the stadium to watch the Giants, the meter rate is at $15 an hour around the stadium during an event, but non-event days when there's nothing happening, it drops down to 50 cents an hour, because the need is not there. And so, therefore, they try to incentivize people to come visit and use non-event days to come in. So we are looking at ways to kind of make it easier or make our meters a little more difficult, more available for people to come. Director Carroll would like to add some more. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
And thank you, Deputy, for your response. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: Good morning. I appreciate Deputy Montanez's response. I just want to add a little bit in terms of switching people to other modes. And so you may be aware that we're working from the transit plan, Philadelphia's transit plan, which we put out a couple years ago, and also the Connect transportation strategy, and the real focus there is to work very closely with SEPTA. And as everyone is aware, we're doing what we can to get SEPTA back on its feet in terms of its financial stability, also trying to make sure it's a safer mode of transportation for people since there's been concerns about that, and in general our feeling is as we get more and more back to normal coming out of the pandemic, we're going to rely more and more on public transit. So on the City side really coordinating on that 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. partnership, expanding opportunities in terms of the availability of bus routes for people, making it more reliable, making the buses more frequent, doing things in terms of just the signage so people really coming out of town or whether they live here really understand where thing go. All these strategies we think tend to lead to people choosing to use transit, walking to transit. Biking is another thing that we're focused on as well.
Okay. Thank you very much. Moving right along to Clean and Green Initiatives, including Sanitation. Director Williams, blessings to you, sir. (Witness approached witness table.) DIRECTOR WILLIAMS: Good morning. Director Carlton Williams, Director of Clean and Green.
Good 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. morning to you, sir. DIRECTOR WILLIAMS: Good morning, sir.
The clean and green initiative, it's an ambitious new citywide initiative, and that is absolutely awesome. I think that we have all expressed our joy about what's happening, but I will say the successful ambition requires a plan. As it stands, we find the Clean and Green's organizational hierarchy a bit unclear, which is critical for a multi-agency and multi-organizational approach to deliver on its objectives. When could we expect a final Clean and Green strategic plan? DIRECTOR WILLIAMS: Thank you for your question, sir. My testimony will highlight that in a moment to talk about the intergovernmental cooperative relationship that we have with multiple agencies. I can give you a brief summary right now. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Our office is directly responsible for Sanitation, CLIP, and TCB, but we work with so many others, and I'll be able to explain that a little further when you hear my testimony.
I'm looking forward to it. Thank you very kindly. DIRECTOR WILLIAMS: Thank you, Councilman.
You're welcome. Good to see you too, Carlton. Before we go into the second round -- oh, we're still on the first round for Isaiah Thomas. I just had a question. Are y'all replacing no truck parking signs, the ones that go from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., to just total no truck parking sign? Because in the southwest part of my district, we've been working very closely with Parking Authority, Richie Lazer, to get these cars like -- they parking these tractor-trailers like 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. everywhere, like all over Essington Avenue, all along Lindbergh Avenue, and the neighbors are going like totally bonkers about how it's bringing down the quality of life. I don't know where these trucks are coming from, but what's our strategy? Are we replacing them with just no truck parking signs, period? And then also what type of towing apparatus do we have that in the event people say, whatever, you're not going to tow this tractor-trailer, right, or the back of the tractor-trailer, we're just going to park it there anyway, what type of equipment do we have to say, you know what, we got your number, we're still towing that too? I need to understand that. Because I know we in Rittenhouse Square, we park tractor-trailers and then leave, it will be moved tomorrow. So I want to make sure the Eastwick part of my district has that same level of attention 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. and enforcement that we're doing downtown. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you, Council President, for your question. I'm just going to say something before I turn it over to Deputy Commissioner Montanez. I know we will be changing the signs throughout the City and we are also partnering with PPA with the towing efforts, but I'll let Deputy Commissioner Montanez elaborate. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: Yes, Council President. So as Commissioner Rossi said, we are partnering with the PPA to change all the signs. The Philadelphia Parking Authority has also bought a second wrecker. So now they have the capability of towing the big semi-tractors. To date, there's been over 200 impounded, and they continue to impound them on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, when we were with Director Williams doing 29th Street, the PPA impounded a 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. truck that day that was out on the street in that road.
Great. Thank you. I appreciate it. The Chair recognizes Councilmember -- well, let me go back for the record. For the record, I just want to acknowledge the presence of members Councilmember Driscoll, Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, the Chair of Streets, Councilmember Jeffery J. Young, and also -- that's it for the moment. The Chair -- oh, Councilmember Mark Squilla, for the record. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Isaiah Thomas.
Good morning, Council President. I want to start by taking a page out of Councilmember Squilla's book and recognize somebody that I have in Council today. I'm always bringing young people, but today is special, because I 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. got my namesake here. Oh, man, he left. Oh, he's here. Isaiah Jr. is here with me right now, so he's happy he's here. - - - (Applause.) - - -
This is his first budget testimony, so he'd be much rather playing video games, but it's all good, right? It's good math here today, so we'll see how it goes. I also want to do some thank-you's. As the person who was getting all the pothole calls last term in Council, I just really want to just take a moment to just say thank you to Mike Carroll, a special thank you to Commissioner Carlton Williams. A lot of people don't know that Commissioner Williams -- you know, this government stuff was cool and all, but uptown Commissioner Williams is known as Coach. You know, I'm sorry, Council 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. President, but... No, Commissioner, I truly appreciate what you do for the neighborhood that we live in, but more importantly, you're somebody who, like Council President said, you know, you take that picture, you grab that constituent issue, and you can almost be assured that people could get a response. And I think for us and the work that we do, a big part of our job is delivering services, so I'm very appreciative of some of the things that's in the Mayor's budget this year, but I do have a couple questions. So the pothole thing that is being brought up, in your testimony you say that potholes are going to be fixed within three business days. Is that what we want to do moving forward? Is that our goal moving forward? Because I don't think -- I think we all can realistically agree that that's not what we're doing right now. So are we saying that our 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. goal moving forward is to have potholes fixed in three business days? Because the Mayor has requested a lot of money for streets and street paving, and I'm wondering will you be giving us some of that money back? Will you be able to spend all the money that the Mayor is requesting for street pavement? That's a lot of money. And also the three-day goal, is that moving forward? Talk to me a little bit about that. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question. Our goal is to get towards limited potholes. The more we pave the streets, the less the potholes. The more we pave the streets and maintain the streets, the less the potholes will appear. Once we get into a cycle where we are paving the streets on an active cycle, their lifecycle, we will start to minimize the effects of the potholes. They will -- 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
But the three-day goal, is that the future or are you saying that that's how it goes now? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: That's our current goal.
Current goal. Excellent. Do you think you'll spend all the money the Mayor is asking or do you think you're going to end up giving us some of that money back? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We're going to spend all the money.
All of it? Okay. Y'all said it. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We are going to --
Okay. For a couple years now, we've been saying that 12 percent of the roads produce the majority of our car accidents. In your testimony today, 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. 50 percent of deaths and serious injuries are on percent of roads. 4 Why? It's been two years and 5 it's still 12 percent of roads. Why are 6 we not at 11 percent or 10 percent? Why 7 are we still at the exact same percentage 8 of roads that we were a couple years ago 9 when we did make significant investment 10 in infrastructure and investing 11 specifically in the corridors that 12 produce the most fatalities and the most car accidents? Why haven't we seen that number move from 12 percent to 11 percent or 10 percent? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question. I'm going to turn that over to Deputy Managing Director Mike Carroll. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: Thank you, Councilmember Thomas. So the statistic, to be clear, it's not about the number of people total who are being killed in the City. It's about where they're being killed. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Correct. Yeah. I'm agreeing. Why haven't we seen any modifications to those roads? Because when we discussed this before, we talked about the fact that the biggest issues in these intersections is infrastructure. And so I remember us saying, well, if we're going to invest in infrastructure the way that the previous Administration was asking us to, that we have a targeted goal of the intersections that produce the most accidents. So I'm just saying why haven't -- like has any intersections been fixed over the last couple years? DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: Yes.
Are we still looking at the same 12 percent of roads or are they new roads? Have they shifted? Help us understand why is it still at 12 percent. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: So it is shifting, and we're being successful and we're working on our projects. We're 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. reducing the fatalities by about 30 percent and the crashes by about that same amount too. We're chasing the problem around, though. And so what it is is, there's always going to be a concentration of streets where most of the crashes are taking place. So there's always going to be a concentration.
Give me an example of a road that was in the 12 percent -- an intersection that was in the 12 percent a little while ago that's no longer there because of the work that we've done. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: The best example is Roosevelt Boulevard. So when we --
I don't think y'all can get credit for that. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: Well, that is a project that we were involved in, figuring out where the speed cameras go, figuring out what -- 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. You 100 percent get credit for that. That was the wrong way of saying it. I'm talking about specifically looking at infrastructure investment. So for the record, again, Roosevelt Boulevard is a great example. You did an excellent job with that. And my last question was going to be about the cameras that's coming and where do you recommend they go, but I'm thinking about our investment in infrastructure and why haven't we seen -- I'm thinking about West Philadelphia. When I listened to people out there, they were adamant about some of those intersections. I don't want to start naming intersections, but people were adamant about intersections in West Philadelphia they feel like were part of the High Injury Network. Like is there an intersection that was on the High Injury Network two 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. years ago that's no longer in the High Injury Network? DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: Yeah. So your colleague might want to talk about Cobbs Creek.
There you go. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: So we could also talk about the slow zones that we have in the Ninth District.
Can you get Council President those intersections? DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: Yes.
Because I want to be clear. I'm not trying to beat you up and say that the work hasn't been done. I'm saying that we haven't done a clear job of communicating some of our success stories. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: Yeah.
I think that's what we need to get on the record, is for people to understand that we 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. recognize that we have this crisis as it relates to hit-and-runs, but we also need to communicate some of the success stories that we've had based on the work that has been done over the last two years since we've been on this journey. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: So we will certainly get that information. I do want to say one thing. When we look at these statistics, we really don't want to go year by year. We want to talk about three years, five years of data, because the crashes go up and down and up and down and we want to make sure we've seen real results we can be confident, but we'll get all that data to you guys.
Thank you. And, Council President, I just want to -- so the tone is clear. I do commend you for the work that you've done. I do think that it's very noble and I think that it has saved lives. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I'll come back one more round of questioning, Council President, if that's okay, just to talk about the speed cameras that's coming and I'll be done. Thank you, Council President.
Point of information. I just wanted the Majority Whip to know that we're working hard on traffic safety in the Third District, but even though there's a lot more to be done. So Cobbs Creek Parkway, we were able to work with the Streets Department and PennDOT on major traffic safety interventions. We reduced speeding on that corridor, I think, by 90 percent or something of that nature, and that was after the tragic death of 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Avante Reynolds, but we also have done major road diets on Walnut Street, Chestnut Street. So you can give the Third District all the traffic time. We welcome working with you guys to make our streets safer. And I appreciate the Majority Whip's --
Councilmember Gauthier, thank you so much. Thank you for the point of information. And I think what Councilmember Gauthier has done in the Third District, I'm sure there are other districts across the City where we can have some of those victory laps. I think it's important when we come into Council and we criticize you guys for things that we feel like need to be done to improve the quality-of-life issues in the City of 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Philadelphia, it's important that we have folks like Councilmember Gauthier as well as you all who take the victory lap when we get some of these things done. So the public needs to understand that the percent road 8 problem still exists, but the problem has 9 shifted and there have been some 10 intersections where we have corrected 11 some of these issues, but unfortunately 12 new issues have presented themselves. Thank you, Council President. I just wanted to put that on the record, and again thank you, Councilmember Gauthier, for the work that you've done.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes the Chair of Streets, Councilmember J. Young.
Thank you so much, Mr. President. I just have a few questions for the Streets Department. First question is regarding the 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. LED lights. I was driving around my neighborhood last night and I realized it's dark as hell down there. Like with those orange lights, it's really dark, and I live in a high-crime area. So I just wanted to know like is it possible for District Councilmembers to get a schedule of when the LED lights will be changed throughout the City? Because, again, as I'm driving through my community and my neighborhood, again, it's dark. It's pretty dark. And so it's more of a statement to that. So if it's possible for us to get a schedule and to work with your office on identifying some of the areas that we see are in higher need of these lights being placed there sooner rather than later. Second comment is regarding a lot of ponding I'm seeing in Fairmount Park. Now, I know it's not my district, but I'm driving through there often because the Please Touch Museum is there. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I take my kids there around those roundabouts, right? Last week I saw ducks floating across the street where the roundabout is because of the amount of rain that happened and the amount of flooding that happens in the park. The ducks literally were holding up traffic, because to them that's a pond there. So can someone speak on that and that infrastructure that's there and why that is occurring every time it rains? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question, Councilman. I first want to respond on your LED comment. We have a website that has a two-week look-ahead that is available of where the contractor is in the area. It is www.phillystreetlightimprovements.com./ map. It's an active map of where they are with a two-week look-ahead. As of April 8th, we've already 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. installed 28,041 fixtures. We're eight months into a 24-month project. So I just wanted to give you some of that information. And there is no drainage system in that area. It's the stormwater management that is supposed to be absorbing the water.
It doesn't. I mean, I just think that it's a bad design. I mean, honestly, I think it was poorly designed. Regarding the LED lights, though, I understand you have this website that allows a two-week look-ahead as to where they are, but the question was, are we able to, I guess, help the Streets Department identify areas that are of a higher need for these particular lights than what your schedule may say? Because, again, in certain areas, particularly in my neighborhood, again, I don't live in one of the nicest parts of the City. I live in probably the 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. roughest part of the City, and I think that we need to -- in order to help mitigate some of the violence that's happening in this community, we just need to -- it needs to be a little bit brighter. I'm bounded by three Housing Authority facilities in my community. It's not -- again, it's not all peaches and cream where I'm at. So I really will hope that we have the ability to talk with your department to get an understanding of where we see a higher need for these brighter lights. Another question I have is on construction trenches. I do know that as developers are putting in utility lines and things like that for their properties, Streets Department prefers to come to fill those potholes because you may do it better than some of the developers have been doing. Can you tell us what the schedule is? If I'm a developer, I dig a trench for utility 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. lines, what's the schedule -- how far after I complete my job as a developer does the Streets Department then come to fill that trench in? Because we're driving around the City and at nighttime there's no sign up or nothing indicating that there's a trench there. We're blowing out our axles hitting these trenches. So can you speak to how the timeline on the Streets Department refilling those utility trenches that are being dug by developers? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: There's a 30-day turnaround.
I've seen some much longer than 30 days. So in front of my Chief of Staff's house, at one point I was dropping him off during the campaign too. Like for like literally about four months this trench 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. has been in front of his house and we hit it almost, you know, every time. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We can come talk about this.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I heard the bell.
You're welcome. We have a second round too. I just had a question as a follow-up to Member Young. In regards to the new LED street lighting initiative, how are you working in partnership with the Philadelphia Energy Authority? Because they also have a contract to put up LED lights, and according to the Philadelphia Energy Authority, they have a rubric that specifically targets some of the high-crime areas as a need first regarding the lighting. And so it seems like there are two different initiatives going on where there's a plan on the 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Philadelphia Energy Authority side in particularly high-crime areas and what I'm hearing here is we have a schedule to just do lighting in general. So is there co-coordination with these two initiatives? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you, Council President, for your question. It is actually the same project.
It's the same project? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: The Streets Department is working partnering with the Philadelphia Energy Authority and the Office of Sustainability.
Okay. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Where we are looking at High Injury Network, high crime areas first.
Okay. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: But 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. internally --
Thank you, Council President. And I think the issue that I'm having is that the first thing that the Administration says, and I believe that it's important as well, but is the high -- they're focused more on the pedestrian issues, right, in certain communities, and I feel like the violence that we're experiencing in our communities should take precedent over the areas where it may be more of a pedestrian concern, because those are things that the folks in those communities are living with every day, and I think just having it a little bit brighter will change the mood of a community as soon as those lights come in. So I would like the Administration to change -- if we can 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. flip that priority to be high crime and then the active pedestrian areas, I think that we'll see a greater result.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that those two initiatives are working simultaneously, because I know we do have Philadelphia Energy Authority coming up. Now, is there additional requests for lighting in the streets versus the request that's coming for lighting under Philadelphia Energy Authority? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Street lighting is actively installing LEDs as well.
All right. Good. But is there an additional request in terms of funding for street lighting? Not at all? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: I don't believe so.
4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Okay. Just wanted to check that for the record. We're now going into our second -- I'm sorry, Cindy. Your light just came on.
What kind of system we got going on here? What kind of City of Philadelphia --
Our taxpayer dollars. The Honorable Cindy Bass is acknowledged. Thank you.
Good morning, almost afternoon, everybody. Almost afternoon. I just wanted to start out with a round of thank-you's. I want 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to thank our Director of -- I want to make sure I got it right -- Office of Clean and Green Initiatives, Carlton Williams, who between him and Keith Warren -- I think I saw Keith earlier -- and Crystal Jacobs, I think I e-mail them every single day around trash and sanitation concerns, and they're incredibly responsive and I just really wanted to publicly shout you out and say thank you, because I know when you see that early morning text or late night text sometimes, you're like, ahh. So thank you so much for all of your assistance. And I also wanted to give a shout-out to Mike Alfaroot (ph), because he's always on the job. I also wanted to thank Bridget, of course, you know, who we've had a great working relationship with over the years, and I'm going to ask you if you could help us clarify your position now, because we know you do all. Okay? We know you can do it all. So 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. they had you on the sheet we have here, it says that you're Public Property. We know you're L&I also. So you can just take over the whole thing. COMMISSIONER GREENWALD: Sure, sure. I'll be up here tomorrow at Council. You'll see me sitting behind you. No. 10 So when the testimony was submitted, I was still doing the dual role of Commissioner of L&I's Quality of Life as well as the Commissioner of the Department of Public Property. As of Thursday of last week, Mayor Parker announced that Joe Brasky has been announced the Interim Commissioner of Public Property, but since it was just Thursday, I figured it probably wasn't really fair to just have Joe sit up here, although he's doing fantastic, I think, if everyone is watching him.
Well, listen -- COMMISSIONER GREENWALD: That's 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. it. That's what I'm doing.
Well, look, like I said, you can do no wrong in my eyes and you do a great job. And also, Joe, listen, big shoes to fill, but I've heard fantastic, fantastic reports on the work that you do, and look forward to working with you as well, so that's very exciting. COMMISSIONER BRASKY: I appreciate it. It's an honor. Thank you, Councilmember.
Absolutely. And also want to give a big shout-out to Rich Montanez, who is always hearing about how every single block in the City of Philadelphia needs speed bumps, and he does his very best to try to accommodate every single request. And really your entire teams, I mean, like you guys really help make the City work. It doesn't work without all the people who are here today, and I just really 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. wanted to point that out. So a big thank-you. I wanted to go back a little bit and speak to some of the concerns about traffic and safety and specifically around hit-and-runs. So I think it's the 2700 block of North Broad Street is an incredibly dangerous block, and within, I would say, a three- to four-month period, there were probably three fatal hit-and-runs on that block, and it's the way the street sort of arches and curves. And if you're coming northbound from Center City up to Cheltenham on that side of the street, when you get to Broad and Lehigh, the intersection, you cannot see over the top of that intersection. And so if someone is crossing the street right beyond that crosswalk or in the middle of the block and you're speeding, you're going to hit them, because you really can't see them. And so I think that in -- not I think. I know in December of 2022, there 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. was actually a fatality. In July of 2023 there was another fatality, and in between there, I couldn't find the other one, but I remember that there were a total of three at that intersection between Lehigh and Somerset on North Broad Street. And so to the best of my knowledge and what I can visually see, there's been no traffic-calming efforts on that particular block, so I'm wondering is there a plan? Have we looked at that? Is this one of the targeted blocks that we're going to be working on to have that addressed? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question. I'm going to turn it over to Deputy Commissioner Montanez.
Thank you. You're putting speed bumps down? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: Good morning, Council President. So Broad and Lehigh is actually 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. a cross street to be -- specifically, State Route 611 is one of the ones we are reviewing to put speed cameras in as part of the five additional corridors that the City of Philadelphia being a Class 1 city can add to its repertoire. We're also looking to do some center line hardening on Broad Street, which will be actually putting in concrete down the center lines and doing some -- we're looking at other additional traffic-calming devices.
So I would just say that speed cameras are not going to slow traffic, but they're going to ticket people. But if you're a reckless driver, you know, you're going to take a shot to make that light, which a lot of people -- that's what they're trying to do, to hurry up and get across the light, but the problem is when you hit the intersection, you literally cannot see until you're over sort of like a hump. And so I would just urge that 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the measures really have to include something that's going to slow traffic down, like we have to slow traffic down, because otherwise you don't have time to react if you see something. You shouldn't be speeding, but if you are speeding, you don't have reaction time, is my opinion. And, listen, I'm no 10 traffic engineer, but it just seems very -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: We will look at it. The Streets Department, along with the transportation infrastructure group, are looking at that area. We're calling it Temple to Temple. So we have a concentrated area of crashes, Temple Hospital and Temple University. And so, therefore, the goal is to make that whole corridor safe.
Thank you very much. So I'm looking forward to seeing some improvements there. Pedestrian lighting, I know we talk a lot about the streetlights and LED 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. lighting, but can we talk about pedestrian lighting, and the difference being that pedestrian lighting is closer -- it's not like the high overhanging, overarching lighting that we're used to. It's sort of like a lamppost kind of thing. Can we talk about how that's going to be integrated into the Streets Department's plan to address LED lighting and provide more lighting, particularly in unsafe areas? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question. Currently under the Street Lighting Improvement Project, we are actively looking at all of the streetlights in the City of Philadelphia. We are converting existing high-pressure sodium to the LED. Depending on the funding, we will then look into, as a capital investment, to install the pedestrian-scale lights in the roadway, and we -- in the past, we've only installed the pedestrian-scale lights in 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. residential developments and along commercial corridors. So if funding is available, we can then look into the potential of adding pedestrian scale, but at the moment, we're in a conversion phase.
Okay. So do you have any sense of like what the cost would be, what the plans would be? I guess what I'm asking is, is there a plan in place? And if not, that's okay, but can we get a plan in place? Because it sounds like we're kind of starting from scratch a little bit around. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We have plans, but they're not physical plans like on paper. We have -- we definitely talk internally about what the need is and what we should do, but an active set of plans that have the drawings of where the lights will actually be installed, we do not have those.
Okay. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Mr. President, I know my time is up and I'll come back for the second round, but I did want to add while we're on this topic one other thing, which is that in some neighborhoods, you see -- like in my district in Chestnut Hill, I know in Councilman Phillips' area on Vernon Road, you have -- and some places here in Center City, you have like the tree lighting, which is very attractive, it adds additional lighting, it brightens up a commercial corridor, and I'm asking if that could be something also incorporated with the pedestrian lighting lamppost sort of things, just to not only provide more lighting and make it safer but also make the area more attractive. We would like to see something like that in a proposal in the future. So thank you, Mr. President.
You're welcome. We will now officially go into our second round. 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I had a question for Fleet, Mr. Rosati. In terms of clean and green cars, I know we have some hybrids now. What are we doing for the future in terms of as time goes along -- I remember having this conversation in the past and it may be harder for the bigger like trash trucks and so forth, right, to go totally electric vehicles, but some of the smaller fleet vehicles, what are we looking at in the future in terms of totally transferring from gas powered to electric vehicles? And then also what are we doing in terms of EV stations, right, as the City in terms of providing more EV stations for individuals who have electric vehicles? And it's such an issue so much that people are actually getting in brawls at EV stations just waiting to use another EV station to power up their car. And so I guess you got to take care of home first. What are we doing 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. with our own fleet and then making that transition to be a more carbon-neutral city? COMMISSIONER ROSATI: Thank you, Council President. As far as the plan for deploying electric vehicles and alternative fuel vehicles, we've done pretty good over the past ten years. We have -- currently this morning I ran a report. We have about a thousand alternative fuel vehicles. We have 30 compressed natural gas trash trucks, about 700 hybrid electric vehicles, and a little over 300 battery electric vehicles, BEVs. So we're doing really good with that. We're pumping less fuel. You know, when we looked at our reports from how much fuel we pumped five years ago until now, it's making an impact.
Good. COMMISSIONER ROSATI: So heavy equipment, I'm not a big fan of trying to replace heavy equipment with fully 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. electric vehicles because it's just -- I haven't seen it working anywhere. I've checked with New York and some other big cities. They've tried it. It's --
My focus is mainly on the smaller fleets. I had that conversation in the past and some of the experts say the same thing as you said. COMMISSIONER ROSATI: So the smaller vehicles, we're trying to go with -- cars and light trucks, we're trying to replace them with battery electric or HEVs depending on the application, depending on the mission of the vehicle. Naturally it would be challenging to give the police a fully electric vehicle right now. You know, we're going to try and get them a few patrol cars to try out, but --
How many EV stations do we have? COMMISSIONER ROSATI: We have 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. about 110 of our own. Initially when we first started doing this about ten years ago, I would purchase an electric vehicle. We would replace a legacy vehicle, a gas-powered vehicle with that vehicle, a fully electric vehicle, and we would give the operating department a charging station. They would install the charging station, and that vehicle would live and work in the City just fine. The EVs are living and working in the City just fine. Philadelphia is no different than any other major city. We have infrastructure challenges. The vehicles are being built and deployed and there's infrastructure issues. So out of the 300 vehicles that we have, we have charging stations for about half, but in order to move forward and implement the clean fleet plan and to take advantage of all the electric vehicles that were being built quickly -- they were being built quicker than gas-powered vehicles, so we 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. wanted to take advantage of that, so we did double the fleet size, and I explored fast charging at a public charging vendor. And we've had challenges with that, but it's a temporary solution. We're building out fast charging of our own, municipal fast charging of our own, and we will eventually work our way -- wean ourselves off of the public charging.
Good. Thank you, Mr. Rosati. And any way we can be supportive of those efforts, let us know. Mike Carroll. DEPUTY DIRECTOR CARROLL: I just wanted to comment on maybe the second half of your question and first really commend Commissioner Rosati for being extremely proactive and moving forward on this. It really meets our sustainability goals in a very meaningful way. But as his response to your 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. question alludes to, there's a larger ecosystem of charging that we need to build in the City, and private companies need to be a part of that as well and also our partners, and I just wanted to celebrate the fact that it was just over a week ago that we were announced for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program in partnership with the Philadelphia Parking Authority just shy of a million dollars to implement electric vehicle charging at one of their facilities. So we want to scale that up, and the plan that PennDOT and the federal government have been working on is very much focused on travel between cities, and so they're trying to locate the funding that they put out there near interstates and interchanges, and we want to figure out how we can spread that out throughout the rest of the City. But that's a work in progress and that's going to be a focus.
All 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. right. Thank you, Mike, and I appreciate you for saying that. I'm not sure we've had the conversation within the past, but, yeah, I was also informed how the interstate on the highway plays a major role in terms of these EV vehicles, because obviously you don't want to be in the middle of the road, no charging station and you're stuck. But as we continue to move forward, we want to be supportive so we can lead on this issue and that we have our Chair -- he just stepped out -- of Transportation and Public Utilities, as well as I know Councilmember Nina Ahmad is doing a hearing around how do we upscale EV stations here in the City of Philadelphia. And so last question, and I'll release my time -- relax my time back to the members. Commissioner Del Rossi, very, very important issue to members of Council, how will we move forward on street renaming signs? It's one of the 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. things that we engage in with our constituents and it was a policy maybe proposed that some way somehow that Councilmembers have to pay for signs to put up, which now is the budget opportunity for us to request to make sure that's a part of the actual budget process, because a lot of these things that we're actually honoring, they can't come out $50, $60 a sign, and so we try to make sure we limit at least two per family, but we're not going to ask the family who, depending on the circumstance, they lost a loved one to come out their pocket, so we would think it would be a part of the actual budget process, as well as we know that there's a lot of manpower that goes into putting up these street signs. And so under the last regime, we could call Carlton Williams all day every day, last minute trying to address this issue, and he said, well, in terms of manpower, Councilman at that time, you 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. know, it's kind of tough on us. So now we're both in new positions and so you're the new Commissioner moving forward. I just want to get an update on where we're at, any need of support, because I think it's something near and dear to all the members, rather it's District members or District members and at-large with the support of District members. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: We can definitely look at that policy. I was out on the street one of those nights right before --
Yes. Yes. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: -- making sure the signs were up there. So I worked with Director Williams in the past on that. It has evolved over time, but we can definitely look at the policy and, you know, make it as efficient and less as we possibly can. It's a customized 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. sign, so it does take a little bit more time, but we can look at it.
We just want to be supportive to this project before the budget passes. So to the whole team that's responsible for putting up them street signs, we just want to say thank you. We know it's very, very tedious. Sometimes we make it the last minute because we might have got a title not a part of it or an actual letter or they might want "way" versus "ave" or "place," and y'all will pick up that phone call sometime the night before and accommodate us, so it does not go unappreciated. So I just wanted to say that. I know from me y'all saved me a couple times. And just to reiterate so you'll know, especially when you honor someone who lost a loved one and the family members, you know, they may see the initial and say, well, it should say something versus something else, right, 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. and to help us kind of help them deal with the coping of losing that loved one that we're actually honoring, right, y'all have always stepped up to the plate and been very, very patient with us and said, you know what, let's try to figure this out. And so I just wanted to personally say thank you and we want to move that process forward. So looking forward to Frankie Beverly Way. Anyway, with that being said, the Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau, second round.
Thank you. First of all, I'm playing with the Philly Streetlight Improvement map right now. Appreciate you for letting us know about this. I guess I want to piggyback on a couple of things, including let's start with Councilmember Young's questions. The City has been working with, at least 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. in the past Administration, I think it started with Councilman Nutter too, a national organization called GARE, which is the Government Alliance for Race and Equity, and one of the easiest things they talked about -- it started, I think, in Oakland -- was understanding that street lighting is an equity issue and that where they didn't have streetlights, they had high crime, and where they did have streetlights, they didn't, and they just had to start lighting the places that weren't lit. So I just started to play with the map, but I really do hope that we are highlighting and focusing on the places that need the streetlights first. But I also have to say there's plenty of places where people really don't like that bright white light, and I'm hearing it all the time, and I know you have the ability to dim them. Can you put in the more yellow bulbs and not make them so bright white? And if you 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. cannot do that, how do we get them dimmed in places where they want them dimmed? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: If you send us the locations, we can look at it, because we do have the ability to control the lights.
Can you put in the yellow streetlights instead of the bright white? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: With the LEDs, it's a little bit different, and the color that was -- it was actually a survey on the color. So majority of the people selected the color that we're using. We can definitely look into the area and we can get back to you.
Okay. My wife did not take that survey. She hates the white bright lights. Okay. COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: I could go either way.
The second thing I wanted to say was, your StreetSmartPHL -- I've also tried it -- 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. does not work well on a mobile app, so I'll wait to see what happens when I get to a desktop, but I wanted to see -- I'm the head of the Information and Technology Committee and wanted to see the coordination of all of these projects that were happening at one time. At least what I saw, and it didn't pull up the data, it looked like you could see more of what happened, not what's going to happen, and also didn't easily let you see it by -- you can put in your block, for example, and it will show you your neighborhood, and I would love to work with you on making this more user friendly. And then the last two things -- oh, three things. Have we thought about creating a truck parking lot where we charge the companies a lot of money to park there, don't allow them to idle? I'm also sure there must be a small hotel chain around here which wouldn't mind putting up a hotel too. Why don't we 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. just make a truck parking lot? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Thank you for your question. I'm going to turn that over to Deputy Commissioner Montanez. We worked on something similar. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER MONTANEZ: Good afternoon, Council. Yeah. So the City has done studies to determine where we could put parking lots. We're also trying to determine what kind of partnership, because obviously the trash has to get picked up, facilities have to be there, and we conducted a nationwide study. For example, in the New Jersey Turnpike, the truck parking lot that's close to New York has bathroom facilities and all that. So we need to provide those amenities there. What I can say is in Council districts where we have gone in strongly after trucks, Councilmember Driscoll's being one, the private side has actually 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. responded by providing three private parking lots that the City did not provide any funding, any land or anything to. They have gasoline, they have private security, they got cameras, and lighting. So it seems to be the private side is responding a lot faster to us because of the area we would need to provide something like this.
Okay. Thank you for that. If I could get the Commissioner Del Rossi back. Two more, please. I want to make sure that I'm clear on one thing. I forgot, I needed to clear something up. Did you say we try to fill potholes in three to four days, but we repave in 30 days? Those are the aspiration goals or no? COMMISSIONER DEL ROSSI: Ditches were 30 days. They are the larger holes that -- it's the larger holes. The potholes itself, the smaller 4/10/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. ones that are just in the like tire tracks, they're within three days. The larger ditches that could be from utilities or things of that nature are within 30.
Okay. Wanted to be clear. And then -- come on, one more?
The Chair recognizes Councilmember Nicholas O'Rourke. Y'all going to jump me after this hearing, so I'm staying on schedule. Nicholas O'Rourke, member.
Thank you, Council President. My questions are for Public Property. How are you? COMMISSIONER BRASKY: How you doing?