unanimously. The approval of the minutes of May the 15th 2020. For Mr. Chair, it's been moved and seconded. Any discussion changes corrections to the minutes? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed, that is adopted unanimously. The first item then the committee for the annual meeting is the election and the approval of officers. And the first item is the election of the chair for a term from July the first 2024 to June the 30th 2025 here, Commissioner Blackmon
I would move that we approve the chair as chair Michael Arden Hauser, the board,
I will turn the chair over to the vice chair to conduct the vote.
Right. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none. All those in favor, please indicate by the sound of Aye Aye. Opposed nay Motion carried. Congratulations again. Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much. Next item be the election of the office of Vice Chair for the same term. Are there any nominations?
The chair? Yes. Like to place the name of Mary Blackman.
All right, it's, it's been moved. It's been seconded. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, then all those in favor? The election of Mary Blackman is vice chair please say aye. Aye. And that is adopted unanimously. Thank
you, my fellow Commissioners next
to the office of Secretary he's the chair Commissioner Blackmun
facing nomination. What's your name here?
By secretary of the board, I'm serious. John Henry Davis.
All right. Is there support or It's been moved and seconded. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none nominations are closed. All those in favor the election of John Henry Davis as secretary of the board, please say aye. Those opposed and that is adopted. Unanimously Congratulations
Mr. Secretary graduations.
And I thank you all have something to say about this and a couple other things in our regular meeting. Let's move then to item D. And that is the adoption of a schedule of board meetings for the fiscal year and it is attached. Mr. Chair, yes,
I would move that we approve the adopt the adoption of fiscal year 2024 through 2025 schedule of board meetings attached to this motion. It's
been moved. Is there support? Commissioner Davis? I don't suppose there's much debate on our schedule of meetings. We're going to maintain our pattern of having committee meetings on the first Wednesday of the month and board meetings on the third Wednesday of the month. Except exceptions like this week. Occasionally, it's just doesn't work. Okay. All those in favor of adopting the schedule of meetings please say aye. Aye. That is adopted unanimously. Next, we come to public comment. Is there any members of the public that would like to address and we've had two meetings today. So this is our annual meeting, which is pretty brief. And then we'll have our regular board meeting that's a little bit more lengthy.
Mr. Chair Alexus were a public affairs specialist and I will be giving the public comment. To make a comment if you are in person, please sign the sign in sheet. Your name will be called and you can proceed to the microphone. If you are online. Please raise your hand by using the raise hand icon on your desktop or mobile device. If you are calling into the meeting by phone press star nine to raise your hand if you're on online or on the phone after your name is called it will give permission to unmute. In order to begin speaking you will have to unmute yourself to do so press the unmute button which is the microphone icon if you're online or star six if you are calling in. As a reminder, you will have a limit of three minutes to make your comment there will be a timer indicating your remaining time. If you are online and make a comment we kindly request you fill out a comment cart link that's located in the chat. By filling out the car we will have your contact information to follow up appropriately. If you are an unable to click the link please let us know and a phone number will be provided to you to call to provide the needed information. You will only be called upon once once the chair closes public comment there will be no other comments from the public and all attendees will remain muted for the duration of the meeting on site. Comments will go first followed by online and on the phone. Thank you for your attention. All
right, thank you very much. We have a couple of people here in the room that would like to address the board. And so the first one is Ms. fasion alt Johnson Ms. Johnson. Yeah. Come on down.
Good afternoon ma'am. Good
afternoon. My name is facial Johnson. And my concern because I am blind and I'm in the blind community and I have an issue with paying my bill because the automated system does not give the blind person enough time to put all those numbers in. So there has to be a better way because I was late and helped me Hank did call me and I have it my problem is solved but I'm thinking about the rest of the blind community trying to pay our bills. Because even if we have to come down here to pay the bill, we got to pay to get here. And to me, that's not really all that helpful. Also to go to a key Yash is not really I'm an elderly lady, and to go time no oh no, you're so mad. So I mean, I I'm just wanted to say that on that the on the phone it cuts you off before you can even get the numbers in it said that you could either verbally give it or you could type a man but verbally it doesn't work. It doesn't hear you
Yeah, Mr. Director. Yeah.
And we're going to have Miss Kim crow will address the issue we recognize it's a problem we thank you for bringing it to our attention is it's just technology that that can be fixed by all methods of paying bills, whether you're doing it through Deb dat over the phone through a computer, we can find a way to make it more accessible and helpful to the blind and blind that the thing appeared to be able to pay their bills so it hasn't fallen on deaf ears. We're working with Deb that our contractor who does the software for the depth that machines and we're going to also work with our contractors on the other methods of payment to make sure that you have excessive access to those methods of payment. So thank you for bringing it to our attention. Thank the escrow will also our customer. Customer Service Manager wants to address several issues that we got in a letter surrounding complaints that were made at the last meeting and put in writing.
Good afternoon commissioners Kim Cornwell Customer Service Manager I would like to address that we are in receipt of the letter that was submitted by Mr. Richard clay who is the president of the National Federation of the Blind Detroit chapter. We have reached out to our vendors which are div debt, Utila tech and other vendors that we currently utilize here. At DWSD to see if we can address some of the concerns that they have outlined in their letter. So we're still waiting to get some feedback from some of our vendors. Once we received feedback, we will definitely reach back out to Mr. Clay and this board by the next meeting.
All right. Any questions or comments by commissioners?
Yes. I just like to say I'm very proud of the the department is recognizing this as a need and we'll address it to make sure that it's taken care of.
Right. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have true Miller Miller.
Good evening. Good afternoon.
Okay, good afternoon. I'm sorry. My issue is that I've been had since 2006. My basement flooding. All the water that's in the street comes in my basement. I try sump pumps, it blows the pump out I put two in so I tried the is some kind of valve that they put in to stop the water from coming in the house. That didn't work either. I just had that put in April 19. Well, this last rain just blew it off the water and I just had a new furnace AC unit put in the cost over $10,000. Now I've had this problem with Detroit water before and they've paid me a second to have a new unit put in. They're not responding. This process is different. I just want the problem to stop. I've had tenants to try to sue me. But they just end up moving instead of suing me. I have pictures that I've seen again is it's terrible. The water comes in so fast. Me and my plumber was in the basement we had to run out. I've had to have my stairs repaired because of how high the water comes up. So it floods out my furnace and it's tearing up all the wood that's in the basement, even pipes. So I'm just trying to get it resolved because this has been going on and you know I tell the tenants when they come in it does flood I've talked to sub pump will help but it blew every sub plug pump out and then this I thought would help that I just spent like $1,800 on the guys are coming back out but it flooded again. So I don't know what to do at this point. Thank you
can I can ask is the water coming in through the walls or is it coming in is through the coming in up through the drain? Okay, we and I see that when you signed in you left your address and a phone number.
Yeah, well that's the address that's flooding. Put my phone number on there okay, if we address this flow,
okay, we're gonna meet with you tomorrow come out and see what we can if we can get the problem resolved.
Okay, all right. Thank you.
Thank you. Next John Scott's.
wants to go out later times. Okay. All right.
Richard clay
Good afternoon, Mr. Clay.
Good afternoon. I brought with me a copy of the letter
that the lady referred to. Some of the board members may have already seen it. Some of you might not have.
Yep, we have it in front of us.
Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Richard clay and I am the president of the Detroit chapter, the National Federation of the Blind. Glad to be here and I want to thank you for receiving Well, the issues that we have presented so far in the letter here. After conferring with those within our community and other people with disabilities across the city, with are asking that these issues be addressed. We would like for you to allow blind consumers for in person access to the building here on Randolph via walk ins as well as via appointments for the purposes of paying our water bills and being able to resolve cases with a D WSD worker. Whenever it is possible. We are asking also for you to begin work immediately to make the kiosk terminals fully accessible to the blind and visually impaired. And I think there's been some comments regarding that already. We're asking that you move to begin offering buying the visually impaired consumers the option of receiving their water bills in either large print or Braille, as many other utilities across the country are already doing, and we're asking that you increase the monthly water usage number of CCS that are permitted for consumers that are eligible for the DWSD lifeline water plan or the water affordability plan from six to seven CCs in order to reflect the true spirit of the plan and the needs of the traders to trade consumers across the sea. We believe that if these things are done, it will make for a much better relationship between the water company and the city's consumers and most especially those of us who are blind or visually impaired. And we call this the water rights agenda blind people's water rights agenda. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Mr. Clay,
nothing unreasonable in this request. We do have if the last the last bullet in your letter that refers changing the CCF from six to seven. We're going to have to have our rate consultants. Take a look at that and give us a true cost because it could truly have an impact on rates. But it's something that we're going to take a look at. We just need more data from our re consultants to understand the impact that changing from six CCS to seven I know you indicated in the spirit of cooperation, but we also have a realistic impact on ratepayers when we change the amount of CCS from six to seven and we have to understand what that is. So again, everything is reasonable. And we're going to try to move with great speed to get it accomplished. And we'll stay in touch with you as we work through it in case we run into any problems or issues that you might be able to help us with.
Is there any way that we'll be able to have contact with to keep to get some updates as the process staff,
we can give you weekly updates, status updates weekly. Okay, I'll commit to that.
Thank you very much, Mr. Clay. Ernst wells. Good afternoon, Mr. Wells.
Good afternoon. How are you? Good. Thank you. So the panel, just I'm a landlord here in the city and on several properties and
one of the
one of the issues that was brought up the lady I forget her name mentioned about the flooding of the basements. I've experienced that on almost every house I have and it's been brought to my attention that a lot of times what's happening is the catch basins are not being cleaned on a quarterly weekly or regular basis and that's causing water to back up. And we've done all of the preliminary things in terms of having a line snake and plumbers out multiple times and flooding just continues to occur. FEMA has offered to help some people with some funds and in regards to fixing some of the damage and replacing some of the damage that was done and we're trying to go through that process with one house but the rest of our houses were on our own in regards to that. So that's my one concern. I know it's already been addressed, where you guys are working on it. So I appreciate that. The other issue is the kiosk or just a basic need of being able to get the water bill changed from our company to our personal my wife and I we've been trying this process for about a month and a half. There's something broke with the kiosk we've been unable to log in and get in there and change it we've called and made given the information to the city. We've done that and we've been following up and we were told that it's going to be 10 days. Yeah, we
can do it before you leave. We can do it today. Right? Okay. Yes, somebody somebody is going to get with you in a minute and we'll, we'll get it done before you leave.
I appreciate it. That's all I have. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much. Mr. Wells, Steven Handschuh.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon. Am I pronouncing your name correctly, Mr. Handschuh? Yes,
you are and most people don't. So thank you for that.
Most people don't pronounce my name. Correct either.
Well, Mr. Clay has listed the demands and you've responded and the response sounds wonderful. What I want to just reiterate because these are pressing needs in our community is that I'm hoping that you will either yourself or designate somebody from the board or at the highest level of management to be in touch with Mr. Clay. on an ongoing basis because we're real serious. We don't just come and hand out a proclamation and say, you know, hi, bye thank you very much. We'll work with you. And if what we're asking is going to cost more money will go to the funding sources with you and back you up on it. We will do everything we can to make getting our meat needs met as painless for you as possible. So that would be my only additions. I think Mr. Clay has really you know, spoken clearly and you've responded clearly I appreciate the tone and substance of your response. And I'm looking forward to some concrete movement. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Handschuh. It's Anthony is it's TaoTao Yes, sir. Come on down.
Hi, yeah, don't just have Am I doing this right. Quick question. Um, I recently just purchased a home so what the house that I purchased i If anyone knows, like divorce, like sometimes you try to keep all your assets or whatever down. You kind of don't think I'm supposed to be saying that. But yes. I don't think I'm supposed to say that. So certain things you're not supposed to put in your name. Long story short, purchased the house. Yeah, the house and apparently I had to evict. Well, the prior owner had to evict the person before me under the home, and I got the water bill. Now I guess once I paid the water bill. Trying to not be slick or anything but just trying to make the transition easier. And so for some odd reason for years, years they haven't been charging the current or the previous residents residence. Water. And I went from having a $40 bill to a $5,600 bill the next month. So I'm assuming they figured because I was taking care of that. That it was the point of now. charging me the whole amount. And when I called and I asked what's going on to the young lady that I talked to, she said, Well, I'll reassess it from the time that you took over to the time of it is now to person to basically balance it out. It never happened. And I still got a $5,600 bill for a property that I haven't been in that long. So I'm trying to figure out how does this happen or how can I rectify this situation? That's all I'm asking.
It was yeah, we're gonna we're gonna have somebody from customer service. Take a look into a history on the bill and find out what's going on.
Is this the the property on Monica? Yes, sir.
Okay, we have the address. You buy the house through a land contract, or did you buy it through a convenience I have all my land contract? Yes. You do a title search to see if there was any water bill when you bought the house? A
half the bills that are literally pay, I got all the bills but I'm just saying that the one I didn't actually came down here the first bill I paid I came down here and use the chaos. So I went that way trying to take
a look at it. Okay, somebody misses
your mission or can lie. Yeah, director just asked a question that would be very educational for me as well. So the whole purpose of creating land bank was declared a title and you know, get deeds and all that stuff clear. Does that include all outstanding water bills?
Yeah. When when a house goes to the land bank, the water the title has been cleared. Okay. I'm not quite sure he bought it to the land bank. He bought it he bought it from an individual or settling. Settling can the educational party, the water bill doesn't go contracts raised on the house. So when you buy a house, you should make sure that you check with the water department to make sure there's no outstanding balance because once you take title of that property, you've also taken title to any debt that's associated to the product. But we will we will get to the bottom of it. We do it every day and come up with something that's reasonable.
Okay. Now, another thing to think about is I don't know if you're going to be buying any new homes. Title Insurance is based on the price of the house and if you're getting a good bargain for the house, title insurance isn't going to cost you much and it's a an expense worth incurring because they'll go they're going to tell you about the water bill and they're going to tell you about the chain of title and whether or not that the person is selling it to you whether he really owns it. So right title insurance was a good idea. The
only thing about that part was when I looked at the bills when I talked to the young lady they never was charge for the water they was only charged for the sewage. So I got multiple bills that says now the current bill that I got what the 5600 now they are charging for the water and sewage but all the bills before that no charges on
your water. You
actually you're winning, so you should just leave it.
I remember it was a while ago but Kelly, no, no telling my son, would you please take yes for an answer. That's all I have, in terms of people who have signed up in the room. Is there anyone else on line? That would like to address the board?
Mr. Chair, there might be one more guest in the audience.
Oh, we want to go back to in Michigan's got one person.
We have two more Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Scott.
Good afternoon. I have very little thing I came down primarily in support of my fellow members at NASA Federation of blind and I. I was so pleased to hear Mr. Clay I said because for those who don't know, I nominate him for the position and I'm pleased that I did that. I'm also pleased to listen to you. I work for the law department and he retired about 80 years for law department. But I've never been before this bar by very much impressed by what I've heard today. And I just want to stay then as everyone knows, no. Water is a right it's not a privilege. And there's a problem across the nation and especially in black humanities was water and infrastructure as public debt and infrastructure bill completely passed and should be done. So the problems can be taken care of because the 100 year old problem isn't that good and in anybody's book, but um, Raisa came here and we support and listen to the reception that you've people have given to the folks that spoke and he is shows me the city is really doing well. He's gonna do well. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Mr.
Scott and correct me if I'm wrong. I remember back in 1977 when both of us were very young men and I might have been on the police department. And you may have either been a defense attorney or working for the city back back. What What year did you start?
I was assistant Corporation college a couple of years ago. So I worked with the city for 32 years and retired in 2007. And so in the end, I did a prosecutor brand for prosecutor brands for about 30 years so it's I'm not surprised at all because that's where I spend most of my time was as a prosecutor for the city. Yes.
It's good to see you again. Sir Gary Brown.
Oh, yeah. Thank you.
Spend a lot of time in that court.
Is there anyone else who would like to address the board?
Good afternoon, ma'am. Can you tell us your name, please?
Okay, can you hear me? Yes, fine. Okay, great. My name is Sabrina rice. I am a resident of the city of Detroit. I'm also a business owner in the city of Detroit. And I'm also the Vice President of the National Federation of the Blind. I just wanted to share example with you. I know Richard talked about coming in person and being able to set up appointments to pay bills. But I'm a techie, I teach technology to the blind and visually impaired or to senior citizens. And so I want to go online to pay my bills. And I have been able to do that and until the last six months or so. Now I'm challenged with the visual challenge. So they want me to identify three of the four pitchers as being the same. Well, as you can see, I cannot see. Therefore, I'm not able to pay my water bill without having to come downtown or without having to get someone with site to help me. I'm just saying before you make a change to a website, you might want to check with members of the National Federation of the Blind because we're not here to complain. We're here to be a part of the solution so that some of us can continue to pay our bills without site. Thank you.
No, thank you. And and I can assure you that before I approve any changes to the website or any of the upcoming changes, I'm going to ask that question of my staff. Did you run this by the, you know, our blind community to find out if we're doing something intentionally, that's going to cause them a problem so it hasn't fall on deaf ears. We won't forget this again and we will be in touch to make sure whatever changes we make in the future are positive for everybody. Great,
thank you. And there are 27,000 Blind Citizens in the city of Detroit and 80,000 in this greater community, Macomb, Oakland and Wayne, so it would be beneficial if seen to pay our bills. Online. Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am. Is there anyone else either in the room or online that would like to address the board?
Mr. Chair, we have five guests online. The first one is Edith Edith. Edith That's correct. Okay.
Hi, I didn't want to be the first one but I'm coming in to speak for one of my neighbors that hopefully will be speaking after me. Is Tamar and Charles Johns. They Live at Four to six by seminar. They have had problems since 2016 with a sinkhole that was behind their house. And we as a neighborhood association Pingree Park Association and also Mac development, had tried to work with the water department and also a district manager to get someone to come out there and take care of those repairs. So just recently, they found out the sinkhole has spread larger and they were told that it was the fault of their sewer line, even though they just had their sewer inspected last month, and it was no problems with it. I had the same issue after the flooding in 2021. And I use the company called Shelby mechanical from Shelby township to come out and take a picture of my line and to snake it. Then the basement flooded again and I call DWSD and they hydro that the line but the line got flooded again. I call Shelby mechanical I spent $1,500 that for them to look at it and what had happened is that DWSD push oil and silt back into my mind so I had them to fix it. So CLB mechanical, hydro vac that line and I haven't had any problems since. We are having problems in our neighborhood getting DWSD to come back and service our water infrastructure. For example, on my corner on occasion and Canfield there was a sinkhole there for years where the home just would just drop down in a sinkhole and we had to make a big fuss to get it fixed. And I'm asking that this commission like look over their situation and see what it is you can do to help them because I can imagine if there was damage on the city and and water has been leaking out for eight or nine years that that would eventually damage their property. All right,
thank you very much. Yes, Mr. Chair, we there's a lot, a lot going on in that particular call. We do have a presentation from American Resource little later in today. So I just asked anyone that's that's calling in today to to take the time to listen to that presentation and make a determination on whether or not that might be something that could be beneficial. I know that Mr. Smalley today had a meeting with the mayor and we were guaranteed some additional funding in the millions of dollars to deal with issues in alleys as you know, for men for decades. The alleys hadn't been maintained by the city and now they're opened up and they're exposing a lot of sinkholes and so we're going to have some dollars to deal with those particular sinkholes. But there's, as I've said at this table, we have many, many homes in the city of Detroit that are more than 100 years old and I can almost guarantee you any house on Seminole in Fisher is 100 years old and that their lateral sewer line has outlived its useful life and needs to be serviced or replaced. And so we also have dollars for that and we're spending a lot of these dollars on the east side in the Jefferson Chalmers area along with East Indian village and other areas of of the east side. So we will contact the homeowner and see if we need to have a block club meeting with the neighborhood officers that are working there and see if we can find some relief for them. Mr.
Chair. All right. Yes, Commissioner Kinlaw. Yes,
definitely. Could you the seminar fishery, could you definitely, you know, keep us informed as you always do on the status of that. And I would like to encourage a community meeting because I've gone and actually the department has been over there at the Church of Messiah before to discuss those issues and so would love to have have a follow up meeting with that community. Yep. Yes,
Commissioner. Mr. Smiley. Yes. Thank
you, Mr. Chair, just one addition to what Mr. Brown said. As our customers hire plumbers we highly encourage getting a video of your lateral when we televise our public sewer main and we rotate the camera inside the sewer to look up the customer's lateral. If we notice a defect, we will take a screenshot of it and send it to the customer along with a letter describing the issue. But our staff are always willing to look at pictures or video that the customers have hired a plumber to take. So just wanted to make sure everyone understood that's a standing offer. Thank you.
And who who is next that would like to address the board.
Mr. Chair as Charles and Tamra John's, you may unmute yourself.
Thank you for taking my call. Tamra
John's
Yes, ma'am. Yes,
we can hear you. Okay, great. Um, so yes, I am. We have a sinkhole in our alley. And I appreciate that sounds like there's more good information coming in the meeting here. We called in years ago about a sinkhole in the alley. And the WSD came out put in a frame over it never addressed it. We filled it in at the time because we have kids and we also have neighbor kids behind us that are younger than ours. And people were falling into it. It ate up the day frame that was put over it. Um, fast forward to this year, April 2024. And, and we it's gotten a lot bigger. We had sewage backing up into our basement after calling them and creating work orders and mind you we have three children in our homes. We have no proper sewage drainage in our home right now, which has become a very difficult task to live. So we DWSD came out, they swept the sewage behind us the and multiple times and then did testing. They sent me a letter stating that it's my problem. And the paperwork is very conflicting. It's from based on the test takers that came out and said one thing about the taps or traps, I'm not sure which is the official term that we have. And then the paperwork that was sent was different than what the test taker said that we're on site. Additionally, we the pictures that are sent are there's no description under them stating like this is what we see in this picture. We also had our line scoped about a
or two prior to this actually happening. And our line was fine. Nothing was wrong. And so I'm like, the sinkhole got bigger. I believe it collapsed. Whatever is happening out there. I don't believe this is our issue. And we really I'd love for somebody to explain this to me because we have video I have a disc a DVD of this showing that we have our line is fine. And so I we just we need help and I feel like we're not getting the appropriate help we need. Mr. Chair, we'll make sure we get a hold of a hold of them. We have their contact information and we'll dive into the history as well as the current status. Okay. We have we have your contact information and Mr. Smiley says smile he says we're going to go out and see it. Mr. Mr. Chair, the next participant is Mac far Mac for Mac fire. Mr. Fire how are you? Good, Mike, how are you? I'm very well. Thank you. You've heard our previous discussions right? Oh, I've been paying attention. I just wanted to bookend with a few points. My name is Mack fart and I'm speaking on behalf of the Pingree Park Association in the villages CDC. I would like to take the time to applaud the lead service line replacement program. The department has recently come through Pingree Park and is very nearly done with a transition away from lead service lines to copper. This represents real progress on the department on the part of the department and the city. However, at the same time, I would like to speak to some of the challenges that face the John's family on Seminole and Pingree Park. After speaking extensively with them. I feel like the initial crews that came out from DWSD may not have arrived with the correct conclusion. I would request the DWSD continues to work with the John's family to get the sewer situation rectified. Some of the comments that pertain to the situation that Edith forge referenced are accurate. Sometimes when DWSD sends a crew out, we don't get an entirely accurate assessment. And sometimes that assessment incorrectly places the burden back on the homeowner. Commissioners can lock in iron Hauser will recall a similar situation wherein I asked for assistance for DWSD to turn off old service lines that were never disconnected repeatedly. It took three visits and many many phone calls. It was only after multiple entries to people that I know personally on the Board of Water commissioners that I was able to get the situation rectified. Lastly, when I viewed the footage that Tamra provided from her suit her from her sewer sewer scoping service from this past April, their line was free and clear all the way to the sewer main. The report that they were provided back from the department included only blurry images, as well as no written description of what was provided. We're asking for assistance to help the John's family it seems unlikely to me that the responsibility is solely theirs. And that the investigation into the situation at their home at their family home on Seminole needs further assessment and repair. Thank you. Thank you, Mack. You're still the director of the villages CDC. For Oh, I know Mackey does a very good job representing those communities. So thank you for your input. Mr. Chair, the next participant is Cecily McClellan. Ms. McClellan. Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for this opportunity to speak of as I've spoken before previously about it being really a blessing that the the there are funds now for plumbing you know, as a result of the local utility water affordability funding, but this brings the question and in my mind, and the report that was shown at the Customer Service Committee meeting, it indicated that there were 1400 Water audits that were completed, that I do have on a lifeline clients. I would like to know of those 1400 How many were as a result of plumbing issues, and are those plumbing issues being addressed through these funding that became available as of April 1. Additionally, I find it interesting and I think Richard clay brought up a very interesting point. Also in that same report, it groups together water usage in group ABC, and so forth. And in Group A, it indicates 91% of the residents. Were using six CCF. Now six CCF is your maximum amount in lifeline before you're charged an additional fee, but that is very curious, if you will the fact that in order for you to have an average generally you have to have more people on you at that people above six CCFs and below six, six CCS. I like to know the numbers that are the number of residents in group A and how many are above the six CCS. You know it has been a concern with the people of Detroit that the water usage or the allowable amount should be revisited and considered it should be considered to increase when it is appropriate in terms of usage. Finally, there's on the webpage of Wayne Metro, it indicates the water utility the local water utility fund, separate from is not like is included with the Detroit Lifeline program on your website, which is very good and I found that to be extremely helpful. It does indicate that there's 2000 allowable for the Detroit Lifeline program. It would be helpful if the information on the Lifeline program is consistent with the information it's also in the Wayne Metro website. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. McLoughlin. Mr. Chair, the next caller is one Howard. GWEN Howard. Ms. Howard. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. We the People have been short the water peace division. And I thank you for the opportunity to speak. I did on what Cecily McClellan said are all issues and then also on the local water utility affordable program. The website does not reflect common dollars. So how are they promoting this program? And there is a disconnect between how the two websites are reflecting the information. So what's happening to the people who already had coming out as we did on because we look at it at about the same time and and the concern is still there and on the life like us we the Lifeline program isn't is improving its communication skills, more and more every time you guys update. Actually current with the with the allowable dollars for the year. So I'm saying what's really going on with the plumbing issue because we have a lot of people that the local levels of the block club communities asking about plumbing, they're still having issues with the flooding. They're still trying to figure out who's responsible and they get to different opinions based on the private people that they hire because they're just tired of their basements being flooded and replacing their stairs and replacing their appliances that they have in their basement. So when we found out at the last meeting about the the loofah money that how are they are being accessed by the consumers by the customers. Thank you. Thank you ma'am. Mr. Chair, the next caller is Norrell Hemphill. Ms. Hemphill. Yes, good afternoon. It's turning around at home Phil. Um so I just wanted to pull raise a couple of points that were raised. Number one with the data that's being shared. There's a great need for disaggregated data, so that we can actually see how the data is being used how the data is really reflect what's happening with residents in the city of Detroit as far as the programs especially lifeline. And also when Howard said about the luau program. How is this program being promoted as we've seen that there is a disconnect between the way that DWSD is promoting this program and the information in what way Metro is putting forward Additionally, the the YouTube channel for DWSD still is not updated. The latest meeting is still from May 17 of 2023. And also the lifeline dashboard has not been updated since May seventh. And that I looked as of about noon, excuse me 1130 Today, and it still had not been updated. I know that in previous years we got an agreement that that that dashboard will be updated weekly so if there's some issue if you could please just let the community know what's going on with that. Also with the YouTube channel,
as it's been over a year now, we don't have any of those meetings online. And it would help us you know those who can't access meetings, those who work to stay connected with our local water utility, if we do have access to that information. That's about all that I have to say right now. But we do appreciate it and there is a great need, as we've seen today with different communities that are that make up the whole of Detroit coming out to voice our concerns. There's a genuine need for transparency and true feedback and that process for community engagement. And that'll be all for me today. Thank you gotta have a wonderful day. Thank you. Mr. Chair. She was the last caller. But Mr. Chair, I would like to comment on her a couple of questions as of today, we have gone live to YouTube with our board meetings. So our regular board meeting monthly will be live to YouTube, per the request of the community. And also because we're almost two years into the Lifeline program. We are now doing monthly updates to the dashboard rather than weekly because the changes weekly aren't as dramatic as they once were when we first launched the program. So now we're doing monthly updates in the website. Thank you. Thank you. Hey Brian does it does it mean that because we're broadcasting live that our customers could go back and retrieve old meetings they don't have to actually watch it live? Yes, correct director bounce so once this meeting airs live, it will be accessible afterwards saying when future rate and we archive and they'll be able to search and find the meetings from this point on. Right. Okay. And then Mr. Charges, I know that everybody wants the Wayne Metro website to match the water department website. And the fact of the matter is, is that the state, which is where most of the dollars are coming from that fund, home plumbing repairs in the such are given directly to Wayne Metro. We do not the water department does not receive any federal or state funding. From luck for lifeline. The only funding we get is from the Great Lakes Water Authority, which is about $2.2 million a year. And that money goes pretty quickly so we're dependent on the dollars that the state transfers to Wayne Metro we simply transfer the names of customers and then when Metro will allocate or contract with plumbers to make those repairs. And again, there is not enough money for home repair. of every person that's in the lifeline. I'll I'll be in a meeting tonight at 630 with a blank slate asking for support to ask the state of Michigan to help with a not permanent but long term funding of for these programs. The money is running out and we appreciate organizations like we the people of Detroit, working with us to address Lansing in finding that funding because it there's just not enough money for 28,000 customers or households that are in the program. We haven't run out yet but we will and we're I spend probably way more time of my day looking for long range funding for that program and appreciate any assistance that the community especially advocates such as we the people of Detroit that can give us in helping to find long range funding. All right, thank you very much, Mr. Director. And I'm going to close public participation. I want to thank everybody for the contribution that they've made to the discussion particularly the members of the blind community appreciate you bringing these issues to our attention. You've heard the director make a commitment that access to being a being able to pay your bills is going to be much more consistent with your needs. But we appreciate you coming here today. All right, the next item is communications and I guess we have communications from the National Federation of the Blind. We have your letter, and so I would entertain a motion to receive and file that communications. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. And that is unanimously adopted. Next row seat of correspondence. Yeah, from Mohammed Sandy. All right. Is there a motion to receive and file miseration or Davis, supported by Commissioner Blackmon. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? All right. With regard to our annual meeting is are there any items from the commissioners? Any unfinished business? All right, next is Approval of the consent agenda. Items 10. A through L move approval of the consent agenda. It's been moved and seconded. The Consent Agenda is exactly that unanimous consent. Does any commissioner wish to remove any item from the consent agenda to be considered separately? Hearing none, all those in favor of the adoption of the consent agenda please say aye. Aye. Those opposed and that is unanimously adopted. Yes, Vice Chair reminds me to that. If all of the items have been reviewed by the committee principally the Finance Committee and given fairly strict scrutiny so I don't want anyone to think that we're treating this these these items lately. A lot of money involved in those. Alright, let's move to new business. And item 20241 23 water resources that are biannual board review. Mr. Director you want to introduce Yes,
Mr. Chair where we're glad to report I think we we made a commitment that I don't know if we will do it quarterly or annually, but we will bring American resource in to give us an update. I think it's quite impressive. The amount of money that they're spending to make improvements to some of the homes that you heard complaints about today. I know for a fact that they were out today actually witnessing contractors installing lead service lines for people that had purchased their product to make sure that it's being done correctly. So with no further ado, I'll ask them to come to the podium introduce themselves and give a short presentation. Director
Brown was questioned for over funding for the citizens that need landlines replace their funding out there. How do they go about getting it there is? Yeah,
we actually you know, our staff had a meeting today and we talked about putting a program together that could incentivize home owners that wanted to replace their own line through some type of credit program. So I just asked to let us fully bake a a program if in fact we can do it.
Because one example I was talking to a home they just bought a home and water was off and they had a plumber. Look at the system. And one of the things that guy said was, you know, the box where it comes into your house is corroded. And I'm saying well, hey, before you get that water on, that's an easy fix. But there you know, there's probably 100 other people out there that don't know that it's probably cheaper to get that done then yeah, you guys come in and out and there might be the lead might be a lead service line. And
yeah, and and even more importantly, you know, because I talked to people in that situation all the time and does their lateral sewer line work. So when you turn the water on is actually going to go somewhere. So when you buy a home, making sure those inspections are done and that work is done is a lot easier to get done on the front end than the backend. But we'll come back to you with a recommendation. Okay.
Thank you all for having us. Thank you, commissioners and Chairman I and I'm Hauser so we're here like director Gary told you to just provide an update to you. So I wanted to also share with you some company changes that we've made. If you go to the next slide, we are becoming more focused on customer first initiatives. So the strategic partnership group that you guys are a part of and sharing is as well is now under our customer experience sector. So today we have some new faces I just wanted to introduce you to and next to me is the Chief Customer Officer Philip Eden's. And we also have a new Senior VP of partner development and expansion. So we're all excited to be here to really share with you guys how the partnership is going with Detroit. I myself am Jalisa Nelson, director of customer experience managing the Detroit partnership alongside with Sharon Daugherty, who's the manager of customer experience. Next slide please. So today we are going to really just update you guys just a reminder on the program scope what we offer within this partnership, as well as how customers are experiencing it within Detroit. We're going to talk about how they're utilizing the programs as well as how they're growing. And then we're going to also go into how OHS is committed to the Detroit area and the surrounding areas. Right, next slide. So start just a reminder on how we started so DWSD put out an RFP American Water Resources was selected. It is an oncourse company and we launched our partnership back in May of 2022. Purpose of the program was to provide a solution for those homeowners who have residential external lines from their water meters to the street, as well as for the sewer within the back of their homes. So their external lines we cover through our protection programs. So to date, we have over 20,000 customers within the Detroit partnership continue to grow and we have service over 6000 repairs. To Water and sewer lines. So with that next slide. We don't only offer protection for water and sewer but we have a variety of programs that homeowners can have within their home. So we have plumbing appliances, H vac electronics, so many more bundles that they can actually create an affordable protection that they need. That fits their budget as well. So when we talk about what we offer, it's not just someone saving the money, but we also offer that peace of mind. Customers call us directly to open their claims. We process it, we get them a provider that is qualified because I know that's a lot of the hard part in finding a good provider who's going to do what you need them to do. So we cover the permitting process, we cover the invoicing and we kind of take that peace of mind and provide that to the homeowner. So with that next slide, please. This is a map a heat map showing where our penetration is mostly for the Detroit homeowners. As you can see the red is really showing where we have over 2000 customers. Green is where the darker the green the more the less customers we have in those areas. Wayne County Bagley and Warren Ave community are our top three penetrated areas and customers. Right next slide. So since we have started this partnership, we have saved Detroit homeowners over $3 million in 25 months since inception. And this is all across the board from water, sewer and any other programs that homeowners decide to enroll in. Right now. We're currently only offering water and sewer through direct mail but customers are have the ability to call in and enroll with other protection they feel is right for them. And with that there's no questions we're going to go into the customer experience and pass on to Phil.
Thank you guys for having us here and hosting us. It was great to to hear from the customers directly and as the as you heard earlier, we were on site earlier, actually seeing customers in person. As Lisa mentioned, part of what we've done over the last six months is reaffirm our commitment to being a customer first organization that shows up in our customer satisfaction and our SLA is that we hold ourselves to here so what you're seeing here is just an improvement in customer satisfaction for customers who actually have our services completed that means we've actually had them call into the contact our contact center, file a claim and then have somebody go out and complete that job. So we're at 98% customer satisfaction. We handle a lot of calls for customers. You can see we're already on pace to hit about 5000 calls this year. We answer about 96% of those in a timely manner. From a home service perspective, this is very impressive for us which is we have about 2000 home service this year already and we are approving about 93% of claims. I think one of the sticking points you can get into with these types of programs if customers call and try to use them and they can't actually utilize those. We make sure that our customers can and we deliver value to our customers through you want to move to the next slide. These are some call outs we share this you guys can read through the some of the key pieces here that I take pride in excellent service professionalism, promptness, and really our our customers when they use our program, they truly do experience a value in it. Next slide please. This is going to walk through a little bit through the claims process. So my understand is that this is new for for you all to see. When a customer calls in with an issue. They call into our contact center. The calls are answered promptly, they file their claim. We take about
18 minutes to get them scheduled with a provider meaning from the time we take the call we're actually assigning a provider who are Detroit based to own that claim. takes them about one and a half hours for them for that provider to actually make contact with the customer. That typically means on site but it can also be making a phone call if it's in the middle of the night or over the weekend on a Sunday or something along those lines. Obviously emergency situations are going to be held to a different standard. The amount of time that it takes us to restore service is less than four days might seem like a big gap. What that actually entails is the permitting process, the actual time to get out there to do a dig. We're in the instance of today where we went out there and we dug up a front yard we uncovered that there was lead piping, so the steps that need to go into replacing those and then taking care of the customer there. Which by the way the customer had no out of pocket expenses on that takes on average about four days. And then as you mentioned the customer experience customer satisfaction. It's about 98% there. Move on to the next slide and one more because I'm satisfaction. There's a couple points here one customers this is a standard approach, right. As we mentioned, this program started about two years ago, two and a half years ago. This is a standard kind of trajectory we see with our off build partnerships where you'll see a spike at the beginning. And that spike is really kind of getting customer adoption. As you can see we're sitting about 20,000 Detroit residents who are currently enrolled in our program, but then typically happens is we take some time to evaluate the program. We are seeing what marketing works, what programs our customers are interested in communication between both the DWSD and the OnCourse American Water Resources team and also just evaluating how the cost and everything kind of factors in and then we build off of that to build that second kind of growth period, which is where we're in right now is we're coming up with solutions and how to further grow and cover more customers. One of the things that's interesting here and we'll highlight here is the gap between customers and plans is growing, which means our customers, our mutual customers are buying more plans on average. If you move to the next slide, we'll hit a bit on usage rates and then I'll kind of tie this together. Really interesting and in great stuff here for Detroit. Detroit is actually our highest claim market of all of our partners, more Detroit residents claimed there and use their service than anywhere else in the country for us. And you can see that is also increasing over the last six months. Which is great because it means that we're actually getting a chance to go out there and make an impact. We were in East Canfield earlier today. We're fixing the line and the customer is actually his third claim with us. Not on the same line. He had a water line claim. He had a sewer line claim before that we came out and fixed. He had another issue with a washing machine and then this was a water line claim. So he's used us three different times. And in that he actually mentioned if you go to the next slide, we talk about new products and how we kind of expand on that our customers are buying more products. They are getting service fast they are having a high quality experience in their buying more products. He has he told me that he has everything in his house covered through programs with us. And he started with water and sewer line from a direct mail piece that we sent in conjunction with DWSD. This is just highlighting an in home plumbing plan that we're going to be using to market to customers juggling for existing customers, which then essentially takes that coverage in house for into the customer house as it relates to the polling. And if you want to skip ahead to slides, just wanted to close this with some some commitments we have to the city of Detroit. Our CEO is actually from Southfield. He was very. He really wanted to actually be here for this but he was out of office. He definitely plans on coming down here to visit. He's actually up here pretty frequently. His mother was a teacher in the city of Detroit and he is extremely committed to having a thriving program here in Detroit. We have five contact center agents who are actually remote based out of the city. We have for Detroit based contractors we have to local field field supervisors. Additionally, while not Detroit related we just acquired ASP applying service plan from Consumers Energy, which gives us a significant footprint and the rest of the state on site today was actually two individuals from our ASP team coming in to lead and lean in with some of their expertise of the area. They're actually in the area as well. I think they said they're 20 minutes north and 20 minutes south all this to say that we are committed to delivering a top tier customer experience for joint customers and for our mutual customers and seeing how we can partner together to have more customers. Benefit from the peace of mind that Julissa mentioned earlier and see how we can kind of help guide your priorities moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions from commissioners? Yes, Commissioner Garcia. Yes. Any I saw how many services they were how many have applied and not been accepted or have declined the service where you do not decline? Customers decline anybody we have a 30 day wait period. So if not 30 days you have an issue when you call in or you call them with a pre existing condition. We would not honor like that claim to essentially avoid somebody having an issue enrolling in plan to benefit from it. But that number would be factored into our claims denial rate, which is our acceptance rate rather is 96%. So and how many how many of the claims have you seen the main pipes that go from the alley to the main to the home I saw what you did repair? But how many of those override and see any, like the actual cars from the alley to the back of the house? That would be the sewer line, right? I don't have any that's the responsibility of the customer. Yeah, so everything that we do would be something that the customer would otherwise have been responsible for. All the old line repair work is covering specifically the line from the house to the DWSD blinds. The mean to so that's covered though, correct? Yes. Okay, but you haven't had that many that many claims on that. Oh, no, no. The vast majority, I would say 80% of our claims. 4% 74% of our claims are actually water and sewer line claims. Because that's the most expensive would be for the customers. Okay, thank you. Absolutely. The one we were at earlier today was a water line in the front of the customer's house. The individual we spoke to where it said that the contract we had on site said normally this would be a six $7,000 expense out of pocket to the customer. So you have had a great deal of increase of customers from the city of Detroit. Thank you. Yeah, I would assume that increases really based on word of mouth that customers that are satisfied till other customers and that's how you generate additional business. That's part of it. I'm as we were sitting in standing outside with Mr. career. His neighbor was sitting on the porch and we went over and talked to her I explained kind of what we were doing out there. I told her to talk to Howard about the plants themselves. So I wasn't it wasn't hearing from me about all the great things that we do. But as you can see also he has used our program three times. He's bought more programs along the line. And seeing the value and purchase other plants from us that aren't being promoted proactively. And you've spent $3 million so far servicing customers that and it's worth knowing that that's $3 million. We negotiate with our providers, we give them high volume of work. So we actually estimate the cost to customers is probably about 15% higher than that $3 million if they had gone actually directly to your provider.
All right, and what's the monthly charge or yearly charge?
Right now we are at 797 Review monthly. Commissioner Kinloch?
Yes, Mr. Director, I know when we first voted have brought this program online. We initially did not allow it to be built through, you know our billing system. We want to see how it worked. This is some incredible supporting information. I have no problem and encouraging staff to prepare, whatever action is necessary so that we can our customers can actually have it included on their bill. I think that will also help you with expanding the the folks utilization of this this great, great service
when the contract comes up do that certainly will be. We'll take that into consideration. Thank you.
Commissioner Blackman.
Really, that is an extension of the question I had. How's the customer currently build?
We build them directly. So the customer will enroll with us they will receive a bill from American Water Resources each
month. Electronically paper how does how does they can opt
for electronic actually, I believe actually might be all automatic payments and electronically or a paper bill
like to pay monthly or annually, whichever they works for them. Thank you.
I suspect if if we were billing the customers that the business would quadruple
or we
don't even know shapes contract.
Commissioners, any other questions? Well, thank you very much. That's a very, very positive report. Can't you do better than 98%?
It's my thank you all for. All right,
thank you very much. The next item is the Director's Report.
I'm gonna just say a couple of things. I want Sam to go over some of the highlights but, you know, back in May, I believe may 18. We DWSD participated in Motor City makeover and we had over 40 employees led by Sam and some other executives that went out and planet flowers, redid crosswalks, walkways and just shows that DWSD is truly in you know, anchor in the community and helping to you know, make our neighborhoods more beautiful. So I couldn't be prouder of the DWSD employees. We didn't we didn't quite win the award. Out of all the cities come city departments competing who had the most employees I don't think it was really fairly tabulated but we're going to ask for a recount next year if we don't get a better at least get honorable mention for doing that. So a great job for Sam to get the employees to come out on a Saturday on their time to be to want to do this work and next year I actually enjoy the flower planning stuff and participated in the Motor City. I wish I had been available for this one but I certainly will hopefully be around for the next one. Yes,
Mr. day we're gonna How do we decide on what district to participate in?
I think the Department of neighborhoods Brian kind of assigns us to that's that's interesting, because when I was allowed to pick where we will be we always kind of pick the 12 precinct around Palmer Park. It's kind of spot near to buy a house
who didn't need it. Okay.
They didn't pick it that he picked that.
I was curious because I would imagine if communities had a chance to put their bid in
they would do so yeah, they they work with the city the communities do and and they try to assign fairly all the different departments to each.
Each district. I didn't see any my area. That's all I'm saying.
I didn't see behind either. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Chair. Just to set the record straight. We had over 50 employees. We moved over 60 tires filling a dump truck three times, excavators and we had a backhoe out there. Then where did the tires go? They went to the DPW yard upon Southfield are up by 96. Okay, great. Yeah. Yeah, right. Be happy to run through some of the other metrics that our customers know how busy we are. We're in really good shape with fire hydrants as of yesterday, we had 139 inoperable hydrants, we always check to make sure that we don't have consecutive hydrants out of service. And this is less than one half of 1% of all of our hydrants next, the running water those numbers are going down as of May although I will let everyone know with this heat wave the number of water main breaks and the number of leaking services are going up. So please be patient with us. Please call 267 8000 to alert us to just to make sure that we have it on our radar. We will investigate as quickly as we can and prioritize and address the the most severe ones first. Next. Like I just said water main breaks they were holding steady but they are starting to increase a little bit right now. Next, catch basin cleaning. Our crews and our contractors have cleaned Oh as of Monday over 3500 catch basins we have a goal to clean 8000 on we're well on the pace to do that this year. And Sewer Cleaning we've cleaned over 260 miles as of again as of Monday. So we have a goal of 600 Miles exceeding the 550 miles that we did last year. And again at this pace, we're going to clean the entire sewer system. Every five to six years, which I'll put up against any community in Michigan next. I don't know that a Neil is on but I will state that we are replacing lead service lines on a daily basis. Last week we replaced 284 lead services the week before that 261. So the national leading robust program that we have developed is really coming of age. And we're being touted across the country as someone to emulate. We're also working on water mains and sewer mains. The team is working on significantly increasing the miles of sewer rehabilitated on an annual basis. We're going to pivot a little bit on our approach to make it easier for our contractors to do contracting and for our engineers to do engineering so that we can speed that up next. Eight or operations is continuing to increase the number of successful ones versus unsuccessful ones. We're at about a 65 67% success rate right now. We're working on pilot programs to further increase that we call the customers days before the day before two hours before one hour before in order to try to make the that success rate even higher. Next. I want to draw your attention to the upper left where you see the black box of installations minus the gray box of removals. Again since 2021 We have added over 21 new services every week since 2021. So I consider this a really legitimate leading indicator that the city of Detroit is growing. It is showing in our water meter bills it's showing in our water consumption. It's showing in our sewer consumption. The city is growing. Next. Real Estate reads the backlog exists only because people miss their appointments that they set up. Our team has developed a plan to be very responsive, but somebody has to be in the house to let us in to have an actual on site read X. RP U team continues to do a great job not only identifying additional revenue but avoiding unnecessary expense by helping to eliminate non revenue water. So during this fiscal year they've helped either bring in or avoid expensive over $11.3 million next. Thank you.
Good afternoon, commissioners. The Kia branch Pinson. The month of April, we are happy to announce we collected $201,000 from three delinquent commercial customers. And we also were able to enter into payment arrangements with another three different delinquent commercial customers and those payment plans total $420,000. We do have a backlog on damage claims but we have a plan to catch up and to process those within the next 30 days. And that's it. Thank you
Good afternoon again commissioners Brian Peckinpah, Public Affairs Director. Before I get to our two slides, I do want to share that our water quality report for 2023 has been updated or published. It was published right before June 1, and will provide a print copy once our print shop is in the process of printing them right now but we're very pleased with our water quality report which was produced totally in house with our current public affairs team with support from Sam and others that provided that information for us. Our social media activity, we have 51 new Facebook followers new X followers X is is kind of going down since Elon Musk took it over and it's not as generating as much traffic from Detroiters and we're getting more intensity and more engagement from Instagram now, and you can see Instagram we have 50 new followers. And we had our one of our highest engagement post was Lisa Wallach from our stormwater management group and permits group who was honored by Crain's Detroit business as the notable leader in sustainability for the region, not just Detroit, but for the region. So she was noted and cranes and we wanted to make sure she was featured on our social media accounts. For Instagram, we had field service teams highlighted on those posts. Next slide please. So as many of you may have seen commissioners, there was a unfortunate water main break that caused a sinkhole or Cavan, on a street in southwest Detroit. And there were some media coverage related to that. Deputy Director Smalley and Alexis were from the public affairs team. We're on site very quickly and handled media interviews and response to that incident, as well as we work on several stories related to lead service line replacements and we had a press conference in May with Eagle and the mayor and director brown highlighting our accelerated place pace of lead service line replacements and we did that press conference in Russell woods. I see Commissioner Garcia you have a question. The chair?
Commissioner Garcia
Yes. Do you know by any chance and I know Jacqueline Salazar, but by and I know what happened in southwest Detroit and there's a lot of construction going on because of the Gordie Howe bridge and it's been a disaster in that community. But uh, do you know by any chance, I know that you said that. That was so sir wasn't hurt. But do we have to repair her car? By any chance and I know she probably has insurance but I don't know if there's
if that's a DWSD claim we would we would take care of the expenses of the car. I'm just not You're not
hurt. That's great. But yeah, she probably was more scared than anything else I heard. But Mr. Sam, I actually saw you on the TV. She seemed more scared than anything right. Okay, I thought that's what I thought that's what I heard. It was scary. But I wasn't sure because her car went in and there must have been some damage. I wasn't sure. Did they call up and did they ask for reimbursement or do we know? Yeah,
Commissioner, they would the process would be for them to fill out a damage claim form and then we would process it normally how we would but they haven't done that. We haven't received one yet. But
you know, hopefully we'll reach out something like this because they might they might not even know this process.
Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you commissioners.
Think that concludes our directors report. Mr.
I just had one last point. Last week. I had an opportunity to attend the American Water Works Association. There comp their annual conference and I went because Cheryl Porter who was a DWSD employee for probably 20 years or so. Before she went over to Glee WA has been named the president of the American Water Works Association. She's the first woman. She's the first African American woman to be named so. And I just I don't know if you have a sense of how large this trade group is. There were 53 nations from around the world attending with 400 representatives from around the nation another 10,000 from the United States were that were at this convention to witness that the changing of the gavel. And so I have asked one of our city council persons to put together a resolution in her honor I intend to bring her in front of this board and present the the resolution I intend to do it in front of city council. And I also intend to do it in front of the blue board along with her family. So quite an honor to have one of our own is named to such a prestigious trade.
Commissioner Blackman.
Mr. Chair, I would hope that we would also present our own resolution from this board on this department because she's one of ours and it's an honor. A great honor for her but also the fact where she got her start. And I think it's most appropriate for us to honor her
anywhere I think our general counsel can take care of that.
She's like the resolution. I know she knows how All right. Very good. Thank you.
Anything else? Mr. Director? All right. Next item 13 comments By The commissioners. Any comments by the chair. I just want to say this if my count is right. This is the 10th time you elected Mary Blackmun and I to be your chair and vice chair and the third or fourth time. John Henry served a couple of years ago somebody said to me, what are you working on downtown? And I said, Oh, it's the waterboard. And he said a waterboard is that politics are torture. And I said well, it's a little bit of both. But that's absolutely not true. In those the in the time I've been on this board, there has been no politics. And I think that is to our credit. And look, we're all political creatures. We're all political appointees. So it's not because we don't have it in our background or in our blood. But it has been an absolute pleasure to work with all of you. Because there's no politics. There's no people are here for exactly one reason to serve the interests of the citizens of Detroit. And it's also made easier because of the outstanding staff. I mean, everybody is I hear what you talk and everyone is just concerned about meeting the needs of the customers. And that's extraordinary. So it's been a it's been an honor, it's been a privilege. It's not political, it's not torture. And I appreciate the confidence and and our leadership.
I have one comment. I don't know if it's me, but the water is exceptionally good today. Yeah. So did you use a different spigot to put it in there? So no,
the water is good. Yes, Mr. Black?
Yes. When the echo your comments, I think this is an outstanding board dedicated to elevating services for our citizens in Detroit and beyond. We have an excellent reputation of providing excellent services and excellent water. So it's a pleasure for me to serve with my colleagues. And I think I think we represent our constituents. Well,
you know, and we saw that in our public comment, how many times did we say don't leave we're going to fix it before you go. We're going to call you tomorrow. You know, we we have a rapid response system and that's just very nice to see. parishioner came like
I've said before, prior to me joining this board, I along with a number of folks had an opinion of the water department and in this board, and when I got here and I'm like wait, what well, and the key thing that I'm most impressed with is the rapid response. That serious not just from director but from everybody. Part of DWSD how they respond and make themselves accessible. So I just want to also tell my fire that No, it's not just because you contacted commissioners that you get response, folks, contact various people in the department, and you'll get the same same response. And so I'm really proud to be a part of this organization as well. Thank you.
If I may, I cannot leave this meeting. Without commending our excellent BOARD SECRETARY this year. Yes. We are very fortunate to have someone so efficient and forgiving of our flaws. And we do appreciate you Marian very much for all you do to keep us on track
unless she tries
All right. Are there any matters? Any other matters to come before this meeting? And hearing none, then motion motion to adjourn is in order. It's been moved. It's been seconded all those in favor of a journeying please say aye. Aye. That is adopted unanimously we stand adjourned.
