ability. Okay Yep, looks like I do perfect. Are you able to see?
Not yet counsel present? All right,
there we go. All right. So just wanted to give a quick update from the Office of Council President Mary Sheffield, on a couple of things that are happening before the city council. And then again, I know today it's primarily about DWSD and water affordability. And so we will yield to that being the primary focus want to wish everyone first and foremost a Happy Black History Month. As we celebrate the achievements of African Americans and leadership and service throughout our city and our country. Let's continue to uplift and support one another, as we honor the legacy and contributions of African Americans in our country. So just want to wish everyone a black kiss. So what currently is one the council table right now, want to highlight that we are extremely excited to announce that the reparations task force will be seated by next week. This is a big step. It is historic in the city of Detroit. Over 80% of Detroit voters approved the creation of a reparations taskforce and we have finally went through all of our interviews, and will be officially announcing the entire task force next Friday. Some of the members who will be chairing the executive steering committee are Keith Williams, Lauren hood. Dorian Tyus, the Honorable mother, Reverend Dr. Joanne Watson and Gregory Hicks. And so we are looking forward to what comes out of this taskforce. We get so many calls and concerns and questions about reparations in our city and how black Detroiters can benefit from it. And so we are excited to announce that taskforce next week. Also want to bring attention to right to counsel. I want all residents in Detroit to know that in 2000 Excuse me in May of 2022. I passed a right to council ordinance with the support of my colleagues. And this ordinance requires that full legal representation be provided to all eligible Detroit residents that are facing eviction and so this is a way to stabilize our neighborhoods to keep people in their homes and to make sure that low income families that may be facing facing eviction have access to an attorney. And so we just recently approved approved a contract with the United Community Housing Coalition. And as we enter into the budget, we are looking at ways to fully fund this particular initiative. As our buds Minh mentioned earlier, we are entering into budget season. I want people to understand that the city council, we'll hear from over 50 city departments over 50 lakhs use roughly 4650 city departments to review their proposed budgets. You all can tune in to every single last one of those budget hearings virtually or in person to hear if there's a particular issue that you may be more interested in, whether it is DWSD budget or if it's GSD, you know, Alley cleaning. You can tune in to those and we will make sure that we send out the budget calendar so that you guys are aware. And so lastly, before I turn it over, I wanted to just elevate the work that our office has done on the issue of water affordability. Every since I have been here on council, I have made it a priority to lend both my voice in my platform to uplift the issue of the need for a true income based water affordability plan in our city. Back in I think 2014 I launched something called the People's bills. And this was a package of bills that really addresses the socio economic issues in our city. And a part of that was the the legislation to really put into place a water foldability ordinance. Of course we had issues around that but it continue. We continue to work and elevate that work of water affordability. Our office has sponsored several several moratoriums that I have sponsored, I should say resolutions that have urged for a moratorium on water shut offs. And I really think that a lot of the work that both myself and some of my colleagues have started here on the council have led to a lot of the moratoriums that we have seen in place here in the city of Detroit. As relates to the DWSD water affordability or lifeline plan, we definitely commend DWSD and their work to address those who may be experiencing water shutoffs and try to address those who are low income in our city. I want to be put on record that I do support codifying this particular program into law to ensure that we have a sustainable long term program in the city of Detroit and so my office will be working with DWSD the administration others to make sure that we have proper funding, and that we codify a program like this into law to ensure that it remains in place to protect the most vulnerable in our community. So with that being said, I did want to just mention very quickly that the evening Council community meeting will take place on this coming Tuesday at 7pm. At the tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church This is a district five evening charter mandated meeting please join us if you guys have any questions or concerns. Various city departments will be on site and we would love to have you also the neighborhood beautification program is open applications are open. This is a way for groups and organizations, nonprofits and churches to receive financial assistance up to $15,000 to beautify your community. This was something that I sponsored that I championed to make sure that money was flowing directly to the communities and neighborhoods. So if you're interested, please go to Wayne metro.org For more information, but again, that application is now live. And we want to get as many groups in the pipeline to receive those grants. All right, and I think that is it. Just one last thing, Bruce before I close every Monday at at 4pm is our virtual office hours every Monday, every single Monday at 4pm. You can engage with our office virtually from four to 5pm. We do have various departments on as well. And we would love to see you. So with that being said, Bruce, thank you so much for having me. And our office will be open to take questions if residents have any. All right.
Thank you, council president Sheffield. We really appreciate that legislative update. Do we have a few moments for questions Linda for the council president if we can get a few in
minutes. This time only if you have questions for council president Sheffield, if you will, please raise your hand at this time. If you have any questions for council president please. Motor City row I did see your hand raised and I did send you a chat. Are you trying to be connected to a particular department or do you have a question for because also President Sheffield.
This
motor city rule mute yourself and let me know Do you have a question for council president Sheffield or did you want to be connected to a particular department? You been doing
today your site it knows all about me being backed up. Who is who is the Deputy I'm standing right here with a right now we are asked the question now. Bruce, these people lock me up in here tell him they lock me up here when they was trying to meet over Yes. I read I was talking to b2b Man that was trying to take me up out of here. I wouldn't be able to speak like I am speaking right now. But I just wanted to let the city know that this city of Detroit is more than two times over the legal bond limit and it's hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal bonds that have been issued by council members.
Mr. Crowley, do you have a question for council president Sheffield?
Yes. Council President Sheffield. Will you please let the city know and call forward Miss Miller Canfield to ask this nurses going on around about a revenue bonds not requiring notice. And then whether or not the characteristics of those bonds they got listed as refunding bonds or actually refunding bonds can you please do that and let all the city know
I'm not sure if he was finished. But yes, we will look into this. We have we actually requested that LPD issue a report on this and those who are listening if you want to view that it is public information and it is on the City of Detroit's website as well.
Next person is Christie um, if you will unmute yourself, please. DM you have a question for council president Chris de m who will please unmute yourself
Christy am I'm sorry, you guys. I
was on a hard time I'm muting myself. Good evening.
Good evening or good evening. Oh,
I think
she's still muted. Yeah.
Can you hear me now? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have two questions for you President Sheffield. This is in regard to the reparations Taskforce. I'd like to know first if those meetings be open to the public.
Yes. Ma'am. Yes, all of them will be open to the public. And also you can watch them online via zoom and also channel to our media services station as well.
Okay, that's great. And so where will the dates and times be posted for the meetings?
So all of the dates and times will be posted on the City of Detroit's website? I am assuming and some of the conversations that I have with the taskforce members, they're going to be creating their own social media things as far as their own page, website, etc. But I know that our office will make sure that we send out all of the meeting schedules and make sure that it's posted on the city of Detroit website as well. But as the town many members, I'm sorry, go ahead and start talking right.
I'm sorry. The members are there total and all those members not emigrant.
So all of the members are if 30 members total, there's a steering committee that is made up of four members, each council member had one appointment. All of the members The only requirement was that they'd be a Detroiter. 80 years of age or older. And we also had an open to non African Americans but for my understanding everyone that has been appointed so far is an African American.
But a non a non immigrant, like a black American, and not an African American could be a as a person who moved here from Africa and not as now American. I mean, like a non immigrant, someone who will actually have a stake in the claim of reparations.
So what I know from today is that they are no Yeah, I don't think I've seen anybody put any one for that. That is a non engram. Yeah, that meets that criteria, but I will tell you this. There has been discussion that there are certain demographics of people who may have been missed with the nine appointments and so there may be additional subcommittees that are going to be appointed individuals that may necessarily not be in Detroit, or other criteria or categories that were missed. So I would stay tuned to those meetings that you could advocate for representational, who you may feel was missing in that particular Taskforce.
Will do my last and final question has nothing to do reparation. This is about the single renaming single avenue to five mile two. Nobody that comes over when we cross over tell if I may, just for that to raise property values on this side of town. Is that how do we go about being a petition for that or is there something that we have to do through city council
so renaming we typically just do secondary street names? I think that that will be something that I will have to look into with DWSD. I'm not sure we can actually change street names. That probably is a little bit higher than the local government, but secondary street names we do. And so if you want to reach out to our office, we would direct you with the appropriate entity to reach out to and see how we can assist
our Nike so much, I have no problem. Thank
you so much.
Next person with a question for council president Michael Lamont Cunningham, do you have are we are going ham, do you have a question for council president?
Just allow me to unmute. Okay,
you look so young Miss Wesley. Thank you. Would
you please ask your question for council president?
Absolutely. Thank you, council president. Um, would there be robust conversation about the bus drivers here in Detroit? They're getting they're very, very underpaid. And there's a driver stores around the country except for Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ann Arbor, Michigan is paying their drivers $28 an hour. They don't have a mechanic shortage. They don't have a driver shortage. None of it because they're paying and then I know a lot of the drivers and their friends with me. And they moved over to smart cars smart pays more than their close, but they pay more. Would they be robust conversation in regard there's so much surplus money and DDoS not hurtin on cash, but can a lot more money be made just for signing bonuses and raising the wage opening the contract? You guys did do. Bonus for folks who come to work on time and show up. That's the last thing you guys did which was great. I appreciate you guys for doing that. But they actually need a signing bonus two or $3,000 to get in the door.
Yeah, so Cunningham as always, we appreciate your advocacy around this issue. I know I stand firm with you one doing what we can to increase DDOT salary. I did have a conversation about this with the mayor. And I think some of this goes beyond just us arbitrarily adding money to the budget for increases this collective bargaining agreements that are in place, and there has to be some agreement with the union as well too. And so if we can all come together and get an agreement, I think that we all support increasing the salaries of the dads so we will be having a robust conversation at the table during our budget season to discuss this in more detail. So thank you for your question. And always appreciate your work as well.
As the next person for question with council president. MashAllah Stewart. Rochelle Stewart, if you have a question for President Rochelle, a steward if you want to unmute yourself
Rochelle Stewart, okay, I'm here. Okay.
Good evening, council president via Sheffield's and rescue. My question is for Mr. Gary Brown. I know it's late for lifelines, Ma'am.
Ma'am Yes. Doing questions for council President Mary Sheffield at the moment.
Okay, well, let me get okay. I get to the bus is the end You know, I'm going about the salaries increases that they need. And I heard what you said we couldn't have. But if y'all can just give something so that they can increase those wages so we can keep these bus drivers. They encounter a lot on the buses, not everything that the police do, but they have gotten quite a bit of the same issues that they do. You know, the long wait times we just need drivers to come and stay not leave because they're not getting the right wages. Go over the smart. We a couple of them that came back was glad one of my Facebook friends Jeremiah Campbell, he came back he went to smart but he wasn't satisfied. He loved his DDOT family so he came back. But if we get more pay, you know give back a little bit more benefits that they've taken away with do a bankruptcy and everything. I think we'll have more bus drivers saying mechanics, you know, phone operators everything. So can we just increase it if you can increase someone so that they can do a little bit more. I know there have been negotiations with unions and everything, but they do need to increase in order for us to keep these drivers here. Cost of Living went up everything that went up, and so they can live off starting off at less than $15 an hour. I mean, how can you like Thank you Miss door. Okay, you have a blessed evening everybody. Stay safe.
Thank you.
Next caller is selling your county have a question. President. Give me Lord have mercy. For Council President Mary Sheffield. Give me council president forgive me. Good evening. Good evening.
Good evening, Mayor. Council Miss Chatfield see I wanted to call you mayor. But okay. My question is so many of the residents are dealing with water and sewage issues and water main breaks in the streets and we've repeatedly reported many of these things still suffering with and handled and the damage that we're concurring. I'm just wondering what is the city doing to either assist the water and sewage department with getting these things taken care of and or holding them accountable for the residents and the city property that's been damaged because of the lack of maintenance and care that's being done to these
items.
I appreciate that Sonya and is definitely a major issue infrastructure in general throughout the city of Detroit is a major issue. I think we have a unique opportunity with what's happening on a state level two receive a nice amount of funding to be able to address a lot of the issues long term issue that we've experienced in the city of Detroit. I know the director is on he has a contract coming forward, for example that deals with live replacement lines throughout the city and a lot of issues that I think Detroiters will really benefit from it. So we are working with DWSD we are holding them accountable and ensuring that residents issues are addressed if there's specific concerns that you have, please get those over to us. That is the way we do hold the departments accountable and making sure that they are addressed maybe outstanding issues. That may have been missed or are not covered. So I know the director will be speaking soon and so I will also direct some of those questions and concerns to him as well as he rolls out some of their plans to kind of fix some of the infrastructure issues in our statement. Okay,
the next question is si Atlanta. 2020 Mercy Atlanta 2020. You will unmute yourself if you have a question for council President Mary Sheffield.
Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Yolanda McCants residents of the city of Detroit. My question is understand that they're going to be putting in sidewalks. And my question is Is it gone? Is there going to spend a task force out to determine which areas or which sidewalks need to be replaced first, we have sidewalks where the trees are up rooting them. So when they start this project, my concern is are they going to do the sidewalks where trees are up routing the sidewalks worse? Or are they just gonna go and say okay, here's the sidewalk we'll just do this in an area where there's no rest where there's hardly residents
so that's a great question. I know that there are there is some type required prioritization within the department. One of the things that I advocated for during our last budget season to the extent that they could, making sure that individuals with disabilities in our seniors those areas were prioritized. One of the things that we have before us as well. Is a Pending Budget authorization before council that includes additional money. I think it's about I don't want to say the number offhand, but it is a nice amount of money to add additional sidewalk repair in this current fiscal budget that ends June 30. And so we are looking at ways to continue to increase the speed in which we are fixing sidewalks and also definitely prior to prioritizing the areas that are more dense individuals that may be seniors and etc. And so to the extent that they can because I know that there was some internal issues with being able to prioritize individuals as well. But yes, we are again, if there's if there is a specific area that you live in that you would like me to submit and get some answers from the department on as far as a timeline that they will be in your community to repair please send out to our office and we'll make sure that we get a response for you
Ms. Wesley
gonna call next.
Next question,
give me I was muted. The next person would be Renard M, if you will. Please unmute yourself if you have a question for council President Mary Sheffield. Hi.
Can I be heard? Can y'all hear me? All right, Madam President. Thank you for having us form along with the other officials in the ombudsman. My question, I don't need to speak for my colleagues about the raises for drivers. But when we're considering the budget for DDOT I'm also concerned about the paratransit structure as well too. And I think that an increase into the department with the framework for bringing the service in house. Is that a consideration of this council too, because I think this will get Council out of this hammock or the city having sent all these contracts and RFPs to these companies that are not based in Detroit, people not in Detroit, driving our folks around to where they need to go language barriers of the drivers who they don't bet pretty well. I'm just wondering, when are we going to get to the point where we just stop contracting out everything in terms of our services and bring stuff in house is just there's an argument. It's like Detroit can't do things on their own. And I think that this paratransit issue is a way for Detroit to start to do what it used to do create really good middle class jobs for our residents and, you know, working for the city. Used to be an honorable thing. But how do we stop this trap of contracts
with paratransit? Thank you so
much for now, in looking forward to continuing these discussions regarding paratransit. I will say that as you know because you read all the conversations, the city did move some operations in house right and so at least trying to phase in this process. We did start to do that. And I believe that we as a council are committed to exploring all the various ways that we can improve paratransit. So right now we have an emergency contract situation in place which will be coming to weigh in very soon. And we'll be looking at how we can improve that that particular process whether it's bringing things in house or making sure we have quality, responsible contractors that do provide the service as well. So thank you Renard, for the question and looking forward to working with you on it.
The next person will Rhonda Adams if you unmute yourself and ask your question to the mayorship.
High Council
President shall fill I am with business men and women social club of Detroit in operation here in the city of Detroit, and we have been listening to the NEC and hearing how you're looking to want to have more redevelopment and new development projects coming from the grassroots all the way getting a 100% benefits so looking into some of the things that we have to offer to open those gateways to opportunities where we can collectively as nonprofits for profits can benefit we have some answers. What we would like to know is you know, we if there are some things that's going on with the pensions, I know there are some nonprofit funds that are still being generated. I think it's over 600 something that was said things that we can use our own funding to create you know, economic equity, I can help with that. And I will just look to you know, have a one on one with you, in reference to those things so we can maybe offer a presentation to the community and start there.
All right. Thank you so much. Miss Rhonda Adams, who will make sure that we put our contact information in the chat. We do have my team on as well who will be on the remaining of the night for the meeting. And we will love to connect with you. So thank you for your call.
Our next person will be Betty Varner. Will you please unmute yourself if you have a question for CASA Presidente Sheffield.
Good evening, everyone.
And President Sheffield.
I'm looking for guidance.
I want to know how do I start the conversation to add to the budget monies to assist disabled people and seniors so that they can stay in their homes. monies to provide to help their homes to be handicap accessible, including money to help people renovate their home so that they can have a walk into
I've been feeling this manner.
If you mute yourself I accidentally muted you can unmute yourself and share your comment please. I'm
sorry. Yes. Like I said, I've had some health changes in my life. And now I want to know how do I start the conversation to advocate for seniors and disabled people to have monies put in the budget to help people who want to stay in their homes to make their homes handicap accessible, including a walk in showers. I've done research those showers are very expensive and most seniors on a fixed income cannot afford them. And I think people who have been committed to the city of Detroit lived there all their lives paid their taxes. The city should be a lot money's fine monies to help us stay in our homes.
So
I'm not sure if she was finished but I appreciate the comment. I completely agree with you. I have been a huge advocate from the very beginning of my term here on council 100 Peer grants for seniors and we have went from when I got here. It was proposed to be completely eliminated to zero and switched over to a loan program tonight where we'll have over $40 million in Harvey peer grants for our low income families and our seniors. The issue with the federal funds that we have to ARPA we're only currently using that for roofs and windows. So we have to look at ways possibly that we can amend some of the qualifications or or uses within that particular fund. So that's something that we can look at. And then also our traditional home repair grant grant program at one time, repaired a lot more than what it does today. And so we will look at that for you and continue to advocate for more home repair grants for our residents throughout the city of Detroit. So thank you for noting that and I will take note of that as we enter into our budget deliberation.
We have we have we have to move on with our meeting. We're going to take just one more for council president and then I would like to submit your question to council president through the chat. That would be great. We want to try to keep everybody on time and keep the meeting moving along as much as we possibly can. We're the last call that we will take will be Mr. Rudolph Marco. So Miss Delores or and there was one other if you can please submit your question in the chat to council president or to her chief of staff Mr. Brian White
that will be great.
Mr. Marco, if you will unmute yourself. If you could be clear, concise and to the point with your question with council president we'd greatly appreciate it.
I hear you was three things. Then I'll try to be as brief as possible. I just wanted to thank some of the previous callers for addressing or trying to address the issue of DDOT and their wages. I'm retired city bus driver. So I know the perils and the trials and tribulations of having to deal in transportation system. So wages is one good way to try to keep and attract new competent people. So I appreciate that. Also as a retired driver, I have been victimized by the pension clawbacks that were created through the bankruptcy. And I understand from things I've read that the issues of fully funding the pension can't be fully addressed until the year 2024. I just wanted to, to, I guess get a clarification on if that's the fact and if that is the fact if the city is doing anything before then to set aside any kind of monies that would go into funding the pension system so the retirees that are still alive and kicking will not have to suffer some additional clawbacks which the original Grand Bargain gave the system the right to do. And lastly, the My Neighborhood Association was formed in large part about six years ago when the mayor was finishing up Dave Bings effort to relight the city. And he came through our street and pull up all of our more decorative lights up LaSalle Boulevard and put in these stones and, okay, I'm getting no feedback me or not. And we have been, we formed organization, and we've been at the time, and you know, because you were along at that point in time we were trying to get the PLA to agree to put in a new more decorative pole, which they attended to be agreed to, then they renege and we went back and forth. So we're still basically at square one we have 30 foot tall brushed steel poles and a very nice neighborhood. The polls Yes, yes.
If you can wrap your question for council president we if you wanted to. You are welcome. The rest of your your questions or your comments in the chat to directly to council president or to Mr. White, her chief of staff and they will be back with you. I'm sure very soon.
Okay. Well, I just just to put this to finish it up and I can expand on it later. Just Is there any opportunity in the upcoming budget to allow for change out of light poles and the addressing of side streets whose light poles are stretched out further than they should be? And a lot of the streets still have huge dark areas, especially as trees filling in with leaves. There's gonna be a lot of dark spots, side streets.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Rudy. I appreciate you in Virginia Park Navagio park, but let's sail and the work that you guys do over there. I've worked with you extremely hard on lightning. And I will continue to do so with the PLA as they come in present their budget. I have not seen the budget yet. So I can't tell you what is included and what they are proposing to do for fiscal year 24. But I will keep that in mind and make sure that I advocate for what you just talked about. So looking forward to working with you on that really quick as relates to the retiree Protection Fund. I mean, every budget Council has set aside money to make sure that next year, we don't have an issue where we have to increase the amount of our contributions and so even with a proposed amendment that the mayor has before us now there's additional money to be added to that retiree Protection Fund. And so we have been diligent in making sure that we protect our retirees from the cliff that is coming next year. I think right we have over $300 million, probably close to $400 million in the fund now for our retiree protects retirees. So with that being said, Linda, I know I have taken up a huge portion of the meeting. Thank you Director Brown and everyone else our city employees and departments that are here to our residents. Thank you for showing up. My office is always here to help and assist you all continue to use your voices and however we can assist we are here to assist. So thank you, Bruce, for hosting us.
Absolutely. Thank you council president Sheffield. For the information that you have provided tonight. We appreciate your presence and the information that you have and we look forward to working with you throughout the budget process of coming. Now to move the meeting along. Many of you know my job is to be constructively critical of the executive branch and the services that they provide you. However, when they are doing something right, it is also my job to promote that if I believe it is in your best interest. For decades for decades, Detroiters have asked for clean and affordable water. The Detroit Lifeline program is doing just that bringing you affordable water. I'm very appreciative of DWSD joining us today and with that being said I want to turn it over to director Gary Brown but before I do for anyone who is on the line, if you have not registered, please go into the chair and register. We want to make sure that everyone receives a copy of this meeting to disperse amongst your residents. That is the purpose of the meeting to make sure that as leadership this information is disseminated to as many folks as possible. Okay, so I need you to register within the chat if you have not already done so. And one more point before director brown comes on. Director brown Lane Metro were gracious enough to make sure that the ombudsman had a role in this process as it relates to oversight. So we will touch on that a little later. But know that if if you know something should go catastrophically wrong, we can assist you with this process as well. With that being said, Director Brown, the floor is yours. Oh, thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity. And you know, I know the value of of this time and the value of it is in q&a, saving as much time for q&a. I've got about eight slides I'm going to go through them pretty quickly. So that we can save as much time but before I do I you know I just want to thank Council President Sheffield and all the council members, both former and presidents that have pushed for change in this area. I also want to thank our friends in the water advocacy space who have pushed and pushed and push. And I just want to I want you to know that the changes that we made were not made in a vacuum. We heard you were trying to implement as many of them as possible and that's going to be reflected in in this these eight slides that I that I'm about to go through. So so thank you for your input. We know that this isn't perfect, it could be better and it will be better as we listen to concerns and adjust the program. Can you move to the next slide? Brian? Thank you very much with the DWSD lifeline plan and the 10 3050 Plan 19,000 Plus households are protected from water shut off so 19,000 Plus homes right now currently enjoy the benefits of a moratorium and will continue for the foreseeable future to enjoy those benefits. The Lifeline has enrolled today 10,170 residents households, the 10 3050 plan those are people that don't income qualify for the lifeline plan. We have 3288 they also enjoy the benefits of the moratorium. We currently have 5884 residents that have applied and are are in the process of being approved their approval is pending. It usually takes about two weeks. But I'm telling you now we're somewhat behind. We've just hired an additional 16 or Wayne Metro hired an additional 16 people to help us get the backlog of processing completed. So in total, we should have 19,342 residential households in the plan. And we're getting more every day that are applying thanks to our community leaders that are spreading the word about the program. Next slide please. DWSD lifeline plan is Detroit's new water affordability program. Once enrolled, your benefits are you get water shut off protection. You have past due balances erased upon enrollment. So immediately we wipe out all of the arrears on your account. We don't wait six months. We don't wait to see if you make any payments. We do it immediately when you when you're enrolled into the program. You receive an affordable fixed bill based on household income and size and you get up to 1125 gallons of indoor water usage per household per month. You're also eligible for a home audit and minor plumbing repairs for those families that have high usage and we can see the usage in our billing system. Next slide. Do you notice the lifeline plan provides three tiers based on how so income this is very important. I mean a lot of a lot of cities have programs that are built on 2% of our household income 3% 4% Our program is built on 1.8% of our household income we believe that if you're paying more than 1.8%, then that's a burden on that family. And so all three tiers no matter the income, we use that factor of 1.8% So the first tier are those customers that are 135% of the federal poverty level. And their bill is $18. And so a family of four that makes $36,000 a little bit more than $36,000. The bill is $18 and most of 91% of our customers or it not quite that high, but I'll get to that number the mass majority of our customers are in the $80 range. Tier Two is 150% Federal Poverty Level your bill is $43 and tier three is 200%. A family of four making $55,000 A year has a $56 bill. And so the plan is based on your household income, how many people are in the household, and based on 1.8% of that income. That's what makes this different than an assistance program where you just get a flat rate of flat amount of money based on whatever your income is. Next slide. The income base DWSD. Lifeline plan benefits are far beyond previous assistance programs. Again, the rat program water residential assistance program with only relief about $700 I'll give you a credit for $700 and past due balance with a maximum of the 14 it we've completely in the new plant we completely erase all the debt right off the bat. As I said we have a three tiered system. We give up the $2,000 based on the water audit we will go into the home fix minor plumbing repairs up to $2,000 so that you can stay within the allotted amount of wire as low as $18 per month and no more than 56 enrolled as long as your income qualified there is no two year maximum or maximum amount of time. As long as you income qualify you stay in the program forever. Next slide. Unprecedented outreach is led to historical enrollment in the new DWSD lifeline. Again, we have 90,342 Detroit households protected from water shut off 10,170 households are enrolled in a lifeline plan 5884 are being processed 86% 86% of the 10,001 70 that are in the that are currently in the plant or getting the 80 Malaviya which meant 11 point 9 million in paying off arrears and the gap payment. The gap payment is the customer pays $18. The bill is really $80 By way of example, it has a gap of about $62. Well, we pay that gap payment and for 20,000 customers that's about $14 million. And so that's significant. And when you think about this, if we pay off your rears and then we're making the gap payment, you can't accrued no arrears and so there's going to be more money needed on the front end of the program to pay off the arrears but once they're paid off, and once we pay the gap amount of of the bill, and we go in and fix the plumbing issues, you can't accrual, no arrears and there won't be as much money needed to fund this program. After the first year 3288 households have enrolled that and that's significant into the 10 3050 because we don't care how much income you make. We have everybody has an opportunity not to see a service interruption. If they simply ask for help. And if they income qualify, we put them in lifeline. If they're over the income, we put them into 10 3050. And then let me just give you an example of 10 3050 most of our customers average about $700 in the arrears they have to put 10% down 70 bucks, and then we set them up for a plan to be able to pay down there. That's the 10 3050 Next slide. we've knocked on 49,000 doors like I indicated, eligible households using delinquent residential account data so we know where the customers are that are in the arrears. we've knocked on their door, we take up a tablet and we enroll them on the spot. And that's how we unprecedented there's no utility in America that signed up 9000 enrollees in 90 in the first 90 days. Those are those are terrific numbers for any water utility. We've attended more than 150 community meetings and resource fairs 60 Plus news stories published paid advertisement on all the social media streaming services and radio. We've expanded our efforts even further into 2023. But it's really going that door to door knocking on that door that I believe has made the difference not everyone is tied into the internet and sees mass media. You have to go out there and knock on doors and make people aware. And most importantly, our water advocates or churches or community groups that are helping us push this message out has has been why we've been so successful in getting people to apply next slide please.
DWSD not going to 49,000 doors this is just simply a map of the houses that we went to in the status. The greens are the not yet visited. The I can't tell the yellows are attempted in the morning and then if we don't get them we go back in the afternoon. And the darker dot are the completed households that we got a chance to sign someone up that next slide. All right, so there's there's been a lot made of where is the money going to come from to make this a sustainable program. And I just want to separate those two things. I want to separate and affordability program and I challenge the media all the time. You know go out across this country and find a more compassionate, robust, generous program than this. And we don't think no one's been able to do that yet. And so, again, we think we've got a great program. We want to separate the funding needed for the program. From the program itself. And so we think we have created an affordability program because we we based it on 1.58% of a person's household income. And and then our advocates are absolutely right. Until you have sustainable long term funding. You just have a pilot program and they're right. And so you know the Governor has reached out and she has signed a supplemental budget that makes $25 million dollars available for this program immediately. And so we're happy about that. That will certainly get us through the next year, year and a half. And then the governor further came through in the new fiscal year for the state which is October and recommended $40 million be put into the budget in addition to the 20 on top of the 25 million. So we go from 25 million to 25 million that takes us to about 65 million now. DWSD is gonna kick in five minutes, million a year for the next four years. So that's another $20 million. And we went back to the legislators. They're 23 of them, Senators and Representatives that have a piece of Detroit and we asked them to take the governors, we're glad to get the 40 million in next year's budget, but we'd like you to make that 75 And that was well received. And so we're encouraging our advocacy groups to call those representatives they have the ability to move the needle that the governor put in the budget of $40 million to 75 to 75 on top of the 25 will be 100 million and then DWSD over the next four years will kick in another 20 So that's 120 million. We believe that substantial funding for the next four years for this governance term. And while I'd like to believe there's such a thing as permanent funding, every every appropriation has to be reappropriated every two or four years. But certainly $120 million will make this a sustainable program. So I'll stop there and be prepared to answer any questions or concerns with regards to lifeline.
Thank you. Thank you, Director Brown. I want to remind everyone that All questions will be taken at the end of the meeting. The only hands that are raised at this time should be those that desire to go into a breakout room and have someone assist you there we have DWSD staff, ombudsman staff, and Wayne Metro staff all waiting to assist you. So if you have a question, and you have your hand raised, you will be put into a breakout room so that you can be assisted immediately. But we're going to do q&a At the end again. Thank you Director Brown. I think the presentation speaks for itself as to why this is so important, why we spread the word why this program has to be successful. As director Brown said there should not be anyone facing a shut off or left out of the program that needs access to CIT program. We're going to do everything we can here to spread the word. Now. With that being said, we're going to hear from Miss Monica Lewis Patrick, of we the people in Detroit as Louis Patrick, will you talk to us about your interests, and the lifeline plan and the work that we the people of Detroit has done with DWSD to bring this into fruition? Yes, sir. I
will also wanted to check in with Miss Linda to make sure that Taylor Pyne has the ability to share our presentation. Yes, I had that ability. Thank you so much, Miss Linda. Well, first of all, let me say what a pleasure it is to be here with everyone this evening. I'm so grateful for the leadership that's come out of the office of the Ombudsman. I can't say enough about Mr. Simpson and his staff and also the great work with Linda you have just been an amazing part of making sure all of this comes together. So thank you so much. But we the people of Detroit as Mr. Brown talked about, it has been a long road getting here to the point where all of us are singing from the same hymn book that we must move the city forward and making sure that every resident has a pathway to clean, safe and affordable water. But one of the things I wanted to make sure we do is that we wanted to give some historical context to how we got here, because we believe that if we don't remember that there was a struggle and a fight to get to this point, then we may not work as hard to protect it and keep it and so next slide please take
so the mission of we the people of Detroit we're dedicated to community coalition building and providing resources and information and training to mobilize our citizens to make sure that they are improving their own quality of life. So we believe in self determination and cooperative work. And of course, you can see our vision statement that stated there, the next guy tailor our organization was founded by five African American women residing here in the city of Detroit. In 2008. But one of the things we felt was really significant to point out for today's event, is that sesame McClellan who is to the right of Deborah Taylor, and that would appear to be on your left, my left moving right. But Cecily McClellan played a significant role in helping us understand that we the people of Detroit, that there were folks still in our community that could not afford water because of the ever increasing cost of water. And because of that advocacy, along with Queen Mother, the Honorable Councilwoman Joanne Watson, we deputized ourselves a long time ago to make sure that we were at least contributing to the conversation about how we can move our city closer to ensuring that they have this right to sustained access to clean, safe, affordable water. The next one Taylor and of course many times when we talk about water and talk about water inequities and injustices, many times the water crisis in Flint is lifted. But many times people don't talk about the fact that we went through our own issues around water insecurity in the city of Detroit, the next
one tailor
the next one, and so one of the things that we the people of Detroit that was really important for us to do, as we were coming out of the bankruptcy in 2014. And really trying to get our footing again, in terms of where we had access to the democratic process. One of the things that the residents really wanted to know is what was the history of our ownership of this system? What does it look like in terms of the austerity that's played out in Michigan, around the ownership for Detroiters of their own water department, but what we know is in 1955, the water director at that time said that if the residents of Detroit were forced to build this system, out to the region that we would actually drive the city of Detroit into bankruptcy. And what we also know is that in 1977, when the EPA sued the city of Detroit for toxic chemicals, that DWSD fell into the oversight of Judge John Ficus for the next 35 years, but another thing that's important for the residents of Detroit to know, is that at a federal level, what we saw around that same timeframe of 1977, is that the federal government went from contributing about 65 to 67% of the dollars that went into fueling and funding our infrastructure. They begin to divest from water, and what we saw at least before the historic dollars that were implemented by our current president, what we saw is that the federal government was only contributing about seven to 9% of the funding that went into infrastructure. And so these were the places where we were able to build bridges and not only with national leaders, but we water utilities, and really get a better understanding with our own water utility that there had been divestment over decades. But in order for us to be able to write these wrongs, we had to figure out a pathway where there was federal ownership, state ownership, and then we were collaborating with our local partners to move the needle on this particular issue. The next one tailor
the next one after that.
So mapping the crawl water crisis became one of those methods in which we were able to galvanize community research and data we worked with over 67 researchers, academics and scholars from across the nation to be able to bring this data forward so that we could shine a light on the needs of what was happening in our own backyard. The next one, please say
and so one of those questions were about water shutoffs where were the water shut offs happening wasn't an issue. We were hearing this national narrative of Detroiters just being fat, happy and lazy, that we didn't want to pay our fair share. Well, we had to set the record straight that water shutoffs were happening all across the city, that even in East English village where we see a more stable income and more middle income grouping of persons, that about 30% of that population was struggling to keep their water off. And part of what we knew was happening is that the ever increasing cost of water was making water more and more unaffordable to the residents of Detroit.
The next one, please Taylor.
So another question that residents had, they really needed to wrap their arms around how massive our water department is. And so if you look at the deep, dark turquoise area, that's the city of Detroit, but when you help to help have to help people understand is that system reached all the way up to the top of the tee to the city of Flint. And when you look at how massive that system is, at his height, it was providing water to about 40% of the population of the entire state of Michigan.
The next one, please Taylor's the one after that.
And so we did a timeline a time study to sort of look at what was playing out historically, throughout the region. One of the things we had to recognize is that we were legislated to build out the system because Detroit had the highest ability, bonding capacity to do so. The second thing we had to recognize is that there were federal laws put in place around housing, the ability to access capital to build new housing. So what we ended up doing is actually subsidizing the build out of the suburbs as we saw white flight in the 30s 40s and 50s and 60s. And then of course people often like to lift up the 67 rebellion, but there was an exodus of white folks out of the city even before the 67 Rebellion. But we also saw that the state of Michigan continued to mandate that the residents of Detroit subsidize the build out of this infrastructure. The next one, please tailor. And of course, this was another piece that we had to lift is that even during emergency management, all of us were told that it was just in our mind that was racially implemented. Well, we were able to put this research together and digitize this particular map to show that emergency management was implemented in such a way that it actually weakened not only our water infrastructure, but our school systems, and a lot of it was targeted on black and brown communities. One of the facts that we know is that many of the folks that lived under the tyranny of emergency management, over 53% of the African American population of the entire state was under that austerity. The next one, please Taylor.
This one here,
I thought was super important to share with all of you because what we know is that the water department has always had a history of using water shutoffs as a method of pain of being able to extract payment. But what we found is doing emergency management, and not only Detroit and Flint, that's why comparing data is really important is that as we saw emergency managers put in place, we also saw an uptick of the shutting off of water but we wanted to point out that as community was able to push back and raise attention with the National Nurses union, and networks route, net roots network, and then as we were able to bring in the United Nations to bring attention to what was happening in Detroit, that each time the community stood up, we saw them stand down and so it's so important. I can't stress that enough. That community stays vigilant on this issue, because it's not just about getting the water on but it's also about keeping water on and making sure that it's clean, safe and affordable. The next one please tailor this one here too is another one that is important for Detroiters to understand is that now you have went from majority control over your infrastructure, do you have minority representation? And so I am hoping that we not only will become more vigilant and participating in Detroit water and sewage department meetings, but we must be more vigilant and participating in Great Lakes Water Authority meetings. In order to make sure that they are hearing us as well about the importance of keeping water on and moving it in a way that's equitable and just for the residents of Detroit. The next one please tailor
the next one please.
And of course this one is important because we wanted to look at the fact that setting off water actually has had an impact on the housing and the ownership of homes in the city of Detroit. And I'm so grateful to have Mr. Brown and DWSD taking the guidance of community in 2015 and working with others in our region to make sure that they were not continuing the actions of putting liens on property. Because what we found is as those water deaths were transferred to the County, the county was not separating out water debt from property debt. So just in the year of 2014 alone, we saw approximately 15,000 homeowners lose their homes, not because they didn't pay their property tax, but because they could not as senior citizens or those on a fixed income could not afford the ever increasing cost of water. So this again is another reason why this is important. The next one please Taylor and so part of our work has been to educate, to legislate to educate, educate, educate, agitate, and litigate. And so we formulated a community research collective and a lot of our work has been critical at a local state and national level of making sure that the issue of not only the issue of unaffordable water, but then making sure that our legislators at a federal state and local level. Understand that there is a policy pathway to ensuring this right. The Great Lakes people of color is a way for our youth to get more informed and engaged about the issues of water affordability. And water access and also about the flooding issues and how to remediate that. And then our water policy education and engagement program is another method to make sure that community is being educated and engaged so that they continue to stay vigilant on issues pertaining to water. We the youth of Detroit is another component of actually promoting youth to get more engaged around water justice and connecting it to other social justice issues. And then of course, we continue to prepare ourselves here and we the people of Detroit for emergency water relief because even recently, we saw in the city of Flint, there is a boil water alert that's going on right now. So we're always trying to make sure that we not only get ready, but we stay ready. The next one please. And of course we're asking all of you to join us and taking the pledge the water affordability pledge, you can go to we the people of Detroit the affordability pledge will allow you to stay engaged with us around our advocacy to ensure the human right to water to make sure that the program is properly funded. It's also another way to stay connected around other ways that you can plug into the work that's happening not only on the ground, but at the state and the federal level. The next one, please
tailor the next one, please. The next one, please. And of course we
just wanted to remind folks, there has been a long history of work in this city. We are so grateful as I stated for the honorable council woman Joanne Watson for the late great Marian Mahaffey. For the work of people like people's waterboard for hydrate Detroit, all of those amazing Michigan welfare rights. It's been an amazing group of folks that have been diligent. And so there has been work consistently lifting the human right to water and access to clean, safe, affordable water. The Detroit city charter revisions made an attempt the Detroit lifeline right now is another place and we are strongly encouraging everyone to make sure that you reach out to Detroit, the Detroit water and sewage department but also to Wayne Metro at 313-386-9727. The lifeline plan as Mr. Brown said is not a perfect plan. But what it does do is several things. It helps you get into a moratorium that will allow you to keep water on it puts you in a position where you can actually be able to get rid of your past debt. It also is an opportunity for us to continue to work towards making sure that we have a standard of allocated access to water that meets a national standard. Because right now, we still believe that there's some work to do there. And then we would like to lift up that we've done work at the state level to create a statewide water feasibility study that actually looks at six cities across the state. And what we did through this comparative analysis is we were able to bring forth evidence that demonstrates that there is a pathway for the state of Michigan to embrace clean, safe and affordable water. So I would just hope that you would join me in supporting Mr. Brown and DWSD as well as the city of Detroit and the council president as well as our ombudsman and ensuring that the residents of Detroit have a permanent pathway to clean, safe and affordable water that we turn the page on the austerity measures that play out when we turn off massive numbers of folks from water. And we're so grateful to entertain any questions that you may have about anything that we've said this evening. Thank you so much for my time.
This mark Lewis Patrick, thank you so very much for that wonderful presentation. Excellent job very informative. You know, when when I asked for everyone to come out, I'm asking a lot in terms of your time and I want to make sure that there's some form of reciprocity there meaning that I'm giving you valuable information. I do not want to waste anyone's time. I believe this information is very, very valuable. I also want to remind people that if you have your hand raised, please go to the chat and let our staff know with whom you'd like to speak. You have an opportunity to speak right now with DWSD staff right now with Wayne Metro staff right now with me the people. So please go to the chat and indicate what breakout room you would like to be putting into in order to have your concerns addressed now. And then of course, we will do q&a At the end and we have one more speaker from Wayne Metro. We're going to now hear from Miss Shama Mauser. She's going to explain to us what we can expect when calling Wayne Metro about the lifeline plan. When a metro will actually be processing your application, so I think is great for them to explain exactly what to expect. Miss Mauser.
Good evening. Thank you so much for for having me tonight. Can you see my screen fine? Yes, ma'am. All right. Perfect. Let me just do my slideshow here.
My name is Shama Monza, and I am the executive director at Wayne Metro over our empowerment and integration services. Department. I am very happy to be here today to share the great work we have been doing in partnership with DWSD on the lifeline plan. My goal today is to walk you through our process, how to access and enroll in the lifeline plan, share the lifeline metrics, our strategy to manage our queues also share our current progress and and with some highlights from our our client stories. Director brown shared the great benefits of enrolling in the lifeline plan to enroll to include wiping out the old debt, paying as low as $18 a month and also receive free conservation measures. Today, I'm gonna walk you through how Detroiters can qualify to enroll in the lifeline plan. To enroll in the lifeline plan, we give Detroiters the option to choose the best way to enroll and access the plan. The key here is to submit an application they can submit an application by calling our Connect Center. Our team will be able to do a telephonic interview over the phone to assist them in submitting the application. Or if they would like to come see us at any of our offices. They can walk in and see us and we will submit an application for them. For for residents who may feel comfortable filling out the application online from their comfort zone at any time they had. They also have the option to fill out the application online. After submitting an application or team review the application we go over the eligibility determination once we make the the eligibility determination. If the application is approved, we send eligibility notification. And we also send the enrollment report to DWSD to include the application and completion.
So it's good and I could
if the application for some reason is not contact the applicant and we will provide wraparound services and resources to the applicant. Communication is key to make sure that our residents they know what to expect after submitting an application. Therefore, once an application is submitted, applicants receive a confirmation letter explaining the status of the application assuring applicants that while we are working diligently to review the application, the moratorium will continue while they await a decision. Our goal here is to provide relief to our applicants. The best way to assist in making the enrollment process faster is to submit the required documents. We have done a lot of work to simplify our internal process the lifelight enrollment requires minimum documents. The documents that we need our photo ID to include either city state federally issued ID Detroit ID or even a passport. We also collect the water bill. If we don't have access from the client to the water bill. The account number is sufficient and our team will be able to locate the water bill. We also need the proof of the most recent 30 days of income it is very important here to mention for our applicants that don't have any income. We are able to fill out a self declaration of no income for them. Also for our applicants that has some non traditional income to include side jobs. We will fill out a self declaration of income for them. At least 40% of the time we are able to locate the documents that we need in our internal library because our that the lifeline applicants have applied for other programs at the same time. We also offer multiple ways to submit supporting documents. Applicants can walk in to our offices Monday to Friday from 830 to five. You can also email us at water at Wayne metro.org or text us at 313-438-8795. All right, so after we review the application and once we make a decision that the application is approved we send a welcome packet to the lifeline enrollees. It is very important that you explain terms and conditions for our applicants so they can stay successful on the plan. The packet also has the tiered amount so they know how much to pay. As you see on the screen. Also, there are some information on how to read the bill. how critical it is. Is to read the bill correctly. We also provide additional resource resources for them so they can be successful on the plan.
Just like any other assistance program, applicants must meet the eligibility criteria to enroll in the plan successfully. The lifeline success enrollment rate is considered one of the highest among other assistance programs. However, we still receive ineligible applications and one of the top in ineligibility reasons is income above 200% FPL. When, when an application is deemed ineligible, we sent ineligible notice to the applicant to explain the reason why we made this decision. We also provide other resources for them such as for home owners, we assist them with the my half application. We also assist with an SCR application and we refer them to DWSD to inquire about the 10 3050 plan. I wanted today to share some important metrics since the launch of lifeline since the launch of of lifeline we have completed 6300 navigation appointments navigation appointments mean we assisted residents in applying for the program. We have received 94,000 calls. If we compare the call volume we've received for the last six months just for water assistance to the prior years. We used to receive 25,000 calls so you can see the increase in requests. Our team has answered 60,000 calls for lifeline the number of calls abandoned before the queue was 16,000. So when you call a metro you listen to an entrance message. The entrance message explains for you that you can stay on the line and you will be assisted by one of our staff or you can go to the website and apply online or you can leave your number and and we will give you a call back or you can chat online and what we have seen that 16,000 of our callers have decided to drop the call or and either email us, text us chat with us or asked us to call them back so so they're not wasting their time just waiting for us to answer. The daily wait time with all of the volume that I mentioned has been as the lowest 12 seconds and the highest 17 minutes. So the average is four point 24
seconds.
All right, moving to the enrollments. So we have completed and I just pulled that report this morning. So I have a team that works night shifts. So I am sure that this number has increased from the time I pulled the report. But since this morning we have completed 10,106 and seven D enrollments. If if also I want to compare the volume of completed enrollments in water assistance to the to the prior years we used to complete for the entire year 5000 enrollments. We have 8767 enrollees in tier one. So they're paying as low as $18 a month. We have only 420 Pay in there in tier two. And we have 980 and 87 in tier three I would like to mention here that for tier three applicants who are at 200% qualify for tier three and there's not a lot of programs available for 200% FPL. We have 1700 applicants who went over income for lifeline and we assisted them with other resources and we still have five 5884 applications in the queue. Due to the high volume of applications and continued need. We wanted to provide immediate relief to our applicants while we are working on processing their applications. I'm proud to announce that in partnership with the with the DWSD team we have developed a a protocol where we Metro's honoring every request to enroll in lifeline and we share a weekly report with the DWSD team to protect these accounts from shut off we have increased our prompt communication where we send Status Updates By Email by text and we call our clients. We are in the process of an onboarding 30 staff to assist with taking additional calls and to process applications. We have a team that is working around the clock we have different shifts to include evenings and weekends. And we are focusing on process efficiency so we can move faster with with these
enrollments. The best part of
my job is really when I connect with our families and hear from them how the lifeline plan and our team had a significant impact on their lives. Just last month I did receive a a call from Miss Smith she shared with me that she was so thankful for for the assistance from Wayne Metro. Without them I would not be able to keep up with my utility bills. being enrolled with the affordable payment plans lifeline and LSP has allowed me to save extra money each month to put towards my medical expenses. I truly don't know what I would have done without way Metro. My daughter and I can live safe and without fear of being shut off. And for what and for that we are grateful safe and without fear. That's very, very impactful. Also miscarries I don't think I would have been able to stay in my home without your help. I am now paying $18 a month and you replace my water tank and crack toilet through the conservation program. Some of the common questions we receive are what is the best way to avoid water shut off? The answer is just ask for help. Ask for help. Call Wayne Metro go online apply for the application come see us and you will be protected from shadow. What if the call wait time is long. You really don't have to wait for someone to answer the call. You can either call. Call us back or you can leave your phone number we will call you back you can apply online. You can chat us online you can email us or you can come see us or we will come see you at the community events we attend. Another big question we we usually receive Do you have bilingual staff and the answer is yes we do have bilingual staff that speaks Arabic Spanish monk or to Bengali. And also our messages when you call the Connect Center are all are all in different languages as well. The approval rate is 78% This is considered a high rate. What are the top reasons for ineligibility? The Top Reasons are actually the main reason is over income. This great work that we are super proud of could have not been possible without our staff. I want to say thank you to the way Metro team that's working around the clock weekend, night shifts to really assist every Detroiter that is looking to enroll in this plan. I'm asking all of the community leaders today to help us spread the positive impact and refer qualified Detroiters to apply for the lifeline plan. You can refer to our website online way metro.org Or they can call us at 313-388-9799 or 31338697 to seven they can chat with that chat with us or they can see us at any time. Thank you and now I will be more than happy with my team to answer any questions you may have
as Mauser thank you so very much for that presentation. Greatly appreciate it at this time. We are going to open it up for q&a, which I know a lot of you have been waiting for. We have about 25 minutes roughly. To have that q&a. I'm going to ask Miss Wesley, if you can identify those that need to have their questions answered. And we can try and go in some semblance of order with Wesley. Yes,
one second. Okay. Just one second, please. We will call your name will you please keep your your question please ask your question. Please be clear, concise and to the point with your question and if you would like to be connected with way metro or with the water department or with the ombudsman department, if you will just let me know at that time and then you can be connected. All right. First caller will be sea land for 20 minutes the Orlando 2020. If you will unmute yourself
please go ahead with your question. When you unmute yourself Missy. Oh, Landa 2020.
Okay, we can come back caller would last three digits 500 If you want to unmute yourself. Caller with last three digits 500 if you will, please unmute yourself
Hello, can you hear me? Hello. Is this caller 5003500
last three digits 500.
Yes, Leah Singleton.
See your your last name or calling the phone number. I just see the last three digits 5000.
Yeah. I like to be placed in a group with the water company with Gary Brown. Okay, we can do that.
Okay, if Estany or Anna, could you please sir am with
water department. Next.
The next caller will be it says I phone. I found if you will. Please unmute yourself. I found if you will. Please unmute yourself.
I'm sorry. Can you hear me?
Yes. I would not be you just one second please. The next caller is says I found I found you can please unmute yourself.
I miss Westworld I'm on an iPhone. I don't know if it's me or not.
This is Miss Donna. Your says Miss anak at that one. Thank you. Thank you. If you all have the ability to rename yourself that would be so helpful. I do have we have several people that's it says I found so if you have the ability to rename yourself I will be helpful if you will move to the next person a Georgia call for D a call.
Call.
Yes. Hello. Good afternoon everyone and thank you all so much, especially to our president Sheffield for this wonderful job. I'd like to be put in a breakout room with with the ombudsman, please.
Okay, we can have you been to the breakout room with ombudsman office.
Right, our next caller would be Jeff Cohen.
You're up.
Good evening, everyone. Thank you for hosting this. Mr. Simpson, Director Brown a council president Sheffield at all involved. Thank you so much. I'm representing Virginia Park historic districts and Detroit's new center neighborhood. Our Street is between Woodward and a lot. And I want to first thank you for the brand new water mains and brand new service lines, the DWSD and contractor LGC global, especially installed recently. Our concern is about remaining punch list items that we think are so significant this should be a conversation at the highest level as you DWSD promises made. Were not kept and one of them is at the alley. He started to the length of an alley in our community was destroyed and is now a dirt road with huge craters. We have not been able to get any resolution to date through email or phone calls. Also our roads is damaged by we have the equipment coming through. And we would just appreciate a high level director coming out and taking a look at the damage on Virginia Park Street. Thank you
the next caller would be
London. Yes, Linda real quick if we can get Mr. Cowan over to DWSD breakout room. Anna or destiny. Can you please send Mr. Cowan over to DWSD his breakout rooms they can get all of his information.
Yes, thank you I believe
Elektra.
Thank you very much and I do appreciate the session and appreciate all of those that put it together. Then the I am just simply trying to get away Metro I have the breakout rooms icon on my screen. But it only seems to me to DWSD will not take me away Metro.
We will connect you to why Metro we get someone to connect to one natural place
Linda
did she leave the breakout room,
miss. If so if you could just put her in the breakout room with ya Metro.
She's in there. Great.
Okay, next person would be Betty burner.
Yes, could you put me in the breakout room with Mr. Brown please.
We will put you in the breakout room with water department. Thank you.
Pleasure.
We have someone available to turn out wrong. next caller will be Phil Sneed. They'll Snake Snake if you will unmute yourself, please.
Yeah, I'd like to go into the breakout room with ombudsman. All right. Thank you. We will put you in a break room with enforcement office.
Next person will be over with you will please unmute yourself
over overweighted
will please unmute yourself
over with
All right, next person will be Sonia Brown. If you will, please unmute yourself.
The breakout room with the ombudsman, please.
All right. We can have someone connected with ombudsman office please. The next caller is Virginia Park. You will unmute yourself please.
Good evening Miss Wesley
Bonita time because I would like to go in the room with us first and thank you kindly. All right, if we can connect during the evening to you to the ombudsman office. This next caller will be Lisa not listen at Metro Police.
Thank you everyone.
All right. To
my metro next caller is the Kia Ali James. If you will unmute yourself
connected with Wayne Metro.
Yes, we can connect you with Wayne natural Thank you very much.
Thank you. My pleasure.
next caller is Rhonda Adams Rhonda Adams. Yes, I
like to be connected with the people for now and then I'm gonna go to the ombudsman afterwards.
If you would like to chat, Miss Monica, Louis, Patrick, you may you may go into the chat Miss Adams and you may send her a chat send her your information and he will be able to connect directly with you
this is for we the people or the ombudsman. We the People. Right Gotcha. Okay. All right. And then the ombudsman, I'll be connected. You said I'm going to break our room there. Who would
like to? If you would like for us to connect you to the ombudsman office. We may do that. As well. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. All right. My pleasure. Right. Want to go back to Missy all landed. Me. Missy landed 20 If you would like to unmute and ask
your question.
Miss your land at sea you are unmuted.
Missy.
Is that Miss McCann's? Yeah, I
believe so Miss McCance.
She may. She may still have her hand raised from earlier she did. We did take a question from her
Lord it but let
me this MCATs Miss McCance.
I'll lower her hand for now. Our next caller is
snake
Ellis I wanted to go into the ombudsman role. They told me to come back later.
Okay, you just stay with us. Everyone is made be with someone. If you will just stay in the main room and we will monitor and once someone is available, we will connect you with the ombudsman waiting a breakout room. Is that all right. Okay. All right. McCants.
McCants. McCants, if
you can unmute yourself
this McCants.
Miss McCance.
Missed McCance. All right.
I'll go back over with over with if you will. Please unmute yourself. Please.
Overwhelmed I will
miss me, we haven't gotten about you. We are Matt. We are monitoring and as soon as the ombudsman office becomes available, we will connect you with the ombudsman office. There she is. And this McCants. You can unmute yourself we saw you. We saw you briefly.
You are or you are here you though can hear you I can't hear you. You're muted.
She's having technical difficulty and it just appears she is not working for Miss McCants. Let me say this we've been working together for a long time. You've been accessing the office of the Ombudsman. Whatever concern that you have or question we'll make sure it gets answered if you can just either put it in the chat if you have the ability to or just reach out to us in the morning. Okay, for anyone on the line. You know, hopefully you get a chance to ask your question now. Moving forward, you can always call our office at 313-224-6000 or email us at ombudsman at Detroit. mi.gov. Any more questions, Linda.
I don't see any more hands. I'm not seeing any more hands Mr. Sampson, but I will say that way Metro and DWSD they have provided they were anticipating a lot of call a lot of questions in regards to DWSD and Wei Metro and they are prepared they are waiting in the breakout rooms to answer your questions. So if you if you have questions for Wayne Metro, this would be a good opportunity now. To get your questions answered. We have staff available to answer your questions in the same with WASD. Same same with our office. You know we're always available but we do have staff as well. So this is someone else's hands go up rakeesha
Good evening, I had a question and comment for the abutment. Should I go into the breakout room there? Or
if we have one ahead of you. Just hang on with us and we will connect to someone in the breakout wrong. Okay. My pleasure, Mr. Jia call.
Hi. Yes, I'm sorry, could you connect me into the I'm not sure if I should go in with the DSW or Wayne because I've already spoken to both of them. But either one of them will be be great. Please.
Did you have a we did you have a question you since you weren't sure which one we do have both directors with us from natural and DWSD I
read the talk to the DWSD then for them.
Okay. All right. That we can connect you with someone from DWSD
Thank you. Do you want me to ask the question here or wait till I go into the breakout
room? Well, is it personal or is it a general question? Mr. Brown is with us? Um, yes
for Mr. Brown. If if if we've already been put on a plan and but we never got a letter we got the letter for the insurance and paid it for the underground plumbing. It's kind of confusing because we got you know a lot of different than thank you for the outreach, by the way, but it was a lot coming out at the same time. So it was kind of confusing on what was with the DSW and what is in in the American Water Association or whatever insurance so I wanted to find out he said the balances would be wiped out but if it were not, who do we speak to and move forward with that
there. You're you're talking about two distinctly different programs that have nothing to do with each other. There's a there's a warranty program that one that gives you a warranty on your lateral sewer line as well as your water service line. That's about nine $7.98 That's through the water the American resource company that that you spoke up that's that's one program. And then the Lifeline program is being administered by Wayne Metro. So if you want to see if you qualify for that program, they're on the line and they can they can help you walk through whether you should apply and then let them turn you down as opposed to not apply. And
yeah, and that's that's why I'm asking and thank you sir. for that. I spoke with them and they I qualified in and they it's on there but the balance is still there. I never received it.
Be somewhat patient with us. Because we have, you know, 20,000 applications, getting stinking it up where you're accepted into the program and then seeing it on the bill may take a payment or two. But, you know, if you're been enrolled they you've been told that you're enrolled in the program. Don't worry about paying the arrears, maybe $18 or whatever your number is, and it will catch up and come off with you bill.
Okay, got it. Okay. All righty. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Okay, no, thank you. Great job. Morris
city row, Motor City row if you would like to unmute yourself and ask your question.
Yeah, Director Brown is what I wanted to know was the money that's going to be allocated to replace all the LED lights here in the city of Detroit. I think it would be a great idea for the water department to start training the youth for its upcoming flux influx of activity of replacement, waterlines replacing the landlines.
Can I answer for you? Is the answer. I'm going to hire 60 Field Service Technicians, men and women that belong to the city of Detroit. We're going to make them apprentice and we're going to train them to replace lead service lines internally. That's number one. I have $5 million in a federal wind grant to do that right now. Secondly, I have $5 million that I'm going to use for small Plumbing Companies Mom and Pop plumbing companies because they can't afford large bonding dollar amounts and because they don't have the ability to buy directional boring equipment. We're gonna let them do the work. With a backhoe. We're going to let them attach to a lead service line, pull it out and then pull in a new copper line. Attach it to the main attach it to the house. We'll give about 10 small mom and pop plumbing companies in the city to a half million dollar contracts to see if they can manage those and then move forward. And so then we have an additional $45 million that we're going to be putting out in 30 days for Detroit based businesses to apply for. And I already have a $10 million contract that's in place with a Detroit based company and we're asking them to mentor and let us do let some of the smaller companies do some work for them so that they can learn the business and become primes in the future. We have $100 million in hand and that's how we're going to roll that program out. It's being rolled out now. It's a matter of fact I'll be in front of city council on Monday to try to get a contract for lead.
I'll definitely be there. See, I'm actually a pipe layer by cell phone worked for Dan's and Carlos, automate your contract. As a matter of fact, I stock a large percentage of the watermain on the Davidson freeway. And I'm experienced extensively experienced doing that I also operated so that's that's great. Now what I'm doing I'm starting to trade school where I'm teaching youth aged 14 to 18 construction trades, and underground construction is going to be one of them. And that will be a great thing to tie into the Detroit finishing Academy. That's the name of the school right now. I'm at the vet and table with funders, you know, working out the particulars. So I would definitely like to conversate with you about using utilizing some of the students that's going to be 14 to 18 to actually come and get on site training, well experience and what it takes to actually perform and function. I
think that jumpstart program that was rolled out by the mayor's office is the perfect opportunity to get those young people into it where they will go to school for a couple of days a week and then we can put them to work and pay them for three days a week and they can get the experience as you know, this doesn't this doesn't take a skilled licensed plumber. This is mostly labor and as you asked, we've met we haven't. We haven't taken on a project like this since the 1920s. I'm talking about putting in 100,000 You know, water service lines. This isn't work that is frequently done. And so the capacity and the people that know how to do it is not available to be able to give out 100 During the contract. So we're gonna have to train young people because we're gonna be doing this for the next 10 years. This is a long term project and it's not skilled work. You don't have to necessarily have a license. You got to be willing to work. Hard and willing to learn and we can teach you how to do it. And I'm I'm hoping that we get a lot of entrepreneurs that want to start some businesses and get into to doing this work. That's why we're gonna we've carved out smaller contracts. For smaller companies to be able to allow them to grow into being Prime.
Excellent, excellent. You talked to
afford to give me information and if we can feed into the program, we'll be glad to.
I'll see you Monday downtown. I'll be there.
Very quickly, very quickly. If you are not speaking Can you please mute your mute yourselves so that we don't have any interference if you are not asking a question, please mute yourselves.
Mr. Sentry. Yes, ma'am.
It's also going to be important and thank you Mr. Brown. That's so important that we're making sure that Detroiters are able to take advantage of these opportunities. But we also as a family have to know that ask me right now is working with the Department of Labor at the national level, to actually create an apprenticeship program that will walk alongside the water infrastructure work that's happening at a national level. So we need to make sure that we're pushing at a legislative level to ensure that we want those programs to be well funded. And we do want them to be a part of how we're able to skill up the workforce of the residents of Detroit and across the nation. So yeah, I
couldn't I couldn't agree with I couldn't agree with you more on that subject. I had a I had a company in my office today that's looking for space to put eight to $10 million worth of equipment in and most importantly, they want union labor. And so they're used to working with the pipe fitters and the labor unions. I'm gonna be happy to announce in the next couple of weeks that we've settled contracts with our ASMI unions at DWSD. And our workers are getting substantial increases in pay to be able to compete so I I don't want to roll that out tonight, but I'll roll it out to the city council that those as soon as the unions ratify the contracts and I'm sure what the the type of raises that we put in there. That's not going to be an issue. But I heard it I heard that issue brought up a little earlier in another conversation about starting pay. And I think when people see what our starting pay is going to be we're going to be able to compete with the private sector and we're glad to be able to do it and that and I you know, let me just say that's in light of a 6.4% inflation rate right now. DWSD has increased some of our salaries by 100%. And so we're proud of that. We haven't talked a lot about it, but we're gonna roll it out in concert with some of our unions when we ratify these contracts. So
I'm going to also stick in the chat Emerald Cities is a training program. They also have some amazing information to help community groups and organizations and entrepreneurs be able to compete for the contracts and the necessary training to get these dollars. So thank you so much.
We look forward to rolling that out. Director Brown. Linda, if we could move along. We got a couple of hands raised and we are past seven o'clock, but we're gonna answer a few more questions here and then close out.
Okay, we have more to Campbell.
Good question.
Yes, this is for Director Brown, Director Brown. Can you direct me to who to contact for non profit housing development to have some assistance with drainage fees, design, designing support spot to reduce the drainage fees? Because I'm filling it with a nonpartisan nonprofit, affordable housing development that's thinking with these drainage fees, and so we need to have architect or someone to come out and give us some advices what to do. Yeah, well,
if you go into the chat, there are people there that can take the information. I can tell you that it's a lot easier to do it on the front end when you're building portable housing than it is on the back end after the properties have already been built. But we certainly can work with you on
ways in which to boost the properties over 15 years old.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it can be done. It's more difficult once the properties are already up. Once you're already connected to the system. It's difficult but we have you know, we'd like to have the opportunity to to at least take a look at what you have and make some recommendation.
Okay, thank you. Destiny or honor, if we can get Miss Campbell over to DWSD
so that they can I'm sorry.
And I see Miss Adams you're at see your hand raised.
Yeah, I was trying to get in with DWSD to and reference to excavating and field training, in essence in that level, some high skill training things. But what I want one of the things I wanted to ask him is regarding to privatizing around the the suburb area of Detroit, the waters and then also regarding mineral tax, is there some way that we can get while while they're doing the study or what have you to find out what kind of minerals we do have that we can ourselves? Gain some equity from in our community? And what that looks like with the mineral checks as a coming from your area, your you know, IT expertise?
Yes, yeah, yeah, it it does not I mean, we deal with sewer and water. Yeah, not necessarily minerals. Let me address your first part of your question, though, with regards to privatization. The Great Lakes Water Authority. City of Detroit owns the system we leased out for operating purposes, parts of the system but that there's no way that the Great Lakes Water Authority could is contemplating is even trying to privatize any portion of our system. It's a regional system that will stay a public system, which is why when you see next in the next 30 days, the rates come out, even in face of inflation, and increases in salary and making pension payments, we're still going to be able to keep rates to about 3% Even though inflation is that 6.4 And I can tell you our chemical costs our electrical costs, our pension and benefit costs are all rising, because we're operating more efficiently. That wouldn't happen if we privatize the system. People would want to make money off of it. And rates would go through the roof. And so that's not being contemplated and we have the votes on the Great Lakes Water Board to be able to stop it if it ever got started. So there's no privatization of this system.
I'm Miss Ferrante or Miss Williams. Staff and you're not occupied. I'm going to ask again that you move Miss Campbell to DWIs to a DWSD breakout room.
We are working on. We're working on that right now. Miss Campbell, if you can we cannot we're having some difficulties actually thing you in order to really transfer you. That's okay. I was in. I was in there earlier. So thank you,
Miss Campbell. This is Matt Phillips at the water department. I've already confirmed with my team my staff already has all your contact information.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much.
You were in the contact room earlier so they have everything. Okay, thank you. Bye bye.
Okay. Next is Midwest cynic. Midwest Civic. will unmute yourself. Good evening. Thank you for this
wonderful presentation. I would like to go into a breakout room with the
waterboard. Okay, just one second. Okay,
and the next person would be hand raised is Mohammed. Mohammed if you will, please mute yourself.
Yes. How are you doing? Great.
Um, yeah, I have a question. I'm smart contractor in the city of Detroit. And I was trying to see how would I go about getting a contract with you on the water? Main replacements for the houses?
Yeah, you need to go into the breakout room. We have a diversity inclusion and opportunity director named Tiffany Jones, leave your information and she'll give you a call tomorrow and walk you through where the RFPs are going to be placed and help you get through the process. That's That's our only job is to help small businesses in the city of Detroit to be able to compete for the contracts that are coming forward.
Okay, I appreciate them as
Ron. Definitely Jones.
Okay. Thank you.
We have a hand raised a Steve Waldrop.
Yes. I have a question. When will the DWSD Customer Center be reopened or is it open now?
It will not be the brick and mortar buildings. Yes. We have leased those spaces to Wayne Metro. They're they're managing the processes that we're talking about today out of those plus wraparound services, but our customers overwhelmingly tell us that they want to do business through an app or computer, but they don't want to come and sit in a Customer Service Center. And so we've asked the professionals, the social workers, the people that can answer all of DWSD questions to manage those facilities.
Well, that's not those customers opinion. I called a couple of times last year. I have a long issue and I was on a hole for more than a half hour both times so I gave up i If you
missed the order, if you go in if you give your name to the breakout somebody tomorrow morning, I mean because we're almost getting to tomorrow morning. I'm guaranteeing you that tomorrow we will have somebody my customer service director. You saw him online, Matt Phillips, he's going to call you we're going to walk you through a complex issue that you have and we'll get it resolved.
So I'm trying to connect you with someone and DWSD right now. Sir,
we have one hand raised that I can see and I think we should say make this the last year make this the last question or concern and then we'll close it out.
Is there any rotation?
Hey, everybody, I'm rakeesha. I wanted to know how I could get some support with how I would go about getting a meeting started with the community concerning BC and how to develop a program of implementation with the community and create an ongoing engagement process that wants concurrently with investigation
recommendations.
In mediations, an entity that assists with like the community members and I know that they are the ones that issue tickets in the community, but as it stands right now, that is not supporting what's happening in the community. I would like to just get community input on the poll process. It's not yielding improvements for neighborhood safety, or sustainability. Um, homeowners and tenant insurance denials are like a ripple effect from non compliance with absentee and corporate landlords. So I would just like to see two tenant protections result from their involvement and I would like to see a Neighborhood Improvement results from your
involvement with Miss Odom, thank you for your concerns. You covered a lot there. I'm going to ask you miss Ferrante to give Miss Odom's information so that we could talk to her itemize her issues and talk to her about BCD enforcement the community engagement excetera everything as you referenced, and we'll try to address them one by one. I said we're gonna have one last call, but I could not. I cannot not acknowledge Mr. Christopher Johnson, from Senator Mike morels office. This will truly I promise this time be the last call.
Thank you. I won't be loud. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, Mr. Simpson. I appreciate everything that you're doing in this meeting tonight. It's absolutely wonderful. And I just My question is not even a question but for Gary Brown. This. I'm also president of Valley Community Council and we still have an outstanding meeting with you that we need to get scheduled. So if you could give me a call, I would appreciate it.
I would I know I met with the you know 38 members of cogent church this morning. We'd be more than happy to meet with with you. All I ask is that you encourage your your boss to support moving the governance $40 million dollars from the Lifeline program to $75 million.
Absolutely. So,
you know, for the city of Detroit, that would be a game changer. It would give us the opportunity to say that this program is sustainable for the foreseeable future. So I somebody from my office will give you a call tomorrow and I appreciate that. We'll also keep pressing to try to get as much support and I don't want to look the gift horse in the mouth. This stage has been absolutely fabulous 25 million on the top 40 million next year's budget. But we think 100 million would be a better numbers.
All right. Well, then we'll sit down. We'll talk and we'll get those numbers together with the Senator and we'll do what we can.
I appreciate it. Okay, look forward to talking to you.
All right. At this time, we're going to wrap it up. I do want to say that we're not going to shut down the meeting because there are folks still in breakout rooms. We want to make sure that they complete the process of having their questions answered and their concerns addressed. With that being said I want to thank honorable City Council President Mary Sheffield and her team. I want to thank Director Gary Brown and DWSD and their staff. I want to thank Monica Lewis Patrick and we the people. I want to thank Wayne Metro and their staff for making this a wonderful meeting. I think. You know, water is life. I truly believe that. That's one of the reasons why this meeting was so important, but we have to spread the word. This program does no good if the people don't know. And that's really what this was about. There was a lot of good information shared here today. We are going to circulate to everyone that signed up we're going to circulate this this meeting along with documentation that you may want to you know, you might not want to see the whole meeting you may want to see the presentation from the water department. Or you may want to see Miss Monica Lewis Patrick's presentation or Wayne Metro etc. We're going to circulate those materials to everyone that signed up. I thank you for taking the time. I appreciate you keep up the good work as leaders of the city of Detroit. You make our jobs easier by being so engaged and organized. And again, I appreciate you. And with that, I'll say thank you and good night. If you are someone who is in a breakout room like I said we're going to stay on not closing out the meeting but I am saying goodnight to everyone that does not have a concern.
Miss snake we didn't forget about you. Oh wait.
And I want to say a special thank you to Ms. Wesley. who organized this so very well. She left no detail unaddressed. Again, thank you to all of our participants, but thank you, Linda and ombudsman staff or as we say team I'm Buddy because I'm your buddy that's right. I want to thank you all for a good meeting. Okay, everybody have a wonderful night.
Thank you so much. What a wonderful job.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Miss Linda.
Thank you, Miss Monica.
Have a good evening. Thank you. Thank you.
Have a good evening.
Listening just need to hang up. Oh no, we didn't do we didn't lose her that we
were still on but oh wait a minute. She's still she's come back. She's trying.
She's back. Hey, Linda Phillips
Hey, Linda. So when they're when the breakout room is empty, since we're not putting any more buddy in there when the breakout rooms are empty. My team can leave Correct. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to I don't want them. They'll go they'll call me at 1030 going, hey.
No, we want to do that to him.
All right, good. Good. Good. Good.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Phillips.
You're welcome, Bruce. Thank
you. My dad. Good job. Thank you.
Thank you.
Ah, I think as I hear your wares birth, I think she signed out.
Okay, Barb
signed up. This Nate, thank you
so much for your patience.
Are we able to assign Miss Miss need to Bussmann. staff member will can take her information and concerns.
That problem that we're having with Miss Sneed is that she is not on our feed for us to put her in a breakout room.
I said we're showing a she is with Miss Bernard, but she's not. She is not care.
little technical difficulty.
We are having a technical difficulty Miss Nate Bear. Bear with us.
So how about
I mean, how about we direct message Miss SNI who's been very patient and tonight, not not tomorrow but tonight. Get her information now. We call her as soon as the meeting is over.
We can do that. So
we can do that.
Yeah, Miss Ferrante I'm asked if you can give her a call. Because that we don't have to sign anyone else so if you can direct message missiny get her information and give her a call tonight so that we have all of her concerns because she is the last outstanding question slash concern.
Think Emily Hi, Kimberly. Thank you. Thank you, Megan. Thank you. Ah, we appreciate to let Mr. Simpson give you all a shout out we know you are willing to break out Rome.
Yeah, of course. We appreciate you guys for sure. All your hard work being present tonight. This afternoon. I think it was a very successful meeting. And for me, I just hope that the message about the program spreads appropriately so as many people can take advantage of it as possible.
Absolutely. Can you
make sure that director Brown has my information?
Absolutely. We can. Miss Wesley can you take care of that make sure that director Brown has. Mr. Johnson is information.
I sure can
have it because Mr. Johnson. This is Brian, with me. So we're good. I'll make sure Gary has the information.
Okay, did you hear that? Chris Johnson Yes, thank you Mr. Peckinpah,
I appreciate you.
You're welcome, sir.
Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna log off but in case you all can reach Miss Nikki, she's a part of our block club. I put her information in the chat. Mr. Sampson and Miss Wesley.
Oh, okay. Good.
Okay.
Thank you so much, Ms. Ko.
Thank you all for helping Miss nice. She is wonderful. She is a long standing member over in our community and D five over look. We love you miss. Nice. Thank you. I'm logging off you. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Miss Cole and I
didn't see any of Miss needs info in the chat.
Okay. No worries. I would execute Miss Georgia. He sent it directly to me. No, we
sent Miss Snead a personal message to have she could provide me her telephone number if she's still on here.
I'm still here.
Linda, Linda is texting it to you now.
Okay, perfect. Thank
you. Yes. I'm gonna send it to you. I'm gonna send it to you right now.
Miss Lee. Yes.
We didn't forget about you. Yeah, I
know. You're very busy. But I'm enjoying all the information,
but never too busy for you. How about that? Wow.
So mostly Miss Ferrante from the office of the Ombudsman is gonna give you a clock. Okay, so if you see a number that you don't recognize, please answer.
Yeah. Oh, that's true. This and I just send it to you.
And thank you, Linda. I appreciate that Miss. Need I'm going to be giving you a call in just one minute. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right.
Thank you, Anna.
Let me check out rooms I believe we one has been taken care of. I am checking as we
speak.
That's a few people and DWSD
Yes, there are a few people in USD will will hold off for them. Yep,
excuse me for one second. This McCann's How are you today
you are still muted, my dear.
I'm gonna sneeze.
Thank you so much. For being so patient with us.
I appreciate
is that Beverly Hilton with us has joined us CB Hilton.
I want you is that is that Beverly land
well,
if you are wanting to to view I want wanted to sign off and live you very well. You may again, just want to say thank you and see.
Kimberly stone up Brown.
In arena Taylor. Hold on. She's asking for some assistance. Hold on Miss Kimberly.
Okay
Matt, don't leave me I need you to be my bodyguard. walk me to my car. You're still in the office? Yes, sir.
I thought you'd go home by now.
No, no. Just want
to let you know I'll be in a couple hours late in the morning.
Oh, you can't do that. No, I'll just play it
Yeah, you're gonna leave soon. Yes, I'm walking out to your car. Absolutely. Probably be safer if you took Sheila with you.
Nobody messes with Sheila.
Hello, Matt.
Hey, Sheila. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. How about you? I'm doing great. Thank
you. Good.
I texted Katara she said I thought she said there was nobody else left in her room. I wonder if the people left in the room as a Rena was
right because
people left in her room because her does not and Brittany lock ins has someone in her
room. Okay.
You
know, Kimberly that was that was she's she's fine. Okay. She's fine. Okay, yeah. He has one more
customer and who was that arena or Brittany
arena? Let me check to see who else is left?
Okay now
ready is with stare. See they're either Mr. or Mrs. Mohammed. That's what Brittany is with right now. Rena is with Mr. Waldrop.
Waldrop, huh. Yep. Steve Waldrip. Yep. Thank you. And that is it. That is it.
You would like to from way Metro again, you really don't have to stay on with us if you have our finish. Servicing all of your customers that were in the way the pick out wrong with you so very much. There is really no need for you to hang out here.
We will jump off. Thank you so much.
All of you. We appreciate it. Have a good night. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye
Brian. Hey, Linda. Good job.
Thank you to all of you. Teamwork always makes the dream work. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Teamwork always makes the dream work.
Sabrina, he can jump off. Thank you for staying on.
Have a good night all night. Hi, Sabrina. Was Detroit's other Detroit's other trades otter if you will unmute yourself
Miss exists. And Parker Miss Ann Parker
no worries. You're welcome to hang out with us
doing laundry right now they totally forgot that they were still on
Yes yes.
name is
Brittany still I think Brittany is still with someone to join her and let her know that. I'll just break Brittany. Hi. Hi. Hi. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Great. I was just glad to join you. I saw that you. You're still your breakout room. I was just coming to let you know. Thank you so very much.
Oh, you're very welcome. It was my pleasure. Yes,
yes.
Really? Who were you talking to at the end? Was that Mr. Waldrop or
I was I was talking to Mohammed family one work he I did a payment plan agreement for him and I also took his information because he was interested in securing contract with for the lead service line replacement. So I just took all this information to give you
Okay, perfect. Yeah, just email that to me, and we'll get the information over to Tiffany Jones from our diversity inclusion group she can work with him on being contractor or setting them up for the process to be had so okay. Yeah, he didn't mention anything about a payment plan. So I was like, oh, it's taking a long time to get his name and
yeah, he had he had it. He had a few properties that he owns. So I advised him of lifeline for one I did 10 3050 For the
other so nice work. All right.
The we only have we only have one arena is on with Mr. Steve. Yeah, and then we will be complete. Mr. Phillips? Yeah, I got to hear oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Listen, I'm not I'm not going to ask. I'm not going to ask for any details. But that one special project.
Mr. Simpson, this is still recording. Yeah, no, no,
no, no, no, no. It's still work, Linda? No. Okay. Um, she saw that smile on my face. She was really really me guys. She knows me too. Well. Mr. Phillips, that one special project we were working on. You don't have to go into detail, but did you gain any information?
No,
I haven't.
But I did. I did speak to the special situation. And it confused me even more.
So yeah, I'm not sure.
I'm not sure what we're gonna have to do about that to be honest with you. So. Okay. It's probably gonna require it might require a Bruce Simpson visit since you know the since you know the way Yeah,
yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll discuss that offline. I was just curious, I saw you there. I'm like, I gotta ask.
Yeah, no, it's Yeah, yep. Okay, um, Mr. Peckinpah? Thank you for all of
the presentation and staff and everything else, I think. I don't think the meeting could have gone any better. I really don't. We had a lot of participants. Most importantly, were able to spread the word. I think that is the most important thing about today's meeting. I mean, outside of people being able to go one on one that's important to and talk to representatives. But ultimately, if this plan is going to be successful, and it's going to have longevity, people have to engage and that was the goal and I think we did that.
We definitely did. Thank you so much for hosting this meeting. We appreciate you in your office. So Linda, such a talented person in the city of Detroit. The board.
Thank you Brian.
Flattery will get you everywhere
Brian knows play he could fly to be but I'm still when I got questions I call
this is true. This is true. Yes. Yes, it D Linda,
do you want to check Can you check on arena?
I'm gonna let the rest of our staff go while you're checking on that one last person.
All right. I do.
Because I mean, I think Director Brown told Mr. Waldrip that I'd chi all column but I don't know what's
gonna join in and see what's going on. Yeah,
let's let's wrap that up for our staff here.
Mike, good to go. Matt. Ready? I'm so sorry. Yes,
ma'am. Please, please do
I'm getting hangry I'm getting hangry get past dinner time now as needed. Thanks. Good. Night.
Can I
you're on mute, Linda.
Yeah. Two minutes. Two more minutes. Two minutes starting now. Okay, I'm watching the clock.
Okay. Linda say two minutes starting now.
That's it. Because he's asking, he's talking about impervious, you know, acreage, grants and things like that. But then he started talking about, you know, well, he wanted to get her information for an attorney. I said, Well, I said wait a minute, and she was getting ready to you know, explain to him that has gone to the law department. You know that they don't get invited and I told him I said Well, you know what? I said sir, I said you know if you have a if you have retained an attorney, I said no city of Detroit employee can talk to you I said that goes to our law department. He says all he said Why haven't I don't have an attorney. I don't have an attorney yet. I'm just trying to. I I'm, I'm seriously thinking about it. So I said two minutes. So one minute has gone by. I'll be back. I will be back because, you know, just want to but she was definitely going to explain that part to him. So she wanted to kind of wrap up by explaining the acreage and things of that nature so that he had a good understanding. Yeah, that would kind of alleviate a telephone call, you know, to to the department. Just one second.
Night.
Okay, just one second please.
Bruce, you keep Linda with you wherever you go, don't you?
Absolutely. Absolutely, man. Matter of fact, I don't know where I'm going without her. Seriously, you know, she does all outreach and so you know, I really the way I try to run my office, you know, a lot of staff has been working for a while and I don't micromanage divide. If you have an area and her areas I'll reach there are certainly times that there are things on the schedule where she tells me No, you got this and I'm like oh so I let her you know, she has free rein to put the calendar together. And so truly, I don't know, until we sit down and map things out. You know, I mean, I know but you know, she has the latitude to make decisions. Give me guardrails, so I don't mess up, Mr. Phillips. Yeah, I'll put it that way. Arena.
Daigo arena Hello.
emerges okay, I'm
Linda come and
Linda Emile thank you
so much arena. We have a true fan helping us how and I'm sure I've missed the Steve has any other questions here definitely give you a car.
Guy him lend to guns. Yes.
Excellent. Okay, so Mr. Simpson, we can close out the car we can stop the recording.
Good night, everyone. Good night. Drive. Drive home. Be safe.
