[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[1:06] Good
[1:22] afternoon and welcome. Good afternoon and welcome. This time I would like to commit some of our Suffolk City Council work session, and our first item is the galley, pardoned, imagination, library, Mr. Hughes.
[1:37] Good afternoon Mayor, Vice Mayor and members of Council, Clint Rudy, our director of libraries will provide overview on this program.
[1:49] Mayor of Vice Mayor, Mr. Deputy City Manager.
[1:54] I'm very excited to be here today to notify all of you that we have launched
[1:58] Dalai Partens of Management Library in the City of Suffolk.
[2:02] I can tell you that this and the new downtown library are the
[2:06] questions I've gotten over the past 11 years of when are you going to do these things?
[2:11] So I wanted to take the time to share information about the
[2:15] exciting and impactful opportunity for our community.
[2:18] As you may know, a Dolly Parton grew up in rural eastern Tennessee
[2:22] in extreme poverty.
[2:24] She had 11 siblings and they lived in a one room cabin.
[2:28] They eventually did move to a little bit of a larger cabin
[2:31] and you can actually see that building at Dollywood.
[2:35] Her father never learned to read her right
[2:38] and is the inspiration for the imagination library
[2:40] to get books into the hands of children.
[2:46] In addition to being a Grammy award-winning songwriter, singer, actress, as well as business
[2:55] person, Dolly Parton, is also a philanthropist.
[2:59] In 1988, she founded the Dolly Parton Foundation, and this focused on her rural community,
[3:06] and one of her focuses for her foundation has been literacy, and that expanded to getting books
[3:12] into the hands of children and the program started with mailing them to every child in her community
[3:18] from birth to their fifth birthday. She later expanded that to the entire state of Tennessee
[3:24] to the country and it's now active in five countries.
[3:31] In 2023, one in eight children receive a book
[3:36] mail to them in their home from this program that is 12% of children under the age of five.
[3:43] So, the goal of this is to get books into the hands of children with the idea that it will inspire literacy for them but also encourage families to read together.
[3:56] This is a partnership with the Early Childhood Development Commission and the Suffolk Public Library.
[4:01] Funding is provided in the Early Childhood Commission Development Commission's budget with 50% of the costs coming from the state.
[4:08] two years ago, they passed the General Assembly,
[4:11] passed a bill in the governor's sign,
[4:12] to provide 50% for any community that participated.
[4:18] So, how does it work?
[4:19] Parents or caregivers can register on this site
[4:22] from the child's birth to their fifth birthday.
[4:26] They have to be a suffoc resident
[4:27] in order to qualify to participate in our program.
[4:30] They will get a book,
[4:31] mail to them, personalized each month to their home.
[4:36] there are options to get a Braille or audio book as well. Each child receives the same book,
[4:44] so it's a kind of a community feel of everyone getting the same book every month,
[4:48] and those titles are listed on their website, and they are chosen by
[4:53] I'm Dolly Parton's specific Blue Ribbon Committee that works with her foundation.
[5:00] To choose the titles.
[5:03] The first book that you received is a special customized edition of the classic version of the little engine that could, along with a letter from Dolly Parton, welcoming the child to the program and encouraging them to continue to read and the joy that that brings.
[5:17] The last book on their fifth birthday is a special graduation book, and it's a special customized edition of Lookout Kindergarten, here I come.
[5:26] And it contains a letter from Dolly Parton, thanking them for participating as well as encouraging
[5:31] them to continue to read and enjoy school.
[5:37] And this initiative is really about providing an impact to the community, getting a book
[5:42] into the hands of children.
[5:45] And I'm pleased to report we already have 500 children signed up so far.
[5:51] And I want to thank you for your support of this initiative for educating our community.
[5:56] I also want to thank the friends of the library for being the required non-profit sponsor as well as the early childhood development commission members in the library advisory board and I also want to provide a special thanks to the Suffolk Postal Service
[6:09] which has been really supportive and they're really excited about this because they're going to do all the work of delivering these books each month.
[6:14] Thank you.
[6:16] Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you answer one of your questions or comments?
[6:21] Please make a word.
[6:23] How are you?
[6:24] Uh, you think we can get it here for a grand opening?
[6:28] It's part in here, probably part in here for a grand opening.
[6:31] That would be great.
[6:32] I think it's outside of our budget, but thank you.
[6:34] Thank you, big.
[6:35] I mean, we don't know.
[6:37] We got time.
[6:37] That would be great.
[6:42] Can somebody bend it?
[6:44] Yes.
[6:45] Thank you.
[6:46] On the, uh, how did you in the QR code to register?
[6:51] And how did the information get out to the public about how they can get children.
[6:57] of children, they would be interested in doing this.
[7:01] I think it's a great program.
[7:02] By the way, I think it's very good that
[7:04] he started a very, very young age.
[7:07] And I think that means a lot.
[7:11] So do you have any way of how you advertise
[7:13] and I didn't information out?
[7:16] Sure, great question.
[7:16] So marketing is a big part of this initiative.
[7:21] The Dolly Parton Foundation provides the logistical support
[7:25] They provide the advertising templates, provide the template for the press release, and then we have to pay for the actual purchase of the book, which they negotiate, also prices because of the bulk purchasing and then the mailing.
[7:38] So they provide a lot of support for us, so we have the templates already to go.
[7:41] And the QR code actually goes to our FAQ on our website because we have people have a lot of questions about it.
[7:47] And so it takes them to that which will take you to their website, they handle all the registration.
[7:51] and we're planning especially partnering with ECDC,
[7:54] early childhood development commission.
[7:56] We're going to send it to all of the
[7:58] possibly 50 registered child care centers,
[8:01] and we're already posted on peach star for the schools,
[8:03] so we can get the word out to the school students,
[8:06] and then we're going to of course promote in the library
[8:08] on social media and then work with the Department of Communications
[8:12] to put it on city, municipal channel,
[8:14] and other places as well.
[8:15] And we just released the press release yesterday.
[8:18] Okay, thank you.
[8:18] because my other concern where a lot of might not have computer or a way of going to the
[8:26] app phone where they can go to do that. So I was just concerned about making it available
[8:32] for those that didn't have that technology. And they can always come to the library and staff
[8:38] can help them or they can use one of our computers. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Thank you.
[8:43] Councilman, any other questions or comments?
[8:48] If not, Mr. Riri, I'm very excited about this program.
[8:51] I did have a question.
[8:53] I saw that, you know, that'd be less than five years old.
[8:58] Zero to five.
[9:00] One book a month is, does each child just get that for a year?
[9:04] Or if you're a year old, do you get it for four more years?
[9:07] Every month?
[9:08] Yes, so you have potential for 60 bucks.
[9:10] That's a lot of books.
[9:15] Well, I can tell you that my wife being a former kindergarten teacher shows used to comment
[9:22] on the different levels of knowledge that kids have their first day of school.
[9:31] And that's because of what they receive at home.
[9:33] And this program here puts books in folks' homes.
[9:37] So, hopefully, with that being the case, I mean, the parents are reading the books to the kids.
[9:44] I mean, that's one thing my mother did, we had these little golden books and you got the pick one and everything like she read a book.
[9:50] So, I think this is also going to help, you know, in our school system and help prepare the kids better for when they go to kindergarten.
[10:00] Other thought I had just off the cuff was, this is going to be a lot of books floating around.
[10:06] Do you think it would be worthwhile to have a project that kind of repurposes those books after a while,
[10:13] and we could maybe get those books into the schools on a permanent basis, or a recycle them,
[10:18] some other way, because that amount of how many people are going to enroll.
[10:22] But if there's just like you said, if there's a book a month for four or five months, I mean, four or five years.
[10:27] I mean, that's 48-60 books, so just a thought for the future.
[10:32] Yeah, that's a great idea to kind of do a recycling drive for people to bring the books
[10:38] different places around the community.
[10:40] And they can always use the little free libraries.
[10:42] Well, you have a record of who requested the books.
[10:47] So with that in mind, five or six years down the road or whatever, you can see those same folks
[10:53] also and say, if you're not using your books anymore, crop them off at the library, and
[10:58] we can get them into schools and get them into the neighborhoods.
[11:01] So, just a little way to get some more bang for the bucket, if you will.
[11:06] Great idea.
[11:07] Okay, thank you very much for your presentation.
[11:09] Thank you.
[11:11] Okay, our next topic, the discussion for our work session is the Capital Improvement Plan and
[11:15] American Rescue Plan Act update, Mr. Yves.
[11:19] Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of Council, each summer we'd like to provide you
[11:23] with the update on how we're progressing
[11:25] on our capital improvement projects throughout the city.
[11:29] This summer, you'll also get an update on our ARPA programs.
[11:32] You'll see a very robust presentation.
[11:36] We will have our directors of public work, utilities,
[11:38] parks and wrecks, and capital providing you with those updates.
[11:41] And what you'll see is projects that are currently
[11:44] under design, about to start design,
[11:46] under construction, and recently completed.
[11:48] So I'll encourage you to get comfortable.
[11:51] You're going to see a lot of slides.
[11:52] It's a lot of good information.
[11:54] I'd ask just so we can continue to roll through this, maybe we jot down questions and try to
[12:00] save them towards the end of possible.
[12:03] With that, Robert Lewis will start us off.
[12:07] Good afternoon, Mayor Vice Mayor of the Mayor of the Council.
[12:10] Vice Mayor, I'm with you.
[12:11] I said, hey, where's Ms. Pardon coming?
[12:12] I want to meet her.
[12:14] So we're going to work on that.
[12:15] So today what we're doing is, as Ms. Hughes noticed, we're bringing you an update on all the
[12:19] different capital projects that are moving forward.
[12:22] I was really surprised that we counter summarized us together all the good news that's
[12:26] contained in this.
[12:27] And again, it is all good news.
[12:29] So we're going to start out in public works.
[12:31] And again, we spend a lot of money in the city and public works type projects.
[12:37] And again, we'll start off.
[12:38] The first one here was the Charleston Road COVID rehabilitation.
[12:42] That project is now completed.
[12:44] The road is back open.
[12:45] It looks great.
[12:45] We certainly heard a lot of comments during construction, but again, we've backed, we've got to
[12:50] road the secure again.
[12:52] Most of this was state funding.
[12:53] But again, we're up to date, completed project, long street lane bridge, same thing.
[12:58] We literally opened that bridge.
[13:01] I think it was last Thursday, so officially today, we're announcing it to the public.
[13:05] It is open to the public.
[13:07] The detours are out, the signs are out, and that bridge is completed.
[13:11] Nice brand new concrete bridge looks lovely.
[13:14] No wait restrictions.
[13:16] As I note, the bridge is one of the things that I highlight for you over the last four
[13:20] five years.
[13:20] The city has been very, very fortunate working through VDOT on the State of Good Repair.
[13:25] We have been dramatically reducing the number of substandard bridges in our city.
[13:30] And in fact, with the ones that we have today that we're going to talk about that getting
[13:34] ready to get started, there are only five bridges left in the city to have any restrictions
[13:38] and only two of those really have major impacts to traffic, and again, we're continuing
[13:42] to do that.
[13:43] So we have come a long way on our bridge improvement program.
[13:46] Prudence Road added for 60, certainly one of our hot
[13:49] discussion areas in our city because of the impact
[13:52] of traffic, but that is now complete.
[13:55] Essentially complete, there was a little bit of work to do
[13:57] in the final close out, but that project completed.
[14:00] We now have safety turn lanes out there,
[14:02] full lane, right highway divided, so again,
[14:05] there's a much safer place.
[14:07] Hollen Road widening, deer near to all of our hearts
[14:10] because we've been working this way long long time.
[14:12] We're anticipating having this finish-up this December.
[14:17] It's still significant work to do, but also if you look at there, you're starting to see a highway take shape.
[14:24] For the first two and a half, three years of this, so much of this work was kind of out of the public's view.
[14:29] It was underground, it was pipes, it was utilities.
[14:32] But today you're starting to see the curb and go to the sidewalks, the bike trails, and the new asphalt getting ready to come in.
[14:38] So again, it's starting to take shape.
[14:42] Shoulder-seal road at Bridge Road, this is one that we unfortunately got delayed for about a year and a half through Verizon dealing with trying to get relocations done, but we are well underway.
[14:54] We're anticipating winner of next year being completed, so it's about a year and a half project.
[15:00] I wish I could say it's not going to be any pain and traffic, but it's going to be a challenge,
[15:04] but we're going to get that done. And when we get done, we're going to have a much better
[15:07] intersection that will flow traffic extremely well compared to what we have today.
[15:13] Green and Road at 17, another one of those Friday's submitted works for a while. We are nearly
[15:20] complete on the utility relocation, which means we're going to put that out for bid. We anticipate
[15:25] starting construction this winter. And it'll run about a two year time frame to build that entire
[15:32] project up there. But again, something that has the potential to significantly impact the
[15:37] flow of traffic in the northern end of the city. Shoulders here widening as we finish up the
[15:44] turn lanes there at Shoulders Hill and bridge. The next piece going safe picks up from the end
[15:50] of the project we're building today and takes it safe to a round-pused-veal road. Again, it was
[15:55] the road to a four-lane divided highway, bring it up to the modern standards. We are in
[16:01] getting ready to start preliminary engineering next January and again, construction is
[16:06] just a few years further, 28, 29, but we're making progress.
[16:12] Now, it's been a will rate overpass. We are under construction as we speak. If you've had the
[16:18] opportunity to ride through that since we've made the change, we're now traffic is on the new road.
[16:24] It's amazing the impact that that has had just the flow of trappings now.
[16:29] So it's almost to the point we said we could have got by what had built on the bridge.
[16:32] Well we need a bridge.
[16:33] If you happen to catch the news article that Channel 3 did the other day and he had to
[16:40] be out there and I said, here comes the train and take some video.
[16:42] This is exactly why that's built and being built.
[16:45] It is a great project moving forward.
[16:47] It's working really well, again it's going to be well received and we are about a year
[16:53] away from finalizing that work, right now they're getting ready to start construction on
[16:56] the bridge itself.
[16:58] On Nancy Park, we've been this past your road out in front of the high school.
[17:01] Again, that project at the lead is we work through the design process, but again, we're anticipating
[17:07] construction, getting ready to start any time, and again, should be completed by next winter.
[17:14] If you remember that's to deal with the issues in front of that, we can figure some roads,
[17:19] to move a traffic signal over to sleeping whole road,
[17:23] reconfigured the entrance to the schools,
[17:24] puts a drainage facilities in.
[17:27] Again, spent a lot of time trying to get you
[17:29] tell of these move, there's a lot of you
[17:30] tell of these through that corridor.
[17:32] But again, that's moving forward
[17:33] and you'll start seeing that come out of the ground
[17:35] very shortly.
[17:37] Pitch out a road alignment, real alignment.
[17:39] Again, we've been working on that for quite a number of years.
[17:42] The utilities are in the process of the way of a quiet
[17:44] all the right away.
[17:45] The utilities in the process of being moved today,
[17:47] I think the best I could tell looking there may be a couple of telephone facilities in a little bit of cable.
[17:53] We're nearly complete with that.
[17:55] And again, we hope this winter, as we'll get this day to bed, get a contract in here and start working on that.
[18:01] And again, that's about a two year time frame.
[18:03] And that's got to do with the management of traffic moving back and forth.
[18:06] But again, I believe that will make a dramatic impact not only to traffic,
[18:10] traffic flow traffic safety, but also to the community in general.
[18:16] Here's Bill Drainage phase two, hallelujah with finally here.
[18:20] This project is out to add at this point the Bids are actually due back to us on July
[18:28] 17th and pending getting a bid that we can work with.
[18:33] This should start construction this fall and that if you remember that's the rebuild John
[18:38] Street, you put a drainage, eight fall down that street, close the drainage and they pick
[18:43] all the drainage and make it to where we get rid of some of the flooding would divert a lot
[18:47] of that drainage that's now going through folks backyards under their garages through their
[18:52] front yards maybe a couple of places on the houses so again it's a really really good
[18:57] news project and again we're working in coordination with the city of Chesapeake to make this happen.
[19:03] Goblin Boulevard Improvement so there's actually a couple of products from Goblin Boulevard
[19:07] that are moving forward. This first one is the idea of widening Goblin Boulevard so we've talked
[19:12] about this before. Goblin Boulevard currently is a four-lane divided highway. Traffic needs have
[19:17] increased out there and we need to put an extra lane in each direction. The good thing was many
[19:23] many years ago when Vito started this project there was going to be a six-lane road they cut a
[19:28] lane out but they did it out of the median. So there's an extra wide meeting at median out there.
[19:33] This new project will put that there's lanes back into the median. So it will minimize the amount of
[19:42] the amount of right away. I can't say no right away because there may be some utilities,
[19:47] we have to deal with. But again, this should be a good new story moving forward. Again,
[19:52] construction to start the fall of 26 and be completed by 28. Right behind that, again,
[19:59] as we look at that.
[20:00] One of the challenges that that location is getting on and off of the bypass. And this is going to be one of the first
[20:06] diverging diamond interchanges that we're going to build. Probably not the last. This is a new upcoming
[20:12] technology. It works extremely well. If you have to have a drive through one of those and you'll have the opportunity
[20:17] very shortly. But again, we're in the process of doing the preliminary engineering at this point to get this
[20:29] Lasting through 28 and you'll notice both the six leaning of Godwin and this interchange are set to coincide at the same time
[20:37] So again, it's going to disrupt traffic a little bit, but it's going to all be done and we're going to have a much better system we get done
[20:46] Kings Highway Bridge
[20:49] We've been talking about Kings Highway for a long long long time and in fact a few years back
[20:55] We've got kind of sort of revisited this.
[20:57] We set an alignment.
[20:58] Staff has never stopped pushing, trying to find funding for this.
[21:02] And as you all were aware, our Senator came through,
[21:05] Senator Warner was here just a week ago,
[21:08] and brought us a check.
[21:09] Now, granted $3 million is not a lot in the grand scheme
[21:12] of replacing a bridge, but a business and opportunity
[21:15] to get started.
[21:16] And what that $3 million will do
[21:18] and allow us to do the preliminary alignment,
[21:21] the NEPA concurrence, and the archeological historic
[21:24] reviews to make sure there are no fatal flaws in the plan we have.
[21:29] With that study done, it is my belief we will be very easy, fortunate to find, funding,
[21:35] to move into right away and acquisition and finish that design.
[21:38] Again, this is a great news story that goes back many, many years.
[21:44] Bridge Road 17 widening, again, is we're going to do all this work at the intersection
[21:49] and shoulders hill.
[21:51] going to go down the cell to see how we also need to start looking at Bridge Road.
[21:55] So again, this is the next segment of Bridge Road.
[21:57] This will pick up from where the cell to the cell project ends and go east,
[22:01] almost to Harborview Boulevard.
[22:07] And again, widen that and prove it.
[22:09] With that, again, we're starting some preliminary engineering.
[22:13] We hope to start construction in 26 and finish it in 28.
[22:17] Now, one project we don't have in the slides is certainly
[22:20] There's the next piece of that, which is the intersection of Bridge Road and Hoverview Boulevard,
[22:26] and we will be bringing you some information back in the very near future as we talk about
[22:30] what's the next step and how do we move forward to fix that too?
[22:34] Because again, that's just the next piece, staying that process.
[22:37] So it is a continuing program we're trying to improve.
[22:41] For 60 widening, as we all know, there's a needle for 60 to widen that.
[22:47] Some of it is related to the port activity at Port 460, but a lot of it's just the fact that we're growing community.
[22:54] And that is a most of that as a four-lane undivided highway.
[23:00] It needs to be improved brought up.
[23:02] And again, this project will do that.
[23:04] We're in the process right now.
[23:05] The survey has been completed, so we have very good survey data.
[23:09] We have applied for the T-Poff, which is the transportation.
[23:13] Mr. Chiefs might have to help me with activism.
[23:16] On your ship.
[23:17] Partnership opportunity fund, again, possibly 30 million dollars to come in to help us
[23:22] with the right away, and we're committed to construction.
[23:24] So we will continue doing that and have some more information to report to you and
[23:29] the near future as we progress through the preliminary engineering.
[23:34] And that project also will include some work at the interchange there at the
[23:38] pass.
[23:39] Now, as we park, we have a beam as a middle.
[23:41] Again, another one of our bridges that had fallen into a state of disrepair over the years
[23:47] through V dot.
[23:48] We've acquired right away, we're underway, acquiring right away, and we anticipate this
[23:52] construction starting this fall.
[23:54] This project, I see, got delayed a little bit.
[23:56] We were going to replace and count what's out there, and because of the growth there, V dot
[24:00] came back and said, hey, when you like to build a little bit bigger bridge, we said, absolutely.
[24:05] So, we took a little pause, beat up brought some more money back to us, and again, we're going to build a bridge that's going to last us for quite a long time and meet our needs.
[24:16] Peppantine over Mill Swamp, I have to tell you there's probably not a more remote location in the city of Suffolk that you can go to.
[24:23] And this particular piece of road, but there's a bridge there that we're responsible for maintaining.
[24:28] And again, the state has been very good at giving us money to get rid of these weight restricted bridges in our city.
[24:33] This will go, it's under advertising, it's about to go in advertising.
[24:38] And again, we hope it's a fairly short project to be completed by next winter.
[24:44] State spillway over the, over the, it's the bridge data goes over the,
[24:49] I fall of Lake Spate.
[24:51] We're in the process of acquisition of right away,
[24:54] and we hope to go to construction,
[24:57] advertising, construction next fall.
[24:59] This was a project.
[25:00] And we'd hope to have a little further along at this point, but we've been in a lot of discussions with the city of Portrait.
[25:06] Portrait is going to be required by the state to make some updates to their dam and to their spillway structure.
[25:13] And again, we didn't want to build something immediately, have a new project carried out.
[25:17] So I think we've come up with a compromise to fix this bridge in a way that when Portrait has to do their work, we will not lose the value of our bridge.
[25:26] Freedom in the middle of a spotty swamp, that might be the second most part of our city.
[25:32] It's way down in the fourth sight these corners, just above the North Carolina line.
[25:37] But again, it's a structure that was in need of repair and the state has given us that.
[25:40] And we are starting construction next month.
[25:45] Our upper projects.
[25:46] We had several upper projects that you all had authorized for, and this is just a quick overview
[25:51] of the status of those first off we had Lloyd Place.
[25:54] And Rosemite, we were installing some curbing, and again we're moving along with that.
[25:59] Secondly, web street at Oxford, we're redesigning some drainage improvements in that area.
[26:05] Thirdly, web street and deal road, also under development, and working forward and finally,
[26:10] bunch of avenue, Randolph Street, and Marshall Avenue.
[26:14] Those are also under preliminary design applications, activities, and we estimate those improvements
[26:20] hopefully within the next nine months, and again, there will be moving forward.
[26:25] And with that, I will pass the baton over to Mr. Retail and he will take a little bit
[26:30] more about our public utility improvement.
[26:35] Thank you, Robert.
[26:35] Good afternoon.
[26:36] Mayor Vice Mayor, member of Council, let's pivot from roads and bridges to water and sewer.
[26:42] So continuing on with the theme of ARPA, a completely completed project is the third avenue
[26:48] in the Williamston area of water system improvements.
[26:51] This project replaced the water main, the existing water main,
[26:54] with a new increased capacity main,
[26:56] allowed us to put in new water meters, water service lines,
[27:00] and hydrants.
[27:01] And also to also improve the street drainage and curbing.
[27:05] You can see in that the left hand photo there,
[27:08] that's what that looked like before we started with some
[27:10] trenching work that occurred there.
[27:12] But then as we overlayed it, the right hand photo is what it looks
[27:14] completed, so the curbing was a nice cherry on the top to finish that ARPA project out.
[27:22] Moving on, and relatively the same area, killed the avenue water system improvements,
[27:27] a little bit of a similar project, replaced the aging water main and water services,
[27:31] included some pavement restoration, nice photo shot on the right-hand side there,
[27:35] the completed project, and as well, working with public works to slide in some new curbing
[27:41] and drainage improvements there.
[27:43] That new curbing replaced some of the old treated wood curbing
[27:46] that was in place in various sections of that.
[27:49] That was also recently completed.
[27:52] Shifting the pump stations.
[27:54] Pumps station 46 is located on Kansas Street,
[27:57] off of Wilroy Road.
[27:59] This is an existing pump station with an existing structure.
[28:02] They had existing pumps, mechanical, and electrical equipment
[28:05] that was dated.
[28:06] We're having problems with some of the receiving signals
[28:10] back and forth from that pump station, and you can see in the upper right hand photo, you see
[28:13] an orange auxiliary pump sitting there, that's to help that pump station get into the system.
[28:19] And so we like to take those stations that are having problems or having issues and we've
[28:23] got an auxiliary pump sitting there, try to get rid of that, put in some installed new pumps
[28:29] to overcome head to get into the system. So, seeing a lower right hand corner, nice shot
[28:35] of the inside of a refreshed pump station might not look very exciting, but it's a nice
[28:40] space for our folks to work in freshly painted with brand new electrical equipment.
[28:46] So one project that's near and dear to my heart, this is the G Robert House, it's the name
[28:50] of our water treatment plant up in Chucotuck.
[28:52] This is the electro dialysis reversal, that's a mouthful, EDR membrane replacements.
[28:59] This is recently completed and so recently, in fact, it was last week that we did the
[29:05] batteryological testing on this process equipment and turn the water loose.
[29:09] So this is partially funded by $1 million in
[29:11] congressionally directed spending.
[29:13] The total project was $5.5 million.
[29:16] That was just the purchase the equipment.
[29:18] So another half a million dollars to install,
[29:20] actually a little bit less than that, to have a
[29:22] contractor install that and we had some consultant to
[29:25] fees on that.
[29:26] But what we did is we replaced five trains of
[29:28] membrane.
[29:29] What I mean by a train is there's a long line of these
[29:31] membranes, you can see it in the right hand photo there, where the water passes through
[29:37] that each train is able to produce 1.25 million gallons of treated water per day. So that's
[29:44] quite a bit. So we restored the condition of those membranes with brand new membranes.
[29:49] What this does essentially, it's a process that removes the fluoride from groundwater. We have two
[29:55] main sources of water and suffoc, surface water,
[29:58] so think of lakes, rivers,
[30:00] Things like that. And then we have groundwater. So groundwater, the groundwater, the we take in tends to be high in fluoride, VTH won't allow us to turn that loosened in the system. So we have to pull the fluoride out. So what you're looking at there is essentially a packaged unit that takes a platinum electrode separates the fluoride iron and then the membrane will actually take it out of the water. So it's a complicated process. Our staff does a tremendous job out there maintaining these. So it's exciting to have that completed.
[30:31] Also in the Chocotuck area, this is another ARPA project, a lot happening with this, Chocotuck
[30:37] Burrow, Oakland area improvements.
[30:39] So this is that area that's in the REN, Hawk, Brown area, New Waterman, Piping and Services,
[30:45] New Sanitary Sur, Gravity System, Pump Station and Force Main right now that are existing
[30:51] septic tanks in that area.
[30:52] So those will have the opportunity homeowners to a property owner's rather to abandon those
[30:58] to connect to the city system using grant money.
[31:03] We also have a separate DEQ,
[31:04] ARPA grant, separate from the main city ARPA grants,
[31:08] to do work on the private side,
[31:10] to turn the plumbing around as I call it,
[31:13] from the septic system to bring it out to the front of the house,
[31:16] connect to the city brand new gravity sewer system,
[31:20] also included in that project or some drainage improvements,
[31:24] to regrade some of the ditches in there,
[31:25] provide for some better street drainage.
[31:27] That is currently out for bidding.
[31:30] I believe the bids are going to be received on either the 10th through the 12th, July 10th through the 12th.
[31:35] And anticipated start date that would also start would begin in late summer of 2024.
[31:42] So, going to be a lot of activity in that area.
[31:45] So, that's again, one of our main arbor projects.
[31:48] Again, moving on to some pump station and electrical upgrades.
[31:52] So, here's a series we have a, we package, we found that it's more cost efficient to package
[31:57] some of these upgrades of our pump stations.
[32:00] So we've packaged pump stations in the river view,
[32:02] four steels, the western Thai water regional jail pump station,
[32:06] dogwood estate, spurkshire, meadows, and then Puzville.
[32:09] So some of these stations that you can see in the photos
[32:12] are what I'll call outdoor stations.
[32:14] They don't have structure to them.
[32:16] There's not a building.
[32:18] So they've really been worn down by the elements.
[32:20] These tend to be the older stations.
[32:22] So we're going in there replacing a lot
[32:24] the electrical panels as well as the pumps to refresh those.
[32:29] So you might see some of these along the side of the road.
[32:34] Also under design, we've talked about this before last year and we're moving through the
[32:38] easement acquisition process as we speak right now with two churches that we're running
[32:42] behind Suffolk Christian Church as well as the Suffolk United Methodist Church.
[32:47] So these are two areas, location one is the intersection of bank street and commerce street.
[32:54] There's a section there that runs almost up against the Suffolk Methodist Church Structures.
[33:00] We wanted to move that away from the building so that we had to ever get in there and repair that.
[33:05] We wouldn't damage the structure.
[33:06] And then location two is that the intersection of South Main Street and West Washington Street.
[33:11] That project is taking a little bit of a turn, a little bit of a pivot.
[33:15] We, as we did some exploratory work in that intersection as you know, that's Main Street and Washington.
[33:20] very heavily trafficked intersection. We found that we could not clear with some of our piping,
[33:27] some of the portsmith, water main, the large transmission main, that's in that area. So we're
[33:31] going to take a turn on that, and we're going to go through the parking lot, that's near a launch
[33:35] dance studio, to city owned parking lot, to get out of that intersection, which is going to be a
[33:40] win-win for everybody. Robert won't strangle me for blocking traffic in the intersection. So that's
[33:46] So we're going to go ahead and redesign that section.
[33:49] So right now we are in the midst of finishing
[33:52] a Beesman acquisition with one of the two churches.
[33:55] A key part to this whole project is even though
[33:57] we're just replacing a couple of sections of sewer.
[34:00] It's both of these contains significant amount
[34:03] of sewer flow coming out of the downtown area.
[34:05] So there's quite a bit of coordination
[34:06] to do bypass pumping as we take those sours out of service
[34:09] to replace them with the new sewer.
[34:11] So that is currently under design.
[34:14] Old town sewer and water replacements, this is a joint project with public works.
[34:19] This is a project where public works can be working to replace some of their storm drain assets.
[34:25] So at that time, at the same time, the prudent thing to do would be getting there in a replace.
[34:30] Age sanitary sewers, water main piping, and then water and sewer services at the same time.
[34:36] This is in the Piner Street, Grey Street, and Holiday Street.
[34:39] So that's currently under design.
[34:42] One recent addition that we did through this next CIP was the Cedar Lake Shore's water system improvements.
[34:48] We've had some issues in that area in the past with some leaks.
[34:52] Really what's going on there is deteriorated water service.
[34:55] We're the saddle of the water service connects to the main.
[34:58] We've actually done a little bit of exp...
[35:00] Or Tory digging very recently in that area, and to determine the scope of work, so we're going to get that under design here shortly and then moving on to construction.
[35:10] We'll write road water main extension phase two. This is a little bit over half mile of 12-inch water main. Right now it terminates if the children center, and it goes south west, well, currently it terminates if the children center.
[35:24] But what this does, we're going to extend the Southwest to River Cube Creek Drive.
[35:29] It does a couple things.
[35:30] One is the old mill Creek subdivision, right now only has currently one water feed
[35:35] into it.
[35:35] That's a large area, quite a few dwellings in the area.
[35:38] If we had a problem with that one feed, we'd take quite a few residents out of service.
[35:43] This project will loop that water main, connected to old mill Creek, provide a secondary
[35:48] means of service into that subdivision.
[35:51] And also, on the City of Portsmouth transmission main, into River Creek, that's currently receiving
[35:58] Portsmouth water, we're going to extend this down to River Creek and then connect that area
[36:02] up to Suffolkwater. So, kills, does a couple things, that's under design. So, then a project we've
[36:09] been working on for quite a while, especially as it's worked through its permitting process. This is
[36:14] the Cedar Hill Cemetery Gravity sewer replacement. So, think of this, if you look in the photo,
[36:18] you'll see the train station museum there and just looking towards the Pinter Street Bridge
[36:24] way in the background there.
[36:26] So this is going to replace a section of gravity so where there runs behind Cedar Hill
[36:30] Cemetery that's had problems in the past, historical problems, so we're going to utilize
[36:35] a trenchless construction technology with a pilot drill to drill in the majority of that
[36:41] pipe.
[36:42] That recently where we reached 100% on the design completion, so we will be moving
[36:48] closely to getting that wrapped up and looking to when we can slap that for construction.
[36:54] West port water pump station you can really see this tank now now that the development
[36:59] of the West port area is cleared out a lot of the trees you can see the tank off of
[37:04] Holland Road. So this is one of our that tank of that style of tank is a water stand
[37:09] pipe located across from Virginia port logistics. So in that area we're doing some chemical
[37:15] feed improvements to feed both chlorine and ammonia.
[37:19] We'd use, if you remember, for maybe a prior presentation, we used both of those chemicals
[37:22] to form chloramine, which is the main disinfectant in our water system.
[37:27] So we recognize the need to improve our feed, especially in the warmer months, as the water
[37:32] gets warmer in that area.
[37:34] We're going to do some pump maintenance access improvements, of course, and then we're going
[37:39] to do disinfecting mixing improvements within the tank itself.
[37:42] We're going to add a actual mixer in the tank to keep the tank from stratifying temperature-wise
[37:49] as that tank temperature stratifies in the tank.
[37:52] You lose some of the water residuals who want to keep it mixed in addition to keeping the water,
[37:57] the disinfect and chemical residual up to where it needs to be.
[38:01] So anticipate that's under construction right now.
[38:03] Anticipate a completion date, April of 2025.
[38:08] Moving on to another pump station.
[38:09] So this isn't a kill be sure's area pump station 17 you look at the lower left-hand corner lower left photo
[38:15] To get one of these as I call it an outdoor pump station. It's tucked between two residential properties
[38:20] Access sometimes is a problem in bad weather and at night
[38:24] So we're actually going to take this and move it down to down to Tano court
[38:28] It's currently under construction. You can see in the right-hand photo. They've cleared that out
[38:33] They're currently maybe within the next week or two going to start driving piles in that area
[38:38] sheet piling to construct the sewage wet well, anticipate a completion data that is January of 2025.
[38:47] Another pump station, pump station 4 or this is a big one. We've been going at this for quite a while now.
[38:52] This is located at the dead end of Lincoln Avenue in the Boston section of Suffolk.
[38:57] Off of Pitchcattle is a brand new pump station. So the pump station you see there on the left hand side is gone.
[39:03] On the right hand side that's currently stands. That's the new slab for the new pump station.
[39:08] So the challenge here has just been access, very tight access to get in there.
[39:13] The other challenge here, frankly, has been keeping the bypass pumps running.
[39:17] This whole station, since we took it off of line to for construction,
[39:21] has been running out of bypass or auxiliary pumping.
[39:24] So it's set up with an alarm system, so several times staff in the contract
[39:27] who had to respond in the middle of the night when the equipment malfunctions.
[39:33] Response, why?
[39:34] Just to keep things from sewage from overflowing.
[39:36] So, that project is moving long and anticipated completion date on that is December of 2024.
[39:45] Another long time, project we've been working on, Butler Lake Dan improvements, Butler Lake Dan,
[39:51] We call it in the water system Lake I-Damn.
[39:54] This is one of our water supply Dan's in the Lone Star Lake Park, run by Parks and Rec.
[40:00] This is an earthen dam, involves clearing and grubbing, removing all the vegetation from the face. We regrade the face of the dam and then we would go ahead and increase the section of the dam with what's called armoring, big stone, to protect it from erosion protection.
[40:16] So that we just received bids on that, that's a $3.5 million project getting ready to start in the late summer of 2024, so that'll take some significant coordination with our water treatment plant staff contract or actually access that property by going through our water plant site.
[40:37] Another pump station, pump station 62, another one where you see in the photo, you see the the orange auxiliary pump off to the right hand side.
[40:45] want to get rid of that. That's off Holland Road near Lake on high school. Again, structure
[40:49] stays the same, but new pumps, new pumps, piping, electrical equipment, bring that up to
[40:54] speed. We should have that online, April of 2025. I'm going to leave you with this, even though
[41:00] this is not our project. This is Robert's public works project. Holland Road widening project
[41:06] has been a successful project. Just in our interactions with Robert's staff. He's got excellent
[41:12] staff on this project, and so do we.
[41:14] Done a quite a few water and sewer relocations
[41:16] in order to make this project move forward.
[41:19] A lot of this has been done at night.
[41:21] We've had so far ahead.
[41:23] Dean Adams, our construction manager,
[41:24] go and tell you up.
[41:25] He thinks it's been about 28 water and sewer relocations.
[41:29] And we're not talking about small stuff.
[41:31] We're done by large diameter locations,
[41:33] whether it's sewer force main or water transmission lines.
[41:36] Done a really good job between us and public works
[41:39] to coordinate this to minimize the impact of customers.
[41:43] That's why we do these things at night.
[41:45] Get good notice out there.
[41:46] We're closely with the contractor and also with media
[41:48] to get those notices out there.
[41:51] But this has been a staff intensive project,
[41:54] but it's also been a successful one.
[41:58] Turn this over to Mark, Parks and Recreation.
[42:01] Thank you.
[42:07] Even Mayor Vice Mayor, members of Council.
[42:10] We're gonna pick it once again to Parks, Trails,
[42:12] corridors and cemeteries.
[42:17] We are beyond excited. We got some great news last week. The city
[42:22] was awarded a $5.3 million grant from a very competitive program. The funding comes directly
[42:28] from the Department of Transportation and this will provide the funding for the final piece
[42:37] of trail that was originally envisioned in the 2006 master plan that we did for the Suffolk
[42:43] Seaboard trail.
[42:45] So this is the last piece of funding for that segment of trail that was master plan in 2006.
[42:52] So currently we have 6.6 miles built and that segment's 2 and 4 and we have another 9.3 miles
[43:02] that are funded and currently under design,
[43:05] that's segments one and three.
[43:07] And then we have three, three, three miles unfunded.
[43:10] So that's what we're calling C-Board West.
[43:13] And that's from Prenus out to Canyon Road.
[43:16] That was not originally part of that original master plan
[43:19] that was done in 2006.
[43:20] We added that later.
[43:23] So, but we are planning on going after some grants
[43:26] next year to fund that C-Board West piece.
[43:30] So we're really excited.
[43:32] We've got funding for everything that was master plan back in 2006.
[43:40] The NASA River boat ramp, we should be closing
[43:44] on the additional right away that we're purchasing
[43:46] that will provide two way traffic from Godwin Boulevard.
[43:50] Within the next 30 days, we're planning on starting design
[43:53] and fall of 24.
[43:55] And construction hopefully in 2526.
[44:00] Constance North Park, we're wrapping up design right now
[44:04] And we're anticipating going out to bid later this summer.
[44:12] And this is a new project this year.
[44:15] This is our downtown gateways East Washington Street.
[44:20] So what this project is is we're looking at making improvements
[44:23] to the corridors that lead into the DBOD,
[44:26] the downtown business district.
[44:29] And we decided to start with the East Washington
[44:31] corridor so that I'll be the first one
[44:33] and what this is going to be.
[44:34] It's going to be made up of smaller projects
[44:37] that kind of improve the look in the aesthetics of that corridor as you come into the downtown
[44:43] area. So we'll start planning and design in the fall of 24 and we'll go into construction.
[44:51] You'll start to see some construction on some of these smaller projects in the winter spring 2025.
[45:00] Cedar Hill slope stabilization. This project is out for bed, and we're anticipating construction starting later this summer or beginning of fall.
[45:13] Lone Star Lake's North Road Improvements, this project consists of paving the North part of the road at Lone Star Lake's park and also making improvements to the finger lakes boat ramp.
[45:29] And that is currently under design. We're hoping to go out to construction in FY2526.
[45:36] The Bennett's Creek tennis courts, we recently completed replacing these courts at Bennett's
[45:44] Creek Park.
[45:45] We also added in lines for pickleball, so this also gives us four pickleball courts at
[45:52] the park in addition to the tennis court renovation.
[45:59] And finally, we have a couple of playgrounds that are planned to be replaced this year,
[46:05] LinkedIn Park and the kids' own park at Lake Mead. These are the last two playgrounds that
[46:12] were put in back in 2000, 2001 timeframe. Playgrounds have a useful life of about 20 years and
[46:19] we've kind of stretched the life of these playgrounds out as long as we could. We've been replacing
[46:24] about three playgrounds every year. So these are the last of those playgrounds to be replaced.
[46:30] So we're really excited about this project. And up next it's going to be Gary to talk about
[46:34] capital programs and buildings. Thank you.
[46:43] Good evening Mayor Vice Mayor Members of Council.
[46:46] If you're happy about what you've seen so far I'm about to put the cherry on top of you.
[46:50] Happy cake. I was just telling my staff the other day while I was putting this
[46:55] presentation together. I said, we got a lot of stuff going on. We got a lot of some
[46:58] commentary ground. Start with fire station 11. If you've taken a ride up the Harvard view,
[47:04] you've probably seen this well underway construction of our largest
[47:09] Once it's all complete, our largest four functioning fire and rescue station, 21,000 square
[47:14] foot and four bay station that also includes a training and community room.
[47:20] That community room will get a lot of use about community and can also be set up and used
[47:26] as a potential voting precinct in the future.
[47:30] The project is about 25% complete and construction, we have a wonderful contract that we
[47:35] working on this project, era of Chesson, they didn't a wonderful job force, and I've got
[47:40] to give a shout out to the fire department and all of their help with not all the design
[47:46] of this, but they've been heavily participating in the construction of this.
[47:50] In particular, Battalion Chief, Steve Hinkle, he's done a bang up job and been out on the
[47:56] site with me and helped me get this thing done.
[47:58] He's become my go-to clerk at the work for all of our fire rescue projects and you'll
[48:03] to see him work on this project as well as another one I have to come up in just a second.
[48:07] This project is on schedule to be complete in the spring of 2025.
[48:16] Speaking of fire and
[48:17] rescue, the new fire training burn building. As a matter of fact, we just had our pre-construction
[48:23] meeting this morning, kicking off this construction of this project. This project has been
[48:27] bid. We've hired the contractor of MBCon. If that name sounds familiar to you, they're currently
[48:34] building new middle school, JFK middle school also, so we look at the have them very qualified
[48:39] contractor that's going to give us a quality facility. This prize is a 8500 square foot
[48:45] four-story fire and rescue training burn building located at an operations center down on
[48:50] Carolina Road. The name burn building is a little misleading because there's a lot more than fire
[48:56] training that goes on here. Some of the things that are going to be available to do here and this
[49:01] It took place in the designers facility
[49:03] and working with the fire department.
[49:06] This is a very building that gives a lot of opportunity
[49:11] to do a lot of different training.
[49:12] As a matter of fact, they can do things like repel training.
[49:15] If you look above some of those windows,
[49:16] you see these large bars.
[49:18] They can repel in training.
[49:21] They can repel into windows.
[49:23] They can do confined space training here.
[49:25] They can do manhole recovery training in here.
[49:27] They are props in everything, set up for that.
[49:29] is the outdoor and indoor stair training.
[49:32] They have six burn rooms in this building.
[49:35] It's a class A building.
[49:37] Not only can they train in the building,
[49:38] but if you look around the site,
[49:40] we've set it up so that they can function
[49:42] and do all of the training needs for some of the outdoor training.
[49:46] As they approach some of these structures,
[49:47] they have to deal with their dealing with power lines
[49:50] and power poles and those kinds of things.
[49:51] So you can have the props outside with simulated power lines,
[49:55] all the curving that they run across
[49:57] and neighborhoods, and commercial districts at that time.
[50:00] To deal with, so there'll be a bit of dissimilar promise any training exercise they need to have here to make to get out firefighters and rescue folks up to par on what they need to be doing when they respond to respond to calls.
[50:14] This project is, like I said, we just get an under on the way here, and it'll be a completed body year. So some of them next year, we'll turn this over to fire rescue for their use.
[50:26] And if you've been driving downtown, you've been seeing this one develop.
[50:29] Downtown Festival Park has really taken shape.
[50:32] It's coming along very nicely.
[50:34] We're about 90% complete right now.
[50:36] This one-point acre parking out downtown will become the home to many of our events downtown
[50:44] whether it's the Parks and Recs TGIF series, holiday events,
[50:53] private events.
[50:54] But for the most part, 90% of the time it's just going to be a day-to-day part that can be used by the public, downtown gores, to add to the quality of life of everyone in the downtown.
[51:09] As I say, we're a 90% complete and we're going to be opening in about two weeks, that's under two weeks, on the 13th of this month, with a 50-fest event.
[51:18] So look forward to that
[51:24] and speaking of the downtown part,
[51:26] one of the other benefits we're getting out of this,
[51:29] if you can see just through the south right there of the picture on the left.
[51:34] There's a map I think I'm going to be paving that next week,
[51:36] the new parking lot, which brings us another 41 spaces
[51:40] to add to the downtown parking inventory.
[51:43] And not only specifically for the park,
[51:45] but obviously it's going to support the parking
[51:47] and the events that we have with the park.
[51:48] But it's an additional parking for downtown users with additional parking.
[51:53] To support other binge downtown.
[52:00] And speaking of parking, some of the other parking improvements we're doing downtown.
[52:03] And the church street lot, we're going to be doing parking improvements there.
[52:06] Actually, some of those have actually started.
[52:08] Public works have done some of those things already.
[52:11] If you've ever had a chance to go through that lot, church street lot has been a little confusing
[52:14] when you drive through there.
[52:15] You get a little loss and turn around trying to make your way through there through that parking area.
[52:21] public works has taken steps to correct that. They've cleaned up some of the traffic flow in there.
[52:28] Duns and restriping cleaned up some of the curving there. They're going to continue to work on this
[52:31] all through the next few months to pick up some additional parking in that parking lot.
[52:36] The Saratoga East parking lot, which is space that we're going to be redeveloping or redesigning.
[52:42] Well, I won't say redevelop but redesigning.
[52:43] at the recent acquired Suntrust Building and the Jean-Paulette Building.
[52:50] We are funding that Matterpike just came along this July 1st that we're going to be engaging
[52:54] with our consultants to look at redesigning that entire area along Saratobus Street, the
[52:59] old park nearer behind the Suntrust Building and the Pala Building being a lot more efficient
[53:05] about a lot more efficient parking in the area to support. Some of the other things
[53:11] would do a downtown man, the festival park,
[53:13] and just General Downtown Parking.
[53:20] And this project, now I have been giving you updates
[53:23] and presentations on this project for the last 25 years.
[53:26] And I'm pleased to say I'm not going to be any more
[53:29] after this one.
[53:30] I may be one more, one more to say,
[53:32] we're going to be having a ribbon cutting.
[53:34] But the central library of the project,
[53:36] if you have a chance to go down the Washington Street,
[53:38] we've actually started construction.
[53:40] As a matter of fact, they're going to start
[53:41] pouring concrete, footing some time later this week,
[53:44] early next week, construction of about 38,000 square foot, two-story central library facility
[53:51] to replace the Morgan Library on West Washington Street.
[53:56] And once again, the contract on this, we have a very good contract on this from, you know,
[54:01] it's probably just like this from this scale on this size.
[54:03] You know, if you have, don't have a good contract that they can not go so well for you,
[54:08] but we will likely get a very good contract there on this part of the YouTube question.
[54:12] They're also working on the port, so it was nice to have the same contract on both sites.
[54:17] This project is slated to be open in the, doing how they see this in of 2025.
[54:24] November December 2025.
[54:26] So this will be a nice big boat Christmas present to us in the city.
[54:31] We'd like to cut right around Christmas time.
[54:37] Another project that's underway on the construction, being done by in-be-con,
[54:41] the same contract that is going to fire training burn building is JFK Middle School.
[54:47] The 120,000 square foot total facility, 800 students.
[54:53] If you're not familiar with how this building decides to lay it out, this new school site
[54:57] has actually three new buildings on it.
[55:00] The two smaller buildings, which is their CSAT building, for their special needs, kids, their IT and technology building, and then, of course, the main school building.
[55:11] If you go out there, now you'll see the two small buildings are pretty much the main structures are up, and they've started on the main school building in the back.
[55:20] That project is about 23% complete, and they're scheduled to open fall of 2026, and it's on schedule to do that.
[55:31] Phoenix Bank stabilization.
[55:34] This is not a project I've been talking about for many years, but we've taken the steps
[55:40] to move forward with what we called stabilizing the facility.
[55:44] Now, what this does is we're not creating a new use in this building.
[55:47] What we're doing is taking this building, which has been sitting vacant for the last 20
[55:53] some odd years, and it's loaded deteriorating.
[55:57] So we want to stop that process and go in,
[56:01] and stabilize this building, go in and point it up,
[56:04] stabilize this structure, water, make it waterproof,
[56:07] redo the front facade, bring the front facade back
[56:09] to its original glory.
[56:12] And then, from that point on, determine
[56:14] what the new use will be at some point,
[56:17] whether that's a city function, or whether that's a private
[56:21] function, or a public private partnership,
[56:22] that needs to be determined at some point, but the first step is to stabilize the building so
[56:27] we have something to work with. So when the process right now, we've completed design on this.
[56:34] We're in a process now with the next, with probably the next week and we can have two weeks
[56:38] advertised for kids. It'll be on the street for about 30 days and then what we'll do after that
[56:43] is initiate a contract and it should be getting going, getting going sometime this fall
[56:48] that stabilization work, you know, take probably six, seven months to get it all
[56:53] we're all done. And then at that time, we can have all the discussions about what
[56:56] may or may not happen in this building. So, to be determined.
[57:05] Police training center,
[57:06] will of ill. This is a repurpose of the old will of ill community center building for police
[57:14] training. They need to space where they could do much of their police training. This
[57:19] not be a very good location, it's kind of out of the way, kind of out of the main traffic
[57:27] of things, for some sure they like that way, so it's a discrete environment for them to
[57:31] be able to train in. This building we've already gone in over the last year and a half
[57:37] or so and done some things in that building which they're using now. They have what's called
[57:41] the Milo Training Setup Simulator. They're using that cheap I guess what, but year you're
[57:47] now. It allows them to go in and simulate any situation that they would have to deal with when
[57:54] they receive calls to make sure their offices are prepared to deal with this but in this
[57:59] scenario they run across. They're using that right now. We've also gone in back and done some
[58:08] storm system stabilization. There was a fail storm system in the yard up there that required about
[58:14] $200,000 to go in and repair that, and got the great redone out there, and they're going
[58:19] to be using that pretty soon for the outdoor K9 training.
[58:24] So we're going to be meeting with the Chief staff and the architects over the next couple
[58:29] weeks and start looking at how we're going to reuse the rest of that building for administrative
[58:34] needs, other tactical training needs they're going to be doing in there.
[58:37] So we look forward to getting that going with him and they kind of they have
[58:45] Yeah, they'll be doing that
[58:47] We hopefully will get this ready for to walk the beds in the fall of this year and be ready and have all these things done by in about a year
[58:59] And last but not least is the ongoing upgrades. We have gone on that the goblin courts building as you know
[59:05] We came to use several years ago when started this process of
[59:08] of taking small bites of making upgrades to this heavily used 26 year old building.
[59:14] Now, I think when we started this process, there's about 23 years old.
[59:18] And what we've done in the past, we've gone in and we've replaced the roof.
[59:21] We've done all ASVAC upgrades in the building, including VAV boxes replacement.
[59:27] We've gone in and made security upgrades with the share department.
[59:31] We've gone in and made electrical and plumbing upgrades.
[59:35] When the process right now, doing what we call elevator modernization, we've done both public elevators in the main lobby and when the process right now of working on one of the security elevators in the back and we'll have two more to go from there.
[59:51] Each one of those elevators costs about $200,000 to modernize and you go in and you completely modernize all the systems in and controls.
[1:00:00] All of the hydraulics and everything in them, so that they're back to new standards. As you can imagine,
[1:00:06] something like the Quorum gets a lot of use. So, these elevators have a lot of knowledge on it.
[1:00:12] So, we're looking for to wrap it up. Some of the other things we're doing is looking at space needs in the building
[1:00:18] and going through and doing upgrades to their furniture, office systems, finishes, and we're in a process of
[1:00:29] While we're doing that, we're taking the opportunity to make a much more efficient use of
[1:00:35] the space that they're in.
[1:00:36] If you can imagine 26 years ago when they designed that building, take something and get
[1:00:41] simple as their cubicle space.
[1:00:43] A cubicle space back then was designed when we had a big large, deep CRT computer screens.
[1:00:49] And so if you're going down now, these cubicles have these 30 inch, deep table tops around
[1:00:55] which they waste a lot of space.
[1:00:57] Now they have these flat screen computers on there.
[1:01:00] And you have a lot of waste space.
[1:01:01] So we're able to shrink these cubicles down,
[1:01:04] get a lot more people than the same space
[1:01:06] which goes to another point they have.
[1:01:07] As a city grows, all these department staffs are growing.
[1:01:11] They're quickly run out of space.
[1:01:13] So this exercise that's going through
[1:01:15] and changing out their systems, fun and true,
[1:01:17] and cubicles and finishes will give us an opportunity
[1:01:19] to really make a lot more efficient space.
[1:01:22] The efficient use of their spaces.
[1:01:23] And it will also buy us some time and have until eventually at some point in the future expand the courthouse to accommodate the growth of the city.
[1:01:32] So that's underway and once again, that's an ongoing thing that will be going on for the next few years.
[1:01:39] So I would say the next three years will still have all that going on before we can wrap all that up.
[1:01:43] And with that, we can answer any questions.
[1:01:48] Thank you, Chair.
[1:01:50] Mr. Jones.
[1:01:51] Council questions or comments?
[1:01:52] Councillor interjecting. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, guys, for a great presentation.
[1:01:58] Anybody that doesn't think there's a lot going on in the city doesn't get around
[1:02:02] much, because it seems like every quarter that you go to, something is under construction,
[1:02:06] something's being improved, or something new is being built. Robert, I just have one quick
[1:02:11] question about the pitchcattle road widening, if I can. Because I get asked this a lot, the
[1:02:19] Reveans that are on the right hand side of the road, as you head away from town, how did
[1:02:24] they factor into what you're doing that new road will go through that area and pass over.
[1:02:30] So obviously there will be some drainage structures put in there to bottom to handle the drainage
[1:02:33] and then backfield and brought up to level.
[1:02:37] All right.
[1:02:37] Thank you for that.
[1:02:38] And then Paul, one quick question for you.
[1:02:42] On the pump station improvements, the ones that are sort of out in the open, is part of the
[1:02:51] them, it is well or equipment being designed better to be able to handle being outdoors.
[1:02:57] In some instances, yes, for example, at pump stations, 17, since we actually changed the
[1:03:02] location of it, we were able to close that in a new building, but the only reason we were able
[1:03:07] to do that is because we purchased some property.
[1:03:09] Some of the challenges are these areas where we've got some of these outdoor pump stations
[1:03:14] that are on these postage, stamp size, sections of property, and be very difficult to go ahead
[1:03:20] and build a structure on top of that,
[1:03:22] or to even move it, especially in a residential area,
[1:03:25] where we might be impacting somebody's property.
[1:03:28] So, you know, that's not a perfect answer,
[1:03:31] but sometimes, yes, sometimes we can't,
[1:03:32] we really can't do anything with it.
[1:03:35] Thank you for that, that's all.
[1:03:38] Council on the other comments, questions,
[1:03:43] Councilman board, mayor board.
[1:03:45] First mayor board, we can't be a mayor.
[1:03:46] Next time, I'm very impressed with this.
[1:03:50] I see why people when you go outside of Suffolk talks about and give us good remarks about
[1:03:58] the loud things going on in Suffolk. This is very impressed. I just want to say to Mark,
[1:04:06] what you say about the entry is coming in. I mentioned it to somebody. I think that's a great idea.
[1:04:12] When you're coming in the Suffolk, I thought that was a great idea. I mentioned it like last week
[1:04:15] I think that's a really good idea, I don't know what to tell you, but that's great, man.
[1:04:23] When you come in the city, you represent the city.
[1:04:26] You've got the first one coming and you just don't want to see
[1:04:28] some blatant stuff and nothing going on.
[1:04:30] That's a good idea with that.
[1:04:33] And Gary, what made it for me to be here for this fire station?
[1:04:37] Because I can't wait to this fire station come.
[1:04:39] That's what this was going to look like that.
[1:04:42] Thank you so much.
[1:04:43] I really appreciate it. I've been looking at it.
[1:04:45] I'm every day I will pass it.
[1:04:46] You know, every day I will pass it.
[1:04:48] So I really appreciate that.
[1:04:50] Now, the other thing I want to access is,
[1:04:52] we're all in this festival.
[1:04:53] Do we ever think about having a car garage?
[1:04:55] I mean, we can't do that or what?
[1:04:58] We're all this parking you're talking about.
[1:05:00] Is there something that we have something in the future?
[1:05:05] Just a few years. So it's on our list. Okay. We've got some measures that we want to identify in order to make sure that it's worth the expense to do it, but we think in the future there will be a parking deck in that sense.
[1:05:19] Well, you know we'll be a model in the future. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I will be building to get to. So that's what I'm asking that question. Okay. Thank you.
[1:05:28] Richard.
[1:05:30] Councilman Johnson?
[1:05:31] I didn't push my button, but I will say I'm really excited about what's going on.
[1:05:36] I agree with everyone else. It's wonderful. Thank you.
[1:05:41] Councilman Bennett.
[1:05:42] Mr. Lewis, one question for you.
[1:05:44] I want to be with Bill Bridge.
[1:05:47] On the D2 and that's called B2 on school time.
[1:05:51] How long we're looking at and what we want to do with the D2 down.
[1:05:57] Certainly, one of the most time efficient ways to replace a bridge is if we can take a bridge out of service and remove it and rebuild it.
[1:06:06] So again, that's what we're doing here. I'm looking back to find that slide as to what our timing is.
[1:06:11] I think it's about a year.
[1:06:15] Construction begins.
[1:06:16] This webinar, I believe it's about a year.
[1:06:19] A little more light there, but again, the idea was to do it as quickly as possible.
[1:06:22] We do have an opportunity, sometimes something like we did at East Washington Street, we try to take half a bridge out and keep half a bridge in.
[1:06:30] But oftentimes, it greatly exacerbates how long that impact to the public occur.
[1:06:34] So again, we've been working with the school system, giving them a heads up that have come.
[1:06:39] And again, we just felt this was the best way to do that too.
[1:06:43] Have pain, have it quickly, get it done, move on and have a new bridge.
[1:06:47] So you want to do the whole bridge and not like it did on the East Washington Street.
[1:06:50] Yes, sir.
[1:06:51] We're going to, this particular case, we will shut the road down for the D2M place and we'll
[1:06:55] completely remove the old bridge and build a new bridge back as quickly as possible.
[1:07:01] Thank you.
[1:07:01] Yes, sir.
[1:07:02] Councilmember Williams.
[1:07:04] Yes.
[1:07:06] Again, I like to pick it back off what some of the other councilmen said as a relates to what
[1:07:12] an excellent job you have done.
[1:07:16] Keep up the good work.
[1:07:17] I'm excited about what our city is doing, what you have done, what you have done.
[1:07:21] Mr. Lord, I have one question. I know a few months ago you indicated that you'll be providing
[1:07:28] us with quarterly reports. Is that something we still begin to call the report as for your
[1:07:36] projects?
[1:07:37] Well, we can certainly do that. We do do that internally, and we can certainly share that with
[1:07:41] council.
[1:07:42] Okay, because that's been very, very helpful when I go to my civilly meetings. I've been passing
[1:07:48] out there with quarterly report in the count of how well
[1:07:52] expiring into the public, what's going on, having something
[1:07:55] that visually there that I can hand them.
[1:07:58] So thank you for that, sir.
[1:08:01] Got some emphasis.
[1:08:02] Thank you, Mayor.
[1:08:03] Just everybody has said how great it is, but I would like to thank
[1:08:08] each of you in the Department of Health and staff
[1:08:11] for putting this packet together and briefing us today,
[1:08:13] because this is good information,
[1:08:15] because otherwise we probably wouldn't know as much as what's in this packet if you didn't
[1:08:22] make this presentation to us. So this is excellent. This is a good information. And it's
[1:08:27] something we can share if we wish to do that and maybe some of our HOABs or civic meetings
[1:08:34] or whatever. Gary, thanks again for the briefing on that fire towel, burn building because
[1:08:43] That nobody in this room really knows what game change
[1:08:47] or is about that.
[1:08:49] But what it does is it keeps our firefighters internal
[1:08:53] to our city for training in most part, where we now have to travel
[1:08:57] to Virginia Beach Fire Training Center
[1:08:59] to do some of the things such as the burn, stuff,
[1:09:01] confined space, things of that nature.
[1:09:04] This is more specialized to do exactly that.
[1:09:08] This could be expanded and be used for other things as well.
[1:09:12] I mean, I think they could be used for tactical if the police department wants to to be able to use that.
[1:09:21] And so this is exciting.
[1:09:23] This could be great to see when this thing really pops out of the ground.
[1:09:26] It'd be interesting to take a look at it.
[1:09:29] The other thing is do not ever build another fire station in this city that's not for bay.
[1:09:34] Just get it in your head.
[1:09:36] Push for bay anytime we build a fire station in the city.
[1:09:39] First, stations and that, three Bayes anymore, they're four and five Bayes, and that's because
[1:09:45] of the size of the equipment, the amount of equipment that we're doing in the locality,
[1:09:49] we put it in, it's paramount that we have a facility to put this equipment into.
[1:09:56] So I'm excited that we were able to pry.
[1:10:00] Guys, to go for a station 11, it's going up there, up in the college park area. So it's all good stuff. So everything in this package was phenomenal. It's great. I didn't realize we had this many projects going on until you just put this on the table.
[1:10:18] I knew we had projects but not this many projects. So then again, I think people don't understand what really goes on and how much we're involved in stuff and expanding.
[1:10:28] And we'll go to get your little at a time as we continue to grow.
[1:10:35] So thanks for everything and I appreciate it.
[1:10:39] Council Member Butler-Barlow.
[1:10:42] I just want to make sure you all know that I was paying attention.
[1:10:45] Thank you so much for the report.
[1:10:47] It's exciting what all is going on.
[1:10:49] Thank you for keeping us up to date.
[1:10:50] Hope everything comes in on time and on budget.
[1:10:53] Thanks so much.
[1:10:55] Council on any other questions or comments.
[1:10:58] If not, I'll wrap it up.
[1:11:00] I don't have any questions.
[1:11:03] The word that comes to me is impressive.
[1:11:06] The last year's presentation was pretty impressive.
[1:11:11] But compared to this year, with what we have going on in so much of it,
[1:11:15] it's going to come to fruition within a year or so, just a couple years.
[1:11:20] And I know that's, I mean, that's great to see.
[1:11:24] Because a lot of the groundwork, just like Robert alluded to, you know, but, you know, you see
[1:11:28] the digging, you don't see the infrastructure or it's like building a house, really
[1:11:32] done look like much until you get the framing up, and that's a big deal, and you get the
[1:11:37] roof on it.
[1:11:38] So we're getting to the point where we're really going to see the fruits of our labor, if you
[1:11:42] will, and the other impressive thing is, you know, we're just the money come from to do these
[1:11:48] projects.
[1:11:49] And I think you need to look at our CIP and look at our budget, but it's a lot of work
[1:11:55] and it goes into obtaining funds, you know, we're leveraging money for state funds, we've
[1:12:02] got federal funds, we've got grants that we've pursued, and when you look at the budget
[1:12:08] to see that a lot of the money that goes into the projects is not on the backs of the taxpayers.
[1:12:16] It's due to a lot of work of city manager and his staff going after these funding sources.
[1:12:23] Another thing that I think is impressive is when you look at the scope of the projects,
[1:12:29] whether it's public works, public utilities, where it's parks or capital projects,
[1:12:34] they are spread out across the city.
[1:12:37] Now we've addressed, we've got some money going in the downtown,
[1:12:40] but it's time for money to go in the downtown.
[1:12:42] But when you look at the rest of the projects, some of them around the bunnies, some of them are closed, some of them are dressing water issues, we get road issues, we really do have a good mix of projects that are benefiting, I would say, virtually all our citizens, our parks and wreck projects, I mean, I can't wait for Brady to get cranked up, we finally get that right away, I know I've had a lot of calls on it and some people would say,
[1:13:12] I'm sure it's really going to happen, I think you're just kind of brought that up.
[1:13:17] But it took a while to get some right away acquisitions so we'd have the room so we
[1:13:21] could have two trucks and boats passing at one time and we do have money in the CIP, so
[1:13:27] it's good to see that we're really possibly going to have something that we're going to use
[1:13:31] within the next 18 or 24 months.
[1:13:34] And that's to go along with somebody's major road projects.
[1:13:36] I know Councilman Johnson will be glad just the thought that 58 will be done is just an amazing
[1:13:44] thing and what will probably happen is once it's complete within a year or so we'll forget
[1:13:51] what it was like before we had to go through the pain part of it.
[1:13:56] Same way with shoulders heel road 17, those projects there, the NANDSmen fly over and will
[1:14:04] road to me. That's awesome. And like I said, that project really seemed to be flying right along.
[1:14:10] So we've got some major major projects that are going to help with infrastructure. And I
[1:14:15] still read comments where we don't pay any attention to infrastructure. Well, there's a book of
[1:14:20] infrastructure. And I'm very, very impressed with what we're doing, how we're doing it, and where
[1:14:27] we're doing it. So with that being said, keep up the good work. I can't wait to have some
[1:14:32] have been cut and shared shortly.
[1:14:35] So that concludes our work session.
[1:14:37] We do have need for a closed session, Madam Clerk.
[1:14:40] We read the motion for consideration.
[1:14:45] I don't number one, pursuant to Virginia Code sections 2.2-37118-81.
[1:14:52] The consultation with Legal Council, employed by a public body,
[1:14:56] regarding specific legal matters requiring the advice of such cases.
[1:15:00] And the discussion consideration or interviews of prospective candidates for appointment and the assignment appointment and performance of specific public officers or appointees of the city. Specifically, the appointment is shown in the attach list for the vacancies or term explorations for the Clean Community Commission, the Community Policy and Management Team, the early childhood development commission, the Hampton Road Planning District Commission, the Human Services Advisory Board, the Local Board of Building Code Appeals, the sister city's commission, the South East of Virginia Alcohol
[1:15:29] Safety Action Program, the South-Side Area Network Authority, the Suffolk
[1:15:34] Development and Housing Authority and the TIDWRU Services Commission, and item
[1:15:38] number two, pursuant to Virginia Code Section 2.2-371183, the discussion or
[1:15:45] consideration of the acquisition of real property for a public purpose, or of the
[1:15:51] disposition of publicly held world property, where discussion and open meeting
[1:15:55] would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body.
[1:16:01] Specifically, tax map numbers, 34G-17A, ASTRAC-163.
[1:16:10] 34G-17A, ASTRAC-165 and 34G-17A, ASTRAC-165.
[1:16:25] PEI 1776.
[1:16:28] Councillor Minn方面 said, moved to approve of permission for approval from Councilman.
[1:16:31] 5짓 Councilman, Williams, II, fifth second.
[1:16:34] Second, perhaps second from Councilman.
[1:16:34] We have the rebonds, I should just go to the motion.
[1:16:36] Are none Council Members, the previous votes, please cast your vote.
[1:16:41] Madam Clerk, please record your vote.
[1:16:45] For the motion is approved by a vote of 8 to 0.
[1:16:48] They conclude your work session and we will reconvene at 6pm.