Easy Like Sunday.
Hey, good morning everybody. The committee on Ethics in
Government oversight. Will now come to order in, before we
get started, I promise that 9:30 a.m. meetings will not be
a Hallmark of this committee. So, thank you for coming
earlier than normal. We today will be discussing three
items. The first is an ordinance strengthening the
selection process for the Chicago Inspector General and
Public Safety. Deputy the second will be a subject matter.
Hearing on the Inspector General Offices, June 14th audit
of cdph is construction and demolition debris, recycling,
ordinance. And then finally of subject-matter hearing on
the March 2nd follow-up, to the offices audit of commercial
and high-density recycling, enforcement, no votes will be
taken during the two subject matter components. We will
begin with a roll. Call to establish Quorum. Please note
that your yes or present response will be deemed a. Yes,
vote.
When?
when the
When this?
When this Quorum call is used for a reference boat for
later. Items chairperson Martin is present by spearheaded.
Old.
Older woman. Leave older woman Taylor.
Autumn sky.
Chrome Scott order Alderman, Taliaferro.
Order me.
Alderman Alderman waguespack ornaments pasado Alderman,
Nugent
All.
Alderman, Riley Alderman, Lawson recognizing Alderman,
Cardona. A non Committee Member with eight committee
members present. We have established a quorum Alderman.
Vasquez has requested remote participation in this
committee meeting under rule 59 for medical reasons. Can I
get a motion to allow Alderman Vasquez to participate? By
remote means. Older woman had in so moves all those in
favor. Signify by saying I
All.
All those opposed. The eyes have it on him and Vasquez, is
allowed to attend this committee meeting remotely, can we
confirm that? He is present. Thank you Alderman. No one has
signed up for public comment. So our first order of
business is the rule 45 report from the April 2023 meeting
of this committee, which was sent out this committee.
Email.
Email, can I have a motion to approve? The rule, 45 report.
Army Lawson. So moves all those in favor. Signify by saying
I
although,
All those opposed nipping in the charity eyes, have it the
motion passes, as I mentioned earlier, there were three
items before this committee. The first of which is Ordnance
20 23-00 1245, an amendment of Municipal Code chapter 2-56
regarding qualifications and appointment of Inspector
General Public Safety. Deputy the committee received
substitute ordinance was sent out to all members via email
earlier this morning. Can I have a motion to accept the
substitute so moved by a older woman had in all in favor.
Say aye.
although,
All those opposed knee, pain of the chair, the eyes have
it. The substitute is now before the committee
inspector-general, never whispered will be joining us today
and will speak briefly on the substitute ordinance before
we open the floor to questions. I would like to know that
the outset that in recent years, this Council has passed a
number of important reforms that sticking together haven't
powered our City's office of Inspector General to help
ensure that city government works as efficiently
effectively and fairly as possible. It's audits
investigations and reports Old City, departments and
leaders. Accountable guide needed improvements to city
services and help instill greater public confidence. That
Chicago's best dates.
How are?
however,
However, the ability of this office to perform this critical
were crescent part. And city leaders, selecting An
Inspector General through a process, that is both
transparent And Timely in 2021 and 2022. It took
approximately 9 months from the previous inspector
General's. Resignation to a point and confirm our current
Inspector General with six of those months spent with the
position vacant and when General whispered stepped down
from her previous position as Public Safety, Deputy that
Deputy position was also vacant for many months. I believe
that this recent experience highlights the need for an
improved IG selection process that will help maintain the
stability and certainty of an office that has tremendous
power and discretion and how it helps hold our city
government accountable to substitute. Before you 6 to
achieve this, in several ways it directs the mayor to
provide city council with 180 days notice rather than the
existing 45 days. If they choose not to reappoint an
incoming Inspector General and establishes a number of
other deadlines
Look up a.
hookah bowls.
Walkable to the IG selection committee, the search firm and
ultimately the mayor with regard to the IG or to the
inspector-general themselves with regard to Public Safety,
Deputy vacancies. It also establishes the positions of
instrument Spectre General and Public Safety, Deputy which
will Empower and authorize any decision, those officials
make, while waiting for the day, can cease to be filled,
notably it outlines a chain of command for an interim IG to
help ensure that this critical position is still
temporarily by someone with knowledge about
The office is process, is General.
The office is process is generally about as well as about
recent decisions internally. And finally, the ordinance
creates term limits for the position of inspector-general.
I'd like to thank the legislative reference Bureau the
mayor's office. The Law Department in general wicksburg,
for their help in crafting. This proposed ordinance and I'd
like to invite General witzburg to speak briefly on this
ordinance before we get too many questions.
Good morning. Thank you. Jimmy Martin, I appreciate the
invitation to be here today. I will be brief II in my view,
this proposed, ordinance Amendment, accomplish is three
things, it bodes for a faster and more transparent.
Selection process for a new Inspector General. It provides
for more stable leadership of the office of Inspector
General. During the transition period And it imposes, the
term limit on this position, I want to speak briefly first
to the importance of the first two of those things. A
faster and more transparent, selection process and
Provisions for stable leadership of the office of Inspector
General. During an interim. I've seen these issues play out
from a lot of angles as the public safety. Deputy the
deputy Inspector General Public Safety as an applicant for
the position of Inspector General. And as the person coming
in to lead the office of Inspector General after a, very
lengthy and disorderly selection process. And from each of
those perspectives I have seen
Importance of chain.
Importance of changes. Like the ones proposed here today,
and so I appreciate you. I'm in Martin's efforts, and
Leadership on, on these matters. Those are those are
important changes. Finally, I want to State my unequivocal
support for the imposition of a term limit on the position
of Inspector General, in my view, stability, order
Independence, and the ability to empower for the office of
Inspector General. Unfettered by concerns about over and
powering a specific individual. All voted in favor of the
imposition of a tournament and I'll be happy to answer any
questions. Thank you, General. I'd like to recognize other
womanly and all the ones. For purposes of Quorum. We will
now go to questions for some committee members as well as
not too many members in Taylor.
Good morning. Thank you. Chairman
Can you talk to us? Good morning. How are you? Can you talk
to us about
Or people who don't understand that role, what that role
does and how it support the city in the work that we do.
Cuz I don't think we talked about Inspector General and
people clearly don't. And I know I did it before I sat in
the seat what that role does. Absolutely, thank you for the
question, we are an independent nonpartisan Watchdog agency
within city government. It is our mission to promote
Integrity efficiency and Effectiveness in the operation of
city government. And we do that in a number of different
ways, we can get the number of different kinds of inquiry.
This really does fall.
This really does fall into three channels, we conduct
misconduct investigations. When, when somebody breaks the
rules, we do program and policy work, looking at areas of
city government where we could operate more effectively,
and efficiency efficiently. And then we do transparency
work, we do work in the service of the notion that
information about how Chicago Works belongs to Chicago
ants.
How?
How often do you all do report, or?
How?
How long does it take? When a person that either works for
the city of doesn't 2 to get some feedback. So let's say I
made a complaint against another employee. How long does it
take for that investigation to happen and then how we
making sure that we we don't follow those things. So I know
we do a lot of Epic training that we have different
training, how we using the information that we get from
these complaints to make sure that we're following the
rules and we are we're being as transparent as possible to
the first of those questions. How long do art does our
work? Take it the answer. Finally said it depends. It
depends on the kind of work when it comes to misconduct
complaints. If we open a disciplinary investigation,
sometimes those are administrative. Sometimes they are
criminal the criminal investigations tend to take longer
and there's a big range of the life spans of those. When
we, if we find that someone has broken the rules, we report
out on that in a d identified summary and our quarterly
report, the other thing.
According.
Our quarterly report contains is a high-level description of
any investigation that we've had open more than 12 months.
So it's taken us more than a year to get to the end of
something of of an investigation. We explain that in the
quarterly report on our program and policy work. Many of
those projects are large-scale long-term enquiries like
like the two that was talked about today. Others of them
are smaller in scale and have a little bit of a faster.
Turnaround depends, we try to be nimble in our work to make
sure that we are getting information out into the hands of
stakeholders and decision-makers when it is most useful.
let,
Last question.
Is there are we posting? Because sometimes I think people
don't understand that they are, we have whistleblower laws
and that they're protected under those laws. And so you you
have people who want to make complaints and don't because
they're not protected. How is sharing the information to
tell people? If you see something, say something and how
they're protected in their work environment, we are doing a
couple of things. You all heard me say I will say again
that we will go anywhere. We're invited and some places
where not to talk about are working to listen to people's
concerns, about what we should be working on. We have
increased our efforts to be physically present out in
Chicago community. So we will be in farmers markets all
over the city this summer. We are other community events.
Some of you all been nice enough to invite us toward
nights. We're happy to do that anytime anywhere. The third
thing that we're doing is trying to just spread awareness
through other mechanism, so we do that on various social
media channels. We have
Signs. And
Signs in English.
Signs in English and Spanish on CTA, buses and trains. And
we are trying to be more visible. So that exactly, as you
say, people know where to find us, if they have concerns
either that they're worried about somebody breaking the
rules, or they have suggestions about how the city could
work better Chicago into know, Chicago best. I would also
be very happy to talk with any of you all. If you have
suggestions for things, we could be doing to be more
visible in your communities.
Thank.
Thank you. Thank you. Sharon old woman, Alderman.
Taliaferro,
Thank you, mr. Chairman, I just have a couple questions for
the Inspector General Inspector General witzburg. Can you
tell me how this process is going to be more transparent
than what we were doing before? And you mentioned a part of
the goals for amending of this particular ordinances bring
about better transparency. Can you explain the difference
in how this is going to bring about more transparency Ben
and what the process was before?
Yes, sir, thank you for the question. The morning. I think
that there are there are two important Provisions here
around transparency into the process. One, is the addition
to subsection D, which notes that if a selection of a
candidate has not occurred pursuant to the timetable set
out in the ordinance that the chair of this committee or
its successor. Committee may make a written request to the
mayor for an explanation of the delay on a statement of
tent with
Tent with regard to win and how many would be submitted,
that is a piece, which not only in the prior, or in the
existing version of this process there, two things, missing
one, there is not an established timeline for the process
and to there is no mechanism for explanation if if there is
a delay. So I think that's an important addition to 2nd and
kind of it. Now as we speak and more public transparency or
internal transparency, I think both transparency for this
body on from members of the public on the second edition,
which I think is is similar, is in the provisions, around
the selection of the public safety, Deputy that's an
unusual position and city government. It is appointed not
by the mayor but by the Inspector General and then
confirmed by the city council, the kind of analogous
provision there. Is that the inspector General could be
brought before the city council to testify to speak to any
delays in the selection of the public safety deputy. And I
think in a similar way that provides an important window
into the process.
Send.
Since then to Public Safety, Inspector General, lithium
Deputy Inspector. General Public Safety has appointed
position on our. We also considering that being a term
limit as well, that is not proposed here. I would welcome
that conversation. And lastly I would consider I think it
would be since we are imposing a turn limit on the
Inspector General.
As an appointed position.
As an appointed position then it wouldn't it would serve to
follow that. The deafening Spectre General two should be an
appointed position.
I'm sorry.
I'm so not an appointed position but a term-limited
position is well with your reasoning behind that. I know
you said, you supported in the beginning, but what's your
reasoning behind supporting a term limit? I'm on that
position? I'm in. Would that affect you as
inspector-general? That one is, as proposed would limit my
time in office to a. To retroactive to the time. And what
you started, this is them being imposed after your start as
inspector-general. So would it would, it is in fact, a
place that restriction on your service. Yes, it was. I
think it's important for a number of reasons. I think I
think that there are sort of big-picture widely accepted
good, government principles in favor of term limits but
specifically with respect to this position.
Independence is.
Independence is the Hallmark of Inspector General work. I
think that if any one person is in this position for too
long, it increases the risk that relationships with other
actors in city, government become either too friendly or to
acrimonious in a way, which compromises the work. I think
that the amount, the sensitivity of the position, the
access to confidential information and the the discussion
vested in the in the office and in the position Foods in
favor of of the individual, not being the holder of of that
power. But rather the institution and I think the best
balance to strike between institutional, knowledge and
experience, and that kind of Independence. Independence,
and fresh perspective is a term limit. The fact of the
matter is that, with the Advent of the elected positions,
associated with the community Commission on public safety
and accountability, more elected positions in city
government been not have term limits. I think that is the
direction in which accountability minded positions are
I think, I
I think that is a positive development, and I think that
stability and order an independent board for a term limit
on this position. If I can interrupt briefly a general, are
there any other inspectors general or similar positions in
other jurisdictions? But also have term limits for the city
of Boston? For example, a lot of lot of good things are
products of the director of the FBI, also has a term limit
and, and the Advent of that change came about
because,
Because of observations around the sensitivity of and the
confidential information on the discussion vested in that
position. And I think there are similar and their analogies
to draw here. I don't know all the time because I was
somewhat agree with you, but then there's a side of me to
disagree as well. I think if you're doing a incredible job,
I'm in your position and you're very well received not only
my department heads, but by this Council and was
well-received by the city, as well, we could be losing a
very valuable asset and I say that because I have seen a
lot of people being placed in positions where you been
elected positions, this Joyner, fantastic job specifically.
I can, I look at a lot of the commanders at come through
the districts, that make a very big impact on reducing
violence.
Maybe.
and then they
And then you pull up from under us and we will wear it,
sometimes get someone that's better than some sometimes
even worse. Until I for that reason. I disagree with this,
with that is not elected. I do believe in term limits, on
some elected positions, but it's an appointed position. And
I believe if you're doing it very, very capable job and
well-received by this council is City.
What is Wellington's residents are you should continue to
serve in that capacity.
But I certainly respect your position as well. It's
certainly my intention to do this job in a way, which is
well received in the way you described. But more important
than that, it is my intention to build and equip this
office to succeed long after I am in the seat, none of us
will be in these jobs forever. None of us who are
privileged enough to leave these institutions. We don't
need institutions, we are stewards of them is our highest
responsibility to equip the institutions, to succeed after
our time is over. And that's what I intend to do in this
job. And just one question on for the chairman, I noticed
we're moving from 45 days to 180 days, I think that's
I will.
I would rather see that extend it to 90 than 6 months I'm
because we're placing our arm are in a position of having
to make a decision as to whether they're not, they're going
to keep the current inspector-general or move on from that
expected General.
With.
With six months left in that particular term. So AA, I
think the 45 days although I could support the substitute
ordinance, I would rather see less than 6 months at least
90 days, then 888 because it may, or may not have made a
decision as to whether or not.
Keep them coming.
Keep the incumbent, get 6 months of such a large, a large
span of time. I appreciate that point Alderman. One of the
things we had had full some discussions with, with the
inspector-general with members of the prior selection,
team, as well as the mayor's office. Is this. Even in the
prior version, the existing version of the code, it calls
for a pretty robust process and we want to make sure that
there's sufficient time given to the selection committee
members in the search firm in particular to solicit
applications to vet them. And to have enough time built in
there in a key question was, does that happen before the
incumbent leaves? Or does it happen afterwards? I think
we're trying to strike a balance, their knowing that this
is a position where we and US, tremendous discretion in
their ability to investigate us to investigate the mayor to
investigate Commissioners to investigate process at every
single department and to have a position.
Love. And
Of an inch.
Of an interim be vested with that power. Not just be a
caretaker ensure that things are already in the queue or
seen. But is you all know their decisions that are made in
an ongoing basis that are very sensitive. And so I think
the idea being that we minimize the time during which we
have an interim, really was a guiding principle as we were
looking to modify this process. And I suspect that the next
time we have a vacancy and we go through that. We may seek
to
Revive.
Revise this further, which I think would be appropriate.
And within 180 days that it becomes known that we are the
mirrors going to be seeking another Inspector General, then
Inspector General. And and we are with your six month
without An Inspector General, right? So that's the downside
to that. I mean, once, once you find out that the mirrors,
not going to retain my services, I can leave. And now we're
six months old.
We?
We're trying to prevent on one end, but we can also
possibly fall right back into the same situation. We're in
now. And have a have an inspector General, will have an
office of Spectre General without the inspector-general. So
we're trying to fix it on one in, but we could also hurt
ourselves on the other because certainly miss whisper can
say well I'm not going to be retained and I've been
presented with an offer from another, you know, a firm or
something. She could certainly leave. And we're six months
without or the American appointed interim. But certainly,
we can be 6 months. If there's that possibility of being 6
months without inspector-general. That's why I like to see
the time reduced understood two responses to that one,
being that with term limits being contemplated, that that
wouldn't be something that necessarily happens every single
time. You know, you was actually have one opportunity which
that may happen. And second to delineate, specifically, the
line of C
Sasha.
Session to say the general counsel is someone pursuant to
our current inspector General's. Observations has
tremendous Insight in terms of what the overall office is
doing. And if for some reason, there's a vacancy in that
position and going to the public safety, Deputy helps
ensure that if you do have someone who says upon learning
that they will not be reappointed, that they are going to
leave that. We still have someone who's capable of steering
that office German knowledge that for purposes of Quorum.
Any other questions?
Thank.
Thank you. Chairman of question about the budget for search
firms in the substitute teacher and I think that search
firms have been used previously. I'm curious about if
anybody here knows what was spent on the search firm.
Previously will at that contract, looks like because
there's language in here, that says, basically if the
candidates at the search, firm puts forward are not
acceptable. They've got to go back and do it again, and do
it over and over again, until they are satisfied and do a
bunch of perspective. That's a little disconcerting to me
and the amount of time then also had to do with this prior
time. Approximately how much might have been spent answer
that question a little bit for purposes of our last Public
Safety. Deputies selection process. Where we, as required
by the Dozen were never used a national search firm, our
engagement with that.
Had to.
Had to do with the set of services. They would provide these
basically had a menu of services and you know ranging from.
They could just post the vacancy up to and including they
could conduct interviews and screening candidates. We
elected to engage them to do to, to construct a job
description at a posting, to spread the posting around a
number of networks and to do sort of recruiting efforts.
And then the applications came to us and we had an internal
process to review those. I say all I got to say that was
not limited to like a number of candidates was really about
the steps in the process. So we could have had them do that
for longer to get more applicants. If we had needed to and
I don't have the amount of that contract, I can get it to
you through the chair. It was, it was a like single digit
number of thousands of dollars. And I was just wondering if
the contract included in information or
A clause.
A clause in there or something about the, the number of
times that you can go back to ask for additional candidates
or, you know, ultimately, if nobody was selected would
would that be some failure of the contract employee or are
we getting charge by the round sort of thing? I think
that's a really good question and I think the answer is
that it would depend a lot. We saw a broad range of
possible engagement arrangements with search firms. And so
I think that's one of the things that I know the extension
of the time for engagement of the search from here, to 45
days I think is, is designed to accommodate the fact that
there is going to be some
looking for,
Back and forth is going to be some conversation. We
Back and forth is going to be some conversation with
potential search firms around the terms of Engagement. And
I think I think that's an important question. I think
that's one of the things that would be sorted out in that
time. Yeah, just take a look at it. Clear. That would be
the one for the public safety. Deputy. Yes. The mayor's
office was not the one for the will do that for both the
most recent searches for the Inspector General in the
public safety. Deputy will get both the copy of those
agreements, as well as the overall dollar amount that we
spent through the chair. Thank you.
Erie.
Hearing none. Can I get a movie and I'll I'm going to add
emotion at the end of this. Just wanted to say, I
appreciate it. Kind of the thoughtful review of this and
introduction. I know that, though, I chose to be on this
committee. I know that some of the work around our ethics
and governance isn't necessarily the most. It's really
exciting work for the Publican and as alderwoman Taylor
questions kind of highlighted, it's also some of the stuff
that's most confusing to the public, right? Like really in
the weeds. I'm so I appreciate you guys spending a lot of
time with play working through this because it is such an
integral part two are functioning.
and functioning at,
And functioning at the play. That's a Callisto, really
appreciate the changes particular. I think the term limits
are well-thought-out and in agreement with you, I think
most of our elected position should have term limits and
with that, I would move to pass all those in favor of
passing the substitute ordinance. Please respond by saying
I
Although supposed to be chair of the ice habits, the motion
passes. Thank you General. Will ask you to stay there
because we are moving on to the subject. Matter portion of
this meeting with regard to the office of Inspector
General's, audit of the Department of Public Health
construction and demolition debris recycling enforcement.
I'd like to ask General Richburg to provide a brief summary
of that report before we turn it over to managing. Deputy
Commissioner Megan coming Cunningham from cdph.
Thank.
Thank you very much. I will be, I'll be in charge of sickly
brief perhaps the in June of this year. June 2023 oig
publishing audit of the Department of Public Health
enforcement of the city's construction and demolition
debris recycling, ordinance pursuant to that ordinance cdph
is responsible for ensuring the contractors in the city who
are working on construction and demolition project recycle
at least 50% of the construction and demolition, the C&D
debris. That is generated. This is a big. This is a
large-scale
no issue just in terms of,
No issue. Just in terms of perspective here, the United
States that the US EPA estimates that the, the United
States generated 600 million, tons of C&E debris in 2018.
And here in Chicago, about a quarter of the city's entire
waste stream in 2020, was the indeed debris. So this is a
lot, this is a big, this is a large-scale issue.
We we came to to findings in the, in our report. The first
was that the Department of Public Health does not ensure
that contractors comply with Sandy debris, recycling,
requirements? And the second was that the city has not
created a construction and demolition debris management
fund which is required by the municipal code. The code
requires the creation of this fund as a repository for fees
and fines that are collected from non-compliant contractors
and provides for the use of that Fund. In order to manage
the disposition of c and d. Debris. In terms of scale here
from the beginning of 2017, to the middle of 2021, the city
collected about 1.2 million dollars in those fees. But did
not deposit them in the get mandated account for management
purposes, we made a series of recommendations and I'll go
to the very briefly they were to that, cdph work with the
Department of buildings, to develop a process to identify
Buy all those projects go.
Buy all those projects going on in the city which are
subject to these requirements that they document and
Implement procedures to ensure that contractors are
submitting records of compliance as required.
That.
DebtStoppers seizures be standardized to review those
documents that contract for documentation and ensure that
the contractors are meeting. The recycling threshold to
develop and Implement enforcement procedures to calculate
the debris diversion rate. That is the rate at which is
materials are being diverted in the waste stream and to
incorporate that into the Citywide diversion rate to
implement process, used to train contractors on their
obligations to recycle CNG debris. And finally to work to
incentivize and further require contractors reuse of
construction materials, those are 7 recommendations. Cdph
responded to those very briefly at a high level and I'll
let cdphp to speak to their response further. But the
department committed to working with the Department of
Building as well. As the department asked, permission
services to identify project subject to these requirements
for full implementation of that system slated for 2026.
See you.
Cdph committed to working toward training materials,
painting tutorials planned for the end of 2024 to explore
incentive eyes and for the recycling and reuse. And
finally, to you working with other City departments to as
necessary to to put in place and to use the required
dedicated management fund.
Thank you, if you coming him.
If?
If you can identify yourself for the record, please. Good
morning everyone. My name is Megan Cunningham. I'm the
managing Deputy Commissioner for the Bureau of Community
Health at the Chicago Department of Public Health. Please
to be with you today and wanted to begin by first thanking,
the office of the Inspector General for conducting this
audit and for providing an opportunity for us to further.
Review our practices and making recommendations for
improvements of our efforts, with respect to the
construction and demolition debris, recycling. Ordnance
broadly, as the Inspector General has characterized, we
accept and agree with the findings of this audit, it is
accurate to characterize our enforcement, over the course
of the last five years, as Limited in scope. And that has
been necessitated by honestly, lack of resources within our
Office of Environmental permitting, and inspections. And in
the context of limited resources needing to make hard
choices about prioritizing, those sorts of activities that
are most directly.
Dead to the port.
Dead to the protection of human health. And so, well, we
have continued to conduct a degree of oversights in the
space, in the form of ensuring that to the extent. That
demolition contractors are reporting on construction and
demolition debris recycling. To the health department using
the required forms. We review those forms. We document
their receipt. We ensure that they have reported the
required 50% recycling rate, but we have not had robust
systems in place to understand the full Universe of
projects that are subject to the C&D recycling, ordinance,
and to conducting a robust audit of those materials that
are being presented to us. And so, in work with the
Inspector General and further review of their findings and
recommendations, there are a number of action steps that
we're taking both in the immediate term as well as in the
longer-term to ensure that we are fulfilling their
obligations under the ordinance and I'll spend just a
moment to speak.
I'm very bad at this clicker. I learned this yesterday. Are
we go? The first finding we have a number of action steps
here. I wanted to begin with those things that we're going
to put in place in the immediate term. So first is we do
believe that it is important to at work. To educate the
contractors who are subject to this ordinance about their
obligations on construction and demolition debris.
Cycling. So we will be putting together a training that we
will hold virtually and record or future posting on our
website. So that all of those contractors that are
regularly coming to the city of Chicago for permits are
provided with an opportunity to better understand this
process to understand what their responsibilities are with
respect to reporting and understand the consequences of
non-compliance with this ordinance. So that is something we
believe that we can do before the end of this year and we
are committed to doing. So we will also conduct this
education with some of our city Department Partners who are
involved in this process so that there is increased
coordination and collaboration in this work.
Becca.
Second is that we will be at piloting and I actually
integrating into the permitting process, a paper form when
one of our challenges in this process and in our oversight
of this ordinance has been that to date. This is a highly
manual system. We receive forms. We have to review forms by
hand. We got, you know, it, since 2018, hundreds of, of
these sorts of things that come through the health
department and it has required a significant investment of
people time in order to conduct this, the sort of
oversight. But recognizing that today we live in a manual
world. We are going to Pilot putting this form into place
in the standard plan review process, that that DOB
Oversee.
Overseas to ensure that contractors have another Point.
Another checkpoint that gives them an opportunity to
identify their project as being subject to the ordinance
and reminding them of their reporting obligations. We
believe that we can also pilot and continue to refine that
work even within this year, but the real longer-term
solution. And the way that we truly solve for some of these
coordination problems across departments for these
reporting challenges, it is that we do need to procure a
web-based, waste management, tracking solution. So this is
where are the even prior to the end of the office of the
inspector General's investigation at cdph had requested and
was grateful to have received funding through the Chicago
recovery plan to purchase. This is a system that various
jurisdictions across the country have adopted to take all
of that. Kind of paperwork that was happening through forms
online at to make sure that we can in Rio.
I'm I do.
I'm identify the full Universe of projects that we should
be reviewing for compliance with the ordinance. The
reporting happens on line from the contractors. The total
amount of waste, diverted is calculated online through this
system and it allows us to better for fill our obligations
with respect to oversight, as well as with ensuring that we
are doing everything we can to support the city's. Overall
Waste Management strategy. So this is not an immediate
solution. It does take some
I'm
Time for us to procure this necessary software for us to
work with the selected Bender to tailor the software to
ensure that it has the appropriate interfaces with all of
the other city data systems that need to feed up into it.
And then, of course, the test, and to roll out and to train
our city staff, as well. As those demolition contractors on
the use of the tool, about all of this is work that we are
committed to doing over the course of the next couple of
years and are happy to continue to provide reports to the
inspector-general into this body on progress towards those
efforts. So those are some of the action steps with respect
to finding number one. I'm finding number to this is of
course as the Inspector General mentioned that the city had
not created the required C&D, debris, management fund. This
is another place where we appreciate the audit for shining
a spotlight on a potential resource that had not been
exercised to this point to provide some of the funding 4th
like the
Like this, the staff training, the contractor training, the
waste management system solution. So we have moved quickly
on this one to ensure that the fund is established as
required by law. So, we've engaged with the office of
budget management and I'm pleased to report that as of
earlier this month, that fund has been established in the
city system. There is work underway to ensure that is
quickly as possible, all of that 1.2 approximately 1.2
million dollars of fees that have been collected. So,
2018.
2018 are placed into that van so that the fund is made
whole. And that there are systems in place for tracking
appropriate, fines and fees, going forwards of it as they
are collected as Revenue to the city. It is being deposited
timely into that fund. As we do expect, all of this will be
taking place over the course of the summer months in time,
for cdph, to provide as part of our 2024, budget request
for dry down and use of those funds for eligible. Costs
related to oversight monitoring and management of the
construction and demolition debris ordinance. So, I do want
to just reiterate that the Chicago Department of Public
Health, for those of you who were here with me yesterday,
you know, heard me talk at some length about our commitment
to the protection of the environment to sustainability
efforts to ensuring that we are fulfilling our obligations
as a as a public health agency, serving the city of
Chicago. And we hope that what we shared today in her shows
Amazon.
Some of our meeting. Just to try to address the findings of
this audit. Thank you.
Thank.
Thank you to.
Thank you, sir. Megan, I've got to my voice is not
happening today and just isn't one of the things if you
don't have an answer for this. Now, as this work continues,
I think a lot about how we encounter issues with this at
our Ward level and I think about a lot of the smaller kind
of construction projects that happen and wondering if while
you're working like the software solution if you could
include Alderman and maybe some stakeholder meetings when
you're planning that software. So I'll say like 311's a
great tool but there are a lot of things in 311 that like
we don't have access to and our older medical offices, that
would actually make a better at constituent services. So as
you're creating a new software solution when I think about
limitations, we sometimes have for inspectors and Staffing,
it would be great if
We?
We can.
we could, we
We could work with you guys to think of. Hey, if it's my
word soup's already given somebody a warning great. If that
I've already tried to talk to somebody, if I'm noticing
something or constituents are figuring out, some kind of
work slow that either integrates or or finds a way to pick
up with maybe 311 request that are coming in from
constituents but also from all dramatic office has to be
able to flag something with the software. So just wanted to
make, make a note of that, because at all,
We?
Where you?
We're your eyes on the ground and a lot of ways. And if you
can integrate a workflow for us, it isn't just calling
Marlin Hopkins, that would be great. We appreciate that
recommendation and I'll certainly share that with the team
so that we can incorporate aldermanic Outreach and
engagement as part of the planning for the implementation
of this new new solution. I do agree that this is the sort
of an ordinance that we are. You know, what, I appreciate
the full support and collaboration with our local elected
officials as we are ensuring strong and robust compliance,
and one contractors. And really probably just even
awareness again of the requirements.
Quote.
Quote, you chapter and verse on that here, let me just find
the page.
You are.
You want all, you want all of it here at the construction
of a new residential building with four or more units,
construction of a new non-residential building other than
project for which the total square footage is 4000 square
feet or less any Rehabilitation of a building that will
require a certificate of occupancy from the OB demolition
of a residential building with four more units and includes
the demolition of at least one outside wall. I promise it's
almost done demolition of a non-residential building other
than project for which the total square footage is 4000
square feet or less. So it's project only have a certain
Size of a certain requirements. It's not every construction
demolition a renovation project and Brody of Chicago, but
it is a large number of Enterprise a lot. I want to ask her
what my colleagues in the 49th Ward said, my staff would
love is an older man, X3 11 option. When we see Shenanigans
with contractors, this specifically been others to witness
and who do we have an i and an analogy that maybe the
public doesn't, but you know that though, cuz we have that
option, is reporting the technology that would be helpful.
I have to ask this is that is cdph the right Department to
be doing this. We were talking about it and it made, you
know, we're working with the building department on their
system. You're creating a web-based racetrack and software
which seems like a sweet peas band function. We're talking
about a department of environment before you put a lot of
work into this with. This makes sense to be somewhere else.
Quest.
Question. I think it is fair to say that this is a function
that could live in many places within our current city
structure, and I think we appreciate that. As the city is
having important conversations about the slightest of
different environment related activities. That this is one
that is Ambien considered. I think some of the
conversations that we've been having, as a function of of
this audit, as a function of our ongoing coordination.
Work, has really if nothing else.
You know, any further, strengthened, our understanding of
the necessity of coordination across departments regardless
of where, some of this ultimately lives, you know, there
will be work related to related to building was work
related to Street and sanitation, work related to
environmental health. As we are very open to ongoing
discussions about what is the the model that best serves,
the needs of the city. And the system is being created,
will be obvious accessible to all those departments Scopes
and make sure we understand. He has cases and interfaces so
that his platform is going to be available and accessible
to Department of buildings to Planning and Development to
Streets & Sanitation, as well as to cdph and potentially
even users, like, see. So this is a useful platform
regardless of where some of the future State planning on
environmental activities, mainland
Thank.
Thank you. And I'll just add to that very quickly. I think
I agree with all of that and I said, I would just add that
issues of environmental stewardship and climate the scale
of those obligations are such, that we should be pursuing a
whole-of-government approach where we drawn all of the
resources of city government. In pursuit of solutions, I
think much like Public Safety and Community safety issues.
It is Our obligation to find observe meet the challenge
drawing on all of the resources of city government, and to
ensure that we are Corden
Those efforts.
those efforts across departments as of
Those efforts across departments as effectively as
possible. I guess I would just say since the point of
contact is the building department, right? They're going in
there, getting a permit to build a ghetto but maybe that
would be the better home for this working with all the
Departments that you are. Obviously, there's lots of
systems there, too. I just know, I'd like to see more as
efficient as possible and and hopefully, we can all work
toward that. That's really all I have. Thank you, Taylor. I
can chairman
so, I
So I'm not going to disagree with my coworker, but I want
to see you all coordinated more with the building
department. And I think it should be all buildings that are
doing work a demolition. I am in a ward why I have over
2,000 vacant, lots and I have a bunch of buildings that are
being reconstructed. Do you know how many times I'm calling
streets and saying? Because they took the debris and dumped
it in another part of my ward or left it in the alley for
my neighbors to complain about. Hey, this is not mine and a
lot of times we wind up, ticketing our neighbors or
something, somebody did in a building that's on the next
block. And so I want you all to really coordinate with the
builders apartment because to all the woman had this point,
we do depend on Marlin Hopkins and the Buildings Department
a lot is so I want to see and I appreciate you all
coordinating. I feel like the City Works in silos which is
how we're not able to do the work that we're doing and so
not disagree with my coworker but I'm glad to
Did you watch?
The Chihuahua doing more coordinating and I want to see more
of the Buildings Department into this because literally, if
we have a fire in a building or anything, she is the person
that we are all calling or want to say, hey, did the
building caught on fire? This debris everywhere? And she
goes out and make sure it happened, but what I don't see is
at is other departments, kind of saying this is what
happened in the fire. That's why I like that. You all are
coordinating with them and I want to see and I want to see
us put some of this Revenue into Redevelopment in those
communities. We are
Price.
Personnel folks in our community and the thought that there
is another fun that we're making money off. I just don't
want to see, just going on training. I want a percentage of
it to be to go back into those communities so that we're
doing some type of Redevelopment,
let,
Last thing I had was.
Can.
Can you go back to? I think it's the the slide before this
one.
I,
I should be able to. I'm sorry I didn't mean to get you
started with this. Can you kind of going to? It's not going
to start until 2023 is that correct? Second bullet point,
it says see pdh will notify contractors apply for? I think
that should happen on the front end and so, when they're
applying for these
Turn.
Permit. Is it happened, right? Then, and they are not this
waiting not this and they should be required to, if you're
asking too except for people who are in their homes during
construction, that's something totally different. But
anybody that has buying a building in the water, in this
Redevelopment should be required to do this. And is there
some conversation about how we're doing them? But was now
since the, the thing happening in Mike Rodriguez is Ward,
is there something that we're talking about when it comes
to demo? Cuz this is a part of the conversation, but I, I
didn't hear that. And it might be totally unrelated, but I
would like to know how we doing. Demo was different in the
city. Thank you, note on the use of the fines and fees that
come into the fund. Is that some of those, but they all of
the potential uses for those funds are pretty clearly
defined by Ordnance and fairly Limited in scope.
We can.
We can take.
We can take back the recommendation to think about the ways
that we can use those resources consistent with the
ordinance requirements, but also to really promote
Community benefits in the areas where some of these
demolitions are taking place with respect to questions
about the city's efforts on demolitions. Broadly, there has
been significant progress from us again, Ezra Cole of
government Citywide policy approach to learn the lessons of
the past and to put in place, strengthened rules.
Set alarm.
It's a large-scale demolitions and implosions that really do
call upon City departments to work closely together and
review of demolition plans. And to ensure its the fullest
extent possible. We are entering your protection of the
environment, Public Safety in those sorts of events. So,
happy to speak more about that offline. If you have
questions about some of the new rules following up, thank
you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Just one
question into comments, on my end through the chair, I
would hope that cdph can provide both for last year's
fiscal year. 2022 as well as the current fiscal year. 23,
the approximate number of positions of inspectors are
others who are doing CND, related work, and the
corresponding dollar amount, I think your, your points are
well taken in terms of over the last several years, not
having the requisite, financial support and positions and I
think as we transition into the budget cycle be
to know.
To know where.
To know where we're at right now and where we need to head.
So that can be through the chair and then just two points,
one observational a part of why I think this is so
critical. First city leaders to focus on is C in the debris
is approximately 25% of our overall waste Stream. So when
we hear so many of our constituents and members of this
body expressed frustration with are relatively low out,
recycling amounts, that's part of what we can do a better
job of. And so hopefully, if we can
Better track. What's the?
Better track, what's going on. And then pair that with
improved enforcement, those overall recycling numbers will
go up. And then finally, I understand that with the 2026
peace in terms of the ultimate timeline working with the
OB. That's part of a broader infrastructure issue. That was
many years in the making and will continue on for many
years. And I think that this body will be focusing more on
those. It modernization efforts would encourage our
departments to proactively flag, those issues perhaps via
briefings cuz I don't know that we necessarily need to
spend a hearing from a meeting on it, but we need to
understand what's going on. So, that five or ten years from
now, we're not in a similar place as well. We know what we
need to do, but we need three or four years to build that
out. We want to work with you and provide you the resources
and also understand if there's things that we want to do
that maybe isn't lining up with what you're seeing from
that and welcome the inspector General's. Office
involvement is the in that as well, because
We?
we got a
We got a just a few years here to undertake a lot of
changes cuz you can bring the OB up here and they'll have
similar things to say about their it and so if we're going
to do a better job of integrating collaborating across
departments that, it infrastructure is going to be court.
So with that thank you Deputy will excuse you if you need
to go. And then lastly, we will move to the final piece
which is a subject matter hearing regarding the office of
Inspector General's. Follow-up to the audit of the
Department of Streets & Sanitation, commercial, and hide N.
Recycling enforcement Inspector, General, same as last time.
If you can provide us a brief summary of that. And then
we'll hand it over to Deputy, Sunday in March of 2020. 300
G published a follow-up to an audit. Originally published
back in December of 2020. Looking at the department of
Streets & Sanitation, enforcement recycling, requirements
for commercial and high-density residential buildings to
talk, briefly about the 2020 audit. And then a high-level
overview of what we found in the follow-up in March in
terms of process. That is the general course for our
performance audits is that we come to initial findings and
make recommendations and then some appropriate period of
time. Later we follow up with the Department to check in on
the status of corrective actions. So in this in December of
ATM Community. Original audit of the purpose was to
determine whether DSS ensures that owners of commercial and
high-density residential buildings provide the recycling
services that are required by the Chicago recycling
ordinance. As an act in 2017, that ordinance requires that
owners of those buildings commercial and high-density
residential requires that those owners contract with
private haulers to provide Recycling services. Those are
not Recycling services that the city provides directly. But
rather the building owners are required to take to arrange
for private hollers. Those private haulers are required by
the ordinance to make annually.
Words to DSS.
Words to DSS on building service and materials recycled at
cetera.
We?
We've.
We reached to findings in the original audit. One was that
DSS was not at that time, ensuring the commercial and
high-density Residential Building owners were providing is
recycling services in the enforcement issues. They're
included. Just the sort of mechanical fact that the site,
the system for generating citations with, in DSS did not
permit. The issuance of citations for this violation, the
second finding was that, DSS was not ensuring, that private
hauler is completed and submitted those required annual
reports that I mentioned, and that DSS was there for
inhibited and its ability to monitor program outcomes and
diversion rates that we talked a little bit about the
diversion rate in the city-wide diversion rate with respect
to C&D debris. There's a similar observation here and and
and the city's ability to monitor that information we again
here made 7 recommendations, those briefly worth at DSS
work with the Department of Law and with a is to
reconfigure that citation system so that citations could in
fact
Issued for violation.
Issued for violations of these requirements, that the SS
record and monitor the outcome of recycling. Inspections,
that the department develop a more proactive approach to
enforcement of the recycling ordinance that they ensure
private haulers completed, those annual reports in a
complete a timely manner and and review them to review the
design of his annual reports, make sure that they were
optimizing information, collected, develop procedures to
incorporate elements of bees, private hauler conversion
rates into the Citywide diversion rate. And then finally to
ensure that private hauler report customers who have
declined Recycling services, broadly, the department of
Streets & Sanitation, agreed with our findings and without
recommendations and made a number of commitments to
corrective action in the recent follow-up. We went back and
checked on the status of those, the corrective actions to
which the department is committed. And again, here I'll get
out of the way fairly quickly on the scene but to say that,
We do.
We found the two of the corrective actions which we had
recommended have been fully implemented at this point. And
that is the. DSs has has reconfigured the citation system
to permit, the issuance of citations for these violations
and the DSs is monitoring inspection and compliance out
comes around recycling, obligations one, corrective action
was partially implemented. And that is that some
improvements have been made in ensuring that private
haulers are submitting, their annual reports as required.
And then, there are three remaining.
Corrective actions. Not you.
Corrective actions, not yet implemented having to do with
overall a more proactive, enforcement strategy. So that the
enforcement of the Chicago recycling, ordinances is not
simply reacted to complaints received. DSS has not not
updated or modified, the annual reports and is not yet
improved, the use of information on customers who to Klein
Recycling services.
But the
The battle turned over. If you could identify yourself for
the record, please.
Adele.
A debit.
A Deputy Commissioner, Chris Sauve with Department of
Streets & Sanitation. Thank you to the council for having
me here today. I truly appreciate it. The work we've been
doing these last couple of years since the original audit,
it was done. We've seen some progress continue to work on
some of that Progress Park from what we do with the
high-density recycling for myself and my team are
responsible for the low-density residential collection that
are done via the blue card. That's what I think most of the
condition constituents in the city, recognizes the main
Recycling services, it exists here as the general pointed
out. The
I bet we're not.
That ordinance itself. The covers high-density residential
is also a responsibility for our department, to enforce we
were happy to engage with the Inspector General and work
through the seven different recommendation, for still
working on, probably the last half of those recommendations
specifically when it comes to the annual reporting that
we're getting from these hauling companies and from the
waste facility, the permits are issued by actually, cdph
that our department is obligated to collect the data on. So
as Deputy Commissioner Cunningham mention, we have been
collaborating with cdph the last several months on the
solution for a technology piece, that could be used
collaboratively across different departments, Streets &
Sanitation, health, planning, and development. I just sent
him a couple of them. One of the points that the inspector
General's or one of the recommendations at the maid was too
again, have a proactive
Since.
Since the ordinance was updated in January of 2017 to
require buildings to provide separate Recycling services,
we've taken our department has taken the position that we
were going to react to complaints that our Focus as an
apartment is Residential Services. Basic garbage, recycling
collections, Emergency Management that management,
obviously snow another weather really good activities. I
feel we're getting close.
Who's your daddy?
Closer to having a proactive approach. I think
specifically, with my department in my, the section within
that I handle within the last nine months, I've added four
new positions with our team within that. We've got folks,
are concentrated obvious and this technology solution that
we hope the rollout by the end of this year, along with a c
e p h.
Other programming that we're getting up off the ground up.
So I guess my point is like we had a capacity issue.
Certainly when the original thought it was done to have the
enforcement to have the management and oversight in the
regulatory responsibilities to effectively manage this
ordinance. Overall I think we've done a lot to improve that
just on the technical side but happy to talk to you with
the rest of the recommendations of the sector General
excited. As for
Open.
open it up to committee questions.
Hello, and thanks for being with us today. I know, we'll
get to talk a little bit more about this Alderman laspada.
I don't know if you've been introduced an ordinance looking
to help with better, tracking and enforcement around some
of our private paulers. And I know one of the components
that he's trying to work on, would be around the kind of
GPS tracking component for.
Collars. The new area for me was wondering. If you could
speak a little bit about how you guys work with private
hauler is whether that fate has made available to you
already, and how that might fly into some of the work of
these recommendations Department again in terms of the
specificity with this ordinance, we're obligated to collect
annual reports of these waste haulers on how much material
are collecting. It's actually function through a b, a CPL
license, hauling companies in providing a service part of
the inspector General's, recommendation was to coordinate
those other departments. We did, do that with the bacp from
departments that are sorry for companies that are not
submitting an annual report for processing place to
buttholes and licenses for those companies. So it's in the
reporting period in the previous year or so for for us or
To.
2022 numbers, we sent out a notice and part of what we were
all. So excited for by the IG was the the fact that our
system is its older and scph mention. We're still very
paper intensive, would do an email system, and we received
the reports but there's a lot of coordination in date
updates that need to be done. You know, that could be
streamlined with having a better system Reporting System.
That's online. We talked with other municipalities about
their experiences.
Doing that now much.
Doing that now. Much more efficient. It is, it helps in
terms of coordinating a report to. So you get the
information. You want to get residential vs. Industrial
commercial or institutional waste. That is another key
component that we see. So early in life climate action,
plan is going for some pretty Progressive goals for
diversion. We need to have a system is going to show us
residential vs. Commercial versus institution waste as well
as specific to the way solar still exists here in the city.
There are numerous number of them are there are a large
number of them, the system itself allows for Waste haulers
to operate all across the city. And I know the older had
other laspada had introduced this tracking system. We do
not currently Tractive GPS. For those private waste
companies. We do receive a lot of the complaints and try to
address those immediately with anyone that's violating the
noise ordinance. So we certainly have a lot of
communication we deliver to waste companies on a consistent
basis.
Mr. Cell
Mr. Sell directly address the letter to all these weights
companies, because we've seen an uptick in this violation
of the noise ordinance. So, there is constant
communication. We happen to these companies, obviously, the
network of private transfer stations that exist in the city
to is something. Obviously, in certain cases, our
department is delivering ways to a private transfer
station. So there's no constant work that we're seeing an
interaction between ourselves in these private companies.
and,
Thank.
Thank you for that and so hearing again where software
Solutions are things that are going to help us. That sounds
like you're saying also you guys received reports from
hauling companies and you probably could get information if
you requested it. But that you may not have the kind of
software or capabilities to do much with that date, us
specifically GPS. Like right now. Would it be accurate.
Thank you. I'm in Lawson
Edge.
And you again this term and so my ward probably has just
slightly more private parts then City Christ. So this is an
issue that comes up a lot because those larger and they're
all different. A high-rise is very different from a
mid-rise, which is different from a business. And I know
that we're not doing a good job, but I don't know, how does
the city communicating to those entities as to what their
responsibilities are a minute early? We know we're not
following up on it because what happens if someone who
doesn't have a recycling dumpster that has requirements is
still going to recycle but they're going to put it in my
blue card instead of, you know, telling their landlord or
their Condo Association, we need to spend more money on
something that's probably just going to go in the same
truck. And so there's, there's a lot of enforcement and I
think
We're.
We're not.
We're not doing on the Brethren, anything, proactive?
Really on the front end, right? We're not inspected to do
these carts or recycling. Carts are picked up by a
different truck. Then the regular hauler right after you do
that, we're trusting those haulers then to say, yes we're
diverting, you know, so much. I just wanted to say that cuz
right now I think it is the only one following up on this.
You know, we have buildings like a certificate of occupancy
that don't have waste disposal contracts. And I think
that's something that is a problem because that, you know,
they're always using Citi cards or someone else's and
enacted neighbors. Very, very angry. So maybe that's
something that's part of the Cielo.
That we can.
That we can do with that. I'm I also want to act all the
311 aldermanic option on this like I did in the last
segment just because I think we have an eye on this and if
we can be helpful and tired, we are the problem. I've got a
great word, soup is good at talking to people, but it needs
to be a systemic approach and not just a one-off thing. I
did want to ask what is the timeline. Because if you do, if
we were free right, on sanitation violation, it doesn't
always arrive in a way and we want to correct the problem.
Just get the, the revenue on it. So, are we looking about
as part of this process too? If it's been getting a
citation, how long is it before they actually get to
citation?
so,
So, specific recommendation was to use the mobile electronic
ticketing system and met system. For this particular
ordinance, which the inspector-general did say we can play.
We can complete that and talk about the law Department in
the ass to add that for ticketing system. The specific part
of this ordinance for that is difficult for us to enforce
is there is a 30-day obligation or 30-day allowance for a
property to receive the recycling service that was
instituted? Where was allowed for when the ordinances first
rolled out in 2017 to essentially give time. For buildings
or management companies to go out and procure that
recycling service? We had discussions internally about
whether we should remove that 30 day allowance because what
would would it really complicates Russ's? We can go out,
they won and talk to Matt this up very quickly, a resident
in a high-rise building makes a request to our department.
Recycling is
Cycling has been.
Recycling inspection, we see that Salesforce 311, we then
react to that, go out to the property, try to engage with
the landlord, a management company. Somebody's got some
authority over the building to let them know. There's an
inspection request, we have to document that there's the
absence of recycling, which is very difficult to do, in
some instances to take a picture of something that does
exist, right? We do do that and then we send out a
certified letter to those building owners that let them
know you've been sighted. You have 30 days to come
Appliance.
Compliance there to follow up on 31st day to make sure that
that existence or lack thereof and recycling service is
still there before ticket to be issued. So that one piece
alone, I think of something, we've had this discussion to
blah Department about typing up and trying to, to do that
fairly quickly probably within this budget, cycle to remove
a 30-day requirement. Sure, there's an engagement there on
notice. So that's that's helpful. If you're doing that
inspection, I think it's the the landlord who isn't there
doesn't know anything of the problem and then he gets a
ticket 6 months later, you know, I think that's gotten
better but it still, we want to solve the problem on the
front end and then in regards of businesses, I mean, I
know, every business supposed to have a recycling plan is,
anybody keep track of those then, if then it would look at
them. Do we ever enforce any about?
Again you are obligations with the annual reporting is
really coming from the Primitive facilities and hauling
companies with regards to businesses. You know, each
businesses is unique in that type of waste material are
going to have. And I know a lot of like grocery restaurants
in Syria move towards organic elections as a means to
Liberty material for landfill. I know, you know,
programmatic something that we are actively looking at 2
for the constituency service is to start providing
additional organic recovery is an option but certainly we
can take that into account terms of bike specifically going
after certain sectors yci in an obligate.
in requiring were
In requiring work.
In requiring work, determine whether they've got a recycling
service for the business thing, for all of us and Alton
Lawson. Thank you for that. Last question, I think
enforcement is one of the biggest challenges across the
board. Do we have is any department and this is like an
open question for any for everybody. A list of actually the
number of high-density residences in the city of Chicago.
Who is apart of this word in Swedish connect with
Department of buildings to determine what resources are
were. We do not have one and I know it was a recommendation
by the inspector-general that we start to keep our own list
of buildings. I've worked with the chief sustainability
officer and trying to leverage systems that already exist.
I think the energy, benchmarking ordinance, the possible
one that we could leverage to get buildings to two
buildings put within that ordinance, their Recycling
services waste, and recycling services. That would be a
good tracking system to utilize. It. Already exists is
reporting system, where buildings, put an energy usage on a
monthly basis. We could do the same for waste & recycling.
Thank you. And I agree with my colleague on the
communication piece of, but I think so many people are just
mostly unaware of what they're responsible for. We're
constantly on the phone.
Lights.
Lines of just beating all of this stuff back with every
service. Call. We get about a neighbor's apartment building
in a with having overflowing trash, or, you know, using our
cards when they should have private trash service in the
same with businesses to I'm in the other thing, I think we
all run into buildings that have been illegally caught up
into additional units. What do you do then? You know, it's
at it's a to flatter a 3 flat that's now six units, instead
of three on the on the books, it's three units. They have
the three trash cans out there and it's still not enough.
So I throw that out there. Not to question. I'd love to
have a cheaper discussion about how we address some of that
because I know that a lot of this also has to do with
resource constraints and we have plenty of money of
ordinances and the rules on the books that we can we don't
have the ability to enforce and I think that's got to be
part of a larger discussion.
Thank you. Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that point
alderwoman lie, especially when I think I'm in one of the
two reports. We're here to talk about today, I think there
was a reference to the fact that we have eight years left
of space, in our existing landfills, which is the lowest of
any area that was delineate. It in that report. So it's not
just good from an environmental standpoint, it's good for
the city's bottom line to be diverting things away from our
landfills. And while I definitely can see, the point that
this is complicated, this takes time and takes resources, I
think we'll definitely be following
Include you in discussions with our various departments to
see, you know, can we look at that tool or something that
can apply across departments? Because I think there's
utility not just with streets and Sam other questions. I
have 11 question myself which is around on diversion of
Organics. I know that our streets in San for some time now
has been working to set up some Regional composting site at
which I think it's a piece of all of this. Because as much
as we want to talk about your standard recycling, I think
lifting composting piece of that is critical as hoping
Deputy you could share some insights. In terms of what you,
what you and your division within Department have have
built up recently and what you're hoping to use that
information to do beyond that.
So thank you specifically. Organics does, constitute a
large percentage of the waste materials from that. Can be
diverted with a third collection system, the offerings.
We've worked on this far. We had some Grant dollars via the
national resources defense Council. We engage with
neighbors space on all six Community Gardens to start
composting receive and composite material on site in 06
Community. Gardens that just launched last September.
The offerings.
The offerings were hoping to offer this year is food. Waste
organic waste drop-off at numerous locations. That's the
one program were feverishly working out there to announce
sometime this year. This would be open to all residential
drop-offs numerous protests across the city. We do know
that are coming from our way strategy that we partnered
with the chief sustainability officer on Organics. It's a
huge part of that composer of the weight room. As I
mentioned already it would certainly in Freeport diversion
numbers that we see in the residential level. So we're very
excited about working almost to specific programs. I think
that it presents a number of terrific opportunities and
term and including opportunities for building up, what's
now and they sent but growing sector of our broader
economy. So I think that there are a number of benefits
including just bottom line and Workforce. So appreciate the
ongoing work there and hope that it really ribs.
In the car.
In the coming months and Beyond especially once this Pilots
which it might just last for a year was that? And so I
think we are all done with questions. So there being no
further business before this committee, can I get a motion
to adjourn?
I want.
I want to lease or move Siri no objections. So ordered we
are giant, think everybody