Special Meeting Police Jury Room May 02, 2018 Abbeville, Louisiana Minutes of a special meeting of the Vermilion Parish Police Jury held on May 02, 2018, with President Kevin Sagrera presiding. The following members were present: Mr. Wayne Touchet Mr. Paul Bourgeois Mr. Ronald Menard Mr. Sandrus Stelly Mr. Ronald Darby Mr. Errol J. Domingues Mr. Cloris J. Boudreaux Mr. Kevin Sagrera, Ex- Officio Absent: Mr. Dane Hebert Mr. Jason Picard Mr. Brent Landry Mr. Mark Poche' Mr. Pervis Gaspard Mr. Leon Broussard Guest: Mr. Eugene Sellers, Sr. Mr. Todd Vincent Mr. Kim Touchet President Sagrera recognized a period for public comment on any agenda item to be considered. No business to be presented at this time. President Sagrera recognized Time on the Agenda, Discuss Grab Truck Procedures. Mr. Wayne Touchet stated I made a suggestion earlier that we divide what we are fixing to do into four different sections and deal with one item at a time. This way we are not divided up and going in all directions. We would handle it one section at a time. Vegetative debris and trees as one topic and then next meeting we discuss construction and demolition debris, next meeting we discuss yard debris and then the final meeting we discuss everything else. This way we are not discussing a lot of things and going off in different directions. I think we need to do it in that fashion, Wayne, but we need to include pick up procedures, first and foremost. Mr. Wayne Touchet stated we divide it and take one topic at a time and once we finalize it we move to the next topic. President Sagrera stated pick-up procedures should be first. That is one of the main things we need to make sure is in place. 1
Mr. Wayne Touchet stated but if we isolate items first then pick-up procedure may be simple. President Sagrera stated so you still don' t want to make appointments? Mr. Wayne Touchet stated I hope not but listen there are instances where an appointment would be good. For instance, where a homeowner or a renter is moving out of a house and they have a lot going to the road, make an appointment. says. President Sagrera stated an appointment would be great because that is what the ordinance Mr. Keith Roy, Parish Administrator, stated I will just say this, one more time about the appointment thing, the only thing about the appointment is, you, as a jury take control of the operation instead ofthe public basically pushing the work on you. If you can' t find a way to control that then they are going to continue to do what they do to a point. If we consider appointments. Not everyone has access to a trailer or methods of bringing it to the landfills themselves but some people do. If some people call for an appointment and they say they are a month out they have the option to take it to the landfill themselves. Mr. Keith Roy stated once again, just because we have the appointment process doesn' t mean, for example: if someone is tearing down a house because the family member is deceased, you can still make an exceptions because you will still have your trucks available. President Sagrera stated we tell them we are concerned about the life of the landfill and this is how the ordinance is stated and this is how we are going to do it. Rural is different from city. Just keep that in mind. I will ask Keith for help on this one. In my area, where are most of the pick-ups? Mr. Keith Frederick, Solid Waste Supervisor, stated the city. Mr. Ronald Darby stated to tell you the truth I can' t see myself supporting appointments unless we do some type of study or we get involved with the city mayors and ask them, get them involved in this conversation. We have to see what they think about it and how they can help us in this situation as well because we have a lot in the city limits. Perhaps they can help us. They are supposed to be picking up small bundles of things. We have seen some stuff today that could have been picked up, paper and things, and put in the trash can. Until they do that I really can' t support appointments. President Sagrera stated I guess my thing is that if we come up with saying as a whole we would want to do appointments. We want to find a plan that works then we bring it to them and say this is what we want to do. Mr. Ronald Darby stated why don' t we bring them in now, instead of waiting? 2
President Sagrera stated I think that it is our service and I think that we make our plan then we take them in. We may find some of the mayors who think that is great. This is why I think that it could be a benefit. If you tell your homeowners, if you don' t want the stuff staying in front of your house two to three weeks, you make an appointment. We will tell you when to put it to the road and we will pick it up. You use it as a tool to get some of the stuff picked up. Mr. Keith Roy stated we do that right now with their garbage. I don' t put garbage out every day I only put it out once a week. President Sagrera stated Paul makes a good point. They know it is that day every week. What we can do now is they can know that they can call and make an appointment and then we will pick it up. Mr. Errol Domingues stated what I am having a problem with we all get complaints then we have issues at the meeting and we get on Keith. We do a blanket pickup. We send them on one end of the parish and we go to the other end. We can get that done in three weeks. We had to do it twice in the last six months. Then we revert back to sending the trucks in each of their respected districts and then we fall behind six or seven weeks. Then we get back in here and we sweep the parish again. We can' t maintain that hold it has been this way for ten years. When people have someone, I am not going to say watching them, but when they are all in the same region and one truck makes two loads or four loads, why is this one only making one? They are going the same distance the same street. So it is not a competition between them but they have a comparison on their daily out puts because they are in the same circumstance. Mr. Wayne Touchet stated but Errol even then when they sweep the parish, a lot of streets and trash gets skipped. Mr. Errol Domingues stated it does Wayne. I am not telling you we hit every street but when we did that the bulk of the districts were cleaned up. Mr. Wayne Touchet stated but they still had a lot of trash not picked up. Mr. Errol Domingues stated one thing we haven' t tried. There is twice that we asked Mr. Gene to put something together of a zone. It is here and we never utilized it. We never tried it for six months to say let' s do it in the zones. I think a combination of zoning and appointments. This way if we know we are going to be in a zone for a month or three weeks we could put appointments within that zoning time. Work them together. While you are in that zone you take care of the people who call for appointments at the same time. When you complete that zone you move on to the next zone and you adhere to the appointments that came to the table for that one. You work them together. If you don' t want it in front of your house for three weeks then don' t put it there until they are in your zone. That is a thought I had. It is one option we never tried. Zoning in a sense is similar to making a sweep. 3
Mr. Gene Sellers, SR, Sellers & Associates, Inc., stated I think Errol has something that is really worthwhile. Number one I think you need to find out how often you want to pick up trash for an individual a month. Then just like the garbage cans, everybody that puts their cans out know that it will be picked up. You make the same type of thing with your trash. You know that you are coming in this area and that is when you put your trash out. That is what I find all the time. There is trash all the time, everywhere. That shouldn' t be. You don' t put your cans out until the day they are going to pick up. Everybody knows that. Mr. Errol Domingues stated I don' t know a timeline. All I know is that we did a parish wide sweep twice. Mr. Gene Sellers, SR stated not all roads were covered, Errol. There is no way you can do that with twelve trucks with the miles of road you have in this parish. There is no way. Mr. Errol Domingues stated another thing with efficiency with that. When you have, and none of us want to create positions, but if you are going to go in a zone and you put a supervisor on a truck. If we went back in those particular trucks with a two way radio system and a person in a pickup truck on the ground. When he is in that zone his job is to cover the streets. You don' t send a truck riding down the street if there is no garbage. He documents, he could be a week ahead of them. Today he gives this driver street names. You have twelve trucks and you break it down and split it between twelve trucks. You would have to hire another man but it is cheaper than getting two more grab trucks and two more drivers. I agree with what he is saying because if you notice a lot of the stores and everybody else has an appointment and figures out how much you need with beer trucks and everything else and then they come and deliver. So you know what you might need. If we are going to go zone or area for area and like we said not every street gets picked up. I really don' t like the appointments because I don' t think people in certain parts of the parish are going to pick up the phone and call. I think they are just going to put it out there. Mr. Errol Domingues stated that the point man is going to learn about how many cubic yards are in that pile and he is going to be able to say that this one truck will be able to pick up these five loads. He will learn it in his doing as he is checking the roads. Mr. Ronald Darby stated and on that note, that person will be able to leave a note on the door with what he has wrong in the load. Gene made a good point. How many times are we going to go to somebodies house in a month? With appointments? If that person calls five times, six times a week. That is a question that needs to be answered. President Sagrera stated that is when you get on a list and have to limit it. You can only go to one location so many times. I would like to ask Keith a question. With your experience, what are your thoughts on the supervisor going and driving through before the trucks hit that zone? 4
Mr. Keith Frederick stated I agree with everything that was said except one thing. After he hands out the roads to the drivers he needs to go back and check make sure it was picked up. Good idea. Good idea. Mr. Errol Domingues stated I think what is going to dictate how frequent we pick-up and make a pass, is how efficient we get and can turn it around when we come in next. I don' t think anybody knows the time frame. I think the spring time will be less than the summer time. Mr. Ronald Darby stated okay say we do appointments and stuff. We go to this house right here and then we go to Erath. We go all over the place. What is the cost of the fuel going back and forth to different locations? Mr. Errol Domingues stated my thinking with the appointments, then I will turn it over to Keith, when you know your trucks are in that zone, you take care of your appointments in that zone. You do it while you are consolidated in that zone. Mr. Keith Roy stated as I said previously in the last meeting. The appointment is going to save you time and money because you are going to know exactly where to go to get the trash. You are going to break it up. You are not going to send somebody to Gueydan and Erath at the same time. He is going to get all the pickups in Gueydan. He will know exactly where to go. So you will be saving time and money. Right now they are just driving in circles and missing half. With the appointments you can tell them what they can put together and what we will and will not pick-up. President Sagrera stated all of this sounds good but before any of this happens we have to get the education out also. Doing it this way is going to be part of the education too because whenever they do have the wrong thing in the pile you will be able to let them know. If you have a foreman then he will be able to go and say. Mr. Paul Bourgeois stated we are going to get it right. I agree that we do need to let them know but we need to do it multiple ways. Not everybody reads the newspaper. We have already established that. My thing is we flood the newspaper every week for every Sunday paper for up to four months at a time but we also do a mail out and we also have the guy driving do it. Mr. Tommy Thibodeaux you live in Iberia Parish? St. Martinville. Do you' ll have curve side pick-up with a grab truck from parish government or just garbage? Mr. Tommy Thibodeaux stated we do Breaux Bridge. How often do you' ll get to them? Mr. Tommy Thibodeaux stated what we do is split Breaux Bridge in half and one week we do one side of the town and the other week we do the other side of the town. They picked up twice a 5
month. Parishwide is St. Mary Parish, St. Charles and St. Bernard Parish and what we do there is in one week we make the entire parish but we have five or six trucks. We have twelve trucks and we can' t make the parish. Mr. Tommy Thibodeaux stated St. Mary Parish is about twenty- four thousand residents. Mr. Wayne Touchet stated I think we should stick with zones, implement appointments as an option but stick with zones. If you don' t want your trash two weeks in front of your house you make an appointment and we will tell you when to put it out. I have a quick question. We are going to do a blend of both. How many sections are we going to divide the parish into? Mr. Gene has already divided it into four zones. So it would be every four weeks you would get back? There is nothing that says you can do a zone in a week. The season of the year is going to determine how quick you come back. I think we need to do the zones, give them the option for appointments and first and foremost we need to educate our constituents in some way. President Sagrera stated I want to go to education right now. Let' s decide how we want to get it out. Is it the website, newspaper, mail outs, everything. Let' s decide how to get it out to the constituents and what the best way is. Mr. Ronald Darby stated Mr. Gene said something just now about our alert system that we have. That is only to certain people. Mr. Errol Domingues stated Mr. Gene, how many households do we have in the parish? Mr. Gene Sellers, SR stated I don' t know, I don' t remember. It was twenty something thousand. President Sagrera stated you' ll mentioned 911. 911 has everyone' s cell phones also. So 911 could send out to cell phones also. You send a text message. A text alert with 911. Mr. Ronald Darby stated before you do this are you contacting the cities? President Sagrera stated yes. Once we come up with a plan we will pull them in. Mr. Ronald Darby stated I have one councilman in my district and he is always saying call your Police Juror because he is responsible for picking the trash up on the side of the road. The 6
other side of my district that he has nothing to do with, he told them to call Ronald Darby. He is like the mayor. Ronald, with that being said, it is more important that you control as a Juror the trash pick-up and not the cities. They are putting it on you. That is what started all of this because he is dealing with the same person I am dealing with. It is very important that the cities follow us and not us following the cities. I think we need to present something before it is adopted and bring it to the cities and not give them an option but not force them. Let them know that this is what we are going to do. We are trying to make it better, more efficient, and more frequent. The thing is we have to tell them they cannot be talking to our drivers. They cannot be calling and telling the people the same thing. President Sagrera stated just to go over it again, as for as education we are going to do newspaper, 911, mail out, all websites and fliers at businesses. More importantly we have to create a clear and precise policy. President Sagrera stated I know that. We are working on one item at a time. Mr. Ronald Darby stated would it be appropriate for us to make a motion to the fact that you are trying to get the education out. I think before we do that we need to let Keith and Keith and Mr. Gene get together with his zone and put it together and at the next meeting we look at what we talked about. Look at where the zones are, see how we can implement appointments in that zoning, have a plan for education if we approve it then we meet with the municipalities. Then we do a launching. Before we roll it out we still haven' t talked about procedures yet. I think Monday we need to work thirty minutes before the meeting. Before we make a motion on that, Mr. Roy what are your thoughts on this issue? Mr. Keith Roy stated if I start going back to you wanting to hire another person and get a truck and do all those things. I will just tell you that in my opinion we are spending money and basically taking on the responsibility that should be the publics. That is all I am going to say. I am not saying what is right or wrong. I am just pointing out the fact that we are looking to spend money when we are trying to actually do the opposite. Mr. Errol Domingues stated I think honestly we are saving money because consensus was we were going to buy two more grab trucks, buy four replace two, and we were wanting to add them to the line up to make fourteen and put a man on them to put one in each district. 7
We might be more efficient with the supervisor. Mr. Errol Domingues stated that was my thing. A pick-up truck and a supervisor will create a better efficiency than two more trucks. Mr. Keith Roy stated well part of the proposal for the appointments was not about putting more trucks. We were talking about using the trucks we have now. I think in my opinion that once you start the appointment process you are not going to have as many pick-ups. Part of it is you are going to prevent a lot of the stuff that is being put out there that shouldn' t be. Once you do the education, a lot of the stuff they putting out won' t be put out. We can evolve it to that if this works then we can do appointment only. It would be a transition at not much cost. Mr. Keith Roy stated you may just want to start with just the education and nothing else and see how the public reacts to the education part and see how much of an impact it has on what we are doing. Just the education. Not the zones and everything else. See if that works because if that doesn' t work then everything else is mute until you go to something else. So we are back to what I said in the beginning. Let' s break it down into groups and how you put stuff at the road. President Sagrera stated I think what Mr. Roy is saying is no zones nothing, just start with education and see what ends up on the side of the road. Mr. Keith Roy stated see what we get with just from the public by doing that. You have to know that if I cut a tree that is four foot in diameter and I put it on the side of the road: I can' t tell the Police Juror that I did that. We have to figure out a plan that is going to stop that kind of stuff. Everybody does it. A big tree that is four foot in diameter and an eighty year old guy comes to the door and says I cut that. You have to have a plan. That is why we have to break it down in groups. If you have tree that is bigger than sixty inches, you have to get a permit to cut it down. What I have found twice now in the last couple of months and it happened again this week. The contractor goes and says I give you this price or I will give you this price. One is I will leave it sitting in the front yard for the parish to pick up. We have to have consequences. You send them a letter. You get it off the road or you get a fine. Do you have anybody that could temporarily be used as a look out man? Mr. Keith Frederick stated he does not have anyone to use temporarily. 8
Upon motion by Mr. Errol Domingues, duly seconded by Mr. Ronald Darby, and unanimously carried, the Police Jury authorize Mr. Keith Frederick, Mr. Keith Roy and Mr. Gene Sellers, SR to review the zones for trash pick-up. Also, approve to come back Monday May 07, 2018 at 5: 30pm to review zones, education through newspapers, 911, mail outs and websites. Upon motion by Mr. Errol Domingues, duly seconded by Mr. Paul Bourgeois, and unanimously carried, there being no further business to be presented, the meeting was duly adjourned. ot Parish Adminis ator President A.,/ 9