09/20/2005 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 9/28/2005 building. Feedback from this storm is going to guide us as we continue to look for and institute solutions. Service Director Driscoll said the city is working on a timetable and are discussing this issue with a consultant. By November 1, we intend to come up with a plan on what we need to do to find a real solution to this. We will pinpoint what type of work will make the greatest effect on reducing the amount of rainwater getting into our sanitary system. By the end of spring, we will have gone through the wet season, experienced enough to know where the problems are, and want to be ready with some recommendations of where is the best place to start first where we can make the biggest difference. Our goal is to eliminate bypassing and handle storm water in the storm system and sanitary water in the sanitary system. W are working towards that very aggressively. 4) Joe Bouman, 23950 Gessner Road, has had flooding seven times and is tire of it. He believes there is a solution. He read an article in Westlife where the Mayor said no city is equipped to handle downpour like storm of August 20. Feels Westlake is equipped and can show the way to solve our problem. Said Mayor told the residents several times he wouldn't okay pump stations out before potential heavy storms because the city couldn't afford the overtime. Many residents have suffered expensive damage. The Mayor said we have to accept there is nothing we could have done in this storm. He believes there is, and he spoke to hundreds of residents at Homecoming and drew up a map. The Gessner Road area was the worst area in the city. Believes Westlake has been able to develop because they use above-ground retention ponds to hold the water. This city has a big flooding problem, and those who live on the east end are taking the brunt of it. There has been physical damage that cost dollars, property values are going down, and there is no piece of mind that the problems will not continue. Mayor O'Grady said he stands by what he said and what was written in the paper. No city is set up with infrastructure that is able to handle a rain event of that magnitude. In order to handle that type of rain event, we would have to triple the size of the drainage system which would double or triple taxes-we can't do that. Westlake was mentioned. Many of the facts offered were inaccurate. Westlake had flooding. We understand the limitations we are faced with, but it doesn't mean we don't care. Doesn't mean that we haven't been very active before the storm and since the storm to find solutions. We cannot afford the overtime to bring in people every time there is a potential for a storm to put out pumps. We are not going to put our head in the sand and ignore it. We are looking for solutions. One potential solution is the idea we can get notification through pagers when we had a good idea of a storm event heading toward North Olmsted, then we can react to that. We are pursuing that technology to get more detailed information in a more timely manner and still get the pumps out when necessary. We are not ignoring the problem but are trying to find reasonable solutions to address it. Service Director Driscoll said on August 20 he was at the retention basin underneath Blossom that flows into Ehle ditch. He knows there were Westlake residents on that street and adjacent to the retention basin that had flooded basements. Regarding ponds, it would be foolish to start digging holes and start putting water in it without figuring out what the water is going to do. It is best to do an engineering study and come up with the best possible, most reasonable, economical solution. The First Alert pagers are on order. 14