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Study Session Meeting January 29, 2005 and $400,000 was asked from the State. The City may get as much as $250,000 to use for buying one or two houses along Wilson Avenue. Residents have been notified if their house is on the grant application. Other neighbors in the Second Ward have expressed interest in buy-outs, too, and mentioned difficulties of day-to-day life resulting from the flooding. Mr. Ollendorff described the River as a day-in, day-out problem. He explained what a Plat is and what it means and its ramifications for flooding issues. Discussion of examples followed. Mr. Ollendorff mentioned other specific projects. Side channels have been improved, even though the main one has not, so the main concerns are maintenance and deterioration. One example is near the Ferguson Bridge, near the north City limits, near Julian and Roberts Avenues. He described it and said there has been no flooding or any erosion problems. It is the 70-year old stone bank that needs maintenance and removal of trees that have grown through the cracks. There were questions about MSD's role in making these improvements and discussion about not using City money to make these improvements. Mr. Ollendorff described several methods used to encourage MSD to pay for things. Mr. Wagner asked if providing a twenty per cent match, for example, would get their attention and was advised it would. It is the next step after failing to convince them to pay for improvements. Some discussion of methods followed, especially relating to volunteer and to joint projects. Another specific project is back-up of sanitary sewers in the Second Ward. Project Solution, devised by MSD, will build a new sewer. They have budgeted, designed, and planned the implementations of the stages of the project and will spend $700,000 on improvements. Discussion of working with MSD followed. Billie Jacob's area and the work done by MSD there was described and discussed next. (Councilmember Welsch left the meeting a little before 10 A.M.) Mr. Ollendorff proceeded discussing the Tulane Avenue area and described the problem as similar to that experienced by the Wilson Avenue residents: storm water moves into the sanitary sewer, which overloads and backs up into the basements. MSD hired private contractors to disconnect the downspouts from sanitary sewers and is paying one hundred per cent of the costs. The details of the implementations of this plan were described and discussed. Ms. Brot raised a question about building codes relating to drains and downspouts and was advised how the Council adopts them. Mr. Ollendorff described and discussed the pilot program developed by MSD to assist residents with disconnecting downspouts. He pointed out that there is no one solution to these problems: one has been to build a bigger sewer; another has been to remove the storm water from the sanitary sewer. MSD seeks the most cost-effective solution, so in different areas there are different solutions. MSD hopes to achieve 100 per cent in this pilot program. Mr. Ollendorff commented upon the change of attitude at MSD from "don't bother us" to "how can we assist with the problem?" Page 4