 Let's call the committee the whole meeting to order Madam clerk Madam clerk, would you call the roll please Balmain excuse Okay, Berg here Bonnet sir to graph Manny Montemay or Perez Peterson Excuse me and flesh Sigali Stefan Van Akron Vanderweel Warner Nine present Now I entertain a motion to approve the minutes of September 7th meeting Motion made in seconds to approve the September 7th meeting minutes any corrections All in favor Chair votes aye also Before we go on with our program here tonight I just want to say to everybody like watching television or anything at seven o'clock Don't change your channel because the full council meets at seven and you know that's when all the fun begins So tonight's program we have the lead abatement program Which the city has received them a three million dollar HUD grant Which the city and a division of public health of the county are partnering in this program So right now I will turn over the program to Pete Fullerton and he will take it from there Pete. Thank you Dan We hope that we can provide a little fun for you too in the next hour here Thanks for having us. We'd like to talk to you a little bit about the city of Sheboygan received a HUD lead hazard control grant from the federal government I work for the city development of the city Sheboygan and under the direction of Paul at Enders our Director of city development. We work with the public health department. I guess I'd like to introduce a couple of people here tonight and Then have Jerry Drake was in from public health go through a quick PowerPoint presentation and answer any questions along the way or afterwards Jerry Drake was in sitting here Jerry is a public health nurse for the Sheboygan County and she's also part of our lead team Her supervisor is Diane Leibenthal over here. And we also work closely with the public housing authority for the city Sheboygan, which is Donna Litke Sitting close to the mayor over there We're one of the nice things about this program is that we were able to work together with the county the housing authority and the city To come up with a very good package that we we gave to the federal government and we were lucky enough And we're very happy to receive this three million dollar grant And I'd like to turn it over to Jerry now to provide more specifics about the grant Jerry. Great. Thanks Pete Why should we care about lead well part of it is is that what you Need to realize in what you probably already know is that lead-based paint is present in homes built before 1980 The reason 1980 is picked is because they stopped making lead-based paint in 1978. That was a federal rule However, as most people know they people tend to hang on to their paint cans for a lot longer than that So that's why they stay homes built before 1980 80 could definitely have less lead-based paint in them And children under the age of six can easily be poisoned by the dust and the chips From lead paint one of the reasons I chose this picture That you can see up there is because of the fact that a lot of people think that children get lead poisoned because they actually sit Down and there's a paint ship there and they eat the paint ships And we're finding out from studies that that's really not the case As much as what you think most of the time what happens is that children get lead poison because of lead dust It's either from remodeling improperly that causes the dust or just even simply Opening and closing older of windows of older homes and that creates dust It falls into that little trough called a window well and the window is open and the kids look out the window They put their hands there and they tend to put their hands in their mouths more than Older children and adults do and they slowly get poisoned The reason that we should be concerned is because poisoned children have problems with learning growth and development that can affect their whole life next One of the reasons I chose this next one if you Can take a look is a bell graph and and the biggest biggest thing I want you to understand about this bell graph is the fact that Most people's general the average IQ level is about a hundred points What they're telling us with lead is the child who gets lead poison even at a very very low level or even any lead in their Bodies at all causes lower IQ levels. So, you know, you're thinking well, why why would this affect me? I'm not I don't have any children under the age of six I don't live in a pre-1978 home Well, I tell people it affects us all and the reason it does is because if you get a certain percentage of kids and for us It was about 66 kids in 2003 and 80 children in 2002 of the kids that were tested that had lead poisoning and now those children every one of those kids has a lower IQ level Say they lowered their IQ level by five points the upper graph is the normal graph The lower graph is just showing that if you lower the general population five points IQ level a 57 percent increase in Developmentally delayed kids who just really have learning problems more than anything else We're talking about attention deficit and things like that and who does that affect well That affects all of us because that means who's paying for their schooling and for special education that they need in school because they're Learning disabled so it really behooves us to try to work together and try to eliminate lead poisoning and the goal of the federal government is that we eliminate lead poisoning by 2010 now, I'm not sure if we're gonna be able to make that goal of 2010 But we're working real hard at it and this three million dollars is certainly helping Where is lead poisoning in Sheboygan County? Well, really where it is it's in the city And that's why the award at the funding to the city our target area is the city of Sheboygan However, if there is a lead poison child in the county then we also will do a county residence as well What this map tells us is the darker areas of the pre 1950s homes and the red dots are where the lead poisons Poisonings have occurred and what I really just want to let you know is that and you you've figured it out that it really is Probably from North Avenue up to like Wilson Avenue those that gamut that's what they would call the inner city of Sheboygan and really They say about 65 percent of the homes in the city of Sheboygan are pre 1950s and years ago the best homes had the best paint and the best paint had the highest lead in it This is this problem isn't going to go away unless we renovate these homes Again like Pete said we got three million dollars and HUD wants us to renovate 225 homes over the next three three and a half years We do have an extra six months to complete and clear them But we do have to enroll 225 homes and be in process within three years and we're about nine months into the grant We started in January My role is to educate families the landlords and the homeowners and the community such as you guys I've been to the realtors Association. We've Talked to many different groups led to the lead task force. We educated them exactly what's going on with the community So we work well together. We've gone to the Mung Association We've just been quite a few places in the community and then as far as training goes we not only get the three million dollars It's not just for education and it's not just to renovate the homes But we also have to train workers and our goal is to train or we said we would train at least a hundred workers over these Three years well We've already trained 75 workers and we just conducted another training last week And we're supposed to train them to be led safe abatement workers led supervisors and led risk assessors one of the reasons HUD wants us to train people is because We have to hire people that are certified and know what they're doing with lead because if they go into these homes And they try to renovate these homes and it's not and they're not doing it safely Then they're just going to create more of a problem and we're going to have more poisoning than what we did before so the EPA and HUD is set aside certified classes and certain Certain groups like the Milwaukee lead Information Center are actually certified to conduct these classes and We've tried to recruit some of the contractors in the area and just landlords just about anybody who's interested To be a lead safe abatement workers and supervisors There are many landlords who like to work on their own properties and even if they don't want to work for our grant We just we really want them to be able to work safely with the lead and not poison kids any further Then the lead risk assessors We already have two risk assessment companies that we're working with with the city of Sheboygan One is Lakeshore lead consulting and Bob Day is the head of that and then we're also working with Cardinal environmental And they have four risk assessors at three to four risk assessors that we're working with that conduct our lead risk assessments Why Sheboygan you're probably thinking why did the federal government pick little Sheboygan considering there was only about 30 or 35 that were awarded in the whole Country last year well one of the reasons is because we've had a really strong community led task force And we've had this for about 10 years and who sits on the community led task force as partners for community development the schools the Sheboygan clinic both hospitals the Sheboygan housing authority city development ourselves And we just kind of proved to the federal government Which is what they want to see is that we're we work well together a long time ago? When I first met Pete and we went on Visits together of lead poison children No one told us that city and county government weren't supposed to work well together And so we've always worked well together then Donna came in on the mix and she was just as supportive as Pete And I were so it really was a good mix and I think they saw that our lead poisoning rate again It's no shock that we were only second to the city of Milwaukee when we applied for this grant, and we used 2001 statistics, so we have gone down considerably But it's still not where we need it to be and we really We had about 8.9 percent of the kids that we tested were lead poison which amounts to a now about 66 of them again the same thing lower IQs and higher You know schooling for them housing stock. I talked about that 65 percent and also When we applied for the grant 41 percent of the homes in the county are pre 1950s as well One of the things that the state has really commended us on is our great public health lead poisoning prevention program The state wrote us a glowing recommendation and that really helped. We've been in existence for a long time More boy, I've been in for 11 years and it's been longer than that that it's been in existence and also We work well with our WIC program my office is right next door to WIC and we do screen all of our WIC children Which is proven that they they do have higher prevalence of lead poisoning and the state really knows that and notices that we work Well together the history of success with city development Pete and I again like I said we work together a number of years ago on a head project The state of Wisconsin actually was awarded some HUD money and we worked well together doing renovating Probably about five or ten homes. That was just a small portion of what we get today Of course, but we proved to them that we were able to handle that money and we were able to renovate those homes And of course we have a strong section 8 housing program which is out of the federal government as well So I think the lead under the leadership of Donna Littke that is really Commended us as well that we were able to get this grant Some of the guidelines that I just want to kind of give for the grant just in case you have some of your constituents asking you about it One of the things that I guess I was a little surprised about is this grant is just not for the poorest of the poor It's for low to moderate income people So take a look you can have a family of four and make $50,000 and still qualify for this grant And you're thinking well why would that be well you may be able to afford to buy your own home But after you've sunk all your money into the down payment and trying to make the house payments It takes it takes some money to replace windows window replacement. It can be expensive And so a lot of times these families can't afford to renovate their properties the way they should be renovated And if they apply for this grant they may qualify The house of the grant first of all we have applications for tenants and landlords And they have to fill out an application obviously the landlords fill their portion out if they're if it's Owner investor property and if it's an owner property, of course, they fill out the entire application qualifications For the program first of all HUD wants us to recognize that children under the age of six are the most That are going to have the highest risk for lead poisoning So one of our qualifications for this grant is that you need to have children under the age of six or If you have a pregnant woman working with the public health program because we have a strong prenatal care coordination program And we work with pregnant women and obviously they're going to have their babies and live in those homes So that's one of the reasons why We have that as a qualified that can be a qualification as well Or if it's a daycare an in-home daycare Or if it's a vacant unit unit and you agree to list your unit with Donna lucky for the section 8 housing The other thing is is the income guidelines, of course You can't make a hundred grand a year and stand still qualify underneath under this grant So you have to have you have to be income qualified as well once we go over the application and verify that they do qualify then we send one of our risk assessors out into the into the unit to actually do a full risk assessment and they actually go through the home and With the assistance of something called an XRF machine they're able to detect wherever the lead is and then they also do a visual assessment because we do not treat the lead where it's Where the lead painted it is intact lead paint. That's intact on these There's probably lead paint in these walls, but it's not chipping or peeling so it's not causing any problems But as soon as you start renovating that's when it's going to cause problems So they actually look to see where the paint is in poor Condition and that's where they write their their recommendations as to what needs to be done with this house in order for it to become lead safe Once they write the recommendations then Pete comes into play and Pete looks at actually looks at their recommendations and writes up an Order specification the spell what he would like to have done with the house And then his secretary sends out these for bids to all the certified lead contractors that we have in the area at this time And then he allows like two weeks for them to bring their bids back, and then he takes the lowest bid Once he does that then there's there's a bunch of red tape in there with the city I know that and he tells me that they're just about ready And then my job is to actually relocate the family and what I need to do actually is that those the people that whose houses are Being worked on they cannot be in the home while the whole while the work is being done And that's a federal guideline that they're telling us they cannot be in their home So we have actually Leased out two furnished apartments at the old Fox crop departments Which are now the old Creek apartments on Union Avenue, and we put them up into that Apartment for the week it usually takes about a week for the work to get done and the work process is the contractor usually comes in on a Monday and Starts the work. He usually takes Monday Tuesday Wednesday Possibly Thursday to do the interior work He gives me a call and then I have to actually go out and do some dust-wipe sampling and send that overnight to the lab in West Dallas and then they call us the next day to let us know if the dust-wipe samples have come under HUD Specifications they have to meet a certain they have to meet certain guidelines for window Well sills and floors and the reason we do this is because again the contractors just can't remove a window and leave Their mess sit they can't just pull up carpeting and leave their mess sit They actually have to clean up the mess and they have to do it in a safe manner and the way We're going to be able to prove that is by doing dust sampling and then when the dust samples come back below the HUD standards Then we actually call the family and tell them that it's safe to go back into their home We do give them an incentive as well How does it had encouraged us to give them an incentive so that they do stay out of their home? They're not allowed in that home Pete and I aren't allowed in that home Only the contractor and his workers allowed in that home when the work is being done and the incentive that we have come up with Is that we give them a $50 grocery store gift certificate and that seems to be a pretty good incentive Most of these families are just thrilled to get that $50 and just by staying in a furnished apartment They're they're doing okay and then the other thing that we're looking to do is to Put some of these homes into a lead registry the state has also developed a lead registry Where they can be awarded a one-year or three-year up to a five-year ten-year lead safe certificate? And our goal is to give them a three-year lead safe certificate for the homes that have lead poison children So that there's the standards on those are a little bit more strict and a little bit more costly Things have to go into that home. How does telling us that we can only put $10,000 into a home? Well, that doesn't amount to a lot Especially if it's just a single family home and what we're actually ending up doing is pretty much replacing the windows But I can tell you of all the years that I've been in in public health and worked with lead poison children I would say at least 90% of the kids that have gotten poisoned It's been because of the windows because those if you've looked in older homes They're wood windows and they're painted and you open and close the windows and the window jams inside The what went through the weather through the wet through the cold through the snow everything that tends to chip and peel and dust Falls into the window well and you can't even clean it that well you try to clean it But sometimes it's not even any better than beforehand whereas nowadays if you've looked in in the newer homes It's all vinyl and you can clean it real real nicely. Well, you can't in the older homes. It's all wood The light actually soaks into the sill The bid process again Pete is the one who goes through that the cost limit per project the contract agreement Did you want to say something here Pete go ahead? We also as Jerry mentioned before we put up an average of $10,000 per unit So if you have an upper and lower flat which is a lot of units in the city Sheboyin we can put up to $20,000 of lead hazard control money into that unit and That money is used strictly for lead hazard reduction activities as Jerry mentioned many times It's window replacements will take old wood windows and have them replaced with final windows and And there's some miscellaneous painting and and that sort of thing depending upon each house If the cost of that runs over $10,000 we do have the luxury of our community development block grant funds we have rental rehabilitation loans and owner-occupied housing loans or we can put some of that money into the process as well the lead hazard control monies one of the incentives that we had for people to apply for this program is if At this point if we put $10,000 into a home if that if it's an owner-occupied unit and that Owner-occupied continues to own and live in that property for five years that loan is forgiven after a five-year period What we do is if there's more than $10,000 worth of work that needs to be done We will supplement our regular community development block grant program Which is a loan and that loan is dependent upon the income of the owner-occupied some loans are deferred payment payable When property is sold there are other loans that are installments where they make payment each month That just gives you an idea of The amount of monies that are being put in into the property Just to give you a quick quick number and I'll let Jerry continue is that in The first nine months of this year. We did some calculations today. We have closed by closed We have signed paperwork for 25 units 11 of those units are owner-occupants and 14 are rental properties We are going to invest 264 thousand dollars in the community with lead hazard control money that has also we've been able to Match that money or put an additional hundred sixty eight thousand dollars of regular community development block block grant monies into these homes For not only lead hazard work, but also maintenance item code violation problems within units So we will do things like replace roofs Upgrade electrical systems furnaces that sort of thing. So in the first nine months of this year, we've invested over four hundred thousand dollars into the city of Sheboygan and We're projecting out. Hopefully by the end of this year just in our lead hazard control program We hope to invest over six hundred thousand dollars into the community Go ahead Jerry. Sorry. Oh, no, that was good Next And this is a little bit about where we are at with not you know Pete mentioned numbers, but just as of August 10th There's no Secret in the city of Sheboygan or in Sheboygan that if something is free people are going to go for it And we've really not had any trouble with getting applications In fact, we probably are in the 160s now of how many people have applied 11 units were not eligible either. They didn't have children under the age of six They didn't have grandkids coming over or they just were over income and they just didn't qualify and one unit actually there was no lead found in it so Like Pete had said earlier I just want to clarify a little bit what you had said Pete with the with the land If it's a landlord the tenants don't have to live there for five years But the landlord has to own that unit for five years and one of the incentives for that is Because we don't want them we don't want to pump all this money in and then they sell it to make a profit is what that's why we're That's why we say they have to have it for five years. Go ahead. One of the reasons why we talked about that forgivable loan after five years is a lot of the work that's done for lead hazard control is Paint stabilization and doing a lot of things that are really maintenance type items that after five years There's probably a good chance that some of the painting would have to be redone in that five-year period We're trying to make these units led safe for primarily kids under six at that point in time We also know that these the homeowners and landlords will have to continue to monitor their units and make necessary repairs each year Just a little update on the numbers right now. We have as of today's date a hundred and sixty-two applicants in our office Which is over a hundred is a hundred seventy five children under six years old that live in these units There are many other children that are over six that are under 18 over six under 18 that live in these units We don't have those numbers for you tonight, but there are many families and many children that are gonna be hopefully positively affected by this by this program and our goals Our goal in 2004 was the minimum that HUD required which was 11 because they felt that they they set their goal low For HUD simply because you really have to get your program off the ground And I can't stress enough how well run the city development is with this because there are many There was a county that was awarded in in Wisconsin a grant a year ago And they came to us and asked us how to run the program They wanted to look at our policies and procedures They still weren't even off the ground and so of course there was a red flag there for their county But we've not gotten nothing but Good remarks from the federal people that were running our program well Biggest thing is is that? We're not concerned about meeting our goal in 2004. It's 2005 and 2006 and it's we've got our work cut off for us I'm not gonna Say that we don't but I think we can make the goal if We work smart what one of the things that we're doing is Jerry mentioned red tape before I guess I guess what we Call it is we're trying to make sure that every Applicant is eligible and that we know if at the end of the day if there's monitoring Which will occur from the federal government that we are the city Sheboyin is the recipient of the grant We are the responsible party for the dollars that are going out of the office So we do make sure that applicants meet income requirements and that that all the other work that's being done is is handled in a proper manner Where do our referrals come from well obviously if you can take a look there from every aspect that you can possibly imagine We get them from our prenatal care pro program We got some from the media when the Sheboyin press first announced that we got this grant the realtors have done Pretty good job of trying to refer people of course It's a great selling point if someone wants to purchase a home and it's pre 1950s and or even pre 1978 and they're thinking boy It's kind of in bad shape They can talk to them both this grant and that's a nice selling point for them as well The Mung Association has really helped us out with among people trying to help them fill out applications and talking about this grant Religious organizations St. Clement's Church has been wonderful about announcing things for the Hispanic people Head start has sent things out in their flyers and definitely that's a great population to get it to and we've worked well with their health educator over the years Right away in January is able to talk to the Apartment Association with Donna Lutke and Diane Liebenthal to get the word out to the Landlords about this program and there's a There's quite a few landlords Which is what we want and word of mouth of course in Sheboygan probably works the best one neighbor said this was a great program She had her house renovated now. We've got the neighbor down the block doing it as well Department of city development and the Sheboygan housing authority have you know been our great greatest cheerleaders for this program obviously and the Hispanic Latino task group and Weatherization programs is partners for community development. They have also very much highly recommended on this program and tried to get People to apply biggest thing for you guys to know is that if we do the 225 homes like we said we were going to do We will get funded some more so 225 homes is just a tip of the iceberg and when it comes down to it It's about the kids and that's why we're working really hard because we who doesn't want the kids to be as smart as they can be and We shouldn't have lead poisoning It is a hundred percent preventable and there's no reason if we don't work on these homes that we can't get it down to zero by 2010 or maybe just a little later Any questions Just so you know I mean if you put latex paint and like I said I'm sure these walls have latex paint But underneath there's probably lead paint and you're fine with it because you're not remodeling and you're not being you're not Generating the dust but what we're finding is that people yeah, they over they paint their windows I've had a landlord who had a child with lead poisoning. He he repainted the window. That's what he did with it the window Well, I came back and did a dust sample. It was higher. It was higher than when he first started So it's not the answer and we're finding the studies are showing that it's just more economical verse You know based on energy and all those other things and lead that we just replace the window so not only are we As far as lead hazard control work, we're making houses lead safe But I think we're also keeping the housing stock where it should be and hopefully in some cases increasing the values of the properties in the city Hope that answers your question After let's say six seven seven years after someone goes through the letter pavement program and they sell their home Is there a follow-up to the new owners? In any way, let's say, you know a young family moves in Goes to the program moves out seven years later and young family comes in and you're nearing the period where you may have to look at that House again the the risk assessment that's occurs before we actually do work on the property It's a it's typically a pretty thick document and that does run with the property So that is given to the homeowner with instructions that typically when a property is sold there is a lead Disclosure form is for in real estate and that Document would go with that so it would be hopefully the new owner would be knowledgeable in where the lead was and And things that should be monitored and that sort of thing so yes And that's part of my role too is when when we close the property part of my job is to make sure Not only the tenants because even though the tenants may move out in in a month They might move into a property that's in worse shape I had a I need to make sure that they understand where lead poisoning can come from and where Deteriorating pain is and what it looks like and what happens then I also educate every landlord They they get a booklet on how to deal with lead paste paint base paint safely I send them a letter telling them even though at this point in time their home is led safe They need to do yearly inspections and even you know just be diligent about looking at the paint to be sure It's in good condition because the only way to make a home Totally led safe is would be to level the entire home and start over and we say we're not going to do that This is a beautiful home. There's nothing wrong with this home We just need to be educated about how to deal with lead base paint safely Anybody else if not, I'd like to thank Pete Shboyin County Department of Health and The housing authority for being here tonight and showing us the program. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Thank you And just once again Once again it just shows the sharing of services between the city and the county Okay, if there's nothing else I entertain a motion to adjourn Motion was made second it to adjourn all in favor Contrary carried