Dan Hoffman: 0:10

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Rouse Review. I'm the City Manager Dan Hoffman and with me is the PIO Sarah Fry. Hello, Sarah.

Sarah Frey: 0:17

Hi, Dan. Hi, everybody.

Dan Hoffman: 0:19

All right. We have, we're going to go kind of on location here in a little bit. We're going to step outside, uh, and do some leaf. Uh, a little thing about leaves, uh, since it's that time of the year. Uh, but before we jump into that, uh, let's talk about what's happening at Council tomorrow. Now. I won't be there. So Deputy City Manager John Piper will be sitting in my place. But it is a full packed meeting and this is, you know, if you have ever thought about attending a City Council meeting, this might be one to attend because we have a special meeting right up front at 5 30, 30 minutes earlier than our normal start time. Senator Timmy French and Delegate Bill Wiley will be there to talk about, to Council about their priorities, uh, for the coming year, this coming session in Richmond. Uh, That's going to be something you might want to listen into. Obviously, you can watch online, but it might be great to attend this one. You're going to hear some dialogue between the City Council and your elected representatives at the state level. After that, we jump into our normal, regular meeting, where, you know, we get a few things we're going to work through, nothing too earth shattering. Uh, and then We have another work session, uh, the work session. This time we're gonna continue the conversation about the Green Space Bank, green space fund, whatever you wanna call it. Uh, and we're gonna be talking, or I should say, the city council's gonna be talking about what their legislative priorities are for the coming session as well. So, uh, a lot to sit down and listen to, uh, at the council meeting tomorrow night.

Sarah Frey: 1:57

Sounds like it's going to be a good one.

Dan Hoffman: 1:58

Should be fun. Uh, okay. And we'll take a, and now we're going to hear what's coming up with Sarah.

Sarah Frey: 2:03

All right. One thing that is not coming up but has happened is an exciting thing. S& P Global recently reaffirmed the city's AAA bond rating. Woohoo!

Dan Hoffman: 2:14

So this is the highest possible rating a municipality can receive. This is something that cities all over the country try to get. We are one of only 14 in the Commonwealth, and I think there's only like 400.

Sarah Frey: 2:28

It's a very small number. It's a

Dan Hoffman: 2:29

very, nationwide. So it is a small number for a local jurisdiction. A lot of jurisdictions don't even have a rating. They can't even borrow at the same rates we do. So, uh, this saves us hundreds of thousands of dollars. Uh, I, in fact, I think Close to

Sarah Frey: 2:47

a million of us. Close to

Dan Hoffman: 2:48

a million, uh, every year. So this is, uh, huge for us. And if you're curious about what AAA bond rating, well, it's the fact that we, uh, We keep up our infrastructure. We suck up leaves. When we need to suck up leaves, we clear snow when we need to clear snow. Uh, they like to see us replacing and repairing aging infrastructure like stormwater. Uh, and they look at the overall economic health of the city and The city is in a really good economic spot right now. Um, in fact, I just saw our meals tax numbers for August. Uh, they're up 16 percent relative to last year. Our motel tax, uh, revenue so far is up 31 percent on the year, uh, relative to last year. So, things are, the economy in the city is looking great.

Sarah Frey: 3:34

That's fantastic. And I just want to note that S& P Global who gives us the bond rating Specifically called out that we expect the city's economy will likely remain stable or improved during the two year outlook Due to ongoing redevelopment projects and that consistent economic Activity it is just so important that that is what they're telling.

Dan Hoffman: 3:55

Oh, yeah,

Sarah Frey: 3:56

everybody who buys our bonds.

Dan Hoffman: 3:57

Oh, yeah

Sarah Frey: 3:58

It it's great news All right next up calling all photographers Everybody Has a camera in their pocket at all times and everybody has grabbed one fantastic shot in the last year I know it, but we need your best shots of 2024 to feature in our 2025 calendar that gets mailed to every residence in the city

Dan Hoffman: 4:19

Yep, you all love the calendar.

Sarah Frey: 4:21

The calendar is I think everybody's single favorite thing that the comms department does

Dan Hoffman: 4:25

Oh, yeah,

Sarah Frey: 4:25

period like if I if I didn't put out a calendar I don't think I would have a job.

Dan Hoffman: 4:31

Yeah. When I first got here, there was talk of ending the calendar and I said, if that's not gonna be the first thing I do as city manager is end the beloved calendar. So, uh, yes, the calendar is happening again. Send in your photos.

Sarah Frey: 4:43

Yes. You can figure out how to submit them by visiting www. winchesterva. gov. All right, if you have a little ghost or a little goblin or superhero or a fairy princess who's all ready to go trick or treating, just please be aware the city does not determine the time or the date of trick or treating. It's on Halloween. We also do not cancel or postpone trick or treating. However, I will say typically in this area people trick or treat on Halloween night and if you see a porch light on it's probably a fair game to go knock and expect some candy.

Dan Hoffman: 5:17

Yep. And, you know, if there's really bad weather, just use good judgment. We

Sarah Frey: 5:24

Safety first.

Dan Hoffman: 5:25

Safety first. Yep.

Sarah Frey: 5:27

All right. Last thing. Election day is almost here. And that means campaign signs are all over the place. Yep. Please make sure that they are being put in the proper place. There are some quick rules our zoning department asks us to remind everybody of. First of all, keep them on your property, which means not in the public right of way. All right. If they're in the public right of way, they may get taken by the zoning department.

Bobby Clarke: 5:51

Yep.

Sarah Frey: 5:52

Next, any sign must not be, must be no larger than 16 square feet. Signs may not obstruct any street corners. You need to be able to see if traffic's coming. And you do not need a permit for the temporary signs. And finally, if there is a sign on private property and somebody takes them, that is theft.

Dan Hoffman: 6:11

Yeah, don't do it. Don't mess with the signs, folks.

Sarah Frey: 6:13

So, that is. Even if

Dan Hoffman: 6:14

you see one in the right of way, let us handle it.

Sarah Frey: 6:17

You can call City Hall.

Dan Hoffman: 6:19

Yep.

Sarah Frey: 6:19

The zoning department will take care of it. And that's all I got.

Dan Hoffman: 6:23

All right. Well, let's take a quick break. And then we're going to talk with Justin Hall, who we've spoken before on the program. He's getting up

Sarah Frey: 6:29

there with Perry as far as visits on the show. Yeah, he needs a five timers jacket. Yes, he does.

Dan Hoffman: 6:33

Uh, and, and new to the show, Bobby Clark. So we'll take a quick break and we'll talk to these guys. Welcome back. We now have with us Justin Hall, the Public Works Division Manager, a. k. a. The most powerful man in the city and Bobby Clark crew supervisor of our streets team second most powerful man in the city

Sarah Frey: 6:56

Completely true.

Dan Hoffman: 6:56

Yeah, yes, if it wasn't for these guys, you would not be able to get out of your driveway after it snows Our streets would be clogged with leaves. There'd be potholes everywhere. So many potholes exactly though the world would end There would be no crosswalks

Sarah Frey: 7:11

marked

Dan Hoffman: 7:13

That's an important

Sarah Frey: 7:13

one.

Dan Hoffman: 7:14

All the striping. All that striping folks. Keeping us safe. We're striping a whole bunch of other stuff. Uh, Jessa and I were just taking a nice long walk the other day, looking at parking. Ooh. And line of sight. So, these guys are going to be busy for a while. Today, though, given the time of year, we are going to be talking about leaf collection. Any city that, um, Does this, um, it is one of the most popular services every year because what else are you going to do with that massive pile of leaves? So welcome Justin and Bobby. You can say hi. It's good. It's cool. Hello everybody. All right. Welcome back. Uh, Justin, you've done this like a million times. Uh, Bobby, welcome. Um, tell us a little bit. So Bobby, how long, since we already know Justin, Bobby, tell us about yourself a little bit.

Bobby Clarke: 8:05

I've been at the city 20 plus years, started out in street department and I worked my way up the ladder to crew supervisor.

Justin Hall: 8:15

Interesting fact about myself and Bobby, we actually started on the exact same day. So December 1st, December 1st would be 21 years actually for us. So we've been doing leaf collection for a long time. So did you also

Dan Hoffman: 8:28

also start on the, as a,

Sarah Frey: 8:30

on the street team,

Dan Hoffman: 8:30

on the street team?

Justin Hall: 8:31

I did. Wow. All right. That's that we've we've we have a lot of experience with leaf collection. So

Dan Hoffman: 8:40

Well, let's let's talk about it then So every fall we get the question we get asked the most is when is it going to start and people look for the little? Signs up as to when it's going to happen And then of course it inevitably rains And then people were like, wait a minute, why didn't you show up on the day? And they completely forgot that it rained. When will it happen?

Bobby Clarke: 9:03

We are projecting to start November the 4th. Okay. Projecting. Projecting to start November 4th. But if they fall earlier, we'll start earlier. Excellent.

Dan Hoffman: 9:12

So another thing. It's november 4th is projected We don't control just like we don't control halloween. We do not control when leaves fall. We don't control the

Sarah Frey: 9:23

weather

Dan Hoffman: 9:24

sending up depends on who you ask but the We have to wait for certain environmental conditions to occur before we do this so all we can do is guess November 4th is the target But if the leaves haven't fallen yet, we're not sending crews up to just vacuum up nothing.

Justin Hall: 9:44

That's correct. And you know, it's funny because we asked Jordan, you know, when we hired Jordan, we asked him, you know, Jordan, the arborist, the arborist. Is this something that you can project when the leaves are going to fall? So. He doesn't go out and just like, you know, talk to the tree, tug on the leaves a little bit.

Dan Hoffman: 9:59

Or, you know, fun fact, before

Sarah Frey: 10:02

we started recording, I went down to Justin's office, grab him, check in on things. And he had Jordan in there basically tied to a chair, demanding to know when the leaves are going to fall out of the trees. He didn't get a good answer.

Dan Hoffman: 10:16

He tried. It's nature. Nature never cooperates with us. That's right. Um, so when, how will folks know, how do they know when it will be their streets turn? Obviously they're going to start seeing these leaves come down. They're going to procrastinate like I do and not break them up or bag them for a while. Um, how do we let folks know that, hey, time to get off your butts, break your leaves, get into the curb. How do they know,

Justin Hall: 10:41

right? So there's multiple ways you can find out. We, we will post a website, um, updated, uh, what area we're in, where we're headed next. We also post every street, uh, with no parking signs, leaf collection. We try to post signs a week ahead of time. That will allow you to, um, have time to get your leaves out. But like when you were saying, when we have bad weather, if it rains, we get a little bit behind. We get, we get phone calls all the time. You know, you guys said you guys were going to be here. Where are you at? We're just a little bit behind. We're going to be there, but, um, can we suck up wet leaves? We can, um, typically when we see water start running in the gutter pan, we stop because we're sucking more water up than we do our leaves. Yeah. So, yeah.

Dan Hoffman: 11:23

And that's not what we're trying to suck up. That's right. So, uh, When you make that pass in November ish, is that it? Is that the only time folks come through?

Justin Hall: 11:37

No, we'll be making two rounds. So the first round, Bobby, we typically finish up around Thanksgiving is

Bobby Clarke: 11:44

the first round.

Dan Hoffman: 11:47

So it takes about two weeks or so. Two, three weeks?

Bobby Clarke: 11:50

Four weeks. First round. For the first

Dan Hoffman: 11:52

round.

Bobby Clarke: 11:52

Because they're not as heavy on the first round.

Justin Hall: 11:54

Oh. Why are they heavier on the second round? Once we get to the second round the more leaves are down. They're a little bit heavier. So you get to the larger piles You know once we get started all the leaves are off the tree

Dan Hoffman: 12:07

Yeah,

Justin Hall: 12:07

so once we get through the halfway through the first round majority of the trees are down Majority of the leaves are down and it gets a little bit harder to pick them up. So we go a little bit slower

Dan Hoffman: 12:18

Do you find that in the first and between the first and second round you get, I'm trying to think how to put this, I'm not saying better quality leaves, but you know, there's certain stuff you don't want people to rake up into their leaf pile, right? Larger sticks, trash, that kind of stuff. Do you feel like the first go around or the second go around? You get more junk, let's say.

Bobby Clarke: 12:40

It'll be the first go around. Really? Interesting. Cause everybody's yard's dirty. Once they blow it out, the second go around, it's just gonna be leaves. Just mainly leaves.

Sarah Frey: 12:49

I would have thought the opposite.

Dan Hoffman: 12:50

And it's important to not put big sticks and try to just have leaves in that pile because we use a giant pile. And if you, uh, you know, a lot of folks don't see the giant vacuum, they're at work when the crew comes by or they're still asleep. Uh, but the giant vacuum, we're going to go outside and take a look at it in a second, uh, is the way in which we suck up all these leads. Tell me a little bit, uh, what I'm, what I'm going to see when we go outside and we check out the giant vacuum.

Bobby Clarke: 13:16

You'll see a dump truck hooked to a trailer bag that pulls behind it. Um, typically we've got seven guys on a crew. Um, it's a big snorkel black hose that you'll see suck up the leaves. One guy run that and we'll have guys blowing around the leaves to the back. Um, I got a question.

Dan Hoffman: 13:36

I got a question last fall. Somebody took a picture of the crew coming through and sucking up the leaves. They said, look at all these people. It's a waste. This is a bad look in the city to have all these people sucking up leaves. Why do we have that many in a crew? Because we've been doing this At least 20 years. For 20 years. We know how to do it. We know how to do it efficiently. Why do we, why that many on a crew?

Justin Hall: 13:58

Well, I think anybody has blown leaves in the yard. You play the chase game, right? You start blowing the leaves and it's a little bit of windy out and the leaves just start blowing. Blowing around. So we're kind of chasing leaves and containing them into a small area. So the snorkel can, um, suck them up. So it takes blowers from each direction from behind and front beside to get them all, all the leaves in the, in the right spot.

Dan Hoffman: 14:22

Yeah. And the. And if we had fewer people, it would probably take us longer to clear it. And we do have a window of time in which we're trying to get all this done. Uh, so normally there's somebody you're saying there's four blowers that kind of orbit around it.

Justin Hall: 14:39

Yep.

Dan Hoffman: 14:40

One or two guys actually work in the would you call a siphon? One person will be running the snorky. The snorky. The snorky. That reminds me of the snorkels. The snorky, so that's five. Someone asked to drive. Drive. Um, what's and then it's six. And we

Justin Hall: 14:55

also have a person trailing also keeping the stuff fueled. The blowers and stuff like that. There's nothing worse getting a mile away out of fuel. Yep. You have to walk. So then

Dan Hoffman: 15:07

one support person kind of it trails behind them and kind of steps in as needed or refuel stuff and swaps out equipment as they go. Yeah. So, yeah, we can't just send the entire crew back to the public services campus every time somebody runs out of gas and their blower.

Sarah Frey: 15:23

And Bobby had another good point about what that other person does.

Dan Hoffman: 15:27

It's also for traffic control. Oh, there you go.

Sarah Frey: 15:29

Gotta keep everybody safe.

Dan Hoffman: 15:30

Yeah. Do people. No. Granted, it's not a school bus with school kids on it, but these are still guys that are just out doing their job. Please do not whip around them with your car. Please do not come right up on them. Also, they're friendly guys, all super nice. They're doing a job. If you want to wave high, holler out a thank you, give them a thumbs up. Cool. But They're trying to roll through your street as quickly as possible. So they're not going to really stick around and have a conversation with you. They are a team that's kind of working in unison, getting the leads up as quick as they can. All right, let's go outside. I want to see the giant vacuum.

Sarah Frey: 16:09

I'm so excited.

Dan Hoffman: 16:11

All

Justin Hall: 16:11

right, let's

Dan Hoffman: 16:11

go. All right, we're now we're outside. You might be able to hear from the. The wind and the beeping that's about to occur. Uh, how old is this truck, Justin, Bobby?

Justin Hall: 16:31

Bobby, 2022.

Dan Hoffman: 16:34

Yes.

Justin Hall: 16:35

Excellent.

Dan Hoffman: 16:36

2022. Thank you, taxpayers of Winchester. And the federal government. I think this, I think we might've used fed money for this. I'm not sure. Um, so yeah, what you're going to see is a dump truck. The guys kind of move along pretty slow. How, how, what speed does it move at?

Bobby Clarke: 16:57

It depends on how heavy and how dry they are. We can go faster when they're dry. If they're wet and heavy, it slows us way down.

Dan Hoffman: 17:04

So we're talking like you will walk. faster than this crew moves. So think about how many miles of streets we have in Winchester. These guys have to slowly walk every street in Winchester twice, twice in the fall. Cause don't we do another round in the spring

Justin Hall: 17:23

or later? We go round round one. And once we get done with round one, we come back with round two and that's it. That's it. Okay. All

Dan Hoffman: 17:32

right,

Justin Hall: 17:34

as you can see it's going it gets pretty dusty because the leaves are dry.

Dan Hoffman: 17:37

These are pretty dry. Yeah, it's a nice day out. It's dry leaves. How much of this is just stuck in y'all's hair and beards and whatnot at the end of the day? Oh, you go home really dirty for sure. Let's walk over out of the cloud. Now I'm seeing some safety here.

Justin Hall: 18:00

Yeah, it's all the guy, all of our, uh, employees will wear a mask. mask because you can see it gets pretty dusty. Oh yeah. So once all the leaves are collected, actually this machine chops it up. So the leaves are really fine. We have a lay down yard where we take all of our leaves too. Um, and then we'll take them to the park. Uh, and drop them off so people can compost them. So when do we do that? We, we have some there now. Oh, we have some left there from last year. So there's no idea. There's always going to be a small pile there for, you know, you just pull up, get as much compost as you need. Move forward. That's over back by the dog park.

Dan Hoffman: 18:42

Yep. Awesome. How much power is in this giant vacuum? How is it measured? How is the power of the vacuum measured? Is it like feet pounds per

Justin Hall: 18:59

something? What is it CFM or something like something like that? I'm not sure. But as you can see. See, just the placement of the leaves is really, we want them on the back side of the curb. We don't want the leaves in the gutter pan because if it rains, it's going to go in the storm drains. Yeah. So it's going to cause other issues.

Dan Hoffman: 19:20

So don't put them all the way in the street, folks. It might feel like you've accomplished something by pushing them all the way off your yard and into the street, but please don't do that. How far into over the curb will, will they go though? Cause it, the,

Justin Hall: 19:37

we, we realized there's a lot,

Dan Hoffman: 19:39

he does not. Breach too far?

Justin Hall: 19:40

No, it doesn't. But you know, a lot of times it is challenging because you have a curb and you have a sidewalk.

Sarah Frey: 19:46

Yeah.

Justin Hall: 19:46

So it's again, when we post your area in that week, that's when you bring your leaves out, try to keep the sidewalk open the best you can. Yeah. You don't wanna block the sidewalk. Yes. Do not block the sidewalk. So every area's gonna be a little bit different. Just gonna have to do the best we can.

Dan Hoffman: 20:04

Now, some folks will bag their leaves. Is that more of a pain, or do we just prefer them to be in a pile?

Bobby Clarke: 20:14

No, we'll actually suck the bags up. Oh, really? Yep, because the paper, of course, is recyclable, so we'll suck them up. We'll dump trash cans full of leaves on the curb, and we'll suck them up. up the leaves out of the trash

Justin Hall: 20:26

can. Okay. But we do encourage people, we do want to encourage them to keep the leaves loose if they can. Okay. It helps us maintain fast. And we still have yard waste on Wednesdays. Okay. So, you know, five bag limit. So, if we're not to your area, you can still bag up your leaf compost, your leaves, and we'll still come by and pick it up.

Dan Hoffman: 20:44

limit on yard waste days folks. It's mainly so that we don't have to pick up, you know, the city does pay by the pound for everything we have to take out to the landfill. So, uh, we would, we'd like to keep it to five bags each time we do yard waste. We don't want to pick up yard waste for commercial companies that just leave their stuff out. So we do leave it to Uh, to five bags, but if you've got more than five, maybe hold one back, uh, you, and if it's a special situation, of course, feel free to give us a call and definitely do not put them in a plastic bag.

Bobby Clarke: 21:20

Please do

Dan Hoffman: 21:21

not put them in a plastic garbage bag. That is, we will not. Do we even do anything if they're in a plastic bag? We just let it be, right? Yep. We'll leave it alone. We'll leave it alone if it's in a plastic bag.

Justin Hall: 21:32

And remember too, if you see a big pile of leaves on the road, um, don't park on top of the leaves every year. We get that call that a vehicle's on fire because they, you know, as you You get home from work, your engine's hot, they pull out your exhaust, and your vehicle's good. So that's another reason why we don't want to put them in the street as

Dan Hoffman: 21:50

well. I've actually never thought about that. So yes, do not put them in the street because someone's car might catch on fire. So then the guy following up the rear here, make sure the street stays clean, blow everything off in a nice neat fashion. And

Justin Hall: 22:08

occasionally if it gets too bad, we have a street sweeper that will come once we're done with the street. to clean up the smaller amounts, but

Dan Hoffman: 22:16

how long will one of these blowers last? We'll get a refueling

Bobby Clarke: 22:20

about one hour,

Dan Hoffman: 22:21

one hour,

Justin Hall: 22:26

but it uses a lot of fuel.

Dan Hoffman: 22:28

Okay, well, I'm going to go. I want to go grab the snorky and suck something up here real quick. You sure you want to do this? I do. I do want to do this. Um, okay, so we're going to, um, do we have anything else we need to cover? Where can, where can people find out what zone they're in and all that kind of jazz?

Justin Hall: 22:50

If you go to our website, we'll have all the zones listed. Um, zone 1, 2, 7. Like I said before, we're going to tell you what zone we're in now and where we're headed next.

Dan Hoffman: 23:00

Yeah. And be flexible, folks. Remember, this is all weather dependent. Uh, and if you see folks out. We move. You're going to see them doing a lot of different things. Blowing up the leaves, sucking up the leaves, refueling stuff, let them do their job. They're going to try to do as quickly as they can. And the more you help us out, putting them on the curb, not in the street. Don't bag them up in plastic. Uh, make sure you don't have big sticks in. Trash, or dog poop. Please, keep all those things out. It helps us work a lot cleaner and a lot faster. Justin, Bobby, thank you very much. Uh, I'm gonna go use the snorky. And I think, I think I might have to During leaf season, I might have to do a shift with these guys, kind of like I did with trash. So,

Justin Hall: 23:47

all

Dan Hoffman: 23:49

right. Thanks guys.

Justin Hall: 23:50

Thank you. All

Dan Hoffman: 24:03

right. And that is it for another edition of the Rouse Review. I'm still the city manager, uh, Dan Hoffman and PIO, Sarah Fry, uh, standing out in the street. Watching a giant machine suck up leaves.

Sarah Frey: 24:16

It was the highlight of my day

Dan Hoffman: 24:18

Please if you are on a platform where you can't see the pictures check out this on the city social media And until then we'll see you around City Hall