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Q&A
Council Member Restler discusses DDC's infrastructure planning and maintenance initiatives
5:28:28
ยท
4 min
Council Member Lincoln Restler engages in a discussion with DDC representatives about the department's efforts to improve infrastructure planning and maintenance across New York City. The conversation focuses on DDC's Advanced Infrastructure Management System (AIMS) and its role in coordinating with other agencies to assess and budget for infrastructure needs.
- DDC has developed a pilot program using AIMS data to create dashboards for assessing infrastructure needs, starting with public libraries.
- OMB has allocated $3.5 million for DDC to automate this process and develop a survey tool for on-site infrastructure assessments.
- Restler emphasizes the importance of honest infrastructure assessments and holding OMB accountable for funding necessary improvements.
Lincoln Restler
5:28:28
Jeff, I won't give you a hard time about the jail anymore.
5:28:31
I do appreciate that you and Elizabeth both try hard to work with us.
5:28:35
This is you've got a pretty impossible task and I recognize that I'm telling you both that I want you to go faster and work less hours.
5:28:40
And there there is some potential contradictions in that.
5:28:45
So that aside, thank you for being a good sport.
5:28:53
I want to ask about AIMS and something that we've talked a little bit about before of how do we do a better job as a city of planning for kind of infrastructure replacement and making sure that we're budgeting smartly for those needs.
5:29:07
My understanding is that DDC has begun kind of informally to develop some best practices here and work with city agencies.
5:29:15
We are also, as you know, looking at some legislative solutions on this front.
5:29:18
Could you speak to how DDC's process for kind of how it's been going so far for DDC to coordinate with other agencies and understand the infrastructure needs, infrastructure improvement needs and replacement needs and how OMB is responding to actually fund those needs based on your all's determinations of how we need to be better maintaining and planning for our aging infrastructure?
5:29:45
Whoever is the right person, I'm sorry, I was just picking on Jeff before.
Rachel Laiserin
5:29:48
That's okay, I'll take that.
5:29:50
So we're very excited.
5:29:52
We mentioned it in the testimony.
5:29:54
DDC has been embarking on an advanced capital planning process.
5:29:58
So we started as a pilot last year where we basically took the AIMS data and kind of manually combined it with some other public sources of data and DDC information on the capital portfolio that the city has and we created a dashboard.
5:30:17
And it's been really, we've already seen some insights from this and we did this for the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Public Library portfolios and you're able already to see just in this manual process some really interesting information I think about their portfolios that we think is going to help guide how they make decisions about which projects move forward going forward.
5:30:42
We are now moving hopefully into the next phase.
5:30:45
OMB allocated $3,500,000 for us to build out two phases, that portal to automate it a little bit instead of the manual process we did as a pilot but to fully automate that so that we can do that on an ongoing basis.
5:31:01
And also part of that funding will go towards the development of a survey tool.
5:31:07
We are still advocating for some additional staffing to have people to go out and perform those surveys.
5:31:13
But the idea is they would use this newly developed survey tool and go out to a select number of buildings and really identify what are the deficiencies in the building, what is the state of repair so we could share that back to our sponsors and so that they have more information.
Lincoln Restler
5:31:30
I think that would be I'm really pleased that you all are taking the initiative to pursue this and I think it's a very important thing for better maintaining our aging infrastructure across the diversity of our city.
5:31:42
I do have to say I think it's preposterous that chair Brooks Powers is asked to fund every park and playground in her district even if it hasn't been touched in fifty years or sixty years and is severely dilapidated.
5:31:55
If she doesn't intervene and take an initiative with her very limited capital dollars, then nothing's gonna change.
5:32:01
And we need to have an honest assessment from DDC, I think it's important, an honest assessment from DDC and perhaps other agencies about the state of our infrastructure, and we need to hold OMB accountable to actually fund it and provide the resources that are needed for us to ensure that our parks and our playgrounds and our bridges and and everything in between is well maintained.
5:32:23
And so I appreciate you all putting some real thought into this, taking initiative.
5:32:26
I think it's it's a innovative and an important development for city government, and I hope that we can find ways to tie OMB's hands a little bit more to make sure they actually put their resources behind the assessments and surveys that that you complete.
5:32:39
Thank you very much and thank you chair Brooks Bowers for the second round.