As of June 1, 2025, a total of 8,134 households remain on the Lifeline Plan. Customer contact volume via phone calls and emails received was 96% over forecasted level per day in May, with 57,711 total customer touchpoints.
Hello #Detroit !
I will be live reporting the Detroit Board of Water Commissioners today at 1pm for #DetroitDocumenters
11:22 AM Jun 4, 2025 CDT
This meeting will actually be five consecutive committee meetings. The agendas for each can be found here:
Meeting has been called to my order and first up, the Finance Committee!
Agenda and minutes from the last meeting were approved
There’s only 2 voting members of the committee right now so it’s a little weird for one person to call motions and the other one just approved it
Now 2025-114 for some Software as a Service work from City insight, LLC $820K
2025-115 is up next for sewer cleaning and inspection, $4.5 million
Approved.
2025-116, with a company called Universal Contracting for “As-needed traffic control”
$1.8 million. Approved
2025-118
Bob Maxey Lincoln, one hundred fourty-four thousand dollars
Approved
2025-121, for Britta filters and pitchers for residents whose water is being worked on
Approved
A shortfall in collections exists, as reflected here
The department paid the city for a new inventory model, that apparently is more accurate and useful than the outdated one they used before
54% if active receivables re more than 1 year past due
Wow I messed that sentence up pretty hard, but you got it.
Capital improvements Committee was called to order before going back and handling a retry of public comment for the finance committee
Only commenter today had complaints about the existence of a drainage charge of Detroiters.
Answer: everyone charges for drainage, they just roll it into property taxes or general water bills
For public comment, Meeko Williams called in and invited the formal meetings back to the city, and complained about the catch basins being unserviced leading to inadequate drainage during rainstorms
Doing the meeting shuffle again, Customer Service committee meeting called to order and recessed back to Cap Improvements
Now onto the Capital Improvements budget vs actual expenditure report
Customer Service committee starts in earnest. Agenda and minutes approved
In public comment, a caller asked if the EasyPay program will open the books to get more applicants to raise the expenditures of the program to match that funds budgeted
Next caller asked about help with a high bill and was referred to the website
They had about double the calls they expected. Not a great sign. They also say 82% customer satisfaction
Now moving on to the Human Resources Committee.
Agenda and minutes approved
Now the Government Affairs Committee.
Agenda and minutes approved
The committee will vote to adopt a new policy on Artificial Intelligence. The policy can be found here:
https://dwsd.legistar.com/gateway.aspx?M=F&ID=9ab73e8c-0e08-4db8-a525-d62d4324b394.pdf
This requires a lot of thought and consideration and everyone should be checking these things out and thinking to themselves what they think is ethical. Also pay attention to what’s left out
Quick example they say it will be prohibited to use AI to depict actual events. Can they make up an event and create an image? If they need images, will they no longer use artists or stock companies? Is that wise m
By far the quickest presentation of the whole series of meetings, and perhaps the most consequential
Well folks, this closes my coverage of the DWSD meeting for 6/4/2025. Learn more about our coverage of local meetings at https://documenters.org
‼️IMPORTANT: If you believe anything in the coverage today is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@outliermedia.org with “Correction Request” in the subject line
Excuse me, I meant the Detroit Board of Water Commissioners committee meetings