Residents told the Waterloo City Council on Monday that flash flooding, storm‑sewer debris and long‑standing blighted houses are creating public‑safety risks and called for faster enforcement and infrastructure work.

The issue arose during public comment when Megan Butler, a resident, said Campbell Avenue and Arden Street "have been having experiencing a lot of flash flooding whenever it rains a lot," and asked what the city plans to do. David Dreyer, another resident, urged the city to camera and clean storm pipes, saying the sanitary system is inspected but the storm system rarely is.

Randy Bennett, Public Works division manager, told the council the city has upgraded systems over the past decade and "we've made a lot of improvements on the sanitary sewer side," but cautioned that when "you have that amount of rain in that short amount of time ... there's not a system that's going to be able to take that." He said the city has invested "more than 80–90 plus million" over the last 10 years on sanitary and separation projects and that a few combined‑system locations remain.

Bennett also said crews have been reassigned recently to citywide debris removal and that street sweeping is "a little behind the normal" schedule. He said the city is looking at sending crews to clean catch‑basin tops after heavy rains to remove leaves and sticks that can plug drains, and that the city aims to meet its MPDS permit cycle of cleaning basins two to three times a year.

On blight, Beverly Cosby and other residents named specific properties they said were unsafe or overgrown. Council and staff asked residents to provide addresses: "Marty's here. Marty's just taking those addresses down," the presiding officer said, and staff promised to route reports to code enforcement. The council described the code enforcement process as a multi‑step inspection, notice and lien/demolition procedure and said properties owned by out‑of‑state LLCs are often slower to remediate.

Troy Everts, a property owner, described a separate utilities dispute in which he says the water utility left a "dead stub" service at his driveway and is insisting he remove it or face a charge. He said removing the stub would require expensive permits to dig under a four‑lane street. Council members and staff agreed to follow up directly: Council member Ray Foyce asked to exchange contact details with Everts so staff could respond.

Council did not take formal action on any of the items. Staff said they would follow up with residents who provided contact information and that code enforcement would inspect named properties.

The council closed public comment and proceeded with its agenda.