Mar 02, 2021 City Council on 2021-03-02 2:00 PM

Good afternoon, and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It is 2.02 p.m. on March the 2nd, 2021. We do have a quorum present, so I will call this work session and council meeting to order it at that time. And so the first thing on our agenda is comments on the consent agenda. Do we have any? I don't think we do, but I want to double check that. Hi Mayor, it's Rachel. No, sir. Okay. Thank you. Just wanted to make sure. So okay. That takes us to our regular questions for council regarding the consent agenda. Councilmember Meltzer? Yes, I'd like to pull item F for a brief presentation for the benefit of the public. Okay. Is there something in particular you wanted to spotlight in the presentation? Not just the playing core of it, how it works. Got it. I'll be interested. Thank you. Councilmember Armitage. This is just a question for now about consent agenda item A. I'm pretty sure I know the answer. I just wanted to confirm before voting yes. And my question is, are these, these cells are existing cells, correct? Are not the future cells that the city applied for a permit for? There you go. Good afternoon, mayor, members of council, Brian Berner, you're correct. This is for, this is basically the last contract that we need to expand the existing sales. It's basically piggybacks off the action that was done last week. This is a CQA to ensure that the densities of the soil in the cell that we're building is done pursuant to our state permit. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any other questions for staff regarding the consent agenda? See none one more time. Okay. Then that concludes that portion that takes us to our work session reports. And so I'll call the first item, which is work session ID 201-886, receive report, hold discussion and give staff direction regarding an update to the city of Denton COVID-19 response. Good afternoon, mayor, city council, Sarah Keuchler, chief of staff. This is our standing work session update on the city's response to COVID-19. We do have a local order that is in effect until March 31st, and we did have a presentation plan today and we're still going to go through that, but we do have some updates that have just come out from the governor's office. So first we would like to have Dr. Richardson, he is joining us, be able to provide a situational update and then I'll give you a brief verbal overview of what we learned from the governor's office just within the hour. And then we'll turn it over to have Jennifer Becker and Gary Packin give an update on their plans for city facilities and programs this spring. And then lastly, just a quick update on eviction prevention assistance. So I'll jump right in and introduce Dr. Richardson, I believe he is on the line with us. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Dr. Richardson. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the council's time today. Just going to hit the highlights of COVID-19 transmission in Denton County, talk a little bit about the vaccine update for our county and current efforts, and then open it up to questions. I know questions are always an important part of our interaction. So just to kick off and show some highlights, I'm going to share my screen with our dashboard. This is the DentonCounty.gov dashboard for COVID-19 statistics. I'll just highlight almost 12,000 active cases. We are going to be reporting today at 4 o'clock, we're going to be reporting 13 additional deaths. Lots of cases to report today as well. I will note there's some, that's the negative portion of the presentation where we're just not done with COVID-19 yet. Still transmission, still active cases, thousands of active cases, still pending deaths to be reviewed. A lot of COVID-19 epidemiology still to do in Denton County, but I will highlight some improvement. I think that's important as well. So we talk about ICU, lots of people still in the ICU and we still have minimal available ICU beds. So again, only 12% of ICU beds in Denton County are available. I will note a good trend. This is our hospital COVID-19 percentage inpatient capacity. This is the governor's order, the GA32, where he did set the threshold at 15% for TSA region E. This is not that. This is Denton County. So I just want to highlight, this is our hospitals, not the Metroplex regional hospitals. But we are under that 15% mark. That's very important. We are trending down. I think that's important to note. We were at yesterday 12.8% as a daily count, percentage of inpatients. So people in the hospital, 12.8% of people in the hospital had COVID. And the rolling average down to 12.6. So really, really good news. We're really, we're half of what we were a month and a half ago, two months ago. So that's, I think that's excellent news. We want to continue to see this trend. That's very, very important. We will talk about the onset of illness that really corroborates the hospital activity. So if we go down to weekly onset by age, I'll caution that the prior two bar charts here lag because of ongoing, because of ongoing reporting. But you can see the week, January 31 through February 6 and before, again, the trend is down and that is mirroring that hospital activity. That's really good news for us because we believe that our epidemiological investigations are on track with that inpatient hospitalization metric as well. And so there's a lot of fidelity between those two metrics. And I think that's helpful then. It's still, we're still here. It's still an issue, but it is improving. And if you go to the bottom, we talk about active case counts. You go to the legend at the bottom, you can click out of recovered and deaths. And you can see that our active case counts, again, trending down. So really three metrics all are trending in a direction that is encouraging. But you can see we're still at a level of almost 12,000 active cases. This is about where we were on December the 22nd. So we're at our previous, kind of pre-Christmas level, which is still too high. But again, it is improving. And so before I go to, before I go to vaccine, any questions about current COVID-19 activity in Benton County, I'm happy to entertain those. >> Okay. Any, we'll take a couple if there are any questions. >> And then I know we've got to get the vaccine. >> Yes. Councilman Meltzer. >> Yeah. The good news locally and nationally, yesterday, the CDC director warned that now is not the time to lift COVID restrictions. Do you agree with that and why would she say that? >> I think prevention remains key because the vaccine rollout is ongoing. Preventive measures, I don't think there's any question at this point, the physical distancing and mask use is important. That's a good public health practice. I know the governor is rolling out some relaxing of restrictions today for the state. And so I would just note that as vaccine is rolling out, it's still for everyone's compliance for public health practice and preventive measures, I think physical distancing and mask use is still prudent. I'll leave, I'll leave the regulations to the elected officials and certainly that's their purview. From a public health standpoint, I do think the CDC is correct that we still need to be careful as we're rolling out these vaccines to race to herd immunity. >> Okay. Thank you. One other question. Councilmember Armitage. >> Yeah. A couple questions. One... >> Well, you're going to have to, if you can consolidate them, just that's, I'd appreciate it. >> Okay. So this is a consolidated question. Are you seeing an increase in Denton County in double masking? And are you seeing, and can you speak to the presence of additional COVID variants in the county? >> So on the double masking, I think anecdotally I've seen it. I think it's, it just varies in environment. It kind of depends on where you are and who you're with. But in our office, we don't double mask necessarily, but we have very, very strict compliance with masking within our office and our day-to-day operations. So typically we're single mask use. I've got my single mask today, a new one for the day. We haven't double masked as a practice necessarily, just as public health practitioners in our everyday work. And oh, the variants. Yes. So we sent out a press release a couple of weeks ago for our first B117 variant. Those genetic, the genotyping of those variants is somewhat sporadic. Not every test is cultured and typed for a variant. So sometimes there'll be a sampling at a reference lab for variants. And Denton County did have a variant that was identified in a sampling at a reference lab. And I think we mentioned that maybe two weeks ago in Denton County. So since not every test is gone, we can't speak to, not every test is typed. So we can't speak to all of the variant activity, but it is safe to assume that variants are active all across Denton County because we're seeing it coast to coast. So I would say the assumption is that variants are here and that coronavirus variants are here to stay. I think that's just virology. Okay. Thank you. And then to speak to the, to the vaccine. The vaccine. So today we have another clinic, both first and second doses at Texas Motor Speedway. Right before this call, we had, we performed just under 7,000 today. I think our goal is somewhere in the mid tens because of invites and vaccine on hand. We will be performing another clinic on Thursday and Friday. Thursday is a second dose clinic for all of our Moderna vaccines that are now eligible. So we received a Moderna shipment this morning. So those invites began about lunchtime today. So those expecting a second dose of Moderna should be getting their invite today. And then we do have another clinic on Friday that will be a Pfizer clinic and it will be for both first and second doses. And then next week we anticipate to continue. We think next week will largely be Pfizer vaccine. And I know a lot of people have heard about the J and J, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. We were not allocated a Johnson and Johnson vaccine in Denton County this week. I can't speak to next week. It'll just be interesting on what we're allocated from the state level. We did get the largest allocation of vaccine to any one hub in the state this week with Pfizer vaccine. So other counties, for instance, Dallas, they have several hubs. They have the FEMA site, they have UT Southwestern, Parkland, and their health department. But we're the only hub in Denton County. So we had a very large allocation. Again, the largest in the state of Texas in, I believe, Houston, Methodist was the second largest allocation of vaccine. So we remain, I think, well stocked with vaccine as we roll this out. We're excited for additional manufacturers and additional allocations to private providers. I think that's going to be important moving forward. And as vaccine manufacturing increases, then we anticipate that the state, either later this month or early next month, will increase the eligibility in phases. I don't know when that will be or what phase that will include, but it lends to reason that with these additional manufacturers and vaccine allocations that we're going to broaden eligibility. Again, don't have a specific timeline on that, but we anticipate it in the coming weeks. Okay. Any questions? Yes. So I'll ask you to expound on it, and then we'll go to Councilmember Johnson. Could you touch on briefly the J&J vaccine? There's different numbers associated with it. It seems like there's a lesser effect on the front end, stronger effect on the back end, but I could be absolutely wrong, and categories aren't that wrong, but I'd ask you to speak to that. And if you could speak to the second shot kind of concerns, because I want to address that or at least speak to that for those that have that concern, I want everybody to go back. Sure. First of all, the J&J vaccine, according to the FDA and the CDC in the trials that were performed as part of their emergency use authorization, those trials showed that hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID, so mortality and morbidity, were very, very similar to the mRNA vaccines, both the Pfizer and the Moderna products. So the good news is very severe illness and even mortality is curbed at essentially the same rate as mRNA vaccines. It was not quite as good at just preventing infection in general. Again, it is one dose versus two, so there are practical implications there that are very important for controlling disease, but the more severe effects of COVID-19, this vaccine appears to be as effective as the mRNA vaccine. So it's an interesting difference. The efficacy for preventing infection not quite as good, preventing severe illness and death within just a statistical error of the same as the Pfizer and the Moderna, which is marvelous. So it looks like not quite as good preventing illness, excellent at preventing severe illness hospitalizations and death. Okay, got it. And then Councilmember Johnson. You indicated that the numbers were slightly down, are we attributing that to vaccine or we're attributing it to better health purposes, we're doing better with our health practices here, or is it a combination of both? It's a combination of a lot of things. I think the snowmageddon really had an unintended consequence that I think we can all celebrate as our pipes were bursting and I think my wife was texting me, I've got a plumber at home right now. So we all kind of went through that together. The good news is we were all home. We couldn't get out. We essentially quarantined for a week. That's really good in the world of communicable and infectious diseases. Everyone's staying home when it's really cold. There's a silver lining to that snowmageddon cloud, I think, and that was very helpful. I do think also that the deployment of vaccines beginning around Christmas and really accelerating in the last three weeks, I do think that that's having an effect. And I'm hopeful, just what you said, that our health behaviors, physical distancing, trying to avoid the temptation of mass gatherings, making sure we wear a mask, I'm hopeful that that compliance has contributed to the success in the downward trend. Okay. I see you, Paul, I just want to make sure. Any other questions? Okay, then I'll go back to you, Paul, Councilmember Melton. Thank you. First, just to share an experience that I got my first shot at Collins Complex, second shot at Texas Motor Speedway. I think those in both cases about the best organized anything I've ever seen, and I'm including fast food restaurants and you name it. So if you ever get tired of the public health business, I imagine Sarah could give you something useful to work on. Too kind. Too kind. Seriously, just impressive. I hear, because I watch the news a lot, that herd immunity is estimated at somewhere between 70 to 85% of the population being vaccinated. What percent of our population do you estimate has been vaccinated so far? Sure. According to the DSHS website, in fact, if you'll give me a minute, I'm going to look that up. While I'm looking that up, I do have that marked. I would say herd immunity, you're right. I think experts want to see herd immunity between 70 and 80%. I think that's important. I'll remind the council, herd immunity is both people who have been ill and recovered and those vaccinated. So it's the combination of those two variables to get you to herd immunity. The statewide website shows Denton County as 103,000 residents having received one vaccine and 45,000 having been fully vaccinated. So one vaccine is good. We're at 60,000 cases that we know about at public health. So let's just call it 170,000 total cases. So if you do that quick math, I'm going to embarrass myself with 880,000 population. So if you believe that, the minimum herd immunity for Denton County would be hovering at about 19%. The big debate is what is overall prevalence and I won't bore the council with epidemiological methods and talking about prevalence of disease, but there is some discussion. There's lots and lots of cases of COVID that went untested and unrecorded. We don't know that denominator. And so some people estimate it's three times your caseload. Some people estimate it's five times the caseload. That's a huge difference. And so there's lots of questions about herd immunity. We have, I'll just be honest, one man's opinion, and I'm giving that just, I'm being perfectly honest. One man's opinion would be herd immunity sometime late summer, early fall for Denton County. And that would be the combination of cases plus vaccine. Obviously your case rate as it declines is wonderful, but you're slowing your herd immunity down on that variable. As you're ramping up vaccination, you're really increasing that variable. So we want fewer people sick, but it does slow the herd immunity rate. That's just math. So there you go. I think we're at about, again, the bare minimum, we're at 20% herd immunity. We need to get to 75. We could be much higher than that based on prevalence. And again, I won't, we won't get into the statistics of that. Okay. One last question. Is there a question for Dr. Armitage? Yes, a question about vaccines and a comment. First the comment and a thank you. Thanks to Denton County Public Health and DCTA and SPaN for getting together and coordinating bus service and shuttle service to the bus service to Texas Motor Speedway. That was really an incredible collaboration and really, really exciting. Last time when you spoke to us about the Texas Motor Speedway operation, you know, you, you acknowledge that one limitation was for people who don't have vehicles. And you know, now that that whole significant hurdle has been with significant effort overcome. So thank you so much to all of you for that coordinated effort. My question is, you probably heard that Judge Jenkins has, has posited that when the Johnson and Johnson one-shot vaccine comes in, he is considering prioritizing certain populations that might be less likely to come back for a second dose, such as, you know, people experiencing homelessness, you know, people who are incarcerated or, you know, are addicts in treatment. I'm just getting that from him. I'm wondering if there's talk about that when in anticipation of the Johnson and Johnson vaccination at the county level and if you've heard anything like that at the state level. I haven't heard anything at the state level and that's a, you know, I think there are some advantages to a one dose vaccine and certainly people that are more transient in nature and more difficult to find in a second dose scenario. I think that's certainly an option. I would note that we made a commitment to the state of Texas as a hub that we would not cohort different populations. That's why we're at Texas Motor Speedway. That's why we really ceased to move around the county. We're really in the volume business. So I think that's a difference of an approach and I think both have merit. Certainly finding those populations that are underserved, uninsured, those populations certainly bear a burden and bear a burden of risk and there's no question about that. At the same time, this commitment for these hub sites are why we're getting so many allocated. So the state, we're sort of following the state rules and because of that adherence and compliance with their intent of the vaccine hubs, we're really getting a lot of vaccine. So we don't want to jeopardize that. We again, we've made that commitment should the state health department change their guidance will follow in that compliance as well. But we're really reaping the benefits of following their guidance to a T and because of that, we got about 27,500 Pfizer this week, the largest hub in the state. So I think they are, I don't want to say rewarding us for that compliance, but certainly they're seeing the numbers that we have in the throughput. And my staff, for instance, today I'm doing several meetings on Zoom. Public health is pretty much move shop to Texas Motor Speedway. And because of that, I think we're vaccinating more than anybody in the state, but it comes at the price of we really are trying to move as many people through the process as possible. When we have a third manufacturer, even a fourth manufacturer, I don't know how the state will change their guidance, but we will respond as they instruct on that. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Richardson. Always grateful and always great to have that information. So thank you very much. And Mayor, I just want to say before I go, Chief Hedges and Chief Lehart with the fire department, both of those gentlemen deserve a round of applause, as do the first responders that have helped us at TMS. Our partnership with the City of Denton, hypercritical, hypercritical, and really, your city staff have been invaluable to the success. So I need to say thank you publicly, I need to acknowledge them, and just the staff that I see every clinic day at TMS, we couldn't do it without you. And that partnership, the employees, their dedication. I was out there at 5 a.m. this morning. They're out there. I saw them out there before daylight. And it's really in a time where we're all looking for positivity and unity. I can find it before dawn at a mass vaccination site, and it's pretty cool. So I just want to say thank you officially. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. And we will make sure we pass that along. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh-huh. Thank you, Dr. Richardson. Okay, so I'll take back over the presentation from here. I just want to provide council an update on what we heard from Governor Abbott at 1.30 this afternoon. We have not had a chance to review his written order, so we are going to want to go through that a little bit more carefully just to look at the fine print of what is all in the order. But I can tell you a quick update from his verbal conference. So he did issue an executive order, GA 34, this afternoon. That order will be effective beginning next Wednesday, March 10th. What the order does is rescind a number of his previous orders in regards to COVID restrictions and regulations for the statewide level, including that beginning next Wednesday, all businesses may open at 100% capacity if they choose. They can still have restrictions in place at a business level if they would like to, but it allows for the ability for any business to open at 100% capacity. In addition, beginning next Wednesday, the statewide mask mandate will go away. However, his order will strongly encourage everyone to continue to take those prevention measures as you just heard Dr. Richardson talk about, but there will no longer be a mandate at the statewide level. Also what we heard in the press conference is that he will be preempting any restrictions at the local level for COVID-19 unless COVID hospitalizations have risen above 15% for seven straight days. And that's at the hospital region for the state. So if you remember from previous conversations, we talked about the TSA hospital regions, that's what they were basing the bars off of as well. That's basically the entire DFW Metroplex area. So if that were to happen, if we were to increase in hospitalizations again, above 15% in this region for seven straight days, then any county judge in that region could take action to impose additional restrictions, whether that be in terms of capacity for businesses or requiring face coverings and so forth. However, he did make it clear that there could be no penalties. And that continues kind of the practice that he had in his previous orders, that there could be no jail time or no penalties for an individual who does not follow that if a county judge has the authorization and then takes that action. So that's kind of the very quick overview of the conference that was held this afternoon. Again, we want to go through it a little bit more carefully with our legal team to look at that GA 34 order, and we'll also email it out to all of council as well. And then from a city perspective, city management will be reviewing what practices we would like to recommend to take in our city facilities and programs, but we just need some time to be able to review and discuss that and bring our recommendation back. So I'm happy to try to answer any questions, or I can take them and we'll give written answers back if I cannot answer them right now. Great. Mayor Pro Tem Davis. Thank you, sir. And like you, I haven't had a chance to review the text. But in his press conference, I think he used the word most that he intended to rescind most of his executive orders. Some of those pertain to how we do business, you know, how we meet as a city council, the things that we're allowed to do some changes to how Toma works just a little bit, Texas Open Meetings Act. Do we know if any of those things are implicated, or do we still need to read a little more closely? I need to read a little bit more closely unless I'm looking at a couple other staff members here because he is about six or seven executive orders numbered off that are rescinded, but I don't know which ones they're referring to. So we'll definitely get that back to council. Okay. Any other questions for staff? Councilmember Armitage, Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah, so it's been only a little more than half an hour. So I know that there's no news yet of challenges to this from municipalities, but I myself will be looking at and hope that staff could keep us informed if y'all hear about any challenges on these preemptions to local level. Okay. Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah, I'll just observe with all due respect, this governor blundered previously in the exact same direction. It's in direct contradiction to the explicit advice of the CDC director. So I hope that we'll take whatever latitude remains for us to protect the people of 10. Okay. Any other questions for staff? Okay. Seeing none. Thank you, Sarah. Okay. Thank you. We'll go into the next part of the presentation, which is in regards to plans for parks and libraries for the spring. So let me skip ahead and then I'll turn it over to Jennifer Becker, who has a couple of slides on public libraries. Thank you, Mayor and Council. This is Jennifer Becker, Director of Libraries. And again, we did create this slide before the governor's announcement today, but our plan for reopening, we had created a phased reopening plan at the beginning of the COVID situation. And our current plans are this spring, we will still remain in our phase two, which is limited critical services. We have curbside hold pickup, appointment-based services, and temporary hours. We're looking forward to phase three, which would be limited core services, where we would open for walk-in service. Again, that capacity has yet to be determined based on the governor's order. But looking at a grab and go browsing, adding some limited services, and further expansion of temporary hours. Next slide. So a little bit more detail about our phase two services, which is something that we've been in for quite a while. We did move to phase three services last year twice, but with the rise in cases, we did pull back to phase two. So phase two includes contactless curbside hold pickup, so our materials have been available to the public throughout the entire COVID crisis. We added computer and laptop internet station appointments late or early last year, copy and fax appointments. A few things we just reinstated or added were, because we were closed for walk-in service for much of last year, those prize winners for the 2020 Summer Reading Challenge, we have sent out some emails to those prize winners to try to get them to pick up the materials. And then we also reinstated our homebound services for those senior living centers that we had provided that drop-off and pickup service for materials with. We are looking at adding evening curbside hold pickup hours at each location, as well as appointments to browse collections. One of the things we are hearing from our customers is, and this is also how I choose materials, I like to look at the cover. I do judge a book by its cover, and we have a lot of patrons who do, and they really want to come in and look at our shelves, and so we are looking to add those appointments in mid-March. But that's where we're looking forward for library services, if you all have any questions or anything to suggest towards me. Okay, questions for libraries? Councilmember Meltzer? I imagine you've, first of all, I know these are very thoughtful gradations, and I imagine you've selected the timing based on some metrics that you expect us to hit, but surely the trigger would be those metrics, not merely the turning of the calendar page. So could you share with us kind of what the metrics are that would govern the change to another phase? Because this is an ever-evolving situation, what we're looking for right now are consistent case rates, as well as hospitalization rates going down. We don't have a specific number or percentage that we're looking at at this time. What we're looking for is just consistent rates going down. We are hoping also that the introduction of the vaccines is going to help reduce the rate of infection, which will help us open again in the future, but that's why we've been trying to control everything with appointment-based services and the curbside services. Let me just respond. We like the rates going down. I don't think anybody here is an advocate of sending them back up, so I wouldn't be in favor of a policy to send them back up. I would suggest that we pay attention to guidance from the CDC about when it's time to reopen. Okay. Do you have any specific numbers in mind, or just want to make sure? It's a do or don't, right? So the guidance so far is now is not the time to reopen. So let's look for a signal from the public health authorities that now is the time to reopen. Otherwise, we've already been through this movie, right? When things were getting better in the summer, people were like, "I guess it's over." And it resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, because really an incorrect response to the data. We weren't at a position where by opening up, it would go away. Opening up made it worse. So I just think we should go with the public health expertise rather than the calendar. I don't disagree. I just was trying to get staff some clarity as far as you mentioned a database number decision, but I didn't hear a number that you, or a data point that you would point to to give staff some... At the extreme end, herd immunity, which we've heard is 75% combination of people have been exposed and people have been vaccinated. And we are thundering toward that at probably the best clip in the state. So now that's the most conservative view. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Mayor, if I could add to Jennifer's answer, she answered it very well, but staff does consult with the Denny County Public Health Department as we're kind of looking at when maybe a next phase of reopenings would occur. And this next phase of reopenings is still limited services and access and still all of the precautionary measures in place. And so just based upon what we've seen in the trends of the number of the case counts and hospitalizations coming, and then the projections moving forward out through spring, we had thought in consultation again that May 1st would be our recommended next phase of reopenings. If circumstances change, we could always come back to council, but at least wanted to give you a little bit more behind that thought process of what the recommendation is to move into kind of that next phase of reopenings in later this spring. Yeah. No, and I've seen a number of experts provide that. Dr. Fauci himself mentioned summer-ish time, and so a lot of people are talking about that timeframe. So it's not unique. Just wanted to try to give staff some direction on what the, you know, if there's a thought from one of my peers to a specific level of specificity to kind of pass that along so that you have that in your evaluation. Councilmember Armitage. Yeah, I just want to strongly agree with what Councilmember Meltzer said. You know, there's a pretty direct contradiction between CDC guidelines and the new governor guidelines, so that puts all local public health experts and city staff and councils in a real bind. You know, for me, I too want to follow the CDC advice, and I'll say as far as timeline, you know, one thing that science is really clear about is that we can make all the projections that we want about when we think it might be safe to reopen, you know, based on where we see the numbers going and where experts see the numbers going, but even the experts say you don't know until you get there, and so I would caution against expecting anything. You know, we hope for the best, but we respond based on the data in terms of reopenings. Okay. And that would be my strong recommendation, and that we err on the side of extreme caution, because we know how costly it is for human lives, most importantly, but also even to businesses, businesses that, you know, reopen with 100% and have no safety net and experience difficulties. You know, they've got no safety net once the statewide ordinance starts going away. Okay. So anyway, thank you. Thanks. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem Davis. Thank you, Mayor. My question to staff is along the lines of my previous question, but more about our specific preparedness and what we're ready to do. Some of our system organizations, we saw the school board at our meeting yesterday, they're meeting kind of a hybrid format, right, where they're in the same room, properly separated, that they have zoom capability and they have people able to call in that kind of stuff. The county commissioners have been meeting that way for some time. And then if someone had to be at home because they're quarantined or traveling or whatever, they're able to appear via zoom. If the governor's orders are changed in such a way or that we read them to be changed in such a way that we can't do things exactly as we are right now, are we set up to do or can we pivot pretty easily to a hybrid format like that? I mean, there are a majority of us that are in the same building. Like if you look at your screen now, most of the people on the screen are in the same building at this time, properly distanced. Can we do something similar to what the commissioners and the school board do in council chambers and still make things safe for the public? Not a big crowd of people gathering in the council chambers. They can still call in, we can still appear basically via zoom just in a hybrid way. There probably is a few different options that we can put together and I know we've done this exercise before just in preparation. So we just need to go back and kind of revisit with our DTV team and technical what those options are and we could bring those forward to council if you wish. Mayor, can I ask a follow up of the city attorney? Yes, sir. And I believe I know the answer, but for folks kind of following this conversation along, our city charter and our code allows us to have a single member, for instance, appear telephonically. Is that correct? Under our amended rules procedure, that is correct. Okay. And is there anything about, you know, not a majority of members, but you know, members who would need to appear telephonically or through video conference. Is there anything in the Texas Open Meetings Act that prevents that, that, you know, one or two folks, as long as it's not a majority, would appear via teleconference? It is currently permitted right now, so it's not an issue under the Texas Open Meetings Act. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Any other questions for staff? Chief Member Baker. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. What, you're talking about the libraries on the voting in May, some of the, so the voting places will be at libraries, how, how's that's gonna work? We've hosted voting, we've served as voting sites for the past several elections all year, the last year, in the North Branch Library, which is one of the, one of our popular locations. That room, when you first come in the front doors, is the meeting room, and that's where the voting is. There is a second set of doors having access to the library. So North Branch is really easy to deal with. South Branch is the other location that pops up as a voting site, and at that location, we have a meeting room and we direct voters to go into a staff entrance to enter and exit through there to access the meeting room. And then if, if the library were open, then anybody could come on through the front doors of South Branch, but that's how we've been doing it in 2020. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate that. Okay. Any other questions for staff? Seeing none. Okay. I'll return to the presentation, Mayor, and introduce Gary Packin, our Director of Parks and Recreation, to give you an overview of what the Parks Department is tentatively planning for May 1st. Again, what we're seeing based on circumstances now is they are doing some preparation work so that if this does occur beginning May 1st. Mayor, City Council, Gary Packin, Director of Parks and Recreation. Gary may be muted. Mayor, City Council, Gary Packin, Director of Parks and Recreation. First of all, I'd like to thank staff for all the work over the past year, working through our challenges and then obviously through the cold weather as well as City Council members for helping out with the warming stations, water, and so forth. So appreciate all that. But I guess it's been a few months since we chatted with you specifically about our COVID reopening plans. We had planned on reopening in March for our outdoor programs and then anticipated further reopening of some of our indoor facilities in our pools later in May. So I have this broken down into various sections of our department. Our first one is our beautification and educational and event services team. From an events and a program standpoint, we continue to do virtual programming wherever we can, whenever we can for various age groups and areas within our Parks and Recreation Department. We do have some limited in-person outdoor programming opportunities, whether they're community cleanups, our Great American Cleanup obviously is a big opportunity for us to help beautify the city. And then we have some small person events that people can go out with their families for treasure hunting, Easter activities, those types of things that we're offering. From a facility opening and rental standpoint, we did have park rentals open March 1st for 10 or less people. So if it's just a small group that wants to go out there socially distance in a pavilion, that's kind of how we were handling that. But anticipating that to be reopened in May or whenever the governor's orders would provide that reopening and then May 1st, the Denton Civic Center would reopen with modified hours. And that would be on a case by case basis with capacity limited, not at maximum capacity. That was our original intent. From a special event and permits purpose, we've been working through the mayor's office in regards to requests, special requests from the community. We have had a few that have been approved for April and May and then we have a number for later in the summer and the fall that staff is communicating with those event planners such as arts and jazz and those types of activities that have been pushed to the fall. So that's something that we'll continue to work on with those community partners. From athletics, as I mentioned earlier, we're reopening our outdoor programming that did take a break during the winter season because of the winter weather. But we had planned on opening our spring sports in March. So the ones in italics are new programs that were not offered in the fall. So ultimate frisbee, soccer, corn hall, adult flag football tournament and some golf scrambles that working with some of our community golf facilities. All of these programs that were offered following our return to play initiatives as well as CDC recommendations. So we are all taking that in consideration as part of our reopening plan for our programs on each specific sport. And then in May, we would continue to move forward with indoor programming. So basketball and volleyball, we partner with UNT on those efforts. That's contingent on UNTs allowing us to use their facilities. So that's still something to be worked out moving forward from an athletic standpoint. From aquatics, starting in May, we will slowly start to ramp up and expand our exercise programs and our lap swimming, limited admission to our public swimming and swim lessons will be added. That's something that we haven't offered since the pandemic. And then the summer we anticipate to open Waterworks Park in the Civic Center later in May, getting closer to Memorial Day. We have a significant amount of seasonal staff that we need to hire for our pools. With us being closed last year, a number of our returning staff have gone on to other opportunities. So they had employment while the pools were shut down. So we do have to hire more people. And it is not something that we can do in a short period of time. So we typically start that effort in January, and really ramp that up during the spring break time. So we're at the point now where we really start to push hard to get staff on board, train them, recruit them, and get them ready and prepared for Memorial Day opening at our aquatic facilities. And then our recreation centers, our North Lakes Recreation Center opened up last June. MLK followed just after Labor Day. Those remain open with limited services. We've had had community feedback in regards to reopening of Dina and the Senior Center. We plan to open those with modified services starting in May. The Senior Center would be for specific targeted programs and some pre-registration for those programs and then drop in as well. And then our expansion of our rec passes currently right now, you have to have an adult at the facility so kids cannot just come in after school. So we would expand rec pass activities to allow kids to come in during drop in times when the facility is open that they could participate in recreational programming without an adult supervision. Drop in child care starting in June at North Lakes Recreation Center specifically. Facility rentals beginning May 1 at our rec centers. And then a limited summer camp starting in June. We would expand that to add one additional location and reduce the total amount of our participation. Typically we have about 48 campers over eight facilities. This year we're looking at approximately 26 over nine different facilities. So we would offer that program but on a restricted basis at this point in time. Again all of these are following our return to play efforts as well as CDC recommended guidelines provided by the CDC and we use those as guiding tools for our return to play and our reopening efforts. With that I'll open up any questions or comments from city council. Okay and before we take questions I want to note Gary that I was an all pro sport flag football expert and well recognized around the DFW area. So with that mayor pro Tim Davis. My only comment Gary is to thank you and your staff and please express this thanks to them. People think it's really easy you know you put kids out on the playground you stick them out on the soccer field they run around and do their thing you throw open the pool and kids just do their thing. Y'all have been so thoughtful about you know soup to nuts every single thing that you do in that department and it's a it's got a lot of exposure for the city and it also has a lot of benefit for the city and I know that our folks really appreciate all the thought and care that you put into making them safe in those activities. They're clamoring for them to be available again if our kids go another summer without the city pool we're just gonna flip so I I really appreciate all the care and thought that has gone into this. Thank you very much. I'm sure they appreciate those comments Councilor Armitage. I was wondering if you could speak to what you've learned or what you feel like the department has learned in in facing COVID exposures in athletics programs or at rec centers and what the response is to that I was wondering if you could speak to you know the plan moving forward if any of that has shifted if there's a you know COVID positive in any of these ongoing programs. We do have protocols that we have outlined based on various situations and we've used that throughout the fall when we've had cases to our best knowledge we haven't had any any issues within our facilities that have started within our facilities we feel like just following those calls back up they've come from you know outside areas and homes or whatever when we've had those positive cases and we've notified everybody of those protocols and what's moving moving forward so we could let them know there was there was a positive case during that program and it's been it seems like it's been handled very well the transition for those programs if they had to be delayed we rescheduled a team if it was for a soccer program or basketball whatever it would be that was rescheduled and we moved forward and had you know pretty good support from our our community and the flexibility that they're willing to take during these times and people are still interested in kind of getting back to some programming especially the outdoor program at this point in time. Okay any other questions for staff okay seeing none I do have one note Gary and I guess I think it's something it may be something we need to bring back but is there do you need authorization or spending authorization from us looking at the hiring component obviously things can pivot but you do need to get rolling hiring and so is there a spending authority that is needed I guess Miss City manager if we because I just need to understand if we need to authorize maybe two months or something guaranteed so we'll bring you on we'll train you up you're paid through your training and then if we have to cancel you're still get paid some some fee or something to make sure we get the staffing we need I just I just don't want to be caught short-staffed if the health situation allows for us to open. Mayor thank you I think the staff Gary knows we're going to go ahead and recruit and do what we need to do to get qualified guards and staff camper camp leaders camp supervisors on board with after we visited and thought about you know what was the right time to open we believe you know when the camps start opening in May the pools start opening we should be able to offer those programs even if it's more limited as Gary mentioned with the size so I think we're good but I will tell you that we if we find ourselves in a situation where we need to do something like that we will bring it back before council to ask for that that leniency to be able to pay if we're not able to continue the program right okay very good okay any other questions for parks okay thank you thank you and then mayor just one last part of the presentation just a quick eviction prevention assistance update and so we've showed this slide to you before in terms of the different funding sources and programs that are available in Denton county just a couple of quick updates and this one highlighted here at the United Way Denton county's program with Denton county through the consolidated appropriations act that was considered by the Denton county commissioners court this morning so if it was approved and that program will be rolling out this week and there'll be some additional communications that we'll send to council as well and help to push out to the community and then United Way of Denton county also expects their ESG cv2 dollars to come online this month in addition to the programs here in Denton county and the second slide shows here a statewide program called the Texas rent relief program that was recently established and this program provides for significant assistance of past due rent as well as rent moving forward up to 15 months max assistance if qualifying for this program and there's some more information here but what is really key and I added this slide is for those that are needing assistance with eviction prevention encourage any tenants or landlords and to go contact the United Way of Denton county and go through a pre-screening process and United Way will actually help to look at their individual circumstances and help to match which program or funding source meets best their individual need and so that is available that pre-screening process through United Way of Denton county's website is shown here on the screen and then if someone also needs assistance and filling out that initial form they can call United Way of Denton county staff at the phone number listed here on the screen so that will help individuals in our community and in Denton county help to be connected to those available resources and which are best for their circumstances since there are multiple programs multiple regulations that is something that United Way of Denton county is offering to the community okay thank you presentation all right any other questions for staff okay councilmember armature now that there are some additional programs for eviction prevention and rent relief can you clarify how many of the programs available to people in city of denton can be dispensed how many of those funds can be dispensed directly by United Way you know versus how many require a second party one of the other partnering non-profits has that changed recently each program and funding source i believe is set up differently so for example the esg cp1 that the city of denton received we went through a competitive process and awarded those directly to four agencies and denton county and united way of denton county was not one of those and then for the united way denton county's program with the county through the consolidated appropriations act i believe non-profit partners can access that as well it does not have to be through the highway denton county and i will ask danny shaw or cortney cross to confirm if they are on the line this is danny shaw community services sir you're correct the information on the different grant programs most of these are we take kind of a not no wrong door approach so the person can go into any one of our local agencies and access the different funding sources for eviction prevention okay thank you any other questions for staff seeing none okay thank you sarah that concludes item a of our work session reports and uh that we'll go into item b we may take a break in the middle here but we're going to keep going uh but this is item b id 21337 receivers report hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding processes impacts and results of service delivery during the february 2021 inclement weather event by by the following departments information technology solid waste customer service and animal services mayor this is um sarah i wanted to just kick this off if you don't mind by saying the staff um was asked to do a sort of an internal review of what worked what didn't work and what would they suggest for the future um they are going to share with you the things that did work and the things that worked well so i want to make sure that's a point that this is not just about here's what didn't work and this is why it didn't work but there were a lot of things in our city that our staff did and did very well and should be commended for and hopefully you'll see that in their presentations the first person you're going to hear from is the one of our new department heads her name is alicia miney and she is our director of information technology she comes to us from the city of irving she's also worked in city government and two other cities as well and has a long history of working with information technology and we're so glad to have her and the next one is brian borner you'll hear from we're solid waste then i believe christopher foster and perhaps ryan adams on customer service followed by randy weinberg in animal services and we'll let lisha take it over okay thank you and welcome lisha and and uh hope all your hope hope you're settling in well i am thank you so much for the warm welcome good afternoon mayor and council let's get the presentation up here all right so i'm here to talk about what happened to technology services during our weather event the last few weeks ago and our expectations for technology services is that we maintain system and communications continuity and services through any event we expect no disruption administrative services we expect power outages to be mitigated through healthy uninterruptible power supplies and generator services we expect all the services we provide internet devices applications to remain available and stable to all customers we expect our public safety nine one one and radio communications to remain available and stable to our public safety personnel first responders and citizens and we also want our support services to our customers to remain available and responsive so the reality versus expectations is that everything worked pretty well um our workforce was already doing remote work well due to the pandemic albeit many of us were experiencing power outages at our homes uh so choppy internet power outages made it a little rough to work from home um services though at the city such as applications public safety and utility systems all the services we provide remain stable and available for the most part uh we are we continue to pay our personnel pay our bills purchase goods and services uninterruptible power supplies ups and generators mitigated most of the service disruptions caused by rolling power outages was which was great uh and we maintained a responsive customer service uh so the not expected versus reality i i divided this up into areas of what worked and what didn't um so we quickly assisted customer service with setting up a phone like you uh to supplement water metering customer service calls to release some of that pressure uh public safety communications reported an average of 529 calls for service per day and this is over the comparable period from last year's daily average of 346 dispatchers and it staff came in to fill their shifts and support requests and snow and ice regardless of personal challenges and situations which i appreciate it very much um and what didn't work so well we had our teasely radio communication tower that failed to auto switch to generator during a rolling outage which caused radio system disruption however police department switched to a county channel and fire department used existing backup channel so our our backup alternative options were working well for us uh automate automated dispatch call alerting and related networks switches did go down during the rolling power outages so fire did go to radio dispatching another great alternative option for us so lessons learned and looking forward all in all technology services stayed pretty stable and available we would like to collect collaborate with facilities going forward to consider including those radio tower generators and their maintenance schedules of other generators in the city we have developed backup channel procedures with the county sheriff's office for public safety staff to use in case of radio outage outages going forward and both the chiefs are very supportive that and then we'll be looking at to on that network around the fire stations and to architect that resiliency that we need to prevent their automated alert system from going down but all in all i was very pleased with our services going through that weekend event and that's it and i'll be happy to answer any questions okay very good um there we go thank you questions for tech services councillor moutzer uh first of all you know to tackle uh what uh sarah hensley said just overall the selflessness and professionalism staff through all this is something you know we must never forget but you know this we got to go through this and uh specifically on technology i think it's uh so great that you know our first responder communication stayed up now you you say that customer service stayed up i know we're going to talk about customer service but i feel like it kind of needs to come up in both sessions or sections of the session um you know we we've moved to this for good reasons kind of distributed home-based way of doing it my impression was that customer service was not up and that people were getting a message saying so at a time when you know there were there's equipment blowing and you know extended outages and so on beyond the rotating outages so my uh first i want to i'd like to know you know do you share that assessment and second could you imagine uh that there'd be some kind of plan b way of keeping customer service going if we were ever in this situation again i mean it's it's kind of weird that we're it's covid and snowstorm and so on but i think we're planning to stay in that distributed home-based system so what would what would what would the plan be be do you think going forward well uh being so new i would have to really evaluate our our automated call distribution system uh deeper uh and uh then i would also need to figure out if we are utilizing the same automatic automated call distribution system customer service system through dme water metering and you know customer if it's all the same so i have to study that a little bit further council member no sir but certainly there's always more room to consider resiliency planning and that's something i definitely want to do through all of this afterwards and i neglected to say welcome welcome thank you so much thank you sir okay uh any other questions seeing none okay thank you very much appreciate the presentation okay that brings up solid waste is that correct yep that is correct um mr mayor member of the council brian burner uh solid waste director with the city of denton i appreciate the opportunity to talk about our winter weather response uh to the council this morning so give me just uh this afternoon give me just a second to uh share what i do want to talk about today is how we went about developing our response plan to the inclement weather event uh talk a little bit about what happened across the entire north texas region in relation to public and private solid waste providers and then some of the results we've been seeing as a result of our our decision to curtail collections during that week all of our decisions were made under the mantra of safety first you may not be aware of this but the solid waste industry is statistically speaking is the sixth most dangerous profession to be involved in across the united states you are probably more likely to be injured or killed in a solid waste incident than most other opportunities or professions throughout the city structure so it's important for us not only to think about our employees and the way that we respond but also our customers we looked at our customer the question was can we you know in this winter event what we'll be able to place a car car at the curb with a minimal minimum potential for injury and we're thinking slip trips and falls you know it was a very icy out with the snow out also with the very low temperatures we had exposure issues we want to make sure that that the citizens of the city of denton remain safe secondly we had to think about our operators you know was it safe to be out on the road we operate some very large very heavy pieces of equipment we did not want to be a menace to the population we didn't want to present issues related to property damage nor did we want to be involved in accidents and so again can we protect our equipment is it safe to be on the road and then again from a slip trip and fall standpoint or exposure standpoint we have to think about our employees so again were we able to do this from a safe standpoint you know we actually started planning this our response early in the week on February 8th we're a little bit of weather nerds we don't like rain because it gets very messy out at the landfill it makes it difficult to collect trash and then we also have some issues with recyclables when we get into it to wet weather so again we were constantly watching the weather and it was sort of that that perfect storm alignment and early that week we started thinking about cold weather weather contingencies what is it going to be doing with the fleet how are we going to operate the landfill we actually started discussions with our public and private counterparts directors in other cities talking with the leadership of our different waste haulers contract haulers that haul into to the city trying to find out exactly what their service needs were going to be should something happen and again we were weatherproofing equipment early on so that when this came about there was not issues with result to any loss in the fleet our response actually to curtail operations occurred late valentine's day February 14th originally early on Friday we had assumed that that the weather would be getting better we may have to push a day and start collections on Tuesday but it became very certain very quick on the 14th that we would not be able to assemble the fleet and safely collect the garbage and recycling during that week so again we we chose to push all collections off one week in opening the operations back up we actually did open the landfill for about five hours on the 16th if for no other reason to accept some sludge boxes to dip from different operators that were working in the area these boxes were full in order for them to keep their wastewater treatment plants up and running it was important for them to be able to empty these boxes so we had several haulers come in during that time we were able to manage that in a safe manner but also get our employees home safely that day on the 18th we actually which is Thursday we actually continued operations resume to full operations that have been operating in that matter since commercial operations we actually started on February 19th which was Friday full operations with a focus on those restaurants multifamily dwellings hospitals which needed service first and then we rotated out and by the end of the 20th we had actually serviced every can at least once in the city we started full operations back on Monday the 22nd with commercial operations last week starting February 22nd we ran a double week on garbage and recycling so last week we only collected garbage and recycling curbside we any scheduled hcc appointments were serviced that week this week we are resuming full service collecting any excess yard waste bulk that had been turned in by next week March 8th we will be back on our normal schedule collecting everything within our service standard when we look across the the metroplex how do we fare well most all cities and private waste haulers actually curtailed their operations consistent with what we were doing there were some operations that we're collecting on Friday however most deferred until Monday the 22nd and similar to us actually had it pulled a double week last week to get all the material off the curb here's just a quick sampling of things that when we started going out on Friday and Monday what it looked like again we had overflowing carts we had overflowing bins but at the end of the day we did get it all off the curb all off the streets I want to take this opportunity to commend all the workers of solid waste they are probably the best bunch of folks you would want to have working for you they're dedicated to keeping ensuring that we keep our our city clean and they put in that extra effort to ensure that this material was collected in a safe and timely time period so again I appreciate the efforts that they pulled forward put forward to make sure that this got off the curb if we look at our office the weather impacts to our facilities we had several buildings on the landfill property that sustained water leaks including our administration building the HCC facility the our warehouse at 651 we had some issues down there the electronics building a fleet shop we anticipate between 70 to 100 thousand dollars worth of damage occurred in these properties we do have water back at all of our locations at this point and we're working on getting the damage repaired as we speak looking at the the solid waste collections from last week we did collect almost twice as tonnage of a regular week we would think that you know that would that would seem logical since we basically were doing two weeks it was about 80 percent of a normal week and you know why why the drop well first of all there was no place to go out and get food so you're eating what you had in the house there was no deliveries from amazon there was just think the things that would normally generate trash in a week just wasn't able to happen along with a lot of other things that weren't able to happen so we saw that impact with the garbage that we collected that week yard waste though this week we're not seeing any statistical increases in the amount of material that we're collecting so again we appreciate everybody's patience and understanding as we go through this collection process so with that be able to answer any questions that you might have and mr. mayor thank you very much thank you great presentation questions for staff with respect to solid waste performance okay councilmember armature not a question just a comment i just wanted to thank you uh and the whole department for putting workers safety first uh and showing that that cleanup can happen i know for some people it was stressful not to get trash picked up uh but uh you know lives were saved um and and it was worth it so thank you so much i was really relieved um to hear that when that happened thank you all right any other questions for staff okay thank you brian thank you all right that takes us to customer service good afternoon mayor city council krista foster customer service manager and if you'll give me one moment i will uh have everything put up for you all right so the first thing i'd like to do is just give you a kind of a general background as you know or most of you will know customer service as of march of last year moved to 100 work from home um our reps work their phones just as they did in the office they do that from the house it allowed us to create additional city hall space which has been able to be utilized for moving the police department and how housing those uh staff members it does allow us continued operation if we were to have issues at city hall but more importantly this typically is what our weather backup plan would be under a normal circumstance it is difficult to bring staff in during inclement weather events and working from home would be your ideal backup situation in our situation our first thing that we witnessed with this is something of astronomical proportions and we'll talk about what led to some of the things that happened for customer service so in our initial response when the rotating outages began it began creating problems for staff because there were intermittent times that they could or could not get onto the phones or onto their computer systems at the same time we were in the middle of having police relocated into the existing customer service area so all of our backup stations had been taken offline during that move and our backup center has not been completed normally if we were in a situation like this people are unable to work from home we have a backup center planned and the equipment to go for that so that we can go and get those staff to come on site and be able to continue operations at a lower capacity so that's what prevented us from being able to get online we couldn't guarantee availability of staff we also couldn't guarantee that when technology and different equipment shuts down unexpectedly and suddenly sometimes you will get unintended consequences where an agent may or may not be able to change the states that they're in or be able to get to callers and unfortunately in an ACD environment once that caller is on hold they stay on hold whether there is someone there to answer that phone or not and we have no way to communicate anything to them so for the lack of reliability and the possible frustration for a caller who would be stuck there for potentially hours we opted to remain closed as we moved into the week we actually changed our focus we started coming back online on the Wednesday afternoon time frame at a very limited capacity in assisting the water department and DME on site at their locations we did keep all staff on standby they did one hour to two hour check-ins all day each day Monday Tuesday and Wednesday so toward the middle of the week we really changed our focus I saw where someone had mentioned that this began as a weather emergency which became an electricity emergency which became a water emergency and that's exactly what we began to see into Wednesday so what we started shifting our focus was what are the emergent calls that are causing loss of service loss of business and loss of property and that's where we moved our focus and that is where tech services came in and were total heroes for us because they helped us to rework our phones to work with the water metering phones so all of our staff were on and working Thursday and Friday we were manning the published emergency phone numbers for water main and water service line breaks so that we could help with dispatch we had staff that were working phones we had staff that were working dispatch channels we put in about 360 hours between DME and the water department and about a third of that was done outside of standard operating hours all the way through Sunday afternoon so staff was focused there because in the regular call queue we can't restrict those calls to only the people that need immediate assistance right now and with that published number it allowed us to focus that effort to get people whose homes were flooding the assistance they needed immediately. And then what we've got moving forward is we actually are working on our postmortem assessments and documenting our findings so that we can improve business continuity. We will say the unexpected closure of the contact center did yield results that we otherwise probably would not have attained which is doing some of that creative problem solving partnering with electric partnering with water so that we could really help to enhance the levels of service that they were able to provide the community with especially when the water system was in crisis. It also allowed us to shift our focus to those residents who were most impacted and needed the assistance immediately. Work from home is still going to be our greatest level of business continuity but it is absolutely critical that construction is completed so that we can get that backup center operational we are anticipating that to occur this month. And with that I'll take any questions. Okay thank you. Questions for staff Councilmember Johnson and then Councilmember Meltzer. Certainly I appreciated all that y'all did but I'm actually wondering what is the backup what is an anticipated action plan so that this will be where people stayed on ours and I'm one of those people and I know other people who for hours waiting while their houses were flooding and they couldn't get a call through they kept being on hold. So what's the action plan for changing this? In the future we will one we will have a fully operational backup center there will be I think there are 14 stations on site and that's what we plan so that we can bring people in. Additionally in looking at how we were able to assist some of the other departments we can better assist them by being able to bring those calls into ACD. So I'm working out some arrangements on how we can have some latent numbers that won't require a lot of tech services development or fix to get it active. It would be as simple as that one or two phone numbers that ring into the water department being transferred into our call queue so that we can get them far more quickly and have them far more organized. Okay any follow-up questions Councilmember Johnson oh okay Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah thank you and you know again I just want to express gratitude for the tremendous hours and care and we know that your staff was feeling the emergency issues that you know our customers were having but as we dig into it I was also going to ask about the stuck on hold issue if we could have a workaround for that. Am I incorrect in my view based on basically what I saw in social media during the time that when it was shut down there was an outbound message when customer services shut down there was an outbound message saying basically we're closed but that if people needed to you know sometimes in life and death situations medical equipment and so on if they had an extended outage they needed to call utility dispatch but there's no way for them to know that so would it have been possible in retrospect with perfect hindsight to have had an outbound message saying if you're in this situation call utility dispatch at this number. That is definitely something that we are looking at and exactly how we could do that the message that we had up did provide a lot of information but it was also in our after hour queue so when a caller heard it they were immediately placed into the after hours IVR which routes to DME's emergency dispatch the challenge that we will face with that is there's only one person who's there to answer those calls which is part of the reason that we've supplied extra staff to try to help offset that but we're that is definitely part of what we're planning and putting into some of our documentation and plans is to figure out how we can better communicate that. You know I had I appreciate that and I had another thought just while we're while we're covering this if the issue was our employees themselves were experiencing rolling blackouts you know under dependent on mobile devices in retrospect with perfect hindsight would it have been possible maybe using police cruisers with four-wheel drive I don't know to relocate a critical mass of customer service reps to circuits that were on critical infrastructure you know like there's some part of the city yeah that's always lit you know I'm going yeah you're absolutely correct that we would have been able to have done that like even when we were doing work with the other divisions we were providing transportation and having someone come to pick them up and bring them in we just at the time did not really explore like picking up all of their equipment and moving everything you know is it a lot of stuff definitely something that again we will look at in our I mean if you're working from home is it do you have a bunch of stuff yeah they have their equipment they have their same type of desktop equipment that they would have in the office and that's what they're working from but they're using a computer that is actually processing in the server room at city hall I just make a final comment this is probably a like of course yes answer but is the the backup center that you've been talking about going to be located on a circuit that is already part of the critical infrastructure that will get turned off yes the backup center is actually located in a small area like we were we've given up the vast majority of the customer service area but we are located in city hall east where the lobby is and where the servers are so it is in place where it would be safe and secure just due to construction we didn't have the ability to have that set up at this time otherwise we would have experienced no outages we've learned a lot of a lot of things can collide at once in this experience thank you okay any other questions for staff council member ryan and then council member johnson one question I had this probably more for should have been technology services but you may know on the employees working from home do we provide them with a ups for their equipment so that they would not go down and I know then you have modem issues as well that you'd have to make sure that they were hooked up properly but you know we do not provide a ups I don't know that there's any ups situation that would be affordable that would allow an employee to be able to work for 30 40 minutes or 30 40 minutes and then be down for another 20 or 30 and be able to continue to recharge I will say that I was having conversations just this morning about potential the potential of looking at small ups is to help with certain situations or different alternate plans that we may have to increase up time even from home okay and secondly I want to compliment y'all and I want to say for those who weren't too impatient because I was the first time if you listen to the message long enough if you press three it took you over to emergency services if you called in at the 8200 number I really hate having to leave a long queue intro message because it is very exhausting for callers but there was so much information that we needed to be able to try to share with folks that we felt it was important since we weren't available right there immediately for them to have yeah and I just appreciate all that y'all did I'm not gonna say I had to call in I had a water break on the other side of town that there was no way I could have made it to on Thursday and called in and water department got out there and shut it off within 30 minutes so yeah oh thank you okay um councilmember Johnson I do appreciate everything that y'all did and it was a total surprise for everybody so we all had to go through the learning experiences so I was just wondering that after we figure out all the mechanisms that went wrong and what we can do to fix it can you come back and let us know what our plan is for our future customer service absolutely I'd be more than happy to share that great councilmember Johnson we're going to come back actually with all the different departments with here's our recommendation after we report it out to you in an after-action report and let council know what what we really want to head on as far as what we need to do thank you okay any other questions for staff okay and I just want to make sure I'm tracking with you so when you talk about the numbers and kind of that it's almost like pooling the numbers so that we're pointing them to where we have the most resources versus an individual in a department am I am I tracking with you well for this particular event we had to meet what was available so in this particular event what we did is we added that's that phone number that rang to three people we added it to all of our staff so that as soon as it came in we had 17 people able to answer that call immediately instead of three people or it went to voicemail or you know that type of a situation so it allowed us to provide many many more hands and ears to be able to get those things done additionally we provided staff to help feel like the call would come in we feel we would field the call and identify if there was a dispatch necessary we had those dispatches separated between emergency and non-emergent so that we had a smaller crew who was working on non-emergency dispatches and that's the side that we handled so that the water metering shop could do nothing but focus on reported emergency turnoffs got it yeah and then and then lastly could you tell me what what overlap or kind of how if there is an overlap with the 3-1-1 system that's coming on board and your your department is there is there some synergies there or no we are anticipating that yes okay so that that and to some degree will help as well yes with the messaging right yes and it will also help even with the water metering situation because instead of one person receiving all the calls for the water meter shop if that's going through the 3-1-1 system then it would be going to a hundred percent of staff all of the time perfect okay thank you any other questions for staff okay saying none thank you very much thank you okay that'll take us to the fourth report nets animal services all right good afternoon mayor and city council my name is julian faralta and i'm here to talk to you guys about the wonderful world of animal services first i want to start by giving a shout out to our staff they were resilient in preparing for this storm and throughout the week just as much as all the other departments were but i really wanted to give them the spotlight because without them we wouldn't have been able to pull this off as successfully as we were able to when we were coming up with our strategy on how to handle this response to the weather we had some goals that we had identified one of those is we wanted to continue to provide care for the animals at the shelter we wanted to continue to respond to emergency calls for service out in the community assist with the 24-hour emergency warming station that the city had coordinated and collaborate with other departments where we needed to where we saw opportunities so the impact that the uh weather had on our adoption center our shelter staff we split them to a and b schedules so that staff were able to make it to the shelter take care of the animals and still put their safety first we rescued a total of 13 animals from the elements those 13 animals all were picked up either as strays or injured and brought to the shelter to keep warm through the weather in response to the water boil notification we did boil a total of 60 gallons worth of water to provide to the animals at the adoption center we did get with dme to make sure that we were on emergency circuit to prevent long outages for any rolling blackouts for the animals to make sure that we kept them warm we did have one minor pipe break that was fixed saturday following the storm and we have our wildlife of course that we keep in mind and so we did bring in a few wild animals to keep them warm until it was ready for them to be re-released we also provided food for some of the ducks over at northlake park because the lakes were frozen and they were unable to get food so we did try to sustain them through the elements our field operation we deployed an emergency response team to answer field calls for the community we did have three field officers and one animal control officer that acted as dispatch they received all of the calls from our dispatch team and then were able to dispatch those calls individually out to our officers we divided the city into three regions north center and south and our officers were able to respond very quickly and efficiently to those calls as soon as possible we had a total of 76 calls and that's from sunday to friday that were considered emergency or high priority and on average we experienced about five after hours emergency calls on a normal basis so we saw quite an influx of cruelty calls and welfare concerns for animals but our field team was already there to respond our community efforts in response to covid our shelter did provide our we have an emergency food pantry where we provide food no questions asked to anybody in the community they don't even have to live in the city of denton if they come up to the shelter we're able to provide them with food for their pets we were able to utilize that food pantry and deliver food to anybody who needed it who was unable to leave their house or to anybody in the community that was experiencing homelessness and needed food to get them through the week we used our social media to educate and notify the public echoing communication from our main city facebook page and website and additionally education for animals outside for the community we assisted with 24-hour emergency warming station by providing animal supplies we provided quite a few of dog kennels food bowls blankets we were called quite a few times to come back out there with more supplies because so many members of the community were utilizing that warming station and we were ready to collaborate with other departments we did check in with our homeless outreach team just in case they needed anything and we were on standby for the parks department or anybody that needed to use our industrial size washer and dryers for any kind of clothing or blankets items to consider for the future we wanted to secure a resource that we could offer to residents with the storm it did come in fairly quickly and so in the future we would like some kind of resource if that's insulation for dog houses outside or dog houses that we can provide to the community or even come up with a sustainable plan to allow the animals to be housed at the shelter so that's something that we're keeping in mind and planning for the future ensure that the shelter has a backup generator in the event that the power is out for long periods of time we're able to keep the small animals warm through that and then a contingency plan for our field operation we were very lucky and fortunate to have three amazing field officers that all happen to live in town and we're able to take those vehicles home but in the event that we don't have vehicles that you know if they're down for maintenance or if they're not able to drive in the inclement weather what do we do and additionally if the officers do not live in town to make sure we're having a fast response to those citizens possibly considering an allowance for hotels for the officers to stay in and with that any questions okay we can pull down the fire that's a great picture i hate to take it down okay questions for staff councilmember armature and then councilmember melzer thank you for the presentation and thanks especially for allowing and and providing for animals at the warming stations that was really critical so thank you for that i was wondering if you could speak to something i had heard that that the shelter was not originally uh marked as critical infrastructure and that there was kind of a last-minute effort to have it count as critical infrastructure is that is that true is that a misunderstanding can you speak to that and assure that that it will be critical infrastructure into the future of course um to answer that question we were not originally on emergency uh power grid or circuit so we did work with dme to make sure that we were switched to that so that will be taken care of moving forward excellent and how long did that take uh it didn't take very long it was a fairly quick change and altogether the shelter only lost power for a total of about 45 minutes okay well thank you for that quick action i'm glad we learned from that thank you thank you all right and councillor melzer yeah um yes thanks for the presentation and uh you know all the thoughtful outreach and dealing with the warming station uh i i wonder uh do if it were a different emergency uh do we have a procedure for if we had to evacuate the shelter you know uh arrangements with other facilities uh we do uh early on uh last year we were working on an emergency response plan for local disasters um we do have a plan if we needed to evacuate the shelter or even provide um you know maybe additional shelter uh for a public disaster on an off-site location um to work with the airport and we have kennels already purchased tarps um everything ready and we have already talked to the airport and using one of their hangers if we needed to wow interesting uh and uh our our staff regular regularly trained on the emergency procedures when new people come in it would be uh you know as far as care for the animals it would be the same process that we follow now uh we would have to probably recruit some volunteers or lean on our volunteer base in order to maybe take care of two locations or uh switch our efforts to taking care of that but i guess we're prepared if we need to be yeah that's awesome thank you thank you okay any other questions for staff and i do want to note and i think uh we we probably need to look at backup generator capabilities note for staff there just because i want to i want those watching to understand even the state supported living center uh which is critical uh had experienced power outage due to the load shed so uh the the only true safest or i say the safest measure is a generator but they're being on that critical grid isn't a guarantee and and and this facility wasn't targeted or any stretch like that i mean because uh we had that same problem at the state uh supported living center which is which is just as critical uh is is other facilities it was just an unprecedented event and we had to shed load and and so it's important that we have uh probably generator capability there to make sure even in those load shed uh situations we're able to keep the building powered so i i appreciate your presentation just wanted to make sure uh those uh following along new the the level of severity of the situation when it comes to that load shed and and critical infrastructure so councilmember melzer uh first of all i completely agree uh that you know and that there's probably something on every circuit that would justifiably make anybody say well that's critical you know there there are people on medical devices and so on uh so i you know this is slightly off topic but i just sort of want to put a yellow sticky on this thought to come back to it that you know there might be a need to have a supply of of house love house size generators for emergency situations you know individuals may think to have that but there may be situations where they don't it's something that i hope we get to discuss at least okay mayor we have that on our list that is probably you're going to hear that over and over again as you hear these presentations from the different departments generators is going to be our number probably one of our top items that we're going to talk about as far as um having being prepared as well as the fiber around the fire station and the four four-wheel drive vehicles not that we'll ever experience a big snowboard like this before but or have it again um but just having those um items and then we'll have a list and then we'll go through that with council at the end of all these updates to share with you as to what what the items were and then what is the plan of how we're going to uh move forward great okay well thank you very much yulin great presentation thank you for all you and your staff did uh to to make sure you you took care of everybody out there thank you very much thank you and is there anything we can do help community wise are are there anything you need is there anything animal shelter needs to restock donations that sort of thing let's i want to open a door for you to to to kind of make that known if there is uh right now we've actually received quite a few donations from the community for our emergency emergency food pantry and that has helped a lot with getting resources out there to the community so if anything i would just say donations towards that so we can continue to supply food and thank you and one other thing i forgot so forgive me but i did receive a call someone concerned about a neighbor had their pets still outside during the snowstorms what what do we do there do we have the policies in place for your enforcement folks to to take action what do you need there uh so in terms of animals outside uh the way that texas state law uh references those is as long as they have adequate shelter food and water um that's sufficient in the eyes of of texas state law one thing that we are looking at um updating uh soon is bringing forth a more detailed definition of what shelter is um and making sure that it is uh weather resistant um and a little bit more robust of a definition um that will help us and on a kind of enforcement level if there's not adequate shelter for the animal um one thing that we did see with this is that we did have lots of reports for uh dogs that would normally enjoy the snow such as huskies um or double coated animals so we did have to explain to the community that some of these animals that is their uh maybe preferred weather um we are in texas it's very hot here so those huskies were enjoying the outdoors uh when that weather came around so um it's just on an education level uh talking to the community and making sure that we're able to uh work with them and and meet those needs of the animals got it thank you great point councillor melzer yeah just uh you know something uh brainstorming for the wish list uh to evaluate i recall uh terry nolte is uh saying that our wind resources didn't produce at that time but our solar did and i'm thinking about the shelter it's that isolated building out there with nothing to all around it you know if that had uh solar with battery storage mostly homeowners don't see the ones i know don't seem to feel is affordable but maybe for you know uh you know a city service like that it might be so anyway that that's a thought okay thank you good thought okay i do want to i do want to just say in on behalf of animal services just we had a call from a citizen who said that the ducks were very thin over on one of the lakes and looked like they were dying because they did have some of the more wildlife animals not fare very well in this weather and one of our animal services officers took puppy chow out there and spread it out for the ducks so they could um i guess beef back up if you want to get some more get some more meat on the bones and uh i mean it just goes to show you how hard our staff work to try to to try to do the right thing and try to help people and animals yes excellent thank you thanks for that story okay julian thank you very much have a great day thank you okay that concludes item b that i see is there anything else for that item no sir okay great all right then let's take a 10 minute break and then we'll come back for to conclude our work session so we'll we'll take a break at um 354 we'll be back at uh four what is that for let's call it 415 for easy math all right thanks and welcome back to this meeting of the denton city council it is 4 18 p.m still the second of march 2021 and uh we are returning from break we i'll call the next item which is item c which is id two zero two five three one receive report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the proposed prior prioritization and implementation of the city's capital improvement projects good afternoon mayor city council i'm cassie ogden director of finance this will be a joint presentation with our city engineer becky deviney i'm going to kick it off and then i will hand it over to her so let me share my screen really quickly and we will get started so just a brief overview for you we will go through the project updates by category as well as go through some of the funding so you may recall this slide from october which is the last time we presented to you this is the street improvement bond program specifically broken out between 12 and 14 bond program and then the 2019 bond program um the good news that i get to report is that um in october that percentage completion on the 12 and 14 bond program was at 58 percent and as you can see we are currently at 69 complete which is approximately 15 million spent since october so just wanted to point that out that capital projects is moving quickly with the street closing out the street program for the 12 and 14 bond program you may recall the the 2019 bond program the last time i reported this slide it was at 96 percent complete we did find a calculation error so that is um it's it's actually 98 remaining excuse me sorry for that um 98 remaining on the 2019 bond program for streets and if there aren't any questions i'm going to go ahead and turn it over to becky who's going to do the the individual project updates okay yeah we can we can uh take them all and then we'll come back for questions thank you good afternoon mayor council becky devaney i'm happy to present to you i'm on the bond program the first uh projects we will go through are the 2014 bond proposition one projects um i want to highlight the projects that you see that either have a yellow or red listed for their scope schedule or budget so i'll start off with the bonnie brave phase 4b project and the reason why you see the schedule in yellow is we're currently working through that need to secure that necessary funding and that construction funding for that project particularly is something that we're working through with the nct cog and so because we currently do not have the construction funding that obviously impacts the schedule the next project i would like to highlight is the more street loop 288 to mayhill project and you see all three of the scope schedule and budget categories listed in yellow and the scope we're currently working on redefining and the schedule is definitely dependent on that overall scope the majority of the funding was reallocated to other projects and so as we redefine that overall scope set a schedule we'll be able to allocate exactly what budget is needed depending on the scope that we choose to move forward with and discuss and work through so that's the more street project and the next project i wanted to highlight is the rudel extension at mingo and that project we have yellow for scope yellow for schedule and red for budget and that project is being looked at from a holistic approach of the overall tw area so we have been working having monthly meetings with tw kind of talking about mingo road rudel which are the you know the boundary or border along tw property and then also kind of working through that overall from a scope perspective and the schedule is dependent upon the overall scope and the funding and then we'll be working through identifying kind of the the funding sources after we clearly define the scope we do anticipate that project to be moved forward in phases and because there's quite a few things that we anticipate to happen in that area and i also want to just highlight the hickory street project right now and the schedule is kind of uncertain due to private utility that we're working through and i think you'll see that on the next slide and the next project group that we'd like to talk about are the 2014 bond proposition three projects and all of these you see in green for scope schedule and budget and the eagle drive drainage phase two and magnolia phase two hinkle at wenser and we're currently coming in that close out phase and then you can see pecan creek four phases one and two which is that southern part and you know south of the actual square that is in the close out phase and then the downtown and storm sewer trunk line phase one project and that's currently under construction if you drive mckinney street you will see that project currently a lot of construction signs and a lot of construction going on so we're really excited that that project has kicked off and the next thing i kind of wanted to talk about with all of you is the and i'm sorry i'm trying to move the screen so i can see all of you is the 2012 bond program as cassie mentioned we've been working through actually working on implementing and completing the the remaining segments so what you can see on your screen today is kind of a bar chart that talks through the current section that we're at of the spend of the and the percent completion of 92 percent with ultimately looking at 100 percent being completed by the end of 2022 in this chart that you see on the right side of the screen it shows the quarter in the remaining segments and then the segments completed in that particular section and there are seven segments that are currently being programmed and their estimate to to complete is not completely finalized and a couple of those i'll outline those so there's two segments on mulberry street that will be a part of a future project which is the pecan creek four phases three and four and there's two segments on trinity road which we will be coordinating with texas on that trinity bridge project and then there are three segments of westgate drive that we're working on coordinating with some other utility projects that need to be completed in that area and westgate drive currently only has one way in and one way out so we're working on that coordination with the extension of bronco way and some kind of temporary access so that we can actually do the construction that needs to happen in that area i think the good news story you can see from this overall slide is currently the way that we have the project slated and the way that we're moving forward with the construction and those bid packages to get these you know the projects completely under construction is that by the end of 2022 quarter four of 2022 and all of the segments should be completed at that time and the seven segments at the bottom we are working through those scheduling on it and can report back to you at a different time but that's really something we wanted to share from this is our attention to wanting to make sure that we get the 2012 and the 2014 bond program completed with that estimated time of q4 of 2022 the next slide i will talk about um really the bonnie bray phase five um you see yellow for schedule and red for budget um that schedule is really dependent upon the funding and we have worked with cog to identify construction funding and we're currently working through them we need an estimated 8.4 million to complete that phase five so once that budget um is is worked through and we have uh participated in some additional covid funding so once we uh work through securing that funding with cog and then that will ultimately um put forward the skeleton schedule for which we can move i'm on bonnie bray phase six i think most of you probably are aware of this you see the schedule is yellow the schedule there is really dependent upon the right away and we're working through that we're coordinating monthly and and working with disd i'm on the opening of the high school and so that's that's really a nice project and the hickory creek road phase three project you see the schedule yellow and the budget yellow net cog has indicated that they are going to be providing the additional 10 million dollars that are needed for construction funding and then so we're very excited about that and i will tell you currently we're looking at some schedule delays due to an encore transmission line a relocation that needs to happen for for the roadway project to be constructed so that's really just kind of a cautionary warning that we're working through you know with encore on that transmission line so we're working also to actually receive the funding which will happen with an april kind of call to projects type scenario with a net cog the last project that i'll highlight on this screen is the us 380 lighting from i-35 to mayhill both or all three of the scope schedule and budget are all shown yellow and we are working on identifying that overall scope once that scope is identified then we can work through what the schedule and appropriate funding will be for that project and the next slide that i wanted to highlight is the 2019 reconstruction bond progress that we have moved forward with so as you can see you can see kind of in the pinkish red color the phase one and then the phase two which is in blue you can see the list of the the streets that we are moving forward with phase one and two have are going through the process of the competitive silver proposal solicitation and that advertisement ended on february 9th and right now we're working through actually selecting the firm based on or the construction company based on that competitive silver proposal solicitation and then the construction is to be completed by the end of this calendar year phase three that you will see is in this purple square that you see and here are all the streets listed that we're working on and that scope development is currently underway and we've been scheduling internal scope discussions to make sure that we're including all of the folks that have projects that could possibly be completed in this area for a more holistic approach whether it's water wastewater sidewalk street light and then ultimately that roadway piece we're looking to advertise and when i talk about that that's really that whole entire area of phase three phase three in particular we're looking to advertise in 2021 with that construction completion and q3 of 2022 and so really the 2019 street reconstruction percentage completion and this really compromised of about seven percent of the overall reconstruction package after we advertise package three or phase that phase three then we'll be working forward for future bid packages and and working through a process and really a program for how all the projects within the 2019 street reconstruction bond program can be completed and then so our ultimate goal is to to have those all completed by the end of calendar year 2025 so small update on the 2018 and 2019 intersection improvements as you can see on the screen they're both currently under construction and we estimate to have 2018 completed spring 2021 so fairly soon and then the 2019 intersection improvements and we anticipate to have those completed in summer of 2021 so some updates on water wastewater projects what you can see on the screen is the dry fork sanitary sewer line and that schedule is really dependent on the construction of the hickory creek interceptor one and two in the bonnyberry phase three project and hickory creek one or one and two are currently about to be advertised and those ultimately need to be in the ground before the dry fork can be connected but we're working to streamline where both of those can be under construction at the same time so that they can be connected and then both be in service the dry fork interceptor is going to take a little bit longer to get moving forward because the hickory creek interceptor is already designed and the dry fort needs to go through that design process we are seeking additional funding due for the the new route that has been anticipated and that is to align it closer with the 35w expansion and along that corridor and so you can see like i mentioned that schedule is red and that budget is yellow and the next project i will talk about which i just did a little bit is that hickory creek interceptor phase one and two that schedule is really moving forward we do have some archaeological findings in that area and we're working with the texas historic commission and a third party kind of contractor to help us facilitate through that project there will be some additional funding that's needed for that redesign to remedy some of the archaeological findings and some of the additional additional costs associated with that archaeological finding we are moving forward with that project being bid in the very near future and so we're very excited to get that project kicked off the north south water main phase two and phase three you can see some yellow and red phase two in particular the contractor has requested a mediation on a disputed claim which could possibly and potentially impact the budget the project is behind schedule due to manufacturing delays and the unanticipated borings that needed to be performed due to soil conditions but it's really working towards the close of that project in particular so really we're moving at a point where we're going to be working through really that disputed mediation on that disputed claim on phase three you see the schedule in red and the budget in yellow that schedule will not be met due to a termination of a contractor and then we're working through that phase the budget is uncertain due to the uncertainty of not knowing exactly the dollar amount that's going to be needed to secure that new contractor for construction and so we wanted to bring that to your attention so just a little bit of an update on some major roadways so bonnie bray phase three that schedule is dependent upon the kansas city southern at grade and the inlink gas agreements so we're working through those agreements which currently do do propose having an impact to that overall schedule the mayhill at dcta bridge we're working on securing additional funding that is uncertain at this time due to the design not being completed for an overall pond and some property condemnations and needing to finalize that in our local agreement with dcta so we put budget at yellow because we anticipate some additional funding needed and then the north texas boulevard project we're working through really defining that scope setting that schedule and then seeing what the overall budget is needed to make that project move forward so a new slide that you didn't see last month is or last time we presented not last month in october are the planned projects and needed of drainage funding so we wanted to bring this to your attention so you could kind of walk through and understand so we have three projects in particular um that are in need of drainage funding so the first project is the downtown storm sewer trunk line phase two we have this schedule as yellow because of course it's dependent upon the construction funding currently that project in particular is in need of about two million dollars additional funding for construction the second project you see here is the pecan creek we're peck four as we call it phases three and four and the scope is clearly defined and we're working on kind of that scheduled budget component the schedule is dependent on identification of additional construction and right away funding for right away acquisition the overall budget anticipates about 15.9 million in funding is needed for that right away construction right away acquisition and construction and the last project i'll mention is the almond locus phase two you can see the schedule at yellow and the budget red the schedule is really dependent on the construction funding and at this time i will tell you there's a water wastewater project that corresponds with this water wastewater has the funding to do the water and wastewater improvements that are needed as a part of the almond locus phase two project i'm really the funding that's needed to complete this project and get it to move to construction is approximately 11 million that's needed for drainage to be able to complete that project then i wanted to walk through a few traffic project updates first of all i'm sure you're aware because you've seen the presentation that we submitted a 2.5 million dollar dcta transportation reinvestment program funding application we are working through kind of completing a review of all the active traffic projects and that project funding and working through assigning specific project managers to each individual project or a group of projects to ensure completion we've been working through and finalizing that sidewalk work plan which would include the 2018-2019 sidewalk segments some of the safe routes to school sidewalk segments along with a plan for how to use the 12 million dollars for the 2019 bond sidewalk funding you might have heard me mention um on the 2019 bond presentation slide that i showed you on the on the street reconstructions that were anticipating adding some sidewalks to those projects and really that's a collaboration of how do we um you know holistically look at a neighborhood go in and get the improvements made that are needed and then you know exit the neighborhood and really only impact the neighborhood at one time and we're working through that completion hope to have that overall work plan completed by the end of the month and we're also doing a review and assessing the traffic engineering workload and their overall responsibilities and the completion of the mobility plan update and so we have a schedule that we're putting forward to really work through that mobility plan to get that finalized you will see it come up in the near future as a work session and so we're really excited about getting that completed for for the city so in the next thing i want to just to talk through is kind of the project management and process and process improvements that we've been making up to date um you've heard me mention this a couple of times during the presentation myself rachel wood the deputy director of capital projects and several other folks are meeting monthly and coordinating with textod and we're hoping and that this is really we've been really working through building a great relationship with them many times there's questions that come in or comments that are made and specifically related to citizen inquiries and sometimes it's difficult for citizens to understand whether that's a city project or a tech stop project so we've been working with their public communications group and and really also any projects that come in that might have a development component or anything that we can work through as we have several projects that we're working on together and so that monthly coordination meeting has been extremely helpful and we really are enjoying that relationship we also have set up monthly project meetings with several other folks um unt just kind of talking about as you could tell from the presentation there's the north texas boulevard and then obviously the bonnie bray projects that impact the unt corridor um the twu project that i mentioned was that rudel street at mingo we're meeting monthly with twu to talk about some of their needs some of the needs that the city has and looking at that from a holistic approach along with the disd meeting and what we do with those meetings is provide a project status update and a coordination there's many other folks on the call other than just capital projects we're including parks utilities electric development services and several different folks trying to get everybody kind of on the same page and talking together um the next thing i would mention is the regular coordination with cog talking about existing funding and upcoming funding opportunities um rachel and myself have had a recent opportunity along with a few others to talk with cog specifically talk about some of the projects that um for example the safe routes to school projects and then some additional funding um i talked about the hickory creek road phase three and there will be other funding that we'll be working towards securing um as you as you can see from the presentation so we are meeting with cog on a much more regular basis i mean we did submit several projects for this recent covid round four funding that they requested projects for a couple other process improvement initiatives um the new construction specifications and standard details they went into effect january 15th of 2021 and we will be really working through an annual feedback solicitation throughout the year and we have a smart sheet set up or any anybody who's using those documents can submit through the smart sheet actually attach a picture tell us where they see something that they have a question about or something that's incorrect or something they would like for us to question um you know or work through these are being used currently on all capital improvement projects um we'll be working through a process of when those can be used for the development and type projects with really working to a january 1 2022 date to implement those construction specifications and standard details out to the development community and we recently held a training with the consultant and the development community to talk through the new construction specifications and standard details um this is really a great uh great win kind of for the team because it allows really a single source of truth of a document where all departments can use these documents um it helps the inspectors in the field really have that one document that they can refer to it also allows on projects like you've seen through the presentation many projects currently to date are either using amendments to cog or they're using you know a consultant type specification that comes in and this is really the technical portion of the specification at this point that will no longer be the standard we will be using the city of denton construction specifications and there's quite a few team members and throughout the utility and throughout streets and drainage water wastewater all different folks that work together to collaborate to bring those standard specifications and details really to where they needed to be and then having those two documents as talk to each other so that's a really awesome project that we're very happy to see completed also we've been working through the implementation of alternate delivery methods we had our kickoff on february 1st and and that's with a professional services agreement that was signed mid january with frieza nichols and we've had a couple of update meetings since then and but we are currently looking at alternate delivery methods how we implement that in our front end documents when we bid a project and we're looking really specifically at this time on the construction manager at risk method to deliver projects the next item i would mention to you is an external review of the estimates at completion as many of you know the overall budget of a project is considered the estimate at completion that's all the different funds that it takes to do a project between p.m. time design construction real estate inspection you know many other factors that come into play that's that overall estimate at completion on february 9th you approved the ocmi contract and then we will be having a kickoff here in the next week or so with that company they're going to come in do a review of those estimates look at industry standards give us feedback on ways that they see things that could be improved and they're also going to set up a template that can be used citywide that we can work through so we're really excited about that project the next thing i would mention is the project management software implementation and we've had a couple of meetings and you approve the council or you approve them sorry the contract on february 9th and we have had two meetings so far with the software company pro core was selected and we will be working through implementing that software what's really cool about this is it's going to be a web-based type software where all of the documentation all of the design plans all of the financial component maps submittal documents or anything related to a project specifications plans daily reports etc will all be housed in this web-based software it's going to take a few months to get that implemented but we're really excited about it simply from the standpoint that things will no longer be stored either on someone's hard drive or on someone's you know on the city oh on the citywide o drive or have a particular spreadsheet someone's using everything will be housed in this one area and we're working on that in collaboration with the utilities department and then also our friends in finance as there's a financial component that's being implemented with that software the next thing i will mention is that project management management manual we are working through that we have a preliminary draft review that we're currently reviewing and many of the things that are in that manual are ultimately going to be a part of the software and so we're really excited about that that's really kind of from the beginning of a project which we call that initiation phase all the way through record drawing and close out kind of what are the steps to take you through the project what are the different definitions of the different phases of a project what are the forms necessary whether it's something that public affairs likes us to have and run through from a public outreach perspective down to you know the estimated completion form that i mentioned to you so that's in preliminary draft and we're working to have that completed towards the end of spring and then lastly i'll talk about the interactive cip map and we're currently working through kind of a quality control perspective and then working toward an enhanced automation through that we hope to bring that to you here at the next update so you can see that overall cip map and so what's really exciting about that is it'll be able to show all of the projects that capital projects is working on delivering along with the projects that several other departments have utilities streets and drainage and really ultimately our goal is also then to add other layers such as the projects that are being worked on in development services as proposed developments so that interactive map is coming it will have a search feature you will be able to type in the name of a street and it'll take you to that area and so we're really excited about bringing that forward and hope to be able to highlight that to you at the next uh quarterly update and with that i will stop sharing and see what questions you might have for myself or cassie rachel wood is also in the room today if we have any questions for her thank you uh questions for staff uh mayor pro tem davis then council member ryan thank you mayor quick comment and then a question um i really appreciate what you're telling us just now about the interactive map you know when we share the road closures the street closures report and the interactive map we currently have for construction projects people sometimes wonder well i don't see it on the big map but here it is on the closures report and i see orange cones but it's not on the big map what in the world's going on uh bring that all together is going to be very helpful for us in communicating with folks um the questions about the archaeological findings um have we had an isr on that or a uh a friday report on that yet and if not can you tell us just a little bit about what you what we're working with there and then give us an update on that in a friday report or isr later on sure we'd be happy to do so um really at this time what we understand and we're working through the texas historical commission is there are possible findings in two different locations which are in the same route of the interceptor that needs to be installed and so in order to walk through a process we're currently working on a proposal with a archaeological um a consulting group for for lack of better terms an actual archaeology archaeologist that's a hard word to say that will come on and do those investigations and they will actually have to go in and and dig as you might mention or think and look to see if there's any particular findings in that area so that's definitely something that we can bring forward in a friday report and then share some additional information for you can you kind of tell us a little a little bit about what it is or i mean it's archaeological uh at this time that's all we know we have not begun to dig um in the areas and so we do not know specifically um you know what they're what their possible findings are at this time we're working through that once we get further down the road and there's more information to share we'll be happy to do so and hopefully that will happen within the next month to month and a half it's evidence of ancient astronauts nothing to see here well and and i'm pardon my confusion please but i understand we don't want to say you know it's it's it's ancient native american something or other if we don't know that we don't want to put that information out there if that's not truly the case but can you tell us what we've encountered there on the ground that made us stop and say time to get an archaeologist archaeologist see i can't do either an archaeologist involved um or is there a reason that we can't that we can't say that sure really at this time we worked with our consultant um who has looked uh in that area and uh did some investigation and there were thoughts that in that area there might be something and we actually did a preliminary investigation that showed that there's the possibility of an archaeological finding in that area um just based on kind of the ground that they found out there so that's about as invasive as i can tell you at this time because we haven't specifically began the investigation so i'm i'm trying to share with you as much as i can because we truly just at this point don't know we know that there's the possibility based on the field investigation that's a preliminary investigation that has happened today okay thank you you're welcome all right uh council member ryan thank you mayor uh first off i want to thank you for highlighting how much we work with cog on funding uh that's been very important to me that that that that our citizens realize that we do a lot of regional stuff as well as them paying the bills um just to kind of follow up on what mayor pro tem had to say on the map uh something that was brought up a couple years ago when we first started talking about this was when we have a detour on top of a detour uh to have them put the street names on the detour signs so you know okay i'm following a detour for this route and you don't see a detour for some other something else that's gone along on that route and end up lost because it's not really taking you to the proper place i don't know what it would take to to get that implemented but uh i have seen it done some but would like to see it done a little bit more sure i appreciate that comment because uh definitely something that we always want to do is improve in any area that we can so thank you for that comment we'll see what we can do okay and then a couple of other items i know that uh bonnie bray 4b is dependent on the water line and that's also going to cross over with the 35 construction for the split that will be starting in 2022 i believe so you know to me that's a very important item to try and work you know kind of put the extra man power on that to get it up and going as quickly as possible i know nothing works fast in in road work but and on that note uh i know schedules slide forward and backwards a little bit and prior to the 2019 bond package one of my concerns was getting hickory creek completed all the way out to uh country club before we start the construction on rine road because those are really our only two east west corridors other than hopson which is all the way at the top of country club road you're going to put a lot of pressure on the neighborhoods through there where people are cutting up river pass to avoid you know the current section of of hickory creek where it's very difficult to get out onto uh country club road so those are that's just kind of some of my my comments on that and you know now those are very much appreciative let us look into those schedules and see if there's anything that we can provide back but i do appreciate those comments and that insight thank you very much sir okay and then council member armature and then council member melter council member johnson uh yes this is about uh the three phases of the neighborhood streets projects uh in that slide i was wondering um why you know i noticed that uh the some of the southeast denton streets doubt that were a big topic of discussion for the bond committee are in phase three can you explain why they're not in in phase one since they're such a source of public interest sure i sure can so phase one and two happen to be areas of which do not have any utility conflicts so currently both phase one and two were what we call the early out packages and they could be quickly designed and quickly implemented to be able to move forward to construction and they did not have utility impacts at all when you start looking at phase three and and phase three really is that holistic approach as to how we can overall review that entire area look at the water and the wastewater and many of that phase three area there are utility projects that need to be completed along with some sidewalks and street lights and so really the hopes with that phase one and two were just the fact that the design could be started very quickly and could be constructed very quickly without an impact and we could get in and out of those areas specifically and the main reason why those were chosen was simply because they did not have the utility conflicts that many of the other areas did i hope that answers your question yes and i i wanted to follow that up with uh with with another question that's kind of just more of a procedural question um was consideration made to prioritizing the the highest need areas you know where the roads are where the neighborhood streets are most in need of repair even if there is significant utility work necessary and in other words i'm wondering um if it might be a better idea to just first do those streets uh that are the biggest um uh repair needs uh even if there is substantial utility work and sidewalk work i was wondering if you could just speak to that the current prioritization and if there was consideration of an alternative sure at this point really the overall prioritization or um perspective that we looked at really was the fact that all of the roadways whether they're in any of the neighborhoods or any of the phases or any of the areas need to be completed correct so they all have that oci that triggered them to be a part of the repair program and so we've we worked to focus in on specific areas and specific neighborhoods that did have uh first no utility conflicts is which is why you see phase one and two and then second where is another very concentrated area that we could focus in on um and that neighborhood three was selected or that phase three was selected because there's quite a bit of work that needs to be completed in that area from a water wastewater and roadway standpoint so really the prioritization was looking at where can we go and and really what you'll see too is um and it's hard to see kind of on that map and we're happy to share some additional information but we're going to be working and even taking phase three and breaking it into segments so that it can be completed really from kind of the core out um and really just thinking about that from a logistics standpoint and we're trying to have minimal impact to the residents and then also the detours like one of the other council members kind of mentioned council member ryan kind of talked about so really at this time from a city perspective all of the projects need to be completed because they all have an oci that is less than than what's acceptable at this time so just really trying to focus in on where can we work to get quite a bit of work completed and that area was selected just due to the fact that it has quite a bit of work that needs to be completed well thank you thank you for answering that uh i myself would prefer to start with the with those uh southeast denton roads uh that have that have such big needs including utility needs um but that is me i don't know if if council want the rest of council uh wants to give direction for that as well thank you and then uh councilmember melzer i think you're on mute sir i'm sorry i can't hear you probably make more sense on you uh yeah first i'm not addressing that point at this moment i have the points i needed to raise i'm going to come back on that uh first of all breathtakingly comprehensive presentation also um a little curious about some of the financing uh comments i suspect that these are things that are done that have been done all the time but maybe weren't made as transparent to us but is it you know like with more street is it common to kind of take funding away bit by bit from a project into other projects with you know i don't recall it coming up to us it may well be within your sort of ordinary purview but um is that kind of how it generally works that you know money slashes between projects sure i'm going to have cassie ogden come in and kind of talk about the finding financing piece just one second sir hello um i think i caught all of your question but yeah basically how does that happen how does that happen that you know we had money for more street but we used it and you know it's first i'm hearing about it i think maybe it came up in a you know i just didn't note it so for all of the geo bond funded projects we do take um reallocation requests to the bond oversight committee and we do ask for those transfers to be made we have to provide justification and they vote yes or no and so all of those transfer requests did go through that committee okay that that explains that so it goes that path um also uh i don't know if this would be for you but uh i'm unaccustomed to hearing maybe i'm wrong about this but i think i'm unaccustomed to hearing we've got all these different projects waiting on funding um usually i would think we also hear how we where we expect to get the funding from uh like on the wastewater ones uh do do we have some kind of indication about you know or some kind of a plan because it's not like you know we're not going to be able to tell you you know so okay you're waiting for funding how how will that occur um we do have a five-year cip for all of our utilities um and we will go through that update through the budget process so a lot of these projects that you see that are utility funding related we will be folding those into the five-year cip during this upcoming budget i look forward to that and just just lastly uh and paul i'm sorry i saw david pop on he may add clarity to the financing david i think cassie cassie addressed the wastewater question well um i think as becky was going through the presentation on those wastewater projects specifically maybe we don't have funding this year but especially on the utilities we're able to plan those out so you'll you'll see those in the cip as we move forward with with funding options you know a couple of those projects that becky mentioned what we're looking at the funny funding are the drainage projects and you know if you'll recall we had the conversation on peck peck three and four or we've talked about this right about you look at the tourist or funding but we have a number of those drainage projects where we we're going to be coming back to council with what with some options moving forward but there's significant price tags and some significant issues that we're trying to get our hands around so um those are definitely some of the big pieces some of those big projects that we have some funding apps for okay so to come and i just uh want to uh say appreciate uh director deviney sharing that i think it's going to be a huge uh tourism draw that we're now right up there in area 51 uh and you know thank you for breaking that news here back okay and then uh council member johnson okay thank you uh i need some clarification on the whole bond situation okay when there are bonds allocated that doesn't mean that there is money there at that particular time and i heard someone mentioned that the money was taken out to use for something else so how is that process why does that happen and then secondly the the question about though phase one phase two and phase three i understand that we look at that from uh what is the biggest need or but i think that in playing catch up is there no way we can change one to two and two to three and sure no way we can do anything to change that because uh i understand that everybody has needs and everything is in a quite a state but in the catch-up stage whereas like you said we started with more street and then all of a sudden we didn't finish more street is there money and is there a way to change it that's basically my two questions sure and i want to touch on your last question and then i'm going to let cassie come back and talk about kind of the funding um i just want to clarify on the 2019 bond program the reason why the phase one and two were selected first is simply that they're moving faster from a perspective they don't have water and wastewater and streets to be designed so they happen to be able to be designed quickly and could be bid out quickly so that's the only reason why those are already moving forward they did not have the utility component on phase three that is the first neighborhood that we are focusing in on which is that southeastern neighborhood we're focusing in on it from a holistic approach including water wastewater streets street lighting sidewalks and working on anything else in that area how we can improve that from a holistic approach i just want to be really clear clear the only reason why phase one and two is already currently working through that bid process is just simply because they do not have all the elements associated with that phase three area so phasing is a way that we describe it from a naming perspective but simply it's just the design was completed quicker or faster on specific just roadway design versus all the other complex components that i was talking about from a water wastewater you know a roadway street light and sidewalk so i hope that answers your question as the southeast neighborhood is the first neighborhood we are going in and looking at from a holistic approach and moving forward with getting all of the infrastructure completed in that area and now i'm going to turn it over to cassie to talk about funding for you i apologize council member johnson i did not hear the first part of your question i was trying to understand the whole bond process when the bonds what i understand that this is a 2019 bond so when this bond is allocated does that mean that there's money there at that time to take care of those projects that are there and then if it is so what's the process for the money not being there when it's not finished such as the morris street so with the 2019 bond program that program is scheduled over six years so we issue bonds each year and i can share the issuance schedule with you all after this presentation the morris street specifically we we did go to the bond oversight committee and at the recommendation of staff move funding to projects that were higher priority so we can go in and look at if there is additional funding and maybe move some funds around with the approval of the bond oversight committee hopefully that answers your question well and i think orient me so which what what is the stretch i'm looking at the presentation what is the stretch of morris street uh cassie that we're that we're touching on and from i think it's important if i hear council member johnson's question properly let me reframe it a little bit so when the citizens go vote on a bond right it says we're going to make every attempt to fulfill these but if the price exceeds you know the projection etc so can you speak to speak to that i don't want to put words in your mouth i just i think that's the question we have these so we have a lot of the legacy bonds that weren't finished so those were approved but they were either the prices escalated too fast or cost row there were variables and so what is the commitment that we make to the voters is and and then work that forward david do you want to jump in i saw you pop on sure sure i yeah absolutely i can um i i think uh you've you've hit on a lot of points in the discussion if you look at so to step back if you look at our 2019 bond program obviously when we refer to as a 2019 bond program that was the 29 november 2019 election for that bond program the total bond program itself was just over 220 million dollars for for the three propositions that we had so when we when we move forward with that we start having a plan a five six seven year plan on how we're going to issue debt and complete those projects moving forward so once the bond once the election happens all that 220 million dollars isn't issued right away because we wouldn't want to issue it all at once because the tax rate implications and we just wouldn't get all the projects done in the first year so we issue the debt as we need to add as the project schedules make sense to issue the debt so each year we come forward in the budget process we let you know how much we're we're planning to issue the next year to complete the projects so that's why you why you'll see a detailed plan on how we're going to complete the projects and on these these updates on the streets program when we say here's where we're going to move forward with whether it's brian road or bonnie bray or hickory creek or really the the street reconstruction program where we're going into those neighborhoods and we have 70 million dollars that's allocated over those number of years so we'll definitely can follow up with you and make sure you and include maybe in the friday report the the bond issuance timeline that we currently have to articulate that better and then on more street as an example that was in a prior bond program and we can again follow up with some some detailed information on what happened with that project but really from my understanding the scope changed from what was in the initial bond package and with the scope change and some other consideration it made some sense to move those those funds to other bond projects and we went to the bond oversight committee and ultimately to counsel with those changes so we can definitely follow up with some detail on each of those those considerations but hopefully that helps paint the picture from a high level standpoint of what we look at with the bond programs themselves well and i guess i want to i want to put a finer point on that david so if you could speak to what's in the bond language so is it an absolute commitment that we're going to finish every project that's listed on the bond or is there language that kind of clarifies that or shapes that differently to say we'll make our best effort i just want to i want to make sure we understand uh what what the commitment is and and how we you know approach that sure so uh take streets for example the bond proposition itself is relatively broad it says a certain amount of funding in in the case of the 2019 program 154 million dollars for street improvements now within that as we go through the bond process we have identified projects and what makes up that the total of 154 million and that's really where so any changes from the detail that goes along with the the total proposition amount is really where the bond oversight committee comes in to play where we would not move funding within projects or to something different without going to the bond oversight committee and having that discussion with them first and then bringing it to council so while the proposition itself is broad on the total amount we we stick pretty strictly to the projects and if there's any variations on the project budgets we would go to the bond oversight committee and council for those changes so the commitment is to and sorry just to make sure it's summarized uh the commitment is to the dollar amount spent and there's a list of projects that we hope fulfill that but if the dollars run out then uh there may be a project or two that that carry over now we've done some things in 2019 to make sure that doesn't happen but the earlier bonds we we can't really speak to those uh i think i think broadly i you know i i think especially as we're looking at the 2019 bond and as we're wrapping up 2012 and 14 you know we don't we don't look at those as hope for sure operationally we're saying though that we view those projects as a commitment that we're moving forward with but if there are situations that arise where maybe the scope for a project a number of years ago just isn't the same scope that it was at that point those are those times where we would have those discussions okay thank you okay um so sorry councilmember johnson did you have follow-up and then i'll go to councilmember melzer oh okay uh councilmember melzer thank you yeah on the question councilmember armature raised about uh changing the sequence uh regarding southeast edin would i i assume that i think it's very evident that uh you know staff has gone through a very thoughtful process to sequence but uh i don't know how material that it would be to make that change and would it be possible at a high level maybe on a friday report to just scope out for us what the material impact would be of changing that sequence to even though those projects are more complex and you know totally hurt you utilities and more to them but how material would the impact be on the overall output to change that sequence um maybe in a friday report and then you know my ask would be if that's okay to then you know uh come back on this question uh you know and uh maybe have a little follow-up work session about that okay i can ask becky to come back and answer that question yeah and i would like if i could get some clarification mayor on exactly what uh what what uh you're asking councilmember melzer's as far as it's just well presumably there's a total game plan we're going to do phase one phase two phase three and we're trying to optimize the total output of good road miles over time uh and it's you know sequenced based on easy ones to get out the door and then more complex budgets later but you know there is sort of a uh bit of an open wound on southeast end which happens to have the more complex projects because more is left to be done there so uh but you know i don't assume that we could just without uh any impact at all just switch these around so my ask is can we understand at a high level without taking you know forever to do it what the impact would be on the total output for dentin if we switched the order and hit southeast dentin you know made that list uh number one what would the impact be then we could make a more uh give more informed input on the question of uh whether that would be you know a worthwhile change to make or not you know we understand the benefit don't understand the cost well and i think becky could you speak to uh i think the answer to that question is are are they mutually exclusive i would think phase one two and three are in the works right now yes sir i think that is correct let me clarify so phase two um they have already gone through the bid solicitation process with the consent competitive sealed proposal we will be bringing those back to you and for your approval and in the very near future so the construction can go ahead and start on those projects like i mentioned those started because simply they are just roadway projects phase three is in the process of being designed and we're working currently on a design of specifically that inner core that i mentioned it's about 22 segments and then we will be working through the other areas in that there is an overall master program councilmember mulcher to your question of every single street and we've actually broken them down into neighborhoods specifically and tried to draw you know kind of a boundary around them so that we can execute them um in it in a way that makes the most sense from a constructability standpoint our overall goal has been to work from on these projects in a holistic fashion where we really go into an entire neighborhood do the improvement and then come out but these projects are all working with themselves simultaneously so while phase one and phase two went first simply from the standpoint that it did not have the utility it currently will be going to construction very quickly but that's simply just because of the you know not having that utility component but phase three is already under design currently so any change you make to at this point would slow down the progress being moved forward with that phase three let me paraphrase uh just to see if i understand it's not that we finish one and then we started the next one they're all moving concurrently those ones just take longer to do because there's more in them is that accurate um phase three that's correct phase three is is taking more because there is more uh in there that is correct we're not waiting we're not waiting to start them no sir absolutely not okay appreciate that clarification and i want to add to that uh because i think it's important because this is i mean this is very sensitive information here and it needs to be framed i believe very sensitively one we ask a policy decision that all work be done at once water utilities we go in we that's a council directed policy that staff's acting on and staff will correct me if i'm wrong but we ask for this to happen then it's in design phase now so it's you can only design as fast as you can humanly design and it's more complex which takes the design phase longer but phase three is being designed currently and in the works then as a council we ask staff to talk to the neighborhood so there's a meeting scheduled with the neighborhood on thursday of this week so they can't circumvent the meeting because are the plant they have a plan to talk to the neighborhood to get input if we make a decision unilaterally today that sends the wrong message to the neighborhood that hey we don't want to hear from you we know best and we're going to take a top-down approach so we probably need to wait until thursday and hear from the neighborhood as we've asked staff to go and do so staff's executing what we asked them to do and so i just want to stress work is being done currently and trust me i've lived in this neighborhood for 14 years and i am terrified of hill alley to you it looks like just a street on a piece of paper but for me i'm trying to tell you that is a nightmare there's no in and out it is going to be the most intricate of work that staff's taken on that you can possibly imagine because of the short segmented streets and and as they're working on a segment of hill alley from wilson to jackson street those people don't have an out there's no other way out on hill alley so it is absolutely critical that we get this right and that we hear from the neighborhood and that we allow staff to do what we've asked them to take on these are policies they're executing that this body's asked to work on councilmember armature well let me let me let me you can come back i'll come back to you councilmember armature has been waiting councilmember armature i don't mind waiting if if councilmember melzer had to file one fair enough councilmember melzer appreciate that uh let me just make a suggestion if it's not the case that there's sequenced phases one two and three don't call it phase one phase two phase three call that one southeast end don't call phase three all right they're all being worked on right now you know it's it's a little sensitivity but maybe appropriate maybe helpful well that's i don't know yeah i don't know that we have consensus for that but that's a the yes yes councilmember armature uh thank you yeah and i do think that the phase calling it phase one two and three if it is the case that the design phase began at the same time for all of them um it's it's misleading so i think you know renaming it could really do a lot as in terms of public relations i'm wondering just if you could speak to uh whether or not uh the design phase for one two and three all began at the same time and when the bidding is expected and i know these are just projections but when the bidding is expected uh to go out for phase three because there's a 2025 projected completion date so i imagine that projected completion date was based on a projected you know design completion date and bidding completion date and then following that construction completion so if you could if you could speak to uh those those details um as far as a timeline that would be really helpful and uh well and how this works and i'm not i'm gonna ask maybe one of the city managers but my understanding is that that would have been done during the bond preparation so it would have all been worked up at the same time because it's a bond uh vote so you have to work it up to prepare the documents for the bond so it's designed and planned to a degree they're all done all 154 million at once so that you can prepare the bond proposal to take it to the citizens with the level of transparency and that field their questions but but i'll defer to the city manager that's correct go ahead councilmember armature what were you going to say yeah i mean so you know having followed that bond process closely i mean i know that you know neighborhood streets were decided on but as far as the at the the detail level of design i mean as um miss uh davini even even said you know there are some things that were uh decided later uh by the uh bond oversight committee and then there are things that are decided later details you know by uh engineering staff and that's just just part of the process you know the voters aren't given construction plans to to work on there's an idea so so my question is really is is not when was it decided you know to do these streets but the this thing we call the design phase that you're saying you know is still kind of in the works it hasn't yet finished for phase two for uh southeast denton streets for phase three but when did it begin i'm wondering if these all began at the same time and then if you could break down when the projected bidding is projected to go out and when the projected construction is projected to start well i'll let becky talk about when it started but i want to say this is that first of all the mayor is absolutely correct we do preliminary designs preliminary um plans to be able to put it into a bond proposal so we try to give the council and the public an idea of what it's going to cost and and as we all know it all also is very dependent on the cost of material and other things so that's why as you heard david say your your language in a bond program is more general because you can't say this is going to happen this is going to happen this is going to happen because of if a road comes in and there's too much uh infrastructure that has to be taken care of or the cost of rebars is much higher all those things factor in that's when we go back to a bond committee and say we don't have enough to finish out this we're proposing taking some money to move to another as far as the schedule is concerned the reason they're having a meeting uh i believe it's tomorrow out of the night on thursday night is to talk to the community about sidewalks and other lighting and other things that they want to hear from the neighborhood so before it goes into completely out to bid we have we've heard from the community one more time are these are the things that are valued to you are there other things that you want us to consider and that's why they're they're going to take that out to the public to the southeast dentin neighborhood association now i'll let becky talk about when did they start this process of um of the schedule sure thank you sarah and first i wanted just to mention not only is the meeting and being held on thursday night we also have a survey um that folks can call either there's a couple of individuals that are listed or they can actually go to a web link and for provide their comments to our team and so that we can appropriately assess all of the comments that are received and to the comment about how or question about how this was moved forward we hired a consultant firm to look at the project holistically and we submitted the entire 2019 when i call it 2019 that was the november 2019 election we submitted that entire program to the consultant at that time and then we worked through the measures and it's just simply that the phase one and phase two have been completed quicker than that phase three and really kind of looking at those overall neighborhoods and how to move forward so and there are multiple neighborhoods that are kind of broken up but the design has began for both of those now as far as to getting into specifics on construction timeline and scheduling and we'll have to get back to you on those detail level of information because we're currently working through that design process and we're also looking at different ways of possibly using alternative delivery methods and so until we have all of those um processes and procedures lined out at this point um they're doing you know high level survey and looking at this from really a holistic approach to begin it's in the in the design phase you know working through those steps so um in order to get back with you on specifics of when is this street going to be constructed or how this is going to be done it'll be looked at and you'll see um you know many of much of this information and we're happy to share the presentation um that we will be giving to the southeastern neighborhood um on a thursday evening so we can share that with council on the friday report so you can see kind of the idea of how we're going to be executing that overall design for that neighborhood and all of the the entire list was given to the consultant at the same time and they're focusing and working on certain design components of different areas okay thank you and one more quick one question about that meeting so i had a while ago um asked uh for the link i know that people have to uh email or call in advance to ask for a zoom link um i don't think i received one maybe i did and it went to spam folder or or got overlooked uh so no worries um but if you know if if council members could have that that zoom link and if that could be posted in case a quorum wants to attend i don't plan to do any participating besides just watching and listening but i want to actively watch and listen because it's such a matter of public interest as an at-large member okay yeah and i don't i got i received mine in the mail so i'm good uh so okay if you if someone could email that to council member armature please that'd be great and um other than that any other questions for staff okay seeing none thank you very much uh becky and and cassie and staff great discussion uh and and um we'll just uh continue to track that forward so thank you for the update you y'all have a great day uh okay that concludes item c uh that takes us to um item d which is uh id two zero two three eight six receive report hold discussion give staff direction uh on pending city council requests good afternoon mayor and council this is rachel ball through mendoza assistant to the city manager and i have our presentation here share hopefully there we are okay um this afternoon i'll present to you today's city council pending requests for information just as a little bit of reminder for you all up to seven requests will be reviewed per meeting which is one per council member and i'll introduce each request and then the elected official that made the request will have up to one minute to describe and justify it the remaining elected officials will then have about a minute to provide feedback and indicate their support for the use of staff time to respond to it and then of course we'll respond to all requests where consensus is reached today we have one from council member armature that's regarding a city audit um and we have the the full request as it as it stands there for you and um what i'd like oh excuse me that went away um what i'd like to do is read a little bit of the the staff information portion for you and i did it again i'm not sure i stopped sharing pardon me it's not my first time let me stop and then start again are we having rolling powerpoint black yes that was funny and scene it's black how about that okay one more time for good measure how about i'd read it like this we're good with that we can see or read it right here so city departments will be presenting to council and work sessions just as we did today and we're going to do after action reports with a full review of the operations during the winter weather emergency city manager's office will work with the internal audit department in partnership and identify any issues or areas for improvement and then we'll create an action plan as an alternative to a full audit at this time the audit department could perform an audit of this action plan towards the end of this fiscal year if council would like to uh this item to be added to this year's audit plan staff will bring forward the plan amendment for council consideration at an upcoming meeting and at that time we'll present the proposed audit objectives anticipated time frame and the potential effects to the current audit plan the requested um format of response here is to amend the internal audit plan for this fiscal year and really stop sharing this time so that we can see everyone pardon the technological difficulties all right so uh i'll turn it over councilmember armatillo you'll have one minute so first of all i'll say that i appreciate uh what's being done so far uh this is what the the public wants for all uh city departments to look look and and see what uh was done right uh what lessons be learned for next time i'm glad that the city auditor's office is going to be involved i and i hope that uh there can be a discussion a work session discussion on expanding our audit scope to include a full audit which i believe the public wants and needs um it's an extra step that can build on uh the current kind of self uh introspection that is going on at the department level um and can be a more extensive uh and even more independent uh way of of coming out of this making sure that we've got the best in procedure and preparedness uh and financially moving forward looking at everything that is within our control as a city so i okay councilor melzer yeah um i think fundamentally uh makes all kinds of sense although the one person we haven't heard from so i think there'll be the right next step is is the auditor and i'd love to hear i'd be happy if the work session can uh solicit a recommendation from the auditor about how best and when to engage you know to get the kind of highest quality output i i wouldn't want us to say make the mistake of saying everything is all about this one thing now and forget everything else it's under priorities maybe you chunk it up some of the things are more you know bigger uh impact and need to be addressed sooner and let's look at it in the context of everything else that's on our list too but it's fundamentally a yes okay so it's uh as written your your yes i just need to clarify you said you added well you know i i refuse to be bound by this thing that must be as written i get to speak and say what i think and that's what i think and i didn't disagree with your statement i was just trying to clarify based on the rules that we agreed upon i understand you don't like them and i understand your resistance to the rules we agreed to uh all right is there anyone else that has comments mayor pro tem davis i want to say that i agree with the spirit of the recommendation you know what did we what do we get right what do we get wrong how can we improve but i think we're already engaged in that process right now i think that's exactly what the city manager and her staff are bringing forward right now i also understand the request uh and desire for an independent voice on that but um i disagree with the proposition that the public is requesting an audit i think most of the public doesn't really know what an audit is um for an organization like this they mostly associate it with financial things you know the the tax audit they might get that kind of thing i don't think most people know what the internal auditor does so i disagree with that proposition that there's some clamoring for an audit i would much rather complete the process we're in now and then if the auditor in the next audit plan has concern with you know a lot of money that was spent during this time or procedures that we went through during this time if she watches along with this exercise we're going through now where we're self-evaluating what we did well and what we didn't that can always come up in a future audit plan i don't think we need to spend our internal auditor's time wondering how animal services did or how solid waste did or the things that we're already reviewing as a council together um and getting reports on that's okay anyone else i'd like to be councilmember johnson i'd like to be clear on exactly what we're asking here we're asking for an uh a plan for the future are we asking that we look at what we're spending and how we're spending it and is that not already a process of where the reports are given or are they not given and if they're not given what needs to happen to complete it so the request is audit of all aspects of the city's response this this recent statewide and local power shortage including but not limited to the related water shortage shortage and other forms of local emergency management for the duration of the statewide and local power uh shortage so that's that's what's being requested okay all right any other comments seeing none okay thank you that concludes item um d and so we that concludes our work session we will then uh take a break until our regularly scheduled meeting at 6 30 so i will adjourn this meeting at uh temporarily uh to at 5 37 p.m we will be back at 6 30 for our regular scheduled meeting thank you how did i miss that oh i didn't turn the page we'll adjourn uh briefly then we'll grab dinner here come back for closed session uh and so thank you for the correction uh so it's 5 37 p.m uh we will adjourn and come back in closed session but to erin the sequencing do i need to go ahead and call it and then go to break is that yes yes sir perfect thank you so then ignore 5 37 here we go i will convene the closed session at 5 37 p.m we will consider the following items uh consultation with attorneys under uh texas government code section 551.071 and so uh now we're in closed session i will will uh break for um 10 minutes allow us to get something to eat we'll come back uh it is round numbers 5 40 we'll be back at 550 and uh good evening welcome to this uh regular regularly scheduled uh city council meeting it is 6 37 p.m on march the 2nd 2021 we do have a quorum and so i will call this uh meeting to order and the first uh portion of our meeting is our pledges to the both the united states and the texas flag uh so join me in those and stand if you're able okay i pledge allegiance to the to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all now the texas flag honor the texas flag i pledge allegiance to the texas one state under god one and indivisible thank you and now we will um we have three proclamations this evening so i will slide over we have special guests uh for the first proclamation so i will uh transition and um we'll pick it up okay so uh thank y'all for being here so so we have a so proud of y'all we have a proclamation for you and then i'll allow you have you uh share some words introduce yourselves but well let's do that first there may be some people that aren't ravage fans like us here in the city so so introduce yourself coach i'm coach dave hennigan head coach of the ryan raiders okay i'm jatavia sander excellent excellent should appreciate y'all being here so i have this proclamation for you and it says greetings whereas in honor of ryan high school varsity football team upon the conclusion of their 2021 state championship season and whereas the entire off season and the season presented numerous hurdles due to the covet 19 pandemic with the team adapting to and overcoming those challenges with the support of the close-knit campus students teachers administrators and staff and whereas the players coaches of ryan high school football team exhibiting only now energy which is is one i like that and work diligently to continue the school's winning culture and represented represent ryan high school positively on the statewide platform and whereas ryan high school football began the the year by beating arlington martin in the 100th year opening ui l game and ended in with the a 15 and o record and a 5a division one state championship it's awesome uh ceiling ceiling win with cedar park against cedar park and whereas the effort put in by the football players coaches trainers managers staff culminated culminated in not only a state championship but 11 players selected for academic all-state recognition and no less than collegiate level football commitments and whereas these players and coaches have succeeded in demonstrating the quality of sportsmanship and scholarship within the city of denton shown the value of hard work and dedication represent the best of their community now there i gerard hutchworth mayor of the city of denton do hereby recognize ryan high school football team for its achievement and urge all citizens of the city city of denton to continue to share in the celebration and their accomplishments all right so give y'all so i'll give you that congratulations yes sir thank you very much appreciate you congratulations and then i'll if you would please share your thoughts well first of all i want to thank mr mayor and the council for having us and and recognizing uh what we our kids in our program accomplished this year was a special special year for us people don't really understand how hard these things are to win um and uh our kids battled through so much with covid and and uh all the adversity that they went through in order to to make this thing happen and and and we did it through uh honestly just through a bunch of great young men like jakey and sanders here who uh one of those kids who are great academic student athletes uh that represented our school and our community so well and we're so proud of the the young men and the women the trainers and the managers and the coaching staff and uh to to bring a championship back to denton the city of denton our community uh ryan high school southeast denton in particular um you know and ultimately what we're about at ryan high school just so everybody knows we love winning these championships but we're about these young men uh becoming uh better dads in the future better husbands in the future and hopefully great contributors to our community so ultimately that's what this thing's about for us and when you have good kids who do what they're supposed to do and you combine that with some talent then you can come home with a championship so thanks again for honoring us we we certainly appreciate yes sir and uh any other comments jatavia any comments no i'm good okay all right well i appreciate i appreciate you and and uh well done uh i i have a football i have a football here let me see hold on just a second so so i have a football here so if i throw it will you one hand it yeah thank you all very much appreciate y'all being here coming out and and we we sure do appreciate uh the spotlight and a positive uh uh reflection on our city you shine and like you said coach a dynamic group of kids across the entire isd so thank you for your your hard work and congratulations i know it's it's tough being coach and dad uh so i i commend you for for balancing that well done thank you all right thank y'all have a great evening all right and then we also have yep can i just say a word by all means yes forgive me okay thank you yeah i just wanted to say congratulations i'm a proud ryan mom uh and uh so anyway uh i am basking in the glow of your success you know not only uh athletically but also academically uh you work extra hard uh on on your academics um and so your success academically means that much more uh so anyway thank you so much um you've been through so much this year and i'm i'm in awe and very proud okay anyone else i'm sorry thank you very much uh councillor marmotter so are there any other thoughts comments seeing none okay well thank you all very much again appreciate it thank you uh-huh right okay so that is item c this will take us to item a which is id 21402 special recognition for mayor chris watts ah there we go hey mayor watts good evening how are you all very well so i i just wanted to kind of give you uh so you haven't we have a special uh video presentation for you i but i just wanted to kind of before we we do that i did want to say how much i appreciate um your service to our city and i was reflecting back uh with diane on that and that would have been i think i first met you at a forum at golden uh the golden corral there on loop 288 back when you first ran and uh please that's a long time ago yes no but it's it's it's fantastic i appreciate and what i tell people often is the the mayor watts i met then which was just chris watts and then projecting forward to your your service to our city uh remain the constant and the same and i appreciate your commitment to uh and your humility to to serve in our city in a consistent way uh and so uh i think with that what i would really want to do is get to the video uh and then we'll have comments from the the other council members and allow you to to kind of uh close that out if that's okay sure all right okay billy regardless of background regardless of political position uh he's just an extremely decent person and that attribute more than the business achievement has really made him a successful leader for the denton community and in this particular case it's the title of mayor he put himself through college and himself through law school and then built his own business and to see this happen to a person who might have gone in another direction it's truly an american story and it's a hometown story he used the power of the mayor's office to improve lives in ways that none other has before he has empathy for uh those who are struggling uh with things that most of us don't comprehend don't understand uh don't acknowledge it's easier to walk by than to do something about it and because of chris's background he doesn't walk by he stops and makes a difference we work together in a lot of different capacities and we don't always agree on some things but you know if i call him or i text him he always responds so where it really matters and and seeing the people and touching the people and he's been there he's been a really good partner as we've continued to evolve the organization uh one of his favorite sayings is you know fresh eyes and you know we need fresh eyes on this problem and he's right you know as we continue to to get larger and more complex and and move even faster we need folks that that are not bringing biases with them in terms of this is the way we've always done it or this can't work we tried that before and for someone that's lived in this community his entire life his appreciation for those deep outside perspectives is it's impressive and and it's i think kind of unusual i chris watts do solemnly swear i chris watts do solemnly swear that i will faithfully execute the duties of the office of mayor of the city of denton texas so help me god when i've seen people in need and times people needed to step up organizations needed to step up they did it and to me that has been the greatest gift of this service to this community for me is to be able to see that more clearly to be able to appreciate it and to also believe that and to know that thank goodness i had just a small part of that thank you so much for what you're doing as mayor sometimes you just have to do what you have to do it's embarrassing when people accuse others of being privileged without even knowing them i think it used to have talking points what you've given of your life to this community has just been so exemplary one more that's why it's important that we continue this year's day of concern because you can never have enough i don't even know how to put these on my family would have been one of the family to be served by this facility thank you mayor chris watts for the time you spent in office the hours you donated the hours above and beyond what any of us ever saw when you were at the dais or when you were behind the mic or on a saturday a weekend when you're out representing the city the voters your constituents thank you for personally sacrificing to make lives for us and so many others better while you were there thanks to the community volunteers i mean what a gift of love to the community that you guys gave that's just probably one comment i want to say you can't make that comment and not allow it awesome awesome thank you and so i'll open it up before mayor watt speaks so comments from the from the council council member ryan yeah i hope i can do this without choking up too bad chris i've known you a long time probably more than anybody else up here on this board uh we both ran in 2007 for council you were successful i was not came back a few years later when you decided to run for mayor and i ran for council we were both successful um it's been a pleasure serving with you through these years i look forward to serving with you on the served it in board uh and i've always seen you as a mentor and a friend and glad to have had you in my life thank you john appreciate it any other council before we uh councilman councilman baker can you hear me now gotcha well i've i've knew chris a long time too because you've done a good job as mayor of denton i'm very proud of you proud to know you and also we talked a long time ago that i was raised here so you sort of helped me on making up my mind to run for city council so i do appreciate it you're a great man all right i appreciate you thank you thank you any other comments mayor pro tem davis well i i want to call you mr mayor whenever i say something but i'll go with mayor emeritus i hope that sticks i think that's a um i might be able to call you chris on the phone i don't think i could do it over a zoom anymore but uh i want to say i add my appreciation i can't certainly can't top the kind words of the video and um like john you kind of kind of messed it up a little bit there during it um but i want to thank you for uh the example you set i'm not sure i like the high bar you set for the rest of us that we have a lot to live into uh without you on this council but uh thank you for your your leadership and your mentorship and uh we'll we'll figure something out without you up here yes all right any any other comments councilman melzer i don't know if it's a common knowledge that you know people now hear about the junction moving out on 288 which you know you read uh uh played a critical role with that happening i don't know if it's common knowledge you've been around for so long that you were there at the very beginning of my senior king uh being where it is it's quite an arc and it's kind of interesting you know when looking back at your accumulated service that that really stands out as a very important uh central part of that arc and thanks for that contribution thank you great point great point okay any other comments okay and then i'll turn it uh councilmember johnson thank you for your service thank you thank you councilmember johnson okay and then we have a special guest on the phone that we need to hear from uh so uh mr city manager there he is the todd father hello sir yeah how are you good and well good yeah i'd just like to uh to echo all the uh the comments that have been made with you know jesse john and uh the council members it was uh really a pleasure uh spending four years with you and uh you know kind of taking the organization through significant change and a lot of very challenging difficult issues and i'm real proud of the progress that we made and i think uh i think you made a great impact on on the city and i will i was always very appreciative of your uh willingness to to go out and step out and and take the lead on many of those social issues and and shine a light on them and uh just made my job a lot easier uh get garnering support in the background but uh it's been a lot of fun and uh i i really appreciate the the time that i got to spend with you and i really appreciate more than anything the uh the support of the city staff as well thank you todd yeah and chris i'll just turn it over to you oh gosh i won't i won't say too much except for um it takes a team it takes a community and i said that from the very beginning when i got elected that it's not about me personally it's not about me professionally even though this has been one of the most rewarding things that i participated in both professionally and personally but to see how this community even when i'm not on council even now that i'm off that to see how the community is rallied and to see how you all are leading right now the city through some very difficult times it just really makes me proud to have grown up in denton and to have grown up in such a place where people care so deeply about each other because that's really the hallmark of the last six years of the last decades in this community and that's what will be the hallmark moving forward so i could not have done anything without the team on staff without city staff without the leadership of todd and i'll have a few more words to say about that without my colleagues on council whether we agreed or disagreed because to me that's really what crafts the best decision and i thank you so much for the video and i had to work very hard to uh maintain my composure on that because i think it really did capture the essence of what i believe about this community and that is that it's it's just full of people who care full of people who have passion full of full of people who advocate and all those things work together to make our city so great so this is uh obviously coming very late because of just circumstances within my life but i really do appreciate the opportunity to uh share with you all one more time and it's good to see everybody uh that and i and i miss a lot i just miss you guys so um so thank you so much for this opportunity and thank you for the video i don't know who put that together but the the the the people there they just do such a great job with that so thank you mayor thank you mayor husbeth for that i agree and that was well done and so if you'll hang with us if you would like uh mayor watts we are our next and i'll call our next item and and uh city manager uh howman hang with us as well because uh so item b is id 218-382 special recognition for uh todd howman and and uh so i just want to uh start off by saying how much i appreciate you i was reflecting back to uh the hiring process and meeting you uh there at the paterson appleton appleton center and and it was uh just asked you i kind of hey what's your focus what do you and you mentioned that you're uh financially going to be um that's your primary focus and and and you're hands-on type person and and and i think you were true to your word no doubt uh and and i appreciate uh all that you kind of your approach and your you know long days short nights when you you first um got got here and got started digging in and started um uh getting giving us the the direction and kind of the the reworking things as needed and and to that end i want to i want to digress for a second and say uh to to to your wife uh tina and and your daughter mandy i sure appreciate them uh sharing you with us because i know uh personally would have told that takes uh at home and family-wise but you're always great about incorporating your daughter bringing her to events and that sort of thing and so i i just appreciate you as a dad and as a as a city manager that uh was dedicated to to uh take on the challenge that is uh didn't so i'm grateful for that uh i'm grateful for the culture and and the management that you you brought forward and the the uh the kind of the um i guess it's the the willingness to face the council give tough decisions and just kind of you know you always were were candid about hey let's we're tough on the issues but we gotta we have to let the people give us the truth right we can't make that punitive and so i appreciate that perspective and it's really uh served as well as you know it all starts with the tax rate and that's the greatest report card ever uh to show that that drop and so uh we we uh appreciate the the foundation you provided for us obviously uh we we miss seeing you but we we appreciate what you're going to do for that next community and we we kind of understand we've been benefactors of that uh and so with that said uh i will uh so and those that don't know uh i didn't let him get out of town without his plaque so he has a plaque uh but i i refused to ship it to him so uh i was like man i'm giving you so i i hunted i i met him at dfw airport and just before he was getting on the plane i did i ran through the airport jumped over some suitcases caught up with him and gave it to him but that being said i i'll open it up for the council and then and then we'll go uh city staff management if there's anyone that wants to share and then we'll go back to mayor watts uh so councilmember melzer i i just thought you'd be a lot more tan by now i'm kind of disappointed frankly you uh toddy you know i at least i i know that i have said the same things to your face in private that which is such a talented manager uh and i'm i'm you know i just learned so much uh watching you uh and everything that i'm most proud of having been associated with are really things where you inferred where council you know what council would support and then you went way ahead of us you know and just uh scored huge opportunities uh while maintaining perfect physical discipline you know you you thought you took us through some like really scary times with covet and you did i don't think you knew that you know uh on your last week away that would sort of be multiplied even more but we wouldn't have had the wherewithal to get through that if we hadn't had the foundation that you had built so uh i you know i'm not going to move to pond desert but i i thought about it okay thank you paul uh may i approach him davis well paul stole my joke about you being tan i'm glad he tested that for me so i could see how cheesy it landed but uh um uh todd i'll echo what paul said but kind of add at a spin i didn't uh i didn't get the benefit uh at all really of seeing other city managers and denton truly in action by the time i got involved in uh the board of ethics and then on city council um you were already blowing and going your your staff you had started to assemble the team you wanted in place you had started uh as paul said inferring the will of the council and and really hit your stride and i like to think that you hit the uh you hit the stride really just as i was coming on and i got to reap the real benefit of that as a new council member um i i hesitate to think of what my service would look like if i hadn't had the benefit of you as as city manager at that time and um there's so just so many things to learn as a as a lay person coming in really coming into your your territory knowing um knowing as much as you have to know about every aspect of the city um so i i appreciate that my onboarding process was that much easier and um you're not that far from joshua tree i might be able to make a trip so i need you to figure out where the best place for tacos is and i might see you soon very good um anyone else uh council member ryan well tot i hope you're getting some sleep out there because i know while you were here you never did because it didn't matter what time of day or night we sent you an email we got a response within five minutes so uh you know your leadership has done so much for the city your ability to read people and to understand people and to see what position they were best for i mean there are several people who served in many different roles while you were here and i kept wondering why does he keep moving them around and it's because you saw their abilities you saw what they were capable of doing and knew that they were the best person in in that position um you know i think let me look through here yes i'm the only one that served under the previous uh city manager so uh i do know the difference of excellent management that came under you so uh you know we're going to miss you greatly um but it was a we're all very grateful that we had you for the time we did yes uh so anyone else any other council member johnson i want to appreciate you for your service sir okay uh any other thoughts comments from the council okay uh sarah staff uh any any comments from well i'll just say this uh it's kind of a song with that uh from kenny rogers that said you picked a fine time to leave uh well um you know talk about going from the fire frying pan to the fire but i have to tell you that i've worked with a lot of different city managers um over the career and i i have enjoyed working with todd as one of the the most to to learn quite frankly to learn but to also um work closely enough with someone to see um good traits of how to work with council members and how to deal with staff and while i felt like i had a lot of those opportunities before and i felt like i was fairly um seasoned it was just a fresh of breath of fresh air to work with someone who was so straightforward so honest um and you know even without telling you they're teaching you he taught you and so my my um i'm sorry that he left i i really am because i really enjoyed working with him and i don't know that i'll ever have the chance to work with him again but i will say he made certainly made an impact on me and on this organization and it's it is today where it is because of his leadership and i want him to know how much i appreciate that excellent thank you anyone else uh from staff okay and so uh pop on if you if you change your mind uh mayor watts i'll uh turn it over to you sure uh well i'm gonna try to not turn this into a roast but um yeah he knows you know i remember and i've told this story to todd privately so i'm gonna now uh you know debut it publicly i remember when todd interviewed with us and some of you were there for that interview and some weren't and i remember thinking towards the end of the interview as we were asking questions and todd was answering there was a moment when somebody asked a question and i thought this meeting's over for todd he's ready to move on and that was one thing i learned with todd you you didn't have to pick up on the subtle clues but that's one thing that made you todd such an effective leader is because you went into a situation you went into a meeting you went into a problem and you were singularly focused to solve it you were singularly focused to make sure that when we came into that meeting we did not leave that meeting in the same position whatever that position is i really enjoyed working with you i've been self-employed my whole life really was never part of an organization of teamwork of people with a common goal people with a common purpose and i think uh serving the city was one of those first times and serving with you as the city manager was a great honor it was a great privilege because you're a man of high integrity and a man of honesty and straightforward i mean you will tell it like it is you're not there to necessarily coddle anybody you're not there to tear anybody down you're there to be as authentic as you can be with no pretense and no judgment and that's refreshing and i think that i learned so much from that and i think that you and i worked well together because in some ways we're very different in our approaches and i think it worked well when we came across situations that needed the diplomacy but also needed something other than diplomacy because it can only take you so far when you told me that you were accepting another position i felt a loss i thought okay we're losing a great staff member and also i'm losing someone that is a friend of mine that i've really enjoyed and i certainly look forward to continuing that friendship and and learning from you in the sense of what you've experienced but you've done some great things for this city you came in and you changed some things that needed to be changed for a while i've been on council for what 10 years or six or seven years when you when you first started and what a breath of fresh air to have leadership at the city not who tried to concentrate that power but who delegated it who really developed people and saw their natural their sort of raw talent and you're able to develop that with people that really benefited our community and i think a prime example of that is what we went through two weeks ago and the people that were in place and the systems that were in place and the hearts of the people who were in place to make sure they did all that they could do to mitigate the suffering that we all experienced so i've really appreciated the time we've spent together and the work that we've done i'm very proud quite frankly of what the city council and the community together with your leadership as city manager in the city of denton has been able to accomplish in the last four years i think when we look back on it here in a few years we'll say wow we really made a difference and that's the thing i'm most proud of and i appreciate being part of your team so good luck out there uh i'm not so sure if you're going to get as tan as everybody wants you to get but um i know that you'll do a good as good a job for them as you did for the city of dent may be a little bit more boring out there because you don't have as much going on but that's okay uh but again thank you for your service and really have enjoyed getting to know you and just working together with you awesome so i'll turn it over to to you uh city manager howman and i'll say uh just for the record being tan is overrated go ahead i'm not going near that well yeah i appreciate i appreciate everybody's uh kind words and you know it was like uh i was telling a friend of mine what what a way to spend my last week there you know the storm is just sort of like a metaphor for the private previous four years and you know it's uh i can remember interviewing the council back in 2016 and you know the thing that drew me to the position quite honestly was i just felt like there were some things that were a little broken i felt like the staff and the council weren't talking to each other the way they needed to and um there was definitely residents kind of bringing me you know information on uh responsiveness customer service and that sort of thing and and a lot of concern about the budget as well um you know and so those were our primary focuses the first couple of years and what was what was interesting is what you know when we got to year two and three and that team started really gelling um and started you know they started adding people to the team you know themselves to really reinforce the culture we were trying to build i appreciate what uh what chris said because i i do think the you know the responsiveness in the storm you talk about being in a helpless position and sort of being at the mercy of a third party i thought the staff responded very well they knew what to do they supported each other the silos were gone and and i'm just real proud of this team i think that uh i think that it's not it doesn't get much better than that group you've got in denton and they do tell you exactly what they think um you know and and i appreciate the partnership on the council side as well to welcome that type of uh you know bluntness and feedback so you can make good decisions and that's how it should operate and you know i appreciate where we are and uh and i appreciate all the kind words and i wish you nothing but the best and you have just a terrific group of people leading those departments right now and i think you're in great hands excellent thank you agreed okay well thank you everyone and again have a have a great evening we'll talk soon uh and and we're gonna get back to it so thank you very much okay that'll conclude item c and that will take us to um do me confirm do we have any public any public okay great so no public speakers that'll take us to our uh consent agenda i'll take a motion for the consent agenda understanding uh item f is the only one noted to want for that was pulled council member ryan move approval the consent agenda except for item f okay mayor pro tem davis i'll second okay we have a motion in a in a second for the consent agenda but for item f any comments okay council member ryan how say you aye may pro tem davis aye thank you um and then uh council member baker uh council member melter aye council member armature yes okay council member johnson aye mayor hutspeth is an aye that passes uh seven to zero i'll call item f which is id 21407 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton uh permitting leak adjustments to water bills for certain circumstances due to winter weather or energy emergency providing for a servability clause and providing for effective date that is a lot to say yeah mayor council ryan adams customer service and public affairs let me pull this presentation up for you there we go so this is just a brief overview of the item uh item f that was pulled and it is somewhat of a companion item with item e so i'm going to cover both of them but focus a little bit more time on item f or regarding the leak adjustments so if council will recall about a week ago um they adopted a an extension of the declaration of disaster in an order of council and that declaration of disaster in order would extend through march 16th within that declaration it does have a couple provisions that relax some of the ordinance restrictions for wastewater averaging and leak adjustments and this was to provide additional relief for those customers who had water main bursts not water main burst water pipe bursts at their home and we're probably experiencing a significant amount of water usage compared to what they normally would for any other february we said then that we would need to come back to the council to extend some of these ordinances so that they could live beyond the termination date of the declaration of disaster which again is march 16th so the current ordinance that is item f would allow leak adjustments or pardon me the current leak adjustment ordinance only allows adjustments in cases of hidden leaks so those leaks that are not immediately and reasonably detectable and does not include fixtures appliances or equipment to include piping and homes and what was provided for under the declaration of disaster and what is provided for in this ordinance extending that provision is that leaks due to pipe bursts or any piping issue at a residence at a property would be would be available and would qualify for leak adjustment so what this order that you're considering tonight does it allows applications for all repaired leaks to pipes to be considered and this would apply for any leak occurring between february 14th and february 28th so certainly the week of the winter storm but also the week afterwards to account for any latent issues with any of the piping so this ordinance extends the provision 30 days after the due date of the march bill which is timed along with our leak detection ordinance that is the last day that someone could apply for leak adjustments so with passage of this ordinance we are going to work on some direct communication to some of our customers certainly our online payment customers that is sending an email and easy to do an easy way to communicate but we're also going to focus on multi-family customers as well and the reason we would focus on those is we want to ensure that for those multi-family complexes where they may have non-sub metered accounts for their tenants so they have one large meter for everybody and they divvy that up amongst their tenants we want to make sure they're aware of this opportunity before they begin to pass that cost along to those tenants so we want to make sure they're aware that they can apply for a leak adjustment of course we're also going to have some information on social media and on our website both on our bill payment webpage but also on the home page beginning tomorrow with passage of this ordinance i did mention this is a companion item so we are going to ensure that with the passage of item e which you just voted on that the provision within the declaration of disaster that related to wastewater averaging that will actually now continue through february of 2022 so that now lives beyond the termination date of the declaration of disaster so that is a brief presentation i'm happy to answer any of your questions also krista foster's on the line so for any of your hard questions she is going to step up and save me and uh thanks for the opportunity to walk through this okay thank you very much and uh questions for staff seeing none i'll take a motion uh councillor armature i move approval and i just want to say thank you um you know this is not only a wonderful solution it was also a very complicated one and i can see all the thought that went into it and anyway this means a lot thank you thank you do i have a second councillor baker i'll second it thank you i have a motion a second any other discussion okay uh councilmember armature i'll sell you yes okay councilmember baker yes councilmember ryan aye councilmember melzer aye councilmember johnson aye mayor pro tem davis aye mayor hudspeth is a aye as well that passes seven zero that concludes our consent agenda and takes us to our items for individual consideration the first item a which is id 21324 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas a home rule a municipal corporation authorizing the city manager or her designee to execute a professional service agreement with mre consulting ltd for energy trading and risk management consulting good evening mr mayor mayor pro tem and council good evening smith day i'm with dme i'm the executive manager of regulatory and risk division at dme and this i have a short presentation on this item and walk you through it and basically what we're asking here is for consulting services to assist us with some enhancements of a brand new application software application that we purchased back in june and this this consulting service will help us to make this tool better improve it and customize it to do in keeping with our portfolio and our portfolio is a little bit unique and so it'll help us out so i wanted to thank you by the way for having the foresight to buy the energy trading and risk management tool back in july and um it's uh it actually is in place right now so as a by way of background uh it was approved in july and it does replace the deloitte system that we we had been running on for for quite a while um it's a it's a better tool and has a lot more features that that helps us uh and it's more customizable of course uh we did begin the implementation in september and we just concluded in february in fact we were uh we were supposed to absolutely totally be finished on the 22nd um that got pushed out by the the winter storm event uh but the only thing left by that time by the by the end of january it really was up and running the only thing left to do in february was some small amount of cleanup but the good news is is that the the baseline implementation is there it is functioning it actually was functioning and in late july in late january of this year and um you know it's the implementation was a success so uh that is that is a bit of good news worse and um what we'd like to do from this point on is to enhance the capability of it uh this system lost my slides there we go the system is is capable of more than just the baseline implementation what we want to do is bring a a consultant in like this company here mre that that was vetted through our procurement process they are not only experts in the you know how these tools work and particularly this one uh they also are experts in how to apply them and also we get the we get the advantage of a a set a group of people like this who come in and they've seen these these tools used throughout the industry and they can they can give us some some tips and tricks and and show us some functionality that we had never thought of so we'd like to keep this in line with leading practices in the industry uh learn learn a few things from them they can also teach us training for some of the enhancements that we wanted to add to it uh and then some general support another thing is because our portfolio is is unique to us and we're this tool's tailored to us um we want to any changes they make we want to make sure that's documented and we have a a guide a go-to playbook for anyone that's coming into the organization that's going to use the tool so um that is that is what we're asking for here and um with that i'll be happy to take any questions okay if you could pull down the slide presentation for me thank you sir and uh questions for staff counselor melzer yeah i i know this answer because you're good enough to respond before the meeting but i think a question uh members of the public may have in their minds is gee is this something that would have made a difference if we had it in place before the valentine valentine's day week uh so i appreciate you know you're sharing the explanation you you shared with me yes sir uh council member melzer these tools are deployed throughout the energy industry in in power and natural gas and solid fuels and petroleum and the they're very you know they're very common for anyone with a fairly sophisticated portfolio like ours and i could tell you that um if these tools were capable of being a crystal ball and avoiding what happened two weeks it wouldn't have happened or the impact wouldn't have been near the impact uh that that happened and this was industry-wide so these tools uh while they're wonderful and they they do help us to make decisions um they are not crystal balls unfortunately i wish they were and if we could figure out a way to to invent that it would be worth worth billions as we saw well the part of your uh explanation uh previously that i thought was particularly helpful was that it does help kind of with the the broad stroke predictions for the base energy needs but not so much the individual day events is that a fair way to yes sir yes sir let me let me just the the the etrm tool really takes the current the month coming up which is for now we're in we're looking at april and it stretches all of our portfolio out of our horizon some of our deals as you know go out 15 or 20 years so that's you you add all that together uh all those those bought and sold megawatts over 20 years and you've got millions of megawatts so a two dollar move in a market is is a heck of a lot of money in that in that sense so it is it is looking out at that forward horizon and once you get into the current month which is commonly in the business called the cash month um the that month is upon you and uh major major changes that you could do are are close to you the only thing left this is daily deals or real-time you know market deals and the hour ahead market or day ahead market and and that's all you're left with and the better tools for that close-in work are actually and we have them or your weather forecast tools so you see you see those close-in changes uh coming out you know in a couple weeks with those other tools this tool really doesn't lend itself well um you know to to adjusting in in the real time near term if i can coach you to like one more sentence you know but it does like what's an example of a very important very consequential decision that what you're asking for would help you make you know what well yeah can you give us an example of something this will really help us do yes so uh let's take the event we just had so you can you can clearly see that out of this event we're liable to have some some market design changes and some regulatory changes coming out of that now those changes actually coming out of this of the the the winter event we just had uh will translate into some forward market prices and and that will be stretched over that that 20 you know 10 15 20 year horizon and then this tool will actually come out and say hey these things are going to have some big impacts we may want to make adjustments to that long-term portfolio so absolutely it's important in that respect uh and and that's actually something that's very important that we we have this tool on the ground now and i'm glad we do and that we'll we'll need some expertise like like uh an mre type company to come in and uh and and tweak it and and fine tune it to our portfolio thank you thanks a lot to you mayor yes sir okay any other questions for staff all right i'll take a motion mayor pardon me uh council member melzer yeah i'll move it mayor pro tem i'll second okay uh make a note okay uh so we have a motion in a second any discussion got it uh council member melzer have to say you hi mayor pro tem i council member ryan hi council member baker uh council member armature yes council council member johnson aye and mayor hutzpah says aye that passes seven zero thank you uh smith uh and then that yes sir uh and that takes us to item b where i'm looking for a motion to uh yeah motion to uh postpone till march 16th but i'll call the item which is item b a e s a two zero dash zero zero zero uh six d so i'll take a motion council member ryan i moved to postpone this item till march 16th thank you uh do i have a second a second thank you council member johnson have a motion and a second any discussion seeing none council member ryan how say you aye council member johnson aye thank you uh and then council member baker uh council member melzer aye council member armature yes mayor pro tem aye and mayor hutzpah says aye that passes seven zero that takes us to item c which is id 21376 consider approval of a resolution of the city of denton regarding the creation of the stonehill ranch municipal utility district number one of denton county it encompassing uh approximately 161.641 acres on land generally located south and west of old stony road good evening mayor council richard canoni deputy director and planning director with development services i have a brief presentation on this item the request is to create a municipal municipal utility district on approximately 162 acres the location of this property is within our etj division 2 and you can see here that location on the map so it is it is quite a distance from from our municipal boundary the total cost of improvements that they're proposing is roughly seven million most of that would go towards obviously the infrastructure associated with the municipal utility district just as a reminder if you recall we had a interim policy that we adopted about a year ago the local government code chapter 42 which establishes provisions and regulations for extraterritorial jurisdictions for municipalities requires that a municipality consent or not consent for a special district such as a municipal utility district within their etj so even though platting is through denton county the local government code still requires us to to act on that a little bit more zoomed in on what they're proposing 110 one acre lots they're currently served by aqua texas in fact i believe aqua texas has a facility this general area right here police would be through denton county they are within ponders fire service district and chrome handles emergency services in this area and we did look at this based upon those eight broad policies because it is so far removed from our division one most of those policies really didn't come into play as part of our review there's no service that we would provide in the future near future or long-term future as as it appears so as a result there's really there's really no there's nothing that would require the city to to have to provide any service or or in the event of something happening with that mud come in to to take control of that and so there's essentially three options consent consent with conditions or refuse to consent and and just as a reminder if there is a refusal to consent there is the ability then that they petition through tcq whereby a a agreement would need to be for water and sewer service would need to be created given that this is not within our ccn or or certificate of convenience of necessity where we provide water and so it would be a difficult agreement to to essentially negotiate with that staff is recommending approval to consenting to the creation of this municipal utility district with the condition that they obtain subdivision approval through denton county in accordance with their rules that's already required but we just wanted to include that as a just to make it clear as part of that resolution with that i'll be happy to answer any questions all right thank you and if you could yeah mayor pro tim davis richard you said this in as many words and we've been over this issue before with muds before but just to make it absolutely clear for anybody following along our our hands are pretty tied with these correct unless we want to be willing to run water mains out there and because they're in our our ccn unless we want to do quite a bit to service this new subdivision we're pretty much stuck approving these or just waiting longer for tcq to give them what they want anyway that's correct and in this regard it's it's it's within aqua texas ccn so we would have to go through a whole process to even if we wanted to to serve it i think it would be a long and arduous process to even even if we wanted to and i don't know that that's probably in our best interest okay any other questions for staff seeing none i'll take a motion mayor pro tim davis i'll move approval thank you is there a second uh councilmember johnson a second thank you we have a motion and a second discussion okay more mayor pro tim davis i'll say you aye councilmember johnson aye councilmember ryan aye councilmember baker uh councilmember melter yeah i'll just comment also this at least gets them to build essentially to our specs in case they do eventually end up being part of ten i thank you councilmember armature yes okay and mayor hudspeth is a i as well that passes seven to zero the next item is item d which is id 21404 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton authorizing the interim city manager or her designee to execute an interlocal agreement with the denton independent school district for use of approximately 10 000 square feet of storage space in the certain city warehouse located at 651 south mayhill road and providing an effective date is there a i know we went over this is there a presentation uh diana cody is on the line to answer questions she did not go back to do another presentation unless diana do you have some updated information you want to share or scott mcdonald maybe uh scott mcdonald director of development services um fundamentally there's really no change we're working through the ila just some of the specifics within that but uh largely this is much the same the conversation that occurred yesterday so no presentation okay great uh so i will any questions for staff okay i'll take i'll take a motion councilmember ryan with approval okay councilmember baker i'll second it thank you we have a motion and a second by way of discussion for those uh that are watching i'll say the rate is is prescribed by statute so it's it's just kind of the the base rate that we would uh we're required to to charge uh for the the school district happy to help as they had damage uh to some of their schools and need to store some some materials and so we're we're making that space available so uh okay so we have motion a second any other discussion okay uh councilmember ryan how say you i councilmember baker uh councilmember melzer aye councilmember armature yes councilmember johnson aye okay and mayor hutzpah is a aye as well and who did i did i miss somebody uh the the mayor pro tem i think he recused himself oh thank you very much i recused all right there you go um okay so that passes six zero thank you um so that takes us to our public hearings first item a i d two one two four two hold public hearing consider adoption of ordinance of the city of denton texas amending the provision of chapter 26 utilities article five in indirect discharge into sanitary sanitary water wastewater systems of the city's code of ordinances mayor we're asking if uh you council would please um allow us to postpone this till the 16th of march okay um got it so councilmember melzer remove this item be postponed to the 16th of march thank you and is there a second thank you councilmember johnson uh for the second motion is second discussion okay councilmember melzer how say you aye councilmember johnson aye okay councilmember baker uh councilmember ryan aye councilmember armature yes uh mayor pro tem davis aye all right mayor mayor hutzpah says aye that passes seven zero uh and then item b obviously we're looking for postponement b and c but i'll call b which is uh item b z20-0012a hold a public hearing and consider adoption of ordinance regarding an amendment to the razor ranch overlay district to amend the the concept and zoning map exhibits amend development standards and design criteria for development within the eastern portion of the razor ranch south campus uh so i'll take a motion uh mayor pro tem davis i move to postpone to the march 16th meeting thank you um is there a second councilmember johnson a second thank you have a motion and a second discussion okay um mayor pro tem how say you aye councilmember johnson how say you aye okay councilmember melzer aye councilmember baker councilmember ryan aye and then councilmember armature yes thank you mayor hutzpeth as well that passes seven zero takes us to item c and that is pd 20-0002c hold public hearing and consider adoption of ordinance of the city of den texas regarding a zoning change for general office and rural residential districts to a planned development district on approximately 90 acres i'll take a motion uh mayor pro tem davis move to postpone this item to the march 16th meeting thank you is there a second councilmember baker i'll second thank you we have a motion and a second discussion mayor pro tem davis just very briefly to let the public know if anybody's tracking this item there's a public meeting a virtual public meeting scheduled and either city staff can get that for you if you send me an email i can send you the information as well great information do you have a date on that i think it's thursday okay don't quote me on that i'll send you an email if you need it we've confirmed it is thursday so we have dual neighborhood meetings on on thursday so uh easy to remember that way okay uh thank you for that great point though so motion and a second uh any other discussion okay mayor pro tem how say you aye councilmember baker how say you uh councilmember melzer aye councilmember johnson aye councilmember ryan aye councilmember armature yes mayor hutzpeth is aye as well that passes uh seven to zero and that will bring us to uh concluding items any uh announcements including and concluding items mayor there's two meetings um one is thursday in the evening and one is friday at noon for the hershbach um item got it and we'll be happy to send information out to anyone who's interested i have a a nice little flyer i can send out yeah if you'll send i yeah i think just send it to to the entire i'll send it to the whole council please that'd be great very good uh any other announcements if not i have i just want to remind everyone that no meeting uh next week week of the ninth the spring break so enjoy your break in action the following week the 16th tentatively what we have uh for work sessions just in case is uh so this is for my peers if you have questions to get those in uh there's the internal audit uh accounts payable there's an increment weather update for facilities police fire emergency management uh public work streets drainage fleet services hr risk and risk management so all those are coming up in a couple weeks so you can present questions for that the dcrc discussion uh so that's the development code review committee discussions coming up uh we have a follow-up on loop 288 building an agreement memorandum of memorandum of understandings coming up and uh then we'll have whatever council request i know there's probably one or two so that's the week of the 16th but other than that any any other uh announcements uh from the council okay then i will uh what councillor melzer oh yeah not announcement just uh just want to take another opportunity to appreciate staff after all they've gone through through snow bed they're doing this week's long process it's appropriate it can't be any fun to go through a week's long process to discuss what they did well you know what went right but also to deal with what went wrong with all the hard looks and that can't be easy i so value it thank you good i echo that thank you for for making that point um okay if there's nothing else i don't want to miss anyone then we will conclude at uh 7 48 p.m on it still march the second 2021 thank y'all enjoy your break in action and uh we'll see you soon bye