Mar 16, 2021 City Council on 2021-03-16 2:00 PM

good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. Today is March the 16th, 2021. It is 2 0 1 p.m. and we do have a quorum, so I will call this meeting of the Denton City Council to order. The first order of business on the agenda is to hear from citizens on the consent agenda, but we have no calls for that, so that will take us to the next section of the agenda, which is questions for staff from from council regarding the consent agenda. Questions for staff on the consent agenda? Seeing none. Any other movement? Okay, then that'll conclude that item, and that will take us to our first work session report, and I'll call that item. So it's work session AID 21-228, receive report, hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding an audit, follow-up on accounts payable. There we go. Hello, Mayor and Council. Hello. My screen real quick. Apparently, I was muted. There we go. Alright, so I'm Madison Rocha, the City Auditor for Denton. I'm gonna share our report, our follow-up report of the accounts payable audit, which was initially published in October of 2019. So as a reminder, follow-up reports are intended to provide information on what changes have been made in response to an issued audit, and this review was based on the recommendations and management responses originally compiled in the accounts payable audit, which was, as I just mentioned, issued in October of 2019. And in general, this review found that improvements have been made to documentation and approval processes for about $510 million in vendor payments, and in addition, plans to further automate the accounts payable process should provide additional assurance that payments are not duplicated. So I'm gonna discuss these specific improvements over the next few slides. So first up, the original audit found that there were opportunities in the accounts payable process for vendors to be paid twice for the same work. Specifically, we found that there was no consistent way to classify unnumbered invoices, and there was no way to compare payment requests received by AP with those paid by PCard, which made it difficult to verify that a payment hadn't already been made in these two processes. Since the original audit, Finance has implemented a semi-automated accounts payable process, and through this process, so through this process, department staff submit invoices or other payment requests to accounts payable in a cloud-based application, and this system basically automatically checks for duplicate requests by comparing vendor and invoice number. So this appears to be working, however, it is vulnerable to data entry errors, and there's still no classification system from unnumbered invoices. So the city is also in the process of procuring a fully automated accounts payable system, which when it's implemented, might be able to minimize this vulnerability. So as for PCard payments, Finance plans to begin sending a list of its weekly payments to the city's PCard monitoring vendor, who can then verify that these payments weren't already made via PCard, and if any exceptions are identified, obviously AP will ensure that the payment isn't duplicated. So moving on to purchase receipts, most of the city's purchases are made using a purchase order. This method of procurement is generally considered to be the least risky, as it requires a three-way match, and specifically a three-way match requires that the quantity and price, prices of what's ordered on the PO must match the quantities that are actually received, and the price charge on the, the price is charged on the invoice. So this system that's illustrated on the slide. The original audit found that many purchase orders for goods did not include quantity or price, but instead used a lump sum on the order form for the ordered items, and furthermore, there was no additional documentation of the goods received, such as a packing slip, which increased the risk that the city had paid for more items than it had actually gotten. Since the original audit, the city has adopted a new cash disbursements policy, which provides clear guidance to employees on what documentation is needed to adequately receive on an order, and in addition, more purchase orders for goods appear to list out quantity and price instead of using a lump, the lump sum method. So next, the original audit also identified some issues with the city's check requisition and dispersal practices. In particular, employees could previously request that a payment, request a payment under $5,000 be made without any documented approval. So, and moreover, vendors were able to physically pick up checks from the city directly. So in combination, these issues essentially could allow an employee to create a fake vendor, request a payment for that vendor without approval, and then collect that payment with little scrutiny. And in addition, the original audit found that about 70% of payments were actually printed checks, and those have higher associated costs and risks than electronic payments like ACH. So finance now requires check requisitions under $5,000 to be approved by the employee supervisor, and the city's new cash disbursements policy, it does still allow employees to collect and deliver checks, but vendors can no longer pick them up. And instead, about 99% of checks are mailed out, and so there's no, there's not as many pickups anymore basically. Still, checks make up relatively the same percentage of payments since the original audit. So, however, procurement is in the process of updating the new vendor packet to encourage vendors to sign up for electronic payments instead of being issued paper checks. So increasing the number of electronic payments should reduce costs related to check printing and mailing and help associate, help address the risk associated with physical check pickups. Moving on. The original audit also found that city employees were able to make purchases of office supplies using the Staples Advantage system, and there was no, basically there's no approval process set up in that system for purchases of office supplies. And in addition, accounts payable had to manually process invoices from Staples, which was causing some inefficiencies due to the volume of invoices received. Since then, the city has used the Staples Advantage system to set up approval workflows for most Staples purchases. So this system basically identifies users as either associates who make orders or supervisors who approve orders. And when we reviewed these users, we found that all but one of the city's associates actually, they all had approvers except for one individual basically. And that oversight was promptly corrected when we brought it to their attention. On the other hand, almost 90% of supervisors did not have an approval workflow set up. But that being said, only four supervisors had actually made recent purchases without a documented approval. So since that issue was identified, procurement has begun working with Staples. So to make sure, basically to block supervisor accounts from making purchases at all, which should greatly reduce the risk that inappropriate purchases are made. We also found that there was not regular review of Staples Advantage users. And so basically we found that one third of the city's users of that system had not recently logged on and generally appeared to be inactive. But procurement has since developed processes to ensure that Staples users are periodically verified to ensure that their access is needed. And that's good because it'll reduce the risk that people go out and make purchases inappropriately. It reduces exposure essentially. So procurement has also worked with Staples to bill the city each time an order is completed instead of each time a package is delivered. And this has actually halved the number of invoices that the city receives from Staples, which is helping AP to increase efficiency. So finally, I just want to mention quickly that the city adopted a new cash disbursements policy in January, and it provides clearer guidance on the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the AP process, the vendor payment process. We also did find that accounts payable and procurement employees still have some inappropriate access to the city's financial system. However, we're planning to meet with Procurement Finance and Tech Services next week to address that issue. So in summary, we found that all recommendations issued as part of the original audit had been implemented or were in progress. And so based on this review, we plan to perform an additional follow-up once the AP automation software has been fully implemented. There we go. Okay. Thank you. Any questions for staff? Council Member Johnson and then Council Member Armitter. I'm sorry. You're muted. Council Member Johnson. Okay. One, I'm grateful that it's going to be a follow-up. And two, I wanted to know if the DME, is that included in the 5, 10 million? Yes. Like purchase orders and payment requests from the DME are also included in that amount of vendor payments. That's correct. But I don't know that it includes the purchase power. Okay. Yes, it would include the purchase power, but not from the most recent event that we just had, if that was your concern. All right. Any follow-up questions? We are going to have a follow-up on this report. So how long is it going to be in between this before we do? My understanding is that the AP automation will take 12 to 18 months. So at this point, I think my plan is to come back next fiscal year at the end and do another follow-up, or maybe early the fiscal year after that. I want to make sure they get that software in place because I think it'll affect some of these recommendations. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Armitage? Thank you. First of all, sorry for coming in late. I was waiting a few minutes in the waiting room. I wanted to pull items B and V just for a no vote for the consent agenda. So thank you for that. Thanks for this audit. It's a really important audit. I was wondering if you could speak to the city relationship with Staples. How long has that relationship existed? Was there originally an RFP that established that relationship? I'm just curious about all of the money that we're spending on this one corporation. You could speak to that. Medicine? Yes. Hi, this is Christine Taylor, Procurement Director. Our relationship with Staples is we have a cooperative contract, which means it was solicited and we have piggybacks on through the Byboard Cooperative Agency. So our contract right now, the one we're currently in, it goes from 2019 to 2024. Thank you. And do you happen to know prior to 2019, was there also a contract with Staples? There was. I can follow up exactly how that was procured. I'm just looking at our current contracts, but I believe we just renewed and so it would have been through the cooperative Byboard, but I'm happy to follow up on that as well. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I just love to know more about the origin. Anyway, thanks. Okay. Any other questions? Any other questions for staff? Sienna, Madison, I do have in your report, you talked about usage of old forms versus new forms, that sort of thing. Is there a process by which we can purge the old forms or is there something we can do going forward to make that possible? I wanted to hear your thoughts on that. I think when we found maybe one of eight or something like that where the old form was used, I think those forms are probably out there. They might be physically out there. They might be on the website somewhere. I'm not sure exactly where they would have found the old form. Maybe it was just saved already on their department drive. I think the real control is an AP, right? They should be saying, "Hey, this is the wrong form. You need to make sure you fill it out on the right form or at least have the right approval on there." I think that's an easier place to stop the wrong form being used than trying to get rid of it from everybody's computers where they might have it. Okay. Let's take that a step further. What's your recommendation around that? Is there a naming sequence and a version sequence that makes it unique to then say, "This is the version we're using currently," and redirect? Or your thoughts on controlling at the AP level, understanding that is there a naming best practice that you would recommend? I don't know that they have version numbers on the forms right now. When it actually rolled out, it was quite a while ago, so I don't remember what communication came out around with it. I think at the beginning, we need to obviously communicate, "Hey, this is the new form." It looks different, right? There's a whole line where the supervisor needs to sign that wasn't there before. I think it's just a matter of AP having to go back to somebody and be like, "This is the wrong form. You have to fill out the new one." If naming conventions, if they think naming conventions would help, then I think that's a great idea. Okay. I think maybe if it's a subtle change, then I take your point about a substantial change, but if it's a subtle change, I think that may be some confusion that maybe we want to address, but I'll put that out there and we'll just continue to monitor it. The other question I had was, "With your recommendation of mailing checks, do you also give guidance on associating a tracking number with that?" Because things get lost in the mail. Things, "Hey, we didn't receive the check. Let's check and see the status of it. Where is it? Has it been delivered?" Those sort of things. Do you provide any guidance on how we track what's been mailed? Yeah. The current process, I don't believe that we issue tracking numbers for individual checks because we issue a lot of checks every week, basically, so I don't know that we would send. Do you have a... Sorry. Nick Vincent, the assistant director of finance, might have an answer. All right. Mayor, that's a great question, and that does come up occasionally. We do issue check numbers in every check that's printed in the city. We can refer back to that if a vendor contacts us, wanting to know where that payment is. Is it tracked in transit? I'm a vendor. I call. I hadn't received my check. Do we have a way to pinpoint, or do we just cancel it and issue another one? Well, yeah. The procedure would be as first, we could check our bank account to make sure the check is not paid out of the bank account. If it has not, then we would issue another one in place of stop payment on that check. Answer your question. They're not mailed, certified, and have a tracking number as such. If a vendor does pick a check up, which is very rare, as Madison said, we do have a vendor sign as she stated that they picked that payment up from the city. Okay. I guess just one last thing. Along those lines, if... Better said, does that bank charge us a fee for that, for a stop payment? I would have to get back with you on that, Mayor. I can follow up once I touch base to the treasury department. I do not have those fees in front of me. Yeah. And really quick, if you want me to, on the forms that Madison was talking about, she was absolutely correct. On the old accounts payable forms for a check requisition or any type of request to the accounts payable department, we actually, following this audit, we did a training throughout the city to roll those forms out initially and actually send an email out to the city and all city employees. We actually have a follow-up training coming in two weeks to go with those forms with employees to make sure they're comfortable with them and make sure they know what form they're using and not using the old forms that was in question earlier. Okay. Great. All right. Thank you. Yeah. If you could just follow up on if we get charged a fee. I know it's going to be nominal. I get it. It didn't happen that much, but I just want to understand that better. Yes, sir. Great. Thank you. And Mayor, I just want to add during the original audit, we did look at that the stop payment process that he was talking about, if a vendor basically comes back and says, hey, we never got our check. And it looked, you know, the process that he described just now and that we reviewed originally seemed appropriate basically. Great. Okay. Thank you for that. All right. Any other questions for staff on this item? Seeing none. Okay. Thank you, Madison. That will take us to item. Let me see here. That will take us to item B, which is ID 21339, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding process impacts and results of service delivery during the February 2021 inclement weather event by the following departments listed our facilities, police, fire, emergency management, public works, streets, drainage, traffic, public works, fleet, and human services risk management. Mayor, this is Sarah Hensley. We had to move the public works fleet to another date on April 6th as the, we lost a gentleman that works with us on contract from Napa auto parts and the staff is attending the funeral. So that we will move that to, to April 6th, but all the others will be today. Okay. Sorry. If we could, we need to pivot for a bit, I guess we, Mr. City attorney, I need to hear from you. We were no longer on the consent agenda item of the agenda. We had moved on to the work sessions but council member armature made a request for the previous item. And so I need, I need some guidance on that. Could you request the, or let me know what specific item B and B on consent? Yes. And the second one was D. D, D, D as in Victor. Yes. Yeah. And I was, I was just waiting in the waiting room. I understand, but I just want to make sure we're doing it. So these are being requested to be removed from consent and acted individually or just postponed entirely or for meeting acted individually act the, we do have that on the agenda for where these are normally pulled under item two. And I know the council member armature was late. I mean, the council has the ability to suspend the rule to allow for this to be removed, even though it wasn't made during work session item two, which is the proper place to do that. So if council desires to allow that, that, that is fine. Is that a vote or how's that? Is that a motion? It would be a motion to suspend the rules to allow these items to be full for individual consideration as requested by okay. Thank you. We'll, we'll come back to it. We'll just come back to it after the work session and then we'll, we'll, we'll tack it on to the end. So we'll take a motion after the work session. So there you go. So I've already called item B we're into that. So I don't want to, is this a council member is this a question about item B? Uh, I just wanted to add for staff. Well, I don't, I don't need a presentation on that. I just wanted to vote. No, I just want to make sure that nobody does unnecessary preparation for those items in the interim. So I'll take it that you're not talking about item B. I'm sorry. This was about the consent agenda. Okay. Got it. Just trying to clarify. Okay. Uh, so we're on item B again, ID 21339, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction, pardon me, hold discussion and give staff direction regarding processes, impacts and results of services delivery during the February 21st inclement weather event by the various departments. Good afternoon, mayor, members of the council, Scott Gray, director of airport facilities and real estate. Give me a moment and I'll share the screen. You see that? Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay. Um, good afternoon again. I will be here this afternoon presenting some information about the facilities management and the airport's weather event, um, response. So starting with facilities, um, our expectations with this storm, um, coming upon the, uh, the area was to maintain building security and mitigate the damages caused by the storm. Um, we anticipated power outages. We expected our, our generators, our emergency generators to engage, um, with minimum disruption. We did, uh, expect some potential for pipe freeze and we were prepared to mitigate that damage and then coordinate with the risk management department as well. And then lastly, um, our technicians being able to report on site as the essential personnel, um, in preparation, uh, for the event, um, we did begin to winterize some of the buildings that were unstaffed on Friday, February 12th. You can see those identified on the right side of the screen. Um, mainly those were unstaffed, uh, facilities, um, or buildings with boilers in them that we were concerned there may be, um, water line breaks. We did leave the fire sprinkler water supply remaining on in these buildings, but turned off the, uh, on the water. So what worked well during this storm for, uh, in regards to facilities, most of the generators were able to switch, uh, power sources during the rolling power outages. Our technicians were able to report safely to work. Um, and we did have, uh, excellent support from our vendors for plumbing, HVAC and generator repair during that, uh, that week. Um, and then we were in constant communication with, uh, risk as well as safety to, um, quickly initialize remediation for any water damage. And I believe they'll be covering some of the specific damage issues in their presentation later this afternoon. Here's a list of 25 buildings. I won't go over all of these, but these are all the ones we responded to. Um, some of them multiple times for, uh, either water line, uh, breaks HVAC systems and, or the generator, um, may have, uh, may have not been able to kick on. Uh, here's the unfortunate picture of, of probably the major damage that was, was had in our buildings. This is city hall west. Um, as you can see on the picture on the right is where a fire alarm or excuse me, a fire sprinkler line above the third floor ceiling, um, did break. You can see the damage caused there, but what that did was, um, leak water throughout the entire building. And as you can see on the picture on the left was the, the water actually coming out of the side of the wall, um, and created the kind of the winter effect there. Um, just a couple of other pictures on the, on the left-hand side is the south branch library, um, uh, for your area. Um, that is a fire sprinkler, um, that broke there and our maintenance staff replacing that. Um, that area is not heated, um, which is the reason that that happened in that particular location. And on the right-hand side, you can see another member of our staff diligently working on, um, the systems at civic, um, center roof, um, because as you recall, that was a warming station and we, we had numerous issues trying to keep some of the equipment running at that facility. So what didn't work well, and I think one of the things that, that, um, happened during the rolling power outages is our fuel vendor, which was to deliver fuel to all of our emergency generators, um, had a number of challenges with their equipment freezing, their trucks not starting, um, not having fuel, um, and, and so forth, um, which resulted in some of our, our generators running out of fuel. So facility staff coordinated with purchasing fleet, uh, DME and, uh, found that there was a fuel trailer available through DME and our staff, um, went and got that trailer, manned that trailer throughout the, uh, event and went to fleet and filled that up and then went out to each of the locations and filled up the generators to keep them running. Um, the ones that we could, uh, certainly reach, um, with the hose lengths that were available on that, on that piece of equipment. One of the other things that, that we realized was the electronic building security locks, um, were designed to disengage during the event of power, uh, loss that allow people to exit the building safely. So it wasn't locked. Um, however, the rolling blackouts caused a number of issues with some of those, um, things going offline and they couldn't be relocked. Um, so it left some of the buildings open. So we had to, um, send staff out to each of those buildings and manually lock some of those, um, some of those facilities. So what lessons did we learn? I think I mentioned the, the area at the South Lakes, uh, South branch library was not heated that we would be looking at some space heaters for some of those strategic locations to prevent fire suppression system from freezing. Um, we were also looking into coordination with the fire marshal to potentially disengage fire suppression systems on buildings that were vacant, um, in the future. Um, we did have to do that in a couple of buildings because those facilities, um, the, the lines leaked and then we had to shut that water off for that. We notified the fire marshal when that did happen, but we might be able to proactively do that in other locations if we were to see a similar storm in the future. Um, we learned also that some of the generators that are installed on many of the buildings weren't installed with the intent of supporting the HVAC system, which we found at a couple of the buildings. Um, we're, we're looking into, um, those existing generators and, um, identifying possibilities to do modifications to the electrical panel, to add generators as necessary, um, to support those facilities. Um, we are, um, uh, learning that the electronic building assessment access system, um, um, did have issues during the power outages and we're, we're looking into, um, improving that. And then, uh, one of the things you don't really think about here in Texas, I came from Pennsylvania, so very knowledgeable about how this happens, but, um, it was difficult for staff to find the water valves as they were buried under some snow, um, and it was difficult to find those in the field. So we're looking at a methodology, um, either a GPS and or, um, some sort of markings on, on sidewalks and so forth to identify the, the, uh, the valves. I'll move into airport, uh, if you don't mind, Mayor, and then I'll wrap it up with a plan of attack and then be happy to answer questions if that's okay. Yes, sir. Okay. Next is the airport. Um, our expectations at the airport was to ensure safe operations, um, for any aircraft operators that wanted to operate at the, at the facility. Um, we do have four staff members there and a list of the equipment that we've, uh, purchased over the, over the years to help us address snow removal. Uh, and I'll get into the importance of that in a moment. Um, so, uh, briefly, what worked well, um, pre-treated the runway and taxiways to prevent freezing. Um, the equipment was all ready to go and prepared, um, and hooked up to our, our various equipment to, to have, uh, snow removal take place as quickly as possible. Um, staff reported to, uh, the airport as necessary during rotating staffs. And then we had great tenant, uh, coordination with our FBOs and some of our chopper, uh, charter operators if they needed to get in and out with aircraft. Again, what didn't work well here, similar to the rest of the, uh, city was the fuel vendor was unable to refuel the air traffic control tower generator. Um, and then we did have a couple of equipment breakdowns, um, during the event with one of our, uh, large brooms going out of commission and then one of our plows as well. So what were the results at the airport? The main runway and taxiway surfaces were pre-treated with the anti-ice, um, early in the event to prevent freezing. Our, uh, staff members worked roughly 200 hours during that four day period to keep the airport, um, operational. The rolling blackouts did affect the, uh, the, affect the airport for multiple days. Um, our generator controls the air traffic control tower, obviously for communication purposes for them and also the airfield lighting. Um, that system did work throughout the, the event. And then, um, probably the most significant and most important piece is the airport remained open throughout the storm's entirety with no damage to the air, uh, city facilities at the airport. I did want to briefly just touch upon some of the comments we got at the airport and really the significance. I want to go back to that comment about the airport remained open. Um, when you're in an environment, um, as we are here in this area, snow is not something that's usually, um, something that the airport staff will deal with. Um, our staff was, was well-prepared. We have a snow removal plan that has been in place for a number of years. Um, that is significant to the operators that operated our airport and to those looking for a place to operate if necessary during winter storms. Um, it sets a, it sets a high bar. Most general aviation airports do not have snow removal equipment, do not keep their airport open, which many of the ones in the area, um, did just close, um, starting on Sunday and just reopened on Thursday. Um, so that's pretty significant for us and we're very proud of the fact that we did stay open. Um, as you can see, we had a number of comments, both verbally from, um, one of our FBOs and one of our charter operators, as well as an email from us aviation CEO. Um, one of the things I wanted to play for you, and I hope this, this works. If it, if it doesn't, I'll, I'll synopsize what was said here. This is communication between an operator that came in in a beach King Air, um, to our airport and the air traffic control tower. This is as they were, uh, arriving to the airfield and taxing off. So hopefully this will work. , uh, you have to actually win the money. Yeah. Bravo. Alpha. You call me a taxi for some body wet spots. Yeah. Did you have any trouble at all when you came in? No, it was actually pretty clear. Okay. Well, this is a huge event for this part of the, well, for this area, but the city invested in quite a bit of, um, snow removal equipment. And so I think that helped. Wow. That's, um, that's interesting. So hopefully, hopefully you were able to hear that, uh, mayor and council that if in a synopsis that aircraft operator contacted 12 airports in the region and we were the only ones open and available for them to come in and get fuel as they were doing their cross country flight. Um, that's the kind of customer service that we hope to provide to every operator that wants to use Denton. And it sets a, it sets a very high bar and an expectation for those operators in the future to expect it will be ready for them in the future. So, um, that was, that was excellent news. Um, post event plan, um, a couple of things that we learned, um, that we, uh, are looking into now is acquiring another fuel trailer. As I mentioned, we, we had one available for DME. They needed it as well. So we're going to be looking at that with the appropriate hose lengths, researching the ability to put, um, fuel tanks out at the airport, not only for our airport equipment, but for other city vehicles that might need, um, fueling without having to return all the way to, um, the fleet facility at, at, uh, service center. Um, and we're also going to be evaluating the possibility of being able to use jet fuel in our equipment because those tanks are already there. If that will allow us and we can make an agreement with our operators that have those tanks from building security standpoint, we've already coordinated with tech service, uh, and doing a city wide security system evaluation to make sure our, our security systems are upgraded. Um, some of it is, is rather antiquated and, and inefficient, um, based on where we are today. So we're looking at that now and we'll be bringing that forward, um, is probably the next budget cycle, um, with some, with some recommendations. And then lastly, um, we did have some airport equipment failure, um, and we'd be looking at acquiring some newer equipment. The equipment that we have was all, um, acquired was used equipment, either through government surplus and whatnot. We're going to be looking down that route as well as, um, making sure we have appropriate spare parts so we can even address it even quicker. So with that, I will unshare. Thank you. Okay. And questions for staff via, via the airport or facilities. Seeing none. Councilman Armitage. Yeah. About facilities, what is the proposed or projected timeline, uh, in both, uh, making these remedies and also following up on them? Certainly. So, um, in regards to some of those acquisitions that I talked about, we will be moving forward with those now and going through procurement, um, uh, process to, to acquire those in our existing budget and, or if necessary, um, propose that in, in our, our next budget cycle, which is just about coming up. Thank you. And is there a planned, uh, follow up on that? I know this isn't an audit, but it's a little bit like an audit in that we're, you know, assessing problems, um, making recommendations internally. Council member Armitage. This is Sarah. Uh, the answer to that is absolutely. When we finished these presentations, um, I'm actually working with our city auditor, even though council didn't, um, decided not to direct us to do it, but we are going to report out in the form of a checklist that will identify all the things that we found that we needed to, from a lessons learned or things we need to work on. We're going to put timelines with it, checkpoints with it, and then have that to bring back to council in, um, the things that we need to purchase, the things that we need to look at, some types of reviews and put timelines on it, and then give ongoing updates until we get through the whole enchilada, so to speak. Excellent. Thank you so much. All right. Council member Johnson. I was wondering, we were talking about the fuel being, they weren't being able to bring in any fuel and that it was a, so do we actually keep any on hand as a, like a back? Do we have some stored? Is there some that we keep and then we run out and then we have to have some brought in? How does that work? Uh, yes, council member Johnson. The, there's kind of two scenarios taking place. We have a fuel vendor that delivers fuel to our generator locations across the city, you know, wherever they're at, they'll refuel those as necessary at the request of each department that has one of those. Um, but we also have our fueling systems for our fleet, which is out at service center. Um, and I think there's one also out at, uh, at a solid waste. So, um, those are mainly for the city vehicles to go get fuel. Um, so when the vendor couldn't bring fuel to our generators, we went and got our own fuel and delivered it to the generators ourselves. Okay. Uh, so any, any other, um, questions for staff? Sinan, I have a couple of questions, uh, with respect to the fuel. So what, Scott, what were we able to, uh, kind of gather if, if you had just, again, I'm not going to hold you to it. We'll come back to a specific number, but the amount we'd need on hand for an event like that. So if we're snowed in for three, four days, that we kind of get a feel for how much we were using each day under these extreme situations. Yes, we, we did track that and we did have to go out multiple times to fill out the generators. Typically the generators aren't filled up that often because they're only run once a week for testing, but because of the rolling power outages, they were all running at some level in some cases were continually running for quite some time, which then used the fuel much quicker than, than is generally had, um, during the regular day. Right. So, um, we did have to go fill them up multiple times. Um, we did, uh, we did track that and we will look, hence the reason we're looking at a second trailer, um, that also will allow us to attack multiple areas of the city at one time, um, and keep them running. In some cases, they did run out of fuel because it took us longer to go back and forth between fleet to get those filled up. Um, so we're, we're looking at enhancing that so that we don't lose the generator running it. Okay. Yeah. And so, and then, um, you mentioned the doors, what's the solve for that? Is it, is it just to go back to the chains if we have to on a pinch or are we looking at something different? Um, we are looking at something different. I think, I think we have a number of facilities that have some old technology, which is the typical mad mag lock on some doors. Um, when the, when the power goes out, the magnet doesn't work, the door is open. So we're, many of our locations don't have those. Um, they have the newer built into the frame locks and we're looking at counting those and, and finding a solution to replace those old technologies with the newer technology. So we don't have that problem. Okay. And then, um, just to make sure you don't have to articulate it, but want to make sure we, we've identified in those various facilities, when you say heaters in various locations or strategic locations, we have pinpointed where those kind of key places are. Are you going back and kind of doing more research to see where, so for example, I'd like to know that we have a plan that says, here's a mapped out location. Here's how many heaters we need, uh, to, to fulfill that and have the backups. We need that sort of thing. Uh, mayor, excellent lead there. We are visiting every building in the city, our staff, and we are not only looking for the things that we identified, but maybe even some that we didn't, um, during the, you know, the rush to get things corrected. So we're actually doing a building evaluation, um, part out of this, uh, weather response, but also in preparation for the budget so that we would be able to provide a, a list for every building and what the needs are for each facility. Got it. And then, so two other thoughts pivoting to the airport. Um, so with respect to the use, you mentioned airport equipment failed, but you didn't mention with which equipment can you give us kind of a feel for what did not weather well? Sure. We had a, um, we had a wheel, um, uh, break for our large broom, which is our, our, our largest broom that we have. We had a spare, but unfortunately when the wheel broke, it bent the rim that is needed for the spare. Um, so we were unable to use that, um, broom right after the first event. Um, that's unfortunate. We had to, we had to then turn to our seven foot broom. So we have 150 foot wide runway at 7,000 feet long, um, with a 16 foot broom, you can make a number of passes and be done. But with a seven foot broom that goes two or three miles per hour, it takes us a significant amount of time to sweep. So that was the first one. The other one was a pin on one of our plows, which wasn't as critical because we were really into the brooming session more than we are the plowing session because of the amount of snow. Okay. Got it. And then, uh, your, your snow plan. So I want to learn more about that. I mean, that's a different day, but I'll just get back, back with you. And then how, how often do you update that? We review all of our plans on an annual basis. Um, but as you can imagine here, snow removal plan probably once it's developed, the only thing you're going to be changing might be personnel and or equipment. If we, if we substitute in some newer equipment, um, the game plan of attack for the airport is the main runway and access to and from, um, parking, uh, is our primary. So once that's clean, then the staff then we'll move on to other taxiway connections, taxi lane connections, and our second runway. Okay. Great. So that's everything I had. And I do want to thank you for the audio clip. That's significant. I mean, you don't think about that people that are flying around and need to refuel in those weather events. And so, uh, happy to know we were available to help. So thank you for that. Coming from Pennsylvania, this was, I can't be more proud than this team to do that. It's very significant and it sends the great message of our airport's ready for anybody. Bless your heart for living in Pennsylvania. No, thank you very much. I appreciate it. We benefited from your, from your experiences. Any other questions for staff? Okay. Thank you very much, Scott. Okay. All right. And the next department. Mayor, we have our police fire emergency management that will be sharing their updates. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon chief Smith. Let me go ahead and share my screen. Okay. Good afternoon, everybody. Bobby Smith, assistant chief of police. It's my honor to address you today and let you know how your, your police department performed during this extreme weather event we had last month. Just an overview. We'll talk about the successes we had, some data for you. We had a couple of deaths that could be related. I'll discuss with you some damage and some lack of damage over time and some of our lessons learned. So first of all, I want to talk a little bit and give a shout out to our emergency operations coordinator, officer Sarah Keith. A little over a year ago, chief Dixon had the foresight to create this role. Prior to that, it was more of an ad hoc role for command staff. But since its inception, she has done a magnificent job throughout the year of 2020. Obviously, we had a lot of things that happened last year, but this event was no different. She stepped up and took care of business for us, kept us fully informed. So that was a, that's a major success for us. And that led to being prepared ahead of time with a tactical alert. And what that is, is that we just put the entire department on, on notice that they could be called in and everybody's got to prepare for that. Everybody has to have what we call a go bag, which has some water and food and some supplies and sort of be able to take care of themselves individually. And no matter what your role in the department as a police officer, you have to be ready to come in in uniform and help out. Very proud of our staff. This, this, that week we had, we put out the notification. We had very few absences or tardiness. We have folks that live a couple of counties away and they came to work. They showed up every day. And even though they were dealing with, like all of us dealing with issues at home, they were still able to make it in and, and take care of business. Also, that was remarkable for us is we had no preventable fleet crashes that week. So our officers were able to control themselves and drive their vehicles with, with a lot of care. One of the things that we did was we were, we were very proactive in our work with our vulnerable population here in town. A lot of people need out there, you know, at such a, with such extreme temperatures, we wanted to make sure that we were proactive. We went around our, I think everybody knows about our homeless outreach team and the work they do, but they went around to 15 different encampments and commercial locations where we have some vulnerable people and they made sure that they were aware of all the services that were available to them. They offer them transportation or bus passes. They also provided them with warming supplies, such as sleeping bags, socks, hand warmers, things of that nature. Again, we were able to transport anybody who requested it. What we found out was that most people were service resistant. They didn't want to, they didn't, did not want to, to come to the shelter or come to a warming station. But we did our best to offer it up for them and let them know that we were trying to help them. We also had a private donor that gave up 500 gallons of water and there was a list of recipients, folks who wanted that. And we helped deliver some of that, including the South Fork mobile home park. One of the things that just an anecdote for us that was sort of a success that week is we had a sexual assault victim who actually was from out of town and she ended up in our town and she requested services and we made sure that she was transported. We transported her to the hospital and the same, what we call the same nurse was not available to drive herself in. So we went and got her and delivered her to the hospital so that she could provide those services. Do add a little data for you in case you're interested. This is, if you, if I can draw your attention to the far left part of the screen, that is before the storm. That's the week prior. This short, this is sort of a normal week for us and the top five calls or type of activities to get logged in, in our, our computer aided dispatch. You can see traffic stops are up there and then, you know, non-injury accidents and burglar alarms. But if you look to the week of the storm, you can see that we had an uptick in call activity, a couple of hundred or more, and you can see that burglar alarms went way to the top of the list and that was because of the power problems. The power interruptions caused burglar alarms, but we still have to respond to those because you never know if it's an actual burglary or not. So another thing that popped up in that storm week was the welfare concerns, just folks calling 911 or calling the non-emergency number. When they spot somebody that might need assistance, then we go and we check them out along with the fire department to make sure everybody's okay. Also, people might be worried about a loved one that they're not able to contact. And so we would respond and check those persons out to make sure everybody was okay. And then of course, there would have been a lot of assist motorists, people stranded on the road or having issues that we would help out on. And then after the storm, things get back to normal in a little bit. But all in all, it was not too dramatic for the police department. And then also that far right, I gave the same period last year. So you can see that there was actually more calls during that period last year. I thought I'd let you know about our crashes that week, just to show you a sort of a comparison. You can see from before the storm, the week, you can see sort of non-injury crashes with 64. Those went up and that was a driving number for the storm and people losing traction and crashing into other things. But all in all, I think we got lucky here when you compare us to what happened in Fort Worth. We only had 12 injury actions and we had no fatality crashes during the week. We had a couple of guests that are potentially related to cold weather. One of them actually happened in the week just prior to the event taking place, but it was a very cold day. And there was a man and this was a man experiencing homelessness. He was found unresponsive outside of a building and he was later pronounced deceased. But we don't actually know exactly. We won't be able to know for sure what the cause of death is until we get the medical exam and reports back. We also had another man that we believe was living in a storage unit and he was found outside of his storage unit, passed away. So again, we'll have to wait. Those things can take weeks because there's a toxicology report that has to come along with that. So it takes a little while. We were lucky that we had no damage to our facilities. Everything was business as normal for us, essentially. We had six instances of fleet damage, meaning our cars, and only four of those were crashes and all four of them were non-preventable, meaning that the employee was not at fault. We had some citizens, we had some persons that crashed into us, either an unoccupied car or while the officer was in it, but no injuries involved in that. And just little things like batteries and towing cars. So really just very low level issues. Total damage estimate was 16,000. We did incur some overtime costs for the week. This is the total with benefits. The one that we spent the most money on was the warming station security. When that station was stood up, we provided security around the clock for the consumers and the staff that were on site. I want to give a little shout out to Officer Mark Hill, who was there almost every night working and he developed a rapport with staff and with the people that were there and so much so that he was complimented on how he carried himself. So Mark did a great job there. And we spent some money going out looking to try to help people. The warming station transportation and the homeless outreach are essentially the same thing. We did look at our night shift and we decided we wanted to staff night shift a little bit better than what we had. And so we did that. Our daytime staffing is pretty good right now because non-patrol officers all have to work patrol Monday through Friday, depending on basically one day a month they have to work patrol. So staffing is pretty solid on our day shift. Some of the lessons that we learned and these are really, I mean, we can always learn from what went wrong, but overall it was sort of a non-eventful week for the police department. But we did have a couple issues. We have some folks that it's problematic from the drive from where they live and Chief Dixon did set up some hotel rooms to make sure people had some lodging. We just, I think we just need to establish that a little bit more ahead of time. And that's what we're going to do to make sure. One of the things we had a stockpile of cots and blankets and pillows, but we turned all those over to parks and recreation for their warming center. And so I think in the future, we just want to make sure we have, we had to ask for some of that back just because we had a few officers we thought we would need to have to house. So we're going to want to make sure we have some of that on site for our needs and we will do. We had one night where, and I know that dispatch and the public safety communications has already discussed this. We had one moment where we lost communications. It was a temporary failure, but our, one of our dispatch supervisors was really on top of the ball and took care of that and instituted that plan. We just need to probably communicate that to staff because the police staff at the time was not aware of what was actually happening until until it was actually happening. So something to think about for the future. Proper equipment, it wasn't much of an issue, but one of the things we could probably do is do a little bit better with our traction, whether it's studded tires for our cars and also for traction for our footwear. The most important thing to a police officer is traction. In any event, we've got to make sure that we can control our movements, whether on foot or in a car. And we just need to make just little things, making sure that we are ready for that, that level of event. Currently, we do not have emergency power in our temporary facility. We just moved over there. It's where, you know, if it's on the east end of the building that we occupy, but most of it is not set up with any emergency power, but we are working on that with the folks at the peak program value that are, they are managing our move. We're going to be working on setting up some emergency power. I think one of the things that caught us off a little bit guard was the boil notice. We didn't have any water in our working area for staff, but Sarah Keith handled that. She went over and made sure we had plenty of water. We brought that back. We're going to want to make sure we have that on site prior to an event. And then our night shift let us know that we probably needed a little bit more staffing. Anytime you have these type of events, your call responses take longer. It takes more people to handle things. For example, we had a tractor trailer that had the diesel had gelled up on it and it came to a stop on the interstate highway and we had to protect that scene. It takes a lot of people to do that to make sure nobody gets hurt. So we're going to make sure that we have a little more staffing at night in this type of event. And with that, that concludes my presentation. If there's any questions. All right. Great. Thank you very much. Questions for staff. Councilmember Meltzer and then Councilmember Armitter. Thank you so much, Chief. And thanks to the department for managing through all that. I'm curious if you can give us some insight. I think it would be obvious to the general public insight into why there would be resistance to being brought to shelter when people who aren't housed in, you know, extreme weather like that. I'm sorry, Mr. Councilman. Could you repeat that again? I just had my walk. You talked about how a lot of much of the time when assistance was offered to bring people who weren't housed to shelter, you know, Warming Station or, you know, Monsignor King. And I wonder if you could give any kind of insight. I don't think it would be obvious to most people in the general public why someone might resist assistance in that circumstance. Well, that's a complex. That would require a complex answer. But I can tell you just anecdotally, sometimes there's mental illness involved. And, you know, they're polite. I actually experienced it myself. I was driving by and I went to a call during that week. And I contacted a man who was experiencing homelessness, and he was extremely polite. And I talked to him about where he was staying. And he said he was staying in a tent. And I said, "Hey, we have a shelter. We have a warming station for you 24 hours." And he said, "I'm okay. I'm going to be fine. I got a tent over here. I've got blankets. I'm going to be fine." I didn't ask him. I mean, I don't know the psychology about that other than to say that, you know, it's a free country. And he didn't want to go there. But I made sure that I offered it. And that's exactly what our staff did. But we do know in some cases, I did read some reports where we offered it and it was some mental illness involved in that. We had one fellow that we couldn't even identify. I mean, we didn't force him to identify himself or anything like that. But he didn't apparently even know his last name. He seemed mentally ill. But we gave him a bus pass and we encouraged him to use it. And so, you know, all we can do is offer it. And if folks do not want to accept it, then that's totally their right. Yeah. I think it's, you know, it's understandably misunderstood by the public when they see people out in that weather. They assume there must not be enough space or something like that. And I don't think that was ever the case. You know, as far as I know, that was not the case and that we had plenty of room for everybody who would have wanted it. Thank you. Councilman Armitage. I was wondering if you could speak to the availability of drinkable water at the jail or any other jail related issues during this crisis, unless there's a planned presentation on the jail coming up for another week. I'm not aware of that. Well, here's what I can tell you, ma'am, is that we were caught a little bit unaware by that. And we did not have drinkable water at that moment. When that boil order happened, we did not have drinkable water at that moment. But our jail manager stepped up to the plate and brought it down there. He made sure that it got down there. And so there was no interruption in drinkable water. Now, hindsight's 20/20. We need to make sure that we staff the jail. We need to stockpile the jail with drinkable water also. So yeah, originally we were caught off guard by that water thing. And I don't think anybody said nobody had experienced it. I know I've been here almost 27 years and I had not experienced that. So it's something we definitely need to be prepared for in the future. But kudos to our jail manager for taking care of that. Thank you. And so normally it's just it's tap water. Yes, ma'am. People drink tap water at the jail. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Any other questions for staff? Seeing none. Okay. Thank you, chief. Thank you. Yes, sir. Mayor, we now have our fire department chief to go over our fire and emergency management. Thank you. Good afternoon, chief. Good afternoon, mayor, council members. Can I just fire you? Not yet. There it is. Okay. Okay. So we'll go over fire response from our winter weather events. So just kind of want to go over a little bit of data review, what we've seen in success, all these areas improvement and lessons learned and looking forward. So we have this event in the next 34 years or our handoff to the next generation will be fully prepared for this. So calls for service. First, they want to kind of start at expectations. I didn't really put this on here, but our expectations has not changed for this winter weather event versus the pandemic versus everyday response. It is simply whenever the citizens call 911 response as quickly as possible to help mitigate their emergency. And that's what we stand by every day that we're out there working. So I want to kind of highlight the variation, what we saw during this one week. So if you look at the blue bars, we only have six days identified here, Sunday through Friday. The blue bars represent the week prior, so the week of February 7th. And then the orange bars are what we experienced actually the week of the winter weather events. So Sunday started off, it really wasn't that busy. I mean, it was almost double what had been the previous week. I did want to point out in all of 2020, and I understand that is a pandemic year, we averaged around 45 calls per 24 hour shift. So you see through here, you know, we're kind of above average as well. So Monday, we really saw uptick in our calls for service. And then Tuesday, compared to that 45 average, that is over 700% increase in call volume. And we look back in some of our history books and I can probably honestly say and tell you this right here, Wednesday or Tuesday, I'm sorry, Tuesday is the busiest day in 147 years that didn't fight our history. So it's something that our employees stepped up to the challenge. We never had this many calls even just pending. And I'll go over the next slide exactly kind of how the calls were broken broken down. Tuesday caught us off guard because what we envisioned would be what I call the big melt. So when everything started melting, we started seeing the rupture pipes, we expected that Wednesday, Thursday or Friday when the temperature hovered more near freezing. The high Tuesday was only 15 degrees. So we were not expecting that sun came out. So it just had a fine effect. And that's when our 911 service was overwhelmed. So through the six day slash you see right here, there was a total calls of right at 1400 calls in February of 2020, right before the pandemic was declared when we still responding normally, we actually only made 85 more calls for the entire month of February. So that kind of puts it in context how busy these six days were for the department. So moving on how our calls are broken down for this one week. So you see the two top ones are public service. So what a public service call is simply, okay, a resident calls and they have a water leak in their house, they cannot find their meter box, they cannot shut it off. So they'll call 911 and we'll send units out to assist on that. Second most is that automatic alarms. That's the fire suppression systems in the city that either due to loss of heat or just malfunction from the cold, they either have burst pipes, they have malfunctioning parts that sends a signal to the alarm system like it should, that there's either water flow or the system is activating. And that requires a fire government response as well. So seeing these two through Monday really escalate in Tuesdays when we started actually ramping up different types of staffing enhancements. So on a normal year, what would this look like? Well, normally, Medical Mercy's account for 65 to 70% of what we do. That's our normal call volume. So you see for the six days, everything really shifted as far as what response was and how we assisted citizens up there. So what were our successes? Very most important one, we did not have no employees injured, even with increased call volume. So I consider that a huge success. Only one apparatus had minor damage and that was not from being struck. That was Ashley while they were using their traction control devices, the cables. Only response, it came undone and actually did some damage to a well well. So very minor damage. So I consider that a huge success. We have historically always used cables for larger apparatus for the fire trucks. And we have studied tires for our emphasis, smaller fleet vehicles. So whenever we predict snow or ice coming part, then actually hitting all that wheels are actually changed out on those smaller units with tires have metal studs in them. And it creates so much better traction for those units. And that has been in place for 2025 years. So kudos to our logistics officer to fleet department to make sure that our units are able to traverse the streets safely. But I did look the policy that does not allow employees to sleep at the fire station on the days off. That's just common sense things. So employees, if they're willing to work, they can stay here. If they want to come in the night before on their next scheduled day, they can sleep at the fire station. That way they can travel in the daytime and not try to drive in in the morning. It really helped on our staffing manning as well. And this is kudos to our own employees is we had very few absences even when they had issues at home. So we did allow some people to go home, address the immediate emergent need, and they came right back to work. So I think this shows the commitment and dedication of our employees to the city. So two pages of success. So enhanced staffing. So going into this event, we sat down and kind of discuss different various scenarios. And I don't know if we can ever predict a winter weather event on top of the pandemic. So we did the best we could with that. Starting Sunday on the 14th, we actually staffed two additional small response units. And as the week progressed into Monday into Tuesday, we kept increasing that up to the point we actually had four vehicles staffed with overtime operations personnel. And then Tuesday, we actually saw the spike in public service calls, which was really just water shutoffs. That's when citizens, once again, their water was flowing out of their house. They cannot figure out how to turn it off. It was doing damage. We need to get somebody there quickly to disconnect their water, just turn off the water for them as well. Our fire investigators that were actually put in pairs of two and staffed vehicles, and they were working 24 hours on and 24 hours off duty. So once again, I mean, they really stepped up and helped the operations personnel. So this was really a team effort. And what Chief Smith was talking about traction control devices. Several years ago, we had a house storm. It was like, well, what's the best for employees? And this is just one brand. It's called Gat Tracks, but it's a slip-on device that goes over your boot that has cables that actually allows you to walk on ice without slipping. So we tried to buy it in winter time. It was the wrong time to purchase. So it's like, well, let's wait till July. We were able to buy 200 plus devices in July at a reduced cost, and we have kept them in storage ever since. So I saw one employee wearing them. I asked, how do they work? He said, these are great. He can actually walk like there's no ice on the ground nor snow. So definitely encourage everybody in the city, every department, to invest in that. When we're talking about enhanced staffing, I think for the Sunday through Friday, we calculated total overtime hours worked. It was right over 1,200 hours our employees worked over their normal scheduled time. So they worked 24 hours, and most of them were working 48 hours plus straight before they went home. So here's for improvement. We're currently in contact with Spokane Washington Fire Department about their winter weather operations. So it's like, let's not reinvent the wheel. Let's talk to somebody that does this every winter and kind of experiences what we had for, you know, first week out of 30, 40 years. So we have a colleague there. We're already in communication with them. We're going to develop policies on how do we preserve our piping distribution in our tanks on our fire trucks. That's the biggest thing we had. So we had fire trucks that were actually leaking water, which is a common thing on valves leak as they get older as well. The water leaking by the valves, it collected in the pipes, and then it froze. Also, other units work outside the stations. Inside the stations, the bays are heated. There's no issue. But when they stay out in the weather for extended periods of time, they're subject to freeze up and that's exactly what happened. In total, I think we had around $30,000 in damage to our pumps and then our piping as well. And then we want to develop a winter weather program that has trigger points is our, you know, up to this point, this is the operational changes we do, and then it goes to the next level. During this time period, we were meeting as the command staff every morning to actually collect and throw all the issues on the table. And then we come up with solutions right then and we distribute them out because it really was a very dynamic situation. Everything was changing day to day as well. And I think that worked very well. Lessons learned. So the traction control devices, we did have all the units. We started actually losing them about Wednesday or Thursday, just due to the longevity of use. So we need to make sure that we have a full stock that each unit has two different devices. So when the first one failed, we have a second one to actually install and run. That's one thing we did not have. They were rely on one set of cables or one set of studded tires, a large cache of winter fuel additives. Although the fleet and service center has fuel, some are outlying fire stations. They can go to local fires or local gas stations in their districts. They don't go out of district. They can get fuel there. But the issue is there's no fuel additive. We had a small supply and that was exhausted by about midweek. And then what Scott Gray said about generators, we have identified three fire stations that not all the critical building functions are tied to the generators. So I know they're going to be working on that for us. Technology services updated about we had a breakdown of radio communications in our electronic dispatching. So crews had to man the radios to hear whether they would receive a call for a certain time period. So just building that redundancy for if this ever occurs again. And then just expect for a surge in calls for service. So I think we was able to pivot and really, you know, address the issues in the increase this time. But next time we need to plan for that just going into it. So looking forward, just repeat the winter weather operation policies and lessons learned, take this into account, document that for the hand is to our successors in the future as well. So they don't have to go through and experience what we did as well. What went worked really well was just the enhanced staffing for non-emergency calls. That was so beneficial to keep our larger units going to medical emergencies and structure fires and not go into water shutoffs, even though they would in this thing. If they weren't on other emergency calls, they were going to non-emergency calls and they just prepared the fleet to prevent water damage. So I asked our department numerous times for pictures and this is all we can produce because I think the feedback we got is like we didn't have time to take pictures honestly. So this is all the pictures but I would like to close with just one more comment and a quick story. So we noticed like everybody probably did the grocery store stock was just running low by about Tuesday or so. The crews they go and buy the food at the grocery store before they come to work or you know while on duty and that was an option they were so busy. So starting Wednesday through Friday the fire department admin team actually delivered food to all the stations and one thing we noticed we deliver food around 12 31 for lunch so they have one meal. We noticed most of them had cooked breakfast and it was still sitting on the kitchen table and this was at 12 30. So you know I talked to one captain I said well what do you think because he worked two days straight in row before a break. I said what do you think he said it was the most tiring but the most rewarding two days of my entire 25-year career. So that says a lot. So just a quick story and I'll wrap up and close the screen if you have any questions. So on February 16th the engine medic was dispatched to medical mercy. As the crews were responding the updates from dispatcher were changing rapidly and the patient was deteriorating quickly. Before arrival it was communicated by the dispatcher that CPR was being initiated on a 36 year old male. Upon our crews making entry into the residence they located a six year old 36 year old male unconscious and not breathing. They immediately started CPR and advanced life-saving measures and maintained it for the whole incident. This patient's residence was on the second floor and provided challenges for the team as there was no elevator. The steps were covered in snow and ice but the entire time they were able to continue to advance life-saving measures. Prior to arrival at the local hospital the patient regained a faint pulse and since then this patient has made a full recovery and was able to walk out of the hospital on his own power. So with that I will stop sharing I'll take any questions. All right thank you very much. Questions for staff. Council member Meltzer. Yeah thank you chief. Quite a story you shared at the end. One of the things that I heard about anecdotally but persistently was the danger during the rolling blackouts to people who were on medical equipment that's electrical powered medical equipment in their homes. But I didn't really see you know that area in any detectable way in your numbers. I'm just curious about whether you experienced activity related to people losing power who are on medical devices. We experienced some. We had some calls people were actually seeking alternative locations and we were actually directing to the warming stations or the shelter the 24-hour since I was not losing power. We even had people come calling from other cities and saying hey we have a resident here where can we send them. So you know I wouldn't say it was probably more than six to seven calls total. So I think people were prepared for this to a certain extent that they knew they may be losing power. Some was power some was the fact they just were running low on option bottles. I can tell as a department ourselves we were running low and we got a large stock in as you had to send employee down to the metroplex and move a ice storm snowstorm to collect more spare bottles. And there was one or two occasions when which a citizen did not have no option bottles and we actually took and supplied them with oxygen bottles temporarily. Well I'm glad we had that you had that capability. What would you think about the idea of our emergency response folks having a limited number of generators available you know if somebody's got a challenge with the idea of relocation but they need you know power to survive on medical equipment. It's an option I can tell you with the you see the call line we had it was respond to that call see what you can do assist and then leave and go to the next one. You know at certain times we noticed there were up to 12 dozen calls pending for our units and every unit was dispatching out and this wasn't just during the peak hours of the day it was all day and all night as well. So I think this is something we can take back and look internally it's come up with different alternatives. It's like if you have rolling blackouts in the future which we've never experienced that whatsoever since I've been here it's like okay here's your options on that if you don't have rolling blackouts is there another set of options just or non-rolling or non-rolling right any kind of outage exactly I think just have a full thought out process and going forwards and like I said document it and make sure if it's if not you will forget if you don't put this down on paper and prepare for the future. Mayor do you mind if I ask another one not on the exact same topic. No go ahead. Thank you. I noticed it seems like the public what did you call them public service calls and the automatic alarm calls were more or less the same thing correct me if I'm wrong they were pipes busted either a person calling or a device calling. Is that more or less accurate? Correct. I would actually label public service calls are more citizens calling from their private residents. Yeah fire sprinkler systems are more of the commercial buildings. Okay so but different dimensions of the same problem and that's like 70 percent of your call volume that week now you seem to have kept up even though it's a huge you know ballooning of volume but I just want to toss out another thought or idea just for consideration there's you know there's that civilian emergency response team that's operated through the county and I and most of your response in both those situations I think is is turning the water off isn't it? Correct. So you need the the tool you need to know how to find the turn off apparently only councilmember Davis knows how to do it and y'all but you know could a large sort of civilian emergency response team help with the scale of you know those requests at a time like that I don't think they were asked so might you know it's not a knockoff but now they exist. They were not asked that was some internal decision making we made as far as sending our fire investigators so they went in just regular city staff vehicles they didn't have no fire equipment whatsoever so we only allowed them to go on the public service calls that way we know it's just water shutoffs they still had medical gear in case they was to come across something we did not send them on automatic alarms because if they was to pull up and sometimes you obviously dispatch does not get all the correct information if it's coming from alarm system you come up and it's you know okay water's flowing more likely it's a burst pipe than you actually show up and it's a working fire so we even restrict our own employees to only respond to that certain type of call so I think at this point any things on the table we need to be prepared to be overwhelmed and overloaded in the future and what are resources that we can tap to assist us but right now the county is only one with a local search team and I don't know if any other county departments use that but once you start reaching out and it's a you know region-wide event those resources may already be tapped by somebody else yeah I don't I think they were called by anybody for storm related work they've you know they do great work I have found out in relation to staffing the you know the vaccination station and so on but I don't know something to think about for for uh hopefully there isn't the next time but there probably will be at some point okay we'll keep that in mind write that down all right questions for staff uh councilmember armature first of all thanks to you uh and the whole department uh for your incredible work in this unprecedented emergency um I'm wondering uh and this is related to councilmember melzer's question about uh people at home with technology with life-saving technology people with disabilities um who are you mentioned that they were told about the warming centers and that they they could hook up to power there I'm wondering as you think about possible uh next steps and things that could be done differently next time uh what what do you think about or have you thought about having generators uh that that that could be loaned to people in homes for whom moving physically moving is is difficult uh because of their conditions is that something that the fire department has has considered as an emergency medical councilmember armature councilmember melzer just asked that exact question uh the answer okay well the he just I'm just trying to tell you the but never mind no you can answer again it's a I'm asking a I think my question is just a slightly different version of that question it's about uh recommending people go to the warming centers uh you know versus bringing in generators and I'm just asking if if that is considered uh for as a as something desired for next time we have a similar emergency right yeah I think the issue there's identified the people that are would be in need and I know you know that's the probably the first step is to document that on some type of mapping system that who is on any type of medical devices that requires electricity and our additional auction who has issues on mobility would be the next thing and it's hard to gauge a response if you don't know how many of those people are out there in the community that's the thing right now I said here I can't tell you if there's five there's five hundred five thousand so based on that I don't know how you could actually prepare a response I don't think we have five thousand generators in stock and prepare for something in 30 years to have I think it comes more with a with a public education campaign council member armature one part of this effort that we're doing when we report out will be to look at what we can do as a city in an education campaign to help our public understand should we ever have this kind of weather again and that is for individuals who have health issues concerning they're reliant on those life-saving equipment we're going to talk about you know where they could get a generator we are even having conversations with the municipal electric about you know maybe there's a a way if we ever have the opportunity to switch some funds from a program that's not as successful maybe there's a grant program for people to get generators so they can keep going on their own because as the chief says it would be very difficult for us to identify all those individuals I think the biggest part is educating our public one about what to do in case of emergencies boiling water all those things that we need to go through but the other part is letting them know that perhaps in these situations they need to prepare and maybe have a generator for use to keep themselves health healthy and safe and thank you so much um as city manager hensley there there was there was recently an article in the paper about that dme program the dme sign up and it seems to me like a really fruitful uh you know possible area of intersection between uh emergency medical fire fire and uh dme if we we already uh have have that list or to um you know reinvigorate that list since a lot of people don't know about it and to make sure that uh the fire department and our emergency medical first responders are aware of of the people who are on that list so thank you for that yes thank you okay any other questions for staff counselor melter and strictly speaking for staff i really just more of a thought that might be become part of you know something we say in in the public but i wonder if someone is on uh you know medically necessary life-saving equipment if if a generator would be covered by insurance okay all right any other questions for staff seeing none okay thank you chief okay and uh which department is next believe we have a public works or did okay and then public works and then we'll skip um fleet yeah we're skipping fleet so public's work public works is going to cover streets drainage and traffic no i'm sorry i meant we have brad layhart here who's here to talk a little bit about emergency services it's a part of the fire department but it's a separate uh presentation i'm sorry brad i just went blank sorry my name is brad layhart city dent and fire department emergency management and i'll start sharing my screen with you there you go we're going to go over the winter weather response really quick from emergency management standpoint just a general background some successes areas of improvement some lessons learned and looking forward what we can improve on general background the emergency management office prepared to support and provide situational awareness for almost every city department in preparation for the winter storm we sent out winter forecast internally supplied to us by the national weather service the eoc was set up just in case it was needed but the goal was to keep people from having to come in during inclement weather and let them continue to work remotely in their eoc functions a copy of the winter weather plan was discussed with several city departments including streets and other departments we discussed sheltering warming stations and increasing the number of rooms at the homeless shelter and increasing capacity at monsignor king and we were able to procure a few items in advance of the winter storm in case we needed to open up additional centers we and then we established reoccurring conference calls with texas department emergency management and three calls a day with the national weather service about every eight hours including at three o'clock in the morning every morning and then we supply the operational plan for the city every day some of the successes we were able to basically run the eoc in a remote format keeping everyone up to date including emergency management and leadership each department would call in and emergency management would update the operational plan and we were in constant communication with several members of the leadership of the city another success is the normal winter storm plan worked out as it was planned to work out streets and parks worked in tandem to keep the primary city roadways passable in addition to several city sidewalks and walking paths around the city of denton buildings and essential so essential service employees could come and leave their work areas without getting harmed falling tripping slipping on ice all the hospitals remained open in the city of denton all the pathways to the hospitals and all the roadways were kept clear and the parks department along with several other city departments open and operated 24-hour seven days a week warming station and then we also did code red we did 12 code red messages average number of calls sent out for code word red was almost 79 000 calls in total we sent out close to 1.5 million calls over with code red 88 000 emails 140 000 texts and about a thousand tdd messages and code red is also available in a couple of different languages when people set it up code red they put in their language of preference too i know that question came up earlier areas of improvement well we could work on emergency management emergency management office was spread thin our previous emergency management coordinator position was vacated at the end of june and we have been working with esi esci consultants to evaluate the program as a whole eoc staff has also seen a large amount of turnover during the past 12 months there was a lot of senior employees within the city of denton that left at the end of june that were part of the eoc staff so slowly but surely we're starting to bring in new people and get them trained up and then the division of labor certain tasks should have been distributed out of the emergency management office to different sections of the usc like planning and logistics moving forward um in emergency management we'll we're going to design a live status board of issues within the city so city leadership can access it at any time see what current issues there are in the city any current needs and how items are being handled throughout the city of denton and then if we do use a remote eoc format again in the future we will set up a recurring conference calls at set times throughout the day probably one in the morning and one in the early afternoon for leadership to discuss any major issues and plans going forward in any direction that leadership wants to do instead of having an impromptu calls throughout the day i think it would be a lot easier on leadership if we just set up specific times that we were going to have a conference call and then we're also looking forward to the recommendations but based on best practices and needs of the city of denton from the consulting firm that we're utilizing short and sweet is there any questions thank you and we if we can pull down a presentation sir thank you uh questions for staff council member armature i know pardon me melzer i thought i saw your hand council member melzer okay thank you um rad on the uh code red uh during during the which is you know great uh service and i'm signed up for it and i encourage everybody to but you know during the events as they were unfolding you know being on social media uh i found a number of people both sort of surprised that it was something they had to opt into and uh maybe a little uh puzzled that for an emergency notification system that would require an opt-in i mean maybe there's something i'm not seeing there but you know have you had any thoughts about how to about under what circumstances you push something out like an amber alert or i don't know if you have to opt into those two where like the boil water notice it's a public health hazard people need to know whether they've opted in or not yes sir that would work great with land lines and people that have registered their cell phones within the city of den and they'll tell you the truth we're actually looking at uh other vendors already this started before uh this whole pandemic and occurred and then the winter storm occurred um denton county uses a different system along with unt uses the same system as denton county and we're actually looking at that company as long and other companies out there too we're going to send out an rfp probably early spring early late summer this is where you can do early time and they utilize databases from the entire uh directory 9-1-1 directory instead of an opt-in type service but again there's fewer and fewer land lines in the city of denton so it's important for people to still register because their cell phone aren't necessarily 9-4-0 you know it could be 5-1-2 which is generally austin it could be kentucky it could be anywhere you know so could it uh i mean it would seem like within current technology to do it you know based on geolocation i mean this cloud knows where you are at all times yes sir there's there's technology in there yeah if they they have to manually sign up most these companies have apps available which work on the geofencing type relationship it looks at your geographical location for gps and then they'll send you a message i mean code red will do that too to extent like if i'm up in iowa and it appears that storm up there happens it sends me a message but you still have to opt into those yes you have to physically install the app on code red yeah you know to do that so uh yeah i think i think we keep working that issue because you know you need to reach everyone yes sometimes there may be a system out there like i said we're going to rfp at some time in the near future and you know there may be like an amber alert that automatically comes across your phone i just don't know one at this time good good uh good thing to explore thank you all right any other questions for staff seeing none okay thank you brad thank you sir yes sir um okay next yes is the streets drainage and traffic from public works thank you afternoon council mayor good afternoon screen fold up okay name is daniel kramer deputy director of operations the public works i'll be discussing with you today the streets traffic and drainage operation over this uh last winter event so we're going to start out with what we had planned to do now we have a snow and ice plan uh that we followed you know we ran streets and drainage ran three shifts and our goal was to scout and uh say in the major thoroughfares in the city uh traffic operations uh has a smaller um smaller amount of employees so they were actually running two 12-hour shifts to cover the same time uh their main goals were to monitor the intersections respond down equipment and they also did some scouting for us and called in to help us get in areas we needed the equipment we added were six large sanders a small sander that we use for bridges and overpass that had some ice melt uh two plow blades a motor grader and then our multiple crew trucks used for scouting we also have a stockpile of material sand material that we use and ice melt for this the reality so we started our 24-hour sandings on saturday night around midnight we had the first crew come in and continued all the way through the 19th you know we dispersed nearly 500 tons of sand using five out of the six sanding trucks that we had sanding we used two people so we had a sanding truck and a follower in there just to make sure that we could keep the public the few public that was out away from the sander and also to scout areas ahead and make sure there was no slick spots for the for the truck to be able to get around we had one we were able to mount one of our plows to the truck and we also had our motor grader out clearing some snow on that we had one down traffic cabinet at noddingham and university that was struck by a vehicle that traffic crew was able to get back and up up and running the next day and we did have an issue where we ran low we did not run out but we did run low on material after scheduled delivery did not arrive when it was supposed to we were able to acquire 180 tons locally so that did allow us to help lake dallas who was low on supplies and also we were able to give some ice melt also to dcta for their bus stops to be able to keep them up and running so some opportunities that we want to work on for the next event we need to work with fleet on the equipment capability what we found out while trying to mount some of the plows is some of the newer vehicles we had a lot of issues trying to get all those mounted up to the proper vehicles also the new beds on the dump trucks are a little narrower and our sanding boxes are really tight getting in and if they have any denser issues we do have that so we will we will be working with them when we go forward with replacement equipment to make sure that the equipment our current sanding equipment fits it or we buy the proper equipment to make sure that it will fit in the new vehicles we also have one covered bend and the rest of our bins are open for sand storage which normal years works fine we can keep more than enough covered but as the cold temperatures the sand was actually freezing in the uncovered bin and we had to get out there and have our guys jack hammering some of the sand loose and turning it over quite often to keep the weather off of it we also had a few of our light duty vehicles that we didn't prepare as well as we should have you know fleet was very good at getting the information out and our crews worked very well to make sure all of our heavy equipment all of our big sanding trucks our dump trucks were prepared were filled up with fuel they did miss some of the light duty trucks so that's another thing we just need to make a checklist to make sure we're going through it before these events make sure we're prepped for that also some standard operating retreat procedures for our sanding equipment we use our this equipment every year usually it's one sander maybe two and usually it's a let's say a sprinkler left on or a couple slick spots here and there so a lot of our personnel are not trained do not have the experience to get out there and sand so what we will be doing is making an sop and training once a year and getting the guys out there to run it in the yard make sure they understand how it operates and so that we can do it more efficiently when we're out there if we when we have another event we're going to work with facilities on expanding generator capabilities at the service center currently our traffic operations building did not have a generator set up we were able to get a makeshift one set up so we could still monitor the intersections during the time but we are going to work with them and in the future future design of the service center they are moved over to a facility that does have generator capabilities we're going to work with the emergency operations center eoc staff to update the ice and snow plan annually there were a few things that i don't either we missed this year and updating on some of our equipment but we will make sure we keep that up to date with all the future maps and everything from tech stop all that too temporary stop signs with the rolling blackouts we had multiple issues with signals going out and we didn't have enough temporary stop signs on hand to go put those out at every intersection now if just a general note to the public anybody listening that if a signal is dark you're supposed to treat it as a four-way stop but the signals do have battery backups in them and on flash they can operate roughly between eight to twelve hours normally without any issues what we did find out is the severe cold weather was not allowing those batteries to stay on with as much as they were going on and off we do have to test those batteries is on our pms which we do three times a year on each signal so we will be looking at that system again and verifying that we that we're doing the proper checks on the pms and also that all the batteries are good and we have some spares going on and we also want to get a few spare generators sitting around for traffic for the same situation because we can also run a generator straight into the signal on major intersections and keep those fully operational if there is another issue like this so that is really all i had if there's any questions or anything please all right thank you questions for staff any questions for staff great okay well thank you daniel thank you yes and so that'll take us to human resources and then risk management is that correct yes yes mayor the human resources risk management is all encompassed in one and i believe it'll be uh tiffany thompson and debbie swinsky who will be presenting both those items while we're waiting on them i don't think danny mentioned it but i do want to say that not only just just streets uh group but um you know many times our our staff during this what we like to call snow vid reached out and helped other cities and danny particularly was able to help dcta with some sand so that individuals that were trying to get on the bus wouldn't slip and fall they'd run out of the product and then uh lake dallas city was in dire need of some um sand for their areas and we were able to help other cities out so it's just thought you'd like to know that our staff were able to help out other cities during this time and didn't hesitate one bit excellent thank you for that good afternoon mayor council can y'all hear me okay yes good afternoon excellent good afternoon again tiffany thompson director of human resources and i also have with me debbie skowinski she's going to do our other half for the risk uh portion of this and she's our deputy director of risk and compliance so before i get started i wanted to definitely give credit where credit is due to the wonderful pictures that you're going to see through the hr portion to dtv and public affairs that really just highlights the amazing people that responded to this winter event and our staff so our goals for human resources is to give proactive employee communication so they know what's going on make real-time adjustments and then meet the organizational needs and our results are very proud of them our employees were notified on sunday that the city was going to be closed the facilities on monday so we were able to you know make sure that our employees were safe secured they knew what was happening the day before and so really proud that we made that call early on so they're they were aware and could make plans for that and then on monday we let the organization know at 11 52 that we were going to additionally be closed for facilities again for tuesday and wednesday and then we let them know wednesday again early morning that the city facilities would be closed thursday and friday and the primary reason for that was due to what was happening with the facilities we started seeing damages we didn't know what was going to continually happen so we didn't want to have a residence or employees in those facilities as we were trying to determine what was going on so that was one of our results as far as responding and then our hr and risk staff maintained all service levels as well no we didn't have any dip of service so we're proud of that and then our team also served in various capacities including feeding crews checking in on employees volunteering at mlk the civic center and at the water stations so moving on to what our successes were like i just mentioned we continued 24 hour support so if there's an employee group working so is hr and risk and so we were able to continue that service level we ensured the volunteer needs were met throughout the organization so parks was calling for volunteers for the the warming station and we were handing out water so we helped make sure that we could help them get that staffed as well and then caring for the employees was a critical component for this so this was as simple as calling them and saying how are you doing what time do you need and taking care of them and one example is ray roberts that crew had been working for a couple days straight and i could tell you they were tired of grocery store pop tarts for breakfast and lunch and so we worked for it took about four hours for us to find a breakfast place that had protein to get that delivered to them and so really simple things like that that i think we take for granted when everything's great meant a great deal for these operations that had continued to work you know 24 36 hours straight so what resources that they that they need and so very proud of that and then also our greatest opportunity through this event from a human resources side is that i quickly recognize that our inclement weather policy had not addressed the new remote work environment that we have adopted especially over the last year i recognize that in the middle of the event and i can tell you that doing a policy change in the middle of event is not something you want to do so that's the greatest takeaway and primarily it's the language language used in that inclement policy as far as what does it mean to report to work and making sure that we just again have that addressed to our new environment for the remote work so we'll be making some policy enhancements regarding that and one story i wanted to share with you especially is that it wasn't just the employees that responded to this well there was no silos everyone was like what do you need how can i help there's so many stories in the organization like that but i want to recognize there was a residence that showed up at high schools and also at the police station and were cooking breakfast tacos and just brisket tacos which was delicious by the way just for employees that were constantly working and so it wasn't just how the organization responded to this but the community too showed up and said hey we want to help feed you and i don't know if that story has been told i want to make sure that that gets highlighted and they were they were known as the taco crew so if the taco crew is watching thank you so much it was delicious and i got to hang out with some police officers while they were getting fed and they were just happy to do it and it was cold out there and they they just kept wanting to feed me i'm like i'm good i'm good so i think i gained about 10 pounds there in the snow bit at the thing so it's becoming an issue between covid and snow vid with eating too much but again just incredibly proud of how this organization there was no silos throughout this everyone was just like what do you need how do we how do we help and hr gets gets to see a lot of that behind the scenes and that's just this is just what we do so our biggest opportunity again is the weather policy which we'll get that updated soon and then i'm going to turn it over to our deputy director of risk debbie skowinski she's going to hit on the risk side of it and while we're waiting i do want to recognize debbie and eric our risk manager went out to sites during this weather event and checked out personally the different areas that needed attention took pictures so that they would be ready to go in talking to the insurance companies and and mitigation efforts so kudos to debbie and to eric konig who did a great job thanks sarah that's a great segue i appreciate it hi uh good afternoon my name is debbie skowinski i'm the deputy director of risk and compliance and we also have eric kanig our risk manager over here waiting in the wings for any questions if you if you wish to speak with them i'd like to share with you risk management's response to the winter weather event so the goal of risk management is to mitigate damages as fully and as completely as we possibly can but risk management is largely reactive in emergency situations risk management works to mitigate damage such as water damage as quickly as possible to prevent further damage when we have events such as this winter storm risk management's proactive role before an emergency is to ensure that the city's insurance policies provide adequate coverage and then to file any claims against the policy should any damages meet the policies deductible so our result is as tiffany said and as sarah said the risk management staff was available and responsive all hours throughout the event and we did go out and we performed on-site inspections to determine the extent of damages and if remediation was required then we facilitated the hiring and the assignment of those jobs to mitigation companies we had approximately 25 city facilities that did sustain damage and the majority of that damage was due to ruptured water pipes so the city's property policy has a deductible of one hundred thousand dollars for water damage and fifty thousand dollars for property damage estimates for remediation construction repairs the like are still coming in and they will be coming in over the next a few weeks at this point our damage estimates range anywhere from two hundred dollars up to fifty thousand dollars based on the location so our successes were with the risk management staff on-site to perform those inspections we were able to coordinate with remediation companies and get those assigned as quickly as possible which resulted in remediation beginning sooner helping to reduce any potential damages that also freed up our facility staff to be able to focus their response on new issues as they arose and then be able to conduct any repairs when possible so our opportunity was the mitigation companies just couldn't meet the overwhelming demand the city does rely on mitigation companies to assess damage to go in bring fans dehumidifiers to dry out any affected areas and then report to us what what materials need to be removed and replaced and unfortunately all mitigation companies were affected the same way they just simply didn't have the equipment and the staff to meet the needs across the city so this is a table of a list of our facilities that have at this point the highest estimated repair costs and again estimates and invoices for remediation and repair work are coming in and we expect that they will continue to come in over the next several weeks but these estimates are based on similar past work that we've done but we cannot account or add in or estimate for the extreme circumstances and any resulting charges such as emergency trip fees after hours rates and the like repairs are being done by internal facility staff when at all possible and risk management has filed a claim with our insurance carrier and we are working with the city's broker to manage a claim for that for any damages so just to touch on our two locations that have the highest estimated repair costs at at this time as scott mentioned scott gray mentioned earlier city hall west the building had a ruptured fire line in the attic and it flooded the building so there is extensive damage to the overall building itself the building is unoccupied and is used for storage at this point facilities is working to coordinate with their approved contractor to prepare an estimate and then determine when we can start construction or what the construction schedule will look like after the remediation is complete the natatorium also sustained extensive damage they also had a ruptured fire line and that resulted in extensive damage to the ceiling to the walls electrical and security systems and other systems there in the concession area the plumbing and water pump have been repaired and at this point we're working with facilities to obtain an estimate from the approved contractor for any construction repairs that will be done so your hr and risk team we're always here working for you as tiffany said 24/7 we're here to support our team members and to support the city and it's truly our pleasure to do so to serve the team members and the residents of the city of denton and we're happy to answer any questions at this time should you have any okay thank you questions for staff seeing none councillor melzer yeah i paused for a moment in case anyone had questions specifically for uh you know hr and risk i have some you know questions on reflection that uh kind of might go across groups or might refer back to previous parts of this item okay so is there any questions for this on this topic before we go to a broader scope nope okay go ahead councillor melzer so i guess this is uh kind of facilities oriented uh you know there's a kind of yeah uh the reaction that i shared that like oh i guess we ought to do what people in their homes do when they have power put space heaters on you know pipes that might be vulnerable but i wonder if there's an opportunity at least in some of our structures to to blow in insulation like they do in colder climates you just and just winterize the structures that's a very good question and unfortunately that is a facilities question but i'm happy to research that and provide that to you in a in a report and i don't necessarily need a response back it's more of a you know providing that thought and i'm sure it's going to go into the planning and uh another one that's not that's not a question for you specifically but you seem willing to answer i'll try but you know there were a number of things that uh the city did in a kind of um responsive way uh that you know it seemed like just weren't really part of anybody's playbook before uh you know we there were a lot of things that people didn't expect police didn't expect to have a boil water notice and so on and you know the scale of the pipes bursting phenomenon uh led to you know some very important responses like having showers open so that people who have no water could you know could go to things that we wouldn't necessarily assume our city responsibilities but at a certain scale of disaster a lot of things become you know a required disaster response so my i think my it's not really a question my suggestion is with uh both with providing water and with providing showers any of those related things that you know if it's true i think it is that those weren't in the playbook that they become part of the playbook now yes i think some of those efforts followed you know kind of grassroots uh suggestions and an outcry and the response was great and i i highlight to anybody who asks the people who were out there hauling water were the people you see making presentations you know including sarah so uh i mean it was an all hands on deck situation but that's my comment is no and council member melter that's the absolutely some of the stuff that we're going to be putting in this after action report things that we can put into a a follow-up report that talks about if we experience any kind of an event whether it's a weather related or other things what are some of the things that we would do differently and put in our playbook so to speak for the future yeah okay thank you all right yeah so thank you debbie and then any other questions across any of the or i guess notes for staff across any of the presentations okay then that would conclude item uh three b and the various department presentations let's take a uh we'll take a 15 minute break come back at 4 15 take on the last couple of work session items in the closed session it is and welcome back to this meeting of the denton city council it is 4 18 p.m still the 16th 2021 and um we are back from break and i will call our next item which is item c which is id 21136 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the development code review committee's role and responsibilities good afternoon mayor council scott mcdonnell director of development services good afternoon delighted to be here this afternoon hopefully i'm going to have the easiest shortest presentation of your afternoon and we can make it just as simple as can be so just here to talk to you about the development code review committee the development code review committee for those that are not familiar with it was established to help us with our code update process so it has three council members three planning and zoning commission representatives which provide input and guidance it's a diverse group that gives different perspectives as we walk through as we had walked through the update and as we're walking through we've been using the code for a little over a year and identified some areas that need to be enhanced so with that being said the committee has recommended that we establish this committee as a standing committee rather than ad hoc so this term of the ad hoc is due to expire at the end of this month so end of march so we're looking to get a standing committee the meetings are conducted as needed so we don't have regularly scheduled meetings we're going to utilize this to walk through the updates to the code and then as we have more items that come through to council that they'd like some consideration staff would review provide recommendation and convene the committee and kind of walk through it having several members from council as well as those from p and z an additional portion to this is that in the ad hoc committee it was only the council members that were able to vote voting really occurs on minutes and recommendations which will be carried forward but the committee is recommending that all members be voting members so that way all those that are participating have an equal say and with that being said i'll stand for any questions okay perfect questions for staff councilmember melton and councilmember armature yeah is is this really essentially still kind of coming out of the uh the ddc rewrite and it's you know kind of uh working out the ramifications and things that we find or is there a structural problem with the way our charter you know asks us to evaluate uh you know code issues it absolutely is just a continuation of the update to the development code and i think it's really a useful tool or a resource for our city rather than getting bogged down in various work sessions we can we can do some informal talking discussing varying viewpoints to come to the best language and consensus of of what the two bodies think that their respective groups would would would represent so it is it is a continuation of the update to the development code structurally i think we're fine and once we we get through this i think that we'll be okay but um we we we've been working on the updates to the ddc for for well over a year a lot of that is is covid but you know just recognizing that we've had some items and as we have changes in legislation and any of those types of things a lot of a lot of interest in muds um just things that we want to carry forward and where we may want to make changes to the ddc that we have a body that really we can kind of work through and and bring those items forward i guess uh you know i'll be very interested to hear the discussion my initial reaction is that if it's primarily about coming out of the ddc rewrite you know that we ought to have some kind of time frame in mind at which point we've you know we've addressed that and have this body continue with that as their charge and that you know beyond that it's kind of adding a layer of government and a less representative one uh so uh i could be talked out of it but that's my initial reaction so i'll be listening council member armature yeah so i i like the idea about having this committee being a standing committee because and i i see as council member melzer mentioned you know that this is coming out of discussions from the ddc update but planning and development being a perpetual work in progress as our city grows you know i i don't see these kinds of conversations going away so i i really do like that aspect of it i'm wondering if you could speak to um the decision to have uh the planning and zoning representatives the voting members i'm i'm uh genuinely struggling trying to figure out you know whether uh i i like that idea um because it it gives a voice to members of the community you know who are already on planning and zoning or whether as as council member melzer says it's a less representative um body because of course members of planning and zoning are selected by by council and uh not directly elected by the the public so i'm genuinely trying to figure that out and where i stand on that i was wondering if you could speak to to that issue i will speak to what i heard from the committee and then ultimately it is it is just that that you have three members that are asked to serve and participate in the meetings um yet they don't feel as if their voice is considered um so if there is you know two council members there uh you know not necessarily the third and there are three planning and zoning commission members ultimately if the two council members want to carry something forward they would and even if planning and zoning doesn't think it's a good idea um i will tell you that i don't know that there's been any items that are contentious that the group hasn't unanimously agreed upon but i i think that it was more in terms of that um if planning and zoning is truly respected and that the the membership within the committee is respected that they asked that that they could just be considered as a vote with with those items any of the items that come out as a recommendation again it's primarily minutes um and any recommendations that would come forward all code amendments will go before planning and zoning and council so both full bodies will will have a vote so again i think it's a very simple um if you want for me to participate please allow me to vote thank you and that that makes a lot of sense to me i have a just quick follow-up question uh how often are uh the representatives to that committee chosen by planning and zoning i know on council is you know generally when when there's a new election uh every year we we go over our committee appointments how how often is that done on planning and zoning uh that that would be the same as just the council appointments with pnz and then those who are appointed to the committee as long as they wish to serve okay okay so and the term limits for uh for a pnz are are they just two years three renewable or renewable terms of two years up to up to three terms is that right correct okay was there any discussion of having excuse me of having a you know term limits on the representatives to that for that committee uh no we didn't okay okay thank you thank you any other questions for staff seeing none uh scott i will say i think there needs to be help me understand the open-endedness that i hang up a little bit there i think even if it's renewed uh i'm fine with that and i take your point about the covet uh issue and needing to extend it i'm fine with that as well but can i hear your thoughts on why open-ended versus uh a year extended well again i think this came out of the committee and then ultimately you may have some of the members here that which speaks to speak to it but from the simple perspective of as legislative items come forward we have changes we recognize that development occurs differently within the city and in the etj and we recognize that some projects that come before council as we have some of those heavier lifting projects or we recognize where there are some potential changes that need to come forward not as a result of our code but just as a result of of changing times that really we just have a work group to work through that it wouldn't be necessarily that committee would be meeting monthly it may be once every six months you know another year from now or two years from now but at least having the ability to to convene a cross section of both council and pnz and so let me ask you there would it be a placeholder because obviously the names are going to change so going forward what is the structure is it just three and three and how is it is i didn't look in the ordinance to see i think before we we kind of nominated people but is that basically how it would play out going forward let's say names change on council and one of those individuals are on pnz one of those individuals is no longer available is it just a who appoints i guess and it would be the respective bodies that would appoint you know a replacement member to serve on that committee okay uh council pardon me mayor pro tem davis thank you mayor um so i i had uh asked about this kind of early on after i got appointed to the review committee and i was not one of the original folks who um went through that really heavy lift of of redrafting the entire ddc um but as kind of the new person i came on to council after that ddc had been approved actually um but as a new appointee to that to this committee that we're talking about uh the ad hoc version of it and somebody who had to kind of take up these issues on council as well they are more complex than they look like at the beginning and they sometimes um you know scott mentioned there's plenty of kind of typographical errors and that kind of thing to fix but as we grow and as we kind of i mean we've got zoning cases i can mention on the agenda tonight that are gonna run run right up against how our ddc needs to look going forward and um i think having a group that can do that proactively i i really don't see an end in sight for that kind of work in the city of denton i can't really imagine a point in the future where we're just done and happy with the ddc and it's just exactly what it's going to be forever without any kind of need for improvement i'm constantly astounded at the depth to which our citizens are involved in these conversations uh the number of folks who out there in the community have actually we could all probably think of some names of some folks who have actually read the ddc even though development is not their their industry uh they're not in real estate they don't build things they're just concerned citizens so um i i think there's a need for this group going forward to examine these issues kind of in depth before they come forward to pnz before they come forward to the full council and get that kind of final level of vetting okay thank you for that insight uh any other questions for staff uh council member ryan it's not so much a question but is the uh the only council member who has been on this committee since its inception uh i just want to make a little statement about the importance of it i mean we're looking at 500 pages i know uh mayor protam and council member johnson have been briefed quite a bit here lately on on what all is in there in the knowledge base that's necessary to to go through these items and to have the makeup of pnz and council so when something comes forward to the respective groups it's very important that you have you know groups that had that conversation with both bodies or with that subgroup from both bodies uh in an effort to you know kind of cover some of the discussion you know questions come up it's probably something that we've already talked about in that group because i forget how many hours probably about 12 hours that we spent on fences uh you know there's it gets pretty deep on some of this stuff as we go through it you know these the minor changes that are coming forward right now not that great but there are some things that slip by um you know and as uh as scott mentioned you know we're in a legislative year uh i'm sure we're going to see changes that we're going to have to make to our code as as we move forward and just as the public uh whether it's you know the private individual or the developers realize something that we've never had to deal with in the code those changes will need to you know be brought forward to the council and the planning and zoning okay uh any other uh comments for staff or questions councilmember melzer yeah um i i'm basically still the mind of like if you need another six months to wrap up you know uh other things we're finding out that are basically flowing from the ddc but for our general ongoing future needs uh i have a suggestion instead of six members seven members that's called p and z that is the advisory body to council and it's and when i say it's more representative it's not because they're not elected appointed it's that it's seven uh members all of whom have been appointed by different members of council and i think you're losing voices uh so uh that that would be my direction is six months more to wrap up the ddc related stuff and then then p and z is the work group for that in my opinion okay mayor pro tem davis yeah i i think that's a fair point but you gotta remember too i mean we've all had to go back and watch p and z meetings uh to kind of bone up for our own for when those zoning cases come forward they're just as bogged down as we are when it comes to what they've got to do lay people meeting weekly to go through these complex zoning cases i don't think it's a question of whether that that group is is qualified and competent and and should speak to these issues i think it's a question of adding an additional layer of vetting before it gets there they would get these issues also let's say there's a a new land use we're considering the ddc committee or the the review committee looks at it three commissioners three council members really getting into the weeds really digging down into the issues of this new land use we're proposing then those three commissioners can go that still has to go through p and z and the council this isn't like an approving body this is a this is a research and vetting and uh consideration kind of body so p and z could still do that i don't think we're cutting anybody out of that process we're giving them additional information listen three of y'all's commissioners who are sitting right here on the dais with you they've gotten into the weeds on this issue if you've had questions if you've got questions they may have already asked them and just like here i am kind of giving my two cents on something scott has already presented on um they can do the same thing in a different way than staff can when they present to p and z or to council i think it's a valuable group i think we've gotten really good work out of the group so far with the entire rewrite of the ddc and i think it's uh too early to cut it off i think we can make use of them for many years okay council member armature yeah so i i appreciate the discussion so far um and i uh am inclined to agree with council member melzer's suggestion uh that um that planning and zoning you know is already an advisory committee to council and that if this work which i agree that it is a uh a constant work in in progress as our city grows and changes uh we need to always be you know relooking at our at our codes our development codes uh so i i don't see why that work couldn't come before uh all of planning and zoning and you know continue to come before all of council i work i do worry about segmenting uh you know just a few members of planning and zoning outside of the the general body okay any any other comments so so i might yes sir um i i just like to add that um keep in mind that the number of items that go to p and z not all of those come before council so as many as you may see on council there are that many more that go through p and z incredibly challenging to take all of these items forward and and as uh council member ryan had mentioned you know that we spent 12 hours on fences and we haven't finished nor have we workshopped that with p and z which we would do then we would bring it before council um we're going to have additional conversations on accessory dwelling units uh we recognize that we're going to have more conversations on tiny homes and different types of communities shipping containers um again there's a whole litany of of new and interesting ideas that are coming forward and when we talk about middle housing and those types of things that really being able to walk through it and work session it at p and z will be very challenging because because of the time constraints that p and z will will normally see um recognizing that you know they'll the workshops now take um in an absorbent amount of time we would have to begin p and z earlier than we do now which work sessions are at five sometimes at four and then those meetings start at six thirty like every other public meeting and uh run till nine ten eleven o'clock at night so we would be putting that much more of a burden where it is this was really a tool just a resource um again as as was mentioned that we have several representatives from each of the bodies that really give differing perspectives and then when we do workshop it that at least there's some knowledge base to that as well as we're educating those members and i want to uh just thank you scott and i want to add i so i i can get behind um the the fact that it's going forward with understanding uh i have some of the comments but heads up to staff i want to understand how we dissolve this group but if if but understanding that if if it goes forward here's my i can get behind it i think i reconcile the concern about a segment of council members because that's the problem i have with every committee that a council member sits on because inevitably any council member that sits in a meeting with non-council members the non-council members ask what does council think and then some council member opines either on their position or the general position of the group it happens on every board so that's not unique to this board and it's a source of i've i've voiced that source of consternation for going on two years now with no traction so i understand that very well and and and i've been ringing that bell for a very long time to no avail so i i understand that component my question though is uh scott uh will this group help us identify loopholes faster because that's my that's the value add to me use the example of park seven where they would this group have been able to identify hey here potentially here's a zoning issue that could be rectified before the property owner buys it and says hey i can do this by right that speed is valuable to me if that is kind of captured in this group i will i will answer that with absolutely yes i will tell you that this group on any number of occasions has has truly distilled items or or refined other sections of the code it's fairly informal as far as in nature that we're just really talking through the issues and then questions are asked so it's we can move fairly fluidly through but i can tell you there are many times um that the committee has has brought up excellent points that is have really refocused um whether it's staff thinking or or at least taking us on a path that we needed to modify another section of the code and and probably going to be especially critical when we start looking at our criteria manuals and bringing those items forward so yes okay okay great so so what's what's before us is uh staff's recommendation for the the body to carry forward uh and um meet as needed and so counselor melzer um so you know a lot of the cases uh around how much work and time it takes to go through you know these many detailed issues i would just like to know if the majority of p and z you know which is excluded from this body have indicated that they're unwilling to put in the time i i don't know i don't know that the majority of staff have indicated that nor have we asked that but it's staff of p and z the members right there's yes yeah i have not asked that question but it but it even require an additional require us to have additional p and z meetings just because of the caseload um recognizing that that as the city of denton um continues to grow the pandemic has not slowed anything down and we continue to receive record number of of applications and interest in development it just p and z has a lot to do okay uh council member ryan yeah i just want to kind of mention that the beauty of having both p and z and council on here is think about any of our zoning cases that come through p and z first and then they come to us you know they'll put conditions on there and it gets to us and we're wanting to take away some of their conditions or add more conditions and this allows both bodies to have some input before it goes to one body it's still going to go through planning and zoning after it goes through this committee and then planning and zoning will then put it push it through to we'll make a recommendation to council at that point so it's just it's it's a matter of uh being able to have the time to do these this additional detail research and and detailed dive into these items rather than the full body having to to do that because we would do the same thing once it came through to planning and zoning and the city council once the recommendation is made okay yep so we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna move forward in real short order uh councilor marmita and then mayor pro tem davis yeah i i just want to uh to second council member melzer's uh concern or you know question about um the uh you know expressed uh you know time constraints of people on planning and zoning i would say if if planning and zoning hasn't expressed uh concern about you know being able to meet for any additional time needed i would really best uh find i would find most useful the input of uh the that full body on code changes since it's the full body that it that implements the code in the way that they vote on on pnz so i would really prefer to have that whole discussion and ultimately uh you know staff as far as half time staff will have to um you know be present for both the subcommittee meetings and the larger committee meetings so it's still a large time commitment when you for staff when you look at everything that's being discussed okay and um mayor pro tem davis sure i a couple observations one i don't think that the objections being raised here um take into account what this committee actually does and how it spends its time this committee does not review zoning cases this committee does not look at um proposals by developers the committee looks at proposed staff proposed changes or committee proposed changes to the development code these are essentially hypothetical conversations that we're having that can be carried forward into the code only by action of the council so this language of exclusion and we're not letting the pnz have their voice and etc that doesn't make any sense to me pnz will still review these changes they will still if a change suggested change comes forward from this review committee just like the ddc revision just like revisions that have come forward so far from this committee they still have to go to the pnz where all seven commissioners can say what they like to they can vote to recommend to council or not and then all seven city council members will have our chance there is no exclusion here this is um and you're also kind of forgetting i think that there were three commissioners in this committee that we're talking about who recommended this change moving forward just as scott presented it so uh this language of exclusion this language of uh you know we're not letting the pnz have their voice that's just nonsense okay so i'm going to read staff's recommendation if there's there's someone that disagrees just give an indication so staff's recommendation is this it becomes a standing committee establish the committee as a standing council committee two meets as need three voting recommendations for all members of the voting members for recommendations to be considered by entire planning and zoning and uh planning zoning commission and city council um whereas now they they cannot so uh those those recommendations standing committee that the meets as needed and that it's they all members of the committee have a voting opportunity i have a opportunity to vote our voting members so anyone in in disagreement with staff's recommendation give me an indication so that we can uh give have a consensus okay okay scene two others okay scots you have um and staff you have your uh consensus to to move forward with that uh that that'll conclude item c uh that takes us to item d receive uh which is id 21514 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding an update to the city of dentons covet 19 response the local disaster declaration and the 11th order of the city of the of order of council of the city of denton issued december 17 2020 approved by ordinance 20-2467 good afternoon mayor city council zara kickler chief of staff um so today we have another work session for you we've done a number of these throughout the last year for the pandemic um with the most recent work session being held on march 2nd so we have a few targeted uh targeted objectives for this work session item today as listed here on the screen try to keep this brief um the first will just be information um providing a brief overview of governor abbott's recent order we did provide some information last time but we'll just give you another quick overview of the key points of that order and then next one of the main objectives for this work session item is to get any direction from council any questions or any potential changes um to an extension of the local covet disaster declaration and order there is an item on your agenda tonight for council to consider extending it through june 30 of this year and then lastly we'll provide or we'll go into a couple other key updates um one being a brief overview of the continued health and safety precautions being taken at city facilities staff would also like to discuss with council moving forward special events and then lastly we'll provide you with some outlook for the next couple of months we will be returning with additional work sessions to get additional direction from council with some art with some items regarding covet including a phase transition plan for city facilities and public meetings so mayor if it's okay i'm just going to jump into the presentation and really cover these first two objectives and then i'll take a break um to see if there's any questions sounds great okay um so this is just a quick review of governor abbott's ga 34 executive order um it really broke it down into two components um if you are part of a trauma service or if you are not if your trauma service area does not have high hospitalizations as defined in the order businesses can reopen at 100 capacity beginning last wednesday and there is no statewide mass mandate in these areas however businesses or other establishments may still implement their own protocols at their own discretion including requiring customers or employees to wear face coverings so currently denton county is part of a trauma service area that does not have high hospitalizations and most of the state of texas the trauma service areas do not have high hospitalizations and are currently following these regulations of the order however if hospitalizations start to climb and we reach that threshold of high hospitalizations for our tsa region which is the dfw metroplex then each county in that tsa region can decide to take additional covid related mitigation strategies and that must come from the county judge however there's a couple limitations to what the county judge could do including not they cannot he cannot impose jail time or any other penalties for failing to wear a face covering and then also businesses cannot be limited to less than 50 of operating capacity and then overall ga 34 states that any conflicting it supersedes any conflicting order issued by local officials so it must be consistent local orders must be consistent with the governor's order and this is just a continuation so ga 34 rescinded most of the governor's earlier executive orders including one that we wanted to highlight which was a previous requirement for the mayor to prove an outdoor gathering of over 10 or more individuals so that's why we were wanting to address special events moving forward and at least notify council of what that would look like moving ahead or if there's other questions or direction from council there was also a question last time in regards to the state suspension of toma for virtual allowing virtual public meetings to take place that is still in effect the governor has actually been extending that every 30 days with the state's disaster declaration so and it is anticipated that he will continue to do that for the foreseeable future and allow virtual public meetings to take place but again at the end of this presentation we'll outline next steps in future work sessions should council want to discuss what public meetings will look like in the coming months so while the statewide mask mandate is no longer in effect we did want to point out that there is continued guidance from the cdc and other agencies to wear face coverings and we included here on the slide and the different agencies and resources where individuals or businesses can find the latest guidance and we did include here you can see the cdc's snapshot from their website of important ways of how to slow the spread including continuing to wear a face mask that covers the nose and mouth and continuing to social distance from others so we encourage residents and businesses to heed that advice and to also stay up to date and what the latest advice is and we'll we'll continue to push that out through our city communication channels as well in addition city staff has created some different versions of a sign that a business or establishment may use if they choose to require face coverings in their individual businesses or establishments so those can be found on our city website under COVID-19 business resources and we just wanted to provide that if that is helpful to businesses and establishments so on tonight's individual consideration agenda there is an item for council to consider extending the local declaration and order it did want to review what the purpose is for continuing to have a local disaster declaration and an order i think that's important of why we continue to recommend that this be done at a local level the disaster declaration establishes a state of disaster which forms the basis for an order but as important it is also the prerequisite for state and federal disaster funding so we need to continue to have that in effect for some of the different funding sources that are out there in addition the order of council there's a number of different provisions in that or that order that provide us the authority and flexibility to take certain measures to continue to respond to COVID-19 and protect the health of our employees and the public as well and so we are recommending to continue extension of that declaration and an order through june 30th for those reasons and this is just a quick overview of what the drafted 12th order of council looks like again this is under individual consideration so if you look under that item exhibit three is the proposed draft order and then exhibit four is the red line showing the differences from the proposed 12th order to the current 11th order of council most of it remains the same continuing provisions to provide that flexibility and authority to the city manager to adopt procedures and directives for our city facilities operations services and programs it also allows us the flexibility to continue emergency response measures as allowed underneath our city code and the emergency management section and it also would continue having no penalties for non-payment of utilities through that order period through june 30th what what is changed in the 12th or the proposed 12th order is to remove the requirement that was there for businesses to have a health and safety policy that incorporated the face covering and social distancing requirements of the governor's order at ga 29 since that has been superseded by the governor staff has recommended to replace with some language strongly encouraging our business and our our businesses and establishments to continue to follow and implement the latest health and safety precautions and recommendations from the cdc and we will continue to try to do public education and make any resources available we can for those businesses and establishments that want to continue on their own to require face coverings and take various health and safety precautions and then in addition i just wanted to give you an update on the emergency expenses so underneath the current 11th order of council there is a spending authority limit of 3.25 million underneath the 12th order we are proposing to increase that by 250 000 to adapt to allow some additional expenditure as expected through the next three months so the total would be raised to 3.5 million as a maximum underneath the proposed 12th order of council and so i will bring this down and take any questions that council may have the first part of the presentation questions for staff council member armature yeah several questions one um can you speak to uh the the incoming federal funding that's coming to states in in in cities yes that's actually on my last slide today okay um staff uh is busy analyzing that legislation and also must await further guidance from the federal government and so we're planning to come back to council with a work session in april probably april might be may just depending on when the guidance comes out with some initial plans and recommendations for how to use that funding and to have those policy discussions with council thank you i hope i i hope that it comes uh you know sooner rather than later uh so that we can we can implement it i know that's outside of our control here i mean it comes from that from the fed sooner rather than later um another question um so can you speak to and this is something that i've just had a little bit of experience with uh since the governor's order in answering questions um you know from constituents who are uh you know concerned about well what can businesses do now um and and what's the responsibility of uh or the the duties of uh first responders who are called in a criminal trespass situation um can you kind of correct me um my my under my current understanding that uh businesses who who wish to have a a private mask policy for employees and customers uh can criminal trespass uh somebody who who doesn't adhere to those that uh private business policy and refuse refuses to leave if asked can you confirm that for me yes that is a tool but it would be the last resort um so we would encourage the businesses to have an enforcement strategy themselves like they do with other store policies how would they handle a customer that's not willing to follow a store policy if they needed additional assistance and public safety police had to respond police officers their first primary objective would just be some education to that customer try to de-escalate the situation just try to resolve it um and if need if need be um if it were if that were not successful um the business owner could decide to have that person criminally trespassed from their property but we would have to have that done by the business owner for police to remove them so you mentioned business owners so does that mean not the the manager i believe it's the manager i'd have to if chief dixon is on um but it's the person that that has the authority to sign those enforcement authorizations yeah yeah thank you yeah and if chief dixon is on i would love to um to hear from him he'd been very helpful in responding by email about this but it's my understanding that it's you know who has the the greater right of possession uh over that property okay he's on if you can speak to that chief dixon hey frank dixon chief of police then police department so it's not really who has the greater right of possessions who's in care custody and control of the business so that would be the manager the owner or whoever is left in charge quote unquote of the business would be legally able to issue a criminal trespass okay thank you thank you thank you so much um so uh and then my next question um uh so obviously businesses can decide to to do this and and in some ways i think that businesses who decide to uh have a private mask policy in some ways without the governor's order uh can have a greater enforcement than under our our local code because they can if a person refuses to leave and education doesn't work uh they can issue uh request criminal criminal trespass my concern is about workers and customers but also workers who don't have a choice at at businesses where there is no mask policy and so if you could speak to and i'm watching off the city of austin very closely i know they have now two weeks um uh to kind of continue requiring it in their health codes can you speak to or does somebody feel prepared to speak to you know what austin is doing with their health codes to continue a mask policy and how that differs from simply continuing to require as part of the emergency to require mass as part of a municipal emergency ordinance well for the record the the city attorney sent out a memo in a legal status that addressed exactly that so i'll obviously he knows the guard rose better than better than i i mean he could speak to it but i just want i don't want the uh those watching to think we we have not been aware and are not tracking that we're tracking that and we received that very answer via a legal status update uh that's private to us but i'll uh mr city attorney if you could speak to that yeah thank you i just wanted it public thanks well you know the city of austin and travis county they didn't what they've done instead is that there is a local health authority that is created under in travis county and it is the local health authority that has adopted the rules to under the health and safety code to help prevent the um for various reasons but to prevent the spread of of uh communicable diseases uh to address public instances where we're allowing uh these types of diseases to be spread as well as as uh there's one other one i'm blanking out i apologize but but that's how they've addressed it they the the say these are independent rules that were adopted outside the texas uh disaster act which is what we've been using it's a totally separate authority and so that is what they've been challenged by this by the state of texas as violating uh ga 34 and as you know that you know the court will address that in two weeks uh well actually less than two weeks now and and we'll decide and and i can guarantee you that whoever loses that trial court proceeding is going to immediately appeal to the court of appeals and then off to the texas supreme court uh our only hope is that it would be expedited by the court system so that we can get some type of an answer within the next few months as to what what the what final decision might be right now it's still very premature that you know that we're just waiting to when we're monitoring the litigation just to see how how how the city of austin travis county fairs against the ag's office and i and i think uh it's important to point out because you you mentioned public health authority but you that in essence is travis county took that action right not the city of austin now the city of austin mirrored it but travis county it has the that the um the statute that you cited is associated with the county i that i'm not 100 certain i believe but public health yes yeah thank you okay and so uh so i'm i'm uh following and i'm i'm looking at you know what possibilities um we have here in this city uh for you know for instance our our our own codes um and i'm also and i'll just say this in in closing um and i i completely agree with with what you said mr city attorney including kind of where things look where things will be headed uh whoever wins or whoever loses i'm also seeing you know the advantage of time in saving lives in the interim especially in protecting workers at businesses that would not have otherwise chosen to exert a mass coordinates so in that sense even if they lose even if the city loses they they've got that additional two weeks of protecting workers and you know it could be a matter of months so it'll be interesting to see um and i thank you for for making that public okay uh any other questions for staff councilman mouncer yeah um also for a city attorney so if it's ultimately determined to be unconstitutional it would be unconstitutional until it's determined whether it's unconstitutional or constitutional what is its status is it lawful to to take the action they took what and and that's that's the unknown question that's for the court to decide but you know i will say one thing that you know and i will caution the council one if it desires to move under this this type of um you know uh as i got updated by one by uh kather and austin also has its own health authority it's created by statute in addition to travis county but uh i just wanted to clear it and make that known but if you do choose to go in this direction you would have to do it under separate ordinance it couldn't be done today tonight under the the disaster declaration but two the the knowing how the ag's office operates you will be sued and you will and that lawsuit will go down to austin one of the tactics that the ag's office has used to challenge the the various uh orders local orders issued by various cities namely austin san antonio houston is uh when they get to the appeal to to actually request an order during the pendency of the appeal that prevents the municipality from enacting those regulations and that and that um that that has been successful uh about 50 60 percent of the time for the ag's office to prevent the enforcement during the pendency of litigation so that that is a common tactic that they've been using during all the different litigation during the covid pandemic so i i wouldn't i wouldn't see it as an opportunity that we would have months to to effectively uh have an ordinance there's there's that risk that it will you know once the trial court enters a ruling that there will be on appeal an order we will be granted to stay in the enforcement of our local ordinance and it's 50 to 60 percent of the time that that succeeds it's yes 40 to 50 percent of the time it doesn't succeed right because you're looking at probabilities i mean i would say it's almost a certainty that this sort of rolling blackout style of leadership from the governor it will result in deaths and dead so you know that's uh something to weigh uh i have another another question if i may yes um the governor's powers in this situation under the emergency orders i assume are ultimately governed by the legislature which is in session uh is it within the power of the legislature and you know and within our ability to appeal to our delegation to change the governor's powers uh you know regarding uh these matters there have been a couple of bills that were filed to limit the governor's authority just what you see in other states where legislatures have have not agreed with what the governors have done with use their or how they've used in emergency powers just like in our state there have been bills filed to limit that authority whether or not they actually get adopted is another story but yeah you're correct you can lobby your legislators to to uh follow or to try to implement or introduce a bill along those lines okay thanks okay any other questions any other questions for staff oh councilmember johnson i just want a clarification here with the governor's mandate we have an option to try and defy this and be sued or follow what he has said and then it does this change because if the health department has set a different set of rules and as i was watching this morning they say that we were down and that we were doing a lot better so now is this all because of how the governor has laid this out or do we have an option i just want to know what those options are just clear clear terms please do we have to follow the governor's mandate is there an option here and if there is an option what are the options and once we have made this decision what are the consequences the the order currently is a stance because it hasn't been overruled by a court and and the appellate courts is that it is it is a binding order on the city of that time do you have options you can certainly as a council decide that you want to follow with the city of austin this time and that would be a separate ordinance brought forward under the health and safety code similar to what austin's does what we could do there are some provisions that don't they'll give some ability to ability for cities but you know the extent you know there's something that we could brief in a future work session but that would be your call if you want to proceed in that direction then you know four of you need to direct um sarah teakler and her group and and the attorneys assisting them to to start that process to come with you to come before you with that option and any others that we may uncover during our research okay and and then her question is uh i think to some degree what's the action that you anticipate after that after that you know if we move forward in that direction what's what's the next step you would anticipate if i if i was the ag's office i would want to sue the city of denton and bring them into the lawsuit and i would try to consolidate that down in austin for convenience because that is where the the you know travels the the other lawsuit is already pending and then we would fight out there we would we would bring and we would hire outside counsel to help us with that litigation in austin and then um you know we will have our share of legal costs um as part of that lawsuit in defending the organs why much i can't tell you it really depends on how far up it goes if it goes all the way to texas supreme court and you know it will be some significant costs okay uh any other questions for staff okay seeing none uh sarah do you want to finish your presentation or do you need direct or whether it's an item for later right so we can take it up then yes it is a an item for later i'll go back to the presentation so while there's no longer a statewide mass mandate and while the city of denton can't require anything further underneath the governor's order we do have the option as a establishment in terms of what we do in our city facilities city of denton facilities services programs and we are continuing all of the health and safety precautions that we've had in place through the last few months including requiring individuals whether that be guests or customers residents or employees to continue to wear face coverings in our city facilities we're also continuing other additional health and safety protocols that we've had in place including those employees that are reporting into work in person to be doing daily health screenings temperature checks and also just restrict restricting some of our facilities with some being opened by appointment only in some areas not being generally accessible to the public so just wanted to inform council that staff is continuing on for right now with those same protocols that we have had in place however council could give us other direction and that most likely would come at a later date probably during that may work session i'll propose at the end but did want to to point that out and then wanted to move into the next topic to brief council on and that is in regards to special events so i'm actually going to turn it over to gary packin he's going to provide you a little bit of information on special events and we just wanted to make sure we informed council of the change and restarting acceptance of special event applications with the ga 34 rescinding that previous requirement that groups of 10 or over have approval of the mayor so i'll turn it over to gary packin mayor city council gary packin director of parks integration as you're fully aware ga 34 was rescinded prior to our last discussion at that time mayor could approve special events or 10 or more people at that point in time we had planned on special events reopening and rentals resuming may 1st with the assumption that 10 or more would be approved obviously with that being rescinded so the the current plan would be that we would still require a return to play health and safety protocol for each event as we have been including on our tournaments and and even our own internal events but then also include face coverings and social distancing as appropriate and at this time there would be no limitation on the number of attendees based on the current current order unless provided additional direction by city council on the on the right of your screen there's a list of 2021 potential upcoming events staff's been reaching out to groups to see if they're planning to move forward with some of these activities obviously on the size of these events it takes months and months for these to be planned so there's a good chance that these still may not happen the big one on the screen is arts and jazz that has been moved to october so that does give us some time to work up to that event blues festival is a big one in september obviously north texas fair and then we have some runs in in juneteenth in june cinco de mayo and mudbug we have not confirmed yet if they're going to be moving forward they may be virtually or they may just delay or cancel for this year but that has not been confirmed yet but we do have a number of activities that typically occur throughout the year both that are done by the department and by the general public so we are looking for some some direction and feedback from city council in regards to any concerns or comments in regards to our current process that we've outlined for special events okay uh questions for staff or comments all right seeing none any councilmember melzer yeah um what what's driving me first versus sage July 4th what we we had outlined a date uh earlier on of march march 1st uh to reject date uh and then we had pushed that uh after consultation with the county and staff that we were going to focus on outdoor events starting march 1st um and then expand our indoor facilities may 1st and the rest of our programs in concert with the summer activities still following cdc recommendations if we can as all as all possible uh so we're still following their recommendations and their their guidelines that they do provide uh to try to make the uh events and programs as safe as possible okay any other questions for staff councilor armature i'm curious to know uh since the governor's order have there been conversations with the county public health administration about uh having vaccine outreach um and expanded uh vaccine access at city events uh i don't there was not yet however we are in contact with the denton county public health pio often and we have been working on different public education efforts and so we can um discuss with them to see what they may be planning in terms of uh outreach in-person outreach just to inform and answer questions about vaccines or how to sign up for a vaccine we can follow up with council on a friday report thank you yes because it definitely seems like you know with this uh statewide reopening it's very much you know a race against the clock to get people vaccinated and fortunately it appears that there will be uh federal money coming uh you know to to expand uh vaccination money and supplies i i hope um so i'll be very interested to see what what we do with it and we'll be looking at what what other texas cities are planning to do with that as well okay any other questions or comments for staff okay uh anything else for us sarah just one last slide um sorry um so just kind of a next steps and what we're proposing and upcoming discussions with city council um so as i stated previously and likely some time in april we'll be coming back with some more information in regards to the american rescue plan that was signed by the president last week and contains a number of different assistance programs including financial assistance to local governments and and we'll be kind of discussing the guidance some options and really making a plan for those funds that we are anticipating and then in addition um some time in early may we are also planning to schedule a covid update and discussion to provide a situational update at that time on covid so like you've seen with dr richardson in terms of the number of cases hospitalizations and so forth to provide the latest data and then also to discuss a potential next phase of city facilities reopening so not just our parks and recreation and libraries facilities but some of the city facilities that we have closed to the public or that have been opened by appointment only kind of what is a phased transition strategy to reopening those facilities in addition to potential options for public meetings for council's consideration and what that may look like to do a phased return to some in-person meetings and what council would like to direct staff to do moving forward and for that transition strategy that is all okay so any other questions comments for staff before we conclude this item councillor melzer uh if it's not unconstitutional to try uh to do you know to move along the lines uh that austin has i would take up the you know the uh suggestion as an option uh that the city attorney raised to have staff come back you know to say what would be involved in doing it uh i would be uh interested in uh certainly uh opposing any you know stay against enacting it but i would suggest that austin will do the heavy lifting as far as legal spend uh you know in defending the item and really the objective is you know to buy uh you know to do the right thing uh for long enough and uh it sounds like there's reasonable probability of doing it i wouldn't want to break the bank to do it i don't think we have to break the bank to do it so that that's that's my my input okay uh any other questions for staff any other comments okay that concludes item d that'll take us to uh item e which is id 20 2387 and um before i get started want to make sure so we have two is that correct counselor marmotor um i had asked to pull mine pull is okay all right so yours is the first and so that leaves us one uh okay uh so then rachel did i already call that item i think i did okay great so uh we have the one yes i'll share and we'll get going so okay good afternoon mayor and council this is rachel bothritt mendosa and i will present to you the council pending request for information just a little bit of background um by way of reminder up to seven requests will be reviewed per meeting which equates to one per council member and i'll introduce each one as we go the elected official that made the request will have up to one minute to describe and justify it and then the remaining elected officials will have up to one minute to provide any feedback and indicate their support and the use of staff time to respond to it and then of course we'll respond to all requests where consensus is reached so we're going to move on to number two which is council member melzer's and his verbiage is shown here as it was in the backup and we also provided a little bit of information here and in your backup as well so i'll bring this down council member so that you may begin all right sir okay now i can start my time uh it's it's it's really pretty simple uh it's just about us not being overly uh robot-like and when we address these very one-minute pitches there's there's language that's been used in the past even prior to this administration uh that you know where i think people have the idea that well it's a rule that if you if you're one degree off of the exact language of what was proposed that's enough and i would suggest to you that our task is to come up with the best answers we're not we're not like a you know a robotic machine uh that if we're that we're capable in our one-minute responses uh of uh of saying you know i i like it but like this and i'm willing to give the chair the ability to say i think there's a consensus for x and even if it differs a little from the exact language okay uh may approach him davis you know kind of not unlike what council member melzer is saying i want to say that i i agree with him uh i agree with what he's his proposal but i think it's already allowed under our current rule i think we've in fact done that a number of times that i can think of um i can think of some times that we haven't done it where the the direction has been you know raise your hand if you're in favor and if not enough people are in favor of that exact proposal that we move forward but i can also think of some times where we've said you know i don't like that idea but i like that idea just a little bit different and four people have said that and next thing you know we end up with a work session in just the way that he's describing so i i think we can do that i just don't think we need a change in the rules council member armature well i'm i'm about to test that that theory to see if uh to see if if we do and can do that i i hope it's true um so i i was going to support this uh idea and uh because is you know i i i've i've been very public about my concerns uh including and in a outside of that one issue regarding these one-minute pitches uh so i would like us to have a work session just reviewing one-minute pitch policy uh in in general and uh for us to to tweak it to ask questions raise concerns you know i i've expressed a concern that to me it it feels a lot like uh polling i don't like the uh silence is uh the opposite of consent instead of consent you know usually it's the the other other way around uh so there are a number of different aspects we've had time to to test drive it for a while uh i think it'll be that's a minute sorry uh any others they want to no others i i will uh start the time on myself i think it's i i support the work session certainly uh to have the conversation again we got here because this body basically its request got out of control and so it's all about self-regulation and moving thoughtful conversations forward but being mindful of staff's time and being considerate of the multiple tasks they have to do and that being um magnified by the fact that it's a covid situation and it takes more to do just to kind of hold the line uh versus meeting in person and so happy to have the conversation but i don't know that i'm going to move much because i think we do as mayor pro tem pointed out have that flexibility and have exercise that flexibility but at the same time what you're leaving out i believe is the respect to those watching they have a right to have a clear understanding of what we're talking about and not be blindsided just because we want to wing it um any other any other comments so that's uh i i so just for an accounting um sort of there's three that would support a work session is what i have oh well am i allowed to speak again to say i'm fine with that no i'm counting you in that oh okay um okay seeing none okay thank you thank you rachel um and uh that concludes item e what i'm going to do is call the i'll take us in the closed session we'll take a break food is here let you at home eat as well so i'll convene the closed session at 5 20 29 p.m we'll consider the following items consultation with attorneys under texas government code section 551.071 um and so we're in closed session we'll take a 15 minute break come back 5 45 to take up the closed session item thank you um and good evening and welcome to this uh regularly scheduled meeting of the denton city council it is 6 37 p.m it's still the 16th of march 2021 sorry for the a little bit of a late start but we were um working hard so um wanted to touch on a couple of things before we get our agenda started with the with the pledges and that's to say council member ryan is in transit so he he should pop back on here shortly uh and then just for those that are maybe tracking along from early in the work session there were two items pulled from the consent agenda and that's item b as in boy v as in victor were pulled and so when we get to that that point we'll take those up individually but just wanted to uh speak to anyone that may not have uh that may have looked earlier and didn't hear those uh two items were pulled so that they'll be aware of that train that change that said uh we will then uh first item on our agenda is to uh the pledge of allegiance to the u.s and texas flag if you'll stand if you're able we'll take that off i pledge allegiance 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 and now the texas flag honor the texas flag i pledge allegiance to the texas one state under god one indivisible all right thank you uh that takes us to uh presentations from members of the public and we do not have any for this evening uh then that will um take us to the consent agenda and i will take a motion mayor pro tem davis move approval of the consent agenda excluding items b as in boy and v as in victor thank you is there a council member armature i second that thank you and any any discussion okay uh may pro tem davis how say you councilmember armature yes councilmember johnson councilmember melzer hi councilmember baker uh mayor hudspeth is an i as well that passes six zero um that takes us to uh the first item so item b which is id two one three three eight consider adoption of an ordinance approving a preliminary engineering services agreement by the by and between the city of denton and kansas city southern railroad company and this is relating to the widening of south bonnie bray street within the railroad right of way located at kcsr our mile post 103.24 uh mayor pro tem davis i move approval of the item thank you is there a second councilmember johnson or do you know councilmember melzer i'll second okay so we have a motion and a second any discussion okay mayor pro tem davis how say you i uh councilmember melzer hi councilmember johnson hi councilmember baker uh um councilmember armature no okay and mayor hudspeth as well that passes five to one okay that takes us to item v and call that sorry which is id uh two one four nine six consider adoption of an ordinance authorizing expenditure of an additional one hundred thousand dollars in in previously budgeted funds for outside council and other trial expenses in the litigation styled city of denton v robert p donnelly pending in the probate court of denton denton county texas and providing an effective date i'll take a motion mayor pro tem davis i move approval of item v okay is there a second thank you second by councilmember johnson a discussion okay mayor pro tem how say you aye councilmember johnson aye okay councilmember melzer aye councilmember baker aye mayor hudspeth is an aye and councilmember armature no okay and that passes six to one that takes us to our items for individual consideration the first item is for a id two one four three four consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton a texas home rule municipal corporation extending the effective period of the declaration state of local disaster to june 30 2021 supers superseding and replacing the 11th order of council of the city of denton issued december 17th 2020 approved by ordinance number two zero two four six seven and there is no presentation but uh staff sure good evening mayor city council sara keichler chief of staff um so this item is for council to consider extending the local disaster declaration related to covid us through june 30th of 2021 it would also be for council to consider adopting a 12th order of council related to covid also effective june 30th through 2021 and we did review an overview of the proposed ordinance and order during the work session in exhibit three is the proposed ordinance and order a clean copy and then exhibit four shows the red lines of any changes made from the 11th order the current order of council staff's happy to answer any questions that council may have thank you questions for staff seeing none is there a motion uh mayor pro tem davis i'll move approval thank you is there a second mayor hutsworth was second uh discussion um mayor pro tem davis i i would just encourage anybody tuning in just for this item to make sure you look back at the work session where staff really laid out our options what we're allowed to do what we're not allowed to do with this uh current action i think a lot of us are frustrated with the direction we're getting from austin and kind of the handcuffs put on us in our local disaster declarations um but i support this and moved its approval because it continues to make funding available for dentin continues to make uh the programs that we have going on some of the changes that we had to make make because of covid available for our folks it's not perfect but it gets the job done okay thank you uh and i'll piggyback that comment to say uh new funds are made available through this most recent federal uh relief bill which will come to uh will pass through the county hopefully to the city that's we're researching that now but we need this in place as a vehicle for that uh which i'm all for uh getting the that relief to our citizens so uh this is this is necessary for that for that component uh councilmember melzer without substantively really disagreeing with with what's been said i would take a small issue with the statement it gets the job done and and i know uh mayor pro tem will agree with me on this but getting the job done in terms of getting to a safe conclusion of this episode is going to require all of us and uh you know we're being challenged to do it whether there's an ordinance or not i mean i think it i think it's lousy i think it's ill-advised but here we are so i just urge everyone especially if you know if you're going to go whether you like it or not and i know many people don't like it if you're going to go into a shop where the employees really don't have a place you know i just ask you to to be considered and and and protect them by wearing a mask okay thank you and uh any other comments seeing none okay uh mayor pro tem how say you aye mayor hudspeth is an aye uh councilmember johnson aye uh councilmember baker uh councilmember armature yes councilmember melzer aye all right that that passes six to zero and before i move forward i do need to back up i think i misspoke item v uh madam secretary for for the record it passed uh six zero uh because council pardon me yes what did i say the vote was five one not five one six okay thank you thank you for that mr mr city attorney so let the record show that item v from the consent agenda passed uh five to one with um councilmember ryan not being available to vote so okay thank you for that one of the clear to record and uh we completed for a that takes us to four b and that item is id 21274 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton a texas home room and home rule municipal corporation amending the fy 2021 annual audit plan and providing an effective date hello mayor and council i have a just a brief presentation it's basically just what's in the ais but just to help us walk through kind of the timeline so i'll share my screen all right so i'm madison rorschach denton city auditor here to present a proposed amendment to the fiscal year 2021 annual audit plan so this amendment was uh essentially initiated by a request from the police department uh to delay the police property room audit follow-up uh which was on the original audit plan um because of the ongoing police station remodel the request was presented to the audit finance committee in february and they recommended that the full police property room audit follow-up be replaced with a partial follow-up review of the same audit the police property room audit which was focused on the procedural related recommendations instead of those associated with the physical space of the police station so the ordinance included in your backup would amend the you know that's why the fiscal year 2021 audit plan to review 12 of the issued 17 recommendations per the audit finance committee's direction so the options today are either to one amend the audit plan as recommended by the audit finance committee two direct staff to not amend the audit plan at all or three council could decide to amend the audit plan in a different way than the audit finance committee recommended so that's the whole presentation okay thank you questions for staff council member armature actually first first i'll see if somebody who was not on the audit and finance committee has questions since i was on it okay any questions for staff seeing none uh council member armature yeah i was was wondering if you could just reiterate uh the the argument for going ahead with the procedural uh follow-up only and not with the any follow-up related to the facilities to the building if i could reiterate the audit finance committee's direction to do that or if you would prefer i could too i just wanted to clarify i think the audit finance committee thought that the procedural issues could have been addressed without the remodel and so they felt that we should move forward in that direction so that the public received information on what had been changed since then and thank you that that was my understanding as well thanks okay um so to recap we're on item four b um and we staff has completed their presentation and before us is the option to amend as recommended by staff not amend or amend in a different way so those are the three options before us um and so questions any other questions for staff if not i'll take a motion uh council member melzer yeah i move approval of the amendment that aligns with the committee recommendation thank you um council member armature i second that thank you okay we have a motion and a second discussion okay council member melzer houseau aye council member armature yes mayor pro tem davis aye council member johnson aye uh council member baker uh council member ryan uh mayor hudspeth is an aye and uh thank you council member ryan for making my math easy i was messing up without you i missed you so this passes seven zero uh okay uh that takes us to four c thank you madison four c is id 21415 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton a texas home rule municipal corporation authorizing the city manager or their designee to execute a professional services agreement with fees freeze and nickels inc good evening mr mayor members of the council i'm pre tam they smoke deputy director for water and wastewater give me a quick second while i share the screen i have a really short presentation and let me know if you can see the screen yes sir we can so let me write jump right into it this is a professional services contract that we're requesting this evening approval from council the objective for the professional services contract is to primarily supplement wastewater and water staff as we move forward with enhancing the capacity of our existing system why do we have to go through this or what's the need as you can see on my right in this graph here there are several projects that are up and coming these are development projects a lot of growth in the city and we are trying to play play catch up as well as keep up with a lot of high pace fast pace growth in this area as we move forward with upkeeping of the water and wastewater infrastructure as well as delivering several projects that need to be completed in the next two to three years so this contract will help us supplement our staff and to complete some of these critical projects here's a quick review of the list i just want to i won't go over the entire list but as you see there are several projects throughout the city on the map left some of them are highlighted in red and here's a a projected cost or estimated cost for those projects and the services cost will be on the right hand column that says it's a project management cost for managing some of these large infrastructure projects in the next two to three years so about three years ago we went through a process of soliciting professional services we had several firms applied and we shortlisted five firms that are listed here on the side based on the review of the of these firms were ranked them the from the best to the least and then frees and nichols was the highest ranked firm so staff recommends moving forward and improving this particular contract it will definitely help us really augment staff and deliver some of our critical infrastructure projects i'll be happy to take any questions give me i'll stop sharing okay thank you very much questions for staff seeing none one more time okay i'll take a motion uh mayor pro tem davis i'll move approval thank you is there a second uh councilman baker i'll second it thank you okay we have a motion in a second discussion uh okay mayor pro tem how say you aye councilmember baker thank you councilmember johnson aye councilmember melzer aye councilmember armature yes okay and councilmember ryan aye mayor hudspeth is a i as well that passes uh seven to zero thank you uh pre tam for your work thank you all right that concludes item c next item is four d which is id 21424 consider approval of a resolution of the city council of the city of denton approving civil service commission commissioner lillian prado carrios request for leave for a leave of absence and providing an effective date good evening honor honorable mayor and council members my name is stephanie lang deputy director of human resources as well as director of the civil service commission i did not prepare a presentation but i'm most happy to answer any questions that you may have about the resolution okay thank you does anyone have questions uh for staff okay uh then i will uh take a motion uh councilmember armature i move approval and i wish lillian rapid recovery okay uh and mayor pro tem davis i'll second and the same okay and so we have a motion and second discussion okay i will say the same i wish her a speedy recovery and then i saw on facebook so her dad's my neighbor across the street outstanding family and her so i want to wish her daughter camelia camila and i may be saying that wrong but she just turned eight so i want to wish her happy birthday wish her family the best and and wish her a speedy speedy recovery so um uh with that any other discussion okay um so council member armature how say you yes okay uh may approach him davis aye thank you council member johnson aye council member melzer aye to the motion and to the sentiments expressed excellent thank you uh and council member baker uh council member ryan hi and mayor hutzpah there's a i as well that passes um seven zero and then uh that takes us to e which is id 21425 consider approval of a resolution of the city council of the city of denton confirming the interim city managers appointment of jamie blanton to the civil civil service commission to serve for the remainder of the civil service commission remainder of civil service commissioner lillian prado coreo's term which expires on august 31st 2021 and providing an effective date once again i did not prepare a presentation however i am happy to answer any questions that you all have okay thank you uh mayor pro tem davis just ready to move approval okay is there a second uh council member johnson a second thank you motion and a second discussion uh i will say thank you uh miss uh city manager that's a awesome pick i know jamie very well um so that's that's she'll be she'll serve well in that capacity so uh mayor protein mayor pro tem davis how say you hi okay and then who council member johnson all right okay uh council member melter sorry was i muted yes thank you uh council member armature yes okay and uh council member baker thank you council member ryan all right and mayor hutchpeth is i that passes seven to zero as well and that takes us to four f which is uh what's going to be i'm looking for a motion to well we'll call it first and then we'll talk about it so it's fae s a two zero dash zero zero zero six e consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas approving an alternate environmentally sensitive area plan for a site located on the south side of i-35e service road approximately 672 feet west of sam bass boulevard in the city of denton okay uh mayor pro tem davis i'd like to make a motion but i need to ask the city attorney uh there's no suggested date uh requested uh if i move to an event certain of of staff requesting the item be placed back on the agenda is that sufficient or because this has been noticed before is there is there some do i need to pick a date i guess what i'm asking no i think you know they they're what staff tried to do was to uh ask for an event certain which would be when they place this item on the agenda again it's my understanding that the applicant is still working on on uh the details according what they need to comply with this and so it may take some additional time we just don't know when they'll come back and meet with staff so okay then mr mayor i would move to postpone this item to an event certain that meaning that being the finalization of site plan details and request by the applicant for this item to be placed back on the agenda thank you um and do we have a second councilmember johnson i second that thank you okay we have a motion and a second to uh postpone to an event certain where the detailed site plan is produced and and staff is uh sufficient staff its staff will then bring it back and place it on the agenda um is is the trigger for that um and so we have a motion and a second discussion okay uh mayor pro tem davis how say you aye councilmember johnson aye okay uh councilmember melzer aye councilmember armature yes councilmember baker uh councilmember ryan aye mayor hutzpah it's a i as well that passes uh seven zero um i do look forward to that project uh that brings us to our boards and commissions so it's 4g id 21428 consider nominations appointments to the city's boards commissions and committees is there uh i'm assuming the city secretary do you have any i know you don't have a presentation any any comments before we vote or before we discuss it okay i'm gonna assume i'm sorry mr mayor i had to cue myself in no there is no no comments thank you i appreciate it okay so uh the the list is in our backup do i do i have a motion councilmember armature i move approval okay councilmember ryan second thank you we have a motion and a second to approve item 4g the boards uh the board nominees and and appointments any discussion okay seeing none uh councilmember armature how say you yes councilmember ryan how say you aye mayor protem davis aye councilmember johnson aye councilmember melter i'm sorry i missed that i yes sorry and councilmember baker uh and mayor hutzpah is a i as well that passes seven zero and that takes us to section five of our agenda the public hearings and the first item is item 5a id 2124 2a hold a public hearing and consider adoption of the ordinance of of an ordinance of the city of denton texas amending the provisions of chapter 26 utilities article five indirect discharge into sanitary sanitary wastewater system of the city's code of ordinances and i think that i have to maximize that okay okay good evening council mayor debraviera with environmental services i will be presenting uh tonight the amendments to sub chapter 26 okay good evening any city who owns a wastewater treatment plan and receive influence for uh from industrial users must have a pretreatment pro uh program uh and the purpose of those pretreatment program is to protect the city wastewater infrastructure namely the wastewater pipelines the actual wastewater treatment plan our biosolid production staff and any and the streams that the wastewater treatment discharge into it um the pretreatment program outlines uh a series of steps that any industrial user must go through it requires an initial permit that is uh renew every three uh every between zero and and three years it requires um self-monitoring sampling and reporting to the city of those results it requires the city to actually go and inspect the facilities and sample their effluence and also requires them that any changes that they make to the processes either they change the process they uh introduce a new chemical a new uh way to do things they have to notify the city about all those changes when there's any exceedances reported by the lab of any of the pollutants that also triggers a series of further samplings and inspections and if necessary we will pursue enforcement actions the in 2005 the epa made changes to chapter 40 of the code of federal uh regulations section 403 that actually made changes to the industrial pretreatment programs and the main goal was to actually provide flexibility and to remove any red tape but without any uh decreasing of the environmental protection that the regulations already provide it is also important to realize that among the suits of us i'm sorry suites of changes made the uh the 2005 also require more stringent regulations that made pretreatment uh programs more robust than what they are and we will be going through all those changes later in the presentation so uh with the 2005 uh adoption by epa it also required all the states including the state of texas to actually make changes to their pretreatment regulations and now the state is requiring the cities to make those changes as well um the staff provided a series of comparison of what is currently in the books and what is proposed um they are red lines they are side by side comparison there is a summary of changes and staff uh acknowledges uh that the changes might look quite um extensive however or the reason for for those is that we're not only making changes to the regulation we're also changing the organization of those regulations so there's a lot of red lines even those those are languages that currently are in the code but they have been located or reorganized differently in the new ordinance so what are the important changes uh the first one is the waiver for industrial users to apply when they first submit their the permit to the city to request that any pollutants that they don't have in the waste stream uh not to be required to sample for them right now the regulation states that if you meet a certain category disregard of the processes that you follow or the pollutants that you emit you must test for all of them even though some of them they are not present and every time that they test for it the results come back as not detect because they are not present this is one way that EPA tried to move away from the one-size-fits-all approach and be more tailored and specific to the industrial users another important change it will be to allow for equivalent reporting units and i want to stress here the the word equivalent this um allowance will not change by any means any limits established or will not relax any any of that the city doesn't have the authority to change any of the EPA regulation what it does is allow for industrial users to report using different units let me give you an example of this you may have heard in the past that a limit is reported in kilograms per liter or you might have heard them also reported in parts per million of ppm those two units are equivalent they're reported differently but they are equivalent the same happens when a standards is required to be reported in pounds so if we have concentration and we know a little bit of the process discharge we can actually convert the concentration to two pounds so here is not changing the standards more is more likely to provide reporting units that are equivalent the the other changes are i'm more happy to see those are changes that actually make the the process more robust and it requires more information from the industry users one of them is to provide actually plans to show how the industry are going to control for any accidental discharges currently we don't have that requirement in the books also for the first time establishes that dilution is not a substitute for treatment that means that industrial pretreatment must happen before they discharge into our wastewater system it also requires any customer cities discharging into our cities i'm sorry into our wastewater system to have pretreatment regulation that are at least as stringent as dentin the perfect example would be the city of corinth we also have contracts with the city of argyle and the city of chrome the other uh important change is just to require now that industry provide provide flow equalization facilities because that will protect our wastewater treatment plan from surges so after uh the 2005 was adopted tcq made the changes now tcq um requires the the cities to make those changes in their ordinances to align with epa and tcq and um tcq have deemed that the proposed draft ordinance that you have before you are both compliant with epa and tcq and is deemed to be technically complete the next step will be the the formal approval but it first must have an approved ordinance from the city these slides pretty much shows what the permit cycle is any industrial user user will have to go through this process um the process starts with the application and this is where the waiver will start uh be applied the applicant would have to provide a waiver request and also will have to provide a series of information that support their requests one of them will be providing the baseline monitoring report which is a report from the lab that tests all the effluents and indicates the presence or absence of pollutants that will be one of the main key elements for us to consider uh approving a waiver for a sampling pollutant the other important step in this process is what the city have done to counteract for that waiver on the six box you will see the city inspection and sampling but during those events the city will also be sampling and testing for the pollutants that have been awaited for the uh industry to monitor for so we will always have eyes on the process throughout every year throughout the extent of the permit and every time that they have to renew the permit they will have to go through that process again so just a quick chronology of what happened we have been talking about the 2005 when EPA approved the streamlining rule in 2014 the city made the first uh permit request uh to tcq to amend uh sub chapter 26 in 2020 we receive our first review comment from tcq we work out throughout the year uh with tcq back and forth at the end of 2020 uh take tcq notify us that that we now are technically complete that the next step that we need is the adoption of an ordinance we uh presented this to the public utility board they recommended approval of the ordinance amending sub chapter 26 staff is available to answer any questions okay thank you uh great presentation questions for staff council member armature and then council member melzer so of these changes and red lines i understand that they're all compliant with the new epa requirements uh have it did tceq add anything to the epa requirements uh that that we're considering in changing our ordinance or is this all um entirely from the epa no this is both uh epa and tcq uh before they uh determined that the ordinance is technically complete it must meet tcq regulation as well okay so and so then my next question is the part about um no longer having to test for all chemical pollutants but only those that are present at the uh industry being tested at the facility being tested was that part a requirement from epa obviously tcq uh is says yes to it uh but was that explicitly required by epa the the epa changes was um you know the they coined the whole ordinance as the streamlining process and one of of their 10 was to kind of be more specific to the industry and that changed that flexibility started with epa and then after the 2005 uh adoption then the states were required to amend the programs to show support to that so it is almost a step-by-step process starts at epa at the top and then the next step will be all uh individual states making those changes accordingly yes and so so the requirement about uh about testing for only chemical pollutants of that industry is you know came from e came from epa to tcq and is now coming to us just like all these others it wasn't something added by tcq correct and just keep in mind this was back in 20 in 2005 so it had been some time it is this change didn't happen recently it has been in the work for some time and it was an attempt to be more tailored if you look into many of the epa regulations they are kind of one size fit all type approach when they are trying to move away from that and be more specific also important to know this is a waiver that the industry must apply for so it's not a blanket waiver for everybody so and we will review those individually based on the data that they provide to support that if we don't agree with them with we have the authority to deny the waiver that authority uh resides with the city the city okay thank you and that was what was going to be my next question about that um can you just say a little bit more about what that process will be like at the city level um will it involve you know visiting will it involve on site uh visitation uh together with a review of the industry and the kinds of chemicals found in that industry and will it involve current city staff or you know will there be a need to hire um you know specialists in this area that we might not have apologies if we do have people we probably do but i i just like to hear more about about that because it's a really important part of the process obviously well i will start when the application is first submitted because i think that that's where uh all the process starts right there so the industry for example will submit the application for a permit it could be a brand new industry coming to to town for the first time ever it could be a um an industry that we already have in town but they are doing a second facility and they need a permit for that second facility or it could be a um industry that never have uh any industry in in in text in in this in that but other places in in texas so um they submit the application let's say that they are interested on the waiver they submit that application uh for the waiver itself they have to provide a detailed explanation of all the processes step by step of what uh what is involved in the production of any of their um i guess um assets after that they also have to provide what what i mentioned as the bmr which is the baseline monitoring report those are samples let's say that this is a facility another a facility coming from another city okay so they will have to provide us a report of what those discharges looks like that report come from a third party lab comes to us we will review it and we will say we will see what pollutants are uh present or not detect based on the results we will look at the whole uh um report of the chemicals that they keep in their facility okay because we also want to prevent that if by any chance they are storing those if there is a accidental discharge we can get it so we will go in through all that um after that we will uh sit down with them to to understand what the process is um let's say that we approve the permit and the waiver okay let's assume that 90 days after that permit is approved the um the user have to provide another report showing compliance with all the parameters all the limits okay so 90 days after we have a new sampling event okay after that first event they are required to at least monitor twice a year so we will have another sampling event from them which the results will come from a third party lab to us okay and then we are required to actually go to the facility do a visual inspection collect samples and test them and that testing will also include those pollutants that they have requested the waiver for so on an annual basis we will have eyes on these pollutants and then we continue that process for the life of the permit which is between uh zero to five years and then when they are ready to renew that process it starts all over again and they will have to request for a waiver at that time again excellent thank you so much okay uh councillor melzer yeah thank you uh first of all for the extra effort i know you put in to you make this as clear as possible uh and i think you've actually addressed my question i'll just sort of underscore it it you know it's a it's a paradoxical statement a seeming contradiction to say you don't have to test for elements that aren't there how would you know they aren't there unless you test for them so you've answered that by saying the city will test for them you know on a on a longer interval so uh thank you okay uh any other questions for staff okay uh councillor johnson so basically we're saying that we're going to either reduce or eliminate any pollutants being dumped into our system well yes what we are doing with the waiver is that what you're specific to the waiver yes okay what the waiver would is uh will save the industry from sampling for pollutants that they don't produce okay it is not part of the waste stream is not even in the facility so what happens right now is they have a long list of pollutant it doesn't matter if they have them or generate them or not they must test for it many of them come as a non-detect okay because again they have to do it so this process is more tailored to the specifics of the industry if you don't generate that pollutant you don't have to taste test for it however the city will still have to test for it so we will have an eye on those okay thank you thank you okay any other questions for staff then i will open the public uh hearing and we do not have any callers at this point uh i'll take a motion uh mayor pro tem davis i'll move approval okay and councillor baker i'll second okay we have a motion and a second to approve item five a uh and is there any other discussion okay seeing none i will then close the public hearing for item five a and mayor pro tem davis how say you i uh council member baker uh council member johnson aye council member melzer aye all right council member ryan aye council member armator yes all right mayor hudspeth is i as well thank you deborah very much okay uh that concludes item five five a that'll take us to item five b which is z20013 b hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas regarding a change in the zoning district of and use classification from general office to mix use regional uh districts to highway corridor districts on approximately 18.55 acres of land generally located southwest corner of the intersection of the i-35 southbound service road and barthol road in the city of denton good evening mayor council members i'm julie wyatt good evening um let me share my screen all right um so the request before you is z20-0013 loves travel stop so the request before you is rezoning from general office and mixed use regional uh to highway corridor district the subject property outlined in yellow at the intersection of i-35 and barthol road is developed as a loves travel stop the purpose of this rezoning request is to facilitate the continued use and restoration of that existing travel plaza after a text dot right of way acquisition so a little bit of background on the property in 2015 the development that it was rezoned the property was rezoned from rccn and ecc to facilitate the development of the existing use that use the loves travel stop was constructed in in 2017 and 2018 at that time we didn't have a use in the in the 2002 code that fully encompassed all of the activities on site so what we did is we looked at all of those uses that were associated with that general use on things like retail sales drive-through restaurants fuel sales and we ensured that those uses were permitted in that zoning district to capture the activities on site in 2019 we adopted a new development code and within that code we have a had a new use that we added which essentially took all of those separate uses and combined them into one use as a travel plaza and that includes refueling servicing rest and other services to motorists it also has accessory uses like a storage of vehicles or showers in a restaurant with the implementation of the 2019 code we also transitioned our zoning districts and that existing district transitioned from uh to geo in the mr districts which essentially made the use non-conforming because that travel plaza use is not permitted in those zoning districts where um that that it transitioned to so we jump forward to the present uh the tex dot is acquiring a strip of property along i-35 um for for future expansions and that will result in the removal of some landscaping and parking and a portion of the fuel canopy so so the fuel canopy in order to restore the site the travel plaza owner has purchased an additional 4.7 acres to the west of the subject property abutting it and they're pursuing a rezoning to hc which permits the use so we get that use conforming so just a comparison of the current zoning map to the proposed zoning map you can see that there is that that split zoning of mr and geo and the proposal would just consolidate the zoning under the under hc on the site the criteria for approval for zoning cases is in sub chapter two of the debt and development code and we have general and specific criteria for approval i won't read all of these to you what we'll do is we'll just talk about them as we talk through the project so first thing we always look at is the future land use map and the comprehensive plan and and this site is designated as business innovation the intent of business innovation is for large tracts of land that are appropriate for well-planned larger scale office and employment parks with supporting uses such as retail hotels and residential generally we see the zoning districts geo and li in business innovation but due to this site's location along the interstate highway hc is consistent with that future land use map because it does it does have employment uses within hc but it also has those those supporting uses those commercial uses that you typically find on highway corridors and it's also at a scale typically found on highways so it is consistent with the comprehensive plan another criterion for approval is significant changes to warrant the change with the implementation of the 2019 ddc the site became non-conforming and so this proposed rezoning would just correct that issue allow the property owner to make those changes that are needed resulting from that right of way acquisition really just kind of allow it to continue as it has minimizes adverse impacts on surrounding property hc district is appropriate in this area it really was devised for the i-35 corridor the site is adjacent to 35 it's the eric the area is characterized by undeveloped property as well as transportation related uses when you look at the surrounding uses there is a lot of undeveloped but you have a truck wash that it was recently constructed to the north you've got another travel plaza just to the south east of the site future office to the north so there are a lot of travel related uses in this area and and as this area develops staff anticipates that those properties adjacent to i-35 will develop with commercial and employment uses that are generally found in areas that need access and and and the visibility that something like an interstate corridor would provide and hc also requires commercial design standards on public facilities and and services available to serve your property there is adequate access to the property from i-35 once again the purpose that there are no additional trips are anticipated because the the use is already there and then barthold is anticipated to to change in the future in the next two to three years it's anticipated to be rebuilt as a six lane divided roadway adjacent to the site and kind of straighten out and you can see right here they've got the conceptual plans now and that would come with the with the widening of i-35 and then the site would remain connected to the existing water and sewer that were that are currently available to the site i've got a couple of site photos we did provide that public outreach we received one letter in support and that is just to the north of the subject property so the planning and zoning commission recommended approval of the request staff also recommends approval as it complies with the criteria within the didn't development code and i'll be happy to answer any questions okay thank you questions for staff councilmember armature yes let's see a couple of questions to begin with um you mentioned the business innovation designation is uh is does this uh count as business innovation or is that just the uh plan for the area so that business innovation is um embedded within the comprehensive plan and that's sort of that overarching policy for the area um but within that business innovation broad category there can be sort of context solutions given the given the um where the site is located and so for instance in this in this area um it makes sense to have that highway corridor that business innovation does provide room for those supportive uses like commercial and and hotel and and those those types of uses that businesses would would need and that would be appropriate for a given location so it does meet that future land use because it does hc does provide those supportive uses but it does have that scale that we typically see along highways okay and thank you and so my second question is is coming from uh you know my my concern about the rural area uh that marked out on the map and that creep that happens that that can sometimes happen so i'm i'm thinking forward um and uh can you explain uh what are the amendments that the the property owner needs to make to their property that they can't make under the mixed use designation but can under highway corridor their use um just from the the most kind of basic level their use became non-conforming with the adoption of the 2019 code so um they they pursued a rezoning in 2015 to build the the facility and then and then they built it and then the the new code with that introduction of that travel plaza use um didn't include it in the zoning districts that it transitioned to so um it it is a non-conforming use currently um with the with the i-35 expansion they are going to um they are going to need that slip that front sliver um and it's it goes from 77 feet wide to 110 feet wide so it's going to take quite a bit of their parking their fuel um area and so what they're going to have to do is is um move the fuel canopy back and then move some of their parking toward the rear so they've they've acquired additional property to kind of accommodate for that parking on site and then they'll have to they'll have to redo their landscaping in the front they'll have to to redo their their fuel canopy so this would just allow their most fundamentally their use to be um to be conforming to be permitted and then and then on the other hand it would allow them to to restore their site to what they had um prior to that um that right away dedication oh so and so would the alternative be because so because they're non-conforming um they can't just automatically make these amendments to their property right correct and uh but is there another can you explain like what would be an alternate route could they go before zba obviously they're here before us now um you know and and they want the the zoning change but in trying to figure out you know where i stand on this i'm looking at all at what alternatives there are um could they go before zba and request that or is that not something that that zba could could be for city attorney it's a more costly complicated process mr mr city attorney to answer councilman marmot's question the answer is no because uh what if they were to go to zba it would be to to change a user to allow different use of what's in allowed under the current hc district so it would uh because use variances are illegal in texas they would not be able to do that so it's only they can only go to zba if they had uh setback variances that they wish to to to obtain which is what normally happens at zba okay uh any other questions okay uh councillor melzer yeah i mean uh my question is really just to see if my restatement is accurate um this isn't changing uh this isn't introducing a new use there it's what they do currently um it's the the ddc by agreement of council was not intended to create any non-conformities so this would be correcting the non-conformity inadvertently created uh and this would have no impact on other areas similarly zoned is that all correct yes sir that's correct thank you okay any other questions for staff seeing none i'll open the public hearing and we do not have any callers but uh do we have one more time do we have any questions for staff okay then i'll take a motion uh council member melzer yeah i'll move approval okay and then count mayor pro tem davis i'll second thank you so we have a motion and a second any discussion any discussion seeing none i will close the public hearing and council member melzer i'll say you aye mayor pro tem aye thank you council member johnson aye council member armature no okay um council member baker uh council member ryan aye mayor hutzpah is an i that passes six to one thank you julie uh and i guess you you're probably i don't know if she's up with the next one or not so this is um five c which is s20-0010 c hold public hearing consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas approving a specific use permit to allow for a bar tavern or lounge use on approximately 0.451 acres of land generally located on the southwest corner of stroud street uh shout out to stroud and proud and uh south elm street in the city of denton good evening mr mayor and members of city council sean jacobson assistant planner and i'm just going to pull out my presentation here bear with me for a moment all right and hopefully you can now see my screen yes sir yes this is a request for a specific use permit as you said for a bar tavern and lounge use on approximately 0.451 acres it's in the mixed use neighborhood the mn district this site was previously occupied by major automotive repair use following which it was vacant for approximately eight months the applicant redeveloped the site with an indoor recreation use specifically ax throwing in billiards and that was a use that was permitted by right in the mn district they opened on november 20th and been open for about three months since then that use currently includes the option for patrons to bring in and consume alcohol on a byob basis the applicant is now proposing to serve alcohol sell and serve alcohol and that requires a bar to have no lounge use and that use requires an sup in the mn district therefore this request is before you you can see here's the site plan applicant has the commercial building existing there that footprint isn't changing there's ample parking provided the one change the exterior was the replacement of some broken cement with the landscape area there really weren't many additional changes they could make to the exterior of the property because most of it is in the floodplain or floodway and as i said that that recreation use is currently within the building this would be an additional use to that and see here this was prior to the applicant's redevelopment of the site and you'll you'll get to see some of the changes they made later surrounding this is a mixed use area primarily commercial but there's also residential to the west there so the question before y'all is whether the added bar tavern lounge use meets our criteria for approval as you know we do have both the general approval criteria and the specific criteria applicable to specific use permits we'll look at the key elements as they relate to this request of course we always want to look at our comprehensive plan and the future land use map there are two future land use designations on the site downtown denton which is designed to provide a mix of context sensitive uses including entertainment commercial residential uses we also have downtown compatibility area which is designed to provide that midpoint between central downtown and then the adjacent residential commercial areas within that we're looking to see commercial that is in scale and form that's sensitive to the surrounding build context so this bar tavern lounge use with the indoor recreation use that's existing that would provide a new entertainment and commercial use within an existing commercial building in the area this would be consistent with the comprehensive plan's goal of providing commercial uses in the scale that fits the area this is a building that's existed there for a while it also meets the denton plan 2030 goals of developing along corridors because this is along that main elm street corridor and strengthening existing commercial uses it also furthers what denton plan 2030 calls the sound growth vision of downtown denton that is energized by new entertainment supporting day and nighttime activity and true urban lifestyle it's important to look at whether this use is compatible with the surrounding area as i mentioned this is a mixed use area which includes a variety of commercial and residential uses it's on that south elm street corridor that already has a development pattern that includes a number of bars and restaurants that serve alcohol they are as i said maintaining the existing single-story building which has been there for many years and that proposed bar use would support the new existing that's been brought in that indoor recreation use together enable them to occupy an otherwise vacant building so providing an active business there the site redevelopment has included actually removing vehicles that were stored behind the building as part of that major automotive repair use so it actually improves the compatibility of this site with this the area and i'll show you that in a minute you don't have a bunch of cars parked right next to someone's house the surrounding property is similarly zoned it's mostly developed the addition of the bar use is not expected to limit future redevelopment in the area just to show you this is what the property looked like prior to the redevelopment now all those cars are gone not sitting adjacent to that house also need to look at how potential negative impacts would be mitigated in general having the bar use would enable the uh the owner of the business because he controls the alcohol sale and service staff can more closely monitor consumption it also applies tabc supervision to the business and there's also a condition of approval recommended that alcohol sale and service would be limited to beer and wine excluding hard liquor also important to look at how visual impacts would be mitigated so as we said those vehicles have been removed from behind the building also no longer have those open bay doors they've been replaced with faux covered barn doors you don't have vehicles being repaired on the site and we now have new landscaping in place of what was previously broken cement noise and traffic impacts it's important to consider due to the very design of the site vehicles can only exit on the south elm street and head south which directs them away from the adjacent residential parking is limited to just that front lot so you won't have patrons coming in parking near someone's house staff has recommended the applicant has agreed a condition of approval that the sale and consumption of alcohol would be limited to the interior of the building only in terms of the refuse area that dumpster there is going to be kept in front rather than being moved to the rear as it might normally be because that would be adjacent to someone's house looking at the impact on our public facilities emergency services have specifically asked them they had no specific concerns about adding the proposed bar use to this property i also asked them both police and emergency services to look at any calls to ironwood axe throwing which has been on hickory street since 2019 emergency services had had zero calls police had had one call for noise and they weren't sure that it was actually even related to that axe throwing business in addition this is within the eight minutes of less fire response time area in terms of traffic impacts the applicant's traffic study indicated likely average about 53.58 daily trips on weekdays going up to about 123 average trips on saturdays 36 on sundays south elm street is a primary arterial expected this additional traffic it's designed to handle that solid waste water and wastewater already provided to the site it's also important to look at how the neighborhood responded we sent out all of our standard notices we received zero responses in opposition and four in favor including as you can see a number of those adjacent residential properties one additional note the property immediately to the west is owned by the same property owner as this business and so while we don't have specific response and favorites assumed it had to sign off on this application they supported a neighborhood zoom meeting was held two neighbors attended they expressed appreciation for the restriction indoor only service and not serving liquor when i asked them specifically they had no opposition to the bar use as proposed so taking all this into consideration planning and zoning commission recommended approval of the sqp with staff conditions and those conditions are the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages shall be limited to the interior of the building the alcohol sale and service will be limited to beer and wine and will not include hard liquor with that that concludes my presentation the applicant is on the line does have a presentation i'll stand for your questions okay uh questions for staff and then we'll hear the applicant's presentation let's take questions for staff first council member armature yeah thanks for the presentation so i i have have no problem with the uh beer and alcohol at this location and have the idea of having recreational facility there like you said it's already zoned for recreational use um but uh you know you probably anticipated questions about the combination of uh axe throwing and an alcohol consumption i certainly wouldn't trust myself to do that i don't have to go there obviously or i could go there and not uh throw an axe but um can you speak to and and i i i looked this up um and it was confirmed and staff confirmed as well yes that's the thing axe throwing bars and apparently it's very trendy right now is this the first axe throwing bar that we would have in denton yes that is correct ma'am this would be the first axe throwing specific axe throwing bar the ironwood axe location does also permit b-y-o-b but it is not they do not sell their own alcohol and uh and i believe the applicant will also speak to some of the procedures they have in place to manage the combination of those two activities okay thanks yeah and and uh so axe obviously it's it's a lethal weapon or can be used could be used as a lethal weapon um uh do we have any are there any shooting ranges where alcohol is sold i can't speak to that yeah i don't know if that's well i'm just wondering about other just the combination of the lethal weapon with alcohol just from staff perspective thanks got it okay uh any other questions for staff seeing none okay so what i'll do is i will open the public hearing so that i don't forget and then i will uh turn it over to you shawn introduce the applicant sir okay we're open uh mike are you on the line i am can you hear me yes sir so i'm gonna pull up your presentation here uh this is mike roberts the owner and our applicant of the horses axe i'll start his presentation okay all right mike i've got your first slide set up so if you just want to let me know whenever you're ready to go to the next slide take it away sir okay thanks shawn good evening mr mayor and members of the city council and i want to say thanks for your consideration here um my name is mike roberts i'm the owner of the horses axe located at 400 south down street and the presentation that i have i just want to the first thing i'd like to do is walk you through um how we have improved the property and then i'm happy to to take any questions and answer questions about um you know selling beer and wine in an axe storing venue um so shawn if you can go to the the site that says the next slide says front of building before um this is this is dave's foreign automotive it was a car repair facility for for decades before it was dave it was uh it was a gas station and you can see that it was really a dilapidated building and we spent many many months reviving this this property and so shawn if you can go to the next slide says front of building after you can see what we did as shawn mentioned before we got rid of the urad bay doors and we put up bow barn doors um so it gives it a nice look we painted the entire building we sealed the rock out front and then we um shawn if you can go to the next slide we also under the awning we there was a broken up planter box and broken concrete we we took all that out and we exposed the dirt below the concrete and then shawn if you can go to the next slide says landscaping under awning after you can see that we we put in some some some potted plants and we added some additional shrubbery and some walking stones in there it really helps just with the overall look right when you when you right when you pull up and then shawn if you go to the next slide it says inside pictures before everyone can see what this place used to be if you'd ever brought a car here for repair i don't know if you went into the garage areas or not but it was it was a mess and um it took a lot of cleanup a lot of paint and a lot of just uh working on this place to get it to get it all to get it all fixed so then shawn if you go to the next slide you can see a picture of our axe throwing room we got four bays um all with projected targets the these targets that we have are end grain targets i don't know if you would know what that means but it's it's a safer target it's all surrounded by by by rubber with dead airspace behind us if you miss the target the axe just falls to the ground doesn't bounce back at people um people can keep score above so it's a very fun environment um the next room in the next picture is our billiard room and this is the room that you saw in the before pictures so we took all the junk out of it we completely redid it all the wood that you see on the walls is reclaimed the barn wood and pallet wood that came from barns out of the justin area in the house that used to be where alliance airport is now so a lot of this wood is over 100 years old and we uh were able to get it and um use it the place is beautiful when people walk in here especially people that have visited dave's foreign automotive they walk in and they just can't believe how nice it is um the next slide you can see a picture of the the middle where we we set up a bar area and then the last picture on the slide is our check-in area kind of facing toward the billiard room and we've we've taken this building and turned it into something special um i'd like to address the question real quick about about having beer or alcohol in an x3 venue and i'll tell you that our our first our first plan was to be a byob facility and i brought it up in one of our initial board meetings and one of our board members raised her hand and she said excuse me what and i said byob bring your own beer and she said yeah yeah i know what that means but gosh that's scary how do you regulate it how do you monitor it and she's right and we've been operating as byob now for almost four months and it's extremely difficult to regulate and monitor it when people bring in coolers and cases full of full of beer and wine so what we want to do is we want to be able to to sell it and in our point of sale system we can regulate it and we can monitor it and we can limit it and what we want to do is we want to limit it to two drinks an hour while people are throwing axes and also part of our plan is you know anytime someone buys a couple bottles of beer they're going to get a bottle of water with it for free so we want to make this environment safer so in there and there are other venues in the metroplex and around the state and around the country other x-string venues that sell beer and wine and i understand now why they're doing it it's it's to keep people from bringing in you know a case of beer and trying to guzzle it all down while they're throwing axes for an hour so we see it as something that'll make the environment safer and so we would i'm asking for your approval to do this okay thank you so questions for staff or the applicant okay councilmember armater yeah i was wondering from the applicant were there what kinds of problems did you have when it was byob were were people you know dropping axes on feet or you know was there did it feel like something dangerous was going to happen if you didn't if the drinking wasn't regulated or was there just is just a sense of looking forward and risk management it's a it's a sense of looking forward and risk management we have not had any accidents here we've tried to tell people to slow down on the drinking or we see a bunch of beer come in we try to tell them okay you know let's let's try to limit ourselves when we're in here but i think it's really it's the looking looking forward into the future so but um but just to be real clear we've had we've had no accidents at all yet we've we've tried to keep it as safe as we can um but we've had some difficult conversations with some people when they bring in you know a certain amount of alcohol and we try to tell them you know you got to slow down it's not a it's not a pleasant conversation to have whereas if we were selling it we could we could monitor it and regulate it very clearly and then also as as sean said with tabc there are rules and regulations and trainings that would be put in place so i think we would all be better equipped to handle situations when someone asks to buy beer and we tell them now okay thank you and and one other question um did you considered or had the board considered uh the the possibility of just a rule saying no drinking while throwing axes you can you know you can drink while you're shooting pool or just hanging out but the axe throwing area is a no drinking area was that something that was considered um no we didn't really talk about that we just talked about limiting it because lots of people drink beer when they're throwing axes anyway so if we said no drinking at all in the axe room they would just go to another axe throwing venue because all other axe throwing venues that aren't serving beer they're all byob and people can take in whatever they want okay uh any other questions seeing none uh i will take a motion did anyone from the public want to speak no no i don't have a question but i have a comment well let's let me get the let me see if there's a motion and a second uh mayor pro tem davis noting that denton all of a sudden merits two axe throwing places um i'll make a i'll move approval of the item thank you is there a second uh council member ryan i'll second no stranger to the wine business uh council member ryan this is pretty okay uh we have a motion to the second council member melzer uh wow i i can't believe we're really having this conversation i i really applaud the creativity and the fun-loving you know intentions of of the applicant and where they're developing and what they've done with the property and i'm sure they can come up with all kinds of good ideas um i can't believe this is legal i i'm i'm just amazed and and the only thing i could imagine it would be worse than uh something like you know amateur what is this amateur chainsaw juggling or axe throwing anything in that category would be adding alcohol to it i mean what could possibly go wrong i know there are different reasonable people can have different points of view on it uh i just i just think people lost their damn minds i'm opposed got it yeah but i i will say this it's interesting because as mayor pro tem pointed out there's a bar that's been up and running that's doing exactly what they're doing and not a peep and now all of a sudden we're trying to drop the hammer on the new guy that for us it didn't come before us mayor yeah okay okay uh mayor pro tem you know i'm gonna i understand i understand the concern um and this might surprise some people might not um i've actually been involved in axe and tomahawk throwing since i was about 11 or 12 years old and at different points uh as a younger person my job to supervise 11 and 12 year olds they're worse than drunk people at throwing tomahawks and axes especially if these folks are uh intending to um enforce t a b c rules on the folks that are buying alcohol from them which they can't really do very effectively with b i y b y o b i can tell you this can be done very safely it seems counterintuitive it's a more popular activity than you might think there are more people uh who may have more impairments in their lives than a beer or two uh there are more people out there doing this as a pastime than you might think it's actually incredibly safe there are very few documented injuries from it um it might sound crazy at first blush uh but it's very popular for a reason it's a very safe activity okay thank you and councilmember armature yeah uh just to make my statement um you know i i'm okay with the idea of of axe throwing uh as as a recreation um and uh i of course love love the idea of you know of bars we've got a great uh bar culture and i you know can't wait till it's it's safer you know right now just being without a mask um in a in a bar with with other people without masks can be dangerous so i look forward to when it's no longer dangerous to just you know go into a bar and hang out but i the combination feels just too risky for me and to speak to count to mayor hudspeth's claim um as as councilmember melzer said you know there's another apparently there's another uh place in town i i didn't know that uh but they didn't come before me um to ask my opinion and so you know i'm thinking of the you know i don't want a a mother to you know look me in the eye and say i can't believe you voted um yes to this and a thing that caused my son to lose you know lose a foot or something like that uh i i just see the risk um and and i would be perfectly fine with 11 and 12 year olds um doing it and adults not drinking but it is it it is just too too much of a liability to me that combination uh and so but anyway but i do understand that having a b-y-o-b policy um is also a concern as well i would just map rather the solution be you know no drinking while uh throwing lethal weapons okay thank you and so i'm going to close the uh public hearing we had no callers and i'm going to include my my statement with i i'm going to trust the data one two i've been to the location myself uh to to watch and understand what i'm voting on uh and i appreciate the owner uh mike pointing out the rubber wall component he also i appreciate him pointing out the wood difference component because the other location uh downtown denton is a more it's a harder wood and therefore you do have the bounce backs his company to avoid that went with the softer side of the wood or it's and the rubber around it so i i want to reward someone that's taking extra precautions i want to make sure i'm educated on the data and the stats and i appreciate sean for calling the police department and understanding the complaints uh from inception of both locations so goes above and beyond to say hey if there are 911 calls or if there are police calls let us know about it and bringing that into the uh presentation i appreciate you going above and beyond and doing some extra uh work for us so with that we have a motion and a second uh and i will uh take the vote so mayor pro tem davis how say you aye okay and council member ryan aye okay and uh council member johnson no okay and council member baker uh okay council member melter no nate council member armature no mayor hudspeth is an i that passes four to three by my account thank you very much okay that concludes that item takes us to uh item 5d which is uh pd 20-000 did i get three zeros in there there's three zeros 2d uh hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas regarding a rezoning for general office and rural residential districts to a planned development district on approximately 90 acres uh property generally located on the north side of loop 288 between north elm street and bonnie bray street good evening mayor council members um let me i'm julie wyatt senior planner with the city of denton and let me share my screen presentation all right um so this is a pd 20-0002d hershbach so the request before you tonight is a zoning change from general office and rural residential to a planned development district on 90 acres the subject site is outlined in yellow on your screen it is north of loop 288 and highway 77 also known as as north elm and north bonnie bray the purpose of the pd is is kind of uh two two parts of it uh we've got a one is to define a new use which is a fleet service provider and use specific standards and the second part is um for a a development plan for 38 acres of the 98 of the 90 acres which would uh leave 52 remaining acres remaining for future development so before we get into this specific uh project i wanted to talk a little bit about um the denton development code and how it um how it regulates pds and undefined uses so um with the adoption of the 2019 denton development code we added pds back to our toolbox in our in our land use um options uh within those regulations there are um there's the purpose of the pd and there are two areas in the denton development code that that addresses the purpose of of a pd um one is in sub chapter three and it would be to provide an alternative zoning and development process to accommodate a specific a substantial development of residential commercial professional recreation recreational industrial other develop other activities including combinations of uses um and then the second uh the second area where it talks about the purpose of pds is in sub chapter two and that talks about that the purpose of a pd is to achieve greater flexibility and to encourage innovative land uses um as proposed uh the item before you combines a variety of uses into a composite use so it takes um several uses that are within the denton development code and creates kind of a new use development standards and definition which more accurately describe the activities and intensity associated with the proposal and we'll talk about that definition in just a little bit um and then when it when it um when we look at undefined uses sub chapter five talks about undefined uses so our our um our land use table in sub chapter five is a limited list and sometimes we do um our property owners or applicants may come to the city with a use that's not defined and so in sub chapter five it does allow the director to um to assign the most appropriate use category and type um considering potential impacts and establishing use specific standards given that this proposal is unique that it combines these um employment with automotive related uses and that it's limited to um to the employees of a single company staff determined that a pd would be mostly the most appropriate development pathway because pds have that public hearing process it provides that additional scrutiny and and allows the the project to really be vetted through the planning and zoning commission and and ultimately through city council also it does involve that public notification which includes the the the neighboring property owners so now we'll get a little closer to to the um the specific request in in front of you so um the current zoning map shows the subject property outlined in black it has a split zoning of geo and rr district um geo is one of those districts that um combines employment and um and commercial uses it's kind of it's kind of a mixed use district but but it's but it it really focuses on those employment and commercial um uses um within geo it permits business and trade schools administrative offices accessory outdoor storage minor and major vehicle servicing major vehicle servicing does require a specific use permit automotive sales and auto wash and so the the proposal before you tonight would combine all of these all of these uses into one and so here's that definition so as proposed the fleet services provider would be is a business which supports the movement of goods by means of truck transport and is not open to the general public primary activities include driver training and support services company administration customer service support sales accessory uses include fleet storage maintenance facilities and that includes that that vehicle repair fueling station and truck wash base the definition excludes warehousing storage and transfer of goods um wanted to point out two thing two use specific standards um the the use as proposed proposed does include an additional landscape buffer and we'll talk about that as we talk through the site plan and then um they've just also folded in the use specific standards for those um those vehicle repair just to be to be clear as um uh with the proposal um i did want to point out um we we looked at a travel plaza use earlier in the evening um and and as we were looking at this project and as we were kind of while they were proposing it uh we looked at that definition and it didn't apply in this case because the travel plaza is open to the general public so and that's where that that that question of intensity comes in um this proposal is is is um or this this use and this definition limits those uh who have access to the site to just the employees of that that company and so it's not open to the broader public it couldn't be that you were driving down i-35 and and be able to pull in and um and have car repair so so that's kind of one of the reasons why um uh staff really felt like that this was something that needed to be vetted through that um pd process and the public hearing process because it is different um in in terms of scale and intensity than that travel plaza use um so now we'll look at um just the proposed change in the zoning map so you could see the current zoning map here we've looked at that uh the pd would just sort of um would uh put that entire um uh site the 90 acre site in a pd zoning with a geo base as proposed so now i'm going to talk about i'm getting more specific as to what what um uh the request tonight so they are proposing phasing um first of all i want to talk about kind of the pieces of the pd so the overall um pd includes the entire 90 acres and you see i've circled it in um or put a box around it in blue and those development standards that they're proposing with that geo base zoning really encompass the entire 90 acres so that the entire 90 acres must comply with any use standards and um and development standards within the geo district and that was important to staff because of the um because of the commercial development standards embedded within geo um they also have then um phasing within their proposal phase one would be the proposed fleet service provider which is that definition we talked about earlier phase two would require additional approvals so they haven't come forward with the phase two plan yet this sort of looks like as we um used to see with those those legacy pds where um there may be that broad bubble plan for a for a pd that it's established with that initial um initial ordinance but as a project develops an applicant comes forward with with site plans essentially so phase one um they are coming forward with a request for approval of the site plan phase two would require a site plan approval um if and when it develops it still would have to comply with those development standards it would have to comply with the geo base zoning but um but any development of the site would require a major pd amendment which requires the dual public hearing process a recommendation by pnz and then uh final approval with uh by council uh so we'll just go briefly over the development standards the pd as i said conforms to the geo standards they've they have not requested any deviations from those standards the phase one is the fleet service provider that they're proposing um just some dimensional standards or development standards that they're proposing that the lot area is that 37 acres wanted to point out they do have that minimum front yard setback of 230 feet that's that that initial building setback from um highway 77 side yard setback of 75 feet a rear yard setback of 470 feet a maximum height of 45 feet building coverage of 40 of 5 percent and then they would still comply with the the street trees and they're proposing 123 parking spaces they must comply with all tree preservation requirements our pd standards specifically prohibit applicants from using a pd to um to deviate from any tree preservation requirements they are proposing or they are proposing to preserve additional trees but but um and and that's been conceptually looked at thus far um they are proposing a 46 percent landscaping on phase one geo standards require 20 um they're also proposing additional buffers buffers are based upon adjacent uses so they're not necessarily required everywhere um this phase one and this fleet services provider does require uh at least a 20 foot buffer in this instance it's that 20 and 30 foot wide buffers with additional plantings the overall canopy canopy as proposed would um would include 535 000 square feet of mature canopy from the proposed planting plus their um tree preservation and then they would have to conform to all site design requirements for commercial development in um in sub chapter 7 of the dent development code they're also proposing for phase one some um open space recreational amenities that includes a walking trail and a dog park and then the permitted uses phase two um would have to conform to geo standards phase one they're proposing that fleet service provider use so now let's look at the site plan uh they are proposing just to orient you so here's the that that 37 acres they're proposing an administrative support building here so that's kind of their that's kind of their office building that's where they're going to have their offices their conference and training rooms they're going to have exercise space for their employees laundry facilities day rooms and changing rooms for their drivers it also includes a 19 000 square foot inspection and truck wash use that's set back so that it is set back behind that that administration building there is also a a fence surrounding a six foot fence surrounding this the more intense uses on the site they are also proposing a 37 000 square foot truck repair shop here and here's the walking loop that is proposed to to go around their detention pond and that's for the benefit of their employees as well as a dog park that will be fenced and that will be in this general location right here they are proposing trailer storage with restrictive restricted access to the rear of the site and then the the the parking spaces especially for the admin are are surrounding that that building and then two access access driveways on highway 77 they all have here are those buffers and we'll look at those a little more closely with the landscape plan a 30 foot buffer in this location and then the 20 foot landscape buffer along the north and east property lines the landscape plan depicts where they're kind of planting their trees they're they're meeting the street tree and parking lot screening requirements here along 377 they're also proposing to plant new canopy trees around the site interspersed throughout there they are proposing to preserve quite a few trees in this sort of naturalized area so that will really provide a good buffer between that administrative office and those more intense uses to the rear of the site the buffers are shown here and within those there will be three ornamental trees planted every 25 linear feet for a total of 474 additional ornamental trees and then one large canopy tree every 30 linear feet for a total of 132 additional large canopy trees 50 percent of those must be evergreen we want to make sure that they stay leafy throughout the year so that the that buffer combined with the fence you kind of have the initial screening with that fence and then as those tree grow trees grow they will they'll provide additional screening bioswales they are they are proposing two bioswales near the parking areas and sort of the detention area right here and those are vegetated channels and they are designed to transport store and allow infiltration of water as a landscape feature so their intent is to filter out some of the pollutants that can result from from hard surfaces and then once again you've got that new mature canopy that they're planting with combined with the preservation so the criteria for approval once again are in sub chapter two of the dent and development code i won't once again i won't read all into you but we'll talk about them as we move through the discussion of the of the project so the first thing dent plan 2030 this is business innovation future land use designation it's it's kind of that business innovation is kind of surrounds this entire area and that as i as i spoke about in the in the previous case that is intended for those large tracts of land that are appropriate for well-planned larger scale office and employment parks with supporting uses typically we find geo and li in business innovation as we talked about earlier you know hc was was appropriate along i-35 but typically geo and li the intent of those districts need the intent of that business innovation geo is they are proposing that base zoning of geo and as i mentioned that that does allow for that variety of employment uses but with those commercial and and office development standards on our corridors we want to make sure they look great and that they're developed in a way that is that reflects what we want to see our commercial development to to have so so those those development standards are important along these corridors the proposal would allow that employment use those administrative maintenance service and training facilities for that specific employer and then we also look at not only the the future land use but we we try to look at the comprehensive plan and other parts of it to how they speak to projects and we also looked at element six and that's our mobility element within the comprehensive plan and it talks specifically to freight transportation and that it is a key economic component of the region and that 98 percent of the mainland u.s population can be reached from that i-35 corridor so one goal of that mobility element is to enhance the economy by supporting that city's freight network but with a caveat that those freight routes should be separated from the smaller scale walkable areas of the city and this proposal not only the geo but also the the the specific use in phase one is consistent with this with that element six because it provides the support for freight drivers and trucks but the locations on the urban fringe it's got direct access to a primary primary arterial in i-35 so there would be minimal disruption to those denser areas and more walkable areas of the city one criterion is also minimizes adverse impacts on surrounding property and i want to take this in kind of two parts i first want to talk about what's currently out there out in that area would currently developed and then we're going to talk about the future development so currently current development includes a lot of uses that that support and complement our transportation and freight activities we spoke earlier tonight about the travel plazas there at the at the intersection of highway 77 barthol road and i-35 across the street herschbach actually has an existing location that they're wanting to expand so they they they would if this was approved they would move their operation across the street to that larger facility but they're additionally there's truck repair and trucking assembly across across highway 77 and there and then there are there are commercial developments and university developments in the area so we you know we see these exist the uses that are proposed with that fleet services provider as well as geo that are already in the area and so the proposal wouldn't wouldn't introduce new activities once again development of phase two would follow geo and would still have to require approval by city council some sites photos of the general area so you can see that this is the subject property and these are photos from highway 77 of herschbach's existing facility and then here's looking toward the east at the subject property and as you can see with those site photos there are and and the the aerial photos there's a lot of undeveloped property in the area so we want to take a look at at that and what what impacts that geo-based zoning and the proposed use would have so so a good way to look at that is what is the zoning what kind of uses would be developed so west and northwest of the site there is existing geo district suggesting that future development would be consistent with the proposed uses with the pd and that development scale southwest of the subject property is pd 142 that's intended to be developed with commercial office light industrial and multi-family uses north is as rr it is zoned rr that is our that is our rural rural residential zoning designation that's one of our holding designations when or is the holding designation when a property is annexed it gets that rr zoning district until it has its own until it has its zoning approved and currently the property is being used for agricultural purposes but the current but our rural residential does permit single-family community and other agricultural uses so we wanted that was why those buffers were important to make sure that the development any screening would would there would be adequate screening for the use i also want to take let me skip back so you can see to the to the northeast of the subject property there's a big section in orange and that's one of our master plan communities so i want to take a little more specific look at that so we've got their land use map with the hills of denton it does have a variety it's a mixed use district or pd that has a variety of uses it's got single-family multifamily and it also has office commercial development along bonnie bray and closer closer to loop 288 and this allows for a variety of uses that are consistent with geo commercial office some light industrial uses so um so that in the end that uh so that is consistent with with that geo district uh provides greater building design amenities and connectivity so um generally the development would would have to comply with those geo standards and with those commercial development standards um specifically for that fleet service provider they are providing those enhanced buffers along the north west and east property lines they're adding those additional tree mature canopy at 41 and then they're also providing those amenities for their employees the walking trail the dog and the dog park and then for non-residential uses appropriate area location and planning the commercial and employment uses that are they're permitted within that base geo and the proposed pd are appropriate for the area and that the the the proposed fleet service provider includes a variety of uses that would support the employees of that freight company the development of the site includes commercial design and landscaping standards and as i mentioned before all of those elements of the site that are more intense like the like the truck wash or the or the truck repair and and that accessory outdoor storage are toward the rear of the site with that that that buffer around it so it does minimize the the impacts to those of those uses a provision of public facilities there is a fire station just to the south as a subject property at at Windsor and Bonnie Bray and it's within the response time and the use is consistent with the surrounding area so we don't expect an increase in crime or nuisance issues what extension of water and wastewater will have will be required of the developer if this were approved and and then there is an existing lift station at the at the travel plaza just to the north west of the subject property that will have to be the size of that will have to be increased to accommodate the proposed development once again that will be at the cost of the developer provision of public facilities to support the development given this unique nature of this of this use and that it is limited just to employees it would generate 297 trips per day which is not would not meet the threshold for a tia they will have to install sidewalks along highway 77 if if the development moves forward they are proposing those two access points on highway 77 and no access to bonnie bray or loop 288 however loop 288 does have entrance and exit ramps near highway 77 so it would provide access and then highway 77 in this location is about 290 feet that that highway 77 connection to 35 is about 290 feet from the sub 200 2,900 feet from the subject site so it is it does provide that direct access to that i-35 corridor and just i want to draw your attention to this map this is actually the city's freight routes map i know there was some concern at from from some surrounding property owners and at the planning and zoning commission as to whether the trucks would um go north on bonnie bray uh bonnie north bonnie bray is if you can see it's in it's in this location right here and it is not all of those roads that are in red are um are our truck routes so so trucks are are required to stay to stay closely hue to those truck routes and so we don't anticipate that any trucks would would go north on bonnie bray one because of the the lack of that connection to that road and then two we do have these truck route requirements public notification was sent out we've received seven responses in opposition that does exceed the 20 opposition threshold so a super majority of city council will be required to approve the request and we did receive 90 letters in favor of the request so planning and zoning commission recommend approval of the request five to one staff also recommended approval as it complies with the criteria set forth in sub chapter two i will be happy to answer any questions and the applicant also has a presentation as well okay uh sorry i was just uh i was requesting a copy of that truck route map it was not in our it's not in the presentation unless i need to redownload uh okay questions for staff uh mayor pro tem davis uh councilmember melzer yeah mayor i've got uh i think three do you want me to ask those just kind of in succession or to kind of go around the horn first no no succession is is great thank you for asking okay julie if i'm looking at the map not counting the ta travel plaza that's kind of a kind of taking that out of consideration saying that's on the highway you'd expect a truck stop on the highway the other trucking and logistical uses uh across the street including hersh box current place about 15 16 acres is that about right um i i can measure to to be exact but it looks looks to be about that if the appraisal district says it's about 15.7 acres would that seem about right okay and in the current item we're talking about a pd for 90 acres correct okay and uh am i correct that originally when at some point during the life of this application um this was labeled an industrial park and staff actually recommended denial and i know that's common necessarily it's not necessarily the end of things when staff recommends denial we go back to the drawing board and maybe try to figure something out but at some point this was labeled an industrial park and staff recommended denial under that label is that right well it's um it was actually the original application had li as that base zoning um staff gets pretty protective of our corridors and so what we want to do is make sure that those those corridors within the business innovation do have those commercial design standards and so that's why we we went back to the drawing board and said no we really need those commercial design standards we want to make sure that um it's designed in a way that that reflects what we want to see okay um you mentioned fueling kind of early on in the presentation as one of the allowable uses uh or the allowable activities under the new fleet services use and then i didn't see fueling necessarily on their site plan if we approved the zoom the zoning the new use they would be allowed to do fueling as they've indicated they want to do on the property um whether or not it's listed on that site plan we saw is that right um any expansion of um or expansion they would have to follow the pd requirements for major and minor amendments so so they would have to comply if if it were approved with the site plan that that was associated with that approval um changes to that site plan would require an application with the city um typically uh let me get to that let me get to that section so i can make sure um typically an expansion of that use so maybe an addition of that that use on the site plan would require a major amendment which would require it to come back through the public hearing process um and gain approval from city council okay and then last question i think for now we got uh it looks like i know we received some emails outside the normal process but there's um there were 90 folks contacting the planning department at least in favor of this new use were any of those 90 folks within the notice area or were they all kind of far-flung across the city they were spread out through the city thanks okay uh thank you um councillor melzer uh thanks uh julie i know lots of uh thought and care uh go into those design you know those zoning designations uh can you share with us what the vision was for that area that led to the the go zoning that's you know right along to the west and north of it and into that property itself what why why was it zone geo in the first place what were we hoping to accomplish for dentin well that actually resulted from the transition of the of of the 2019 dentin development code so um broadly staff looks at those future land use designations established by the comprehensive plan and then and then within those broad categories we we we look at the the zoning districts which align with the uh the intent and the goals of those future land use designations um geo and li are the two that that meet that that intent of business innovation given the permitted uses um but but maybe not everywhere and so and so that's why we look at um you know li might make sense in some um circumstances whereas geo might make more sense given the development standards associated with geo so um so the the real underlying intent was to embody the idea of business innovation is that is that yes and those those employment uses yes sir okay thank you okay any other questions for staff council member armature yes so a number of questions uh so i'm piggybacking on what uh mayor protem asked about the fueling uh so in in the absence of an actual fueling station mobile fueling would be permitted right there the trucks need to get uh fueling and so um my concern is you know one of my many concerns about this uh is the impact on traffic in the area and i noticed that in the original denial uh of the application there was a request for a uh a trip generation study something like that a trip uh a trip analysis trip advisory analysis something like that um which i which i guess is different than a traffic study but related so i'm wondering you know was that done uh i assume it was because it's now been approved but was a traffic study done of the impact on traffic in the area and if so did that include uh the fueling trucks so hello yes uh in terms in terms of the trip generation for for any public hearing item staff always asks for those trip generation numbers and those are based upon the ite manual um this one's a little different because it is kind of it's it's one of those uses that um it is it's it's uh it's it's not like a love's travel stop it is um it is a little more limited and that's only limited to their employees so so it would only generate on that 297 trips and that was provided by their engineer and reviewed by our engineering our engineering reviewers in terms of the fueling trucks on the applicant may be able to speak on those fueling trucks since it's it you know it wasn't provided as part of their request in order to fuel on the site they would have to get approval and and you know based upon the criteria for that major and minor amendment i think that would probably have to move forward as a major amendment to that to that um phase one of the plan development okay and so so just just to clarify just based on what you said so there was not a general traffic study of the impacts on the area but there was the trip generation analysis from the correct yes that trip generation is is what what is used to establish whether or not a tia that traffic analysis would be required because it generated fewer than that thousand trips in a 24-hour period it was determined that a tia would not be required in this instance well thank you um and i i know i myself would feel more comfortable uh with it with a traffic study given uh you know how many trucks uh i know it was said that uh one was it one one uh 123 parking spaces um but on 90 acres that you know could possibly be a lot more trucks um also uh it's my understanding that there was no uh environmental impact study done of the impact on milam creek i know here in the application it's referred to as a drainage ditch but that's the it's it's milam creek is that right it is a tributary of milam creek so milam creek i believe is to the north of this site um uh however uh they will have to comply with all water administration requirements they did provide that just those two bioswale areas and they they will have to make sure that they meet all of those requirements um for their drainage and attention thank you and then and one more question uh for now related to what council member melzer was asking about you know the the move from um the designation of you know light industrial to general office um you know to me uh you know this seems like more of an industrial use is not uh in uh obviously it's not an office office building but if you could explain how this counts as business innovation based on the city's condition of of business innovation i'd be be curious to know sure given that this use um is is intended to serve other employees of one of our um a trucking company um it does serve that intent as an employment use so staff feels like it it meets that intent of that business innovation to provide that employment use um additionally with those those services or those amenities like the dog park and the walking trail provides those those amenities for those employees on site so we feel like it it meets that intent of that employment center okay um any other questions council member armature um i i guess i could ask if would you prefer for us to just ask all our questions for staff at once yes that'd be my preference okay um so and you know my other question main big question is about this i the the compatibility with both the 2030 plan and with this with this area you know as it is now um can can you uh can you explain some more how this fits with the how this is compatible with the uh 2030 plan and how there are uh and if not you know how how there are similar uses in this area adjacent i'm having a hard time seeing you know both of those things sure um so so in terms of the future land use i'll there are two two things um one is that geo and that does allow for those uses those broad uses that meet the intent of employment so it allows things like light industrial and warehouse um so those those in offices so those employment type uses but geo also allows those commercial uses so it's kind of that it's kind of a good broad mixed use district that um that provides those supportive services for maybe um daytime workers or employees things like restaurants and retail and daycare centers but it also um it also does allow for those places to work so that's kind of that meets that intent of of the future land use in terms of that specific project it is it is proposed to serve an employer so it does provide that employment use and meet that goal and intent of that employment use and and and then further with that mobility element of the future land use that it does support those freight activities within the city providing that supportive element to the freight so it kind of serves not only that future land use but also element six in the comprehensive plan to for that that freight use and i would also add that given that location sort of on that urban fringe on the north side of town um close to i-35 it does allow for that easier access for that truck traffic um gets it kind of pulls it away from the city center make sure that it stays on that urban fringe you know away from is our established neighborhoods and our more walkable areas so it kind of it's kind of hits it in in those couple of areas of the comprehensive plan um okay any any other questions uh council armature okay thank you uh any other questions for staff okay seeing none i have uh comments lots of them but i'm taking notes uh and so i will wrap up at the end uh so no other questions i'll open the public hearing uh so that i don't forget to do that then i will um you said the applicant has a presentation yes sir okay great and that's 10 minutes or 20 minutes what are the what's the time in for that 20 minutes perfect okay good evening mayor and council um this is amy bissett can you hear me yes um great and thank you i appreciate your time this evening i'm marking the time of 8 53 start time just so that i can help us um keep up with our allotted 20 minutes um i julie did such a great job thoroughly describing the details of the zoning change and the pd itself so what i'm going to do is try to focus my presentation more on some of the questions and concerns that i've heard um from you all tonight as well as from neighboring property owners and from planning and zoning commissioners at the previous meeting so um with that being said julie would you um just take us straight to slide five please so um slide five shows our detailed plan i'm not going to walk you through it at this point in time i just want to kind of frame how this um presentation is going to go so the western side of the property is obviously phase one and that would be the hershbach campus and the eastern side of the property would be phase two i'm going to walk you through the um both we'll start with hershbach and julie will you go to slide six please so um as julie shared with you all the this um particular campus is what we would we would consider to be an innovative land use um we spent a lot of time looking at the existing land use definitions in the code to see whether we would fit in any of them i researched land use definitions and other codes around the country to try to identify um what the characteristics of this land use is and and the best way to define it so um in a general overview the primary use of this um campus would be an administrative and support building it'd be 25 000 square feet it is um the renderings that you see on your screen are um reflective of what that office building would look like and um to to address some of the questions related to traffic impact and we were required to do a trip generation analysis or trip generation memo using the it trip generation manual and based upon that we predict that the office traffic for this main use would be 197 trips per day the accessory uses which would be situated behind the main building and behind a screening fence and on the other side of milam creek or the drainage channel and would include the inspection and truck wash truck repair shop and fleet storage with the overall impact in terms of truck truck trucking traffic being 100 trips per day which on average is four trucks per hour or one truck every 15 minutes this may be a large site um to mayor pro tem davis's comment about it being 90 acres and this particular use this trucking use would be limited to 38 acres but the majority of that would be um related to storage of vehicles that are not in operation and would be screened so um you see a large site but most of that is to accommodate um vehicles that are no that are not in service at that point in time and um after i'm finished with my portion of the presentation i'm going to introduce um brian pole with with hershbach and he could talk a little more about and how that operates but basically with this within this campus you are looking at um support for drivers and employees and training programs for drivers and a rest a place for respite while their trucks are being maintained and repaired inspected or washed and what typically drives a lot of truck traffic to a site um that you might have in your head that would be similar to this would be um warehousing or distribution there is no storage of goods on the site there is no um transfer of goods loading or unloading this is simply a service area for trucks and for drivers um when they are not on the road um there are a lot of trucks that come in and are stored for larger amounts of time so they're not coming and going on the same day and it is not open to the public or truck drivers in general we do have um it within the definition um the the ability for a fueling station here however it is not shown on the detailed plan and it is not intended to be constructed at this point in time um the fueling station however i want to be clear would be only for um hershbach trucks and hershbach employees it would not be open to the public it would not drive additional traffic it would be another amenity for um the drivers however at this point in time with the travel clauses um three quarters of a mile away both ta and love there's really no need for a fueling station on site it was really put in place in the definition for hershbach to have the flexibility to add it as an amenity in the future um julie will you go to slide slide seven please so i want to talk a little bit about the detailed plan for hershbach i won't review everything that julie already went through except to just highlight the point that the landscape buffer alone along the three sides of the property is over half a million square feet of tree canopy which would be at least 50 evergreen which will provide a significant visual barrier to the neighboring property owners and is well above our tree canopy requirements for new plantings and our tree preservation on site which it directly relates to milam creek is over 70 we would be required to preserve 30 we're showing over 70 tree preservation as it relates to milam creek or the drainage channel it is labeled a drainage channel on our site plan because it is currently an existing drainage channel portions of which are in a drainage easement today the intent with this particular project is to preserve all of that we will not touch it we will leave all of the trees there we will put the entire thing in a 70 foot drainage easement and and then our site will be our drainage from our site will be handled with the tension pond on the northwest corner of the site and with our bioswales so we are not we're not introducing additional runoff or pollutants into this creek and there's been some concern about the truck wash washing the water into the creek truck washes are regulated and we would be required to treat that water just as you heard a presentation earlier tonight about pretreatment we would be required to treat that water and then put it back into a sanitary sewer system that would not be draining into this drainage channel julie we go to slide eight please are you guys still there can you hear me yes we can okay just want to make sure since i can't see you i apologize so slide eight i want to just talk a little bit more about what hershblock brings to the community of denton and this is an existing business that is looking at 40 million dollar capital investment in our local economy and they are bringing high-wage jobs on site for mechanics and administrative staff they estimate having 50 to 75 mechanics on site in this new location and those jobs range from 60 000 a year up to six figures and and on top of that they are looking at another roughly 25 jobs for administrative and training staff and they provide training for truck drivers all over the country that they're hiring and bringing on to their team and they bring those those drivers into denton and they spend 2500 to 3000 hotel nights annually here and they spend their money on restaurants and going to the movies when they're not in training but they do train a first-class group of employees that are making high wages and then there have been some concerns raised as well about the air pollution associated with the semi trucks and i just want to bring to your attention that hershblock's entire fleet is certified to travel in the state of california which means that they must comply with california's clean air regulations which means that they automatically shut off within two minutes they can't idle for longer than two minutes and they're they require newer engines and reduced particulate matter julie will you go to slide nine please and i also want to talk about how hershbach is a key component of the the backbone of denton's economy the new economic development strategic plan has identified connectivity and then location at the apex of a global economic engine as its greatest greatest asset to attract transportation and logistics based companies and to support the supply chain hershbach is a critical part of the supply chain for five of our largest economic projects in denton that make up a significant part of our tax base over 400 million dollars in tax base and they are julie if you'll go to slide 10 please they are an existing company that's invested in denton today that wants to move across the street and expand and they they like this location because of its proximity to i-35 and its ease of access to i-35 they um they they they thrive in an environment where they can move goods across the country as efficiently as possible and and this location helps accomplish that and julie will you skip 11 and go straight to slide 12 please in an effort to be quick here um sub district two i know that there have been some concerns raised that sub sub district two is really undefined at this point in time but with the adoption of this pd at a very basic level um sub district two becomes geo zoning which is consistent with the entire corridor up and down and it is it would allow all of the same existing land uses geo zoning and would not facilitate future fleet service provider uses but how in addition to being geo zoning which is consistent with the corridor the pd adds an additional layer of protection by requiring each subsequent development to come back to pnz and come back to you for a detailed plan approval and allows for additional public input on uh future phases of development and how this phase is subdivided in the future is really dependent upon end users that want to come in and locate here and that is dependent upon um your approval of how their detailed plan is laid out julie will you go to slide 13 please um we did have considerable neighborhood engagement through this process and i want to address some of the concerns in a little more detail that came up through that neighborhood engagement and i do we we do recognize that we have a majority neighboring property owner that makes up more than 20 percent of um of the neighboring properties we had three individual meetings with their representative in october november and january um with attempts to um try to try to create a project that could be supported by them and the landscape buffer the intense landscape buffer with with trees is one of those solutions that that we had sought to to help make it more compatible with the neighboring property owners we also attempted to hold a neighborhood meeting in december for other surrounding property owners but received no responses to that and and then in march we held two additional neighborhood meetings and that had a considerable amount of attendance and then um some some concerns that we heard that i want to address a little more specifically our truck traffic on bonnie bray and gander and traffic conflicts with the new um denton high school campus julie will you go to slide 14 please so what you're looking at with um this particular side on your left is an actual image of bonnie bray on the truck route that um is concerned well the route that that some neighbors have been concerned that trucks would take and it is less than two lanes wide and there are several um sharp turns that are at 20 miles per hour and then the um this image on your right the aerial on your the right hand side of your screen maps the route from loop 288 to i-35 to utilize that back route along bonnie bray and gander it is um 2.73 miles long um with multiple um sharp turns and so the it is not an efficient route for trucks and there's no direct connectivity to bonnie bray from um the detailed plan for the hersh box site julie if you'll go to slide 15 please um this is a busy slide but i'm sure you all recognize it what you're looking at here is the city's mobility plan and the important colors to look at here are the the route in purple that's the existing location of bonnie bray today and then the route highlighted in blue is the future bonnie bray and under the mobility plan it is designated a primary arterial but it is also currently indicated as being non-existent and would be rerouted in the future and would fear further away from i-35 and become less efficient for a truck route and julie slide 16 please and hersh box did issue a letter to to the city council and that was in your backup but it was probably a little bit difficult to locate it was on page 153 of your letters of support in opposition and they have issued a letter to you all saying that they have no intention to use bonnie bray and gander that they will control entry and exit access of all of their equipment they they program their gps routes for their drivers then they'll restrict drivers from using these back routes and the mobility plan has no indication of widening bonnie bray in its current location okay moving quickly to slide 17 julie um i want to talk a little bit about the new denton high school the slide that you're looking at here is a map of the denton high school attendance zone with the red star being the location of the new high school you can see here that the majority of students the majority of the density of the students that live in this district are south of this site and and and i can look at that and anecdotally say yeah yeah that's um that's true but is it how is that in in real life and so we actually looked at the approved traffic study for denton high school and i have a few slides here related to that and how basically only two to four percent of the traffic from denton high school could potentially head north on highway 77 and come into direct contact with a truck that that might be entering or exiting that facility but in interest of time i'm not going to go into those unless you all want to see them when we're done with our presentation so for now i'm going to introduce brian cole with with hershbach and so that he can talk to you a little bit about um the the company as a whole and julie if you'll go to slide 21 please and brian you can take over and brian you have three you have three minutes thank you ma'am sorry brian no you're fine uh my name is brian cole wess i'm general counsel for hershbach i'm going to move very quickly uh thank you for having us here uh hershbach started the american dream one man one truck now grown to a 1900 truck operation um i'm sure you're thinking that's a lot of trucks to have traffic in denton texas keep in mind that our drivers are out for three to five weeks at a time they might see an actual terminal every 30 to 60 days so it's not like we have all 1900 trucks coming to every terminal every single night that's not how we operate we don't operate as a cross dock we operate as a place we uh well we really need a place to maintain our equipment and have an orientation and training center for our new drivers and just have a little place for them to kick their feet up for a couple hours while their their trucks getting serviced and getting worked on uh and and a place to stage new equipment as it comes in that's the primary purposes of the of the terminal um we have no intentions of doing fueling right now um there's a ta right down the street from us it doesn't make sense for us to put in a bunch of uh infrastructure if they've already got it in place down there uh we would like that in case that place ever goes out of you know goes out of that facility or whatever we would like the ability to do that in the future but there's no no plans currently to do fueling on site um as far as bonnie bray is concerned i actually do drive a truck on occasion i grew up in this business i wouldn't be on bonnie bray in its current form unless i was lost with a tractor trailer it's not made for a tractor trailer to be on and it would be very difficult to maneuver that size of a piece of equipment on that roadway um we're not your typical trucking company if you walk into our corporate office up here in beautiful dubuque iowa um it'll remind you of google i don't have an office one of our company doesn't have an office it's a wide open concept we're very transparent with our with our operations and with our employees and we believe everybody that comes into contact with uh hershbach needs to be a winner and that includes the city of denton uh we've been a good citizen so far and we hope to be uh be so in the future i see my time is up so i'll defer to whatever's next thank you for your for your consideration okay thank you brian uh if we could pull down the presentation and questions for the applicant and i'm gonna um if i've not have i opened the public hearing already okay great thank you in a bit mayor pro mayor pro tem and then council member armature my first question for the applicant has to do with their slide nine um i i took their point those are some great companies that are heavily invested in denton that all deal with logistics they're all located over in my district over in the west park business area uh where we've invested money in western boulevard you know built the spec for 18 wheelers we've got a bunch of different distribution centers over there um we've also we've offered incentives to version businesses that are located over there and we have a ters that invest tax money back into that area to make it suitable for exactly this kind of business why in the world are we not having a conversation about citing y'all with a nice incentive over there in district three brian do you want to take that one yeah sure we we really really enjoy our current location for a lot of reasons um if you can see on slide nine there's obviously a truck stop right there we run a lot on interstate 35 um when we draw if you drew a heat map of the lanes that we run on um you know we primarily what we do is we haul meat out of the midwest and we haul produce back to them to the to the uh to back to the midwest that's primarily what we do we do a lot more than that but if you had to sum us up in one word that's what we do we we could burn a hole in the in the right hand lane of interstate 35 between iowa and texas i mean it's just a huge lane for us we really love the proximity of this to interstate 35 i mean our current location is less than a quarter mile from there half mile at the most and it looks like this location is about three quarters of a mile it's just a great great location for us and and it's a nice parcel for us to do what we want to do from an amenity standpoint mayor i have two more can i go ahead and ask those or by all means thank you uh my next one has to do with the screening around the site um amy did a good job explaining uh we've got a six foot vinyl fence we've got some evergreen shrubs we've got some trees planted linearly linearly at certain places um but correct me if i'm wrong brian the average semi truck is what like 13 14 feet tall 13 feet six inches okay um then uh amy you had kind of offered this up already i don't want to step on any other council members time but i'm very curious about how a truck would get to this facility headed east on 77 coming from 35 to get into this facility with no break in the median right across from y'all's inlet you have on the site the site plan and then also how are they going to leave this facility to head east on loop 288 if you have uh if you have any commerce going out 380 uh along loop 288 sure so um there is actually a median break on our north entrance onto the onto the hirschbach campus julie if you'll go to slide seven that might make that um easier to see the north entrance does have a median break there um i i think what i said no access what i meant was there's no direct access onto bonnie bray so in in in this particular instance to answer your question um if they were coming south on highway 77 they would be able to make a left turn directly into the north entrance of the property if they were exiting and wanting to get on to loop 288 they would be able to make a left turn on to highway 77 and then a left turn on to loop 288 directly i'm i'm sorry maybe i'm just being dense i'm not is there a way you could take over the cursor or something and walk me through that because i i see the median breaks and i see the the uh the driveway but i don't i don't know that i'm visualizing what you're trying to show me here and so i unfortunately i cannot take over the cursor um but let me see julie i'm trying to figure out what um could you pull up the gis map maybe julie so there there will be um there will be direct access both um going left and right entering and exiting hershbach on to highway 77 um okay so let's pull let's pull this down uh and and and let's just may let me think mayor pro tem let's think on how we can do that maybe someone can drop a pen or someone can draw a box on a map and email it over just screenshot the the aerial from google uh then draw on there where where i mean because then you can see that you can easily see the um islands and then someone can show where there's an entrance and email that that'd be perfect yeah all right i'm on it i'm working on that right now all right mayor pro tem you had one more question or no you know i believe uh i believe it's my only question for the applicant right now okay uh and then uh council member armature uh yeah so uh mayor pro tem asked uh the first question i was going to ask of the applicant which was about um the you know so many of your clients being on the west side of town um so uh no need to answer that again so i guess i'll ask my question about parking spaces so it was mentioned uh 123 parking spaces but on on 90 acres you know you could of course fit a lot more so i'm curious you know why the one 123 and is would the plan be that if a 124th truck comes uh and wants to park there would they be sent away is there going to be a limit a cap at 123 so i believe i can answer that council member armature and the 123 parking spaces are for employees and um the administrative building and um the fleet storage is a separate um it doesn't count as parking it is an outdoor storage use that is screened where they are parked long term and so the 123 spaces is parked to code um based upon the allowable number of parking spaces for the uses of the repair shop the wash and the administrative building and we believe that that is sufficient for the employees and the general traffic in and out of there the truck the fleet storage is the truck and trailer parking is they're not considered parking spaces they're considered um outdoor storage as an accessory use okay thank you so much for clarifying that so so how many you could probably predict what my you know next question is going to be um will there be a cap on how many uh trucks you will allow on that space and if so what is the absolute upper capacity um i don't know that there will be a cap um per se i think it's just the storage is kind of a long term storage and brian can probably speak to this a little bit better than i can those trucks are not coming in and out every day so they may have trucks they're back there um whether it's 50 or 75 that are parked back there for a longer amount of time that are out of service and being stored at that point in time so um the the cap would be the number of spaces available i would would be my guess but i would invite brian to talk a little bit more about how that that site would function and what his expectations are in terms of track traffic yeah there's an additional cap too there's more than just being able to park a truck and trailer there you have to be able to maneuver it around these are large pieces of equipment they don't look that big when you're across the highway from one and meet one on the interstate but when you i would encourage all that you go stand at the hood of a tractor trailer and look down the side of it and see how big they really are um you know we're going to be capped by how much maneuverability we have once we get equipment in there and with this site plan we've allowed ourselves enough room to maneuver that equipment around and do it safely without running into things yeah give us enough room to park the trailers there and tractors there that we need um if it gets too tight obviously we lose the ability to maneuver that big equipment around um to to get a tractor trailer into a parking spot that's that takes a lot of real estate it takes a lot of concrete it takes a lot of uh turning radius of a tractor trailer and it just it's not something we it's not something we would want to do to cramp equipment in if you want to see that in in firsthand go to our site next door that we have next door we probably have 25 parking spaces there and it's pretty tight over there it's difficult to move equipment around without banging into things it's just it's not very efficient um it's not it's not in our best interest to cram a bunch of equipment in there that's for sure but uh could you speak to could you speak to actual numbers i mean surely i i surely you've thought about you know how many uh how many trucks how many tractor trailers you could fit uh comfortably so they could maneuver on that property it would be um miss miss bissett mentioned it's my 5075 but i mean you could i would imagine you could fit hundreds on on there um so have you i mean surely you've thought about how many you you could fit comfortably if you could give us some numbers or a range or an an upper limit where you think the limit would be that would be uh too much too too cramped well i can answer the question that um as it relates to the site plan just what can fit there on um on the current layout is um somewhere between 77 and i'm sorry 114 trailers and 77 to 129 tractors the site plan has those maximums lifted on it um and again keep in please keep in mind that those are in storage so they are parked and staying there for a length of time and that is maximum at full build out and and i did send a slide to julie per um mayor pertem davis's request that she's still waiting to receive it but i'll be glad to walk you guys through it once she gets it displayed okay uh any other questions for the applicant seeing none we'll move to the callers so okay is the caller there yes okay perfect if you could give me your name and address you'll have four minutes to speak you're you're here with the denton city council yes sir thank you my name is tracy miller 2217 boliver street in denton i'm speaking in opposition of the hearstbrock zoning request when i leave the house to travel north out of denton on i-35 the road i take is highway 77 which crosses loop 288 at the site that we're talking about hundreds of tractor trailers on these roads which will soon be packed with student drivers going to and from the high school and sports facilities isn't something that dent residents envisioned based on the current approved zoning hearstbrock trucks that are traveling to this site from the east will use loop 288 instead of i-35 as more homes are built in this area traffic on loop 288 will significantly increase adding hundreds of 18 wheelers to that traffic will make the loop dangerous i'm also concerned that a permanent use for 52 out of the 90 acres is not being addressed simultaneously we don't know what we're going to end up with there could it possibly be more trucks i received by email an invitation to participate in the virtual community meeting for the denton plan 2040 but right now i'm concerned that the denton plan 2030 isn't even being followed nor any of our current or future zoning there's a clear plan in place for industrial uses to be located west of i-35 and the zoning being requested for hearstbrock does not follow the plan for this area so i really don't understand why it's even being considered listening in tonight one of the things i've noticed is there's been no mention of the homes that will be developed in the future to the north of this site this area that we're talking about is going to become a central part of denton um we all want hearstbrock to thrive and expand in denton we've seen in their presentations that the companies they're doing business with are located on the west side of i-35 it just makes more sense for hearstbrock to be located near them um given what i've spoken about tonight i would ask that you do not mind this sending request thanks for your time okay thank you and do we have any questions for the caller seeing none okay thank you very much tracy you're welcome have good evening likewise okay and we'll load up the next caller are you there hello are you there yeah hello this is uh mayor gerard hutchworth you're on with the denton city council uh if you could if you could please give us yes if you give us your name and address you'll have four minutes to speak okay thank you very much so i give you the name now yes please okay hello i'm shula netzer 16950 dallas parkway dallas okay and you have four minutes i'm starting now yes okay hi i'm shula netzer i'm a real estate broker and i represent cat denton 35 it's nothing to do with a cat those are just initials cat denton 35 owns about 4 000 acres surrounding the hearstbrock zoning request site i'm speaking today on behalf of my clients to oppose this zoning request by hearstbrock when my clients bought this land we met with the late caroline caroline booth we had a wonderful meeting during that caroline gave us a vision of for a beautiful plan development for this property caroline took us around town showed us the airport and the industrial part of the city and then told us about the hunter coal range project she suggested we wait and see the final plans to follow them and that's what we're doing we have now hired the law firm of choux ventura to begin the process for us we support the growth of hearstbrock and denton just not in this location because a huge track terminal facility servicing hundreds of 18 wheelers in this gateway location will greatly devalued our land and damage tax revenue to the city it will be brightly lit and trucks coming and going 24 hours a day there will be mechanic work oil changes truck washing with high pressure water acid and body work around the clock a truck terminal of this size proposed can accommodate at least 400 to 800 trucks fueled and fueled on the side it will have big huge tanker trucks they will require immense underground tanks because each tank of an 18 wheeler can hold 120 to 150 gallons in this site plan the milan creek tributary is designated as a drainage channel although it was referenced by the name of creek in the first staff report which recommended denial of this zoning request hearstbrock has done no air water or noise pollution studies to show its impact on the neighborhood a comprehensive traffic study has not been done either commercial site in our development will sell for five to twelve thirty dollars per square foot if hearstbrock request is approved land value of both the sites and the surrounding land will plummeted to two to five dollars a foot the price of industrial land compare also revenue from park tracks compared revenue from park tracks and maintenance facility versus office building and retail on commercial land the hearstbrock project will not be good for us or the city of denton hearstbrock said that their tracks will access the new site from i-35 only by the th tracto no mention was made on loop 288 where the isd support facilities are located and unt discovery part and the new high school but loop 288 cannot be ignored we know cars with younger drivers and hundreds of 18 wheelers will be sharing lanes exits and entrances both highway 77 and loop 288 this is not a good mixture our land is a clean slate our plan is to develop the property within the business innovation use described in the future land plan and we are now meeting with land planners we cannot put residential community behind a huge industrial 18 wheelers truck terminal residential can however go behind retail office buildings and businesses like tech and r&d businesses that will employ graduates of unt and tw we are not going to name island creek a drainage channel instead we will incorporate it as part of a beautiful quality development on par with hunter coal range project therefore i ask you to deny this zoning application thank you very much okay thank you questions for the caller council member armature thank you and you had reached out to council and and we spoke and you had shown me some maps and also a public information request you you had done and i was wondering if you wanted to share any of what you found of interest in the public information request regarding right right well it was mentioned that initially it wasn't supposed to be an industrial park and it was denied and then they tried to beautify it with the word pd which really describe an industrial park my main concern also they always want they want to be on i-35 but they're not on i-35 in this location there is so much land on i-35 on the west side where it's designated in the plan for 2030 to be industrial and where all the industrial is i don't understand like most of the clients are on the west side of 35 why do they want them to be on the east side and crisscross the highway i mean i think we have enough traffic problems as is and and it makes more sense and i think in life when something makes sense it's simple why aren't they looking at an area that is zone and purpose for that and it's close to their clients why are they wanting to be in a gateway to a beautiful new development we are forgetting that this is the future of denton this should be the prime development of denton the nicest office building research the nicest you know it should be wonderfully planned residential communities and to put such a truck thing in front of it is just a sore by the way this use is really prohibited by many cities they are outlined in their city limits okay thank you any other questions for the caller seeing none okay thank you very much shula thank you okay and so we have five four four more callers okay so the staff will load up the next caller so good evening are you there yes sir hello this is uh mayor gerard hudspeth you're on with the denton city council if you could please give us your name and address and then you can go go ahead and start speaking you'll have four minutes yes sir this is shon terry at 1800 valedue lane in farmers branch texas our company is centurion american and i appreciate you and the council allowing us to speak and kind of giving our thoughts on this uh we've uh have the development called uh kings ridge we also have a couple properties that are across the street from this current location as well as been working with shula and her property looking at bringing in some high end uh builders and things like that and our concerns we think hersburg they've done a great job they seem like they're a great company we just feel like it's in the wrong location you know we came in and started really investing in denton and looking at things we could do we noticed the turds that you had on the other side and the roads that were equipped for heavy truck traffic and things like that our concerns is our builders even starting hearing about this started getting cold feet so to speak and calling us like what's going on how are you going to be able to sell homes next to a uh you know 90 acre tract that's going to be a lot of truck traffic and even more we kind of know what phase one is going to be but again what's phase two is it is unknown i know it's going to have to go through some major developments again going through pnz and going through council but as we all know today that unknown really scares homeowners and people that want to come and and live in the community we do think that uh the school being in that area and bringing in truck drivers i think they talked about it's going to be a training facility and we're going to be having truckers that are coming in and learning how to drive or if they you know experienced drivers already and just getting polished up on their skills we heard that they wanted some truckers and employees i know there's their employees will be staying there overnight sometimes they did say they wanted to go to a 24-hour facility i know that i wouldn't want to live next door to something that had you know 24 hours of things going on and stuff like that and our real concern is we feel like that you know dentin has been set up on the other side for so long this is going to be something with all the land around it that's undeveloped being a high quality developments in along with things like that is this going to set a trend allowing this kind of business to be over there you know it's going to make us really look at what can we come in and get things on for to maybe complement that trucking business and by all means we think they're a great company we just feel like they're in the wrong location and again i appreciate your time and thank you for letting us speak okay thank you very much sean any questions for the caller seeing none okay thank you sean thank you yes okay and staff will vote up the next caller good evening are you there yes hi this is uh gerard hudspeth and you're on with the council and so if you could give us your name and address and then you will have you can go ahead and start you'll have four minutes to speak yes thank you sir jeremy fikes 82.05 crooked stick within a limited city then uh you know i'd like to the fact that first of all in support of the proposal i think the uh 90 acres does uh fit what the city council approved in the 2030 plan a few years back um i would like to remind and remember that we're directly across the street is their current facility so a lot of the discussions that we're having about traffic um truck traffic on the road or truck traffic on the site uh those are existing numbers and exist and on the road right now uh there probably will be you know an increase any any business that's looking to grow and develop uh is looking for growth but uh but a lot of that is the same you know the school traffic issue that seems to be coming up over and over uh denis he's obviously done the analysis on this and they built brasil right on highway 380 east of town uh so you know i think some of those things are a little bit mitigated with this being a truck route um i think the business does complement the stuff in the area in the immediate area especially since they're just moving directly across the street um you know currently the property is ag exempt it's been ag exempt for uh a long time in the neighboring properties and uh i think 40 million dollar investment would be great for the city of denton economic development spends a ton of money to try to bring businesses like this into the area i think uh council member davis alluded to that and this is an opportunity for us to retain a business and keep the uh and not have to spend the money for that so i like that idea um i just i just like a lot of things it's got good uh employment aspect of it it's a business that's been here that's wanted to grow here and i i like all those things associated with it um and it is within close proximity to i-35 the city of denton has i-35e and i-35w running through it um truck traffic with distribution centers you know between denton and fort worth and denton and dallas that's going to be a normal part of our life especially with inventory amazon just in time all those kind of things being the future and and you know being now i think this is a a great uh project for the area and a compliment to the area okay uh thank you very much is there uh are there any questions for uh mr fikes okay seeing none thank you very much thanks yes okay hello hello uh you're on with the denton city council if you could please uh provide your name and address and then you may start speaking you'll have four minutes okay so start now yes please and thank you okay okay hi this is melissa lindelow i'm with the law firm of ship ventura plc located at 9406 biscain boulevard in dallas 75218 and i'm an attorney representing the catden entities that own approximately 4 000 acres of land surrounding the subject site uh the first thing i want to focus on is section 211004 of the texas local government code which requires all zoning to be adopted in accordance with a comprehensive plan in this case we know that there's a comprehensive plan that contemplates well-planned larger scale office and employment parks with supporting uses such as retails hotels and residential and i would submit that the proposed use doesn't fit that category primary uses under the plan are supposed to include office research and development and light manufacturing there's no mention of industrial truck parks like the one that's proposed this evening under the plan the primary uses should be developed like in a campus like or corporate park setting that promotes visual quality and compatibility with the surrounding area i haven't been able to determine how hundreds of 18 wheelers and tractors and trailers parked with a six foot screening fence promotes visual quality and compatibility with the surrounding area the agenda information sheet that's included in the packet states that these are accessory uses to the office in other words fleet storage maintenance facilities and repair shops fueling stations and truck wash bays are accessory which is defined in the dentin development code as a use that's incidental to the principal use when i look at the site plan i note that the truck wash facilities 19 000 square feet the repair shop is 37 000 square feet but the office building is only 24 000 square feet these are heavy industrial uses and they're not customary or an incidental accessory use to an office building normally you would never see these types of uses linked to an office building so i think there's been some maneuvering with the language in the pd to present these as accessory uses when in fact they're more the principal use and the office building sounds more like the accessory use i also noticed when i look at the site plan that fleet storage appears to consume nearly half of the 38 acre site after you subtract the building coverage which is only about four percent of the site there's 49.2 percent of this entire site that's impervious coverage intended for things like parking of tractor trailers 18 wheelers etc i also counted the spaces on the site plan because i noticed the staff report mentioned 117 parking spaces in one place and 123 in another place when i counted on when i kept the site plan i came up with approximately 393 parking spaces on that site plan and that doesn't even account for minor amendments to the site plan that could add additional parking when i subtract 123 from that number i get 270 spaces to store trucks i think the applicant stated that there are only 25 storage spaces today across the street so this is a huge expansion and an enormous truck storage lot is what this is okay i also want to point out as some do i have am i out of time now no no you have 30 about 30 seconds okay i just want to reiterate what some of the other speakers said about the opportunities in the surrounding area so we know that the city has approved the hills of denton mpc and the hunter coal and the hunter ranch and coal ranch npcs and i'm concerned that if the city makes a short-sighted decision to allow 38 acres of development today for for this fleet storage use that that decision will prevent and negatively impact surrounding development for years to come on what's essentially a clean slate that has the opportunity to be developed in accordance with the plan that everybody works so hard to come up with so i would urge you to follow the comprehensive plan and deny the applicant's request for this industrial use okay and uh let me see any questions for the caller uh i am going to ask julie to give you an opportunity to address the concern raised uh with respect to industrial use and associated use associated uses versus principal use if you could speak to that from staff's perspective just so we have that on the record sure so the applicant has expressed that it is the primary use is that that um um service and and those services related to those drivers um given the location of of those of those other uses that the truck wash and the and the car repair those are um placed and designed in a way that meet that accessory use definition within the city of denton and so um so those are and it is reviewed with that site plan so they all kind of work together so we believe it meets that intent okay all right okay um then okay well thank you very very much uh melissa for for the call okay thank you thank you um and staff will work to this is yes good evening yes so if you could please uh give us your name and address and you will have four minutes to speak and you can start straight away after you give us that information all right thank you um then okay well thank you and you'll have to pardon you'll have to mute on your end i'm getting the echo thank you yeah um i can't figure out how to turn it off i'm ready okay i'm ready hey my name is richard haze into denton junior high school my office is located at 512 as hickory and denton thank you and go ahead yeah go ahead i'm here tonight to respectfully request the council to deny the requested zoning a trucking terminal is not a new use it is a new label that is not a new use the denton plan 2030 is the long-range plan for denton's growth development and redevelopment it coordinates the efforts of many different aspects of our community such as land use transportation community facilities and natural resources it's designed to improve the quality of the life for the next two decades it was inspired and motivated by the citizen values and aspirations expressed in the community vision statement the bottom line is it is what we want denton to become the plan took years in development with untold meetings and thousands of hours of citizens input i attended many of those meetings with the denton community development alliance the denton chamber of commerce and neighborhood meetings importantly when one carefully reviews the staff presentation and i don't know staff i'm pointing up slide five it shows the efforts undertaken to protect the northern major corridors along i-35 north and us 77 to be zoned general office not industrial why these are the gateways into denton the vastly undeveloped northern entry into the city which is thousands of acres has a vision of higher end office rnd startups commercial business innovation hotels rural residential with large lot homes with literally thousands of homes the current zoning does not allow trucking terminals with major engine repair maintenance and service and bodywork nor does it allow the storage of 18 wheel tractors and 18 wheeler trailers that's the need for the rezoning the changes to the requested zoning significantly undermines division for the city per the development code changes to the pd require combining uses appropriately requiring flexibility under quote controlled conditions close quote yet this pd has no limit on the number of 18 wheelers trips per day noise abate pollution mitigation no limit on service or repair the current location across the road back to the west is 4.3 acres this new location is nine times larger if this approved zoning change is implemented it will lead to a domino effect on surrounding properties you know at the neighborhood meetings what i heard was that the primary use was office yet it only has five employees is what they told us i heard tonight 25 and they were only going to train 15 to 20 drivers per week they did tell us at the neighborhood meeting that there was going to be 75 to 100 mechanics we heard a lower number tonight it but the numbers just don't jive you don't have that few employees and that few trainings to have 197 trips a day in the front office and only 100 in the back when you have over 100 mechanics and that's just two ships i read all the emails letters and texts and support of the change it was important to support local business it's important to increase our tax space our tax revenue jobs and important to for supply chain management all these arguments are not unique to this location but a testament to the hirshhorn motor lines success now i'm a real estate lawyer board certified in commercial residential real estate law our firm is seeing industrial am selling for three to five dollars per square foot whereas office and commercial is selling for eight dollars thirty dollars spread over 90 acres the difference in value is six times less with industrial use and that does not include the office buildings or indeed commercial improvements the long-term total losses will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars in conclusion a trekking terminal is not business innovation the only innovation here is trying to go around the elbow to get to the thumb by putting industrial uses in a general office area and that's we have a great seller thank you sir and uh thank you for your attention yes thank you uh richard are you still there yes sir we have a question council member armature uh yeah so first of all i appreciate what you said about this area being a gateway uh to to the city i think that's that's important um i wanted to know if are you aware of any plans um in on the economic development partnership board or anywhere else uh in city government to make this area an industrial area like you said it it does it does seem to go against the 2030 plan but i was wondering if there's anything that that you're that you're aware of other than this domino effect i have seen nothing in all those meetings that i attended it was all about here's our northern frontier and what we wanted to be the gateway to our city and it was supposed to be high end i would consider it much like the coal ranch and i think that's the effort under what i heard the uh applicant's lawyer testified to that they've already lawyer been hired and they're already working on zoning and some planning to get that done and that's the future of denton okay thank you very much thank you for the call okay we have one more uh caller and then uh we will uh take a break uh so is the caller you there or no okay they're pulling up now okay are you there yes uh yes this is uh gerard hudspeth and with the city council you have you'll have four minutes to speak but if you could give me your uh name and address first and then you you can get you can start all right my name is jeff williams my address is 8008 oak creek lane in denton and i wanted to speak in approval of this zoning change for many of the reasons that you've already heard tonight from different people i'll just iterate a few of those this does fit in with the denton 2030 plan that is consistent with the neighbor zoning in that area i think most importantly it has been vetted now for months and months by the city staff many changes asked by them all done by hershbach and approval has been and recommendation has been made by the city staff as well as the planning and zoning council hershbach is obviously a very valuable part of our community already and trying to make the 40 million dollar capital investment here to continue to stay here it's my understanding that that will equate to about eight hundred thousand dollars a year in property taxes i've lived in denton for 23 years now and it's always been the fact that homeowners bear the burden of taxes around here because we don't have enough commercial development i found out today the average home price in denton right now is 234,000 dollars that means they pay about five thousand dollars in taxes that means that this will equate to about 160 homes being built here in denton and obviously something that that we continue to need as taxes continue to go up it will benefit our city of benefit our schools and just be a tremendous asset to them talked about the supply chain for target us cold storage all these south wire those companies represent 400 million dollars in taxable value some of the top taxpayers in denton and so for that reason i think this is a wonderful addition to our city the concerns have been raised i think all of them have been answered by the hershbach and by the city but i guess i'll just close with this i think obviously the city has spent a great deal of time on this people that we hire to do these kind of things that know what the denton 30 plan is that know what the requirements are and they came to the inclusion that this is a project that should be approved and so to me that's the that's the high standard and then i just end with reminding you you got 90 letters of support from people right here in our community for this project you've had five callers calling tonight opposing it you've had two calling approving it but you got 90 plus letters from people approving this and so that says to me that there's a great deal of approval out there and so i would just close by saying thank you for listening thank you for your service to our city and i urge you to to vote to approve this zoning change okay thank you any questions for the caller mayor pro tem davis hey jeff this is jesse davis how are you doing uh fine um quick question wouldn't it be fair to say that are those 90 letters of support most of those folks not all but most of those folks were associated in one shape or form with the current owner of the property i i have not been able to look at those letters so i i could not know i know i know i sent one but uh beyond that i wouldn't be able to answer that question okay do you have any association with the project uh no i i do have association with the current owners of the land okay good deal thanks for calling sir always a pleasure thank you okay uh so that's the last of our callers so let's take a um 15 minute break then we'll come back and and wrap up this item uh so thank you very much it is 10 o'clock and welcome back to this evening city council meeting it is uh 10 16 p.m on the 16th of march 2021 we uh back from a break uh we concluded the um last of the calls in queue there were no additional calls during the break so i'm going to close the um uh public hearing and then open the floor for uh discussion and we've said a lot so i want to try to keep it moving so that we can then get to a resolution so any other questions before i start to seek for seek a motion counselor melzer not a question just you know my comments yes sir so uh when i look back on our recently approved economic development strategy for uh areas for a focus were identified sustainable dentin creative dentin connected dentin and competitive that connected dentin has to do very much with our location distribution and all that kind of stuff and competitive dentin equally one of the four areas of focus had to do with uh class a office space corporate headquarters and things like that so those are both really important to us uh and this is a little bit of a tug of war between you know those two uh when i consider do they mix well i think you know i have to conclude no that if you know if you take the area that's that's uh designated general office now and you put this sort of industrial use that's a very important to then connected and uh there you you really likely lose those uh uses in the surrounding areas i think but as has been pointed out there is an area uh that was designated just for this uh and i i think it would be entirely right on target for dentin economic development to encourage the applicant to stay and grow in dentin it is so on target for what we have set out for ourselves not on target for that space uh so uh i you know would welcome uh further discussion on whatever it would take to remove barriers for them they're ready to relocate now you know to one the other side of the street but instead to relocate to where their clients are where their warehouses uh where trucks are built in fact it's so perfect uh great for dentin and i i think ultimately great for the applicant so i really strongly favor our economic development department looking at what can we do uh to retain this uh excellent business and help them grow but i will move denial of this zoning change for this gateway general office location okay there's a motion for denial mayor pro tem davis a second we have a motion for denial and we have a second um make a note i'll forget who did what i'm sure okay discussion council member ryan thank you mayor i've got a question for julie's i look back through the slides outside of the major vehicle servicing all the other uses that they're looking at for this property would fit in the geo so it's really if the rr was geo they would have to come to us for an sqp but could build by right for everything else is that correct yes sir those uses are permitted in geo yes sir okay so so this the talk of it this being an industrial use is not necessarily true we might think of big trucks as being industrial but we as a city have already classified these other uses as is acceptable in a general office zoning district okay thank you uh really so before mayor pro tem i'm gonna slide in what really i want to go to uh and this is a this is a comment and the the applicant is either one can speak to it but it it's a source of consternation for me uh that that i want to try to uh just kind of unravel so my concern and i've said it early and often is the 18 wheelers it's not just across the street that's that's not the case it it is on the other side of a state highway certainly it would be but an 18 wheeler coming from the north or south would exit uh 77 and i would encourage any of my peers to pull up a google maps and you're traveling west on 77 once you get off i-35 you there is nowhere to turn around and then using staff's analysis of we want to keep these use this type truck use away from the core of our town we're drunk one this site is closer to the core of our town and then if you look at google maps there is nowhere to turn around there is and i'm going somewhere with that but there's nowhere once you're on 77 until you pass there's just nowhere i mean there's even if you get past uh all this the the city parks and the animal shelter there's nowhere for that 18 wheeler to make a u-turn to get to the north side of the street why that matters is and this is my question for the applicant now you sent us a map and we received the map in your circle of your driveway of where your access is i pulled up the gi gis map so anyone watching i'd encourage you to do the same pull up the gis map and toggle on the property lines you'll see the property line the the driveway that the applicant circled is to the um that would be to the west of their property line so they need to make their way back to the east to make this work so my question to the applicant is why did you not mention that the the curb cut as it as it exists will not work and if you dispute that then tell me where where i can find a map with a property line that shows that that is not an issue and i have the email from text dot where it notes that that the there it's and i quote median opening was shifted on the design and text dot permit is required for that work so why was that not mentioned mayor has this is amy i'll be happy to answer that question the best that i can so in our site plan submittal as a part of this detailed plan the intent is to widen that opening so that it does provide direct access to our site it is not intended to relocate that opening just to widen it slightly to the south to provide a direct access on the very northern end of the site and that's been proposed from the beginning that that would be the the access point to be able to to have ingress and egress from that median opening so that doesn't require a text out approval it absolutely would yes sir but that would come later during the civil construction plan process so we would obviously this detailed plan would be null and void if we weren't able to get that text up permit but in our you know in our original middle and in all of our subsequent submittals that has been our proposed solution is to widen that meeting median opening but like i said if if text dot said no we would we would be coming back for a pd amendment and so when mayor pro tem jesse davis asked you that how would you access the property you didn't deem it prudent to include that in your explanation well i was trying to i was trying to pull up a map at the same time and so that i could show something to you all that you could see and explain that but that that's why when i sent the this map that you're looking at with the circle on it i specifically stated that this includes the widening of that opening but if you look at our detailed plan it includes it shows that widened opening so that has been the intent all along and i apologize if if that was not clear but that was that's been the proposal um through the the entire process yeah i'll just say for me personally i i felt that to be a little misleading uh and it goes to my point if you're not able to get the the curb cut and you proceed forward there's nowhere for the um your drivers uh to turn around and that's a concern you talk about and i'll just continue to opine you talk about uh the bonnie bray to the north and that's not i don't think that is a legitimate concern i think you're right but i will say uh the other concern is that the drivers would how do they access it if you don't get that curb cut and the option is loop 288 and that would make loop 288 university drive north where we see the backup at loop 288 i mean pardon me at university drive uh and i-35 there's it constantly backs up onto the highway because of the 18 wheeler traffic and that's signalized you would push your traffic if you can't get that curb cut to loop 288 and 77 which is not signalized it's only two lanes and it and you would have to turn left across those busy lanes and then proceed to another stop sign which would cause traffic problems similar to to what we see at highway at highway 380 and i-35 so that to me is a concern the high high school traffic is absolutely a concern as much as as you want to dismiss it again to my peers i would ask you to pull up a gps map and take yourself back a couple of years when you're in high school here's your options you could leave denton high school and go down uh bonnie bray which you could go then to the intersection of windsor make a four-way stop you can go to the east and go 20 miles per hour along north lakes or you can keep going uh that would be to the south on the bonnie bray to university's drive one of the busiest intersections in our city and one of the most developed areas in our city or you could go back to the north get on 77 get on go under i-35 and turn left and have immediate access to i-35 to speed up to do 70 you know so it just just as it functions it just does not set up well and no one in the presentation or mentions the apartment complexes that are going in at the corner of bonnie bray and 77 and that congestion that will be significant we saw the permit for when we were pouring the cement how many residences are there the northern part of our city is is one of the fastest growing parts and we're and so those are just a few of my concerns i wanted to get those out of the way because those are my primary concerns has nothing to do with the zoning it has everything to do with the functionality of the site and the fact that as we sit here today they do not have access to this property from 77 and even if they do staging it on 77 to make that left turn is a significant concern because you can't turn in and turn out depending on how traffic flows and so it's it's purely a traffic congestion issue for me at this point there's a number of other issues but just a point highlighting what what is guiding my my thoughts currently so i'll i'll leave it that mayor pro tem i'm sorry i jumped in front of you and then councilmember armature now that that's quite all right you made some excellent points there i i concur with everything you said i also agree with everything thinking back on it yeah i think everything councilmember melzer said just a moment ago and um i i mean here you are with council members inviting you to explore the the possibilities of other sites in town and uh talking with our economic development folks about that um i'm also concerned that this is not i mean we're looking at one of the best remaining hard corners in the city you've got loop 288 77 and bonnie bray all right there this is begging for a really cool use not something where we have to kind of uh you know do what staff does which is very creatively uh make things work right they make things work for us all the time when we have maybe even silly requests how do we make this work in a in a spot this is what staff is really good at is figuring out ways to make the development code work when that's what either we want to happen or when an applicant needs something to happen but it's just not the right not the right place for this business it's not the right place to expand this kind of use to go from about 16 acres to 90 acres um you know from 25 trucks to hundreds of trucks so i'm very happy to second the denial but i'd be very happy to keep talking about the future of this parcel and the future of this business in denton councilmember armature sorry i i agree with what has been said so far uh you know including that um uh that that there are other possible locations um a whole other uh you know part of town that uh seems much more suitable um and more in keeping uh with the uh future use plan um my questions that i've asked so far have expressed my concerns in many ways so i'm not going to uh reiterate those i i think it should be pretty clear um but i will say something that i haven't yet said uh for the public record um and and that is a matter of public record um i was concerned um to receive this uh from the public information request um done by uh shula net netzer who who represents the the uh adjacent property that large uh cat property uh from the vice president of the denton economic development partnership who i don't know personally um and uh she had done a uh she uh miss netzer had done a public information request for i believe you know all uh city correspondents uh regarding the the property um and there were two emails uh referring uh to uh plans for industrial use of this area and this use here is described by the vice president of the denton economic development partnership board as an industrial use so i just wanted to read this um the vice president of economic development partnership board says uh i have not yet talked with shula one-on-one yet but a couple of brokers i am working with on the prologious industrial park deal did she indicated that her clients were not interested in selling any of their property and plan to land bank it for 15 to 20 years and we're looking for more to buy if this is the case and this is the key part it puts denton in a precarious position regarding future industrial opportunities and then in a subsequent email um uh the same uh same person says uh did she mention why she is opposed to industrial development on that property and is it just her or the property owners as well this opposition could kill us from a future industrial growth standpoint since they own about 5 000 acres between loop 288 and i-35 and it could definitely kill any hope of getting prologist in town you know my my point in that being that um there is somebody who uh seems to agree that this is industrial use and and i was concerned to you know to read that and i i just hope that uh you know there's not some you know false misconception out there that this this domino effect that um you know some of us are concerned about is inevitable uh and and definitely going to happen um i i i think i'm i'm hearing anyway you know a lot of concern um about that possibility uh and a lot of respect for the work that was done on the 2030 plan okay and uh so we have a motion and a second is there any other discussion any other questions seeing none uh so uh let's see who we got councilmember melzer i'll say you aye to the motion right and and let me that's that's a fair point so the motion is to deny uh so a voting and affirmative is the affirmative to deny uh so make sure you're you vote accordingly uh mayor pro tem aye uh and then let's see uh councilman ryan all right uh councilmember uh armature yes councilmember baker uh uh mayor hudspeth is an aye and councilmember johnson aye okay so the the motion to deny passes seven zero okay and that concludes that item that takes us to the next item which is um looking for a motion to um postpone i think yes so it's item ez 2000 12b hold a public hearing consider adoption of ordinance of the city of denton texas regarding an amendment to razor ranch overlay district to amend the concept and the zoning map exhibits and amended development standards and design criteria for the development within the eastern portion of the razor ranch south campus uh okay councilmember ryan i move that we postpone this item to april 6th okay thank you uh mayor pro tem davis second thank you we have a motion and a second any discussion okay uh councilmember ryan how say you aye mayor pro tem davis aye and councilmember melzer aye councilmember johnson aye councilmember baker uh uh councilmember armature yes mayor hudspeth is aye as well that passes uh seven to zero that takes us to uh concluding items any announcements or statements mayor pro tem davis i just want to real briefly thank everybody who participated in sponsoring laptops for graduating high school seniors but didn't evening rotaries winter warmer last week it's usually an in-person thing these days we don't really do those so much so it was a webcast but some of the folks who supported and donated are right here on your screen and so we really appreciate that and there's still an opportunity to donate to that sending a deserving kid to college with a laptop in their hand if you just google denton winter warmer you'll find a way to donate okay thank you very much any other uh anyone else okay i will say i do believe and my calendar could be wrong but i believe miss mentor lives in uh southeast denton there uh it's her birthday sunday the 21st so i wanted to wish her a happy birthday she's uh been amazing for the city uh i hope i got that right but that's per my notes so we'll see um but any other than that um we'll be uh is everyone all set we all good everyone have a good spring break awesome okay well at 10 37 p.m it is still march the 16 2021 uh we will conclude this uh meeting and we will We'll see you next week. Thank you all.