Mar 23, 2021 City Council on 2021-03-23 3:00 PM (Special Called Meeting)

good afternoon everyone and welcome back to this meeting well the beginning of the meeting of the denton city council this is a special called meeting at three o'clock on tuesday march the 23rd uh we earlier in the day had a joint meeting with the public utilities board so if you're looking for something on the agenda you don't see it or hear it in this meeting it's probably on the other meeting uh we're going to begin today it's a special called meetings we go right to uh citizen comments on the consent agenda items uh we don't have any callers on the consent agenda so that moves us to request for clarification on the consent agenda any questions on the consent agenda i don't see any one more time okay no questions or a request for clarification on the consent agenda that moves us into work session reports the first step is item 3a id 21-485 receive a report hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the fiscal year 2019-2020 comprehensive annual financial report and annual audit good afternoon mayor pro tem and council i'm cassie augden director of finance um i am going to kick off the um the work session item on the annual financial report we have our external auditor john deburro here from weaver um who's who's going to give you the presentation but before i turn it over to him i just wanted to let council know um how how proud i am of our accounting staff who worked diligently to complete this financial report it took six months um from the close of the fiscal year last year and so i just really wanted to give that team credit and some kudos um before handing over to john so john i'll let you take it away thanks cassie and i'm going to try to share my screen with everyone okay hopefully you can see that um thank you uh mr mayor council members uh and as cassie mentioned i'd like to start off by thanking all the finance department for all their hard work they really did a great job and especially this year unlike uh any other year where we've been dealing with the pandemic uh it was a real tribute to all the the folks in the the finance department uh who came together and gave us nothing but their full cooperation uh in making this a very uh very good audit and i thank you for allowing me to meet with you to discuss the results of the audit and as cassie probably mentioned earlier we met with the finance committee last week and went over the audit results in detail and i've got a presentation that i would like to um go through with you and it combines uh the results of the audit as well as talks a little bit about the audit process and some of our required communications and i served as the engagement partner on uh the audit this year and with me was uh jeff wada one of our audit managers and also jerry gaither served as the technical review partner on engagement with regards to the audit process itself we uh began back in the summertime conducting interim fieldwork going through internal controls finished up our field work in january and february and issued our audit opinion on the 12th of march we conducted our audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards as well as generally accepted government auditing standards and we performed both a state and federal single audit uh the city spent enough uh state and federal uh assistance to require audits of both the state and federal uh programs the major program being the coronavirus relief fund um program for the federal assistance and the rtr uh toll revenue projects for the state and we utilized a risk-based approach to conduct our audit where we look at areas uh they're of higher risk of material misstatement and weigh our resources more heavily in those areas such as revenue recognition unrecorded liabilities and the federal and state grants as well as capital projects we tested internal controls over the significant transaction cycles and um and payroll and cash disbursement control testing as well and performed journal entry testing we went through a number of areas with the finance finance committee uh last week uh to allow them to see all the detail of what we tested as part of our annual audit here on this slide and to present the results of the audit i have two slides here the first presents the results of the financial statement audit for the city where the fiscal year ended september 30th 2020 and we issued an unmodified opinion which means that we felt that the city presented the financial statements on fairly in all material respects in accordance with gap there were no material weaknesses no significant deficiencies no areas of non-compliance to be reported the second slide here provides a snapshot of the results of the federal and state uh single audits we issued an unmodified opinion on both single audit reports which means that we felt that the city complied in all material respects in accordance to in accordance with the requirements of each of the major federal program and state federal program i'm sorry state major programs there were no material weaknesses significant deficiencies or compliance findings on either single audit uh the next few slides present present some of our responsibilities under the various standards um both the generally accepted auditing standards and government auditing standards as well as the uniform guidance for the federal federal financial assistance audit there were no new standards that had to be implemented this year there were no difficulties really whatsoever in performing our audit no disagreements with management we looked at various estimates that are embodied in the city's financial statements and felt that the underlying assumptions were reasonable and in the area of audit adjustments i'm happy to report that there were no significant adjusting journal entries that were made as a result of our audit procedures and there were no past adjustments either so all in all again it was a very good audit and i'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you john if you could take your screen down certainly any questions for mr de burro any questions at all in the presentation council member melzer yeah not not a question just a comment that uh it's great to see the the usual high marks uh for our finance folks you know thank you for for carefully going through it and it wouldn't have been possible to get through the muck we're going through i actually think uh mayor pertemis pointed that out before we didn't been able to you raise the uh the resources that we were able to ensure notice if we you know had not been operating so well thank you thank you council member melzer any other questions or comments well thank you john for y'all uh your firm's work on this and uh we appreciate the high marks i know you give us whatever marks we earn but we appreciate the high marks and uh and kudos again council member melzer said to the finance staff and everybody there at city hall i thank you too do we have anything else from staff on on this item before we move on no no unless cassie has something else to add no that was all thank you very good i do want to say um this is it is a tough job and they have spent an enormous amount of time so i appreciate the kudos to them because they've worked really really hard very good that will take us to item three b id 21-342 receive a report hold a discussion give staff direction um regarding processes impacts and results of service delivery delivery during the february 2021 inclement weather event and we're going to hear from three departments today in the same way we have in previous weeks the first will be parks and community services then we'll have finance purchasing warehouse compliance altogether and then we'll have public affairs and dtv so we'll start off with it looks like gary packen and the parks department yes mayor pro tem because of the close relationship of working together throughout this effort and they continuously worked close together they have combined their report out so you're going to hear from both gary packen and um you're going to hear from danny shaw's it's a combined effort here on this one very good thank you good afternoon mayor council danny shaw community services i'm going to start off the presentation to take you through some of the work we did in the advanced planning for this inclement weather event obviously we do manage most of the inclement weather planning most of the times of the year so we started out with our normal updates to our inclement weather plan based on this particular weather incident doing our outreach to our non-profit partners and making sure we had a good understanding of what resources would be available over the next couple of days around that planning we began to hear and see that this this weather event was going to be a little bit more impactful so we started coordinating with the shelters on a daily communication about what their resources were and monitored the weather as it as it was evolving one of the things that we learned from the shelter was they were willing and open to increasing the number of shelter beds but we did need to increase some capacity to make sure we they could still maintain the covet distancing so we did approve some a temporary increase in the hotel beds that already existed adding some beds to then increase the capacity to mkc for additional guests and then we worked with the cta to coordinate some planning of transportation to help folks move from mkc to the hotel during the event as well as the increase in the shelter capacities for time so they they both agreed and did increase beds as well as open up 24/7 due to the extreme weather which also increased the beds are available and the daytime protections for folks who needed a safe place to be then as you heard in the police department presentation pd staff did take a special assignment to offer additional transportation needs and did outreach to those folks who are living in encampments to try to help folks move to warming stations as quickly as possible starting actually late friday gary we're having just a little bit of trouble hearing you can you adjust your mic there how's that that's much better thank you gary pack and director of parks and recreation during that process actually late friday night we started to plan for opening of uh mlk or actually a civic center for a 24-hour emergency warming station that continued saturday morning which final decisions were made and the planning efforts completed and we started to actually later on that day start setting up the civic center for operations that included you know delivering and set up cots tables and chairs where we needed to get the logistics of those from to accommodate everybody purchasing and delivering items blankets pillows water snacks with the help of purchasing uh and the warehouse we one of the biggest challenge was getting people to operate a 24/7 schedule and getting people scheduled to operate uh we had planned 12-hour shifts for staff to accommodate that um and then also working with police and fire to get uh staff uh for them to be on property as well we had to amend some of our facility use roles to accommodate that 24 activity um and then you know staff had to communicate with the public letting them know that this was going to happen starting on sunday uh so very short notice but a lot of logistics to coordinate uh and then all the other various logistics of cleaning schedules you know kennels for people that are bringing dogs food for the pets all those types of logistics had to take place on uh february 14th valentine's day we opened the civic center officially as a 24 operation that afternoon and we had to start picking up staff you know that evening to come in and work so some some of the staff had never driven in snow before so we actually had staff throughout the week being picked up so they could come into work um on the on monday uh unfortunately we had some hvac issues at civic center so everything that we had planned and coordinated so smoothly had to be readjusted and moved over to mlk so obviously that was uh you know every day was a series of special events and something new to approach and to uh take take control of and move forward on so uh that was one that we did not expect to happen where we had to move the the center over to mlk which actually ended up being good and we'll talk about that here in a little bit but then the next day we had a water main break um and the fire department and the facilities came over and helped renovate one of our bathrooms uh because we had a water break and we were thinking all right so we need to pick up a move again just after we got there so that was a concern um and we started talking about it but it was repaired fairly quickly and thankfully we didn't have to move in that direction uh throughout that week we had many special events whether it was logistics of finding water or starting to plan uh water distribution every day was was a new activity uh to be planned as you can see in your spreadsheet over to the right uh we did have in track our attendance uh we did open north lakes a little bit later in in the operation overall but we did not get a lot of attendance there obviously mlk is a 24-hour center did get a lot of use uh you know peak on the on the 16th and 17th over 60 people but it was very consistent uh people coming in during the day and in uh coming in and out uh we we did allow for that activity but for the overnights we did have a lot of operations there there was uh small families individuals couples and mlk really gave us the ability to spread people out into different sections of the building and it worked out very well snow and ice control um you know hats off to our park center creation uh our park maintenance team uh for helping along with the other departments where they were working 12-hour shifts over 24-hour coverage to keep whether it was the fire station or the police station or mlk or north lakes free and clear of ice uh on a regular basis they're also helping load and transport supplies whenever we needed them so they were really on call all the time and willing to step up and help as well was you know a lot of the city a lot of the departments across the city were helping uh throughout this entire response program some of our sustained response efforts um we had ongoing emergency response efforts with you know the city community groups business owners uh we were delivering water to some of the businesses that were helping put together uh food programs and meals for people so we were constantly working with uh city hall and other departments to coordinate all of that activity uh we did have people call mlk and ask if you know other cities could bring people to the location uh so we we provided uh resources to other cities where other uh housing stations were in those municipalities as well as to our own property managers aware they could receive some help and some outreach and then we assisted community groups as an example 651 was used for a period of days to help distribute water uh to people uh in the community as well we did deliver water and provide showers to the community in addition uh that sunday uh or actually it was later in the week we actually started hand delivering water to a number of the communities that did not have active water whether it was a mobile home park or a neighborhood that was out of water we were propping up uh boxes of water onto trucks and delivering those uh we obviously operated the civic center for distribution which staff from across the city helped us with uh which was really good and i'm glad we did that and it was very helpful we also started showers for the general public because people didn't have water so they could go shower before school or before work uh we did get a lot of use at some of our facilities uh you know that first weekend and from there it started to slow down as as water started to come back online we did that through march 5th we also had water available in the rec center so they could pick up to that date as well overall it's about 2500 hours uh this is not clued uh police from their their hours that was provided in a prior um powerpoint but about 85 000 dollars to run that operation uh obviously it's a unique situation where we had freezing temperatures high wind chill and potential for you know significant snowstorm um that really pushed us to move in that direction uh you know hopefully it doesn't happen that bad again in the near future but at least we have some experience going through it and we're looking at ways that we can operate even better uh if it does occur next time some of our lessons learned you know overall we had 81 employees working at the warming station uh and giving away water and helping with the showers that does not include staffing from pd and fire um pd security is definitely a necessity we did have some issues uh not that it was unsafe but we did have some people in in the small areas you know can get agitated during a high level of stress so we did have police step in a few times to assist staff uh and as i mentioned earlier mlk really was suited better than the civic center with it broken and broken out into small rooms we could spread people out we have a kitchen there with a a window that we could serve people and they could sit and eat in a separate room so that really worked out well um some additional equipment that we're looking to have in the future whether it's a sand dryer because the sand started to freeze uh some additional generators some fuel additives just to make sure our trucks kept running we did have started to shut down on us uh even real brine maybe a maker sprayer if that's something to consider but something as simple as snow shovels uh we weren't paired with just basic shovels that we could easily push snow uh it just made it harder and more challenging for staff that were shoveling sidewalks uh maybe even a motorized spreader uh because it was hard to push spreaders that that were not motorized in snow and ice um minor lights uh that could be put on people's heads just to help with some of those areas four by four vehicle and then water shot water shot off locations in gis so we could easily locate those some additional lessons learned uh from a staffing perspective how to stand up short term and long term when we've done warning stations it's typically been for a short period of time not necessarily for an entire week uh so that was definitely an ongoing challenge that really stretched out for a number of days um coordinating multiple departments uh different scheduling platforms was was a challenge we had some staff that couldn't communicate because they didn't have internet access or power uh so staff that were working were also dealing with their own challenges at home whether they didn't have water or heat or their family was home because of you know various reasons you know they were still coming into work and and helping out and putting all their their personal challenges aside to really help out for the community um one central hub for supplies and services is definitely helpful with the warehouse and that coordination was great but we did have to go out and find supplies uh we did go to fema and pick up water with emergency management which was very helpful in having water available for the community um improved coordination with departments just on winterization when something like that comes we have a better handle of of what we need to winterize now we we have had a number of things that have been uh that need to be repaired because of we were anticipating that level of of damage and then communication chain clearly defined you know just in parks and recreation it was challenging let alone across the whole entire platform of the community uh does get complicated and some positive takeaways you know even during covid from a parks and recreation standpoint we now have staff that worked have worked in multiple facilities so they know how to work at mlk or north lake so the civic center when before they may have only worked at mlk so we've really diversified our staff knowledge uh and now they all know how to operate a 24-hour warning facility as well it was great to see teamwork across the entire department and people constantly stepping forward to help if it wasn't for that effort you know we wouldn't have been able to pull all this off in that short of time frame uh in all aspects of city operations for sure and then as well as our community partners stepping up and and just community residents we had residents bringing in jackets and gloves and socks as well as our partners at the junction uh mkc and odb uh it was it was great to see all that effort at that point in time i'll go ahead and close this and i'll uh danny and i will be available for questions thank you gary i just want to start off by saying wow i mean um you're you're you run a parks and recreations department danny you do a program that has a lot to do with funding and and connecting community resources um neither one of y'all's resumes probably had a bullet point for this before but now they do um this is a really amazing effort um across the city but especially our public safety folks our streets and uh and water delivery folks and y'all especially this is just amazing and i was especially glad to see that the junction was on board of course the whole time but especially as people were processing out of the warming center um that they weren't just you know turned out at the door good luck hope it doesn't freeze again uh but they were in touch with resources right away okay questions for gary and danny councilmember melzer yeah just uh additional comment it certainly does redefine what recreation means um but uh as i've mentioned on in previous meetings that was the people you see making presentations to us who are out there distributing water and you know doing uh all this emergency work i'll just add another little story that there was clear need on sunday for kids to be able to get showered up before they would be going to school the next day uh and uh staff gary staff offered up an auditorium for the afternoon some people arrived late morning or in the morning and saw you know there's water flowing out of there there's obvious plumbing damage you're like oh is it not going to happen no they knew there was a problem there they said afternoon to allow time to come in fix the problem so that people could then come in in the afternoon and shower that was you know really one of many bright spots we looked at as a water feature that yeah definitely recreation other questions or comments for gary and danny all right thank you all so much thank you that'll take us i believe to the uh finance and procurement folks let's see good afternoon i'm back again cassie ogden director of finance let me share my screen christine taylor director of procurement and i will be doing a joint presentation so first off i want to start by recognizing the finance staff they don't always get a lot of recognition or credit they're not out there on the front lines like parks but the staff did work diligently while dealing with their own personal challenges our assistant director um he had pipe burst in his house and rolling blackouts and he was still trying to update information for me and um the whole team was working diligently when they when they had power um while also trying to deal with their own personal situation so i really just wanted to start by saying thank you to the staff and um i have a really great team and i'm very lucky to work with them so with that i'll get it started so some of the the goals that finance was trying to meet obviously we were trying to respond to the organization's needs we also wanted to provide clear um and advanced guidance to our internal customers um for expenses and how to account for how to attract for potential reimbursements from fema and so some of our results um payroll information on how to track uh time um specific to the winter storm was provided on monday february 15th at the beginning of the week i'm happy to report there were no interruption of wire payments we were able to pay um especially all of the urquhart bills um in a very timely manner and keep that um without any interruption to services uh we did suspend our vendor payment processing that week so we usually process checks on thursday and friday of the week and we we suspended ach and check payment that that week mainly due because our accounts payable staff were not able to come on site to make those to process that so um we made that call earlier early in the week we also established accounting codes to be able to track the expenses for a potential reimbursement and then we sent that tracking information out to employees and i'm happy to report the majority of the expenses have been categorized correctly so far we're still working through that that process opportunities for improvement we do have a finance finance disaster plan um we're work we're in the process of updating that plan and once we make the the final update to it we do need to train staff on roles and responsibilities um our staff is really great we have um we have a lot of people who will jump in and help any time but we do have you know separation of duties for a lot of our things so we um we establish uh cross training but also want to make sure that we're remaining compliant with our recommendations so we just need to work on training our staff to make sure they understand their roles and responsibilities and then also uh you've heard in the last couple of weeks us talk about the accounts payable um automation software um implementation of that software will be um really helpful in the future if we have another emergency where we're not able to come on site to be able to establish those remote processes the vendors can you know log into the system remotely and we can send um vendor-wide communication and just more communication with our vendors and then additionally just we need to review our policies related to emergency expenses um we're going to work on clearly defining eligible expenses and making sure that um staff understand um the guidelines for lodging and meals and then also train our finance staff on those policies i just wanted to give you some metrics um just so you're aware of kind of um the expenses this was as of march 12th um our cost recovery team which is our team that helps us work through the female reimbursement process has been needing to go through these expenses and make sure they're all categorized correctly um we had a total so far of eighty five thousand eight hundred twenty seven dollars of goods and services that were purchased for the week of the winter storm this does not include building expenses um because those some of those damages will go through insurance we did i did not include them on this slide and then you can see the total number of hours worked in overtime um for all of our city employees during the storm and with that i'm going to hand it over to christine taylor to to do procurement and compliance good afternoon i'm christine taylor director procurement and compliance and so part of procurement and compliance is really three divisions so we have purchasing we have the warehouse and we have the compliance division so we established three goals during the winter storm that we wanted to meet so the first one was to meet our organizational needs and we decided to do that by providing clear guidance to everyone employed by the city and being readily available as things change thank you so some of those results for our compliance department we were able to provide advanced notice on how to handle food and lodging purchases ahead of the storm we had processes in place to document donations received should we receive anything to remain compliant with our ethics policy and we were able to provide real-time information on open businesses for the emergency crews as they were busy we had an up-to-date list of what restaurants were open what stores were open so there were no challenges outside of the at-hand emergency in our purchasing department we were able to provide advanced notice on how to request p card increases so the department and the city knew ahead of time how to request that increase if you needed it while you were out on a job site we were able to procure commodities quickly and we had many established contracts already in place which limited the amount of emergency purchases in our warehouse the results were we were able to source commodities needed for the warming station and the community water distribution that group maintained flexible hours for the utility departments and had on-call services so that they were able to come in as needed to provide parts for those job sites and we were able to utilize our existing staff to wash the bedding at the warming station restock the warming station supplies and distribute water so moving forward procurement compliance took a look at our how it went and what we could do in the future to improve so we're going to update any emergency procedures to include how to operate if all systems go down everything we do right now is electronic based and we didn't have any interruption of service but it did present the opportunity of if we weren't able to increase those p cards electronically or process purchase orders what would we do so we're working on a plan on how that would be done manually we're going to establish minimum and maximum levels for the warehouse on emergency supplies that we typically have considered non-inventory and then we're going to work on establishing a list of readily available supplies and contracts to be utilized during future emergencies review existing policies related to food and lodging to make recommendations for future emergencies and then of course establish a list of shared resources such as vehicles our warehouse department does not have vehicles on hand we have one small van for the mail and so challenges like this presented that we didn't have a vehicle so kind of we worked with parks and recreation and fleet and departments that would let us borrow so we did see a need of kind of knowing those resources on hand so that we could borrow between divisions so cassie and i are both available if there are any questions for procurement or finance thank you cassie and christine any questions i've got one um what kinds of emergency supplies would go through procurement as opposed to uh you know like community services or like for instance i'm thinking about bottled water that's something that we didn't have a big stockpile of um we needed to source and is that something that went through procurement or is that something that went through community services or some of their department as uh you know reaching out to more like a humanitarian aid kind of a group how did that work there were two different ways that was handled so the warehouse does have water on hand we do have a contract but that's typically water we purchase and then resell to our departments for the field crews so we worked with the community service groups and fire and um public safety to work with partner agencies like fema who could provide that water to us for free so that we could use it and obtain it in larger quantities we usually have a minimum and maximum level of water for those emergencies but it's typically for resale sure are there any other supplies like that like water that um going forward we're going to keep it at a different minimum and maximum i know you mentioned on the slide but what other kinds of things are we talking about yeah absolutely so the warehouse had cots in in in our stock as long as well as pillows blankets sheets and so those are all items we typically kept a lower inventory of but the count was kept outside of our inventory so we're going to make sure we're prepared so um i think on one of the slides you could see our purchasing manager at sam's purchasing 75 additional blankets a couple days before the storm so we had a reserve stock level of around 25 to 50 but this definitely presented we like we need to keep those levels a little higher moving forward good deal and i saw your your staff actually was washing bedding and and is that trips to the laundromat or how did that work uh the service center has laundry facilities so since our group had um peaks and valleys during that week you know times that they needed to be in early to provide supplies we did have some downtime so they uh offered up washing that bedding during the day so we utilized the on-site laundry facilities and then um animal services had laundry facilities and stepped in and helped with that task as well wow um any other questions thank you all very much you certainly lent a hand yeah thank you and i believe that takes us to public affairs and dtv yes afternoon council members let me pull up our spreadsheet real quick and you better not be showing us spreadsheets thank you very power presentation we're in for we're in for a rough ride if i'm bringing up a spreadsheet there we go uh so this is our our winter storm after action report for public affairs and dtv and i do also have uh justin harman on the line and uh of course billy matthews as always is is on the call so just to give the council a little bit of information on how we came into the week that was with our preparations on the storm is we do have a winter weather protocol this protocol basically tells us how we can approach these events generally and a lot of ways takes a lot of the thinking out of the process for us so we have pre-made messages pre-made uh press releases timelines and it allows us to to not have to think about the easy things because we've already thought of them and so we were prepared with that protocol to go into what we expected to be a winter storm that was uh unique we hadn't had one uh to this degree in a few years we also set up a web page dedicated to the winter storm uh which we throughout the week pushed out quite a bit which was cityofdenton.com/winterweather and this was really meant to be our information headquarters for the expected winter event that's where we'd provide information on what to do in the cold where you could learn about the different road impacts or facility closures or it became to its service modifications if city facilities had to be closed we populated it with preparatory information resources and you know our expectation was very much that of a winter storm storms that we had seen before not every year but every now and then uh so we had very um very specific expectations of what we needed to communicate to the to the community now of course uh things did not turn out that way uh what ended up happening is we had three separate emergency events that occurred relatively concurrently uh you had first the winter storm then you had the rotating outages and then of course you had the full water notice and what that resulted in from a communication standpoint was rapidly changing information on three fronts uh and things would change often to the point that once we uh created and validated and put out a communication which does take a little bit of time that information could have already changed and we'd have to follow up maybe within 15 or 20 minutes with different information and so that that proved to be a challenge for us and and a point of a little bit of confusion on the part of the community internally the power outages we as most people found they they adversely affected our ability to push out digital communications one of the benefits within any emergency environment is you can't really do any mailers phone calls are there but they do take a considerable amount of time the best way to get information out is through websites social media and in our case code red alerts uh the challenge was that at any given point half of our team of about five to six staff would be down they could not update the website their power and their wi-fi were out and fortunately because even though this did create a challenge for our staff uh what helped was we we had prepared for something of this nature we were appropriately cross-trained to where when one staff member went out could not complete something could not push a message out could not update or monitor our social media another staff member was able to step in and carry the load this did present a little bit of chat of a challenge with creating shifts so staff did not get burned out because they were working from about five or six in the morning through 10 p.m. midnight 2 a.m. depending on the needs at any given day that week uh we were able to get the job done and additionally with the challenges of course we prepared for a winter storm we did not prepare for the other two events so normally if we see something coming down the road we want to get with that staff and we want to you know kind of agree on messaging agree on timelines uh prepare how we're going to communicate uh with each other and with the community and with the example of uh our pardon me uh and in this case we weren't able to do that and one of the key uh or one good example of that was with water conservation where we pushed out communications but the prep time that we would have liked to have had ahead of the events we did not have uh and we weren't able to pull that together so how do we respond well we we established again that that web page early that was our home base for any information related to this event it was a single easy to remember source relevant information and we were able to update it as needs change so when the weather event turned into an electricity event which turned into a water event we could keep that information fresh keep it relevant keep it all in one place we primarily utilize code red and social media social media during this event our messaging would start first on code red then to social media and then to the website we as a staff were incredibly responsive with emails and social comments if you had a question and you posted it on our social media and we saw it we gave you an answer even if that answer was we don't know give us some time we'll find out and so that meant that staff were throughout the day from some up to some down and beyond continually monitoring uh facebook twitter and next door for any type of question that we could answer we also uh not as much at first but we built on it through the week we started using spanish for key messages and that we felt was something that we needed to do in this emergency event we don't typically do it for all of our messages because we don't have the resources but we were able to manage that and make sure that if an important message came out that we had that in dual language so to give an idea of how much messaging and how much communication we did over a two-week period so the 13th the 26th because there was still a lot of communication going on even after the event a lot of people were still feeling the effects over that time we had 13 code red messages and again code red is really meant for that for that critical need-to-know information so it's basically going to tell you something happened here's where you find more information and that goes out via text email and phone call we had 64 facebook posts which doesn't sound like a lot but that is a chance for people to comment and where we really found uh the big uptick in the back-and-forth engagement is with comments shares and likes which we recorded in that two-week period uh about 290 000 of them and that's about a 4 000 increase over what we would normally see in a two-week period we received about 150 engaged in tickets which is elevated but was not an extreme number by any means we received 340 000 web page views for that winter weather web page and overall our website views were up about 3000 for that week a high number of those go into that winter weather web page and in addition to social media we did have other communication message methods a number of you may have attended our town hall which was attended by about 1000 people and that was through facebook live we were able to get out some critical information there we were able to respond to some of the questions that that popped up in the feed as we could see them about 2000 comments occurred in that 45 minute town hall so we answered the ones that we we could see and we felt were broadly applicable in addition to that we kept in constant contact with the local media and the regional media and in some cases national media particularly with the dentin record chronicle the local reporter and i spoke at five six seven eight ten times a day uh we're in constant communication via text and we made sure to let them know that if we were going to put out a message that they needed to keep an eye out for it and to follow up with them after we put that message out to make sure that we could answer their questions as far as takeaways from this event uh obviously we have some protocols to update uh we learned a lot as i think every department did and so we want to capture that information for the future with our communication protocols for uh rotating outages or really any outages uh and our boil water notices and we want to incorporate into all of our protocols uh using additional communications one thing that pardon me additional communication channels one thing that we didn't do in this event that we'd like to do going forward is to utilize all the different city communication channels so we we did the main city channel so the main facebook page but could we also utilize the parks page a little bit more or say uh the recycling page for any reason it's just another point to get messages out to people we did have a very positive experience with town hall and we would like to use that uh in future uh critical events we do want to make sure that we create and address a lot of rumors that sprout up within any any event or any emergency uh creating a dedicated rumor page and other actions that we can do use to try to combat misinformation that leads people down a wrong path and we also want to develop spanish language procedures and guidelines for emergency events so that we know how we can prepare for those and be ready to push out dual language communications uh we're going to be in creating crisis preparation web pages that we can in the event of an of an emergency convert those to response pages so great example uh severe weather thunderstorms when those come up we can have a preparation page and if that thunderstorm and we hope it doesn't happen turns into a tornado we convert it right over and we have everything already halfway built for us in addition to that we're going to continue to work to grow our digital audiences so that more people will see these communications in the event of emergency so that's more signups for code red and more follows for our social media and then as we go through the process of selecting and implementing a 3-1-1 system we're going to consider what capabilities those systems have for reverse notifications again casting a wise as wide a net as possible to get critical information to people where they are so i went through that fairly quick but i'm happy to answer any questions that the council may have thank you ryan questions council member melzer uh what is reverse notification i didn't understand that oh uh so typically uh engaged in is a great example so most of the time it's it's tickets coming in requests coming into the city uh but if 3-1-1 system may have the capability and likely will have capability for us to push out information uh to everyone uh in the reverse direction so all the users who have an account with that 3-1-1 system we could put out a critical message to everybody all at once that's what we'll be looking for but they they still have to have opted in and become part of the system prior to that happening that depends on what the 3-1-1 system offers uh so ideally we would use those but if they have other uh capabilities to push it out to say any phone number that's called within a certain time period uh then we would explore that as well i don't know if this is you know commercialized or but just technically wouldn't it wouldn't it be possible for there to be a service that could push out like an amber alert to any phone that's in contact with the cell tower in our footprint so that's something that i think we we discussed whenever uh battalion chief layhart presented on emergency management uh it's something that they are looking at from an emergency management standpoint uh so it i believe the technology does exist uh may maybe exactly as you describe it may be a little bit different but that's something that we are looking at from an emergency management standpoint hey ryan i'm gonna interrupt you for a second can we take a five minute break it's 350 we'll be back 355 p.m thank you and welcome back to this uh medium didn't city council it is now 356 p.m on march 23rd 2021 we're back from a short break and council member melzer you had the floor and and and and ryan can finish answering and then but give him your second question and he can work them all together he's he's totally unrelated so he's in that business right but i i heard you that uh that uh you know brad is looking at something like amber alert um the second one you know i wonder with the benefit of 2020 hindsight you know if we would think differently and the reason to do this in hindsight is because it could come up again in the future if we think differently about that situation of drip or no drip and freezing conditions and uh you know that people are dripping because it's freezing conditions uh but yeah that was all related to water pressure being low right right so it's kind of a torturous thing and what and people were you know in the community were like what are you telling us do that don't do that and but i think the reality my opinion in retrospect is they were never going to do it because it's you know it's it's a big thing to ask people to take a 500 to 10 000 hit for the team you know in terms of risk to their plumbing uh over the versus the possibility of a boil water notice i think also now that we've had well water notice it's like it's it's terrible but it survivable uh i would i would only want to be in that situation if we had amber alert because if you didn't have some way to hear that you know you're at a public health risk that that's pretty that's bad news but uh anyway i you know i just wonder if you were if you had that situation come up again do you think we might make the call differently and put it put it differently in the playbook you know and i think that that what we would seek to do hindsight 2020 monday morning quarterback is uh take a situation like that where you where you're facing two two alternatives that aren't great and and and lay the facts out as clearly as possible and of course hindsight we we we now know what questions the community have would have after such a situation we we would have that going into it and be able to pride that information up front um you know one of as i mentioned one of the benefits of of pre-planning um is that you can anticipate those questions have answers ready and and get those in the community so people can can understand why we are saying what we're saying and why events are unfolding like they are um and we didn't have that luxury a month ago so i i you know it's tough to to say you know the message necessarily would have been different because there were a lot of different factors involved however would we have uh approached our delivery of that message differently i think we would knowing now we know council member melter this is sarah i think the other thing we we we may want to do here is we roll this up and we start putting together the matrix of what we recommend we do differently i mean i think we are going to probably look at maybe like we did with the dme situation sort of a letter to the community um that would answer some of those questions and say you know there was the one there were people who said do we drip or not drip i think what we would do is work like um you know like ryan said and talk to our water wastewater folks is there is there ever a time you would drip or not drip and what would be a reason not to and those kinds of things so that we have a better communication with our community members sort of like what i mentioned we would talk about um the possibility of folks looking at uh if they have health issues some type of um generator for themselves to have on hand if this were to occur again but some way to communicate with the community and follow up with them on things where they were so they were they had questions that we just could not give them the answers as fast as they needed well i think you know one dimension is the communication that is what we're talking about but you know the other dimension is realistic planning and i would just offer you know for the next time you'll have this conversation internally you know if you're asking people to take a multi-thousand dollar risk they're probably not going to do it therefore assume the other bad thing will happen right maybe we did i mean i'm not saying you didn't but you know the idea that they would stop doing that and that there'd be enough conservation in short order in retrospect it's like yeah that wasn't gonna happen so anyway that's my input thank you thank you council member then council member armature and then council member ryan yeah so i i agree with that with that recommendation uh and i appreciate the uh the the follow-up um with uh moving forward in mind uh i think also you know in a situation like that having seeing it not just as a water department issue but a fire department issue as well and having the you know having water and fire get together because for water department perspective it's a water conservation issue the fire department is the one that's you know stepping up uh what was it 700 you know to respond to burst pipes and obviously they are both um giving it their all you know so to get them together as well as the community would be really great um my question is is about uh the uh communications uh and you know spanish language but english language as well and in asking it i wanted to begin by thanking uh staff for really stepping it up with the spanish uh communication i i know that i'm often sending you know emails saying can we have that in spanish can we have that in spanish um and you know i know that's work and and i want to also send that uh thanks to the you know members of the community who were doing uh translation efforts to try to help get that out so it really was a a community-wide effort so thanks for that my question is about radio obviously you know if your electricity is out and you don't have an emergency generator you can't listen to the radio but at least you know if you if you don't have wi-fi um radio is a more reliable uh way of of getting getting a word out than internet i'm not saying have have radio instead of amber alerts and phone alerts but you know to what extent as a city looked into uh radio communications as a form of uh emergency emergency communication in a situation like this so when you say radio you mean uh not so much like radio as as yeah like radio station yeah not uh walkie talkie yeah it's not been used uh or it's not been looked into uh to my knowledge um at all by the city if it's happened in the past i'm not aware um i do know we have uh one station that's fairly local that has uh just a short range that it that it broadcasts to most other stations are are more regional and uh they would not they would speak to things that have a more regional impact so they wouldn't necessarily push city didn't communications out there um i would say that it if such a thing were to be done uh there would probably be a lot of research involved and because there would be likely some some costs to get into that game uh and so that's likely why we have not looked into that since most people tend to when they when something comes up and they need information and they want to go to the source and they need to know what's going on right now they typically go to website or social media and so that's where we try to meet people okay and uh councilmember let's see ryan and then we'll see if there's any others before i go back to councilmember melzer ryan is as you know from because i had to text you because i couldn't get any i had no wi-fi not even on the phone for two two of the days uh the city was wonderful and delivered me a hot spot on wednesday and my phone started working about four or five hours later i didn't get wi-fi back up until friday uh so as we move more on these social platforms in more things that require that internet um is there anything that we can do are there any policies that we should be looking at from a city standpoint that could i know this is probably more emergency management than you but uh you know i just i guess i'm just putting out there that we probably should be looking at that um you know and you know kind of following along the lines of the radio if we can get maybe a mo you with uh unt's radio station that would allow in the case of a declared emergency that we could make announcements on there on a regular basis some of us still have the old transistor radios somewhere probably find some batteries for them but you know that when when you have no internet whatsoever there's got to be something out there as a backup plan to get in touch with with the uh citizens um and i'll just put my two cents worth in on the water i think the bigger thing on on the water is explaining to people making sure we put out how to drip a faucet and what to drip that it shouldn't be a stream it should be a drip and it should be on exterior walls it shouldn't be you know a bathroom in the middle of the house it yeah those are the things because people probably had streams and they were probably dripping every faucet in the house and that's what caused their caused us to be using as much water as what we were council member ryan um i know you ask a question about i um what what you as council members could be looking for and and we are going to be coming back with some things one is the fiber around the fire stations that's one and lisha miney the new chief technology officer will be looking at that the other one is quite frankly is you may see an item in the budget for more hot spots so that we had a problem communicating with our employees as well as council members when your phone was out now the internet use is out so i think you're going to see us looking at more hot spots for employees particularly critical employees to have and then um uh i think i've asked lisha and her team to look at other items from a technological standpoint of things that we might need shouldn't we have another emergency like this and again i always say it's not if it's when and so that'll be a part of that report out that we give you on the item whether it's a fix a change or an alternative um the cost and the timeline for how we when we put it into play yeah and and i'd probably also add we might want to look at our our codes our building codes that when new cell towers are put in or existing ones are modified that maybe we need to be requiring that they have generation at that location so that they don't lose power to those i've added that to it all right any other questions before we go back uh council member johnson i i think it's a great idea for the internet systems and the phones as well but also i think that with him with our uh internet page perhaps literature as well and i know that texas doesn't have a season because it comes and goes as it chooses but perhaps during the summer that the literature is based on winter on summer conditions and then when we're supposedly having winter perhaps we could get that information out ahead of time at the different stations and the different rec centers that they'll people at least have a q and a on how exactly they need to handle the situation some of that probably could maybe be avoided and and you're absolutely right and that's one of the things that as we we focus on on building these communications protocols for specific events seasonal things for sure um is is to try to get that information out earlier and in in various places so great example president update hits every doorstep whether you have internet or not uh that's where we can you know it's not going to give it's not going to tell you everything but it's going to tell you where you can find all the things for the winter season or the summer season or whatever that might be okay great uh any other questions mayor pro tem thank you mayor i i wanted to thank you ryan in your shop for just on a personal level of stuff that y'all put out because i think every single one of us was pushing that out other places whether it was a information we got you know via text or something like that we we provide that to somebody somebody else in the community got that information from their council members so um especially some of the social social media kind of infographics or tiles you know that can just go out um very very quickly and convey a lot of information very quickly um i also want to kind of throw a little bit of support behind the radio idea i know um we we get behind these you know these new platforms because they're very versatile uh they do a lot of good things for us and a lot of people are on them but um a lot of people still aren't and like councilman brian said sometimes you just don't have the technology available and i think we do have some sort of arrangement already with uh kntu at some level because when our sirens go you have to tune to kntu to find out about what the maybe that's just that they're already a a disaster um and the disaster announcement network for those weather events um but we may there may already be something on the books there with them okay we can we can look into that with kntu and then just explore what other options may be there that are radio based okay anyone else questions for the first time before we go back around all right councilman melzer yeah uh you know adding on to the uh old-fashioned media thought we've all heard when watching tv that that and then they say this is a test of the emergency broadcasting system i think they do it on radio too that was an emergency how do we get to use that and i know with cable you know they can carve out just city of dead they can for advertisers and i have another one too so i i throw that in your bin you have to know the answer okay good because i don't okay very good we can find out this one isn't even in your real house so aaron's going to jump on me for even bringing it up now but i wonder if our codes require insulation and maybe we're in a different world where they ought to i don't know the answer i would draw i would draw the question it was off topic okay any other questions for staff all right and just ryan know that i still have my pager so if we need to go to that uh just let me know and i'll get it reactivated i am uh any other questions great all right thank you ryan uh thank you for all your your work during that time and and um i echo what what mayor pertem said good job appreciate it thank you thanks okay um so that completes uh item b is that right am i am i missing anything sending out there no that's it we're through with item b okay great so we'll go to item 3c which is id 20 2388 receive a report hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding a pending city council request and i'll let staff take it from there we have stewart today good afternoon mayor and council stewart birdseye assistant to the city manager i'm going to share my screen this is your city council pending request for information by way of reminder or for anybody who might be watching this for the first time council members that submit a request for information or a policy change uh or information that will take more than two staff hours can make the request uh we'll review up to seven council requests per meeting today we have one that council member will have one minute to present their request and then the remaining elected officials will have up to one minute to provide feedback and indicate their support for the use of staff time as i mentioned today we have one it comes from council member armentor and it is to insert a mask requirement into the municipal health codes her request includes a list of example codes and references to the city of austin's requirement additional codes that she submitted are included in your backup materials staff has provided some information about the governor's current executive order which ended the statewide mask mandate and those effects on the of that order on the local governments it also includes information about how staff understood the council discussion during last week's council meeting on march 16th i will stop sharing my screen and turn it over to council member armentor and mayor are you timing or would you like me to if you would be so kind thank you absolutely let me get that set up all right and i am ready whenever you start council member setting up my own personal timer it was not working okay i'm proposing a work session to discuss inserting a mask requirement in our health codes until texas reaches 75 percent herd immunity regardless of the governor's recent preemptions on mask requirements and emergency ordinances city health codes have always been legally empowered to enact standards inspect and hold accountable quote unhealthful unsafe and unsanitary conditions in quote all places and premises in the city and quote defining the former as conditions that are quote unclean contaminated or unwholesome capable of causing harm or injury and containing or promoting disease causing organisms and other harmful substances that covers covet and doesn't contradict recent state law often has made a similar addition to their health codes and in doing so has bought city workers and customers invaluable time and protections while facing dubious but predictable legal challenges from the state committing to a mask requirement in our health codes is not a commitment to fight future legal action from the state we don't have to fight if we don't want to that's a bridge we can choose to cross or not when we come to it i'm asking us to use the time and power we have now to protect unvaccinated workers their families in the greater community for workers of businesses that already require masks and face dangerous physical challenges from belligerent customers and for workers of businesses that don't require masks whose workers have no choice but to be there to feed and house their families that is one minute okay uh comments councilmember melzer yeah i uh i agree with that on all levels including that we're not making it we would not be making a commitment to a particular level of uh you know legal defense um and if you know this was uh incorrectly described as defying the governor's order in a in a den record chronicle article the whole point that as i understood it when erin spoke was that there is the possibility to be adjudicated that this would not be in defiance in other words it's not part of an emergency order countering a different emergency order and then uh lastly i'd say if this was the right policy a month ago it's it's still the right policy now we're you know on a uh clear path to have a conclusion with reasonable safety and uh this seems like you know path to keep a way to keep us on that path and i support it okay any other comments mayor pro tem davis i just want to speak up as somebody who's in favor of the this uh action the city has taken previously on masks i was not in favor of the government government the governor removing his mask mandate statewide i thought that should have been in place long before it was um i i don't think we have the power to do this and i don't think that um we have a different um our health code is set up differently than city of austin is they share a public health authority along with travis county that we do not share um i think that the attorney general's action against the city of austin is eventually going to be successful whether it's at the the hearing on thursday or friday or whether it's at some future level i think it'll be successful i don't like the idea of putting something into our code with the idea that well we're not obligated to defend it we're just going to put it in our code and see if it lasts uh i don't think that's how we ought to how we ought to treat our city code i don't think it's our our job on the council to put that kind of thing out there that we know is likely to be challenged we know is not not within our power and it's just there for the time being okay any other comments uh okay uh let's go councilmember baker and then we'll go councilmember johnson councilmember baker yes i was uh out yesterday and i was in a business that uh their employees some wore masks some didn't uh i seen people coming in that had masks on some did not uh but it seemed like everybody that was there were still sitting almost the table where it was almost six feet apart but it seemed like the customers that whether they wore a mask or not uh seems to be their choice and it seemed like uh it ought to be honored if they want to wear them not wear them but the person that owned the business didn't bother these people about if they had a mask on or not um to a certain extent um also i just i just don't think we need to almost tell a business owner how to run his business i don't think that's what we need to be doing uh i think they are to run have a chance to run their business also okay that's that's a minute unfortunately sorry all right um councilmember johnson i would just actually like to hear what legal has to say well and i'm not gonna put they they phrase it uh it was in the backup but also they phrase it last time in in essence he the legal points out that austin has their own uh health health authority he points out that they did it in conjunction with aust travis county and then he points out that it's going to be legally challenged and and uh he wouldn't advocate for it that's kind of in summary what's in the backup without me having to read it word for word and that's based on our meeting last week but with that you by all means you still have a minute to speak uh i am actually i heard what uh councilman baker said and i've heard the other council members but throughout this whole pandemic situation the one thing that has been totally concurrent in every situation that i've been in and some of even when the governor had the mandate on people some people did some people argued the point some people didn't and now it's the government has it on so okay all right uh you know and so i'll speak stewart hold me hold me accountable i have a timer here as well the just of it is i i think it's important for those watching to understand what's we're being compared to a city that is not equal to what we have we don't have a health authority we do not have those things in place and then i think it's also egregious to think that you control a lawsuit once someone sues you you are locked into that lawsuit you don't just get to say oh just kidding i don't want to do this anymore you are locked in so there's no eject button midway through to say oh you're you're serious you're gonna you're gonna sue us we don't want to do this anymore and again that's not guiding my decision what's guiding my decision is i'm empowering every family member to do what they need to do to keep their families safe we still wipe down nothing gets past our entryway without getting doused in all kinds of chemicals so so i'm just saying you take it serious do everything you can the city needs to advocate as best we can but at the same time we're it's not worth increasing someone's utility bill for for something that's going to get uh it's just not i'm not going to do that to the citizens to raise their rates further so thank you uh so i think that's everyone spoken that but is there anyone else that i've missed or that has a desire if you don't have a desire get it uh just making sure i don't miss anyone okay seeing none okay got it well that concludes item c um and for recap i did not show that it had enough support to move forward uh for the reasons listed thank you steward um that will take us to our next item so i will take us into a closed session and we'll take a short break to set the room so i will convene the closed session at 4 24 p.m we will consider the following items can consultation with attorneys under texas government code section 551.071 deliberations regarding certain public power utilities competitive matters under the texas government code section 551.086 and so we'll round up let's say we'll be back at uh 4 40 to start the closed session we'll set the room thank you and welcome back we're returning from break to this evening's meeting of the special call meeting didn't city council it is uh 6 18 p.m we're back on the record it's still march 23rd 2021 and uh we do have a quorum again uh so we will come back to the we finish our work session closed session takes us to the um our special call meeting and where mayor pro tem was anything pulled from the consent agenda no no pulled items okay thank you so i'll take a motion on the consent agenda mayor pro tem i'll move approval of the consent agenda okay uh council member melzer second thank you we have a motion and a second motion by mayor pro tem davis second by council member melzer any discussion okay mayor pro tem how say you aye uh council member melzer aye okay council member baker uh council member armature yes thank you council member johnson aye council member ryan aye and mayor hutz with the i that passes seven zero uh the first item on um the next section item for individual consideration uh is item 2a which is id 21310 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton authorizing the interim city manager to execute a master agreement regarding property and adjacent at and adjacent to 414 west parkway street with denton chamber of commerce inc authorizing the interim city manager to carry out all duties pursuant thereto including the execution of a ground lease termination and providing an effective date good afternoon mayor and council diana cody deputy director of real estate um this evening we are here are you able to see first of all the presentation yes awesome uh this afternoon we are here to authorize the agreements between the city and the chamber for the sale of their properties a little background information economic development and the denton chamber of commerce have both moved their operations to the new development services building at 401 elm street and it was anticipated that that move would improve coordination and connection between the offices it would reduce the duplication of work between two staffs and provide better support to the business community on february 9th council gave staff direction to proceed with terminating the existing chamber lease at 414 west parkway and to enter into a listing agreement to sell the property along with the chamber's separate property and the parking that they own at 413 congress street the city and the chamber have agreed to the sale of the existing chamber building where the city owns the land and the chamber owns the building and improvements and again this sale will also include the separate parking lot which the chamber owns outright on congress as far as the sale terms the city and chamber have agreed to engage access realty as the listing broker and the proposed terms for the listing agreement include a six month term and the city and chamber property will be sold together concurrently the city will retain a drainage easement on its property and the initial list price will be 995 000 for all of the properties together this list price is based on it on the combined building and land price and the additional parking lot price the chamber and city have agreed to a 50 50 split of proceeds for the parkway property and that's basically an equivalent to a buyout of the chamber's leasehold interests the chamber of course will retain 100 of the proceeds of its own property which is the parking lot this particular table was also included in the ais that that you have and it just shows the anticipated distribution of the proceeds based on the total list price being 995 000 but the table also is embedded to reflect the final list price and the proceeds that that both the city will receive and the chamber will receive from the sale so staff recommends that council grant the city manager or her designee authority to enter into the master agreement with the chamber and into the listing agreement with access realty for the listing and joint sale of the properties and ask for the lease at the parkway property staff recommends terminating the existing lease the property is now vacant so we recommend terminating the existing lease on parkway and that would be done at closing of the sale and that is the end of the presentation which by the way is also the presentation for the next item as well okay mayor for jim davis so thank you diana diana and i understand you know we've got kind of different interests here the city has the the land the chamber has the building that they they built at their cost some years ago um understand how we got to the the 50 50 split um a final sales contract i mean this is we're just talking about the listing right now the final sales contract would eventually come before both the city and the chamber is that correct that is correct yes thanks very much and i have a question on the next item but only when we once we call it thanks okay questions for staff councilmember melzer oh i'm sorry yeah i got it yeah i'm trying to understand the sort of balance of benefits this part of it looks like it's tilted very much in our favor in that and this is all kind of a question uh in that i think probably the land value is less than half of the combined land and improvements if you were to look at it in an appraisal would you agree with that yes that is correct so that's kind of favorable to us uh the great you've agreed and then i just want to understand in and i know it's part of the next item but they're they're related so i'm kind of looking at our precaution here is is it connected with the lease of space in the in the uh development building and is that at sort of better than market terms to the chamber we did not have an appraisal of the the lease space um based on what staff was able to observe from from leases in the area um it is on the lower end of the range um probably by a few dollars per square foot so if we you know could do some like rough air math to say in the range of x dollars total annually uh you'd be able to you know kind of let me do a little quick math okay we'll look the other way thank you less than less than five thousand dollars per year i would say if you're looking at 1600 uh square feet um and you know we've seen market rents around 1400 round 14 dollars per square foot and we're we are leasing this space at 11 per square foot some of the um spaces that we have seen at 14 are are um individual tenants and not um a space similar to what the um chamber occupies uh in the development services center with with other departments and with the city and so forth well just you know kind of uh feeling my way through this but if we uh we're getting a more equitable share of the proceeds of the sale based on land value you know might that be something like certainly a hundred thousand dollars less maybe than we're expecting to get so you know just for rough math it'd be 20 years worth of the benefit that they would be expecting in terms of favorable rent you follow where i'm going i mean what i'm saying is a good thing good thing for the city seems anyway did you follow my air math somewhat right let me let me slow down uh we're probably getting more out of the sale than we would have if it were split up based on land value and improvement value i would say that sounds accurate um and additionally knowing that the city would not receive the benefit of the building ownership for another 27 years if the chamber were to stay in its place for the full uh turn yeah now without having made you split up the baby and said and to say how much is the land value how much is the um improvements and then that future right but i'm thinking comfortably we're getting an extra and i threw out a number hundred thousand dollars more than we might if it were if the proceeds were divided based on land value only that is possible um i'm sorry i have i have not looked i don't know it's a lot to ask you to do um you know i'm on an improvisational basis but but i mean i think order of magnitude that's you know that's uh low a reasonable and low guess and if you look at sort of an extra hundred thousand for argument's sake coming to the city out of the proceeds and an extra five thousand a year in value because of favorable rent to the chamber that my point is it would take them 20 years to equal the benefit that we're getting you know and it's probably more than that that's it makes sense to me that's the important part all right thank you mayor pro tem sorry i was just going to say every the whole exercise paul just went through is exactly why you say 50 50 at the outset and you don't get into the math you uh we realize that it is extremely close to 50 50 and we go with 50 50 okay uh others councilman marmotor i was wondering if you could speak to uh whether or not uh council and i'm sorry uh the city staff and uh chamber considered the possibility of the city buying uh the the building you know prior uh prior to uh the the last discussion we had on on this topic um that may have been a brief consideration but uh it it never came to fruition and i don't think that was anything that was ever presented to the council for consideration council member orator are you speaking about the uh the uh chamber's building yes yeah okay if there was any consideration of that i know it wasn't presented to council i'm just just curious about we we looked at that um very very briefly before we even thought about uh the the deal we came up with quite frankly that building is not in very good shape at all and um the reason we asked for an easement is because of the needs for us as we do some construction later on capital improvements the other thing is uh there is a um it is you know there is a area there that's in the flood zone and so it was not of uh benefit to us as the city the benefit really comes from the partnership that we're being we're able to create by having them in the same building and the opportunity to work directly with development services permitting for for businesses development and then of course economic development so it was really more we focused more on that partnership than we did on trying to buy that infrastructure which even erica the executive director said the building is in really bad shape okay thank you and that's my understanding too so um i so i take it then that there wasn't an assessment you know a value assessment of the building done because it didn't get to that point but the building being in in poor shape we don't know we we yeah go ahead deanna yes we did appraise the building yeah okay and that and that same that's the same prize for appraisal that's included in this 50 50 splitting up of the land and the building together it started at the appraised amount the listing broker did also provide his valuation or his opinion of what the list price should be and so we we also included what was not included in the appraisal was the chambers property and so once you add all of that together the listing agent was able to come up with the recommended list price of 995 okay any other questions for staff okay okay councilman johnson so diana what we're getting here is a bargain and not only are we getting a bargain but we're getting a connection and it it appears that the chamber is gifting the city yeah there is a mutual benefit yes to to the agreement and the next item which would be for listing the property for sale yes thank you okay uh and and diana is it now that you could speak on how the listing agent was selected what that process was or is that that should i wait till the next item we may want to have that on the next item but i i don't know if that's a legal question or not yeah well just because it mentions in both so i i don't know it says right and this item to be decided it says we agreed that that's the listing agent am i wrong or is that just in the presentation um i want to call the next item as well mayor since there's going to be overlapping questions okay so let me let me do that um so i'll call item 2b which is id 21529 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton authorizing the interim city manager to execute a listing agreement with uh access realty group of denton inc all right yes so the presentation is the same presentation i don't think you want me to go over it again but i'm happy to do so if you do um no but to answer your your question about how the listing broker was selected um uh staff contacted the chamber we wanted to make sure that we um were in mutual agreement on a broker we contacted uh the chamber and they provided a list of brokers um that were also members and um access was the first one on the list okay got it uh and and and it's important to note it's their building right so the chamber has i'm assuming uh a lot of discretion in that way because it's we own the ground they own the building yes okay great um okay any other questions for staff on either a or b mayor pro tem thank you mayor that that was my basic question as well but i i want to make sure i'm sure the answer is yes but just so we have a full understanding i want to make sure that um are there any additional boxes that we needed to check on the city side and from a procurement standpoint um you know any additional rules that we needed to follow or that we did we did follow in selecting the listing agent i don't have any kind of real problem with the chamber kind of taking the lead on selecting the agent seeing is their position in this but i just want to what did we need to do on the city side to make sure that uh we went through any internal policies we have for selecting an agent or uh any statutory things that we have to do anything like that so statue statutorily um staff went by um the the property code and um and so we the code authorizes um a municipality to list their property for sale um using a broker um we that's that's the extent i guess of of my um comments on that right but do we do we have any internal policies that you know for professional services you know from time to time will be asked to approve you know an approved list for instance of folks with particular professional background professional services that they're going to render for the city did we have to do anything like that for this one or have we have we done everything we need to do by bringing it up to the council and having this conversation and i'll uh recognize uh mr city attorney no i was just going to ask the answer the question that mayor pro tem would ask i mean cities sell property either by you know soliciting bids or by actually entering into a contract with a with a listing broker which is allowed by state statute um the question that you asked about whether we have any specific uh internal procurement manual uh policy or procedures on how to select a listing broker i'm not aware of that i'm not saying it doesn't exist but i don't know if the purchasing manager is here that could answer that question okay miss miss city manager do we know if the procurement department's on the call i don't think so but david's on there that he may be able to answer that question okay david we're counting on you yeah christine's not on right now but no we don't have any separate process for the listing agent um just as erin mentioned we have the authority to move forward and really treat it really treat it like a professional service so um didn't have to go through any other process other than bringing it to council today okay mayor pro tem is that no that's just fine i had no i had no issue with the agent selected or the the fact that the the chamber um weighed in the way that they did in the selection of the agent i just wanted to make sure we were having that conversation whenever we um the the contract that we're being asked to approve the listing agreement rather with the agent is a you know the standard six percent commission so i just want to make sure we have that conversation when something like this comes up okay thank you uh okay so any other questions for staff if not i'll take a motion seeing none okay so this is item a uh mayor pro tem i'll move approval of item a okay uh is there a second council member johnson a second thank you we have a motion by mayor pro tem davis and a second by council member johnson uh further discussion okay so this is item a we're voting on to approve and uh mayor pro tem davis how say you aye uh council member johnson aye council member melter aye council member baker uh council member armature no because i would have preferred this property be preserved for public use got it council member ryan aye uh mayor hutsmith is a aye as well that passes six to one that takes us to item b uh i'll take uh any additional questions for staff okay then i'll take a motion mayor hutsmith to move approval uh is there a second mayor pro tem yeah i'll second i uh i would have moved approval but you beat me to draw sorry uh so we have a motion by myself a second by mayor pro tem uh davis any other discussion seeing none uh okay then voting so item b we're voting to approve and so uh mayor hutsmith is a aye mayor pro tem aye okay uh council member melter aye council member baker uh okay council member armature no okay council member johnson aye council member ryan aye okay and that passes six to one as well thank you uh diana okay that concludes our special call meeting items that takes us to concluding items any concluding items council member melter and then council member armature yeah the thin line film festival is wednesday through sunday it is for the second year in a row all virtual and all free but i encourage you to see some locally curated international documentaries and i'll be hosting some of the filmmaker q and a's so i'll see you there excellent that's great thank you for that uh council member armature yes uh this has been a really difficult week uh for the family of daria's tarver so i just want to uh offer my my condolences um and my solidarity uh with the family and friends of daria's tarver this week okay okay thank you very much that uh and then i will point out that we do have the comprehensive plan the 2040 plan that public event and so those watching please uh register for that that's thursday the 25th at 6 p.m uh so you can kind of weigh in on what you think uh denton should look like in what would that be 20 years so uh that's really important to kind of make sure we're shaping and growing the way you would uh anticipate so please be heard on on that opportunity uh anyone else any other announcements okay seeing none i will conclude this evening's meeting at uh 642 odds change it's 643 p.m it is still march 23rd 2021 uh everyone have a great evening and uh so no meeting next week right that's right yep so enjoy your break in action We'll see you in a couple of weeks. Thank you.