Apr 13, 2021 City Council on 2021-04-13 3:00 PM (SPECIAL CALLED MEETING)

Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. Today is April 13th, 2021, the times 301. We do have a quorum, so I will call the special call meeting of the Denton City Council to order. We do not have any calls from the public, so that will take us to questions on the consent agenda. Mayor Pro Tem Davis. I just had what I think is a quick question on item C, the website design and hosting. Okay. And there, Sarah, I'll go ahead and pose the question. I'm curious about just what exactly the scope of work is for this group. And if we're redesigning the website, is there a lot of the website architecture that will stay the same? And this is kind of a kind of a facelift, kind of change in style sheets and that kind of stuff. Or is this kind of a top to bottom redesign, Frankenstein together, what you can save and what you can't is just completely redesigned. If it's that, it seemed a little bit on the low end, what we're going to pay for this. Sure. So Sarah Keckler, Chief of Staff, I'll try to answer the best I can. Sarah Fullwood, who is our Digital Strategies Coordinator, is not available right now. But if you have additional questions, I can have her follow up. So this would be a total brand new website for the City of Denton. So it would be for the cost of designing a new website and then for those future years, ongoing hosting and maintenance of that website. So we did a competitive procurement process, had a lot of responses, went through the interview process and we selected Civic Plus due to a number of reasons, but one of them being just their content management system and the ability to design this website, be able to do some different design functions that we haven't been able to do, but still make it easy to manage and efficient to manage. And also just a lot of other pluses to dealing with a vendor that has a lot of experience in municipal government websites. They've really worked with I think over 4,000 clients. So they've been able to develop quite a robust product at an efficient price. Okay. And any other questions for staff on the consent agenda? Seeing none, one more time. Okay. I'll just echo what you said, Sarah, that Civic Plus has grown kind of internally and they've also assumed other companies, Romulus is one that they assumed early on. And so they have some technologies and kind of some pooling of resources that makes them pretty unique. So thank you. I'm excited to see what that yields. Okay. Well, that concludes that item. So then that'll take us to number three on our work session reports on the agenda. And I'll call the first item, which is item AID 202553, receive report, hold discussion and give staff direction regarding audit project 019-municipal court payments. Hello, Mayor and City Council, I'm Madison Rocha, Denton City Auditor. I'm going to share my screen. Hello. All right. And yeah, I'm here to present our findings from our audit of the city's municipal court payments. So this audit generally evaluated Denton's municipal court's fines and fees collection process in order to provide assurance that payments are effectively collected and municipal funds are adequately safeguarded. In general, the municipal court is responsible for processing and disposing of citations issued by the city's public safety agencies. And that process is kind of illustrated on the slide. This audit generally reviewed the last step of the municipal court payments process, including the efficiency of citation processing to assess fines and fees, the effectiveness of cash handling procedures and safeguarding of access to the case management system. So I'll begin by discussing the assessment of citation fines and fees. So citations issued by the city's public safety agencies must be transmitted to the municipal court in order for fines and fees to be assessed, as shown in the figure. Defendants are directed to wait five days after receiving a citation before contacting the municipal court to begin the case adjudication process. In general, we found that all citation information is accurately transferred to the municipal court's case management system for assessment. About 97% of citations are issued using an electronic ticket reader. These electronic citations are typically uploaded from the ticketing system into the case management system each day by the municipal court administration division. Based on a sample review of 30 electronic citations, we found that the majority were uploaded into the case management system in a timely manner. The remaining citations are issued manually. So a copy must be delivered to the municipal court administration division by the public safety agency so that it can be entered into the case management system. Based on a review of 60 manual citations, about half were entered into the case management system in a timely manner. This process appears to have been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as the average number of days it took to assess citation fines and fees for manual citations almost doubled from 2019 to 2020. So it's important to ensure that citations are assessed in a timely manner as delays may negatively impact defendants who must make decisions about how they dispose of their case. In addition, we found that there is currently no process in the city to ensure all issued manual citations are delivered to the municipal court for assessment. So citations that are not delivered may result in delays in the judicial process or could potentially be abused. So based on their management response, the municipal court admin division plans to work with the Denton Police Department and other public safety agencies to expedite the submission of manual citations. In addition, the Denton Police Department plans to develop a process to record manual citations that are issued corrected or voided to help ensure that all of these citations are appropriately submitted to the court. Next, we found that most cash handling procedures were appropriate, however, additional supervision over certain areas was needed. Specifically, we found that payments collected and processed on site as well as cash on hand were adequately safeguarded using cash bags and a safe. We did find that drop payments or payments that are received in the mail or in a drop box were only retrieved and processed by one court representative. And allowing one representative to process these payments increases the risk of theft or error as there's no one actively witnessing the payment processing. Court representatives are required to log all payments received in the mail. However, this log can be easily altered, potentially allowing for a representative to change the form after a supervisor has verified it. Similarly, while the court uses security cameras, this doesn't fully mitigate the associated risk of theft, especially for received cash. On the other hand, we found that the court has appropriate procedures to reconcile, verify and report payments received for a daily deposit. Specifically, each court representative reconciles their received payments with the case management system each day, and this reconciliation is verified by a different court representative. The court supervisor then prepares a daily deposit report based on these reconciliations and includes payments made online as well as those received from the collection agency. This report is then sent to accounting so that they can verify it with the actual deposit received in the bank. So we found that based on a sample review of 30 daily deposit reports, all collected fines and fees were properly recorded in the case management system and accurately reported to accounting. In addition, we found that all 12 randomly selected collection agency payment reports were properly verified and recorded. However, information about the process to refer cases to the collection agency was not available on the city's website. So without this information, it may be more difficult for defendants to determine if they're being appropriately charged for outstanding fines and fees because the collection agency is allowed by law to charge defendants up to 30% of the fines due as a collection fee. So I should note that the city has not sent any new cases to the collection agency since March of 2020 because in general, cases are sent about 90 days after a warrant has been issued and no warrants have been issued since then in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, although I believe they're starting to do that again in the last few months. Occasionally, the municipal court admin division must also refund a defendant if they've overpaid their fines or fees or if their posted bond amount exceeds the amount that's actually due. So based on a review of 23 refunds processed between March of 2020 and February of 2021, eight were inappropriately approved, in particular four were verified by the preparer's subordinate and the others were not verified at all. Based on discussion with municipal court admin division staff, these refunds were inappropriately reviewed due to staffing issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but still the division should continue to ensure refunds are appropriately approved to minimize risk of fraud. And last thing about cash handling, the municipal court allows defendants to set up a payment plan to pay their fines and fees. These plans are a best practice as they give the defendants more flexibility, however, they have to be properly approved and adequately documented and regularly monitored in order to be effective. We found that the municipal court judge has set up guidelines to allow the municipal court administration division to administer these payment plans and based on a sample of 30 active payment plans all had been appropriately approved and were administered per the judges' guidelines. So based on their management response, the division plans to update procedures to address all the risks that we identified in the cash handling process, which really weren't that significant just to make it clear, because I know that was a lot of information. So finally, once the citation is delivered to the municipal court, it's tracked and updated in the court's case management system. In order to ensure that citations are effectively disposed, the city must appropriately safeguard access to the system. In particular, access should be restricted to only those with a valid business purpose and should be limited based on the user's responsibilities. In addition, entries made in the system should be monitored through supervisor review. We found that access to the city's municipal court management system is appropriately based on each user's responsibilities. In addition, while access for new users was adequately approved, there was no process to formally document this approval. Similarly, there was no process to periodically verify if users still needed access to the system. So based on a review of the case management users during March of 2021, we identified four individuals with access that were no longer employees of the city. But it should be noted that while this does pose a risk, the case management system is a desktop-based licensed application. So the program has to be installed on a user's system for them to take advantage of this inappropriate access. Finally, while fine and fee payment entries are generally adequately reviewed and approved, the municipal court admin division does not have a formal process for reviewing and monitoring updates made to citation cases or adjustments made to fines and fees by system users. According to the division staff, this supervision is being performed as necessary by one of the court supervisors, however, formally documenting this process would help ensure updates and adjustments are accurate and appropriate, as well as help ensure that these quality control processes are performed consistently in the future. So based on the received management response, the municipal court admin division is going to create and update their standard operating procedures as needed to ensure monitoring processes are documented appropriately. So in summary, we issued a total of 12 recommendations, all of which were concurred. Based on the division's management responses, we believe the identified risks will be adequately addressed, and we recommend that the audit project be closed until a follow-up review is performed in six to 18 months. That's all I have for the presentation. Thank you, Madison. The mayor had to step away for just a moment, so I'm going to chair for just a sec here. Questions for Madison? Councilmember Armantar? So first, a compliment, and then just a basic practical question. Thank you for this audit, really important audit. So glad we have a city auditor. I continue to not take that for granted. A practical question that might sound silly, but how can you explain how you're able to determine that access was being properly granted if there was no documentation of that process? So there were emails, so we could review some of those emails where somebody would say we need this access. And also looking at the individual's job descriptions, if there's a court representative, they should have access to the case management system because they need that to do their job. I think what we recommend is having that approval documented a little better, especially for people outside of the court, like people in the police department and things like that. Okay, thank you so much, and that clarifies it. So in other words, it's not that there's no documentation, but it's just an inconsistent documentation. But you were able to find every granting of access documented in some way or another. Correct. But just without a formal process, which would streamline it and make it easy for you to check out. And formal documented processes so that you can easily refer to them in case there's turnover and things like that. Excellent. I agree. That sounds great. Other questions? Oh, there's the mayor. Here's the baton. Thank you very much. So any other questions for staff? Okay, seeing none. Thank you, Madison. I appreciate it. Thank you. That will take us to the second item, 3B, which is ID 21384, Receive Report, Hold Discussion and Give Staff Direction regarding a mid-year update for the Denton Economic Development Partnership. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Jessica Rogers, Director of Economic Development. And here with me is Corey Lacey. Corey is the Vice President of Economic Development for the Chamber of Commerce, and we'll be doing this very short presentation, but we've got a lot of exciting news and things to share with you guys. So we're going to jump right in. Let me share my screen. All right. All right. So our goal today is just to provide Council with an update on our or give you a mid-year update on where we are with our FY 2021 partnership agreement with the Denton Chamber of Commerce. As background, you'll remember that last summer we worked through a number of issues with the Chamber, and we came up with a new partnership agreement that was focused on aligning our strategy and our work efforts with what was going to be incorporated into the Economic Development Strategic Plan. So our goal here was to create shared goals and objectives that each team could work through together as a singular team. We wanted to increase and improve communication between the two agencies, remove those barriers to success, foster a sense of trust and transparency, and really focus on clearly defining our work areas and who was going to be the project leads on different components and making sure that we were focused on executing the strategies that we identified in the Economic Development Strategic Plan. And so the key terms of that agreement were making that clear definition and focus areas, creating those new work plans. And then just the general terms, it was a one-year agreement where we have an option for a one-year extension. The city contributes $125,000. The Chamber's goal is to raise $125,000 through private investments. And then as you saw in your packet today, you have the second of our newly rebranded quarterly comprehensive report that covers the efforts from both sides, both city and Chamber efforts. But really, again, our focus is on one team and it's all of us working together in economic development and sharing our wins and successes with everyone. So back last summer, we came up with these new focus areas and they were incorporated into the agreement. So the city takes the lead on the incentive negotiation policy and administration, the sort of fiscal and economic impact analysis, and particularly business retention and expansion with some assistance from the Chamber. The Chamber takes the lead on those recruitment, marketing, attraction functions, building those relationships with developers in local industry. But we also participate with the Chamber in some of those Chamber-led initiatives. And then we really work together on some of our cooperative efforts. And that means it takes everyone, sometimes not just me and Corey and our whole teams, but other organizations working together with us on our regional coordinations, our partnerships, engaging with the community, developing a workforce to support our businesses, and then focusing on that strategic plan implementation. And so with that, I'm going to toss it over to Corey to go through the contract performance section. Thank you, Jessica. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. With several areas to touch on here, we have, as Jessica mentioned, relationship building with developers and brokers and businesses is one of our major focuses. To that end, I've taken great amounts of time to try and meet with as many development community partners as I can, both inside and outside of the city of Denton, just about just trying to get them to understand what an opportunity we have here within the city to grow this community from a business standpoint. I've also had several conversations with Workforce Solutions. As you know, one of the biggest things for economic development and attracting new business is the workforce. And having the opportunity to have Workforce Solutions in North Central Texas, as well as the three colleges here in Denton, gives us a leg up on workforce development and having a talent pool. So we want to take advantage of that and we are developing some opportunities to do that. From a marketing standpoint, again, just kind of selling Denton to the brokerage community, being active in several organizations, doing some advertising in some targeted marketing areas. And just appearing on podcasts, just trying to be informative to the local business community as well. That's a huge part of our marketing effort is to get that information out locally. From a training standpoint, we've attended several conferences, participated in the 2040 Conference of Plan Stakeholder Meetings, you know, that's in addition to being paramount for the entire city, it's something that from an economic development standpoint, we want to make sure that our business community and everyone has an opportunity to have a say in those planning sessions. On the business recruitment and attraction, to say that we have been busy is probably an understatement. We at the end of the second quarter, we have 44 active projects and we're a finalist for three projects, Project Rodeo, Project Jupiter, and Project UHTBM, and as of late last week, we also found out we're a finalist for another project, and I'm in the process of trying to schedule a site visit for that project as we speak. And we've been able to close two projects as one. We closed Lowe's in the first quarter, that distribution facility should open up late quarter two, and it's about 100 employees, and we also closed EMLS expansion, EMLS is a local company that is a supplier to Peterbilt. They took seven locations here in Denton and combined them as part of an expansion into a 400,000 square foot new building. So that's a good success story for the local businesses, and it shows that economic development's more about, it's not just about bringing new businesses to town, it's nurturing the ones that we already have and helping them expand. Lastly, kind of from a networking standpoint, I've met with about 40% of the ED investors, mostly through Zoom meetings, but I'm seeing more and more that are comfortable with doing it in person. We held a virtual ED investors event on February 4th where Jessica and I rolled out the economic development strategic plan. We are going to have another one on May 12th. It's going to be an in-person event, and the topic's going to be healthcare, and we're going to have the two presidents of the local hospital, as well as Matt Richardson, Denton County Health Administrator, to kind of give a business and health update regarding the impact of their hospitals and their business sector in the community. We've also secured some new investors. You can see the list there, and we're working on several more. The outpouring of support from the business community for the economic development partnership is pretty amazing here in Denton, and I think that's one of the unique things about being here. Some key updates real quick. We were able to implement our project management system and the CRM system, and that's a joint system we all have access to, both on the chamber side and on the city side. We completed the economic development strategic plan. We created the economic development work group, and that group is meeting monthly, and it serves as a very good opportunity to keep people informed about what's going on with this cooperative effort. We relocated to the Development Services Center. Having the chamber and the city economic development teams sit so closely together has allowed for a new type of collaboration, and it's going to make our whole team stronger because of that. As you have seen in your packet, we have a new joint quarterly report. We're really one team and one joint team that's focused on communication and coordination and selling Denton to people inside and outside the community. As far as our performance, this kind of gives you a little bit more of a breakdown on where we have been so far this year. We received 79 RFIs on projects that could be active here in Denton of those. We've responded to 41. The remainder of those, for a number of different reasons, we have not been able to respond to were just not a good fit. For example, some of them don't want to go to an area that's in a non-attainment area. Well, that kind of knocks us out there from the beginning. We've had three site visits. We've been shortlisted five times with one, two projects, and you can kind of see on down the line there where we're at, but again, we've been really busy in a positive manner. All right, and I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing the screen and just let council know that there's a lot of information in our quarterly reports. We have additional information that we're distributing through the Economic Development Partnership Board. Sometimes, we include that information in your Friday reports when it has sort of a more global impact, and with that, we'll just see if you have any questions for us. Thank you. Questions for staff? Council Member Johnson, and then Council Member Armitage. And the connecting with the Workforce Solution, is it designed to connect potential employees with, you know, potential employees with the people that are listed here on the, as going to be partnering with the city and with the Chamber? Is that what the Workforce Connection is? I'll let Corey answer that one. So, in a nutshell, yes, we're working with Workforce Solutions to try and connect them with anyone in the business community that needs to add talent, as we are working with the universities to do the same. Trying to keep as many people that are here in Denton, whether they live here or they're going to school here, let them be able to work here too, because that's an improvement for their quality of life rather than having to commute. And I'll call your attention to page five of the quarter two report. It has the header that says Workforce Education and Training, and in that we have a partner highlight where we talk about the work that Workforce Solutions of North Central Texas does. And then in a section where we talk about the Denton business allies, there's actually a key win that our group was able to facilitate by getting the University of North Texas talking to Workforce Solutions of North Central Texas, that we were able to get some people placed at jobs at UNT. Great. Great. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Armitage. Yes. So I have a question for you about what EDP's vision is for an industrial development in Denton and how, in your sense of how that fits into our 2030 plan, which is that you surely know is being updated now into a 2040 plan, particularly regarding industrial proposed industrial development on the loop. So Council Member, I think that's a great question. So are we take our guidance from the economic development strategic plan that it's identified enhancing the West Park industrial area and continuing development in that area. We've also started the groundwork to identify some future industrial potential development and both Corey and I and our teams are involved in the Denton plan 2040 effort. And so we're having those ongoing conversations to try and identify what that future development is. But certainly we're taking our guidance from what's identified in the strategic plan. Awesome. And thank you so much for that, that Jessica, I would love to hear, you know, if Corey has anything to add to that. I saw recently a couple emails from you as VP of the economic development partnership board kind of advocating for industrial development on the loop area and expressing concern about that. And if you might want to elaborate on that from your perspective and how that fits into the EDP vision. Absolutely. Thank you for the question. We had at one point looked at that area as potential industrial development in the future. I've had many conversations with Shula since then and it, you know, we are wanting to participate in their comprehensive planning process, their conceptual planning process that they're about to start on that area and determine the best use for that going forward, whether that's industrial, whether that's office, whether that's headquarters, you know, we're open to participating in that process and making sure that we determine the best use for the city of them. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll just say just add to that. I really like what you know what Jessica was was mentioning about kind of the focus on industrial in the west side of town. But anyway, I appreciate you're answering that question. All right. Any other questions for staff. Councilman Meltzer. Thank you for that report and, you know, the upbeat energy coming from the collaboration is very evident. I'm wondering if there are any sort of other trends you picked up on over the last period of activity. Obviously, you know, it's different times, but you mentioned that, you know, we make a pitch about, we may make a pitch about Denton being an attractive place to continue having a good lifestyle while you telecommute elsewhere, I mean, are prospects responding to different things than they used to? I know it's kind of hard to tell with the process, the way you go through it. I don't know that they're responding to things differently than they used to. I do think that the market has been reshaped by the pandemic. And there are several things from the industrial side that that have changed. You're seeing a larger focus on warehouse distribution and e commerce because e commerce as part of sales was about 13% of the entire growth sales in 2019 and jumped up to 30% in 2020. So that has caused a huge shift in that sector. Additionally, the pandemic also brought about the fact that a lot of our manufacturing is overseas and getting those products here was a tremendous problem and the system is still backlogged to a great extent. And a good example of that is construction material pricing. So you're seeing a lot of manufacturing reshoring opportunities as well that are good high paying high tech jobs. And you're also seeing a lot of big expansion in cold storage and that goes back to the online grocery ordering that started during the pandemic. There's just not enough cold storage in this country to to handle what's going on right now and I'll even add further to that. The Dallas Fort Worth market in general is the number one industrial market in the country. We plan to deliver about 28 million square feet of industrial buildings this year. The next closest competitor is Phoenix, Arizona and they're delivering about 18 million square feet. So this market from an industrial standpoint is is very popular right now and didn't in a great place because of our location and our logistical advantages. Yeah. So much of what you said seems to play right into our strengths. Thank you. Any other questions for for staff? Okay, and just one point of clarification, Corey, can you kind of give the elementary school version of non-obtain attainment area you mentioned that disqualifies us just for those watching so that they kind of understand what what that entails? Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor, I'd be happy to do that. A non-obtainment area is a designation by the Environmental Protection Agency that is given out to certain areas in the country from an air quality standpoint and Denton is lumped into the Dallas Fort Worth non-obtainment area. So it's not something that is Denton specific, it's it's more of a regional thing. Okay, and that just means you have to have a certain they want to be in a certain area with a certain grade, if you will. Yes, sir, they don't want to be in an area that's a non-obtainment area because at the end of the day, they're permitting processes and they're reporting processes and everything else are a lot stricter in those areas. So that increases their cost of doing business. Perfect. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Any other questions for staff? Seeing none. Thank you very much, Jessica and Corey. Alright, that'll take us to item C, which is ID 21499 Receive Report and hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding a request for a resolution of the City of Denton stating no objection to the Jess Development or is it JES Development Company Inc. for 4% housing tax credit application to Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs for proposed new construction of Pebblebrook Parkside Apartments in Denton to provide affordable rental housing. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Danny Shaw, Community Services. Before I share the screen, I wanted to also let council members know that the developer and some of their representatives are also on the call should there be questions at the end of the presentation. Alright, as a reminder and background for council, this is an application for our housing tax credit program. This project is interested in reaching out for housing tax credit application to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. There are two different types of applications that they can make to TDHCA, the 4% non-competitive and the 9% competitive. This particular application is for the 4% program. In the 9% program, they are competitive and they are awarded points based on their support from the local community. In the 4% program, the request today is for a resolution of no objection and that is a threshold document, meaning if they do not receive this document, they cannot apply to TDHCA for the 4% housing tax credits. This is based on a policy that council approved back in May of 2018. And just as another reminder, this conversation today is strictly about the development request for project funding through TDHCA. All of the other development items will be covered through the development review process with PNZ and city council. The project did provide a map of the multifamily locations around its particular project area. So this shows it within a two mile radius, what multifamily projects are available from market rate, those that are subsidized through the affordable housing program or housing tax credits, and those that are senior living. There's also a map provided here of the location. As you can see, it's near Luke 288 and McKinney and Dutchess. This particular project, we do provide information from the project applicant about their experience doing affordable housing projects. So the developer is JES. They do have experience creating 120 communities over 5,000 residential units and their average occupancy is over 95%. The construction company is proposed to be Fairway Construction. They also have experience with over 200 apartment communities across 10 states with another 5,000 units in their portfolio. And then this project will be managed by Alpha Barns Real Estate Inc, a full service management company with additional units across Texas and the United States. The project itself is on nine acres. It is proposed to be multifamily. Their current design development is 216 units with mixed income between 50 and 70% of area median income. It is currently zoned suburban corridor. This does require a specific use permit for multifamily. They did apply on February 9th and are working through the review process before that application goes in front of PNZ. This particular project, the tax status on it, they will be subject to property taxes fully and expect to stay on the tax rolls fully. Just a quick overview of what they're proposing in the design. Again, these things can change in the development process, but we do want to provide a view to council as they're considering their housing tax credit application. They're proposing six three-story buildings, one one-fourth story with an elevator. The property is projected to have a 3,200 square foot clubhouse. The unit size that they're currently proposing is between 746 square feet and 1,188 square feet. As you can see, the proposed bedroom mix is here as well. Out of that 216 units, a mix between one bedrooms and three bedrooms. Again, the income restrictions set for this project as it's currently proposed is between 50 and 70%. That means the projected rents based on the AMI calculations would set their rents at around $753 to $1,793 depending on the unit size and mix. You can see the graphic here that is provided in the application by the applicant. This project is expected to be affordable for 30 years if approved. With that, the options to council to approve the resolution on April 27th, we'll bring it back if council approves or to not approve the resolution. Okay questions for staff and again, this is the funding mechanism component. That's the focus. So Council Member Melton, Council Member Armature. Thank you. Danny, would you kindly step through for our benefit to the public? The calculation of the affordability of these particular rents and how that would compare to market rent, market rate rent? Right. So there's a calculation based headsets, the area median income for a local community and then the rents are calculated based on affordability at 30% of that income for a household based on the household size. But, I mean, just more concretely, the rent is X in this project, so that's going to be 30% of somebody's income and what might the rent be if it wasn't an affordable? I'm sorry to have a slide that might be helpful that just kind of have hidden in the presentation if that would help you. Yeah, well, I think it'd be helpful a year ago, Mayor Watts would have probably said, the rent is X. Does anybody think that that's an affordable rent? We have a discussion about that, but you probably already have that, you know, the ability to answer that question. Well, it just depends on the size of the unit and the income of the household. So it would be a longer conversation to be able to explain all of that, but as you heard from the affordable housing consultants at $900 was considered unaffordable to people at 50% of AMI or below. So when you're looking at units between $743 and $1,700, it does depend on the household's income, whether or not they can afford that rent. Okay. Any other questions, Councilman Maitzler? Well, I don't mean to be like a pill about it, but if you give like one clear example, you know, and follow it through, that would help me imagine it would help others as well. I'd be happy to show you the slide if that would be helpful. Yeah, that would be great. And then if you could use that to just give, you know, one example, a household and income, "Therefore, why is this affordable and what would they pay, you know, at market?" Right, HUD provides a calculator for these particular projects. So if someone is making 30% of AMI in their one person household, they're bringing in an AMI average of $1,800 a year. So if you look down at the bottom graphic, that same person at 30% would only be able to afford a unit that is $453 and that's 30% of their income. So that would be affordable at $453. This project starts out at $753, $743. So that would be affordable for someone at 40% of AMI in a two bedroom unit at the starting amount for their particular, sorry, their particular income level. So if you're at 30% of the median, this would not be affordable, but if you're at 40%, it would. Correct. And that's why they're proposing the units at 50 to 70%. So you can see $755 for a one bedroom, I'm sorry, for a zero bedroom for one person household would be affordable. And I'm sorry, remind me, 50% of AMI means about what income? 50% AMI for a one person household would be $30,200. This is based on HUD's limit of four person household at $86,200. Okay, so just to restate it, worm's eye view, if a single person's making 30, they ought to be able to pay $750 a month rent and these are targeted at that, but without this structure, they're more likely to run into $900 a month rent, something like that. Right, if you're looking at 100% of AMI, that would be someone who's making the actual estimated area median income, $1,510 would be what they could afford, so that's what this is reflecting here. You're saying that the market tends to reflect 100% of the median? The market actually is variable, it doesn't always reflect that. It's based on market conditions in the city of Denton versus what might be affordable at 100% AMI. So if there's higher occupancy and there's less units available, prices can go up just in the simple supply and demand view of the market rates and how they're set by the apartments. And they actually change from month to month, so even keeping up with those variable rates takes a little bit of time for the data to reflect it. And then AMI and affordability is usually about three years behind in the HUD calculation, so not seeing the full market rate impact. Do we think at this time with $750 a month, one bedrooms are hard to find? I mean, I don't have an opinion about it. That's correct. I think we would agree that those units would be more difficult to find below the 60% AMI. Thank you very much. All right, Councilmember Armitage. Yeah, first, I just wanted to say that I was pleased to see that there's a plan to work with Grace Like Rain and contract with Grace Like Rain. I made a phone call to Grace Like Rain to confirm that of them, and they were very excited about this project. And so that says a lot for me. I was very pleased to hear that. I was wondering, Danny, if you could speak to, you mentioned affordable for 30 years. If you could just speak to what happens after that 30 years, and if there's anything that can be done by council at this point to ensure affordability after those 30 years. Well, if the applicant is successful in receiving these 4% housing tax credits, then they'll enter an agreement with TDHCA called a land use agreement or LORA, and that would provide those restrictions. And also what happens if the project wants to sell in a future date after 15 years or what happens after the 30 year timeline. We don't specifically have the ability to do anything at that point, but there is a right of first refusal that's offered to the public for the community that is an option. That's not something that's usually public to a city like we would be, but the housing authority would be one of those entities that would be notified of that opportunity. But it is first the team determined to try to stay affordable at the end of its affordability period. If no one steps forward, then it can be sold, and the developer may have additional clarification on that. Excellent, and I hope if it does come to that, I know we're talking hypothetically down the line that someone would step forward because it's so important to preserve our affordable housing. Okay. Any other questions for staff? Okay. Very good. Then thank you. So Danny, you need a, is this coming back to us or do you need a consensus? Right, I would need direction from council whether or not to bring the resolution back to you on the 27th. Perfect. So then let's make it easy. Those that would be against this moving forward to approving this resolution, give an indication. So this would be if you're against this moving forward. Seeing none. One more time. Okay. So that gives you direction you need, Danny. And I would just say kind of in closing, had a similar conversation across Luke 288. It may be good to bird-dog that discussion for the applicant to review that because it's literally same area, just different side of the street. So it would be good to have that as a resource. So thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, that concludes item C. That takes us to item D, which is ID 21662, receive report and hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding the rehabilitation and future use of City Hall West. Good afternoon, mayor, members of council, Scott Gray, director of airport facilities and real estate. Give me a moment to pull up the presentation here. Thank you. Okay, mayor, can you see that? Yes, sir. Okay. Let's move on with the presentation. Just wanted to provide some context for some folks watching this presentation or the new council members. This is several pictures of the outside of City Hall West. The staff has done a few improvements since it was vacated in 2016, including removing of that vinyl sign you see there on the upper left picture, as well as some landscaping improvements around the building. And lastly would be the window replacement is directed by council previously. So all the windows in the building were, were replaced to protect the inside of the facility. This is council may remember, I was presenting the winter storm facilities presentation a number of weeks ago and you can see the unfortunate pictures again here of the City Hall West damage from the fire sprinkler line that broke in the upper ceiling of the third floor and flooded the entire building. Since then we've been coordinating to remove all the water from the building. Staff had done that and then coordinating with risk to address the water damage that took place in the building, not only to the walls and so forth, but there was mold identified in the building that we were trying to get removed. But what we found was there is also pre existing asbestos in the carpeting at the facility. So in order to get the mold removed, we have to remediate the asbestos. So we're working to get that taken care of as quickly as we can so that it doesn't spread any further in the building. Staff is recommending a couple of steps that you see here that we were going to propose following a process that we'll discuss here in a moment in order to continue to protect the inside of the building from any further potential mold or water damage that is unseen in the interior. That is to solicit an RFQ for an architectural firm to help develop the interior demolition plans. So basically remove all of the walls inside the facility down to the studs, similar what we did at Loop 288 facility. That would follow by an RFP for a construction firm to come in and complete that demolition effort. And then lastly, we are coordinating with finance for the funding to get all of that done. Some of that would be covered under the risk policies as a part of the remediation and some of it would not. Now just as some background of the facility itself for those that are unfamiliar, the building was constructed in 1927. It was used as Denton City Hall. It is on both the Texas historic landmark and local historic landmark designation. At the time it was built, the entrance was off Elm Street, which led to an auditorium that served the council chambers and a theater in the building. The west half of the building was used as the fire station. The building was remodeled several times over the years, including for use as the central fire station, a police station, and lastly, it was occupied by the planning department up until 2016. Only a million dollars of maintenance was deferred after it was vacated. You can see the list there. As I mentioned, as directed by council previously, the windows were all replaced and that part of that maintenance was completed again to protect the interior envelope of the building. The conceptual efforts to date, some folks may be familiar with this. I do have on the phone call, if there are questions about the previous process, Charlie Rosendahl from the development department that was involved in this part of the city halls committee and recommendations. With that, I will cover some of these items here quickly. The city did hire ARCA Texas in 2017. They are a premier historic preservation firm in the state of Texas with 39 years of experience in historic buildings. They were looking at accessing the property and providing options and estimated costs for rehabilitation at the time. Those options were presented to the council back in August of 2017 and the council directed staff at that time to eliminate one of the lower options, which was just to restore the exterior of the building. Council also directed staff at the time to create a steering committee to advise the city on rehabilitation of the building. As such, the city hall west steering committee was created in November of 2017, which consisted of 24 members, including three council members at that time, council member Duff, council member Hutzpeth and council member Ryan. The committee met a total of eight times and had one public meeting. In November of 2018, following the recommendation of the committee, the council did provide direction. The recommendation was to follow a conceptual design and business plan based on a multipurpose community cultural center. Additional direction that was provided by council at the time was some minor changes. Again, the window replacement, which has been completed, considered fixed seating versus flex seating, accommodate the old fire truck or engine, and then considered the greater Denton Arts Council as a management option. So staff is proposing the next steps for the council's consideration, solicitation of level of interest. There's actually proposing two steps. It can be reduced to one if council desires, and I'll briefly explain the two options. We are seeking levels of interest and financial commitments from both for-profit and nonprofit entities, with the issuance of a request for information or RFI. That could help identify various space needs, financial commitments, lease terms that those entities would be interested in, et cetera. We did work with our consultant that will be the project manager ultimately on this project peak program value that did recommend that purchasing and staff look at an RFI that the city of Louisville has put out with certainly a different context of what the project is, but a very good template on how to create an RFI to get some information that would be valuable for us to move forward. The RFI again is for gathering information to determine the general feasibility for the renovations of the building and then gathering input of the proposed interest of building management, subleasing, et cetera. No contracts are issued as part of an RFI process, and not participating in an RFI process does not prevent a subsequent submittal on the RFQ process. The RFQ process itself is a request for qualifications. It's a formal request that does require a submittal in order to participate further in the process, and it would be to identify a short list of partners that would be committed to the project based on a very specific selection criteria that staff would be developing following the information provided in the RFI. And I do have the director of procurement, Christine Taylor, available if there's questions specifically about the processes and the pros and cons of such. Again, staff is recommending that we move forward with an RFI process to identify that level of interest and any financial commitment from both profit and nonprofit entities that would help us then develop the specifics that would go into the RFQ for selection criteria, which is very specific scoring criteria. We had anticipate that taking place this May and June to get that information, and then we would come back to the council and present information that we derive from that process and then what the selection RFQ process would be moving forward. In the June to November timeframe, we'd be developing that criteria given the direction from the council. We would then solicit the RFQ for basically public-private partnership to develop that short list of qualified partners. We'd solicit proposals from that short listed qualified partners, and then we'd present that information to the council to determine what the tenants would be and the uses would be in that building moving forward. As a future step, once that is done, staff would then have to solicit an architectural firm for the development of construction documents as we do with all of our renovation projects. And then at the same time, we would discuss with council, the construction methodology, design bid build or construction manager at risk, et cetera, and then move forward with the appropriate process to engage a construction firm. So again, the staff recommendation at this time is to issue an RFI and then the subsequent RFQ to solicit the input on the uses of the building moving forward. And then concurrently, we would solicit the architectural firm and construction firm for the interior demolition. And with that, I would be happy to answer any questions. Okay. Thank you, Scott. I have a question for the staff. Mayor, I think your mic is up. Oh, there you go. Thank you. I was like, oh, you're fantastic. So questions for staff will go Mayor Pro Tem Davis and then Council Member Armitage. Thank you, Scott. I kind of want to start back on the first part of your presentation. I know we're going to have a lot of conversation, I'm sure, about going forward and the kind of the second half of your presentation. But I want to ask first about remediation and demolition. We had engaged and I can't remember the exact contours of the agreement with Arcitexas before, but we had engaged them at a pretty crucial stage of the process. Are we crafting the RFQ for that demolition in such a way that a firm like Arcitexas who's very knowledgeable about these kind of facilities, who's not just going to go in there swinging sledgehammers, knocking down 1920s architecture, is that crafted in such a way that we get a firm like Arcitexas? Or are we even able under our previous agreements with them from a procurement standpoint, are we able to go back to Arcitexas and let them ride herd over this whole demolition remediation process? I mean, I would just feel much more comfortable if somebody of their caliber and qualification was there telling folks what to rip out and what not to. Mayor Pro Tem, yes, we would be certainly crafting the RFQ to select an entity that does have historic building context in their work. Whether we can go back to Arcitexas or not, I would have to defer that to Christine Taylor from procurement if that is an option. But it would be a professional services agreement, and we certainly have some latitude in that. But I think she's on the phone call. She might be able to address that. Yeah, so with the scope change, we definitely would want to put out the new RFQ, and they definitely have the ability to submit a proposal, and then we would rank again on their qualifications. So there's nothing prohibiting them for submitting another request to participate. But the initial scope, we wouldn't go back to them. We'd need to issue a new one. Mayor, can I ask another question? Yes, sir. This is on the second half of your presentation. When we get to actually what use are we going to put the building to, who will occupy it, all those kind of things. When we're putting that RFI together, so just kind of two separate processes. The first RFQ for demolition remediation, second RFI RFQ process for use and occupancy of the building. That second one, when we're putting that RFI together and we send it out, how are we communicating that specifically to folks here in our community? I realize for most procurement projects, we have a database of vendors. We have some different things that we participate in to make sure that all the construction companies know that we're putting out bids, that all the bulldozer people know that we're in the market for bulldozers. But when we're looking for something more specific like this or more unique, I should say, how do we communicate that to the wider world so that community partners know what we're looking for? Certainly. You're right. The typical procurement process is a database of individuals that have a construction or a widget that the city needs, and that's the easiest way to get ahold of them. I know that this certainly has had the newspaper exposure, so there's some information there that folks have had. Staff has met with a number of different entities that has been interested. We certainly can facilitate reaching out to them directly, as well as what was derived from the original process. The participants in that particular process certainly might have still an interest, and we would reach out to them as well. We can certainly work with the Public Information Office to try to find other means to reach out, whether that be social media, et cetera. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Armitage. Yeah. So this is very much in the spirit of Mayor Pro Tem's question about Arcitextus, following up on those answers given to him, can you just confirm, is Arcitextus currently under contract with us still for City Hall West, or has that contract expired? I believe the work that was scoped previously has been completed, so they are no longer under contract. Okay. Well, and thank you. So because of the time that they spent on City Hall West, because this is such a historically valuable building, it's a kind of Sistine Chapel of Denton, and we want to make sure that no mistakes are made in historic preservation as we repair it. And by the way, and I'm glad that there's a proposal to invest in repairing and making those repairs. I strongly support that. My concern is that I would like to see Arcitextus consulted prior even to an RFQ to get their take on what they think should happen and shouldn't happen regarding any kind of repairs to ensure that we're not going to make mistakes that would take us backwards and undo the hard work that was done by this firm to really get to know the building. So is there any possibility of that happening? And if so, I would like to know if there might be direction from council towards that end to have Arcitextus, regardless of whether or not they end up bidding on this project, and I hope they do when it gets to that stage, but to have them do a kind of initial report before we even get to that RFQ stage. Before we do that, Ms. City Manager, can you so that the City Manager can speak succinctly, what is your question? So my question is, can we have Arcitextus do a report based on their previous experience with the building and also have them go in and assess the current damage and kind of do a report on what they see will be needed and what their concerns are about what should not be done in this rehab process? Okay. Mayor and council, I'm going to ask Christine to answer this because there are specific procurement situations here that we have to be really very sensitive to, so I'm going to let Christine answer that. Sure. Hi, Councilmember Armatuer. So we would want, if you're wanting architecture to be involved, we won't want, they wouldn't be allowed to then turn around and submit a bid. So you can have them help with development of the specs and the scope, but then that prevents them from then participating because we don't want to give any unfair advantage to anyone who wants to submit a proposal of their qualifications. But it's definitely an option, but then they would not be able to submit to actually have the contract. Okay, great. Well, you know, in that case, I would like to offer, you know, my direction that we ask them to do that. And then if staff could get back to council, of course, we need a majority consensus for this to give direction for that to happen, but, you know, I would feel much more comfortable if architects had had the opportunity to do that, if they would agree to and choose to do so. If they don't want to, then of course they could go and submit a bid, but it is a fundamental importance to me, given the time they spent on this project, that we involve them at this early stage and go about it the right way. Councilmember Archer, this is Sarah, I think two things. One is we have a very, very in-depth report that I have read in regards to their recommendations the first time. So it really needs to be a decision by council to say, you know, if we have them do this extra work up front, we'll have to pay them number one. Number two, it does eliminate them from being the selected group if we move forward. I might suggest that you let us look at the actual report that they gave us. It's pretty in-depth. It talks about what needs to be preserved. It talks about areas that would need to be, you know, it goes into all detail about all the different infrastructure issues. So we may be able to garner the information you're trying to get to prior to moving on with an open process where architecture could then, you know, be one of the candidates. And thank you, and can I respond to that? Yes. So just with a quick follow-up question. So when you mentioned this report, you're talking about the original report that Architects did, right? So they haven't been to the site and done a report of the damage after the winter storm, correct? No, they haven't done it. They have not been in to do a damage assessment, but the report goes into depth about- Oh, yes, absolutely, yes, no, they did an absolutely in-depth report. I agree. It is excellent. What I'm requesting is that they specifically do a report of the winter storm damage and that they be the ones and, you know, not some other firm to put it together, you know, to put that information together with the information in their previous report and be involved in the process. And if they don't want to, well, number one, if there's not direction for that on council, that's not going to happen. But even if there is, if they're not interested in doing that, then they'll say no. But as far as I'm concerned, I would be willing to invest in that. I agree they would have to get paid. And you know, if they say no, we would rather just submit an RFP, I'm sorry, submit a bid and to actually be the firm that, you know, that would handle this, I'm fine with that too. But it's important to me that it go by them first. So I'm wondering if anyone else on council feels the same. Okay. So, any other questions for staff, Councilman Ryan? Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of other quick notes on here because this has gone on for a number of years and we've had several meetings and it's difficult to pull everything into one presentation, but also recall in about the same timeline that in the 2018 timeline, we were looking at what we were going to put in the 2019 bond package. And one of the items at that point was in addition to City Hall, a fairly large addition to City Hall, due to office needs, spacing needs at the time, we've since done the development services building, which has helped out, you know, as far as space needs there. But the discussion was there of the old city council chambers over there, which was also later used as a theater, that it's important to restore that area and it could be that the city has enough needs or city needs might be at one time period and, you know, the public needs to be used as for presentations or even as a theater, that it would be a multi-use space between us and the public and we would try and get one of our groups to help manage it that we have partnerships with. And it would also make for good office space for where we are already paying for office space for entities like Keep Dentin Beautiful and such. It would kind of be the not a whole city and not all private, but a combination of the two is part of what's been in the discussions throughout the time. And that's kind of what I would like for us to think about moving forward. And I would actually prefer that we do not try and engage architects in the pre-bid process because I want them to have the opportunity to bid on this because I think that they probably are one of the most qualified firms out there to do this work potentially. Councilmember Ryan, you're absolutely right. And I would say to you that we have kind of notes from the previous, when we came before you for when I first, I just first had probably been here about four, five, six months. And so we will package this so that it looks at whether it's a nonprofit that participates in profit for profit or it's a joint effort between the city and one other entity, whether or not we need have needs for housing staff. I mean, there has been discussion, as you mentioned, of a whole section of employees. You know, at one point we talked about economic development going over to this building since it's close to the downtown area and just the economies of scale there and stuff working with our chamber. So absolutely, those are the kinds of things that we will put into a document that goes out and looking at all those types of different options. And I think as part of this, we recognize too, that the meeting space, the previous council chambers needed to be that multi-use type facility for whether it be a city event or a nonprofit event or even for rental purposes by the private sector. Okay. Any other questions or comments for staff? I'm going to check with everyone for our circle back, Councilman Meltzer. Any other first time comments? I haven't spoken yet if you want a first timer. Oh, okay. Yeah, no, I thought I had you down, but by all means, Councilman Meltzer, thank you for the correction. Not at all. I'll just make a suggestion just because with the goal in mind from the committee that it will ultimately be in some form or fashion a cultural center, that we reach out to along with all the other nonprofits, that we reach out to the three universities in town to get this on their radar, they might have some interesting ways that they may want to partner as well. That's an excellent idea. Thanks. Okay. Other questions for... So let me see if there's any others first, Mayor Pro Tem. Any other comments? Questions? Councilmember Johnson. Okay. If Texas has done such a great job and they're the ones that we're looking at, I see no reason to put them in a jeopardy of not being able to be in the project. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Comments for staff? Seeing none. I'll circle back. Yeah. Councilmember Johnson just said it. I think we can craft an RFQ in such a way that it solicits firms that are of the caliber of Arcitexus, that if we need an Arcitexus or similar and we won't settle for anybody of a lower caliber, then we can craft an RFQ that does that. And I would like to see an Arcitexus RFQ before I'd like to see an additional report from them that takes them out of the running later on. If that was a procurement process, I'd just bless them right now. Right? But that's not the process. We need to open it up to all qualified firms. So I'd like to give everybody a shot at that. Okay. Councilmember Marmotor. Yeah. So the risk of being redundant, I'll just reiterate, I appreciate the concern for wanting to have Arcitexus submit a proposal and not wanting to preempt that. It's important to me to leave that up to them because they can always choose not to provide any information in advance if they do wish to submit a bid through the RFQ process. But even though there are other firms that might be like Arcitexus, there is only one firm that did this work on City Hall West. And so I think that it is the best investment of our money currently and the money that we have spent on it already that we hear from them moving forward. I'll also say, and this is a new thing, that I think it's important that staff also consult with the previous City Hall West committee, which as Councilmember Meltzer said, was pretty clear in saying that this should be a public use space for the arts, broadly defined. So I want to make sure that in doing this rehab, there's no going back on that work, no undoing of that work and that consensus that was achieved by that committee. Otherwise, then that was a waste of money and of time. So I want to make sure that we're not redoing that work in a rehab process. Any other questions, comments for staff? Seeing none, I do want to ask Scott if you could help me keep those following along and people that would view this in the future. So let's walk through this one by one. So RFI, because we have a lot of acronyms, so RFI, request for information, right? So can you explain what that process is? Sure. The request for information process would allow us to gather the level of interest by both nonprofit and profit entities. Again, it would be crafted in a context of what came out of the previous efforts that talked about multicultural use. But anybody will be able to submit with their level of interest for the use of that building, including space needs, financial commitment, lease terms, et cetera. So that's end users that would want to occupy the building in some capacity? Correct. Okay, great. And then RFQ, request for qualifications, am I close? That is correct. It is request for qualifications. And it is the more formal process that you must submit a qualifications based submittal that has the criteria spelled out of what the city is looking for. And that would be derived from not only the previous study, but the RFI information that's gathered to help formulate that, and then create a scoring criteria to then present to the council to show here's the level of interest today. Again, what was decided three years ago is certainly a solid foundation. There may be some change of concept that other entities might be interested for the council to consider to allow them to be a partner in this particular facility. No, the partner in what way? So tangibly, what does the person that's awarded the RFQ do? Do they remodel the building? What do they program the building? What do they do? Yes, all of the above. So the RFQ would allow them to submit their level of interest in financial commitment to the remodel effort, being a building manager, signing a lease and the length of term that they need, the amount of space that they need, then it could be calculated into lease revenue. It could be from entities that don't have any interest in that, but yet they want to rent the facility for use of cultural purposes of some sort. Those would all be identified and then brought back in a matrix, if you will, that would identify all those particular partners and what level of financial commitment they have on the project. Then it would allow the city then to determine what level of financing might be necessary to complete the full remodel of the building. Okay, and then so the next phase you touched on was, and I'll run these together, you break them out for me. So architectural firm is a selection, is the next selection process, and then you identify construction. So those two phases, if you can kind of touch on what those, what their function would be. Sure, we would recommend, staff would recommend that this would take place concurrently with the previous discussion that we just had on RFI/RFQ. This would be the selection of the highly qualified historic building architectural firm to help us determine the demolition needs of the building to get it down to studs and retain the historical nature of the inside of the building, as was recommended in the previous study. And then they would help do the, if you will, the construction documents, its demolition documents to protect the integrity of the historic nature of some of the inside of the building. And then we would use that then to solicit a firm to come in and do that demolition under their guidance. Perfect. And then if you could please, and I don't know if this is you or the city manager, but there's been some discussion around this point, and I think this will clear up a lot for, at least for me. So the winter storm, the focal point, has there been significant changes to the status of the building? So we have a report of the building before the winter storm. Was there a significant change to the condition of the building such that it would affect that report or would that report more generally still be a valid document given the condition of the building after the storm? It's still a valid document because those areas that they were recommending to bring back to life, if you will, are still an issue that we would want to do, which is the access to the upstairs, looking at the stairway, putting it back in. It was all closed off. The entrance way into this building, which is absolutely gorgeous, the light fixture, the majority of the things that are in that report are still there and not really would not be hampered by a new somebody coming back in. It's going to be basically the same. Preserve this, preserve that. Okay, so there's no significant deterioration of the building or those key areas due to the winter storm. It's carpet. It's carpet. It's ceiling tiles and water that ran down the side of the walls. Okay, very good. That answers my questions. And so now to focus us to direction. So help me drive this conversation. I see you, Councilman Marmotter. Help me drive this conversation, Scott. So you need direction on just the RFI component or just staff's recommendation totally, which would be that sequence of RFI, RFQ in concert with the architectural firm selection and construction firm selection. Tell me what you need so that we can narrow the conversation to that. Sure, Mayor. And I think it's the latter of what you explained. We would be looking for Council's concurrence to do both of these processes concurrently. So the RFI, RFQ process for uses and interested entities in a two-stage effort is an RFI, RFQ, and then as well as the RFQ for an architectural firm followed by an RFP for a demolition firm. And then again, the other piece of this will come back later is once the uses are all defined, then we would go back to another RFQ for an architect to do the design to meet the needs of all of the entities that the council desires to have in the building. Perfect. Make a note. Okay. Great. So I'll just open it up for discussion around those points. Councilmember Marmotter. Yeah. So just a question to clarify a point of confusion. Can someone explain why just a report from architecture would preempt them being part of the bidding process? I'm not talking about them providing the specs for bidding that was mentioned before. I'm just talking about an initial report from them. I don't quite see how, and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but how that would preempt them from even bidding. And I'm assuming it's Christina that would answer, Christina, but if it could just be a, if you have a specific site that would suffice just to say the entity that makes that rule and the site to that rule should do it. Yeah, absolutely. So under our Texas local government code, there's about seven different professions in which we need to do the request for qualifications process, regardless, because it's a professional service. So architecture falls under one of those. So anytime we're engaging or any type of architecture services, we want to do the request for qualifications and not have them involved in any other part of the process. Okay. Even, even a preliminary report that is not about bidding specs. It would almost be an additional RFQ, because any type of that you're wanting anything prepared by an architecture and a state of Texas requires a request for qualification process. Oh, I see. So if we wanted to do such a report, we would have to do an RFQ for that. We couldn't just engage, engage architects. Okay. Okay. Well, okay. Thank you. And if I, and if I may mayor, that's, that's what we would be including in the solicitation for the architectural firm to help us do that. Right. And as I took away from that, what you just said, that there's no material change from that time in the building. So that, that would be duplicative and, and cost more taxpayer money for a project that we're going to have to struggle to fund as is. So other Councilman, yeah, just a follow up question to that too. So what would, you know, be the kind of the downside then in doing that RFQ before the RFI, I don't quite understand why they both need to be done at the same time. Well, let's, let's see if there's traction for that. Let's kind of move towards, I understand. So let's go. Who wants to address that so that we can. So the idea of doing the RFI has to do with gaining and garnering interests and being able to know who's, who's out there that might be interested in. Scott said, you know, profit, nonprofit, and we can put in our interest as far as that from, as we look at, then when you do the RFQ, that's, that's less saying, okay, now give us your plan, Scott jump in here, but now give us your plan of what who's interested in doing it to what extent, you know, how would they go about doing it? It's, we have to find out the interest first. And one of the things that I heard when I did the presentation previously was the city didn't have that kind of millions of dollars to do this because of their other priorities. However, there was a, there was a desire by council to figure out creative ways to make this happen. And that is why we're here today is to say, we think we figured out a way to get this building back to where it was before, historical efforts as well, and make it a viable asset to our community there. And so the idea is to get the interest first, see where we stand, and then go into right after that simultaneous go right into the other part, but we have to address the issues pertaining to the weather situation, because it's going to continue to deteriorate to a point where we will have problems that we can't preserve. Okay. So, so moving towards given staff direction, Councilman Meltzer. Yeah, happy to give direction. I'm happy to see forward movement, and if we can do more of it sooner. I respect, you know what customer armatures, seeking to do I think it has some merit there's also merits the other way to and just unbalanced, you know I favor the other approach of relying on the report they already did and having them be, you know, able to bid. So I, I'm happy to support the recommendation. Okay, count mayor pro Tim Davis. I also support the recommendation I like this approach a lot because what we had before was a whole slew of good ideas, and not a whole lot of ways to make them happen. What we're asking for now is for organizations or entities that have good ideas and the wherewithal to make them happen to come forward and come to the table so there's nothing in the world that says an organization couldn't put together an RFI that tracks pretty closely with what the committee said there's nothing the world that says an organization or an entity couldn't put together an RFI that does something a little bit more like what Councilmember Ryan says or what other people that were on the committee, you know, kind of in the minority that committee said this just opens up the world of possibilities and invites folks that have the wherewithal to actually do it that wouldn't be relying on you just a whole heck of a lot of city taxpayer money to get it done and brings them into partnership in the project so I think this is exactly the way to move forward. Great, thank you. Is there anyone, let's just take the dissenting opinions then, because I can fall in line with that so those that would don't want to move forward with staffs recommendation, identify yourselves and then we'll have kind of feel for that so those that do not want to follow move forward staffs recommendations, Councilmember Armitage. Yeah, and I want to be, I want to be clear about what I'm wary about and what I'm excited about so I'm excited about City Hall West I agree that it's crucial that it be rehabbed I like that we're looking to do that. So you know my my concern and kind of unwillingness to get on board with this fully is more subtle than that, it's you know I'm concerned that as part of this RFI, it could end up, you know dramatically altering the scope of the project and the preservation of the building as conceived by the committee, simply because of it because it would help with the cost and because it would reduce the, the amount that the city would be paying. It's you know my understanding is that the public is okay with you know investing public money as we've already done in this project, if it continues to be for public use so I'm wary, I'm not saying I'm certain that this is going to, it's going to derail the plan, but I'm wary that that might happen. So you know out of an abundance of caution I'm just going to say I'm not fully on board with this recommendation, but if that's the way that consensus is going I hope that my awareness proves unfounded and I am definitely on board with rehabbing, with having architects involved with coming back to the committee on this. Okay, so is there anyone else against the staff's recommendations? Seeing none, so Scott and Ms. City Manager have your direction. Thank you very much. There's a majority that wants to move and then we'll take comments. Very busy moving forward. Yes, Councilman Meltzer. You're muted I'm sorry. I know, with the committee recommendation be part of the packet that anybody putting together proposal would would have you with a, they know what that input was. I could defer to Christine but I don't see there any reason why we couldn't include the previous study as part of the RFI process. So people know what was discussed, again it doesn't prevent anybody from not submitting a different idea that again would come back to Council for consideration. And then, you know, obviously, Council in evaluating the proposals, you know, has that as to whatever degree we, you know, we want, we have that as our lens. Yes, thank you. Okay, Mayor Pro Tem Davis. I think lens is a very good word to use their Councilmember Meltzer and I think it's important that the public remembers the purpose of that committee I was not on Council at the time that it was that was formed, but it paid pretty close attention to what it was doing and track their public meeting that they held that committee was not formed to make a decision that committee was formed to give feedback and community information community sentiment back to this Council, and this Council ultimately make the decision so I think we have to be really careful with that, with how we treat that I trust staff to craft this y'all y'all know exactly where, where the Council falls on these things but there was never a decision made, just to be totally clear that the committee's recommendation was what was going to happen in the building, it was the desire of a majority of that committee. They had a something like a business plan put together but at the time it didn't really pencil out, it was not a funded business plan. What we're looking for now are folks who have a business plan, folks who have to bring something to the table that can actually make something happen in that building so I don't want to put our thumb on the scale too much with with the committee recommendation so that all we get back our responses that are, here's how to make the committee recommendation happen, because it wasn't binding on us, it was something that a number of folks in the community wanted to see. It's what the committee wanted to see, but it's not, it doesn't have a. It doesn't bind this Council to anything and they weren't, they weren't asked to make a decision they were asked to give us a recommendation from their perspectives. Okay, thank you. Any other comments for staff. Councilmember Ryan. Yeah, I agree with the Mayor Pro Tem's sentiments there. I'd also like to see we've now hired a historic preservation officer and I want to make sure that they're included in this process as well. Absolutely. We wouldn't do this without her. She's absolutely fabulous. And Cameron's already been reached out to about this project. Okay, great. Any other comments for staff. Seeing none. Thank you very much, Scott. Thank you. So that takes us to our last work session item which is item E, which is ID 21190 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction, give staff direction on pending City Council request. I'm Aaron Council this is Rachel Walthert Mendoza assistant to the city manager, sharing my screen here. And here we go. So I'm going to present for you today, our requests for information, and we have one today, as we'll discuss here in just one moment but just by way of a little background, up to seven requests will be reviewed per meeting, and I'll introduce each one. Again, we have one today. 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 then have up to one minute to provide feedback and indicate their support for the use of staff time to respond to the request. And then we'll respond to the request where consensus of council is established. And as I mentioned earlier, we did have one request get pulled for the day so we're just going to put together for y'all today, Mayor pro Thames, and it is read for you here. And with even a nice pretty picture to go along with it. And our staff information the background that was put together ahead of time is also available for you in the backup. So I'll stop sharing now Mayor, if you'd like to give Mayor pro Tim his one minute. Okay, thank you. Mayor pro Tim Davis you have the floor. Thank you sir. So y'all saw the picture you heard kind of the soft pitch. Last week when we talked about this park, and I wanted to go ahead and submit it as a as a hard pitch as a one minute pitch. People in Denton like splash pads they like public art. And I guess I'd like to use this time to pitch this particular space. For one, it's got the space it's got the room to do it as opposed to some other places downtown would be fantastic. We just don't have the space to do it downtown there's not a good place for downtown. But there's also the possibility of sponsorship because this is a retail area you've got some other big anchors hopefully coming into that area, you might have some good corporate sponsorship in the area. One thing you didn't see in the picture of that was rotary fountain up in Spokane Washington. One thing you didn't see in that picture are little bronze fish all along the ground that have people's names businesses names lots and lots of sponsors there. The kind of project that rotary likes to do with lots of community involvement. So that's the pitch. That's the place I'd like to see it. I'd like to send that down to our public art committee and let them do the good stuff that they do. Okay. Other comments. Senator Meltzer. See how much consensus there is that it is a location for public art for sure that it is a possible location for spray ground. I think so but we also heard from parks that they kind of want to look at it holistically, whether Netflix park might be better than that, you know, as they look at just kind of where they distribute them around town so I'm not stuck on, you know, that the spray pad has to be there, wouldn't mind it. As far as who, you know, you're the written proposal, not opposed at all to consideration of, you know, exploring the history of the razors, although the park itself already named for them. And there's lots of other folks who have no visibility yet in Denton. Quarter of our population is Hispanic. There's nothing, no street name, no nothing, you know, that recognizes that community. That's just for instance. So somewhere in there, there's some overlap with what's proposed. That's the best I could do. All right. Any other comments? Understanding a no comment is a no. So if you want to support it in some way, I need to hear from you and I'll do my best to draw a connection somewhere. Council member Ryan, Council member armature. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I'm in support of this. I think it's the public private aspect of it is an excellent way to keep our tax dollars working on other other things in the parks. And it's the way that we've handled it for many years using the parks foundation. And this just allows us to bring in other potential sponsored entities as well. So I'm in support of this. Thank you. Council member armature. So I'm in support of having this work session discussion as well. I like the idea of kind of incorporating the spray park into the discussion, especially since as we talked about last time, it's an area that appears that it's going to be getting very hot in the summer without additional without mature trees and in shade structures. But I think it's important that as council member Meltzer said that we not limit it to the razor family theme or a bull theme or anything like that that we let the community and the Public Arts Committee decide what direction to take that I don't think we should be guided by donations by who's going to put up the most money when it comes to something that that is a public use. Okay. All right. Anyone else any other comments. Seeing none. Council member Baker. I'm in favor of it. It sounds like a good project. And it looked looked real good on on the presentation. So I'm in favor of it. Okay. Councilor Johnson. I'm also in favor of it. I'm also in favor of donations to support it. Okay. Awesome. Okay. So, staff, what I have is direction as written, there is a consensus as written if if you know, so that gives you whatever flexibility you need. But as written, it has majority of council support. And then if you want to expand that, then you can work with us to do so. But otherwise, as written, there's a consensus. So thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Davis. Okay, that concludes that. So then let me I will take us in the closed session, then we'll take a break to clear the room. So I will convene the closed session at 446. It's still for 1321. We will consider the following items consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code section. Mayor Mayor, isn't there another is there another one minute pitch? Is there? No, no, no, the staff mentioned there's only one. So at the beginning, yeah, yeah, yeah, she Yeah, she said that in the beginning. So I'll start over. I will convene the closed session at 446pm. We will consider the following items consultation with attorneys under the Texas Government Code section 551.071. And so let's take a break until 510. Let's come back 510. Thank you. And welcome back to this special call meeting of the Denton City Council. It is 616pm, still the 13th of April 2021. We have a quorum and we're to the consent agenda portion of our agenda. And I will, I'll note that nothing was pulled earlier, and I will take a motion. Councilmember Meltzer. I move approval of the consent agenda. Okay, is there a second? Councilman Ryan. I'll second. Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Meltzer a second by Councilmember Ryan to approve the consent agenda. Any comments? Okay, Councilmember Meltzer, how say you? Aye. Councilmember Ryan? Aye. Okay. Councilmember Johnson? Aye. Councilmember Armitter? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Davis? Aye. Okay, Councilmember Baker? Mayor Huss with the I as well that passes seven to zero. Takes us to our last item before the concluding items which is an item to individual consideration. It's item. It's a ID 21724 consider approval of a resolution of the City of Denton, posing the application for an air quality standard permit registration 163864, which would authorize the construction of concrete batch plant by Plathos Concrete Inc, approximately 0.37 miles west of the intersection of Farm to Market 428 and Wildcat Road, Aubrey, Denton County, Texas. Good evening, Commission de Riviera. I'm sorry, Council and Mayor de Riviera with Environmental Services. Before your consideration tonight is a resolution opposing to a air quality standard permit for a batch concrete batch plant in Aubrey proposed by Plathos Concrete. The site is located approximately 0.37 miles west of Sherman Drive and Wildcat Road intersection is also located east of the city greenbelt and an adjacent to an existing ready mix plant for which permits were issued back in 2002 and the city opposed to those back then. The site also locates within the Elm Fork 100 year floodplain. Staff came to know about on April 6th, staff came to know about a public meeting that TCQ was having on April 7th about the issuance of the permit and asking for public input. During that meeting staff submitted a letter stating the city's opposition to the to the issuance of the permit based on the potential degradation of natural areas to the Elm Fork itself as it is the stream that flows into our drinking water resources the Lake Louisville. The resolution in tonight it will formalize that opposition and our letters of opposition have also been issued by state representatives and the city of Aubrey. At this point staff is recommending the approval of a resolution stating opposition to the plateaus concrete air permit standard permit registration 163864. Staff is available to answer any questions that you may have. Okay, thank you. Excellent, okay. Councilmember Meltzer and then Councilmember Armitage. Strongly support this and move approval. I would also like to know if there's anything else we can do to potentially influence the outcome. Okay, Deborah you well let me get a second and then we'll talk about that so is there we have a motion say Councilmember Armitage. Yes, I second that. Okay, and then for discussion we have a motion by Councilmember Meltzer second by Councilmember Armitage question to staff so Deborah is there anything else we can do that increases or strengthens our position. We are in communication with staff from Representative Lynn Stocky we are going back and forth and checking with the county what they're going to require from a flood pain standpoint so at this point we need just to formalize our position to TCQ which this resolution will do and then communication with the other partners at the state. Okay. Any other questions for questions for staff or discussion. Councilmember Armitage. Yeah, I just wanted to thank staff for acting on this so quickly and perhaps you know I'm not sure maybe I have some fellow council members to thank too but whoever scrambled behind the scenes. I'm so grateful for that when I found out about this. My heart sunk because I thought it's too late to get this on the agenda. And then then next thing we know it's on the agenda so thanks to everybody who worked hard behind the scenes to get that on there. Okay. Any other questions or comments for staff. Seeing none. Okay so Councilmember Meltzer how say you. I. Councilmember Armitage. Yes. And then, Councilmember Ryan. Aye. Councilmember Johnson. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Davis. Aye. Councilmember Baker. Aye. And Mayor Hutzpah is an aye as well and I echo what the Councilmember Armitage and Councilmember Meltzer have already said and so that passes seven to zero we did not have any callers for the record so thank you very much Debra and staff for that that concludes that item concludes our meeting and takes us to concluding items. Any concluding items from anyone. Okay I'll just say I've been out to the community market past couple of weeks lost spent a lot of money and it's been great so encourage others to do that and also want to thank staff for helping me in management I went out to a blood drive there in Arlington for the we love you USA and I think there's another organization WSS but really good organization really strong committed to helping our Texas and our community as a whole so looking forward to learning more about that and partnering with them so exciting things are happening so with that I think we are all set our let's see our next meeting is Tuesday I do believe in that let me note that just so that's the 27th we'll be back at it I'm sorry no 20th thank you yes thank you so the 20th we'll be back but other than that have a good evening I'll conclude the meeting it is 625 p.m. it is still April 13th 2021 so thank you all very much have a good evening.