Apr 22, 2021 Health & Building Standards Commission on 2021-04-22 3:00 PM

>> Good afternoon. Welcome to the city of Denton health and building standards commission meeting. We would like to get the meeting started. Selena, if you could please provide roll call. David Howard, David Mullen, Sebastian Dogadillo, Michael Swagger, Tori Mitchell. >> Seeing all of those, so I assume that you were able to verify that. Yes, and it looks like we are missing Tim Stolfitz and Tyndale Addison. >> Very good. Thank you. With roll call being completed, we have established a quorum. We do have a couple of announcements that I would like to make. One would be the resignation of Matthew Jensen. Unfortunately, he has formally resigned as of yesterday. We do have an absence as Selena had indicated that Tim Stolfitz is currently unexcused, not certain as to what his status is. So we will leave it at that for now. I will call the meeting to order. We have a very brief agenda. What I would like to do would be to appoint a temporary chair. Mr. Coward, as you have served in the rule in the past, would you consider being a temporary chair for nominations? >> Now I'm understanding why you called me. If you need me to do so, I guess I can, but I'm sure there's more capable people. >> It would be great if we could at least get you for a temporary chair, and if you get nominated as chair, then I'm sorry about your luck, but at least in this role you can't do much but other than ask for such nominations. So if you wouldn't mind, if you could solicit nominations from the floor for appointment of a chair. >> Do we have any other names for the chair to be added to the list? >> We're operating in the capacity of a temporary chair, so I need a formal recommendation from someone to appoint a chair, please. >> I'll make the nomination for Greg. >> I thought I liked that person. >> Mr. Mullen, if you could please state your name, your name for the record and the nomination. >> David Mullen, and I nominate Greg. He's done a great job in the past. >> That's Mr. Greg Coward, okay? >> Entertainment is what it is. >> Chair, if you wanted to ask if there's any other nominations for that position? >> Do we have any other nominations for that position? Somebody's got to call a vote. >> That will be you, sir. >> Unfortunately, I guess we have to have a vote. There is a motion on the table. >> So all those in favor of Greg being, what is it, temporary chair? >> No, that would be permanent chair. >> Dang. I tried. >> That's a good try. Yeah, and if you could unmute and state who and your vote, yes or no, please. Selena, if you want to do a roll call, please, that would be helpful. >> Okay. Greg Coward. >> Really? Okay. Yes. >> David Mullen. >> Yes. >> Sebastian DeGadillo. >> Yeah. Sure. >> Michael Swigert. >> Yes. >> And Tory Mitchell. >> They be muted. Is Tory on the list? >> Yes. She's currently muted. >> Okay. >> Are you able to see her? >> I am not. She's calling in. >> Tory, if you could unmute, that would be helpful. Stephanie, will we suffice, you know, that we did have the one nomination? >> Can you repeat that, Scott? >> Will it suffice? We're missing one, but ultimately we did have four affirmative, and we have no one else on the slate. >> Yes. We have a quorum, and the vote was, I guess, unanimous for the number of people that showed up. Are we missing Tory's vote? >> Tory's vote. But ultimately, we have no other candidates as well. >> Correct. We have three votes, four, correct? >> We have four votes. >> Yes. That's fine. >> Okay. Very good. Thank you. Congratulations, Mr. Chair. So maybe you should -- so if you could ask for a vice chair, as well, please, a nomination from the floor. You're muted. How about that? >> That's better. >> We need a motion for a vice chair. Does anybody have a motion to make? Somebody's got to make one. >> Thank you. I'll make myself. >> And who said that? >> Yep, for the record, state your name and who you're nominating, please. >> I'll nominate myself, if nothing else, because someone should, I guess. >> So we have Sebastian who's nominated himself. Do we have any other names being given to -- for this co-chair? Okay. So we'll take it to a vote. All those in favor of Sebastian being the co-chair -- co-chair, is that right? >> Vice-chair. >> Vice-chair. Excuse me. >> Yes, sir. >> Please state aye and your name or make sure we know. >> We can do another roll call for your convenience, sir. >> Greg Coward. >> Aye. >> David Mullen. >> Aye. >> Sebastian Deladio. >> Aye. >> Michael Swagger. >> Aye. >> Yes. >> And Tori Mitchell who's still muted. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yay! >> Welcome, Tori. >> Hi. >> Very good. Well, thank you for that, and congratulations to both of you. With that being said, Mr. Chair, I will turn this meeting over to you, and you can go to item B. >> Hang on just a minute, I got a lot of noise going on here. Selena, do you have the meeting minutes? I apparently don't have them for some reason. I printed everything off but that, so it's really helpful. >> Yes, I can send those to you really quick if you want. >> That would be great. I apologize. >> You do have the agenda, sir, so if you would like to skip item B and go to item C, feel free. >> I think you're going to have to go until I receive this e-mail. >> Okay, very good. Ultimately, I guess, is there anyone else on the call that does not have the minutes from the January 18th, August 16th, and the February 21st meetings? Excuse me, January 18th of 2018, August 16th of 2018, and February 21st of 2019 minutes. Is anybody else in need of those minutes? Okay, very good. As we wait for the chair on that, obviously, through COVID, we did not meet. The last discussions that we had were really surrounding the 2018 codes and largely that's what was in consideration of a number of those items. But if there's anybody that has any comments on those minutes, please feel free to do so at this time. >> God, I'm sorry. I printed everything off, put the meeting minutes. I got all the paperwork you had me sign and my parking pass, but I don't have the meeting minutes for today. I apologize. >> Oh, no worries. No worries. We can be patient with them. >> Did you receive those minutes? >> That's what I'm looking for. They just showed up. Now I look like I know what I'm doing. So we've done item A, have we done item B? >> That would be item B. So is the approval of the minutes if everybody has -- >> January 18th, 2018, August 16th, 2018, and February 21st, 2019 meeting minutes. Those that are going to consider the approval have to have been at the meeting, correct? >> I spoke with the city secretary, and she stated that you can vote on the minutes even if you were not present. >> Great. Thank you. So then you just need a motion -- >> Motion to approve those meetings minutes as stated. >> Greg, I was there at those meetings that don't make the motion. >> So we have a -- >> David Mullen. >> David has a motion on the table to accept the meeting minutes as they are posted. Do we have a second? >> I'll second that. Mike Swigert. >> Mike is seconded. All those in favor, say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. >> Those opposed, say nay. Motion passes. Does that work for you, Scott? >> Yes, sir. We're good. Thank you. >> Okay. Item number C, HPS21-002, instruction to the new commission, Michael and -- how do you pronounce your last name? Delegado? >> Delegado. >> Delegado? And Greg Coward. Oh, we've got -- all of us are new? >> Tori, Sebastian, and Greg, yes. >> And why did the two new people get nominated to do everything? >> I'll take that on a sidebar after the fact. We like to get the new ones. >> Yeah, we'll be -- I'll suggest a meeting location. So introduce -- Tori, is Tori on here? >> Yes, I am. >> Tori, you want to introduce yourself real quick? >> Hi. I'm Tori Mitchell. I retired and moved to Denton around about 2017. I retired in August of 2014 from the military and moved to Denton in 2017. I was living in Kalapata and have enjoyed myself since I've arrived to Denton. >> Well, welcome to Denton and thank you for your service. I do appreciate it. >> Thank you for your service. Yes. >> All right. Thank you all. >> Sebastian? >> Yes. My name is Sebastian Delgadillo. I'm -- I've actually been living in Denton since about 2006-ish. I went to college here. I found my job around this area, and I really like the town, and I decided I want to go in and get involved. >> What's your background? >> My background is in engineering. >> Congratulations. Not an easy thing to do. My name is Greg Coward. I'm a plumbing and air conditioning contractor, born and raised in this city, and been on this committee a number of times. So I'm lucky to be on it again and serve with each of you, looking forward to it, all because of Scott. >> We can have a sidebar later, Scott. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very much for all of you. I appreciate your civil service, and our community is better for it. So I just personally would say thank you. >> It's our pleasure. If you don't want to give back, then I guess get out. I didn't say that. >> I agree. >> You like that one there, Tori? Okay. >> The next part is to receive a report from the discussion regarding the boards of commission and debt for you, Scott? >> I believe -- Selena, are you doing that? >> Yes. >> Or Emily. >> Appendance policy, Selena? >> Yes. You all should have received the -- in the backup, the attendance policy, and the main thing to touch on, Scott, in that is if you're going to be absent, just to let me or somebody know so we are where you're not going to be in, and on that policy, there is also a list of excused absences and unexcused absences, and in the meeting, if you are not going to be attending for whatever reason, we will be stating your absence and whether it's excused or unexcused. >> Does anybody have any concerns or questions regarding that issue? You don't want to have to see the principal. >> That's right. >> Yeah. So is that -- is that section two as well that you just covered, or am I missing -- >> That's D. >> Okay. So you're on to E. >> Receive a report and hold a discussion on the proposed adoption of the 2021 building codes and then the 2020 national electric code. I would guess that's you, Scott. >> I will touch on it, and I will see if Emily would like to add. I'm very excited for us to be going down a road. We went through the vast majority of the 2018s -- actually, we went through all of the 2018s pretty intensively, so some of you have served doing that. This will be a very similar experience. However, we're going to roll with the changes, and so by saying that is we're going to provide you with electronic copies of all of the codes. So we will provide those in the very near future. We will provide an outline, as we have in the past, which will really give you a summary of what the code section is that we're proposing to amend, why we're proposing to amend it, and give you a better understanding, and then we'll walk through each one of those. So we'll start off with really kind of the fundamentals of what the codes are, the building blocks, and ultimately address each of the items within what the code contains and how those codes work together, and included with that will be the National Electric Code. That is a different year because it is published on a different cycle. However, the adopted codes and the proposed adopted codes recognize the National Electric Code, and it typically is behind that, and it's built right in. So for those of you that are new to the commission, just have an understanding that because there's a different year with that, it really is already incorporated into the international code. So largely we adopt the international codes, and that's where that's at. And Emily, did you prepare anything that you'd like to go through? I did not. We're still waiting for those books to come in. I did want to just let everybody know, if you've got any questions, please reach out to me directly. I'm happy to help just understand what the code is saying or what we're doing. So feel free to do that. Great. Thank you. And we'll get everything out to you as soon as we get it. And I guess I'll call... Okay. Hey, Emily, can you... Go ahead, Tori. I'm sorry. Oh, no. I was asking Emily, could she please email us her contact information? I don't know if I have it or not. Yeah, I can send that out after this. All right. Thank you. I'll have Selena send out a really kind of an overview of the department. And so you have Emily and Amber. Emily and Amber will play major roles in this, as well as Billy Ooten, which is our assisting building official over field services. Amber is over our plan review services, and Emily is the deputy building official and really championing going through the code process. I can tell you, I have been witnessing her sitting in the conference room in our new space going through the code changes. So ICC puts on a lot of training sessions. I know once you receive these publications, for those of you that are new to the board, you're going to be completely overwhelmed with the vast amount of material that there is. Our staff does an excellent job of really summarizing, boiling that down and distilling it into a very simple, easy to understand language, and that's the documentation that you'll receive in addition to that. So we'll walk through each of the codes independently. You'll know in advance of what it is that we're going to be talking to you about. We'll provide you with a presentation, and again, the sheets will somewhat speak for themselves, and certainly if you have any questions at all, feel free to email any one of us, all of us, and we'll provide that clarity. I would encourage you to be vocal in these meetings. Certainly want you to be able to articulate the questions that you have, because for just my experience in doing this, many of the other commission members have the same question. And then the other important part to this is what we haven't done to the past is this is being live-screened. So the public is also going to have questions or have to have an understanding. So there is absolutely no question that shouldn't be asked, and hopefully we're providing it in a format that people can digest it. Certainly take any of that critique. If there are things that we need to move a little slower on, if we need to get a little bit more in detail on, do not hesitate to coach us, encourage us, tell us. We're here to serve you. You are serving the citizens of Benton, and it should be a good experience. I think we'll be able to do this pretty expeditiously. This format I think will lend itself a lot better to being able to go through the process and having the documentation at your fingertips. Is there any questions, Mr. Chair, from yourself or anyone on the commission? Emily, can you hear me? Yes. So you've been reviewing all these documents, and I'm sure they're exciting, and you've been marking them up with the items you're wanting to change, modify, or address so that we can not have to read everything, hopefully. Correct. Do you have any anticipation of having these accepted and part of the code for Denton September 1? Well, Scott probably should talk to that one. Well, I thought so, but I was trying to be respectful since you were doing all the work. Emily has been doing a lot of the heavy lifting. I will tell you that we have the first work session coming up with council on May 25th, so we're going to provide them an introduction to the codes, the rationale for the new members that are on the commission. We are under the 2012 code. The 2021 code was -- they began publishing in, I guess, October, November last year. The final one came out probably in February of this year. The code review process is already underway for the 2024 codes, so the codes that we're adopting have been in the process for the past three years. Again, with the extensive work that we did with the 2018 codes, we do not anticipate significant changes from the 2018 to the 2021, so we'll really be carrying forward the work that we did with the 2018s, going to provide council an update on May the 24th, if I'm correct on my date, and then we'll continue to work session those. That's really part of what we'll get out to you is we're going to look to send this as an established date and time and be able to meet at the frequency that is convenient for you and as often as you can. I will tell you that it is much more effective for you as a commission if you're staying engaged into this rather than dragging it out, so if we take and we have a meeting once a month, you'll forget everything that you learned the last meeting, so if we can do this each week, it will be much more effective for you to kind of understand the correlation between them. I don't know that your time will allow you to do that, but certainly the staff, we're going to work to try to do that for you, and I guess Mr. Chair, it might be a good question at least to ask why we're on here as it relates to that, is if this is an appropriate time, a good time for everyone to meet, just to lock out the three to five window on Thursday. So does anybody have any problem with a Thursday every week or do we have to make any offsetting concessions and do it two times a month? Those of you who need to speak up at this point in time. How often would we, I mean, how long would we do this every week? I mean, is this something that's going to be like a per month? A Thursday falls every week. No, I mean, how many times are we going to meet? I think that, Commissioner Mullen, I would say that it really is going to depend on, you know, the commission and how in depth the commission wants to get. I will tell you that we will probably program a week for each of the codes based on what we've done to the past and the work that's already been performed. And I will offer myself up to the new commission members if they'd like to just have kind of a sidebar to get brought up to speed. And I think that ultimately we could take two or three and have a couple of just mini sessions, whether it's a long lunch or something, explain what we've done to the past, where we're at, and how to move forward. This is Tori, can I just chime in? I would like, I prefer to meet weekly and if Thursday at 3 p.m. works for everybody, I don't have a problem with that. I think we will reap greater rewards doing it weekly. That's just my opinion. Tori, I appreciate your input, I do agree, I've gone through this before with this staff, they're very good at getting it done, but we do need to stay on top of it. At this point in time, Scott, Emily, I think we ought to consider trying to make this something we do every week on Thursday at 3 o'clock. If it will block out two hours, if it takes only one hour or we get stumped, then we can adjust and if it starts falling off and people aren't available, then that may be how we have to address it. Anybody have any input? I think my only concern is, is that going to be, is city staff going to be able to keep up with all this stuff if we meet every week? I remember we met like every other week. This staff is phenomenal, they'll make it happen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We absolutely will. We have been working on this for quite some time since the publications have come out, so we're really ahead of the curve. I think the challenge will be is just trying to get you up to speed. So certainly staff will be here to serve you, it will be, as long as we're providing the material and the content in such a way that you're able to digest it and you understand it and you agree or make recommendation for change, whatever that might be, that's what we'll carry forward. I do not anticipate that we would meet next week, just want to give you a little bit of time with the publications first. So I assume that that first meeting then would probably be the first week of May. May 6th? Yeah, anticipating. And what we have to do, the other piece that is critical for us is because we have a limited number of technical staff in DTV, we've got to coordinate with other city departments as to when it is that they're having meetings. So Selena will confirm that this meeting time does work for the city secretary's office in DTV. We can block this time out so it's televised. Okay. Emma, we've been talking about this before, we may want to try to get, if you send everything out it can be overwhelming and you're probably not ready throughout the entire code. Maybe we could get two or three sessions ahead and that would be all I would highly suggest we send out because it's overwhelming. Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, read ahead if there's something regarding electrical code that you are able to reach out to an intelligent electrical contractor that could provide some input, how it is going to be applied in the field versus what we're reading in the code. Those are the kind of things I highly suggest you reach out and get input on because the public is going to need to know about it but the end user that is going to use this code are going to be your contractors and they're the ones that are probably going to have the most knowledge of how it's going to be implemented unless I'm wrong. Mr. Chair, you are spot on and ultimately really what we need to do and when I say overwhelming would be that we're going to provide you with all of these electronic books which really the pages number into the thousands, the building code is whatever the number is now 500, 600 pages, the residential code is 500 or 600 pages, so on and so forth so ultimately somebody is going to end up with online access to thousands of pages of text which is code and so that can be overwhelming. To your point, we absolutely will probably just put you a week out or two weeks out with the material that we're providing so i.e. we'll probably bring the first code to you, we'll provide that information in advance, kind of an outline of what we're going to be talking about so you can be prepared and then really we will walk you through each of those items in the meeting whether it is for action the next meeting so then you can digest it. Your second point is absolutely critical, our reliance upon the development community to have the electrical contractors, the mechanical contractors, the plumbing contractors, all of those individuals be able to weigh in and we will be reaching out to those groups to make sure they're aware when we're talking about those particular items, those particular weeks and certainly wish to get their feedback so thank you for that. That's why we picked you as the chair brother because you're on top of all this. Oh yeah, yeah you're welcome, I'll be looking for y'all's thank you cards in the mail at any given time. I guess I speak, some of you haven't ever done this before, I've done it and I know the staff has done it, just for a quick instance, some of the products or the requirements in the code may be requiring something that at this point in time is not made. They're requiring a, for instance, a two before be made of some special species that does this or that in the future code, it may not be something that's feasible, it may not be something obtainable and that is where the city and each of you will come in critically and be able to rewrite some of the code or modify the code to make sure that if we're going to build to it, we also can get products for it. That's just a quick synopsis, I know it sounds silly but these codes are futuristic in what they're doing, they're looking forward. Sometimes the products don't exist, is that a fair statement Scott? Absolutely, and I'll give you a really good example of that. In the fire code, I think it's been two code cycles ago, they required that buildings, high rise buildings would have to have repeaters for radios. So the fire department, it came really out of 9/11 that they had to have repeaters. So the code then would require building owners to install these radio repeaters into their facility so if a firefighter were to get into a stairwell that his radio would continue to work. Well, the code put that in, ultimately the city of Denton didn't have the technology so the new radio systems were not in place, they were in some communities. So we really had to amend the code to peel that back out and say, well that retroactive provision we will not enforce because again, why would we have a building owner put something into a facility if we can't utilize that? And so that's a real world example of where that's at and to the chair's point, many times because this code is not going to be republished until 2024. So this code has to think in terms of changes in technology, how it is that we're going to have advancements, whether it's a simple thing like a toilet, if the federal government is going to make changes to, you know, currently it's 1.6 gallons per flush, there were conversations occurring that it was going to be 1.2 gallons or a gallon per flush. So we just have to make sure that all of that is relative and that's what staff, you know, Emily and her team have been diligently scouring the code, looking at the significant changes and making sure all of those items are really relative to Denton and what we need to do. I will also tell you, my philosophy is that we make minimal amendments to the codes. The codes are vetted nationally, they have regional components for weathering and national natural disasters that occur in areas. So they take in all of those considerations, i.e. size, snow loads, weather conditions. And so anytime that you make an amendment to the code, you may affect another code or another section of the code. So we really try to minimize those, which will make your job much easier. So you'll see those examples in our next meeting. Hopefully as simple enough, we'll take any feedback that we need to get you what you need. But thank you, Mr. Chair. Most of the changes, and you're going to find that most of them is very minimal and we may skip right through three or four in a two-hour session and we may find ourselves with one section that takes an hour just to get through part of it. Some of them are more difficult than others, but I appreciate you speaking to that, Scott, because you guys usually do look at things pretty practical. So it sounds like we don't have a problem from everybody. Looks like we're going to do it not this coming week, but the following as long as you can. I guess Amber, I'm not sure if that's your job, but make sure that the DTV can host this product or this project. Is that what we're going to check on? It'll be Selena. Absolutely. I apologize. Okay, Selena. We'll let you know, though. We'll keep in constant communication. We'll send you some materials. We'll make it truly as simple as we can, and I encourage any of you that would like any assistance once you do start receiving materials, don't hesitate to call us. Oh, it's exciting reading. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. With that said, is there any other meeting minutes that I'm needing to address? I don't see anything unless I'm- You have item number two, which is concluding items. So if you wish to have, if any of the members would like to have any- Yeah, you know what? There's things my co-chair needs to read item number two. He's muted. He just finished it. He did a good job, though. You know, I heard it too. That's amazing. That's a good trick. I'll start using that. Okay. I guess my space bar has decided not to work. Concluding items under section 551.042 of the Texas Open Meetings Act, respond to inquiries from the Health and Building Standards Commission for the public and specific factual information or recitation of policy or accept a proposal in place of matter- I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at Scott. I am shaking my head. That's all. I'm shaking my head. Mr. Car, he is still reading, but he is muted, and I hate you putting that through him. Yeah. I know. I appreciate the suggestion. So I believe that concludes- Yes, sir, just if anybody had anything else, that was an opportunity. Anybody have anything else for the current agenda item or future agenda items that we need to bring up and put on the next agenda? Well, before we conclude the meeting, I want to say I appreciate each of you for volunteering your time, your efforts, those of you that have just joined, looking forward to working with you. If you're able to meet in person one day, the Encyclopedia Britannica will be sent out to you pretty soon to read, and there are very few pictures in it, so good luck. And if there's nothing else, I need a motion to approve to adjourn this meeting. Is that correct, Scott, or am I missing something? You can ask for a motion to adjourn. Yep. I need a motion to adjourn the meeting. I move to adjourn the meeting. Mike, that's a wonderful suggestion. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Those opposed? I wish everybody a wonderful- Who seconded that? I said, do we need a second? Tori seconded. I heard her. Uh-huh. I did. Okay. Okay. I like Tori. Okay. I'll take a second to respond. Mr. Chair, you've concluded the meeting at 3 43. Thank you, everybody.