Jun 08, 2021 City Council on 2021-06-08 2:00 PM

June 08, 2021 City Council
Full Transcript

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             and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council it is 2 o'clock p.m. and we do have a
 quorum so I'll call this meeting to order today is June 8th 2021 and I do not think we have any
 questions from the citizens on the agenda so that will take us to the we don't have any
 citizen comments better said so then that'll take us to section two which is requests for
 clarification on agenda items listed on this agenda from the council questions on the agenda
 so council member beck council member maguire
 thank you mayor I had questions on one e and one i
 do you want me to take those in order give you them both how do you want to handle that sir
 uh let's take them in order please one e first okay so my my one e question is is pretty simple
 is is this a uh substantial change to the existing policy and uh you know so I'm just trying to gauge
 what the change is in in because I know we have an existing relationship that is similar and I just
 trying to understand any uh any changes yes hi this is bobby smith assistant chief of police
 do you want me to go ahead and address that yes please uh yes sir this is uh this is just
 formalizing the relationship that we have there's no real major change but it uh twu they need
 for their accreditation process they need an ila and it just sort of solidifies it and formalizes
 our relationship but yes most all of that we're doing already anyway okay that that clarifies
 thank you so much I appreciate that okay and then who wants to who's speaking on one i
 I guess you got that question and then they'll speak to it but my my question is also pretty
 simple um I I looked through the the documentation provided looked online and I couldn't see uh the
 mechanism of action of error pure um and I just would like a little uh it doesn't have to be at
 this meeting but if staff could get back to me at some point um with a clarification of how this
 works and and specifically any byproducts uh from odor elimination I would appreciate that I meant
 to include that in staff questions and I just forgot to okay oh good afternoon yeah good
 afternoon this brian burner director of solid waste uh this uh uh material is actually uh
 aerially applied so we have a high weight what's called it's a high volume system uh that basically
 this material is uh uh emitted into the air where it captures uh the the odor causing chemicals and
 then destroys them uh uh and then the the uh byproducts uh are are uh non-harmful uh and
 biodegradable that answer your question sir no and and unfortunately for you uh brian you're
 you're dealing with a chemist and so the the question I really have is rather than say we're
 spraying it into the air and it and it changes the molecular confirmation I guess what I'm seeking
 is clarification as to um you know what the oxidation products are that are then bound and
 fall back into the landfill so I'm looking for clarification of what the resultant products are
 not in the air but but from interacting with aeropure um again it doesn't have I know that's
 maybe a beyond your knowledge at this point so I'm perfectly comfortable with you getting back to me
 at a later time uh but it is um I I would like to know what the byproducts in the landfill are if
 you could yeah we can provide that information okay thank you thank you and yeah that'll be great
 and and so counselor beck you have any other questions uh not on the consent items are we
 limiting ourselves to consent yes sir thank you that's all right thank you thank you
 council member guar thank you mayor has said um my first question is um regarding consent agenda
 item f um regarding a professional services agreement with trc engineers inc um I'm seeing
 that you know this does represent a pretty significant um savings for the city um compared
 to the status quo but I'm curious if um you know because I you know full disclosure in my personal
 opinion that the city should not have to incur any costs at all um to provide for private telecom
 companies to do business in our city and use our right away right of ways um is there any kind of
 mechanism for um the the companies that are are going to be um using these services uh to reimburse
 the city for the cost of this contract is that something that is possible
 jerry fielder is here to answer that question thanks
 jerry sorry you're still you're still muted don't want to I'm just excited to answer the question
 um yes ma'am there actually is this contract is um virtually what's going to happen is they're
 going the the company trc is going to bill each of the joint users directly um for any of the
 services and everything else based upon a rate fee that we've reviewed and is comparable to what
 we've seen with san antonio austin and everything else um so there should be little to no cost
 incurred to the city of didn't the only possibility is if we actually need them to do some sort of
 study for us then we will incur a little bit of cost associated with that but the intention is
 to be to the city of didn't no cost okay so just to clarify so the the five-year not to exceed
 amount of fifty thousand dollars um is that like like a contingency fund in case we decide to
 contract with trc engineers for an additional study exactly yes ma'am okay all right so okay
 that answers my question thank you thank you okay customer bet sorry I just oh no I'm sorry just
 follow up on that I want to pull up right on that one just um so if this is just a contingency fund
 do you anticipate projects that would need to use that fund the projects that I anticipate would be
 where we're going to actually do some joint use with possibly another company like txu or encore
 well encore or co-serve and we need to have that attachment stress analysis done we would probably
 contract with them to do that for us but but we anticipate doing that I can't tell you that I'm
 going to do that or not it just depends on what happens over the next five years if we have the
 opportunity and we need to do it then that's what this money is for is basically to allow that to
 happen okay thank you thank you counsel maguire yes uh counselor maguire thank you um uh so my
 next question is regarding item i also um and council member beck asked a question that was
 much more specific than mine I just felt like I wanted more information regarding um particularly
 the environmental considerations of um the the chemicals that um we would potentially be using
 at the landfill um I'm not 100 clear on the procedure here can I um request that that that
 item i be be pulled um so that we can discuss that separately since it seems like two of us have
 some questions about about that item yes so yeah you would pull it and then I'd just ask you for
 some indications so that staff can build the the presentation to to address the specific questions
 okay yeah I would just like um you know I don't need quite the level of um uh chemistry details
 that council member beck wants but I I would just like to see um a little bit more information
 regarding the uh environmental safety of uh the the substances that are being proposed uh for for
 um solid waste to purchase okay um and then my final question uh is regarding item l and I just
 want to make sure that I'm clear um that at the time that council approved the uh ordinance back
 in 2020 was count was that council under the impression that the amount of the contract was
 169,804.37 is that is that the amount that was voted on hi this is Christine Taylor
 a procurement director and that is correct the electronic backup that was received by council
 was the higher amount and that's what was voted on okay excellent thank you that's all my questions
 okay any other questions on the consent agenda uh counselor Davis
 thank you mayor on item g um is it anticipated that there's going to be any change to
 the the footprint of the project or any major change to what the neighborhood had discussed
 and approved on that project and then related to this project will the substation that's across
 bonnie bray remain in place or will it be uh replaced entirety in its entirety
 oh sorry this is uh telling point then jerry's there but i'll go ahead and respond uh the the
 answer to your first question is no the footprint still is the same this is really just out of a need
 uh resulting from the delay in the water project so we're taking over a piece of that that's what
 this change order is for so we can go ahead and continue with the timeline on the project the
 answer to your second question is eventually that that's that substation will be torn down and
 demolished and so we'll be very happy the day that that happens it's it's literally the oldest and
 probably the most dangerous substation we have currently in our in our assets thanks okay thank
 you uh any other questions seeing none uh so staff what i have is item there's one item pool which
 is item i and the request is for a presentation regarding the environmental effects and any
 notables around that um and then also there's an expectation that we'll follow up with some more
 granular details for council member beck uh to to address his questions so okay great uh that'll
 take us to our work session uh first item is item a3a which is id211 let me get that right id211
 185 receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding a presentation by the denton
 county trans transportation authority also known as dcta on the proposed go zone on-demand service
 good afternoon mayor city council sara kechler chief of staff we do have representatives from
 dcta here this afternoon to present their proposed go zone on-demand service and before i turn it over
 to them i did want to also let council know that brandy bird who is the city's consultant is also
 on the line or on zoom um so she can turn her camera on if she's via zoom and then also chris
 watts who is the city's dcta board representative is also on the line so at this time i'd like to
 turn it over uh to raymond sores and nicole record with the cta thank you very much we do have a
 presentation to share so as i pull that up i will hand it over to raymond to um start the presentation
 well good afternoon mayor and council on behalf of dcta board and staff we thank you for this
 opportunity to present the proposed go zone on-demand rider rideshare service as part of the
 public involvement period that's open to the public from april 19th through june 25th we're out
 making presentations across the county to provide an opportunity to learn more about the services
 and also to gather feedback and before i get into the presentation i think it's important to note
 that over the last year we've been analyzing mobility trends across the nation and and frankly
 worldwide with a significant drop in ridership predominantly because of covid 19 certainly
 businesses retailers schools and of course transit authorities have seen a significant reduction in
 travel and so we've seen a shift in travel patterns nationwide and as we talk to our
 our other transit authorities across the country we've seen ridership drops across the country as
 much as 80 to 50 percent in more densely populated areas with that said we are seeing ridership
 starting to grow across the nation as retailers and others start going back to work but for the
 most part the major employers and urban canyons have not come back as we had hoped because of
 covid and we're expecting that to certainly trend toward more employment in in the downtown centers
 in the fall as the universities also start planning to come back pretty much in full in the fall so
 we're anticipating a major shift but we have seen these shifts in travel patterns and as we're
 looking at transforming the transit authority we spent the past year working with our board
 really looking top to bottom across the agency what we can do to improve our effectiveness
 and our efficiency ultimately our mission is to improve mobility improve air quality
 and spur economic development in our cities and be an asset to our cities to make our cities more
 livable and so we've spent the last year really looking at the transit agency we're really excited
 about the the services that on-demand ride share provides and i will just move through the
 presentation to give you an opportunity to provide some feedback as well so the goals really of the
 the go zone service is it's a zone-based service it's on demand it is a ride shared service it's
 not intended to be single single rides like you would typically see with uber and lift it is an
 app-based booking process but there's multiple ways to book service and i'll get into that in a
 little bit our operator that we're going to be working with is via or company by the name of
 river north the service delivery places the majority of the connect fixed route bus service
 will continue to run access service throughout a period of time and eventually look at integrating
 the access service with via in the future but at the launch we'll continue to provide access and
 mobility services we will also provide the unt service with the big buses and shuttle services
 originally planned the good news on the service side is that when you tend to look at service
 there's usually two opposing thoughts it's the frequency of service and the coverage area of
 service and our service with our bus service has predominantly focused on frequency of service but
 trying to reach the the service area within denton has always been a challenge to make sure that we
 can afford to deliver bus service to the far reaches of the county or in this case the city
 of denton and to make sure that the service is economical efficient and so those are always
 challenges that we have i believe that this on demand service solves both of those problems in
 a very efficient and elegant way and that's what we're looking to do with this service improve the
 customer experience to try to drive down the wait times and also increase the area that we cover
 and to streamline the booking process so what are the benefits well i just talked about a few of them
 it should improve the rider experience look it's going to be a big change this is a different way
 for people to to travel and certainly anytime you make big changes in travel services there's going
 to be some training involved but ultimately we do believe that it'll improve the service
 it'll enhance the delivery of the service and it'll be more efficient you'll have shorter wait times
 a lot of the vehicles will actually all these vehicles will have bike racks so it'll provide
 better connectivity to your trails to the a train service another big offer with with this on demand
 service is we're moving to 365 days of service which is a big change and i think it's going to be
 a very positive chain a portion of the fleet will be wheelchair accessible and of course we'll have
 our access service that we'll continue to look at and eventually migrate these two services together
 to make it seamless for all riders in our in our service areas you'll see extended service area
 coverage as i mentioned before and a convenient mobile app that'll be available to to folks
 so river north is the company that doing business as via they were founded in 2012
 it's a very dynamic agency or company private company they have over 200 partners
 operating on six continents the city of arlington has been using their service successfully for
 several years training metro or the footwear transit authority has also adopted via in several
 areas and they've implemented their own zone service throughout tarrant county
 so let's talk about the fleet the fleet's probably the biggest
 visible change that you're going to see we're going to go from big buses which have challenges
 getting into some of the neighborhoods and some of the tight areas i'm always amazed at
 how our operators are able to to maneuver around park cars but the biggest challenge with big buses
 is it doesn't give us the ability to get into the neighborhoods and of course transit has always had
 existing barriers from the perspective of having to walk a fairly lengthy distance to get to a bus
 stop to get picked up these chrysler pacificas or something very similar to chrysler pacifica will
 be branded with dcta it'll seat up to six passengers and the will have the ability to scale
 the the size of the fleet based on demand and ridership up or down depending on how travel
 patterns change the other big challenge that we have with with two universities in the dinton area
 is you see very large changes between summer and fall semesters and so this provides us with the
 ability to be very flexible in how we shape the the service deployment with the demand and that'll
 make us more effective and efficient throughout the year another big change is that you're going
 to see the physical bus stops go away but they'll be replaced with virtual stops that for all intents
 and purposes will allow people to to walk a much shorter distance and stay sheltered within either
 their homes or an establishment until the time the vehicle actually shows up so you can imagine that
 just about every intersection or close to it would have a virtual stop where somebody would
 walk to the corner of a particular block and get picked up by one of the vehicles and then go on
 their their way so these virtual stops is a bit different it's going to be a little bit of a
 change for folks but it's going to provide a lot more accessibility and knock down one of probably
 the biggest barriers to transit is trying to find a bus stop especially if you're not familiar with
 the area this makes it so much easier for you if you just download the app and you're able to use
 the app so let's talk about fare structure for the first six months because we receive federal funds
 we have the opportunity to do what's called a fare promotion and that'll allow us to launch the service
 with a promotional fare that gives us an opportunity to really understand the travel
 patterns of frequency how people are using it we'll gather continue to gather information
 and allow the board of directors and staff to come back at a later date if we choose and modify the
 fares before we actually set a final fare structure for people to to use our system again we're trading
 fixed route service for go-zone service non-demand access but the the final date would be roughly
 mid-march of 2020 before we'd have to set the final fare from a promotion overview it's going
 to be pretty simple so we're going to offer a single ride somebody wants to try the service
 for 75 cents if you buy an am/pm pass a day pass or monthly pass you'll be able to provide or
 use the service as much as you want because it is a it is a replacement for the connect service so
 you'll be able to use the the go-zone service as much as you want within the time frame of the pass
 that you purchase so that should be fairly convenient and seamless for for the customer
 the booking process is pretty simple if you've used uber left you're probably familiar with it
 but the operator or the customer will use an app they'll select their location their destination
 the app will give them options for when to ride what the fare structure is the rider receives a
 virtual bus stop location they walk to it they get on the vehicle and then from there they're
 able to actually track the the the service anybody that's going along that same path would be picked
 up and and they would all go on the shared ride to their final destinations and be dropped off
 and then at the end which will be a big benefit for the transit agency
 is customers can leave they can leave feedback for the trip so we'll get immediate feedback
 from customers on how the rider experience actually worked so let's talk about the
 implementation approach we spent a significant time with with the the board with staff with
 via themselves we did round tables with with city staff and our board members
 and we looked at at the cost of the service and we determined that phase one would include
 the base service which is this on-demand service that would replace connect but a significant which
 i think are game changers set of services that i think will benefit not only increasing ridership
 but just the value to our communities for the first time we'll be providing sunday and holiday
 service sunday a train replacement service which i'll get into in a little bit extending the hours
 of service which is something that we've heard quite often over over a few years about can we
 extend the hours so that it has a better connection not only to a train but just to local establish
 the establishments that are staying open later on saturdays for the first time as we've seen
 density grow off of business 121 just north of castle hills which is in the lewisville service
 area we'll be providing services just north of 121 under this proposition and then again for
 the first time we'll be providing connected service to the dart frankfurt station during monday through
 friday which are commuter hour services to connect the stations and and making it more
 accessible for businesses and retailers and the communities to have access to transit from the
 dart stations into the lewisville highland village zone and we'll also be providing that connection
 as well from train mill station so that's phase one and that's due to be implemented on september
 7th of this year and then following that with the annexation of castle hills we would look to
 provide another public service opportunity or a public involvement opportunity to get feedback
 about launching a castle hill zone so that those folks that live in those neighborhoods will have
 access to the the denton highland village zone and will have the ability to to move more people
 across the county from denton and from lewisville highland village and then lastly based on ridership
 trends we'll look at another area which is we've received some feedback over the years
 but we really would focus on late night service from monday through thursday only if ridership
 really suggests that we need to add that service because it will add some significant expense
 later on so we'll keep an eye on that but that's kind of the launch
 calendar and sequence of how we would implement the services so the base service launches september
 7th it replaces the connect fixed route service it enlarges the zone in denton and lewisville
 and highland village so it's going to be basically two zones one is the denton zone one is the
 combination of highland village and the lewisville zone but as you can see the coverage area is going
 to be much larger again going back to coverage versus frequency it'll cover much more of the
 neighborhoods and establishments around the city of denton will have extended service hours monday
 through saturday and you can see the service descriptions friday will stay open basically
 and providing services from 5 a.m to 11 p.m and then as we move on the add-ons which would also
 be launched under this proposal on september 7th we would extend the the saturday hour services
 to 11 p.m we'd add sunday service which is intra zone so within the zones themselves
 we would be adding if you'll notice the the yellow box the deanian neighborhood which is an area that
 we currently do not serve we'd be adding that area so they would have connection and access to
 the go zone and a train the dart frankford station i mentioned the business 121 north zone expansion
 i've mentioned and then the guaranteed ride home expansion which basically guarantees folks that
 are on the a train that may have transferred over the green line gone into let's say seeing a
 mavericks game coming back will guarantee them a ride home in either one of the zones from
 the trini mills station back to wherever their final destination is
 access service so our ada paratransit will continue to operate as it is
 we would be looking at the opportunities to integrate that with this service to make it
 seamless to make it more accessible and more timely and and to basically lay lay the level
 the playing field if you will for accessibility to our service we may look at the the fare structure
 which is is different for access today and we'll look at that and how we want to apply that and then
 as i mentioned the castle hill zone is a new expansion that would only happen with the annexation
 of castle hills then the weekday late night service as i mentioned would be only looked at
 if in fact ridership demands and the trends which we we expect that there could be the possibility
 that we see strong ridership growth and this would be something that we would look at in the later
 phase so this can be a bit of an eye chart but the best way to look at it is on the far right
 this is what's being proposed as the offering and what we're getting feedback on versus the far left
 which is the current hours of operations you can see that we start a little bit earlier monday
 through thursday we end a little bit later friday we certainly have a much longer
 hours of operations in the evening saturday much better opportunity to provide services and to
 to ride across dcta and in and out of the dart service area and then of course sunday which is a
 big game changer in my opinion would provide availability where we don't have it today
 so service comparisons a train service would remain the same although we are looking at
 through the budget process and talking to the board about getting back to pre-covid levels which
 was basically running a 30 minute frequency pretty much all day during the weekdays which
 will provide better connectivity with this new go zone and provide a lot more frequency on the
 train the dent and connect bus service would for all intents and purposes be replaced although
 we're going to continue our runs routes three and seven for six months to compare and contrast how
 the zone service is working ridership tends to be at least on parts of the day at peak the ridership
 on three and 17 tends to be fairly significant so we want to keep an eye on those two routes look
 at it over the next six months and then make a decision whether we either retain or go ahead and
 discontinue that service lewisville connect bus service will be replaced with go zone routes 21
 and 22 will be removed and then we've been running for a couple years now some on-demand service with
 lift in the lewis lewisville lakeway zone we have a highland village lift zone and a couple of other
 zones that we've been running this new go zone service would replace that we did have a service
 that was running through lift from lewisville into flower mound into some medical facilities
 for the elderly and disabled ridership has not been very strong on that so we plan to discontinue
 that with the support of the city of lewisville with this implementation the north texas express
 we've been running that for a couple of years now in partnership with with training metro and we do
 believe that based on the the low ridership that it makes sense to discontinue that service we'll
 take another look at it maybe as a local service option later but right now i think both transit
 agencies agree that it's probably not efficient or effective for us to continue to provide that
 service the monsignor king 101 will remain the same we'll be running that for and and the dcta
 board actually approved last month to run that that service throughout the next fiscal year so
 that will remain access service remains the same until we get to phase 2a which is what i've already
 covered and then vanpool programs will remain the same our contracted services with other cities
 there'll be no change to that the unt shuttle services won't change for the exception of the
 student faculty and staff we're working with them to figure out currently they pay a a fixed amount
 for the year to provide accessibility to their faculty staff and students on our connect service
 so we are working and discussing how to get the best value not only for the agency but for the
 university to make sure that there's a connectivity there and then we've walked through the new areas
 of coverage with extended hours and the annexation of castle hills when that will actually happen
 so ways to provide input well we're here today presenting to the council we are in the review
 process for the go zones we've we're looking at the fare structure the go zone service
 we're certainly looking for feedback from the council from the general public we're out talking
 to social service agencies just about anybody that's willing to listen to us we're out
 in the public online several different ways to provide feedback through our dcta feedback.net
 we're going to continue to to collect that feedback through june 25th you can request
 presentations or there's somebody that wants to learn more about it certainly direct them our way
 mary worthington does a great job of explaining the service we can do one-on-ones we can do zoom
 calls we're certainly interested in getting as much feedback as possible on the service
 and that concludes the presentation and with me is nicole wrecker crimb she's been the kind of
 all hands on deck making sure that we look at this from the procurement all the way through
 implementation she's our expert on this so we will work in partnership to try to answer your
 questions thank you. Okay and I do want to open the floor for the board chair to add anything
 if he would want to do that mayor watts
 probably getting unmuted
 okay it was pound six it's star six instead of pound six hey uh mayor thank you so much for that
 I would like to maybe save the comments for the end because I'd like to hear the
 the uh can you hear me okay yes sir mayor yes okay uh so that I can you know hear the
 the questions and comments of your colleagues there on council so if that would be okay uh with
 you that's that's that's how I'd like to do that absolutely okay very good questions for
 yes sir so let's go council member mcguire mayor for tim melzer
 thank you um so uh you know I want to make sure y'all are aware that we've we've definitely
 received a lot of public comment about this plan um the public is pretty concerned about it I'm
 pretty concerned about it as well um there are a lot of things that I really like about it
 um I I'm in favor of anything that might expand ridership I think it's that's an important goal
 and it sounds like this has the potential to do that um it will be more convenient for some
 some folks who live in the city um I love that that it offers expanded hours um I love that it
 offers uh improved connectivity to dart those those are all great um great things but uh I'm
 very concerned about the plan to cut fixed routes um we have a significant number of residents in
 our city who really depend on those fixed routes um we have many folks who do not use smartphones
 for whom an on-demand service just would not be accessible in the way that that a fixed route bus
 service is um I'm concerned about um loss of of jobs um for drivers and for other DCTA uh employees
 um you know and I'm aware that uh drivers will have the opportunity to apply for these you know
 to drive these vans but um there's certainly no guarantee that that they would be hired um and as
 far as I'm aware um they would no longer be represented by a union um if they were to lose
 their their union their full-time with benefits union job driving for driving buses fixed bus
 routes and and go to this this on-demand service um I'm very concerned about that
 um we are a really rapidly growing city um we are we are going we are in the process of transforming
 from being a small town to being a a metropolitan city and we are also in the midst of a climate
 emergency we urgently need to be working to get cars off the road and the best way to do that is
 to make it safer and more convenient for people to choose to walk or bike or make or ride public
 transportation instead of driving right and I'm concerned that from my perspective over the last
 few years DCTA and the city of Denton and the county and the state have consistently failed
 to take steps that would make it safer and more convenient for people to use our fixed bus routes
 and now that the predictable outcome has occurred that ridership has gone down now we're saying oh
 I guess we don't need the the fixed bus routes and we it's time to cut them um I I don't think that
 that's the right move um I'm not necessarily opposed to adding on-demand services um but I
 I want to see us investing in making it an increasing ridership on fixed routes um by
 making it safer and more convenient for people to to choose those fixed routes um so I'm I'm
 just I'm very concerned about about the the cutting fixed routes portion of this so
 okay thank you for that feedback okay and then thank you Mayor Pritz and Meltzer
 yeah uh uh thank you I have several questions uh I'm I'm personally very open to the possibility
 that people will find this more convenient it was initially presented to the mobility committee as a
 as a trial and now it seems to be have gone full tilt into the sort of you know
 no no element of trial uh about it uh so I just think we need to ask some questions that we would
 have asked had it been a trial in other deployments I understand sometimes ridership has gone up and
 sometimes ridership has gone down now it seems very plausible to me that if if you're going to
 go on my schedule that that's going to be more convenient than me having to go on your schedule
 so I can completely see that it may have uh been very effective but what about where it hasn't do
 we know anything about the circumstances that favor ridership going up versus the circumstances
 that led to ridership going down when on demand has been deployed sure I'm happy to answer that
 question so of the 200 programs that via currently has we've done quite an extensive deep dive into
 those case studies and white papers to understand what worked with their programs and what didn't
 work with their programs overwhelmingly their programs were very successful and and showed
 increasing ridership as the programs began and in the case where areas transit agencies or cities
 had existing ridership the via programs did show an increase in ridership there were two scenarios
 where via did report low ridership adoption in the very beginning which is not what they had
 anticipated and one of the benefits of doing an on-demand zone service is the flexibility that
 it provides and being able to either move that zone or modify that zone so in these two scenarios
 via just modified the zones based on some feed the passenger feedback that they had been receiving
 and some additional research they were able to do that within the first three weeks of the launch of
 service which then resulted in a major spike in ridership and both of those programs have seen
 increased ridership since they made those modifications I appreciate that uh mayor shall I
 go around yeah go ahead thank you so uh you know I'm aware from uh just people that I know who have
 relied on span disabled passengers relied on span that it has required them booking travel a day
 ahead which isn't how I live and I wouldn't expect anyone else to uh could you contrast uh the span
 process for disabled passengers with what the the go zone process would be yes absolutely so
 regarding ADA qualification the process is very similar in regards to both uh passengers for
 both programs have to apply and have to be approved but the booking process is much different so for
 span you're required to book your trip by 2 pm the day prior you then have to call by 5 pm the
 day prior to your trip to get your actual pickup time and your pickup window is what they call a
 30 minute window so it can be 15 minutes before your desired pickup time or 15 minutes after your
 desired pickup time so the major differences with the go zone service is that users would be able
 to book the trip in real time so if you decide you know hey I need to be picked up in the next 30
 minutes you could book your trip um using the mobile app if you're ADA qualified that service
 goes from curb to curb to door to door so that's what that ADA qualification is can get you is that
 is that the go zone vehicle would come directly to your door and so it provides a lot of flexibility
 you can still book your trips ahead much like you do on our existing access service or like you can
 do with span as well the differences is that you don't have to call to confirm and you don't have
 to book your trips um much earlier 24 hours in advance the other difference is that we provide
 service um extended days of the week and extended hours of the day so currently span provides service
 um monday through friday from 7 a.m to 6 p.m where raymond reviewed the days and the hours of
 operation for go zone and so those days and hours of operation would be available to those using the
 service who are ADA qualified is there a difference between the sort of physical uh ability to
 accommodate a wheelchair between span current fixed route bus uh compatible capabilities and
 these vehicles that were you know that we've been shown that's one of the things we're going to
 analyze uh span operates a very similar vehicle configuration called the cutaway a small smaller
 bus that has a wheelchair accessible either ramp or lift we do the same so as we talk to
 and one of the reasons this is a second phase there's it's really is a lot to to try to unpack
 and and uh deliver uh from a vias perspective but we want to look at integrating some of those same
 vehicles into the service so that there's no question that the the service delivery would
 still be the same type of service there's other folks that are qualified but don't necessarily need
 access to a cutaway because they're not in a oversized wheelchair that can i think as we've
 learned more about delivering this service through taxi cabs and lift the large percentage of folks
 that are covered under ADA paratransit qualifications connect our ambulatory can actually
 use this service more conveniently so we want to make sure that whatever we do we're taking our
 time we're doing it right i think that's the the the the goal we certainly have i believe
 via shares that goal and that's why we're going to take a little bit more time to make sure that
 whatever we deliver is actually going to be value added not taken away from something that they have
 today and just on thank you and on this topic uh service animals uh you know are they able to be
 transported in the go zone yes yes so both service animals as well as animals in a lap gauge
 okay mayor i'm sorry if i'm taking a lot of time i've got one more on kind of rider one more
 riders than one of the labor side um so there's uh i think a misconception going around that i had
 uh until you you came and presented to mobility committee that you had to have the app
 uh to access the service and you know we've heard about less people particularly transit
 dependent people may not have smartphones but uh i understand you can just call from any phone from
 the landline just and there's people on who will talk to you and schedule your ride uh how does the
 payment work if you do that right if you do within an app i assume you've set up payment within that
 but how does it work if you just call so users can use the mobile app they can use the online
 uh the desktop application they can call customer service or they can visit the downtown dent and
 transit center in person those are all ways that we can book trips um any trips that are booked
 over the phone would take a payment over the phone and so it would require a credit card or a debit
 card or some type of a um a generally accepted gift card in order for us to process that i wanted
 that answer but i'm sort of hoping it would lead to another uh possibility of another topic i'll
 just throw it out just something to think about when i think about the slice of customer experience
 that this wouldn't meet uh it would be awesome if at some point there could be a hailable aspect
 of the ride right any any city you go to anywhere in the world if you get out of a train the cabs
 are there you know whereas here the driver would say no i can't take it you got to call me
 you know so if it would be possible for the driver to initiate the ride in effect you know so that
 you're there get in and then once you've got the that worked out you know for the ability to be
 hailable in effect uh you know could you be also hailable on route you know if the driver has
 if the driver is running one person and someone's on route could they hail you know if there's a way
 to pay then then maybe that'd be possible don't expect it to answer that now that's quiz for the
 mill uh but i'll go to my last topic uh which is on the labor side i think the driver behind
 so to speak behind all of this is trying to be more efficient in delivering a you know a more
 convenient experience but that that also will produce some some savings too i think that's
 in there but i don't know that at least you know from my input toward to our representation i don't
 know that that i need that to be on the back of the driver so uh you know of our current uh crew
 of drivers and and these are the people who had significant personal risk to themselves were our
 frontline during coven 19 you know making sure that transportation options were there for people
 who needed to get to work and wherever they needed to go uh so my question is is it possible
 entirely separate from the fact that you know we're going to a different we're apparently going to a
 different set of vehicles and so on uh entirely separate from the fact that via becomes the
 employer is it possible for dcta to keep that crew of individuals whole on paying benefits in some way
 i think the the short answer that is it it would be very challenging and not impossible for dcta
 to dictate to a private entity that they have to pay a certain rate and certain benefit package
 it's certainly not that the way that we tend to procure transit services it's not the way that
 via with its other clients has has delivered service there's no question this is a very
 different type of service delivery model no one is no one model is perfect even with our best
 big buses there's always been challenges that transit historically have been faced with and
 i mentioned a few of them having to walk in in adverse climate not having the infrastructure
 necessary in place and by the way this isn't dcta's problem it's a problem nationwide you go to any
 transit authority people are standing in the grass when it's wet or rainy there they don't
 have ramps where they need to we don't have sidewalks where where they need to be so they're
 accessible and it's not necessarily a transit agency is the transit agency working with the
 cities to make those investments over time so i i think that the the big challenge is
 and by the way dcta has has always contracted for services our bus service
 our has not been dcta's employees we contracted for the first 10 years with a company by name of
 first transit their corporate office is in cincinnati ohio and they provide services to
 hundreds of of transit properties across the u.s there's there's a handful of them that do that
 and they pay their you know they they're in some cases privatized in some cases they're contracted
 some of them have unions some of them don't so every property is a little bit different
 and and i i agree that it is a challenge that staff has been working with with the board
 to find solutions that have many variables that that need to be taken into consideration
 again i'll state that there's not one service type that really meets every need
 i wish there were i think as we look to council members mcguire's comment that we're we're growing
 up and density patterns are changing i'm paraphrasing a bit here but you know we we've
 had to take into consideration input from our boards and cities as we've outreached as to what
 the service strategy needs to look like and probably our biggest challenge has been
 there's two philosophies you can you can phase something in over time or you can
 try to come in and change everything at once and the opportunity that presented itself was with
 covid because ridership was significantly down we know the travel patterns are changing significantly
 and based on the input that we had at the time there was an opportunity to say well maybe we
 maybe what we do is we implement it all at the same time but certainly there's other options to
 look at but this was a direction that that we were asked to to move forward with i think there's
 there's certainly the public involvement process that we're going through now is a very important
 critical aspect because it provides an opportunity for our cities and councils to weigh in and the
 riding public to weigh in i will say that that even people that that work for transit authorities
 if you go to another city it's still challenging to figure out where to find information where is
 a bus route going and so there's a lot of value that comes from technology that presents itself
 and as you both have commented that that make this a very intriguing opportunity
 we certainly will be providing this feedback to our board and to staff so that we can figure out
 a path forward that that tries to take on in some cases they're they're a set of
 of requests that we won't be able to meet every one of them and so we need to take that information
 and figure out how to best respond to the information and then map a a path forward with
 our board so that we can figure out what's going to be in the best interest of our stakeholder
 communities and so i appreciate that i'll turn it back over to you okay just as you know concluding
 thought i want to be clear i i separate entirely the issue of how best to deliver
 convenient affordable service which you know entirely open to why wouldn't you be open to
 longer hours bigger service area responding to the passenger instead of the passenger having
 to respond to you better service to disabled people connecting with cyclists all of that i
 think it's you know very intriguing i just think it's a it's a separate question of what
 responsibility do we owe to those people and how can we meet it and you've been as a you know as a
 group uh very creative in crafting this offering and i would ask that you see how creative you can
 be in responding to to that as well thank you very much for your input okay uh councilmember beck
 councilmember bird councilmember armature thank you mayor um uh i want to you know second uh the
 concerns mentioned by uh councilors i'm a guire and melzer or maripurton melzer and i have i share
 those same concerns and so i won't reiterate them i'll instead just sort of leap off of them uh and
 say um i i guess i one of the things that you know given the exciting potential in the use of
 technology i you know you know i i work in the technology field myself and and so i understand
 the concept of fail fast but the problem with fail fast when you work in the public sector
 is the failure is on the backs of the public and uh you know if if i'm making a poker app
 that's great it fails and and i have to go to a different game if i make a if i if if uh the
 middle class that will likely use this service doesn't materialize and you have the ridership
 concerns that were mentioned by other counselors um then you've failed really fast and you've
 almost abandoned the people that can do the least response to that failure uh particularly in a time
 when we're trying to respond to covid and so that's germane to my question um i guess i don't
 understand why we're using the extreme outlier point of the covid time as a data point during
 when we're trying to fit our ridership data um uh in in you know in in my work we are throwing out
 the covid years for like a lot of epidemiology modeling whatnot because it's just so weird
 and then the only time we're including it is when we're modeling covid um and so these are you know
 you know it feels like you're we're trying to match to an extreme outlier event and so let me
 so you know maybe answer that and then i'll piggyback in immediate second question
 and that is are there any municipalities who have completely transitioned to a via only
 and what was their similarities and differences to our metroplex are they actually
 comparables that we can say okay a pure transition thing you know worked out and
 this city was basically identical to denton so if you could maybe approach those two and i think i
 have another follow-up after that sure with with respect to the the i'll call it the rip the band-aid
 off effect that we're attributing to covid the reason i mentioned covid is if you're going to
 make a a significant change and you want to do it all at once you want to impact the fewest riders
 possible and that's why i think the timing was was looked at is is this something that we want to do
 now um we did look at different models a phased in approach is what i'm hearing from the council
 members fairly consistently is um did we look at phasing in the service we certainly have have
 looked at that um i think there's opportunities that could present itself to do a phased approach
 working with our roundtable discussions with our cities i believe that the city of denton is is
 different than the city of lewisville as far as their transit needs when you look at the city of
 lewisville they have two very large lengthy routes so replacing that with kind of going all in
 with this type of service isn't isn't a a bad strategy because that it's a very it's very
 challenging to have long routes that take a long time again frequency versus coverage to get back
 denton poses a a different set of challenges because of the university schedules because
 you have a lot of density and population and travel needs during the fall and spring semesters
 and not so much during the summer it does create some sweeping challenges just in employment alone
 because you have a lot more operators that are needed during the spring and fall semesters than
 you do in the summer semester so just trying to staff and manage a workforce can be incredibly
 challenging and so again i think from from staff's perspective it there are two in my opinion two
 different ways to look at the service and we're certainly taking your feedback very seriously
 we we will need to talk to our board about it the direction that we were given at the time was
 let's look at because there's a certain i don't want to get too philosophical because we we
 rarely recognize as uh as the leadership of the organization our responsibility to our stakeholder
 communities and the writing public and we don't necessarily want to inconvenience or do something
 that could potentially damage their ability to traverse your city and use the services
 that you're paying for that means we do have to get feedback from from our board representatives
 from stakeholder communities when we reached out and we asked the question and we looked at the data
 the direction that was given is let's look at doing this all at once and i think the main driver of
 that is when you look at it from a business perspective is how many passengers is the transit
 authority actually carrying per hour so that's one of many metrics that we look at and the goal of
 this service was actually to try to increase the passenger per hour um 10 plus passengers per hour
 on the service and so when you look at how you move people about your city there i don't think
 there's a an easy answer to say well one is better than the other because there are differences in
 how they're deployed i will say that we were asked to provide this as the go-forward plan and that's
 what we are presenting today but your feedback is very important and we will uh we'll have to bring
 that back to our our board as part of this public involvement and see what kind of options there are
 for how we move forward um it was saying that the you know the riders didn't quit during covid out
 of choice correct uh so um they have actually been you know busting at the seams to get back
 to their jobs and and and utilize your facilities and and and so you know regardless of what starts
 now that we're beginning you know to decrement our covered response it we're going to see an
 uptick in ridership uh just because of pent demand pent up demand and so uh i guess you know it maybe
 you can follow up with uh our staff and get back to us this this idea of of um comparables that
 completely adopted via and got rid of their fixed route and what were the impacts and partly because
 it's a follow-up to the council or mayor pro tem's question um of you know certainly other
 municipalities have gone completely this route had those same issues of of of paratransit and access
 and and and service animals and everything that was just mentioned over the last 15 minutes
 so i mean it it certainly seems that you know we're we're not leading on this one we're following
 and so those answers should be valid so maybe if you could you could bring those answers back to us
 um that would be helpful to me at least sure with with regard to arlington they didn't have a
 transit service when they implemented so the feedback there has been very very positive
 but they weren't necessarily losing fixed route bus service either uh well that's not really a
 comparable then right correct and then the second second portion of the answer and we'll certainly
 go back and do some analysis for you thank you that that's great insight uh the second point
 that i would like to make is that when you look at transit authorities like train metro and dart
 they have moved much more of their service that was inefficient in neighborhoods uh which is more
 like suburban than which which would apply to i think more appropriately to how dentin is laid
 out you're seeing a significant growth in this type of zone service it's called go link for dart
 and it's called go zip zone in train metro you're seeing significant increases proportionate
 increases in that type of service and elimination a bit of fixed route service in those areas
 because it is more convenient more accessible it gets into the neighborhoods it causes less
 potholes it's less expensive to operate and it does provide a better value so i i can't off the
 top of my head but we need to go back and look at the analysis i don't know that there's been
 an agency that is completely replaced there there are a couple agencies there are some
 white papers on those that we can provide but i will say that we did do extensive research on
 the city of arlington's program as well as turning metro so while arlington doesn't have their own
 transit agency they did have max running which was a series of fixed drop services that provided
 connectivity between the university the athletic complex and the t.r.e train station they did remove
 that in its entirety and replace it with their via service they also had a paratransit service
 that was provided by a third party that they use via for that program has been so successful that
 they actually just experienced a or planned a massive increase in service and they expanded
 the zone coverage because it has been so successful and then specific to trinity metro we did look a
 lot at their zone service like raven mentioned they did pull away some of their inefficient
 six routes and replaced them with these zone-based services that uses the exact same app technology
 that we would be looking at and they've had incredible success with their programs so much
 so that they're looking at their third expansion on their program as well but we can certainly
 follow up with some direct case studies you're making the incredible case for a phase transition
 i love that unfortunately that doesn't seem to be what we're doing and so that is my concern it's
 one thing to to hang some some some nice limbs off a already stable skeleton and then slowly
 you know transition to a different way of doing it or even quickly if it works great but it feels
 like this ripping the band-aid off is happening at the wrong time for the wrong reasons at the
 wrong moment so anyway i'll stop there thank you well i i will add to that that i always like to
 remind people that this is a proposed service the fta does require us to do this public involvement
 process to collect all feedback and our board is not allowed to to formally adopt a service plan
 without reviewing that feedback first and so that's why we want to have these great conversations so
 that we can have that conversation with our board to share the feedback that we've collected
 thank you councilman berg
 privatization is um always a bit unnerving for me because it just seems like going that direction
 um tends to not allow for enough um enough feedback we we find ourselves having to go back
 and redo and rethink uh when we um fall into the whole process privatization uh aspect so i'm not
 really keen on that first of all point blank but i wanted to talk about the finance part of it
 uh i wanted to talk about the the are we are we talking about convenience more than saving money
 or getting money i want to talk about the funding tell me about uh how much all of this is you're
 proposing that this will cost upfront to change i know we've got to you got to purchase vehicles
 you got to put some people in those vehicles and what's the payout of all of this i know there's
 going to be some people that'll be inconvenienced there's going to be some people that appreciate it
 there's going to be some people that don't want to get in a vehicle with six people because they're
 just happen to be on a route and they i mean are they required to do that um i don't want to be
 scatterbrained about it so i'll just limit it to talking about the finance part of that is talk
 about what what the city of denton is is is going to be responsible for in terms of these finances
 to make this happen so and and so i want to interject there so i don't know if raymond you
 you want to speak to the city side of things but it is a bifurcated answer the city pays in a flat
 mount regardless and then it's so it's separate but so i don't know if staff wants to take up
 what the city pays in or raymond if you want to speak to that uh but just separate your answer
 so that we don't confuse the public i mean you get what you get from the from the member cities
 whole chunks and then you you parse that out but just i want to again just have that answered
 succinctly so that uh the council can process your answer uh appropriately thank you mayor
 uh and i'll i'll do my best to give you a summary answer and we can certainly go offline and get you
 more detailed answers because i think it might take a considerable amount of time and i don't have the
 the the but we're putting together budgets uh for these different types of services and um it is
 uh a bit of work to try to to look at we do this uh but to provide by city by types of services how
 much it actually costs to do business i will say that uh the amount of service the coverage that
 you're getting all of the add-ons that we talked about that we've never provided before as if we
 look back at 2020 it's it's a bit more expensive but it's not outrageously more expensive and the
 the main reason is because we're getting a lot of services that we haven't had in the past our from
 a financial perspective our largest uh contributions of funds come from sales tax which is about 51
 percent of our funding followed by federal grants which is high 30 percent so i want to say around 35
 36 percent i don't know what it is yet for the budget year budget year of 2022 but it's somewhere
 around there and then there it's followed by the fair revenue that comes in through what we call
 the fair boxes but passengers that pay for the service and then there's a little bit from
 investment income and other sources so those are the the major portions of it transit agencies tend
 not to try to split it out by by the type of service by city because we have to look at the
 service as a system which includes the a train so if you think about the a train runs it connects to
 train emails to the dart system runs all the way to denton so there's some revenue sharing around
 a common service when our board makes decisions about let's say the mk 101 service which ties
 monsignor king to our daily bread the entire board has to vote in favor of that and they did
 because it supports the system and so while we can look at those numbers and we can provide them to
 you i can generally say that this is a little bit more expensive but it's because of the amount of
 service and the additional services that we're adding we're about adding about i think the add-on
 services were a little over 30 000 hours of service so that the agency's never provided before
 so when you just look at the raw financials it looks like it's more money when you look at the
 the frequency of the service the convenience of the service and the area that we cover it's more
 broad than than we've ever been able to provide before i hope that answers your question i don't
 know that it answered it directly but we can certainly come back to you with a more or less
 of a balance sheet for for denton to show what the old service is costing what the new service
 is costing and that's part of our our budget presentation to the board that we'll be reviewing
 on the 17th of this month is there some kind of profit margin of with this kind of system
 no transit we transit authorities typically in the u.s don't work off of off a profit
 it's subsidized so it's much like a utility if you want to look at it that way
 this is an asset to the city it provides services it makes it more livable hopefully
 increasing ridership is i'm not not hope i know that ridership is certainly going to grow
 from the covet perspective pretty drastically as as you know businesses start coming back but
 we're not charging a profit fee now when we do provide services to non-member cities or to
 the universities we will cover our administrative fees we'll make sure that there's no no dollars
 or cents for that matter being contributed by member city to some other authority so that's
 that's the only place where we charge a fee over and above what the actual cost is for the service
 delivery the predictability of the service we know that it's it sounds like it's from you all from
 from what i've heard that you're predicting that the ridership will go down in the summertime
 because of the universities are you all making the arrangements to to handle that predictability
 it just sounds like to me that that hasn't been looked studied yet well no that actually we we do
 as a matter of fact and nicole one of her jobs is to sit down and we do this monthly with the
 universities to figure out what they're and we forecast all of this into our financial plans we
 have currently with our fixed route service we have multiple bids where where the operators have
 the ability and they will continue to do this through the unt contract service where they get
 to bid on on a particular um scout uh route and schedule based on seniority and that's all based
 on the number of hours and miles of service that the the university plans on running because that's
 the biggest change uh the the largest ridership comes from the universities so we we sit down
 with them we plan out the hours and miles of service that they're planning to budget
 we know exactly how many hours how many miles when they're planning to start a session when
 they're planning to end the session all that goes into the budgeting scheduling and planning
 for the operators to pick their their runs and so much like with fixed route service we'll do the
 same with on demand the beauty of the on demand is it's it's very flexible it gives us the ability
 to change um hours of operations if we need to very very quickly um so i think that's that's
 a benefit to this type of service well and bs technology actually optimizes the fleet count in
 real time so it's truly based on ridership demand so if all of a sudden there is a huge influx in
 ridership for maybe there's a special event going on in dekton then the system itself will optimize
 the fleet assignment and it will assign more vehicles into that specific area during that
 time to keep the wait times to that 11 to 14 minute window um conversely it also will optimize
 if there is not a ridership demand and so it will actually pull vehicles away from the fleet
 so that we're only paying for the services that we're using thank you okay uh councilor amater
 yes uh so thanks for talking to us today um my fellow council members have made a number of
 really good points uh and raised a number of concerns that i concur with i i have spoken at
 length and you know in the past about my my own concerns which overlap with theirs so i'm going
 to try not to be redundant on those today and just uh focus on new concerns starting with my my main
 point and if you see me looking down i wrote notes try to make sure that i i stay on point
 i think that what you're seeing today is that a majority of council members on the current
 denton city council have significant concerns about this move to an on-demand service from the
 a from bus service um concerns uh that you know if if this was to come for up for a vote on this
 city council uh i get the feeling of course of course i don't know um but but i don't think
 you'll be surprised to hear me say that i get the feeling based on what you're hearing now
 and what you've heard in the past uh that you would probably find that this council majority is
 not supportive of of this this plan um this has felt like a uh bait kind of bait and switch from
 the beginning and i'm not blaming the two of you who are here i'm speaking to you but just
 you know this this plan um you know coming uh you know initially with this idea that this would be a
 test pilot uh now you know this is suddenly a a permanent permanent change uh and as you know
 council member beck said you know it's an experiment that we're doing on the public that's
 paying for it and that's what makes it different than a you know private company we're just having
 a private corporate board deciding to change directions um i i want to urge uh that no major
 decisions be made until until the city of denton um can elect a new uh board member to represent
 the city uh who who better represents uh the you know the views of this new council and uh the
 public that each of us represents uh that is my view i feel pretty strongly about it um if the
 current uh dcta uh board representative for for the city of denton who happens to be the chair
 has views uh that are at odds uh with a majority of the council who represents uh the people of
 denton i just think that's a really problematic look uh for for dcta and so i think it's important
 that the city of denton switched to a new uh board member uh expediently uh and that in the
 interim in the meantime that at the very least dcta agreed not to decide on any changes you know
 until we can have that new leadership um so just moving on you know i've been clear about what my
 objections are others have stated it well um i'm i'm not against uh you know the idea of you know
 testing out a uh public you know a taxi shuttle service um but just not at the expense of of buses
 if you hear what denton workers and low-income people who depend on buses if you hear what their
 complaints are and and i know you are hearing and paying attention you know complaints are that you
 know they're not enough routes um and that there's not enough accessibility in bus stops but if you
 just do the the simple math um a small number of uh shut of of vans that can only fit six passengers
 max um can in in no way uh transport the the the capacity that you can get from buses and so i feel
 like we're kind of throwing out the baby with the bath water of course there are problems with the
 bus system that need to be fixed um but we're throwing out the baby with the bath water if we
 throw out um buses we already have a private excuse me lift uh and an uber type taxi services
 and so it's a little redundant for the city to compete with that but there's excuse me but
 there's no replacement for buses uh for uh especially for working class and lower class
 riders uh so just moving on um i've had i had a question um uh for uh for brandy bird who i'm
 really pleased that she's here um because i know we have this consultant um that that that uh miss
 bird is serving as a consultant for the city of denton and as i just found out recently also i
 believe for the city of lewisville as well um so i was just wondering if if miss bird could speak
 you know about uh her role uh for the city of denton and lewisville you know and and uh and her
 her contract and and what she does uh for denton and lewisville and and dcta
 is she on the i don't know is she on the call she is on the call yes she's getting there i am
 yes and i'm happy to speak to that if you would like me to at this moment please
 uh absolutely so council member i have represented the city of lewisville and denton since 2018
 and initially was tasked with passing legislation that restructured the dcta board and ensured that
 the paying member cities had a representation on the board prior to that there was a 14 member
 board of dcta 11 of which were non-paying entities and so there was a desire by the county
 and the cities of of lewisville denton and highland village to to restructure and to ensure that the
 the entities that were funding dcta had the majority of board positions on the dcta board
 now my role is more of an advisory role for the board members and the city staff in denton and in
 lewisville to ensure that the the mission of the two councils are being enacted at the dcta board
 at the dcta board level and also just to ensure consistency across those board positions as you've
 had several different representations during that time frame okay thank you so much it does it does
 yes and and so question uh for uh for for raymond and or nicole um follow up to that are there any
 other uh cities represented on the dcta board that uh are to your knowledge that are either
 working with a private consultant or sharing a private consultant well i don't i don't have
 an answer to that i don't and if we can get i think it's city attorney can you can you help me
 get us i'm done i'm done that's all i need all right thanks uh councillor davis
 thank you mayor i have a few questions um but i'll start by saying the presumption of one member to
 speak for a majority or much less the entire body is just outrageous to me that's the equivalent of
 saying me and my buddies are in charge now we'd like to change the rules and you need to hop in
 line with our program i find that highly offensive this council speaks with one voice when it votes
 on an item before it that is not the case today so moving on to my question i have questions about
 the folks who are going to be affected uh specifically affected by this change who have
 don't have other ways to connect with the change and so i'll do that through a series of questions
 the first one is how does this change affect folks who currently use vouchers provided by a service
 service agency could you speak to how those vouchers are currently handled or how folks who
 get their rides from service agencies or non-profits currently get those those rides
 and how do they get plugged in with the via service sure absolutely so we currently provide
 discounted passes to the social service agencies within our service area we also have a quarterly
 round table with those agencies to make sure that we're staying in touch with them letting them know
 of any updates as well as providing support for their needs so currently they purchase those
 passes at a discounted rate and they can do so monthly weekly some of them do some of them
 purchase annually the only difference and those passes are processed through our department and so
 i'm very i work very intimately with the social service agencies on that the the switch over to
 via actually has a really positive impact on purchasing those passes so what would happen is
 that a social service agency would let us know that they're interested in purchasing so many
 credits so go there would be goes on credits if they purchase enough which is a fairly small
 number we can actually work with via to set up what's called a client portal for that social
 service agency so that they can book trips on behalf of their clientele or they can actually
 issue a credit to that person's account and so then the representative from the social service
 agency themselves would have an electronic means of distributing and also tracking those passes
 whereas today they do them kind of in a print format and so we have talked about that quite
 extensively with the social service agencies throughout the county and we've actually had
 some really positive feedback thus far about the change to the program good deal i'm glad to hear
 that my second question is about the university buses recognizing that the i guess the second
 largest source of your revenue annually is these these contracts with particular entities like the
 universities and recognizing that those are contracts that have to be negotiated do you
 anticipate what changes to those service levels do you anticipate i mean are we still going to see
 as many unt branded dcta buses are we going to see a a change in their routes what do we anticipate
 from that or is it too early to tell so the when we sign an agreement with the university
 the university of purchase vehicles that dcta was operating it wasn't a full complement of
 vehicles a couple years back so this won't be a very lengthy history lesson the university was
 really concerned about ensuring consistency in your point of service delivery so we engaged in a
 a 10-year agreement with them to provide transit services to the university and and from various
 routes throughout denton and the certainly it was impacted by covid
 students weren't on campus we're starting we're hearing that they're going to be coming back in
 full complement in september or august the i think their plan is to bring back the services
 and the budget levels isn't at the same level as it was prior to covid but it's not far off of it
 so all the planning and discussions we've had with the university thus far is that they're
 planning to come back pretty much in full complement it means that there's certainly
 not been any current reductions in the number of routes they're they're always tweaking the
 frequency of their service depending on when they're opening a particular hall where students might
 be so there's always small tweaks to the to the service we i want to say two years ago suggested
 that they move some of their late night service to a lift program and it'd save them money be
 more convenient and that actually has produced fantastic results for the university so we're
 going to talk to them about maybe expanding that that service a little bit more they they have
 provided some feedback that they're intrigued by the via solution to see how students will either
 react positively or negatively but there might be some options to to work with them
 during off-peak hours to provide these this i'll just call it a a a tool set of different mobility
 options as the university looks at to continue to to grow their services i would think it was
 probably roughly two years ago that they started an on-campus bike program you're probably
 intimately familiar familiar with some of those attempts um i know the city works with the
 university on that bike share program so they're looking always at better mobility options to serve
 their students i think this might be a really good opportunity to sit down with them um nicole has
 already had an initial conversation she and i talked to their their head of transportation about
 it so that's kind of where we are with them um long-winded way of saying that they're not quite
 back to what their prior service levels are but they're definitely moving in that that direction
 okay next last question i'm hearing kind of a strange logic unfolding in some of our
 conversations here that you're telling us that the a majority of the clients you're currently serving
 you think will be better served or you anticipate will be better served by this new program we know
 that there are some small percentage of folks those 10 people per hour some small percentage of those
 folks who will not be as engaged with the via system as we would prefer that might have been
 better served by a fixed route bus but i'm hearing this logic from some of my fellow council members
 that we ought to then design the system around those few people for whom fixed route may not
 be better than via if he is better for the vast majority of folks can you kind of and you've kind
 of nibbled around the edges of this but can you in a nutshell tell us if we know that there are some
 folks that fixed route worked better for either because they can't connect very well to the app
 or the system is onerous for them or some other reason can you tell us how you're going to identify
 those folks how you're going to find them and how we can design the system to be best for the most
 people and then design the fail safes or the workarounds for the folks who actually need it
 as opposed to the other way around i sure wish transit was was simple simple enough to give you
 a straight answer and i don't want to give you a consultant answer but typically in our let me walk
 around this one a little bit and i'll try to get very quickly to a pointed answer for you when
 transit agencies when they're looking at delivering service use either in-house or third-party
 consultants to look at how to shape transit services along corridors and that's consistently
 done because density patterns change maybe some new apartment complexes multi-housing or new
 businesses come into your marketplace which has been happening a lot and then
 come in and so you constantly have to look at social economic data
 you know housing density patterns infrastructure that's available in a certain area to to try to
 determine what ridership might look like now dcta hired um eccentric as part of our transformation
 analysis well over a year ago and they brought in a well-respected partner
 cambridge systems to look at those types of options and i think what what i'm hearing is not
 inconsistent i've been doing this for over 30 years in transit is not inconsistent with what
 you hear in a lot of different councils or in some cases board meetings where you have folks that
 that want to see change want to see technology because it provides benefit and also the important
 thing about honoring people that worked here that that have been through cobit i mean we've
 certainly written notes on all of these um the to target the answer is the the biggest challenge is
 is the service that we were that we were delivering the right service the answer is probably not is
 the service that we're planning on delivering the right answer it may not be for everybody right
 because we can't be everything to everybody um i will say that some of the feedback that we did
 receive from the consultants was again just another option that was looked at is reshaping
 some of the fixed routes because the the ultimate thing that to make it um digestible in this context
 is think about your fixed routes being um main arteries of your transit system that carry more
 people and frequency but you don't want to have fixed routes everywhere i think we had way too
 much fixed route and that's why the when you look at the economics of the equation of transit
 that's just one one thing you have to look at is is it cost effective is it efficient i would say
 the amount of fixed route service that we had probably wasn't cost effective or efficient the
 other issue is you have to take in a lot of variables like road coat closures and street
 repairs and i'm sure the council was very well or very familiar with the level of that those
 infrastructure changes that that impede the ability for transit to actually work on main
 arterials or they're being under construction for a year so it is it is a multiple multitude of
 different variables that go into deciding is something effective or is it efficient is it
 meeting all the needs and transit will never meet all the needs unless there's a very good healthy
 mix of these types of services what what i'm hearing pretty consistently is that there's
 concern about going all all connect service all but fixed route service there's also concern about
 going all on-demand service but a mix can can work i think it was fairly a fairly rigorous analysis
 by the consultants that were hired by the board of dcta to look at but it really came down to a
 decision about what's the desire of the cities and at the time the desire was let's let's implement
 this service while ridership is low while people have time to learn how to use a new system
 but certainly i think as you look at on demand it reaches a point where you're providing so
 much on-demand service so frequently that it winds up costing more money to the agency and
 there's a natural push or tendency to say well based on where the travel patterns are happening
 that would drive the decision to go back to a fixed route so i don't think one answer
 is right or wrong i do believe that going to the to the um the ends of a of a bell shape which is
 what we're really doing is we're saying well it's either all connector it's all um on demand is
 something that i think our board needs to need to needs to listen to the feedback from this council
 and and um we'll take that back to our board and see if there's a change in in direction and
 philosophy on how to move it forward i think that's probably the best answer i can give you at this
 point and last question that i have um and being cognizant of time i'll try to do a little tiny bit
 of setup i appreciate your arteries uh analogy but i'll point out that the city of dentons never had
 very good blood pressure our ridership has never been significant we have a certain population of
 people that depend upon the buses we have a a whole other segment of the population who's never
 set foot on one your farebox receipts have never been significant they've never been uh much more
 than a drop in the bucket of your of your budget our sales tax and the contracts have uh been
 floating those big buses and empty trains and all that kind of stuff that doesn't that may sound
 like a little bit of an attack i don't intend it to be i think public transportation is really
 important i'm glad we have it we just don't have a lot of people who take advantage of it for the
 amount of money that we send into it and i and i would like to just add to to your point i share
 your your sentiments it it goes back to design um and and there's certainly interest in using the
 service we pre-covid we're carrying 2.8 to 3 million riders a year that's that's not insignificant
 um but i think the design it really comes down to design frequency accessibility there's
 roughly 10 to 15 different variables that have to be looked at and for the most part the the service
 had not changed for over a decade so think about that if the service doesn't change for a decade
 and we're hearing from council members that the the city is reshaping itself um
 in some cases we can't control it none of the cities can control it because there's so many
 people moving into to the to the service area so it's changing around us we have to look at our
 service if it's ever going to be effective and efficient and i do believe that the the best
 transit authorities across america whether they're small because i've again i've been in this business
 for 30 years and there's been some some wonderful implementations of multimodal transit with transit
 hubs in in smaller cities that didn't that that are vibrant they love the service they love their
 transit authority and it has a smattering of fixed route bicycle um on-demand scooters because just
 like going to the grocery store people want variety and options the technology affords it and i think
 that's the feedback that i'm hearing today that we need to bring back to our board because it's a very
 important aspect dentin is a very large part of the ridership the universities are a very integral
 part of this i've taken personal um time to make sure that we're engaged with the universities that
 we understand what they're doing what their challenges are financial um what what they're
 doing with development student housing because it's it's it's shaped so much of the of the transit
 system so i i appreciate that answer and again trying to move on to my question here um the uh
 and i i agree with you 100 that it takes a number of different approaches to get the best possible
 fit to get the right fit and serve people the best way um but i'll ask a question that i've asked you
 before um i'd appreciate just as direct and brief an answer as you can possibly give and i've asked
 uh this question of staff before if our farebox receipts are so low and we have a ridership issue
 why are we charging for the bus why don't we if we have some small number of fixed routes make them
 free and then charge a fare for the direct get you door almost door-to-door service and then we'll see
 then we'll see if ridership goes up on the free buses then we know that what the issue was
 and if it doesn't like i predict it'll stay about the same or maybe even go down and people
 are willing to pay 75 cents to to get a door-to-door uh service why don't we do that why are we charging
 for these buses um and why don't we right size the buses themselves and why don't we right size the
 fare to the amount of money we're paying for these buses i feel like i'm already paying a good bus
 ticket price uh in my tax my sales tax dollars why not open the buses up for free thank you for that
 question um i'll make it short so your feedback is something that we did and it proved itself out
 well we actually lowered the the average fare and ridership increased and our our revenue increased
 so it's not illogical at all transit authorities use that supply and demand retail they do it all
 the time you lower fares more people tend to use it fare policy is something that transit authorities
 work on with the board because it does impact our revenue it's something that we can certainly
 discuss with our board most transit authorities do not um by nature give away the service because
 there's some other issues with just making sure that people aren't using it as a form of shelter
 not as a form of transit so i think across america through apta most agencies don't do it but some
 have and so it is a it's something that we should we should consider and have a discussion about
 thank you for that input okay um so we've been at it about an hour and 45 minutes so i'll just
 tell you and we're on item a so uh those as you need to take a break throughout the remainder of
 this the meeting do so at your leisure because we're not stopping uh we'll stop at uh when for
 dinner but other than that just giving everybody full disclosure that i'm not taking any breaks
 uh so adjust your schedule accordingly um and with that uh so everyone's spoken once
 uh so i see indications to do it again uh so and then i'm gonna ask for succinct answers
 if you would be so kind from the dcta side and i'm gonna ask for questions i think we've all uh
 everyone's opined uh so so that we can keep it to getting q and a at this second round that'd be
 great uh so that we can make sure we get to the other things uh councilmem armature councilmember
 require uh thank you and i will be brief um i just wanted to respond to uh raymond's uh comments
 and and one of councilmember davis's comments just to say you know i i really appreciate uh
 your uh listening uh raymond and uh to you know what you're hearing today um and uh appreciate
 you know this openness uh to looking back on on this with with new eyes i want to second um
 councilmember davis's you know suggestion about uh explore question about you know exploring
 you know reducing uh rates even further you know for me free public transportation uh would be
 the ideal you know for me that's the goal um but of course you know we also have to look at
 are the what are we giving people for free and i think now part of what you're seeing is a city
 council that's really invested in public transportation um obviously we all have a
 lot to say about it you know whereas councils in the past might not have um and so you're getting
 all this this new direction i just wanted to say i really appreciate uh and i understand this sense
 of going back and forth you know that you've been experiencing as dcta staff um but i think and hope
 that ultimately these you know changes will be will be positive if we're representing the people
 and not experimenting on them thank you for your input
 councilmember mcguire thank you mayor um so the issue of of declining ridership has come up quite
 a bit um but i i don't know that we've discussed much um what has driven that um you know i know
 councilmember davis um you know brought up the the issue of fairs um and suggested that perhaps if
 if fares were lower or non-existent ridership might go up um i i would like to suggest as well
 and get get your perspective on um you know headways uh and um transportation to and from
 stops a great deal of which is the responsibility of the city more than it is dcta um i mean do
 is it your opinion that if headways were shorter ridership would go up on fixed droughts
 headways uh shorter headways always help more frequency the the less people have to
 worry about getting or sitting at a stop certainly helps um so so headways are important i do believe
 that there is a point where it doesn't matter how much service you put there it's not going
 to improve ridership because the whole concept of origin and destination really is part of that
 equation when transit planners look at where folks need to go as an example you can put in a train
 system but if you don't if the city's not the cities along that that corridor are not
 developing therefore there's no reason to get on or off your ridership's not going to change over
 time no matter how much you advertise no matter you know what you do there so it it truly is a
 partnership between the city the um multiple uh folks within the or the city social services
 businesses and we gosh nicole and her team spend so much time um working with businesses talking to
 them we're just in a very interesting time and why fixed route you're seeing such a a
 a shift from even some of the larger transit authorities in north america
 to more mobility on demand because it does solve some significant issues it does solve the
 on-time performance issues you can get around a construction zone so much easier where you
 can't do that with a fixed route service so again i'm going to go back to the comment where
 uh if you design the system properly with the appropriate frequency of a bus service and you
 design it in such a way that it's accessible with on demand i think you solve or we can solve a lot
 of problems that we've had from a from a efficiency and effectiveness perspective
 from a financial perspective i'll say uh but also and more importantly because transit in north
 america is not a money-making proposition it is a service and i don't want to be talking at you as a
 as a council but um this isn't only true in the u.s there's other countries the united kingdom
 actually makes profit off the transit systems but it's a very different very densely populated
 continent in the u.s it's an asset it's a question of how you want to design that asset to make it
 to to bring the qualitative things that you want for your city and we have to do it together
 sorry i know you want me to be brief but transit philosophy and how to shape something
 isn't always a short answer and so i want to be respectful not only of your time but i want to be
 respectful of the question that you ask so that i can provide you with the best answer possible
 okay um any other questions um i'm in oh well i just want to um also clarify um kind of the the
 the input that i gave earlier um you know of course um fixed routes should be flex should have
 flexibility should change over time um with shifting uh you know population centers and mobility
 patterns um and i do think that that the the proposed um go zone uh program could be a great
 um tool for helping us determine what those changing mobility patterns look like um but i
 i um yeah i just want to reiterate my um uh support for keeping something resembling our current
 fixed bus route system obviously it's not something that should be carved in stone and can never
 change but um i think that significant cuts um are something that i am not in favor of
 okay any other questions seeing none um let me see um so here i will uh so that the chair uh your
 board chair can have the uh full slate i'll give you my my thoughts but for staff simplicity uh to
 keep it easy for them to carpet compartmentalize the follow-ups that i've noted from the discussion
 thus far has been one uh a uh follow-up with the conversation of a driver uh initiated ride or hailed
 services mayor pro tem mentioned so if you could follow back up with an answer to that i think that
 remains unaddressed and then uh comparables that uh for the on-demand transition that councilmember
 back touched on so that's that so that that's segmented then i have kind of questions and just
 to kind of frame it for me and again i'll try to keep the questions uh brief uh and so the question
 is who makes the final decision on how this is implemented is that the dcta board member cities
 and their councils who makes the final who's going to vote on what's finally approved the dcta board
 is waiting to vote on july 22nd if we have significant public comment that would necessitate
 modification to the program we would hold an earlier board meeting with the board to discuss
 those modifications in an effort to fully modify the plan and bring it to them on july 22nd for
 approval perfect and so for those watching and those watching this that so i'm just redirecting
 people to the right source right to get their voices heard to get their actions addressed
 this body won't vote on that final uh decision that's right okay just wanted to make sure that's
 out there uh then um so you and t is a client of dcta is that my understanding yes okay got it
 and then um let's see uh your slide 13 um raymond was very good it just kind of had the three kind
 of where we are now and to the far right it was kind of where we're going but i i was a little
 confused so forgive me is that all under phase one that those changes were having or those changes
 kind of in that phased approach i just couldn't make that connection phase uh thank you for your
 question uh the the one that's on the far right is what's being recommended by the board of directors
 which is what's being communicated to the public is that would be the phase one implementation
 is the add-ons that would go into effect on september 7 got it okay got it thank you uh and
 then the bus drivers come up and and and so currently you touched on it but i want to just
 confirm so you said the bus drivers have always been contract labor not employees of dcta is that
 is that did that pivot did they become employees currently or where are we so for the first 10
 years they were contracted out to first transit who was a third party private entity over the
 last two plus years we uh we moved them into a local government corporation so the local
 government corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary if you will of dcta but it's still an independent
 third party has its an independent board so it is still um they're they're not sharing in the same
 benefits and insurance policies and that thing as you would as an employee of dcta that was done
 potentially as a transition to some of this new technology and services but i would say for the
 for the last 10 years and then the last two years those employees have never been
 a direct employee of dcta under the leadership of the board or under my leadership authority
 right and so and is there a contract in place currently or is it kind of what's the contract
 correct so dcta um has an interlocal agreement with the north texas mobility corporation for
 mobility services okay and how long is when does that contract expire sorry that contract i believe
 was a seven-year contract and it was signed two years ago i would let me let me follow up with
 the exact timing but i believe that it was a seven-year contract got it and and i want to just
 kind of just put a put a pin in what you just said raymond because i think it's noteworthy
 if if anyone has gone to the grocery store understands that there's not as many grocery
 store clerks as it used to be due to technology you go into mcdonald's there's technology that
 has replaced employees so that i mean it's it's a it's a it's an issue across all industries
 right i mean it just technology has a way of helping and hurting at the same time and so
 that's that's good and then you answered my question about the phone's service and connectivity
 and then you answered that okay great so that's my my questions and so for your for your board
 notes for the board and then we'll turn it over to uh the the um board chair and and these are
 extensive i just kind of picked up from everyone's kind of notes so bear with me but i i think here's
 here's what highlights to me that the the pivot the change the benefits um there are concerns
 but the benefits are safety people will have to wait outside in 100 degree temperatures and rain
 etc currently and and so it moves people from having to do that i see people all the time and
 for those watching i would i would advocate you see people walking down the street from the dollar
 general store from areas that are that have uh food deserts carrying tons of plastic bags that they
 have to walk down the service road where we don't have a sidewalk and so visualize that and visualize
 the opportunity to remove that concern and at the same time get a large bus off the road that then
 has environmental hazards so every time you're driving around the city of denton and you see a
 person carrying a poor person that's and i say poor and it's unfortunate that it's in the situation
 that they have to walk with a whole bunch of bags from the grocery store to their to their home we
 can replace that and and that's to be celebrated that's to be that's to uplift those people every
 time you see someone that unfortunately has to take the shopping cart home with them i don't
 begrudge them if it's raining and you don't have another means of transportation that that's a cost
 to the grocery store to lose that that piece of equipment we can then have a service that says hey
 it's easier for me to call this service than to take this shopping cart home with me you know and
 so there's opportunities to to make our business partners and the citizens we serve whole uh and
 so and then service more area what's here's what's been missing and here's what's stuck with me from
 a conversation from our last conversation here's what i heard i heard from someone in south ridge
 area that says there's no buses over here right this group just kind of overlooks the fact that
 you know what there's people that need service in the south ridge area it may be have larger homes
 than the rest of us but that the need remains the same it it knows no barriers that way and so we
 don't have fixed bus routes over there you know so it allows us to serve our entire entire community
 with with with with the the ride service they need and so that to me is to be celebrated um and so
 those are things um that jumped out at me initially and then you look at the the the
 conversation came up about the pandemic every business on the planet has changed due to the
 pandemic that's not unique to dcta and it's interesting to me that this that the the words
 were saying hey we can't look at this as a look at it as a singular moment but at the same time
 when you're talking about utilities now all of a sudden we're changing everything because of the
 pandemic because of not the pandemic but the the winter storm so it's a one it's a 10-year event
 the winter storm that now we're saying we have to change everything we do but at the same time
 we're not afforded that opportunity or that that same grace or that same understanding is not
 extended to this bus service to say hey the pandemic has had lasting effects we could not
 get margaritas to go but now you can get margaritas to go because of this and so there's
 systematic wholesale changes that have happened that won't go back you know remote work more
 people are working remotely now and that will not we'll never go back to the to where we were
 pre-pandemic there are just more opportunities to work remote there's efficiencies and so to yes
 that's a fact the pandemic has lasting effects that's not nothing that's not anything new and then
 i'll tell you them the employee side of things is important to me no question but more important
 to me is that we we are efficient with our sales tax dollars and for those watching we the city of
 denton is on pace round numbers 14 million dollars goes into dcta regardless of what how it's spent
 that's just it's a fixed number that the citizens have didn't voted on it's not this council it was
 the entire city went and voted and said this is what we want to have in place and it's a fixed
 number that goes and so it's a it's incumbent for me to make sure we get as much efficiency out of
 that and that's why i'm grateful for the grant programs and the other opportunities to to kind
 of show value to our community so that's important to me and then let's see got that got that
 i think raymond your point about the seasonal issues is is so significant right i mean that's
 a business model where you have where you're on and you're you have 40 000 students on unt's campus
 and then you know seven months later you don't and and to have that bath you have to be able to be
 flexible any business owner any anyone has to be flexible in that way and this this i think gives
 you that flexibility to have the high level of service but at the same time understanding
 the business models is difficult to manage and let's see got that so i'm just making sure i touch
 on everything i think another thing that's important to me i live in southeast end right and i was there
 when carolyn phillips was uh this is before y'all's time but she was she was very concerned about dcta
 and that bus station that's going on that's in our neighborhood right and so i think it's important to
 note less buses less traffic less maintenance you know and i know i'm not saying dcta has done a
 great job of that sound dampening and facing everything away from the neighborhood but it's
 still noteworthy to say there would be less bus maintenance traffic etc that's to the benefit of
 the willow creek neighborhood and those that face your facility regardless of how how well you've
 dampened the sound and done those things and planted trees i i commend you on all those things
 but at the end of the day i still think uh that willow creek neighborhood is benefited by by that
 less traffic you know uh and and environmentally it's also a benefit uh so that's important to me um
 and then uh touched on that touched on that yeah yeah i think that's the the just of it uh from
 from my perspective so i will turn it over to um mayor watts as our as our board chair and then
 any closing remarks you have uh from your end raymond and and we will move on to the next item
 okay sorry about that yeah i had to navigate the technology i apologize for that first of all thank
 you for all the valuable feedback um i think it's good for us to get together and hear what the
 concerns are just just to correct or to to place some facts out there that i believe uh are not
 known number one this initiative was not based upon post-covid numbers this initiative was looking
 at ridership numbers and trends over the last three or four or five years and seeing that sales
 tax uh and budgets for bus service were going up while ridership on a train and bus service
 was going down uh non-unt students in other words those riding the buses in den i can only
 speak for den uh who are non-students in other words take the student ridership out of it
 well actually it's across the whole bus system both lewisville holland village and any contract
 services uh the last numbers i remember where we were moving about a thousand to twelve hundred
 people per day throughout the entire bus system excluding unt students a train was about 900 to
 a thousand or 1200 people uh per day now when you see these 2.3 million passengers there's a formula
 there and most of those probably at least half or more are unt students so i just want to make it
 clear that this is not about basing this on post-covid numbers this is and there was a comment made
 that yes there are some people that are dependent upon buses i'm gonna i'm gonna change that last
 word there are people who may be dependent upon public transportation and so dcta's job is to how
 can we provide the most convenient cost-effective method for all citizens but especially those who
 are dependent upon public transportation i remember on many instances where a woman came before the
 city council who was one of these individuals dependent upon public transportation at that time
 the buses who had to cross underneath the i-35 bridge to get to work over in razor ranch
 because it was a fixed route so i couldn't imagine that if this this person had an opportunity
 so i think that uh this is great feedback to take back to the board uh but i i just want to make sure
 that when we that we base this upon the facts that are on the ground we i would encourage all
 of you to get that study and read it through from the consultant because the fixed route
 the fixed routes that were proposed to be uh altered or changed or eliminated carry 10 or less
 people per hour now that doesn't necessarily mean 10 or 10 individual different individual people
 it just means 10 people got on and it could have been the same person uh a couple of times so
 i understand the concern but i've worked with uh certainly i've worked with city councils who are
 just as invested in public transportation as you all are and i appreciate that you are and i
 appreciate your interest and i certainly appreciate your feedback so i would really encourage you to
 get that study because i think that i'm confident i'm more than confident that we can meet the needs
 of those who are impacted because those same people are also impacted by fixed routes or by
 fixed route bus service they may not have the right times as far as headways bus service headways are
 very expensive as you increase or as you decrease the headways with on demand whether it's a
 combination or however it's configured that cuts it in half almost and gets you closer to your
 destination so i just simply ask that you pull the study look at the facts because some of these
 things that uh some of the comments have been based upon i'm not so sure are uh exactly accurate
 and that's not your fault that that could be our fault by not making sure that we've got enough out
 there to uh present that so i'm excited about uh the conversation i'm excited that no matter what
 happens we're going to be able to provide better public transportation more efficient public
 transportation and let me say quite frankly i'm the one that after the last mayoral election
 realized we were paying some money but for some reason our people were not riding the bus
 but i will say dcta has responded the best if they can before i even became on the board
 to meet the needs of the member cities when they ask them to just like they have with the special
 route from i daily bread to monsignor king just like they did when they asked for shuttle service
 out to the speedway for vaccination so i'm very confident that the organization no matter what
 path they go if they if they go ahead and move forward with the path if we move forward with the
 path that we uh that we've described and that was presented to you that we will find a way that will
 assist those people who may be impacted in a way that makes it better for them than a fixed out
 system so i would encourage as you hear the concerns i hope that you are emailing those
 specific concerns of what if they don't have a smartphone what if they don't have a credit card
 what are they going to pay some of those specific questions that we heard today to email those to
 dcta staff so that we can continue to brainstorm because it's not our intent to leave anybody out
 at all uh in fact it's the opposite it's to say how can we bring more people in and there was a
 comment made that this program was being just implemented for the middle class well i i just
 reject that this program is being implemented for all the citizens of vinson to make sure that we
 meet as many needs as we can in this regard because in the end we had a strategic meeting
 and they asked us all what is the vision of dcta you know we laid out economic development
 we laid out you know climate to get you know to try to get some of these diesel buses off the
 off the streets because we were concerned about the environment and there was one other thing
 well mine was we got to move more people we've got to transport more people because if we don't
 transport more people all those other things are meaningless and to get to one of the council
 members comments about that via doesn't have the capacity to carry the number of people that have
 bused us that may be true in five or ten years right now they have more than adequate capacity
 to carry our pre-covid numbers and to provide closer stops quicker times and just like in this
 situation i mean the mark of a good organization is you are able to be nimble and move with the
 times so somebody said this is a permanent thing i don't you know we talked about a pilot and a
 permanent there's nothing permanent i mean you can implement this and if all of a sudden you've got
 people riding everywhere well then you can find a way to meet that need so i i really just encourage
 you to uh if you haven't read the study read the study look at some of the historical data
 from four or five years back about ridership sales tax because what we're charged with on
 the dcta board is how do we move people in an efficient way and provide everyone an opportunity
 for public transportation so again the feedback was invaluable i'm glad that everybody's engaged
 because i think we've got some good things to talk about and look forward to those conversations and
 thank you mr mayor i know i went a little bit over but i appreciate your accommodation
 yes sir thank you and and raymond before before i turn it over to you for closing remarks i'll
 note that to staff fair points if you could email the study you may have already done so but staff
 if you'll get that to us and then also staff city staff if you could help us by creating a graphic
 to direct comments to the dcta you know get with dcta get whatever email address is best for them
 and let's put that out on the social medias because what i what i really want to avoid is
 someone emailing me and i miss it or and their their comments not be heard they need to send it
 to the body that's going to make the decision to ensure their comments their suggestions are
 received and i don't want to be uh i'll just put it on myself i don't want to be a cause for
 someone's concerns not being heard so i want to make sure we have a graphic that displays and
 educates the public where they can reach out uh and and have those comments and get questions
 answered and lastly i i think that's a great point and it's a miss on my part i i certainly
 thank dcta for their role they played in the vaccination center and getting people i mean i
 volunteered out there a couple of times and it was just beautiful to see uh you know the buses of
 few people properly distance uh you know so thank you very much for being a great partner in that
 way and then i'll turn it over to you uh for your for closing comments thank you thank you mayor i
 just on behalf of dcta and our board i appreciate all the invaluable input that you provided the
 fact that there's so many opinions about uh transit it was said earlier means that you you care and
 this is a vested council and i will echo the the board chair's comments and i will i will say that
 he is correct and i did mention that the trend in ridership across the nation has been trending
 down which is why transit authorities across the nation have been looking for more effective and
 efficient ways to provide transit we believe via is a great partner can provide a lot of opportunities
 to improve and enhance our communities that we serve and i do believe that they are an important
 part of the future of transit moving forward so rest assured that we will take this information
 under a very strong consideration we will get that report out to you because i think there's a
 tremendous amount of valuable information a lot of strategies at the board took a lot of thought
 and comments and input to create the what they felt was the the important strategies technologically
 and from a service perspective that we needed to focus on over the course of the next several
 years and so i think that's a great idea i do appreciate the board chairs uh input not only
 while he's been on the board but when he was mayor because he did challenge dcta to say look we need
 to be more effective and we need to be more efficient and it goes back to my earlier point
 that if the service hasn't changed in 10 years uh and the city around us continues to change
 it's obvious and evident that during my leadership we we made significant strides not just in this
 area but many others um and and one of the main focus has always been from from our perspective
 as staff and as the the ceo dcta to bring value back to our communities and we do that by making
 it more accessible more available and at the end of the day the board chair's comment is absolutely
 correct that it's all about ridership if we're not moving people then the rest of it really doesn't
 matter and so we have to stay focused on that thank you very much for this time i really appreciate
 the the input and uh we'll we'll get back with our board and and chart a path forward thank you
 okay thank you very much have a great day thank you nicole okay uh that concludes item a takes
 us to item b which is id 21451 receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding
 fy 2021 2022 departmental budget presentations for community services uh city council city
 manager's office public affairs dtv legal and animal services good afternoon mayor council
 cassie ogden director of finance just here to kick off our department presentations for today
 we do have five that the mayor just listed and with that i will hand it over to danny shaw
 to start the community services presentation good afternoon mayor and council i will bring up the
 presentation all right um today we'll be talking about our community services budget uh
 cortney is here with me louisa got to go on vacation this week so uh we'll try to answer
 your questions as best as possible without her and this is a view of community services organizational
 chart it does show a bit more how we operate rather than just the traditional hierarchy
 and is representative of all the different services that we're providing within
 the different staff functions to go through our budget overviews um for 2021 a few of
 accomplishments we'd like to share obviously code was a big impact on our work uh really since
 february of 2020 and initially right after the covid event there was some funding that came
 available very quickly and we're pretty proud that we were able to secure the first round of funding
 from the cares act for the 1.4 in esgcv and we are administering that now and then we also
 did receive additional funding through the cares act for cdbgcv which we're in the process of
 expending the 1.4 million covid also put us in a lot of situations where we are working with
 our partners in the community to assess community needs related to our covid activities and so we've
 done significant amount of work with that uh from the initial response to congregate shelter
 activities and opening up the hotels to make sure we had appropriate social distancing and to prevent
 the spread of covid until now where we're working with additional funding resources for eviction
 prevention and rental assistance we also had the opportunity to complete our affordable housing
 assessment phase one which we presented to council the first phase of that was just the analysis
 report that's giving a lot of data to council to make decisions on the next steps which we're
 initiating as well which is phase two which we do expect to also finish before the conclusion of
 this fiscal year and then ultimately the completed the design phase and received notice to proceed
 from council on the loop 28 project moving forward loop 28 project is going to be a significant amount
 of our work and the finalization of the the affordable housing strategy and toolkit the
 next three bullets are really combined but a lot of our work is going to be then next even though
 we're working through the loop 28 project our next steps in strengthening our housing crisis
 response system once that facility is underway but also in our free time working on our ability to
 to innovate and look at program opportunities as we're learning from our data and building
 opportunities from that to to make sure that we're including process improvements and iterating
 along the way a lot of our work over the last couple of years has been to understand how we
 work within the organization so it's always been a goal of ours to increase that coordination
 effort across with all the different departments that we impact so we'll go through our budget
 highlights later but just really quickly we wanted to show a reflection of all of the funding and all
 the projects and programs that we're managing so when we look at the budget highlights you'll just
 be looking at general funds impact in our administrative and operations but this is really
 the work that we're doing around all the different types of projects that we're managing
 and so hopefully it shows council a little bit more detail specifically about how the
 projects are being implemented with the funding available a little bit more on our
 workflow and our metrics i just wanted to show council the growth and the amount of work that
 we're doing we certainly kept legal very busy this year with some additional items that we've
 taken to council in the contracts that we're managing with the addition of our new funding
 sources as well as the projects that we've added in the improvements in our housing crisis response
 system over time and then there's a little data about code enforcement here that wanted to show
 just um to kind of talk about some of the differences that we're seeing the number of
 cases that has lowered a little bit over the last couple of years um but it wanted to focus on our
 voluntary voluntarily abated cases we're still at 96 compliance with a new process that we implemented
 which is a seven day courtesy period so 60 of that now is within seven days without any
 notice of violation or any impact to the resident in order to get those code cases abated and then
 there's a little bit of change over the last year with those that were complaint versus proactive
 so our complaint have have risen a little bit and our proactive has decreased but i think that's
 just a view uh with our smaller uh smaller size staff we do expect that we'll be continuing to
 manage additional grant funding through because of covid through the arpa and then the home funds
 over the next couple of years and we expect that we'll be taking on more with our neighborhood
 services such as the neighborhood empowerment program grant this is hopefully to give council
 a view of how the funds are being allocated by different focus areas with our public services
 our administration number three our homelessness prevention homelessness and prevention activities
 our housing rehabilitation activities and then our public improvements being the three highest in our
 in our work of how we invest the funding overall right now that's about 10 million dollars invested
 in projects will benefit about 40 000 different residents depending on the different activities
 and we work with about 27 community partners most most commonly local nonprofits in order to
 make impacts in these areas with the funding that's available
 so our budget highlights today just to kind of focus on our personnel services budgets
 remained relatively consistent our materials and supplies budget you'll see some fluctuations
 i just wanted to highlight a couple of things here pardon me the uh the estimate in our 2020-21
 is a bit a bit lower um than our budget that's because of cost savings that we've implemented
 some because of covid some because of just efficiencies we've been able to coordinate
 but it does go up in our budget this year because we are now from a philosophical perspective
 allocating a little bit more of our grant our federal funding towards the general fund for just
 admin materials and supplies and to make sure that more of those funds go to help residents
 then our miscellaneous is really relatively consistent you'll notice the estimate is a
 bit lower and that's just because there haven't been any requests for the development fee grant
 this year as of yet for the for the 250 000 that's allocated and then the modest increases
 are really what council generally allocates towards the human services grant
 excuse me our operations relatively consistent as well
 and then so our our budget is just slightly increased but really it's a decrease over the
 previous years with internal transfers and insurance being slightly higher than our previous years
 for our full-time equivalent summary community development does have six staff in its
 area three of those are federally funded and then community improvement services had has 11 staff
 at the beginning of 2019-20 but we're now at seven so our total fte is currently for the
 division are 13 i just wanted to point out here too that that 11 is actually started that year
 at 15 so community improvement services has seen a you know a significant decrease in the number
 of code officers available for services and then we've taken additional responsibilities on over
 the year especially in covid with the disaster declaration enforcement of mass and then a couple
 of other things with the response to the hotels so i think we've done well to manage the resources
 we have but we're certainly seeing more impact on our services as we've gone along
 for our budget request this looks maybe slightly different than what was in the presentation
 we did remove one of our supplemental requests we think we need a little bit more time to do
 some research and refine that and then we have one request for a full-time for our neighborhood
 services coordinator position that we'd like to add to our division to take some of those
 responsibilities on both from what staff are already doing but also to add a few additional
 responsibilities as we grow what we're doing within the neighborhood services area
 so with that i'll take it down answer any questions thank you
 all right questions for staff councilman mcguire and council member armature
 thank you um uh first of all i thank you for the presentation thank you for the work that you do
 for our residents um i'm interested in um uh staffing particularly in in the community
 services area um do you feel um that that the the additional staffing that you've requested
 is adequate because it seems like there has been a pretty significant decrease in staff at a time
 when um need is increasing well i'll answer it this way this is the request we felt like
 was available and we are working with the city manager's office to look at some other options
 that might be available to us in the future for the increasing demand that we're looking at so i
 think that we would you'll probably be looking at additional uh proposals uh just at the timing
 of this this was the one that we could really identify as the most pressing need i see thank
 you um and you know i i also want to say that um i'm pleased to see um kind of the trends i wish
 i could remember who said this i feel like this is a quote if somebody recalls hearing this before
 tell me who said this but that the budgets are a moral document um and uh i i feel like um
 dentin residents both in in their verbal and written communications with us but also in the
 way that they've voted um have really communicated to this council that the work that your department's
 doing is of a high priority and is something that they want to see um additional investment in uh an
 increased investment in uh over the years so i i hope that we can um continue these trends of
 investing more heavily in the valuable services that that um that your your department provides
 thank you okay councilmembers yes so i want to second uh that quote i was definitely definitely
 not the one who coined that phrase but i have used it um to say that uh budgets city budgets are
 moral document all budgets are uh and the the values and the goals of community development
 are goals that are essential uh to to us as the city uh to dentin is the city um they're certainly
 essential uh to to me and i have heard them too um i know that the uh housing consultant won't be till
 august uh but it is shaping up to look like you know they are already recommending uh a a bigger
 investment in brick and mortar housing among a number of other things and to me community
 development would seem to would be the obvious department um to which you know funds would have
 to go to to make that happen so i hope that uh supplemental budget requests aren't you know
 finalized until uh we we hear from them from that consultant on our affordable housing needs
 and council has a chance to discuss you know what that means um for prioritization of funds to
 community development i i continue to see this as this department is the one department in our city
 that is not funded uh to meet its goals um it we are uh you know by anyone's admissions we're not
 meeting the the goals that we're supposed to do in community development and as i see it it's
 because we're not um you know putting our money you know where our mouth is in this area uh so
 anyway um i support the request for a neighborhood services coordinator uh and you know look forward
 to additional supplemental requests having to do with actual brick and mortar housing i'm wondering
 just one question um uh is is there uh any need do you think for a room for a uh housing department
 within community development or is that just encompassed uh or is housing just neatly encompassed
 within the department that's how we're already organized yes so we do i mean housing is the focus
 of our housing's program to manager for the programs that we offer through our federally funded
 programs okay thank you so if so there's no need so for the city to dispense hud funds or any other
 grant funds you know there's no need to create some sort of other entity or to have some other
 entity serve as a uh middle middle person no i don't i don't think so i mean we're we have it in
 our our growth and our goals to continue to do housing focused uh programs in the three areas
 that we're in so i think it's just growth within what we're already doing that would be the potential
 thank you council member um one question is your area just this is area rehab houses speaking of
 housing your area this area just rehab houses or do do you have opportunities to build homes does it
 work yeah that would be eligible under the under the federal funding um either through the city or
 through investment in a partner who does that and so right now we primarily focus on rehabilitation
 and minor repair and even our partner where we're working with debt and affordable housing corp on
 projects with them it's generally real rehabilitation although this year they're going to be requiring
 acquiring housing but it will be existing um we've attempted to run some infill programs and some
 other things like that in the past um but as you know the the federal funding that we have is limited
 and hasn't we haven't been able to identify properties or projects that you know would
 we would be able to purchase with the cost of land or the cost of taking over a property at this
 point thank you okay any other question counselor bet come here uh danny first i'm going to give you
 huge credit for having the only org chart uh that is topic based in the venn diagram i love that
 i hate tree-based org charts they suck um and i like that it's my nerd sticking out right there
 no very much kudos and the reason i like it is that it immediately points out um you know all
 the projects that you're involved in and it immediately points out an issue that counselor
 maguire raised which is the the the too many hats um concern um you know you have to take on the
 project you have to take on that's part of the services that that you provide uh but i do love
 that it clearly points out that uh um there is a lot of projects and that you know you're expanding
 those projects and yet at the same time your fts are going down so i i would encourage um you know
 budget proposals to to as counselor maguire and others have said to be aware of that and
 and uh you know maybe maybe take that to heart and so i i support that at least the fte's that
 you're proposing so thank you thank you okay any other questions for staff seeing none uh thank
 you very much i appreciate it danny great job thank you sir uh-huh
 good afternoon mayor and council this is rachel walther at mendoza and i will present
 for us this afternoon city manager's office budget okay
 here we go
 like i said i'm rachel balfort mendoza assistant to the city manager
 sarah keichler is also here with me should we have any extra questions
 this is your basic organizational chart here with uh interim city manager sarah hensley
 leading the uh chief executive team here that we show
 little budget overview for us
 so some some 2021 accomplishments that the office um had were that the office led the city through
 constant changes brought by the ongoing covid 19 pandemic we also led through the emergency response
 to winter storm uri this past february we responded to 711 city council requests over the last year
 and we held 25 city council meetings with 520 total agenda items over a six month period from
 october to march for the goals for 21 22 we're right now already implementing a safe return to
 the office work strategy for all the departments we'll continue to of course coordinate covid 19
 health and safety response programs with our community partners we will continue to execute
 city council priorities and our responsiveness to council and community requests also we will
 realign and and realign the organization to streamline more operations
 some highlights here for us so as we can see we we the just the basics that we've been seeing
 throughout the other departments our personnel services takes into account the the three percent
 and excuse me less than the three percent for the salary differences and for 2021 hour on the
 miscellaneous expenses here this does include some increases for elections expenses and then the
 operations also includes now two legislative consultants and extra occasions where we needed
 to call in some translation services just to give a little bit of background there
 i'll continue on this just shows shows the city council budget highlights
 if you have any questions here but nothing major changing over the course from year to year
 for the fte summary we have 11.5 and we are requesting one additional fte for the next fiscal
 year that will be with rosa's team the records mecca excuse me records management specialists
 that jobs responsibilities will be to help support rosa and her team as they
 continue to prepare agenda and respond to public information requests
 and again the budget request is for that one records management specialist for the full fte
 now taking questions for us
 great any questions for staff
 councilman beck yeah i i just wanted to uh publicly apologize to rachel and sarah i didn't
 mean to to insult their org chart um by praising danny's um i i just really like danny's your org
 chart is fine no you're that's okay thank you but it um she does it danny does a great job you're
 absolutely right uh okay any other questions comments for staff councillor maguire thank you
 um so you mentioned that um i miscellaneous costs um included uh like occasional translation services
 um and i know that we're about to probably have a little bit of a conversation with public affairs
 and dtv about increasing accessibility uh for residents or employees or anybody else who needs
 to interact with the city um who either doesn't speak english or maybe has a disability um is
 is there a need for um for the city manager's office to uh have expanded access to translation
 or interpretation services or is that something that kind of would fall more under public affairs
 i can answer that rachel it would it would fall more under public affairs and you're going to see
 a breakout when you see that budget of the options that we we can that we're offering council so that
 we can either increase our translation services you know um all the different uh you know offerings
 that would be available to make um our our community more engaged thank you i'll bring
 it up then thank you he's next okay uh questions comments staff okay seeing none thank you rachel
 sure
 afternoon mayor city council let me pull up this presentation and we'll get started good afternoon
 okay my name is ryan adams i'm director of customer service and public affairs and i will
 be leading you through the public affairs and dtv budget presentation just a quick rundown of public
 affairs leadership uh i am the director we also have two managers a communications manager justin
 harman who manages a lot of our broad-based communication efforts and we also have billy
 matthews who is on vacation and escaped this presentation uh he manages all of our broadcasting
 our public meetings uh how they get out to uh to denton through our streaming service and our
 cable channel and also our videography so we make videos that we often post to social media
 that is his team and he is in charge of that
 so uh knowing this is an imperfect uh organization chart uh this is our team we have 11 total
 employees including the director most of those are under the communications manager and the dtv
 manager our digital strategies coordinator is another name for the person who manages
 primarily our website one of the projects that we are currently going through to update and bring
 the council a brand new website uh this winter so we'll get to the budget just a couple of
 accomplishments from the current fiscal year of course one of the big ones is managing uh the
 internal and external communications for our two significant events of course covid has been around
 and continues to be around and then our winter storm event that occurred last february and when
 we show you some metrics we'll show you a little bit of the impact of that storm a couple of the
 other uh events from this year of course we have talked about previously managing the uh work for
 the 87th session of the texas legislature which just concluded and we'll be bringing back to the
 council for more information throughout the summer a couple of new things that are in process and
 have been launched of course our website we are doing a complete redesign of our website that's
 going to have a lot of new features that are going to really make engagement and communication
 through the web a lot easier for the city and make it a lot easier for our residents to find
 information that they need in addition to that we have launched an engagement platform discuss
 denton so discuss denton.com is how you can reach it which is a way for us to better engage and
 really carry conversations with the community relating to projects topics and issues and so
 that launched here in may so it's about a month old right now going forward of course we are we're
 going to continue to try to curate really good social media oriented content uh content that
 draws people in and make sure that they know what's going on in the city and know what the
 city government is doing on their behalf. We are working to really broaden our reach from
 our crises that we had particularly the winter storm you know we've come to understand that
 having people already plugged into the city is very valuable when something critical happens and
 we have to push out communications quickly so we're going to be looking to really expand
 those who are following us on our various channels and who are kind of like I said plugged into to
 what we're saying and what we're putting out. One of the big things and you'll actually get more
 information on this when customer service does their presentation is we are going to be promoting
 and really communicating the value of the 3-1-1 system that we are going to be deploying over the
 course of the next year. Again more information will will come on that and what the mechanics of
 that is but that will really really update and and provide a new paradigm for how people can
 interact with the city make service requests and get information and then one of the things that
 I'll talk about with one of our supplemental requests is we do want to go through another
 citizen survey community survey. It's been about four years since we've done our last one which
 was in 2018 I believe and a lot can happen in four years and we need to find a statistically
 valuable way to gauge resident sentiment and so this is something that we want to go forward
 with in the next fiscal year. I won't describe everything here but this is just a snapshot of
 everything that public affairs does from media relations to video and broadcast to neighborhood
 engagement. Just a little bit of our metrics so I probably don't have to tell you what happened
 in February that caused our social media engagement impressions to just skyrocket.
 They were already high and have been high since the start of the pandemic but we had an all hands
 on deck event and it was a very valuable learning experience for how we can communicate during a
 crisis and so we are taking that and of course we have presented previously with regard to our
 winter checklist about what we're doing to to learn from that event and go forward.
 We have great growth in our social media followers so we are and we've done the same
 thing last year increasing on an annual basis by about 25 percent across most of our platforms.
 One thing I do want to point out with this one is actually Engage Denton so
 on the left column you'll actually see the most recent 12-month period and what our metrics are
 in terms of requests average days to close and the number of users and then on the right you'll
 actually see what we did the previous year before that so if you look we had a significant increase
 in requests but we have closed them out in a short amount of time on average with less people so if
 you look at the bottom with our staff users and I will say that it takes a lot of really quick
 closing of tickets and completion of these service requests to bring the average from
 2.9 down to 2.6 days to close so a lot of requests got cleared out much faster than that and so we're
 very proud of our ability to be very responsive to residents when they use Engage Denton.
 Just quick budget highlights so to bring you to the bottom row our budget is not changing much
 from year to year I do want to point out that you do have some what will look like low numbers
 in the 2020 or pardon me 2020 to 21 estimates and and I'll note that a lot of our materials
 and supplies and operational items are dedicated towards construction communications postage paper
 things of that nature and of course the the construction season is really just getting
 started in earnest additionally we had some costs particularly our legislative consultants that did
 not come on until January February time frame and so we haven't realized a full six months or so
 of those costs in the current year. This is just a quick recap of our FTEs so we do have
 just a one reclass that occurred from a part-timer to a full-timer in DTV and now we'll get on to the
 the budget requests so as I mentioned before one of our supplemental packages that we are requesting
 is thirty thousand dollars to do a community survey and this is to gauge resident satisfaction
 what we would like to do going forward is to create an annual survey perhaps alternating
 every year between business and residence so that we're not measuring you know not much changes from
 year to year with residents but if we could alternate every year I think that'd be an
 effective way to to get that resident sentiment and then also the business sentiment and of course
 this would inform everything from how we communicate to our community to how the council creates its
 priorities and just understanding what people feel are are as important to them and and where
 the city should should apply its efforts. So we do have this slide what I'm going to call
 council option supplementals so these are actually being offered to the council we are putting them
 in this presentation but they are not sourced from public affairs but they are our source from
 requests by the council or individual council members or a committee and I'm just going to
 run through those they will be included with all the supplementals that the council will have to
 review and then I can answer questions on any of them because I believe this is our last slide.
 So one of them is a closed captioning solution so this actually came before council I believe
 a couple of years ago in 2019 and this was discussed by the committee on persons with
 disabilities and they gave a recommendation and requested the staff bring this forward as a
 supplemental request for both live and on-demand captioning so anyone watching say this meeting
 right now with this technology would be able to see the live captioning with a pretty high degree
 of accuracy and then as we put it on the website for later on-demand use and viewing we would have
 a more accurate captioning for that on-demand viewing. It would take within three to four days
 to get that more accurate caption service completed. The price you see of course there's
 a one-time cost for the technology the recurring cost we give a 75 meetings per year of closed
 captioning for a grand total of 55 for the first year and then of course ongoing would be about
 $30,000 in operational costs. So everything below captioning were items that were mentioned by
 several council members and so we just decided to go ahead and do the research and bring this forward.
 So we have actually two options for live Spanish translation for council meetings and so the first
 one is just budgeting in and having a Spanish translator ready to translate for every single
 council meeting and given our current interpretation contract we estimated that to do every meeting
 and at the length the meetings tend to go that would take about $60,000 in a given year. If we
 decided to do this by request we would kind of scale that back to about a quarter of the amount
 and this again is just an estimate and we would just have a bucket of dollars available so that
 if anyone requests Spanish translation for a particular meeting we could do that. We also
 add in the ability to additional remote production if you recall and some of you some of the members
 were on council at the time but we did have the ability through Swagat for their staff to actually
 remotely produce stream and broadcast meetings that it would not be done by our DTV staff.
 We had roughly five or six I believe boards and commissions who took advantage of that and this
 was all pre-COVID. If there's a desire for council to expand the number of meetings that are
 remotely produced it's possible to do that. They come in buckets of about 50 meetings
 with a recurring cost of $6,000 for a bucket of 50 meetings. The $50,000 line item is in the event
 we need to configure another space for remote production currently only the work session room
 is configured. The estimate to install the cameras get the technology going is a one-time cost of
 $50,000 which would be paid through our PEG funds. And then the last item is what we're going to call
 a public meeting attendant. There was a desire on I'll also say there was there was a comment by
 several council members of the possibility of keeping the call-in feature for council meetings
 going beyond the pandemic and having that be a permanent feature for resident comments on
 council agenda items. Going forward if that would be a permanent feature we would want to
 hire someone who could manage the incoming calls and ensure they get plugged into the meeting.
 We estimate that this would be a part-time position and we allocated about $20,000 of that
 ongoing personnel cost. So these are the council option supplementals. I'm happy to answer any
 questions that you have about this or any other part of the presentation and I will pull my
 make sure I don't have another slide yes I'll pull my presentation down and stand for questions.
 All right questions for staff Mayor President Meltzer then Councilmember McGuire then Councilmember
 Bet. It's the last and probably the smallest item but on the public meeting attendant would it be
 possible to test it for a few months see if the public you know I mean beyond when we need to have
 it see if the public actually uses it before you you know commit to a year-round part-time position.
 I think that we could although we might council may get a feel for it as we move into our hybrid
 meetings when people have the option of coming in person versus calling that might give us an
 indication although if at the end of those hybrid meetings we still don't feel like we have a good
 read on it we could look at a one or two month call it a pilot period. Thanks okay Councilmember
 McGuire. Thank you first of all y'all have done such an outstanding job of managing
 the craziness of having everything online during COVID. I know that it's been a big burden
 on your department and I just want to thank you for managing that so well.
 Regarding the supplementals so the the survey I agree is definitely something that we should be
 doing as an avid user of Google forms. I had a little bit of sticker shock. Could you speak
 a little bit more to what that survey would entail and why it would cost 30 grand? Sure and this would
 be a continuation of similar surveys that we did in 2018. One of the critical things that we want
 to do when we put a survey out there is of course with a Google form you have individuals who take
 the survey self-select and it's very difficult to to get really a statistically valid sample.
 So it'd be hard for me to say this is representative of your community not representative
 of a neighborhood or a demographic. So what we do is we we get with a third party who manages all
 aspects of deployment manages the information flow coming in and provides a report and one of the
 advantages of doing that is they also do peer comparisons so we'll be able to see how we stack
 up with similar sized and similar situated cities on a lot of these similar uh you know common
 questions that you'll find in a lot of uh community surveys and so I think those are two of the values
 with going with a third party uh they they manage it and make sure that it is uh it's a good sample
 across the town across the city but also that we can get those comparisons as well that way
 you know if is is 68% metric is that good bad neither it's a lot easier to tell you when we
 compare with others. That that makes sense and and I would support um you know a a more robust uh
 survey than just a Google form uh so that we can get data that's a little bit more meaningful for
 sure um uh I I absolutely support um uh captioning services um uh the both the live and the the um
 sort of after the fact going in and making sure that it's accurate um I think it would it would
 have been great to have that during COVID um but I I know that your department um was was juggling
 a lot so um you know the the the sooner the better but um uh yes I would absolutely support
 that supplemental um I have some questions about um Spanish translation because sort of on principle
 um I I support the idea of of having Spanish translation just broadly available all of the time
 I do think that um it's it's the right of every Denton resident uh regardless of whether or not
 they speak English to both address the council and also to be able to watch council meetings
 and understand them and have access to to what's being said. Um can you speak to what would be
 involved in like the 60,000 for having live Spanish translation available at all meetings?
 Are we talking about a translator who's just on call in case somebody comes and wants translation?
 Are we talking about having somebody translate literally every single thing that we say like
 from inside the council chambers? Are we talking about subtitles on videos like what's included in
 that? So there's a little bit of of operational digging that we have to do to get to the details
 but essentially we we went through a little bit of this when we uh had meetings relating to Green
 Tree Estates uh so how we would envision it is we would require two uh interpreters so that they
 can trade off because as you can probably imagine it gets tiring after a bit and they would if you
 chose option a which is to have one here ready to go in the event someone requires it uh they would
 essentially uh speak not only into a we have devices a set number of devices where a an interpreter
 would speak into it uh and residents would be able to listen through a headset almost like those
 devices that you take and you hear descriptions in museums very similar to that uh and additionally
 we would likely uh have some sort of online call it a zoom meeting uh call it just any anything
 where you can call in and be able to receive a uh a kind of as it goes uh interpretation based on
 what's being viewed uh streaming one of the issues that we will have to figure out is that there
 pardon me is a delay between what's live and then what comes uh through the computer and so we will
 have to kind of work on that to see what the best route is and and if we need to to hire additional
 interpreters to be able to do that if it's desired to have both live and uh both live interpretation
 and interpretation for those watching at home did that answer your question sorry about that
 that did answer my question yeah um uh yeah and i i appreciate that there is um uh included in that
 a provision for um spanish-speaking residents who who just want to know what we're saying and don't
 necessarily want to speak before council because i feel like that gets lost sometimes in conversations
 about translation so thank you for for considering that um uh i i'm definitely in favor uh certainly
 in the short term of um having a public meeting attendant continuing on to facilitate um residents
 calling in um i i do uh like council council member uh mayor protem melzer's uh suggestion that that
 maybe that be done on a on a pilot basis sort of like once everything is back in person
 and we're through our hybrid period um you know seeing if if that's something that the public
 wants to continue um perhaps we could do something similar as far as um having a spanish translator
 available for every meeting regardless of whether um a resident has requested uh having a translator
 available to address council um if that makes sense it does it may be we would have to have
 two interpreters um so i think the cost would probably uh would probably be a pretty close
 to even on that regard uh and with a third party we would get redundancy so of course if our
 translators call in sick or one of them calls in sick we we have a backup from the service so i
 might recommend that we do stick with the third party on that one uh but but i do see your point
 if there's an opportunity just for efficiency's sake to to bring that in house that's something
 we would absolutely look at okay uh so then any other questions councilmember weir no that's all
 thank you thanks council member beck and then council member davis thank you mayor um brian i'm
 never going to live down that org chart comment i made earlier and now um that's i might as well
 start making t-shirts now um so one of the things i really appreciate about ryan's office is that
 he's the window onto the city of denton um he really is he's he's the public facing side and
 and it requires a tremendous amount of uh uh tolerance and and uh forethought at times
 and and we do have a great team i appreciate that and i i one of the things that i think that yuri
 and covet highlighted is the increasing uh tech demands that are being asked of your office
 and so i guess this is this is germane to your your budget supplement requests and overall budget
 requests like i don't really see your tech budget decreasing as as our as our population grows as
 our as our online presence grows as as your um public facing uh push approach rather than poll
 to use you know web parlance um increases um i don't do you anticipate have you seen any
 signs that it's flattening or are doing anything but increasing you know we continue to find way
 and our goal is to be efficient with how we use you know technology most of it is platform based
 internet platform based such as discussed it and being a great example or engaged in being a great
 example um we we try to find efficient ways to do it uh there is probably going to be a leveling
 out at some point uh as new technologies come on old technologies tend to drop uh however we've
 been very fortunate that we can continue to be nimble and make use of when we do make use of
 technology find something that's not just applicable to public affairs maybe library could use it too or
 parks and we can share those items because we all benefit from it uh but generally yes those those
 costs kind of probably with every city uh in the nation are going to go up over time just the state
 of how things are we're becoming a more digital world yeah and i agree with that i i it was a
 negative comment it was a supportive comment um and and so uh you know i i guess that it actually
 goes back to the comment i made to danny's office budget earlier and that was you know looking at
 your projects those are increasing uh your 3-1-1 system is increasing um or so first a rabbit hole
 sub question and that is is is 3-1-1 going to replace engage dentin in all likelihood it will
 uh yeah so i i really i do really i mean this is this is self-serving because i i
 one of my hats i work on a ticket desk partially but uh uh ticket desks really do help i mean you
 and i are going to be big proponents of that but they they really do help get the the issues and
 tasks oriented so i'm a big fan of of those i've said that publicly many times so um i i'd encourage
 you to actually expand that perhaps more than um uh you you represent it here simply because it's
 a way of increasing your your responsiveness like you said you you went from 2.9 to 2.6 um through
 efficient use of ticketing and i i love that uh in regards to um that sort of uh technology
 streamlining that you talk about in regards to um uh counselor maguire's question uh how are you
 using uh ai auto translation services or this is all human or we have legal requirements there or
 speaking in reference to just like things we may put out on uh social media or just general
 communications are you speaking specifically to council meetings um well i'm glad you clarified
 because a little of both i know that we have different requirements for you know you know it
 may be easier to uh translate a written document perhaps than than live speaking so maybe you you
 you and legal could address both a little bit i don't want to speak for legal but i think there
 are definitely some documents where we would like to have a a measured hand in the translation
 particularly legal documents financial documents uh anything perhaps election related to where you
 you don't want anything lost in translation um when it comes to crisis communications obviously
 you don't have the time to necessarily go out and do things so we we typically do is we have
 uh we get a start using some platforms everything from from google translate to one or two others
 that uh kind of give us a little bit of a varied translation and then we work with our internal
 staff to go through and make sure that it is it is accurate and and you know if three people on
 staff who are who are uh bilingual and and very um uh very experienced in reading documents and dual
 language if they all agree it's a good translation then we'll move forward with it uh that being said
 uh one of the things coming out of the winter storm is that we need to get a better handle on
 how we can effectively uh put certain things into a language in spanish uh particularly in a
 tight time frame and so we're going to be looking at any technology that gives us an edge on that
 so if you don't mind mr mayor let me can i can piggyback that
 on on the legal do we have requirements about that
 apologize do we have requirements about translation for uh sort of the difference
 that ryan was talking about um uh non-live uh translation versus synchronous translation
 whether we could use um ai tech technologies rather than um purchasing a human service
 you're talking about to translate in the course of a meeting not papers
 correct okay um off the top of my head i don't know that there's a specific requirement for
 how that's done the requirements that apply to your average shows like what's normally broadcast
 and has to be translated does not apply in our case so that requirement whatever requirement is
 there may be different for us okay and i don't want to rabbit hole us so i'll bring this up at
 some future point thank you okay uh any other questions for staff councilmember davis that's
 right thank you no problem just quickly weighing weighing in on the translation issue if this
 council wants to go forward with providing a spanish language translation in real time for
 meetings i'd caution against kind of a piecemeal approach uh if it's by request of course the
 question becomes who can request it if it's a council request because we think it'll be a
 certain item or whatever i would anticipate the council would probably request it more often than
 not and then also if it's something where um it's by citizen request i can tell you just from
 working in the courts sometimes something will show up and you don't expect them to be there and
 suddenly you need a translator and you've got to find one so unless you have a pretty good heads
 up if the service is just kind of a you know ad hoc as we need it um it may be difficult to pull
 that off on the fly i'd say if we weigh the cost and decide that it's what we want to do to have
 spanish language live translation um it probably makes more sense to go ahead and contract to have
 that all the time rather than uh on an ad hoc or as needed okay um councilor armature
 yes so about the spanish translation services i agree uh with council member davis's and council
 member maguire's uh points about just the the practicality uh of of having having someone there
 to translate at all times both for people who are there and as council member maguire emphasized
 you know for people who are watching uh both in real time and uh later uh people who might be calling
 in uh so uh anyway i i'm really excited about the supplemental budget items uh i i support them all
 including the additional remote capabilities uh the closed captioning uh and thanks so much to
 the committee on persons with disabilities uh for helping to push that forward i think that all of
 these supplemental requests fit with the new city value of inclusion or rather the new city emphasis
 on inclusion so i'm really excited about that i i wanted to uh to ask about um the uh time this
 department spends on media requests because i know that's a lot of what what you all do uh and there
 was a um in the recent friday report there was an item about a a media request and you know
 misunderstanding or something like that i i was wondering you know if you could speak to the
 amount of time spent on media requests and uh and and what can be done if you have any ideas to uh to
 streamline that you know to make sure that you know information can be uh given to media uh most
 efficiently without um you know having to go
 council member and i have to apologize you froze up there for the last bit so i i think it ended
 with you saying what can be done to get items to the media more efficiently yeah yes i don't want
 to speak for you oh thank you thank you and i apologize um avoid for instance you know avoiding
 the need to uh uh for the media to do public information requests you know or uh kind of
 you know shoring up um you know i'm thinking of the the recent uh uh item in a staff report about
 just you know uh just clarifying who uh you know which uh staff members requests are for um you
 know uh basically you know improving our on on all ends our uh you know relationship with the media
 and streamlining um these you know these lines of of communication because i know you spend a lot of
 time on it on it and it's a lot of work and important sure uh so in in question to answer
 your time that we spend with media request uh you know it varies uh very much so uh there's usually
 uh an average of anywhere from three to five uh story requests per week uh some of them are answered
 by our office uh pretty quickly others they require setting up a meeting with staff uh one
 to two days later uh generally we respond to the media within several hours if we're not able to
 so if there's an email that's pretty instantaneous uh at least an acknowledgement and letting them
 know that we're we're going to get the information they've requested uh if we can uh and then if it's
 a phone call generally there's a call back within one to two hours depending on staff availability
 so i would i would say i would characterize it as us being to all our media outlets uh incredibly
 responsive uh particularly with the uh influx of interest after the winter storm uh with dme
 and and dec related uh media stories uh in terms of of creating efficiencies uh so we we do work
 with the city secretary's office and the city attorney's office if there's ever requests where
 it looks like it may require uh a public information act that request and but generally our philosophy is
 if there's a way to provide it without a pia request we're going to do that certain items maybe
 they relate to personnel records may relate maybe they relate to other documents we at the very
 least need to keep a record of that request and when it was requested and by whom uh we will ask
 media to go through a public records request and we will return that as promptly as possible but
 that is a very very very small percentage of overall media requests okay well thank you so
 much and and once again i'm really excited about these supplemental budget requests and going back
 to this idea of city budgets as a moral document um i think that these requests uh all speak very
 clearly to you know the value of of inclusion and i really like having a having a budget shape up that
 that holds together from that perspective so thank you absolutely councilman Burke
 just real quick question i was just wondering um what is the if you've seen or uh an influence of
 other languages is there a next language that we need to keep an eye on have you noticed anything
 well i can tell you i'll be very interested when the census results come back uh later on this
 fall because i think that will give us a very uh accurate view of what the the next step languages
 are um as you know i believe the city of louisville has a pretty significant chin
 population and so they actually operate uh for important uh documents and and crisis communications
 uh they operate and have to consider uh three languages uh so it's something that we definitely
 want to look at when the census results come due all right any other questions comments for staff
 uh seeing none just run one note for me i think if there's a way to
 have efficiencies of fte's for example danny's group needed more and kind of community services
 that then also would parlay in the translations to some degree right and so if there's efficiencies
 amongst departments that we could kind of overlap i'd love to see that when you come back uh you know
 just kind of some ways to diversify the cost and and and uh get more uh get more bang for the buck
 if you will um mayor pertin melton yeah just sort of a process question and it may have already
 been covered uh for the budget as a whole are we going to see all the supplementals in some later
 session you know with a sort of uh add up in relation to revenues and the tax rate and then
 we'll be able to prioritize within them you know how's that going to work i mean all these things
 are good you know uh right but we've got to ultimately look at it holistically and make
 choices well i see that david is on and i think cassie is jumping on so you may get two folks
 ready to answer sure mayor pertin i'll answer first obviously cassie could jump in as well
 certainly uh you know obviously you're seeing kind of piecemeal right now the departments by
 department presentations all leading up to that proposed budget at the end of july and then august
 second is our budget workshop so it'll be our layout will be similar to what we've seen in
 past years where we say here are the supplementals that have already been included in the proposed
 budget and we'll also have a number of supplementals to discuss with council in adding to the proposed
 budget as presented i will say most just throughout all of the supplementals that you see during the
 department presentations will be in the proposed budget uh but we'll also be proposing other
 supplementals that are open for council consideration at that time as well so really all these
 presentations are leading up to that proposed budget so supplementals that we see in the
 departmentals will likely be in the proposed budget so i was kind of uh withholding comment
 just because like i said all these things are good there's always there's no limit to good things
 so you know uh but um so it sounds like you you we should be offering uh direction at this time
 not wait till we see all the supplementals because it's not going to be in the list of
 supplementals necessarily is that a fair uh you know i mean i think getting getting direction at
 this time it certainly helps us as we prepare the proposed budget but you know there is the
 opportunity throughout august and september as we present the proposed budget to to make changes
 based on council's feedback so we'll we'll have the presentation presented in that format to get
 your direction from the budget workshops and make adjustments and changes to supplemental packages
 at that time as well so so you have the full picture yeah i guess i would just say if uh if
 it's going to get baked into the proposed i'd like to still be able to see that it was presented as
 a supplemental now being proposed so that no if we have to solve for x we know what all the pieces
 are yeah and that's that's the way it will be presented exactly great thank you so much yep
 cassie did you did were you going to add to that or no okay i think david covered it great thanks
 councillor bett thank you mayor and and i think count uh mayor protem's point is is well taken um
 um i i i think you can see the example that the mayor gave he he was listing synergies uh that
 was excellent uh appreciate the mayor's comment that those synergies are available and and yet it
 becomes difficult to see those synergies without a comprehensive sort of um line item ranking uh
 where we can i mean i i don't want to put one department against another but you have to
 sometimes um and uh so i mean both the mayor and mayor protem i i i concur that if we could see a
 a holistic view um that would be helpful um otherwise yeah i'm gonna just say um you know
 ryan gets all the money and the rest of you can go uh pound sand so and if i may i again certainly
 agree and the intent of the department presentation is just to give the departments the opportunity
 to present their budget piecemeal but the the truth of the matter is we just don't know the
 full picture until the end of july when we get those appraisals from the from the appraisal
 district so that's why we're just leading up to that point to have that full conversation
 thank you great okay great any other questions and uh okay and david just a note i know
 if you come back to us with a proposal under 10 increase no just kidding
 no just kidding uh yeah i know you'll do great great things okay so uh that concludes that thank
 you ryan um so dinner is here for those here at city hall it's 5 20 now so we'll take a brief
 recess we'll come back for uh what i show to be legal and animal services to finish up this item
 but we'll take a 20 minute uh break we'll be back at uh it is 5 19 now we'll recess till five well
 it's 5 20 now recess till 5 40 and pick back up where we left off thank you
 welcome back to this meeting of the ditton city council it is 5 40 p.m uh and we uh do have a
 quorum we'll get started back we left off on item b and just for just in case that number is id
 21451 we are to the legal portion of the budget presentations i do believe this will be our fourth
 presentation we have one following this so uh i will turn it back over to staff
 hello mayor and council mac ryan juan with the city attorney's office
 you go ahead and pull up the presentation here hello
 so just to get started i'm sorry council member beck but we're going to start with the
 this uh slide it's i do promise there will be no pie charts involved there's no pie charts in
 this presentation so um i want to spend a little bit of time on this because i think it tells the
 story of our office uh during the last year and we'll get into this a little bit more when we talk
 through accomplishments but we've had a lot of changes in the office over the year within the
 past six months we've had two attorneys retire and then two attorneys resigned to pursue other
 opportunities so um the experience cumulative experience of those four attorneys was about
 100 years so uh with the departure of uh city attorney aaron layel we're currently at three
 vacant attorney positions in our office um the other side of that is we have also hired four
 attorneys during this year um i just want to highlight them quickly we have amanda brown who
 came to our office from the city of austin and she works on open records and public information act
 she also was helpful very much so with the legislature this year uh kayla garcia came
 from the city of little rock and his litigation attorney for office is the uh the only litigation
 attorney in our office kendra kennedy came to us from american airlines and works with the airport
 and the facilities folks and then marcel alone marcel alone came from big law she was at baker
 box and does procurement and contracts and has been very helpful in that area so we still have
 three empty positions like i said that we need to fill which presents a challenge and an opportunity
 for our office and we'll talk about that a little bit more so the accomplishments during the year
 obviously with covid we continued supporting the city and the council with declarations and orders
 throughout the year certainly as the council is aware the city had to continually adjust to
 changing conditions and gubernatorial orders so in the context of understanding the city charter
 and ordinances and state statutes and finding a path to protecting the public during this time frame
 we've been heavily involved in that it was also the winter storm uri which had its own separate
 declaration and order as well as very unique legal challenges associated with budget and finance as
 well as the resulting litigation department we've also helped the city council with interpretation
 of all the laws during this time we worked also remotely a great deal during this past year we
 think that we did so without missing a beat we did have some practical issues initially that we
 worked through such as getting signatures on documents and ordinances and resolutions but we
 worked through that and i think we have a more streamlined process now one of the major projects
 we worked on through the year was the mk oc and this just is a quick highlight of why it's good
 to have an office with so many attorneys that have so many specialties because this required so many
 unique levels of legal expertise to have various properties being transferred also working with the
 attorney general on getting approval for the financing there was also deed restrictions and
 errors and all kinds of issues associated with the properties working with non-profits in the counties
 land use issues there was just a lot involved so it's good to have an office where you can have
 three or four attorneys with different specialties jumping in and helping out we also worked on
 creating a standard set of documents to support the vertical and horizontal construction the city
 the city wanted to pursue new alternative delivery methods and so that required a whole new suite of
 documents and contracts so we worked through that and put those together as far as parliamentarians
 we've had five people in the office take and pass an exam to become members of the national
 association of parliamentarians in an effort to try to support the council and all the other boards
 that we advise as parliamentarians as i mentioned on the previous slide about half our office is
 new to the office so the knowledge transfer has been a real focus point for our office throughout
 the year i think we've been pretty effective in this we have been fortunate to have some
 attorneys be able to step in into areas that they had experience and be able to pick up
 and and so we didn't miss too many beats with having the support for the staff and the council
 there i think the bottom line on this is a lot of changes in the office a lot of vacancies in the
 office but we've asked our new attorneys to jump right in and we've asked all of our attorneys to
 take on additional work and we want to recognize and especially appreciate all the attorneys that
 have put in in hours and and the time to keep the city's work flowing so our goals for this next
 year um covid has helped us see some new ways where we can be more effective i think it's a theme
 throughout a lot of the presentations we realized that smartsheet we can use more effectively
 um there's some efficiencies where we could put together an interactive smartsheet to have
 collaborative workspace with the departments so we're we're working on that and and putting that
 into place we think there's some efficiencies with docusign and other um electronic contracts
 that we can pursue as well um dashboards we certainly have new dashboards we'd like to
 roll out both to other departments as well as public facing on our city attorney's website to
 give the public more information cross training has been a big emphasis we need to build redundancies
 in the office we need to have new attorneys get experience and more specialized training
 we think we can simultaneously broaden the knowledge base of each attorney while also
 helping each attorney become more specialized in their areas um one thing we also look forward to
 is working through with all the construction contracts last year we realized there's other
 contracts the city works with and and especially on the development side and there's a lot of
 agreements that need to be uh improved and finalized and and standardized so um we look
 forward this year to working on a lot of the new development agreements which include oversized
 agreements impact fee agreements there's three-party agreements escrow agreements so there's a lot to do
 there i want to get a new suite of documents there for the the department as well as developers in
 the city this is a slide we've shown each year just gives you an idea of one of the major things
 that our office does which is support boards commissions in the city council with coven we've
 seen numbers go down but not terribly if you look at the chart you can see that there's been a lot
 of meetings that we go to and and we're there to attend and support uh all the boards in the council
 budget highlights um as you can see the primary cost for legal is always personnel
 the rest of budget is pretty small in comparison uh the increase you see for materials and supplies
 comes from an increase in subscription for research we've had new attorneys come in and
 um tell us that we were a little bit outdated on some of our subscriptions and databases so we've
 been need to update those and get the access to the materials so our attorneys can do their work
 um you also see the operations costs were reduced from 19 to 20 um last year we cut out all of our
 travel and training almost entirely for the cost containment and based on the anticipated revenue
 shortfall the attorneys are required to have certain ongoing legal education hours but even
 more importantly with so many new attorneys in the office it's important that we keep them up to
 date on evolving parts of the law and and so we want to make sure that we get some portion of
 that put back in to get more training um during this year for the training we used a very valuable
 asset we used the internationally useful lawyers association association had a cle subscription
 that we participated with and we were able to get a lot of our attorneys their their continuing
 education credits through that program but like i say we do need more specialized and especially
 in texas very state specific um training and we'd like to be able to pursue that and have
 a portion of that funds put back in there and finally fte's we're asking for the same as
 budgeted for last year we really do look forward to having a fully staffed office in the in the
 near future any questions all right we'll pull that down first and then yep okay uh so we'll
 line up to vordire mac no or vaudeer if you're in east coast council member guire and then
 council member armature and then council member vett thank you um are the costs associated
 with um the the search and the hiring of a new city attorney included in the budget that you
 presented to us today no they're not there are costs associated with helping to hire the two
 deputy attorney positions that are empty but there's not associated with the new city attorney
 that is not in this budget all right um i can anybody on staff speak to uh what um the funding
 sources for those costs may i yeah yeah david if you will i mean i think the the short answer is
 we set the the amount and then david if you can say where it goes or where it comes from
 sure i mean ultimately it'll be paid from the general fund and we'll we'll attribute the cost
 to the legal hpu i mean most most likely we'll have salary savings as as mac just kind of went
 through all the vacancies that we have there that'll fully cover those costs so it shouldn't be
 anything that needs money moved around for thank you yep okay uh councillor armature
 yeah so um i'll just say that i i uh you know look forward to the uh search for a new city attorney
 and i you know anticipate that uh whoever it is will take a fresh look will be obliged to take a
 fresh look at uh the uh department budget um and to ask and and and get answered questions about
 is there any uh inside legal work that we do that should be contracted out and vice versa is there
 any legal work that we're contracting out that we should be doing in house so i'm not going to put
 you on the spot and ask you those questions um but you know but i will say that i look forward to
 a new city attorney asking and answering those questions you know and i anticipate that there
 will be would inevitably uh be changes uh to the budget uh accordingly uh so anyway i hope we can
 do that search in time so i'm kind of putting a pin on on these these budgets requests for now for
 me this this is a a picture of the way things look now um and i have a feeling they'll change
 i i just don't know how okay uh david if you want to pop on we can we can uh probably set some
 expectations uh so but you you understand the budget time frame you understand kind of the the
 hiring search process what what are what are the windows there i know i'm putting you on the spot
 but just want to i don't want to leave that unchecked um you know if if we can address it
 sure you know obviously council approved the next fiscal year's budget in september um but that
 doesn't i think a lot of the you know the that task that council member armature laid out are
 things that the new city attorney would um would be open that could could move forward with and we
 would make adjustments to next year's budget as appropriate so i don't see any budget limitations
 on that okay great councilman back thank you mayor excuse me um so one one of the things
 often happens in the corporate world and i don't know uh or in the academic world as well and i
 don't know if it can happen here i don't know if we have restrictions against it is um bringing
 in deputies with a with a primary is that something that we can do as an incentive package or i mean
 that those kinds of things happen and if we have uh our head attorney and two deputies open uh i'm
 just curious if we can get a synergy out of that um in terms of attracting um the best candidate
 is that allowed so i understand you correctly are you saying basically propose it as a a bundle
 package whereas perhaps yeah i'm more hypothetical than than direction i don't know if it's ever
 happened that's not to say it can't or hasn't possible i don't know if there's any legal
 restriction on that but it's not a a political world position per se but yeah there's nothing
 that i can think of that would stop that from being pursued so i guess then the flip
 side of that coin is uh do we anticipate um i guess uh doing the the head search
 uh the the head attorney search and and then hiring the two deputies over this next fiscal
 year as well and that's that's part of your 18 that that number that you cited yes sir yes that's
 um exactly right so then there there there would only be cost savings up until the point
 that we hired and there's initially i mean there's often search and and starting
 and initial costs and you know moving expenses that that would offset some of those savings
 am i correct on that yes yes exactly right and i i think we've pursued in the past where we've
 had multiple uh positions vacant we've pursued an options with recruiters where there's a discount
 for multiple hires um if that's an option as well that we may want to pursue is if if there's some
 that we want to tag along with uh the council's um chosen recruiter we may have opportunities there
 okay and and there's is there is there any particular barrier to the the that that sort
 of was the major factor the plurality factor in in um in replacing the the missing deputy
 or it's just a timing issue just a timing issue okay all right thank you okay any other questions
 for staff seeing none thank you very much appreciate uh the entire legal department
 for stepping up filling the uh big shoes in my opinion right and and uh hitting the ground
 running so thank you all very much for uh adjusting quickly and uh i'll close with uh a happy belated
 birthday to uh former city attorney aaron leal his birthday was saturday so i sent him a text
 message but at least want to give a shout out here i sure appreciate him thank you very much
 i can do it again yeah uh okay and so that takes us to
 uh the last uh budget presentation animal services this will be great
 afternoon just give me one moment to pull up my presentation
 i have a photo op coming up with y'all yeah
 okay good evening mayor city council uh randy weinberg with animal services and before i get
 started i do want to formally introduce y'all to the uh screech owl that is on your screen
 this is a owl that we acquired um out in the field one of our a co's founded and we were
 able to successfully rehab here at the shelter
 our animal services management team is comprised of sarah kieffler chief of staff
 myself randy weinberg animal services manager uh d johnson animal services supervisor and
 a coal hire animal services supervisor
 our current org chart um this year i did add in our two vet contracted vet techs um into our org
 chart as they are part of the operation um and they are a vital part as they do our spay and
 neuter surgeries and some of the operational decisions are funneled up through me so i didn't
 want to make sure that i capture that in our current organizational chart
 accomplishments that we've had this fiscal year one of the biggest ones was the passing of the
 animal restraint and tethering ordinance back in november this ordinance prohibited tether tethering
 within the city of didn't limits um it's been kind of a groundbreaking ordinance not many municipal
 cities have passed an ordinance and i've had several actually reach out asking for details on
 how we were able to get the ordinance passed as a result of this we were able to establish the
 animal enclosure fund which is a fund that helps residents who are not able to properly secure
 their animal because of maybe a fence or they can't bring it inside and their only option was to
 tether this removes that barrier and today we've installed one enclosure for a resident within
 the city of denton additionally we've implemented some intake diversion programs to help keep some
 of the animals out of the shelter and into homes and we've also installed a shelter sound system
 compliments of dasf generous donation our animals are able to get at least two hours of classical
 su the music in the morning and then two hours in the evening and with all the storms that we've
 had lately we've been able to play it overnight so that they don't have any anxiety or stress from the
 sounds of the weather outside
 goals that we're looking forward to this year is to continue review our ordinances to make sure
 that we are standard throughout the other municipalities in the state state of texas
 to review our denton county interlocal agreement to upgrade our shelter operating system
 and to hold off-site vaccination clinics currently we do have three vaccination clinics here at the
 shelter sponsored by did animal support foundation however we want to extend that out to the community
 for the residents who are not able to make it out to the shelter location we already have one
 scheduled uh october the first which is going to coincide with national rabies day and that's going
 to be at the mlk center animal services um is comprised of basically three areas we have our
 shelter area that's at the linden mcnatt animal care and adoption center our field operations that
 responds to fields of service calls and also our veterinarian clinic so i want to share some data
 with each of those operations for our shelter what we look at is our positive outcomes that's
 going to be our adoptions return to owners and transfer or rescues we also take a look at our
 live release rate which is how many animals we were successfully able to have positive outcomes
 from this fiscal year we are at a 93 live release rate and that's a two percent increase from where
 we were this time last year so we are very proud of that number also our intake diversion programs
 has helped us decrease the numbers by six percent of the animals that we have taken into the shelter
 our calls for service have increased by 37 percent this year and the reason for that increase about
 20 percent of that is because we did deploy a night time officer april of last year this officer
 traditionally ran calls during the day however we saw that there was a greater need in the evening
 hours when people are returning home from work kids are getting out of school and such so we deployed
 that officer in the night time and so that increased our call volume because the officer
 is responding to all calls and not just emergency calls only we are averaging about our call time
 about 1.2 hours right now with three aco2s that we have out in the field the call time is extended
 for us because we are not able to run code meaning like a fire department or police department they're
 able to you know bypass any traffic laws in order to get to their destination however
 we do have to abide by traffic laws and it does take us a while sometimes if we're in north of
 town responding to a call in south denton and we're in the middle of traffic for the day
 in addition to that our bike calls or maybe our stray animal calls do take about 45 minutes on
 average to complete so that's where you're seeing that 1.2 hours of our average call
 we are in the process of adding a fourth additional aco who will work mid-shift that's
 tuesday through saturday 10 a.m to 7 p.m that aco is a position that we actually reclassified
 just recently so we were able to find a position and fill that need for that
 fourth additional aco2 and that's our field officer
 our lobby operation we have seen just a slight decrease in our call volume from this time last
 year the biggest decrease we've decreased we've seen is in our voicemail percentage
 that's one of the biggest numbers because we want to make sure that our residents are able to reach
 us in case of an animal emergency so we can put that call in and dispatch an officer just to give
 you some data to about two and a half years ago this percentage was at 80 so we are very proud to
 show that it's at a 14 for our voicemail also we have the assistance of did municipal electric
 dispatch in our 911 emergency dispatch who are actually part of our call flow and help us with
 our call volume because our csrs are both customer facing face to face and they're answering the
 phone call so that helps out in addition our volunteer hours have decreased slightly because
 of covid when we did have to discontinue our volunteer operation however they are trickling
 back in we do hold two volunteer orientations a month or every other saturday and we are getting
 a good response of volunteers coming back so we are happy to see that number increase
 so like i stated previously we do have an on-site vet clinic at the shelter it's
 it's not a full service clinic like you would have out in the community however they do perform
 spay and neuter surgeries for us this year they've done a total of 912 surgeries they've treated
 heartworm positive dogs which is a lengthy strenuous treatment they've treated 12 of those
 dogs and also they've performed other surgical procedures for for us such as an fho surgery
 a removal amputation so those are 15 other surgeries that we would have to
 actually refer out to an off-site clinic and pay for but they are handling that in-house for us
 so our revenues we receive those from our fees and fines our fees are going to be comprised of
 an adoption fee a reclaim fee any fee that's being taken at the shelter our fines are going
 to be a result of citations that are done through municipal court there has been a slight decline
 in our fines number because we are proactively educating in the field for the first time and
 even second time offense instead of just writing them a citation for that first offense so we want
 to make sure that we are educating and that decrease in fine revenue is evidence that we
 are doing what we're supposed to be doing so our budget of course our biggest line item is going
 to be our personnel and second to that is our operations our operations line item is where our
 outside contracted services are we do have five contracts i'm sorry four contracts within animal
 services the biggest is going to be our vet contract so that number does encompass those
 contracts as well also in our materials and supplies there is a slight increase with that
 this is where our food for the animals is we have to make sure that we are providing our animals
 with adequate food and make sure that it is nutrient and that cost of food of course with
 anything has increased so we want to make sure that we are adequately funded to provide for the animals
 and currently we have 20 fte's within animal services and we will be asking for an additional
 fte animal control officer so our budget request is an additional animal control officer
 now this is not an animal control officer too that you that i spoke about
 in on the field slide this is an animal control officer who will be primarily working inside of
 the shelter but they also do help in the field as well if we have a staffing deficiency there
 so with that i will take any questions
 questions for staff mayor protein melzer thank you very much for the presentation i hadn't noticed the
 the fine decrease before i wouldn't call it a slight decrease it's it's half which might
 be a great thing how are you measuring whether this change in approach is working do you track
 sort of whether the same people uh recur in you know the uh those types of violations or how will
 you know if the new approach is working well one thing is that our officers we make sure to tell
 them to if it's a first offense that they are not issuing those citations um if it's another calls
 to the same address of course uh they would maybe educate one more time and then if it's a third
 offense of course we would have to move forth with with the citation so it's basically just
 tracking the addresses that we are going to and making sure that what level of enforcement that
 they are at at that point i i don't go on and on about it but i understand that you've got a new
 way of doing it uh how would you know that that was a good decision you know once you've been
 doing it for a while well uh one of the things and i'll just give an example like for our
 barking dog calls um that if we are not going out to that that resident time and time again for the
 call uh to us that is measuring the success because in turn we are spending more time going
 out there to address the concern uh with you know a citation rather than doing the education
 okay did that answer your question i'm sorry sort of i guess okay it's not a huge deal i mean i i'll
 be interested to hear you know we have to say in a year like if that uh most definitely oh thanks
 mayor you're muted
 sorry councilmember uh thank you council member bird beck and maguire i was just going to ask a
 question about the animal enclosure fund yes and you said you've only done one of those this year
 or last year yes since implementation in november we've only had um one there was another one that
 we were going to install however the uh residence landlord did not want us to put the enclosure on
 their property and so they have to meet a certain criteria for you to install those or or does it
 can anyone call and make the request and it's kind of automatically done how does that work
 well we want to try and reserve that for the residents who are not able to financially
 provide that that enclosure for their animal we don't look at income at all it's an application
 that they just fill out we want to make sure that they're if they're renting the property that their
 landlord is on board with us put in that enclosure there however it's basically an honor system but
 we want to make sure that it is reserved for those people who who truly need it and you mentioned a
 term landlord so uh if i had my own home i would just use myself as an example i don't have a fence
 around my own yard but i like for you all to come in and and structure something for my little puppy
 dog uh is that something and i'll fill the form out are you going to come and do that and you'll
 tell me how how are you going to tell me how much you can do i mean five by five three by two how
 does that work um well it's a 10 by 10 so it's pretty it's pretty big but uh what we would do
 first um is the aco out in the field they do educate on the options that a resident does have
 in lieu of tethering so maybe they do have a fence and they can install something so the animal does
 not either dig under it or over it or if you're able to provide the enclosure we'll provide you
 with the you know the proper type of enclosure to provide to make sure that the animal
 does does not escape the enclosure but if the if the need is there you're like hey you know i've
 tried these other options i can't afford it then we'll we'll give you that application and then
 we'll work from there to get the enclosure installed how much does an average enclosure cost
 five hundred dollars um you mentioned something about the or stated something about the off-site
 vaccination at the mlk on october the first yes that's on your website no this is something that
 that we were just in talks with with mlk and tcap that's who we actually who actually administers
 the vaccinations so just within the last couple of weeks we've actually been able to get that on
 their calendar as well so um yeah it will be advertised when it's closer to the time for that
 clinic to be administered okay so i don't have to say anything to my folks about that yeah no
 ma'am we'll do the advertising for you you'll do that okay thank you very much no problem
 councilmember bett thank you mayor randy uh so piggybacking off of uh uh council bird's question
 if uh how much is the sort of average lifetime cost of the per animal to care for the animal
 at our to care for animals about 16 dollars a day about 16 dollars a day yeah and the average day
 is is roughly about seven days in the shelter about seven days awesome that's and then um so
 two more questions they're real brief uh do how much volunteer capacity uh do you have not not
 counting like covet ramp ups just sort of like you know i guess pre-covid or what you anticipated
 post-covid how much volunteer capacity could you support if you had like a waiting list for
 volunteers so there's not really a capacity um council member beck what we look at is the hours
 that people um can actually volunteer uh right now since covet we did move towards a scheduling
 system for the volunteers because we want to make we wanted to make sure that the foot traffic in
 the shelter was kept at a minimum however we have opened that up um for more volunteers to come in
 so those decline in numbers was because of what we had to do in order to make sure that we can
 social distance and things of that sort um but on an average sunday we could have upwards to maybe
 uh five or ten volunteers in the shelter doing doing various things and that was pre-covid
 and and then thank you um and then my my last question is um i've seen reporting uh across the
 country that um in addition to learning to bake bread that people adopted a bunch of pets uh while
 they were in quarantine have you seen an uptake in intakes um especially as we've kind of begun to go
 out of covet quarantines yes there has been an increase however this increase um is kind of what
 we were seeing prior to covet uh being a thing so um our operation has had to kind of pivot from
 the comforts of covet to being open fully again and taken in those surrenders however with our
 intake diversion programs that we are kind of honing in on um the foster to adopt program if
 someone brings in an animal and they can hold on to it for the 96 hour straight period we offer
 vaccinations we stay in contact with them if the owner comes forward they bring the animal back
 so that animal doesn't have to enter the shelter um also we have the pet food pantry that's uh
 sponsored by dent animal support foundation so if someone comes to us and they're reasoning for
 surrender and it's hey i can't i can't feed my animal you know it's it's either the kids or the
 the animal you know to feed uh we provide them with two weeks worth of food no questions asked
 to keep that to to make sure that they can keep that animal um their pet with them and i i guess
 my my question more and i think you said it but i maybe lost it um in the answer and that is have
 you seen a an uptick in in intakes or or intakes and or let's just say general uh animal attempts
 let's lump it all together like um oh of course yeah has there been an increase yeah there has
 been an increase i don't know the the percentage off top of my head i would have to look into that
 but yes there has been a percentage of being i'm sorry an increase of animals to the shelter okay
 thank you okay councilmember guara thank you um i i had a few questions regarding um kind of the
 positive uh outcomes for animals that that you had mentioned um uh am i recalling correctly that
 um there was a six percent um increase in in diversion rate um decrease in intakes decrease
 in yes okay um uh and and i saw that number kind of next to a bullet point about um the the pet food
 pantry um i do do you feel that that six percent decrease was uh a direct result of um you know
 helping people to to feed their pets and and keep them in the home most definitely um last year we
 did see about a um about an 80 percent decrease uh part of that was because of the pet food pantry
 and that we were um scheduling they had to schedule to bring their animal up to the shelter
 of course you know because we wanted to make sure that we didn't have a lot of people
 in the shelter uh we have kept that scheduling module however we've expanded how many animals
 we can accept on a day-to-day basis um and that has helped as well to to keep that decrease down
 okay um uh my next question is um so what do you see as like the most um kind of the keys
 the most effective the most impactful um things that you can do or that or that the city can
 can support you in doing um to increase those positive outcomes both diversion and um the the
 live relief rate well the biggest thing is we promote you know our animals on our facebook page
 a den animal support foundation promotes our adoptable animals and basically it's just it's
 sharing those posts you know making sure that we get as as much reach as we can for the animals
 that are there um as far as uh the diversion it's it's education you know on our wildlife what to do
 when you see baby wildlife or what to see do when you see kittens you know the first thing to do
 isn't just to pick them up and bring them to the shelter because the mama might be out getting food
 you know for the for the kittens so it's those educational things that we are going to focus on
 this year um to make sure that we're pushing out going and going to some hoa meetings and
 just putting a face uh and educating the public on things that they can do as well to help us out
 okay um uh that's great um uh i'm also curious about um your spay and neuter programs um do you
 only spay and neuter animals that are being adopted out or do you have a a relationship with like
 uh uh what is it t cap that does the low cost a spay and neuter program um what's your your
 role in spay and neuter well our spay and neuter are solely for the animals that we have at the
 shelter um after 96 hours uh unless they've been surrendered by our owner if it's if it's a stray
 then we uh spay a new animal because it becomes our property at that point um we don't spay and
 neuter any animals for the public because of liability reasons um but t cap the partnership
 we have with them they do administer the vaccines for the clinics that we have at the shelter
 the rabies and other vaccines um and uh if there is anything else that is needed like our off-site
 vaccination clinics they're going to partner with the with us as well for that okay excellent thank
 you okay any other questions for staff seeing none thank you very much i appreciate it randy
 okay that concludes item b takes us to item c which is id 21616 receive report hold discussion
 give staff direction regarding the scope and connectivity options for the westgate
 roadway improvement project
 good evening mayor and council becky devaney city engineer
 i'm going to share my presentation with you
 so
 thank you very much for this opportunity to talk to you today about what the westgate improvements
 um i wanted to start off by thanking rachel wood our deputy director of capital projects
 and she put a lot of effort into this presentation coordinated with several different
 departments and unfortunately is under the weather tonight so i am going to be making this presentation
 on her behalf today we're going to take an opportunity to talk about some development
 updates i do have other personnel from several different departments that are here to make part
 of the presentation with me um discuss the westgate reconstruction project as current scope um discuss
 improvement options for westgate um a little bit of the feedback that we received from the may 20th
 community meeting um talk about connectivity considerations some next steps and receive
 direction from council as to how we can proceed forward with the westgate project and then of
 course be available for questions so i'm going to turn it over to julie wyatt who is going to make
 the presentation on this slide good afternoon i'm julie wyatt i'm senior planner with the city of
 denton and before we get to the that infrastructure piece we just wanted to talk a little bit about
 some of the projects that are under consideration or under construction in the area so we're going
 to start on the north side of the map on your screen first there is an outlined in orange
 there's a build to rent pd that has submitted to the city that is a proposed plan development that
 should be coming before you in the next in the upcoming months it's a horizontal multifamily
 development just south of that y'all may be familiar with the kings ridge development
 that is also a planned development it came before council a few years ago
 as a single-family neighborhood it's being developed into two as two phases the first
 phase you can kind of see on that map is under construction the second phase the final plot was
 approved a couple of months ago and so it'll be coming forward soon the mark is a multi-family
 development on the east side of bonnie bray and it is under construction now south of the kings
 ridge development is something you're probably familiar with and that is that new denton high
 school building that is under construction southwest of that is the windsor apartments
 that is that is under construction now they're at windsor and i-35 and then perch denton is is
 another horizontal multifamily that will be coming to the through public hearing in the upcoming
 months it is it is under review now with the city and then finally we have residences at razor ranch
 that's a townhome development just south of perch denton so quite a few developments moving forward
 in this area the next slide so i want to zoom in a little bit on the bronco way area bronco way
 is currently planned to be a four-lane divided roadway it is going to extend from bonnie bray
 toward the west near west gate kind of where that that white line ends it's being constructed by
 two developments first the the denton high school to the south they are denton isd is constructing
 the southern two lanes of that four-lane roadway and the anticipated completion date is august 2022
 and then the north two lanes are being construction constructed by the kings ridge development you
 could see that first phase those those platted single-family lots and then that second phase is
 anticipated to be under construction in the next six months
 thank you very much julie now we'll walk through the bonnie bray phase six project
 i'm sure many of you are very familiar with this project it is to widen bonnie bray to
 four lane divided roadway from university drive all the way to 77 this project also includes
 traffic signals at the windsor intersection riney road and also 77 along with that our
 new sidewalks and a 10-foot shared use trail and there'll be drainage system improvements
 water main upgrades and street light installation as a part of this project
 the estimate at completion for the job is 30.5 million dollars and the schedule is to begin
 construction quarter four of 2021 so later this year and we anticipate complete construction to
 be completed in the quarter two of 2023 just to kind of give you a coordination piece there
 are multiple meetings that we've been having with disd on the project we're working right now
 coordinating with them on riney road as this appears to be a future extension from an elementary
 site also we have ongoing engagement with the upcoming community meeting prior to construction
 so that's an overview of the bonnie bray phase six project and we do have the project manager
 here today at the end of the presentation if there's questions specifically in regards to
 that project the next project we wanted to talk about is the windsor drive overpass this project
 is a actually a tech stop project that's being completed the windsor drive overpass is to be
 constructed as part of the 35 35 e 35 w merge project that project is from 35 e w interchange
 to us 77 north of denton the ultimate configuration will connect to windsor which will be widened to a
 four lane divided roadway the construction estimate is approximately 1.2 million for the
 city to fully widen windsor from west gate to the frontage road with that extension current
 we text dots as scheduled that they've given to us is they're in the process of the right away
 acquisition it should be completed it was anticipated to be completed in april of 2021
 they're actually working through utility relocations they estimate those to be completed
 in june of 2022 with 100 design complete for their project in march of 2022 and then
 that let date of january of 2025
 i can't find my mouse so first of all i wanted to go through and kind of walk through different
 options so you're going to see three different options option a b and c and then four different
 connective options so i want to walk through first option a option a is currently what is planned
 as a part of the 2014 bond program what you can see on the screen are some needed drainage
 improvements in this vicinity where you see that in yellow along with some water line extension
 from flager to coffee there's also a 15 inch sewer line crossing that will be crossing west
 gate in this area and then roadway construction that was a part of the 2014 bond program includes
 construction from windsor all of the way to flager and that's to rebuild that street in its current
 condition and current configuration the estimate completion is about 2.49 million dollars the
 schedule will be planned in coordination with the bonnie bray phase six project and also the denton
 high school and we are working to minimize impacts to the surrounding residents the denton high school
 traffic and wanting to work through that connective issue that you can see is right now the only way
 that folks can enter windsor or i'm sorry enter this neighborhood is off of windsor to head
 northbound into their neighborhood so i'm going to describe that in a little bit more detail right
 on this slide so the west gate improvement considerations that really we want you to think
 about as we kind of look at this project from a holistic approach is currently the individuals
 who live in the west gate neighborhood only can access their property from windsor and head north
 as the connection between where this dead ends and west gate that runs east and west no longer is a
 connection piece as part of the mobility plan you can see that it's anticipated for windsor and then
 also this connection of bronco way which also connects to west gate to be made along with west
 gate shows to be a collector and access to the residents to their homes during construction is
 ultimately what we're asking you to discuss today as i mentioned this is the only way into the
 property in this area because this connection currently does not exist so part of the connectivity
 options that we're going to walk through are the access to the future bronco way access to west
 gate and as bronco way is in this vicinity west gate is in this vicinity and the potential
 connection to the east west corridor along with the north south corridor i understand it is a
 little confusing because west gate is also named north south as also is west gate is east west in
 this area so the project extent considerations are to improve the southern stretch of west gate
 as intended in the 2014 bond which i just previously showed you on option a
 from flager to windsor to improve the full as a part of the current north south extension of west
 gate with an option of adding sidewalks so that's what you see in this blue line and the permanent
 connection to the east west west gate and or bronco way which is what you see in the east west
 connection so those are the different considerations to you for you tonight
 option b will be the first one that i discuss essentially is the full reconstruction of the
 north south portion of west gate and it does not stop at flager as the option a that i just
 previously showed you it goes all the way north to the west gate option it will include the
 drainage upgrades the water line the sewer line so basically the difference between option a and
 option b is the connection from flager all the way to the north the estimated completion is about
 4.9 million dollars the schedule will be dependent upon the completion of the design and then the
 selection of a contractor and the funding availability the considerations we'd like to
 bring forward to you today is additional right away that would be required the access for the
 neighbors during the construction in this area like i've mentioned several times they only have
 one way into their neighborhood and this also does not include sidewalk in the connectivity
 option b would be to rebuild the roadway to a collector and it would also include that
 eight foot sidewalk it would include the water line as i've showed you previously
 the drainage culvert culvert installation and the 15 inch sewer so the major difference between
 the previous option b and option c that you see here is the improvements of the sidewalk from
 windsor all the way to the north all the way through the extents of the north southwest gate
 the estimated completion for that project is approximately 5.1 million it's also dependent upon
 schedule dependent upon the completion of the design the selection of the contractor and the
 funding availability the right away acquisition would also need to be acquired and we will be
 wanting to coordinate with neighbors during construction that's one of the major issues that
 needs to be addressed so those are the three options i'm now going to walk into the different
 options so the first option that you see before you is the west gate connectivity option one
 the scope which could tie into any previous option basically shows that the temporary connection
 would be made from west gate where it currently ends northbound and then connect into bronco way
 so the southern two lanes are being constructed by disd like julie mentioned and the northern
 two lanes of bronco way are being constructed by the king ridge phase two development so that's an
 asphalt overlay with a minor base improvement so this would be just a connectivity piece a temporary
 roadway from west gate to bronco way so that during construction of whichever option is selected
 whether it's a b or c is selected to move forward we would have an opportunity for individuals that
 lived in this development to continue north and be able to access and leave their property
 along bronco way this estimate completion is approximately 32 000 as mentioned on the previous
 slides it's all dependent upon the design that selected the selection of the contractor and the
 funding availability some of the considerations for this option is the heavy traffic projected
 in the area this temporary improvement may not be sufficient for the actual traffic and the traffic
 patterns and we know that traffic patterns will be changing with the new high school
 and once it's established it may be difficult to remove the temporary roadway
 the next option is option two it's similar to what i just showed you before
 although the difference is that this would be a permanent connection and this connection
 would also be a 37 foot wide collector with curb and gutter it would connect to the most northern
 portion of west gate and then connect into bronco way this is approximately 230 000 to make this
 permanent connection it would be dependent upon the design selection of contractor and the
 availability of the funding this would help and improve connectivity and provide another east west
 corridor within the high growth area and the connection to the bronco way it would also
 establish the alignment of the intersection of west gate and bonnie bray which could impact
 future development and the right-of-way considerations in this area
 the next option you see is option three instead of going eastbound now we'll be traveling westbound
 so this is a temporary connection to improve the west gate from the northern area that you see on
 the map across the west gate existing west gate that was formerly closed in this area this would
 be a temporary roadway connection an asphalt overlay with some minor i'm sorry let me go back
 minor base improvements the estimate at completion would be approximately
 180 000 and this would also improve the connectivity provide another east west connector
 would help establish the alignment of the intersection of west gate and bronco way
 which could have future impact on development and right-of-way considerations
 and it would also require the repeal of the ordinance from 1993
 ordinance number 93-108 to allow for the temporary access to be repealed
 similarly option four would just be that permanent connection this would be the permanent connection
 to the existing east west portion of west gate and it would also require some drainage upgrades and
 some sidewalk connectivity and this project is approximately 2.1 million dollars and we would
 plan the coordination with the bonnie bray phase six and the ditton high school construction
 and work through this really to improve the connectivity and provide another east west
 roadway if you recall from the overall map the only other east west roadway in this area
 is the windsor drive that i showed you previously this would help provide an alternate east west
 roadway for folks entering the high school area it would establish the alignment of the
 intersection of west gate and bonnie bray it could help and impact future developments in the area
 and allow for that right-of-way to be established it would require also the repeal of the 93-108
 ordinance so to talk a little bit about the ordinance from 93 it's 93-108 basically that
 ordinance was put forward to support the closure of the west gate north of borough street as a
 public street or thoroughfare indefinitely the reason cited that staff was able to
 find the information about was that it was due to the amount of traffic generated by the opening
 of the stone hill outlet mall which is just north of west gate drive and it was approved june 15th
 of 1993 so back on may 20th we had a community meeting we had 34 participants and we just wanted
 to kind of walk through the folks that were against the permanent connectivity versus some
 of the comments were received from the folks that were in favor of the permanent connectivity
 and the folks that were against the connectivity obviously had speeding and safety concerns
 they had a concern that the temporary connection would eventually become permanent
 they had a concern of the broken promise of the repeal of the 93 ordinance they were open to
 sidewalks along west gate and also open to the full reconstruction of the existing north south
 west gate folks that were in favor of the permanent connectivity were understanding that it was to
 help address connectivity and mobility issues in a very high growth area they were open to
 sidewalks on west gate along with that full construction of that north south portion of west
 gate they also saw that would provide another access point to denton high school and would
 provide a safer north south route for bicyclists and pedestrians so some of the connectivity
 considerations for your consideration tonight are that the permanent connectivity to bronco way
 and east west portion of west gate is consistent with the 2015 and the proposed 2021 mobility plan
 i showed you that a few slides back the permanent connectivity provides additional
 transportation options in a high growth area and especially with the new high school being
 developed in that area the temporary connectivity is the minimum requirement requirement needed in
 order for the construction of the southern portion of west gate to be completed regardless of which
 improvement option is selected we do know that once traffic patterns are established for temporary
 connectivity it may be difficult to remove that connectivity piece and the full reconstruction
 of the north south portion of west gate will need to be completed to address the existing roadway
 condition those drainage concerns in that area and bringing the roadway to a collector standard
 is consistent with the 2015 and 2021 mobility plan also this would allow for an addition of
 the eight foot sidewalks along the north south portion of west gate which improves the pedestrian
 access in that area and one of the comments that we did receive was specifically related to folks
 that would be using west gate as you saw some of the concerns that we received for speeding and
 safety concerns one of the options that staff looked into is actually some traffic calming
 options at the intersection of the north southwest gate and the east west west gate bronco way to
 include a right in right out island in that area which could be installed to address some of those
 concerns if permanent connectivity was considered so next steps are to seek direction on a project
 scope from council and that's why we're here today and then our staff will work through submitting a
 capital improvement funding request based on the direction we receive to secure the funding we will
 work through finalizing that design and coordinating that project with not only tech stop but also
 disd obviously tech stop for the 35 widening project i showed you and then disd with the
 coordination of bronco way bonnie brave phase six and also ronnie road it would also require the
 potential repeal repeal of the 93 ordinance based on which option is selected and we will bring this
 forward to mobility traffic safety and also any type of city council considerations that are
 required as part of the project and then we will work to select a construction contractor and
 actually begin the construction so just an overview that kind of shows you a map of the area
 i just wanted to kind of highlight this and i'm going to show you a table with some costs and
 bring a few other things to your attention so option a just to recap is to reconstruct the
 southern three southern sections three sections of west gate this is what you see in green
 and that was already included in the 2014 bond program option b is to rebuild the street as a
 collector and option c is to rebuild the street as a collector with eight foot sidewalks and so
 that's from windsor all the way to where west gate ends so then the west gate connectivity options
 option one was the temporary connection to bronco way and that's what you can see in dark blue option
 two is the permanent connectivity connection to bronco way of which you can see in light blue
 and then option three is the temporary connection to the east west west gate which you can see in
 orange and option four is the permanent connection to the east west west gate which you can see in
 the lighter orange also just wanted to mention again to you that the northern two sections
 two lanes of bronco way are being constructed by kings ridge face two and the southern two
 lanes are being constructed by disd so just an overview of the project scope description
 matrix we talked through these different options just wanted to make sure that you all saw the
 different funding considerations and these do include utility funding so option a that i just
 went through is approximately 2.4 million option b is approximately 4.9 million and option c is
 approximately 5.1 million and then those connectivity pieces the temporary connection
 is approximately 32 000 the permanent connection to bronco way is approximately 230 000
 that temporary connection to east west west gate is approximately 180 000 and then that permanent
 connectivity of west gate would be 2.1 million also just to give you an idea of kind of the
 construction schedule we estimate that option a would take approximately five to six months
 to do the construction option b would take approximately eight to ten months option c
 would take approximately ten to twelve months and then as far as the the connectivity pieces
 we expect any of the options that were selected obviously with the temporary connection option one
 taking the least amount of time which would be approximately two months all of the other options
 we anticipate to take in anywhere between two to four approximately months could turn into six
 months depending on which which portion and then which connectivity piece is selected and i just
 want to remind you that this project is not currently scoped completely and the meeting is
 intended to follow with our best practices to develop and determine the project scope
 in the initiation phase of the project and we want to make sure that we have the stakeholder
 engagement along with the city council engagement purpose of holding that public meeting was to make
 sure that we understood you know what the residents concerns were and whether folks were in favor or
 against any of the options that were presented and once we receive direction then we will be
 proceeding forward with the next steps and with that i'm going to take the presentation down
 and open it up for questions hey thank you questions for staff will go council member
 davis mayor protein melzer thank you mayor i've got a question but i want to point out a couple
 really brief things first the first one is if council members hadn't had a chance to
 either talk to folks in this neighborhood or read some of the backup material i highly
 encourage you to do that the history on that that ordinance is pretty interesting it's pretty clear
 if you look at the pnz minutes and the council minutes back then that word indefinitely was
 used pretty loosely and probably on purpose um i don't think i think it's pretty clear to everyone
 back then that there were going to be other ways in and out of this neighborhood at some point you
 can see there's stub outs to the to the west there there's lots of talk about the hunt property
 developing the property that's across west gate was anticipated to develop what's now the school
 so it's kind of a backdrop i think to that decision to to uh to cut off that portion of west gate
 the other thing i'd point out and i'm sure uh mayor pretend melzer will correct me where i'm
 where i'm wrong here but we spent uh quite a bit of time with the uh some neighbors out in that area
 individually through emails and then also at a neighborhood meeting staff spent a lot of time
 with the neighborhood out there and they have exactly the concerns that you would expect that
 they have a neighborhood that's not been subject to collector traffic um not anticipated by them to
 be subjected to that kind of uh traffic especially with the high school opening up um but i i think
 overwhelmingly recognized that if the neighborhood was built today it would require more than one
 way in and out and in a safety situation either construction or there's only one way in and out
 during construction or in an emergency situation fire trucks tree across the road flooding there'd
 need to be another way out so i think um i don't want to speak for all of them but i think the one
 that kind of options that rose to the top in those conversations seemed to be a combination of option
 c reconstructing all of west gate doing all the work that we need to do out there but with the
 sidewalk uh the caveat to that of course is land acquisition that a number of folks were very
 concerned about losing large portions of their property and there are some very significant trees
 especially there on the west hand the west side of the road where the homes are um some very
 important trees to the neighborhood and then also option some some version of option four where they
 can connect out to west gate um i'm saying option four as opposed to option three i'll tell you why
 with my question here in a second but with the caveat that that be a temporary connection that
 we could build it whatever quality of road we wanted to build it but with a gate after construction
 is done so it's the same thing we did on montecarlo i know it's not best practice i didn't really like
 it when we did it on montecarlo down near forest ridge off of ryan road it was not my favorite um
 the difference i think here is that these folks had a city ordinance telling them there was not
 going to be a connection to the north the folks on montecarlo didn't have that um but i think that
 gate would solve some of the problem that we're talking about the road would be there under the
 gate for emergency access fire department can get in when they needed to but you wouldn't have the
 high school traffic coming in and out of the neighborhood um and the reason why i said option
 four as opposed to option three the temporary road is a combination of one i don't see much sense
 and building a temporary road you know for hundreds of thousands of dollars that we're
 then we're going to chew up and put a million dollar road on top of in short order and that's
 my question if we don't do option four where as part of this project we build that western portion
 of bronco way connecting bronco way all the way out to the frontage road do we have any kind of
 idea what kind of timeline that would be for finishing bronco way to what's now the east west
 west gate and getting it all the way out to the access road that seems like a really important
 mobility point uh for all that new high school traffic regardless of the west gate conversation
 uh sure councilmember davis um the anticipation of the bronco way um we talked about that earlier
 in the presentation and that's going to be an adherence with um you know really what that
 overall project is and i want me to flip it back i'm looking and julie i may need to get you
 the anticipation for the phase two is approximately six months um that's for kings ridge and then the
 anticipation for disd to construct their two lanes is august of 2022 now for the temp the permanent
 connectivity piece that east west piece from north southwest gate to east west west gate that's a
 mouthful um we anticipate that to take about four to six months to make that connection um and so
 you know depending on how long it takes us to actually get the design um the funding associated
 with that and then um the construction um you know we could put together that that overall schedule
 but the the dates that i'm giving you that four to six months time frame is just really specifically
 related to the construction so there will need to be designed before that and then the funding
 and then part of the need for having this conversation today is to be able to put that
 as a part of our capital improvement program through the budgeting process so for that funding
 to become available to actually do that design of that portion so overall i would say that you're
 estimating that that's probably a nine to 12 month process in order to get that project designed and
 constructed um but staff will need to go back and look at an actual from start to finish um once that
 design contract could begin if that's what you're specifically asking no i'm sorry that's all really
 good information but that wasn't my question my question was not the construction schedule
 should be capital improvement project schedule let's say we did not choose option four let's
 say we chose some other option whether it's a temporary road or something else and take the
 connection west gate out of it completely let's just say we've got the developer building part of
 bronco way we've got the school district building part of bronco way and there's a whole strip of
 pasture land between or old roadbed between bronco way and east west west gate all other things being
 equal at what point would the city take it upon itself without any of these other external things
 to make that connection it seems to me like that would be it should be a high priority connection
 it should be part of our capital improvement projects regardless but that it may not if it's
 not driven by this project we're talking about it may not rise to the top of our priority list it
 may get kind of shelved for a while and you have a bronco way that dead end into nothing
 within side of a frontage road does that does that make sense i'm asking where that would come
 up in our priorities if we didn't choose option for tonight sure i understand i apologize for
 misunderstanding your question earlier um so the project is currently a part of the 2015 and uh
 proposed 2021 mobility plan it's not currently a scheduled capital improvement program part of the
 reason we're having the conversation today is to talk about those temporary or permanent measures
 but in order to address your concern of the gap i would say between the existing west gate and
 where bronco way construction will be completed that project is not currently planned as a capital
 improvement project does that answer your question sir it does thank you very much no problem about
 what i apologize it's okay mayor proctor melzer and then councilman armature yes thank you
 oh i'll underscore uh you know where i can the areas where i heard the same thing and i'm going
 to uh maybe add some different emphasis first of all in terms of the long-term mobility uh i think
 that is you know clearly a fate we can anticipate even if it's not planned yet that that as a
 community need that will want the connectivity from stonehill center east west west gate through
 the bronco way as far as the neighborhood need and priority uh they have absolutely no interest
 at all in connecting to bronco way it's if you've been there and i encourage you to go it's a super
 quiet kind of cul-de-sac uh the rural feeling it reminds me a little bit of hardly field road
 in that respect a wonderful at some point makes some kind of designation as you know desirable
 walking areas for people in debt because people from not from the neighborhood go there too
 we're told it just because it's a peaceful place to walk around um so uh you know i thought it was
 interesting that in the presentation why you shared you from the community meeting not the
 neighborhood meeting that councilman davis and i attended that these are the things that the people
 who didn't want connectivity said and these are the things that people who did want it said but
 you didn't share what the numbers were on either side my estimate it's just an estimate that the
 percentage based on our meetings of those who want the connectivity is zero percent it's allowed zero
 percent uh so you know the net of that is if you're going to be rebuilding the lower portion there
 uh you know where there's no access out to windsor they need some way out they far prefer
 even if it's a long way around to have a temporary connection out to east west west gate and not
 not to even tempt somebody in the future to make a permanent connection out to uh bronco way uh
 although i would uh acknowledge that council member davis's inventive proposal to uh have a
 gate there so there is additional emergency access is well received now if if you say that at least
 for you know a generation or something uh that there's no desire for connectivity for high school
 traffic through there um then it raises the question what's the driver for making it a
 connector street when i look at the the proposed you know the developments that are currently on
 the map uh you've got the mark you know adjacent to bonnie bray built through npd jason to bonnie bray
 kings ridge it's on bronco way and bonnie bray residents at razor ranch and perch detner on bonnie
 bray windsor apartments connect to windsor none of that needs west gate to get anywhere so i think
 you know uh there's a bit of puzzlement there particularly if by collector you mean going from
 a 15 foot wide street to a 65 foot wide street there's puzzlement and why you'd want to do that
 i think resurfacing because it's a pretty pitted uh low oci in segments street uh you know i think
 everybody likes their street resurface sort of they're not i would say it's a super high want
 that they you know would acknowledge that uh but the idea that it ought to be a way bigger street
 i don't hear any interest in that and uh similarly on sidewalk i would say there's
 some interest mostly uh not a negative if it's not coming out of our property you know if it's
 if it comes out of the dist property okay that's not a bad thing it's still not 100 obvious why it's
 needed if it's a path for school kids potentially although there isn't it there isn't an entrance
 planned to the school from that direction so you know so uh i think a little bit of a question
 mark so i would say the net of that is gate's probably a good thing connection all the way
 through east west is uh at some point is almost certainly a good thing uh no connection uh
 temporary connection only out to east west west gate only not permanent uh and uh certainly no
 desire to widen the street by 50 feet okay i'll just say one last thing i know like my voice
 dropped as if i was done um uh if there is some case to be made for there to be a collector street
 i think there would need to be the same kind of proof you'd ask of any developer in terms of
 of traffic study you know or traffic uh modeling uh to support that because it's it's not obvious to
 to me and so and definitely not obvious to the neighbors down there yes so i i concur uh with
 the mayor pro tem's comments that reflects very much what i um have heard from people in the
 neighborhood uh i've heard that the neighborhood has been uh promised by a dent in isd that west
 gate would uh never become a connector street and or be be opened up and you know now that
 we're you know discussing the possibility of that happening um in my sense is that it you know it
 feels like uh kind of a betrayal of that that neighborhood and so there's concern in that
 neighborhood um i second uh the uh request for or maybe at least as i heard it mayor pro tem correct me from wrong that request for a
 a traffic study uh you know i think a a traffic study and a bike and pedestrian study
 uh the kind that we would require you know of a private developer i think we should have those same
 high you know standards even higher uh when we're doing this as this city and so can staff uh i'll
 kind of you know interrupt my list of concerns here can can staff just confirm that was there
 a you know traffic impact or pedestrian impact study
 no ma'am a traffic study has not been performed at this time um the overall uh plan that you see came
 directly from the existing mobility plan and the proposed mobility plan looking at the future roadway
 uses in this area um the determination of a traffic study would need to consider all developments or
 any future developments in the area and because we're still in the planning phase um and talking
 through different options staff has not chosen to move forward with the traffic study at this point
 and so for me uh you know those um studies would be essential in deciding which option to take
 if that makes sense uh you know you know for now i'm going with the the concerns of the neighborhood
 and the you know the knowledge that when you make a street wider uh it makes and have more
 connectivity on it it makes track you you've got faster traffic and also my my you know knowledge
 of or familiarity with with the area and what mayor protem said about you know it having very
 much a rural feel that would be uh completely in quality of life that would be really completely
 transformed um by such a you know radical expansion in in all ways uh you know laterally and
 you know vertically of the street um has there been a preliminary uh trip generation assessment
 done my guess my sense is no because that was that would be something that would come later
 and no ma'am that would uh be something that would be done later a traffic impact analysis
 or any kind of traffic study would be something that would be performed at a later date once we
 had and knew what options we would be proposing okay thank you and so hopefully you know even
 though i'm requesting um that uh the that a a traffic study uh and you know pedestrian study
 and trip generation assessment come first um i hope that you know you you can take that as
 reflective of the concern uh about can about transforming westgate into a such a wide connector
 street um there's uh the uh let's see the transportation design criteria manual
 prevents residences from having driveways that go directly onto collector streets
 uh and in an email or you know pointed this out uh to me and was asking and i'm wondering if you
 could answer you know why uh we're you know uh violating appear to be uh considering anyway you
 know violating that rule as a city that that developers are supposed to adhere to can you
 explain that and maybe that's a misunderstanding of that rule or what's being proposed um so
 staff is looking at the project from the perspective of what's currently on the mobility
 plan and would look at any design exceptions or variances that would be required just as any
 developer would and those would all come through the engineering department for us to evaluate at
 that time there are many times when those requests or exceptions are requested to be made and then
 it's a determination from a safety and a mobility perspective okay thank you so anyway i i hope it
 was clear that my a lot my concerns align with uh with with mayor pro tems and i i don't feel
 that this is ready to uh go forward as is okay council member beck council member bird council
 member mcguire thank you mayor uh i'm i'm gonna triple down on uh armentor and mayor pro tems
 councilwoman armentor's uh comments and mayor pro tems comments um i i i think we're i mean we're
 i understand the need to try to do some planning at this point but we're a little bit of cart before
 the horse chicken chicken and egg problem where we're asked we're being asked to decide on options
 before the the uh the need for particular impacts and so my questions particularly are um two um i
 believe mayor pro tem uh said and i that's my recollection as well that there's no connectivity
 planned between um or anywhere along west the north southwest gate with uh the detonized property
 is that correct no pedestrian no no walkways nothing right it's a fence correct i guess sir
 i can ask julie wyatt to expand on that but my understanding is you are correct there are no
 connectivity pieces julie would you like to respond to that that is correct there is no proposed
 sidewalk along west gate so if if if one of the impetuses was to put a sidewalk in then we're
 connect we're not connecting even anything we we're running a sidewalk up into the neighborhood
 which might be great for that neighborhood to connect down towards you know windsor or something
 like that and i don't want to take away the idea of some sort of walk path or something but that's
 that's far different than the kind of side path that would go along a major collector those would
 be two different kinds of side paths um with different maintenance schedules and and and the
 rationale for that is now becoming a little vague and nebulous if there's no real rationale to get
 into the detonized property um and then and so i you know i i concur with either sort of taking
 it out west gate or or or putting a gate in uh as uh counselor davis said if we if we have to make
 an option now but um the other question i had relating to um expanding is um i this is probably
 a question for julie um i i'm not clear that the city uh has the same uh easement rights
 on a detonized deep property as we do on on regular residential property is that correct
 i don't know the answer the answer to that but what i'm going to do is pull their plat and see
 how much right of way that was dedicated so so i guess my question goes to while you while you
 try to look that up real quickly is is if if i'm correct on that then uh and you have to expand it
 to 65 feet uh to make it a major collector then you don't have the option is my understanding and
 you're about to confirm that of pulling some of the right of way out of dentin isd because
 they're another government agency um and so yeah i think that's really germane if the entire
 widening has to come out of private property rights of way um that would be concerning to me
 um and and it would you know anyway i i think those are two in addition to you know tripling
 down on the earlier comments uh those are two or three additional concerns of mine
 and and i'll let i'll stop and let you look that up and maybe let other counselors ask questions
 okay councilman burke for the sake of future use and expansion of that area we did recognize
 that there's going to be quite a bit or we have properties that are already being built around
 there and um i just think that right now from my perspective uh c4 would be my my choice because
 i want to look ahead well ahead of of what we're doing and i think if we had something already in
 place that would um that would be more feasible because we don't know the cost of what's going
 to take place here in future terms right now as far as concrete or whatever rebar salaries i don't
 know about you know all of that but it doesn't seem like it would go down for any reason so i'm
 looking at the costs i'm looking at the future uh expansion i'm looking at all of that development
 that's coming up i do empathize with um the homeowners on that roadway i experienced the
 same thing myself in in the area where i live i don't like i said i don't have a fence in my
 backyard because we always had this open field uh behind us and we had enjoyed that open field
 for about 20 years uh near the alexander elementary school and so uh we were doing
 fine we used that field we camped out in that field we had this home uh we had this loving
 place to where we enjoyed using knowing that it wasn't our property but we appreciated it
 and then one day we saw those pink flags come up and we had uh went to our city council
 a person i think was wrote in at the time and we just had a fit but it was what it was it was
 coming up behind us and they put about i don't know maybe 90 homes behind behind me uh and i
 had gotten so enraged with it that i actually went out and tried to get a mortgage i think i
 was approved for a mortgage to buy the house that was going to come up behind mine because i didn't
 want anybody living behind me uh but that that played out but meanwhile i'm just really concerned
 and and just want to um support uh the future i want to support the future expansion of that
 area and i know there's details and i actually even went on here to find out what a collector
 street is it sounds like it's one of those streets that we have numerous streets like that here in
 the city and the folks that live on those streets they complain about the speed um even in district
 one particularly uh and then i also took a look at the right end right out design which i think is a
 a great idea to control some flow that's going through there so again i would look at c4 if i
 had an opportunity if i had a choice thank you okay council member maguire thank you um so yeah
 i think that we're all kind of expressing um a desire to address the concerns of both mobility
 and access in a rapidly developing area um as well as really wanting to honor the concerns of
 current residents and that is a tricky balancing act um i think that um uh some some things that
 i i think we can all agree on and which which the residents expressed um support for was
 reconstructing the full north south uh extent of westgate not just stopping at flager um and then
 um a sidewalk of some kind um i i would um as kind of an aside i definitely um want to see you know
 traffic and pedestrian studies um sooner rather than later um i share some of the concerns that
 have been expressed over the the idea of a 65 foot collector street that is very wide um i i think
 that um you know if if what we're trying to support is um access for the people who live there um and
 you know an updated roadway that can can support um you know moderate amounts of traffic it seems
 to me like 35 feet or 37 feet would be more than adequate um you know especially if we're putting
 in the drainage improvements and curbs and gutters and all that um i i don't see any reason why we
 need more than 37 feet um uh i do have a question regarding um the sidewalks um i know that option c
 included an eight foot sidewalk along the eastern side of of north southwest gate um uh could someone
 on staff speak to um the need for an eight foot sidewalk as opposed to a four foot sidewalk and
 why just on the one side of the street sure the answer to that question really um revolves around
 the cross section that we were anticipating that area was just to provide that connectivity piece
 from a sidewalk perspective um with the eight foot wide being some of the new standard of which
 we're following um and really just on the eastern boundary um you know it could actually be on either
 side um but we were looking at it on the eastern boundary just from that connectivity speed uh
 piece um and the eight foot standard is standard with that collector cross section um and i didn't
 want to make mention the 65 foot wide right away is specifically for the right away itself the
 actual roadway and the travel lanes width would be approximately 39 feet um and so it's not actually
 a 65 foot that's just the right away that's needed in order to adhere with the actual sidewalk and
 then also um the other components of that cross section okay all right that makes sense um uh
 thank you yeah uh uh to speak to the sidewalks again um i i share council members beck's uh uh
 desire to see that that sidewalk connect to something um uh perhaps uh i um you know it maybe
 even if um the north south extent of west gate drive doesn't connect to to bronco way um perhaps
 the sidewalk can connect to the sidewalk which hopefully will be running along the south side of
 bronco way um if there's going to be a school there i would hope that there will be a sidewalk
 there as well um uh i i want to um reiterate some concern about taking so much of that right away
 from the front yards of of the residents there um and suggest that we see what we can do with the
 disd um as far as as um you know asking them to chip in a little bit more of that of that width
 um let me see sorry i have lots of notes and then i changed my notes um okay i have
 a harebrained idea um so because i since we're picking apart this already very uh complicated
 plan that you presented us with so many options i'm going to add more options would it be feasible
 to have the east west extent of west gate connect to bronco way to provide that east west connectivity
 um but instead of doing either a permanent or a temporary connection from west gate drive
 would it be possible to take that western most extent of barrow drive and connect it up to
 the east west uh west gate just you know and because it wouldn't be um particularly practical
 for large amounts of traffic to go through there um perhaps that would you know provide that that
 second access for the residents of the neighborhood without encouraging traffic to cut through the
 neighborhood because it wouldn't be a straight shot just a just a thought just throwing another
 idea into the base sure no i understand so on barrow drive you're discussing and recommending
 to take that north to west gate instead of taking west gate north to the east west west gate is that
 what you're mentioning um yeah as as just another possibility um not necessarily saying i think that
 that's a better option than than connecting the north southwest gate to the east west west gate or
 to bronco way but just um just another option possibly staff could look at that option definitely
 there would be additional right away um acquisition that would be required because there's not current
 right away in that area we would also still want to look at possible traffic calming measures i know
 multiple times gate has been mentioned and that was really kind of the the solution and the purpose
 of the right in right out um so folks can only come into the neighborhood or exit the neighborhood
 and not have that full turning movement in that entire intersection so it's definitely an option
 it would be an option that would be more uh we would have to evaluate from a cost perspective
 because we do not own the land for that area and so additional right away would have to be acquired
 from where borrow um dead ends all the way up to west gate yeah so we'll see if there's more
 traction for that if it's before but so here we go so um looking for direction right i think we've
 all opined i think i have everyone uh yes uh one two three yes so direction i have one kind of
 direction but if we can either succinct questions or direction and uh that would be fantastic so
 that we can get some move forward uh councilmember davis thank you mayor i i want to kind of
 respectfully point out here that what we're talking about are all basically permutations of option c4
 with a gate with a sidewalk over here with a more narrow street they're all basically versions
 of that i think we have minimum responsibilities here if we're going to redo the road we need to
 redo the whole road and not leave them with a broken up west gate if we're going to redo the
 road we've got to provide a sidewalk that sidewalk connects to bronco way the kids will take their
 bikes and their feet up west gate regardless of what we build there even if it's not a collector
 for cars it will be a collector for pedestrians and bike and bike riders our minimum safety
 responsibility here is providing a sidewalk we do eight feet so you can have bike and pet in the same
 spot um i don't think we need necessarily a traffic study to narrow this a little bit
 the traffic study comes in i think people are bringing up traffic study because they want to
 show that the car counts don't justify a through connection but that gets to the other minimum
 safety thing we have here there has to be another way in and out of this neighborhood in an emergency
 situation there has to be something for construction in an emergency situation build the road make west
 gate connect to where it needs to connect all the way up to that right away and put the gate there
 so just fire trucks can get in and out when construction is done close the gate and lock it
 for me that's a strong option c option four and we can work out the design aspects how far it gets
 into the yards what trees are in the way all that stuff in the next phase okay counselor back
 i have sort of a bifurcated issue um if we're going to move ahead then i i agree with counselor
 or counselor davis um that i would prefer a c4 the the the question is it
 and i see four with the gate the the problem that i have is that i haven't seen the rationale
 yet for um the extent of the the uh upgrade um and so if you're not going if we're not
 we don't have that rationale for the extent of the upgrade except east west not the not the north
 southwest gate then then that suggests to me that we really do need to show show a rationale for
 north south traffic at least anticipate at least modeled um i mean it being asked to make a decision
 but without with uh with sparse data i know we have to do it all the time uh but it feels like
 this is a piece that we have a handle on um and so before i would want to give direction i would
 want to see that i'd actually my direction you know in a perfect world would be to bring this back
 after that information is available uh and then uh you know make that decision you know to say okay
 yes we we do absolutely anticipate traffic then my direction would be to agree with with uh counselor
 davis that c4 is a better c4 with the gate is a better option let me take a stab at this counselor
 back i respect that that position um and so let me let me give you a historical look at it from my
 standpoint and and i think we hadn't even talked about the most important part of this
 and maybe i'm just missing it in the backup but here's to answer your question about traffic
 i've heard it i was trying to sandbag and and deal with mine all at once but it keeps resurfacing so
 here's the thing we all are familiar with 380 right and you understand that tech start's going
 to rework that entire intersection right and so then the fact of the matter is your traffic study
 i-35 will exit directly onto windsor it'll line up perfect with windsor where now it lines up with
 university drive every car on i-35 that misses university drive or wants to avoid i-30 i mean
 university drive will exit windsor and turn right they'll either turn right to bonnie bray they'll
 turn left to go to westgate thinking they can go somewhere and they can't but there will be a
 mountain of cars exiting windsor drive and let me understand let me help you understand the timing
 they're doing easement work at that corner where that chevron used to be right now so understand
 it's coming and we have to be in front of it because we're going to have a ryan high school
 situation where tech start sneaks up and this is the one project that happens on time and we
 have one million cars exiting windsor drive right in the middle of construction because we waited
 the the cars you don't have to worry about those they're coming and that's so that's your traffic
 yeah every card it turns a percentage right a quarter of the cars turn right on university drive
 which is a ton will now turn right on windsor drive so just just just just respond to that though
 there was more of a consensus across council at least by my count for restricted access a gate
 or something else that in that scenario you just described that is full throated full collector
 access through that area so you know that would if you know if there's no other choice if for whatever
 combination alignment of the stars that that's what's going to happen but i think you know we
 are the people that that to some degree determine the alignment of that stars so uh no no and i was
 simply i'm not going to put a gate there then we don't have the need for the collector it can simply
 be a regular residential roadway sure and and i'm not advocating yet on direction i'm just saying
 where the traffic's coming from is i-35 so that's that's only that's my only point there
 so um let's see just to be clear in my direction i would prefer to see the the some level of
 anticipated growth mobility plan traffic plan that that includes this idea of a gate and whether
 we're really going to punch through there before i would feel comfortable saying upgrade to a
 collector if we are for sure going to upgrade to a collector then i believe council day councilor
 davis is correct and we should do c4 that's where i stand thank you mayor pro tem melzer
 yeah thank you uh i'm pretty much right where council member beck is uh but i want to acknowledge
 a couple of points i think uh quite right mayor that uh a lot of traffic is going to come down
 winter but i i neglected to mention one other last little bit of community input which was
 have signage that says something like not a through road so that right because you're saying they're
 going to go up there anyway because they think they can get somewhere well it's on us then to
 have appropriate signage so that they don't bother doing that and i would also uh underscore uh
 agreement with uh council member mcguire and i'm pretty sure council member davis kind of affirm
 that as well that just because the road doesn't go through doesn't mean the sidewalk shouldn't go
 through if you're going to have a sidewalk and it's on the school side it's meant to go to the
 school probably out of connect to the school i think that makes sense okay councilor armater
 direction yeah so um my direction and i'm counting now i believe three uh on this council giving
 direction uh that a uh traffic and bike and pedestrian uh safety study and trip generation
 study be done uh before the before we even decide on these options um so some so please correct me
 uh if i'm wrong those of you who i thought have spoke for at least the uh traffic and you know
 bike and pedestrian safety analysis that coming first that council member beck was was talking
 about uh so i'm really adamant about that um i want to remind you know uh those of you talking
 about sidewalks that it's my understanding and staff please correct me if i'm wrong
 that uh the sidewalks would have to come out of the uh the adjacent uh properties is that correct
 the the private properties no staff said they they have to do a study and and then the basically the
 law you cited an ordinance you saw it they would have to look that up and have to go through the
 planning process so to uh to staff's point it's they know how much easement they need but you
 don't know which side it's coming from at this phase there's just it's not known thank you mayor
 i just just want confirmation from staff on that because that was my understanding that as far as
 we know you know it looks like it will or might have to come from uh the the the private properties
 but but we would need a traffic and pedestrian study for that to determine that the traffic
 and pedestrian study doesn't have anything to do with the right of way that would be required the
 right of way that would be required would be performed through a study to look at the actual
 cross-section where the properties are located where the property boundary of the dist property
 is from there we would prepare a design that would actually look at what that cross-section
 of that roadway would be the traffic study and bicycle and pedestrian requests that you're making
 have nothing to do with the survey thank you thank you okay so that survey that would be a separate
 study um so that then i will add that you know to my list of studies that i would like to see come
 before uh these these options come before us because i think you know it it will affect how
 the neighborhood sees sidewalks okay if they were to know that the sidewalks would be coming from
 their own right of way from their own properties you know or from the street um i'm also you know
 not in favor of uh of removing this this ordinance you know right now so we can get these these studies
 done so i want to keep this ordinance in and preserve that for the time being got it thank you
 um councilman maguire direction um i i would say that um i i'm definitely in favor of moving
 forward with reconstructing the full north south extent of west gate um i'm definitely in favor of
 a plan that includes sidewalks um i am also not in favor of repealing ordinance uh nine three
 the nine the 1993 ordinance at this time um and i i want to see a a traffic and pedestrian study
 before i give any further yeah okay and can we again i want to give staff an opportunity i mean
 it's they they explain the process and i feel bad because we just ignore it uh you know it's like you
 can't it there's a sequencing that has to happen and and so if you could again i'm sorry uh becky
 can you give your explanation on the timing and why we can't do a study before we do the other
 processes and and at least those watching will understand uh and we can take that direction
 sure sir i'd be happy to um the traffic study would help with determining um and considering
 all the developments and all the roadway networks and the forecasting of the demand and the west
 gate um nearby the hope of today's conversation was to give direction from a planning perspective
 so that we can start moving forward with that initiation phase and work through those steps
 such as the studies that are the next steps um such as the survey um the survey is not a study
 a survey is something that's a standard procedure that's done on every project to see where the
 boundary roadway a survey is needed for every project that's done by design in order to prepare
 um a set of construction engineering plans and so you know really the direction we're requesting at
 this point is to receive um which option we can move forward with so that we can start talking
 about the initiation phase this is all really just a scoping effort at this point so that we
 can work through what those design implications and what those different phases are and through
 those options so i hope that addresses the concerns and the questions um every project has a survey
 we will and can do a traffic study of this area i just want to mention that the proposal that we've
 put forward is in concert with the 2015 and the proposed 2021 mobility plan so staff is simply
 presenting it from the perspective that's been done from the research that's been done in the
 past and with those projections of those roadways and the roadway network in this area um just like
 mayor husbets mentioned due to the traffic volumes of not only the haskell traffic but then also the
 traffic to connecting to bonnie bray westgate winzer 35 etc yeah and and so i'll go ask my
 questions and i'll start where you left off right we we've talked a lot about mobility plans and how
 we should stick to mobility plans and we have a plan right i mean and so i thank you for pointing
 that out that's very noteworthy and my questions are these um so uh first the 2014 bond you mentioned
 that was voted on by the the citizens of denton and goes forward am i am i wrong i mean the the
 citizens of denton approved that bond package yes sir they absolutely did and that's part of the
 reason why we brought this forward today is we currently can't construct the 2014 bond program
 without some kind of alternative connected for these residents because there is only one way in
 and out of this property we also have a failing drainage structure of which needs to be addressed
 in this area right so so either way the the when we're talking about citizen input we the highest
 value of that is these citizens the citizens of denton went to the polls and said hey we support
 these projects and we've all been uh we all receive emails when we get behind on bond packages or hey
 where's this bond package and why hadn't we completed it and so this is staff if i'm
 understanding right this is staff's effort to meet their obligation to this body to be accountable
 for to the voters and to this body to say hey we need to complete the bond packages that the
 citizens trusted us to complete am i am i understanding that right absolutely sir and
 when we evaluated the overall project we ran into the concern that's been mentioned over and over is
 that alternate connection you know we cannot complete the project at this time without finding
 some other way to provide the connection got it and then i'll tell you the two things that i think
 are missing that no one's talked about and it may be in there and i just may have missed it so forgive
 me if you did but uh but lighting right have we talked about lighting we have not discussed
 lighting um but that's an alternate um discussion that will be had as we start working through
 you know the overall project um you know something that we're looking at is trying to exactly like
 you're mentioning is look at projects from a holistic approach and that'll be something
 that's talked about from the initiation phase we're a few steps behind that at this point as
 we're just trying to kind of scope the overall project and work through that initiation phase
 you know it's not truly scoped completely at this time minus the 2014 bonnet package that was already
 approved and voted on sure yeah no and that's and i think that's spot on and i think i hear you right
 we're trying to get past this phase so that we can get the details that the residents want so that we
 can clearly communicate but we can't clearly communicate without step one you know so i'm
 tracking with you and then um i think the um my concern is exactly i think where council member
 beck was that we build that full road and so then there's you're inviting traffic down that road
 and so for me i think there's some version of windsor that has a temporary barriers maybe
 like they did at dallas drive the text i did or something that prevents that immediate left on
 north south i guess that's right yes west gate and so maybe you have to go and make a u-turn or
 something some kind of minor inconvenience uh a mechanism that then kind of uh discourages people
 from driving down this what would ultimately be a very long dead-end road but i think there's there's
 some kind of machination there but i think i mean i think that's once we get there i mean that's
 probably the primary conversation for me is we're going to be shining lights and in some way in an
 area where there has not been any lights right and so i think that's really big uh but so i think
 here's here's what i i recap and i see hands but i'm going to recap um everyone has centered around
 some version of c4 but for council member armature has not given any direction other than to say she
 wants a traffic study and survey first and that you know i respect that but the the majority is
 around the c4 a version of so maybe that's i mean that's not clear direction by any stretch of
 imagination because it's all over the place c4 and i don't know how to to narrow that i mean
 without i mean i can't speak for and and i can't get more succinct than you know than they allow me
 to so maybe staff can watch this maybe we just i don't know what to do i mean i can't uh you know
 we're at impasse without clear direction you know we we we gave clear direction that we want to
 follow the mobility plan a couple of weeks ago but that's varying so i don't know what to uh
 do we want to have another neighborhood meeting i don't i don't know um how do you want to what do
 you what are you your thoughts becky on how we can proceed or another way to reload do you want
 to bring it back and we can have this whole uh but we don't have any new information is my concern i
 mean it's just we've got to give you direction before you can move forward but we don't want
 to give you the direction you at least to get that process started i mean i think i have
 five people uh around c4 versions of that's that's what i got
 sure i would appreciate the direction so that we can move forward we're very interested and anxious
 to get the 2014 bond program in this area underway like i mentioned we do know the drainage concerns
 um we did hold the community meeting on may 20th um you know we did hear questions and concerns in
 both directions and i will mention you know in the west gate area there are um you know 20 or so homes
 um and during the mobility process we also heard um the individuals were interested in that connection
 being made from a mobility perspective so at this point staff is really working forward to try to
 address the concerns and move forward with the project and also adhere to the current mobility
 plan and the proposed 2021 mobility plan and i do think that there are design exceptions or design
 um you know processes that we can go through such as you know the right in right out suggestion
 instead of the gate suggestion my fear with the gate suggestion is folks are going to take that
 north south connection get all the way to the end um completely miss all the signs that say dead end
 road and then have to find a way to turn around so then additional um right away could have to be
 required in order to have a cul-de-sac or something in that nature especially if someone um decides to
 take that roadway that needs to be able to turn their vehicle around so there's a lot of design
 considerations that need to be looked into similarly to how the Windsor and um existing
 Windsor and Westgate connection can be evaluated so you know we are interested in moving forward
 with the direction and as we work through this process coming to you know the the council if
 there are other things that would like to be addressed so at this point i feel like we spent
 quite a bit of time with the community we're happy to have another community meeting if that's the
 request but i will tell you and we had a great number of community individuals present and we
 received i believe it was 80 some odd questions during that community meeting so i'd encourage
 anyone to go back and listen to that specifically yeah so i'll just go in order again council member
 birch you were very clear and so i noted council member davis was very clear noted in order again
 we'll reload council member council member beck you were c4 with a gate but uh so i'll open it up
 to you do you want to specify any further yeah i do i do have that did we find out whether we have
 the right to take a right of way from dentin isd was that able to be looked up if you don't mind
 me jumping in here becky um i did pull the plat for that um for the uh didn't high school site and
 they did dedicate 32 and a half feet from the center line um on on their property so that that
 would allow some degree of eastward movement of the road um less of an impact let's say on
 the pro the private property owners um yeah i i still um i still have concerns but i still fall
 back on uh uh you know if we are moving ahead if we one direction then c4 i i still think though
 that it is still a chicken and an egg problem if we're not if we're going to have a gate if
 we're going to have a bear if we're going to have a dead end then that's a different kind of road we
 need then if we are going to punch through then i i agree with becky that you know like okay it
 doesn't make any sense to have anything else if it's punched through but if it's a dead end even
 because it's a gate then there's no reason to put the large larger development in there and so that
 is the chicken and egg problem and so if we have consensus on a gate then we have consensus on a
 dead end and then we have a consensus on a smaller road so i mean that's sort of where i'm going with
 that and and i'd be interested what other councillors said okay uh mayor proctor melzer
 well my hand was up a while ago i probably would say i think we've probably given more direction
 than than you think mayor i look to becky to say if that's the case or not that we've narrowed it
 down and expressed our concerns there's clearly some next steps and some vetting uh you know
 i mean i'd be happy to go around again if you want but no certainly i'd love to i'd love to be
 wrong uh do you have everything you need um my understanding at this point is that the majority
 of the council is interested in option c4 um they'd like for us to evaluate a gate at that location
 instead of the right in right out i think there is concern with the classification of the roadway
 but i would mention that we're just adhering to the mobility plan and that staff would proceed
 with the project along with the surveying and evaluating the disd plat that julie mentioned
 and looking at what that overall cross section would be in the overall project so i did hear c4
 i did hear several different versions of c4 in some special requests i guess i might mention
 um but you know that that is truly what i have heard sir okay great so if there's i mean i'm
 going to reset so there's though i need to hear from those that disagree with that so let's just
 focus on those that disagree with what she counted okay noted councilman armatuer any anyone else
 disagree with what would she we're going to have discussion but i just need to give direction i
 just need to take it in bite-sized pieces so that we can move forward so disagreements what how staff
 explained our consensus seeing none i stand corrected thank you mayor pretend melzer thank you
 becky and then final comments for staff to take notes councilman armatuer okay so
 the nature of my my disagreement with that uh is connected to uh the what uh council member
 beck so how council member beck so eloquently kind of summed up the problem um i the reason why i'm
 not giving direction on an option uh is because you know once you follow the uh directive to you
 know if if you if you follow a path to uh uh keep the ordinance uh to not have uh it be a connector
 street then these options that we've been given don't make sense anymore because you know they
 don't they don't fit uh with with this idea um i also want to mention that the mobility plan
 the uh is is still you know a work in progress has not been decided on yet uh so i hope that
 uh that you know when we come to you know finalize the new mobility plan that we take into account
 um this this wall we're we're up against here and not try to you know pretend that it it doesn't
 exist um as for the bond election it's my understanding that uh that the bond that people
 voted on did not include a connector street on westgate you know that this is this is related
 uh to issues surrounding the bond election but that this is not i don't think it's fair to
 characterize this as i'm not saying that staff characterize it in that way but i think you know
 that um mayor did uh as something that people voted on in the bond election uh and and just
 finally you know i want to emphasize that we as a city council absolutely have the the right and
 the authority to uh you know weigh in on our opinions on the the process and the timing of
 things we don't have to accept it as a given uh that the traffic studies uh come afterwards just
 because you know that's the way it has always been done we can decide that that we want uh this
 uh uh you know horse and cart uh to go in a particular order that makes more pragmatic
 sense for us okay thank you and and and just for just for my just a discussion point uh
 the is the ordinance becky is the ordinance specific to westgate drive
 is it is it specific to that road the ordinance specifically is the um not only the east west
 connection but then also the north south so it supported the closure of westgate north of borough
 street as a public street or thoroughfare so it's the so it does include that section sir right and
 so i just when you come back i would like your analysis on what's worst case if the owner of the
 property of the of the antique mall area says okay well i'm going to invest in the road behind
 there to come through right so if the ordinance is specific to westgate and you have and you build
 a road to the north of the outlet mall and punch it through now all of a sudden is that a way to
 circumvent that ordinance you know just to put in a new road to the north right i mean because
 that's i just think i just want to understand what we're up against so that we can give
 direction for that next phase but i want to understand either your or legal's analysis to
 say that ordinances if it specifically spells out westgate it doesn't does it apply to just bumping
 it up basically a block to the north and having a punch through you know so just a just a question
 to leave behind so very good thank you very much for your patience and and for your your detailed
 analysis look forward to when that comes back and so if there's did i miss anything
 from your perspective becky no sir i appreciate all the questions and conversation thank you for
 allowing me to present awesome have a great evening you too sir okay so that completes
 uh our third work session i'll take us to our fourth id 211143 receive report hold discussion
 give staff direction regarding tex dot required electric transmission line reconstruction i 35
 loop 288 mark simmer here dme engineering and bring up the presentation here
 so
 so in light of the previous conversation on westgate dme thought it was appropriate to inform the
 council of the electric transmission line project that's in the general vicinity of the westgate
 area the intent of our discussion today is just to give council a high level overview of the
 project no no direction is being requested at this time we don't know all the details
 of the project nor nor all the information on the options we're considering right now
 so we'll we plan to come back to council at a later time for your decision
 as with other departments within the city dme is faced with relocating existing facilities that
 are in conflict with the future textile project to widen i-35 from the 35 split up to highway 75
 this impacts two of our transmission lines one we'll talk about today is the 138 kv mosh branch
 the north line this line is owned by texas municipal power agency about a mile of the line is
 in conflict with the textile project the line is shown here in blue you can see its proximity to
 the westgate neighborhood it's it's north of the neighborhood here right around the loop 285 interchange
 texas is requesting that we relocate this line by next summer and due to our transmission operator
 maintenance and construction services agreement with tmpa dme is responsible for construction all
 the transmission tmpa transmission facilities in the detonary dme will be doing the construction
 to relocate this line and since this is a federal project interstate project and the existing line is
 isn't an easement the cost to relocate the line is is reimbursable by texas and since it is being
 reimbursed by texas texas is not eligible for transmission cost of service reimbursement
 now as i mentioned earlier the final route hasn't been determined yet once we have more information
 on all these routes we'll come back to council and we'll also come back to the owner of the
 transmission line which is tmpa for approval of the route i want to point out a couple of the routes
 we're considering at this point are somewhat close to the westgate neighborhood the red route
 and the pink route here you can see the cost for for all the proposed routes at this time
 it's worth noting that all the routes shown here will require new easements from the landowners
 however no easements will be required from the westgate neighborhood there's three
 large landowners in this area the harris family attracts our trust the westview commercial and
 cat dentin 35 a few of the routes for showing here today are attempts to alleviate the impact
 to some of these large landowners like the pink route here the yellow route and the green route
 we understand there could be potential future developments on this industrial developments in
 this area so that's why these routes are being considered so this slide is an overview of of the
 two routes that texdot and dme have been discussing and that we believe texdot would fully reimburse
 for the red and yellow these are the two least expensive routes the red route as you can see by
 pat or bisects the harris family tract the the yellow route which includes part of the red route
 is an attempt to alleviate the impact on the harris family tracks
 the next slide is are the routes that attempt to follow the outside edges of these large landowner
 tracks they are more expensive than the previous options and and due to the cost and the length of
 these uh routes we're unsure at this point whether texdot would reimburse the full amount to relocate
 these lines and this slide shows two options where we are attempting to uh leave the transmission
 line in the existing right away the the first option here is an underground option and after
 conversations with the owner of the line which is tmpa they have stated their disapproval of this
 option so at this point we're not exploring that one anymore the other one is an overhead route
 which wasn't initially considered due to conversations with texdot with them not
 allowing transmission poles and transmission facilities within their right away however due
 to the aggressive schedule with this project that texdot has with their project i mean they are
 willing to look at relocating some of their facilities here to allow the transmission line
 to stay in the existing easement so we're still in the initial phases of looking at this option
 and as with the other ones the this these will probably be more expensive than the than the first
 two however well the underground will definitely be the overhead i don't have a cost estimate yet so
 i can't comment on whether texdot would reimburse that amount or not so in summary the the point of
 our discussion today was really just to inform council of what's happening with the transmission
 line as it relates to the proximity to the west gate area so at this time i'll take the presentation
 down and answer questions all right thank you so no direction needed but input questions
 let's go um uh council member davis council member back mayor pro tem melzer
 sure thank you mayor just really quick and easy um you mentioned that there might be some issues
 requiring easements and that we are trying to track property lines as best we could
 have we been in actual contact with some of those landowners and is that why we can anticipate some
 difficulty or are we just assuming that based on cutting across large tracks as opposed to
 following property lines yeah it's based on some very preliminary conversations with the landowner
 um y'all mentioned surveys earlier we do surveys for all of our transmission projects as well so
 um to do those surveys we have to get right of entry from the landowners and that's that's how we
 um that's how we were starting to discuss these projects with the landowners and how we
 are feeling that there's going to be some pressure to give us or big pressure from them to not give
 us easement okay council member back thank you mark what i'm just curious why tmpa was objecting
 to the underground mines what was the rationale well there's the expectation that tmpa might not
 fully reimburse the amount for underground because it's so so expensive and that there's also the
 concern especially on the transmission system of using underground transmission due to the
 reliability concerns uh tech dot wouldn't reimburse i'm sorry yes so since this is a
 tech stop project we're having to relocate the line because of the i-35 project and because of
 that they should reimburse us for um the cost to reroute the line however if we're going to choose
 a an option that's really expensive they might not fully reimburse for that but then then who
 would be on the hook for the remainder outside the tech stock reimbursement yeah that that would be
 so it would depend on what tmpa would want to do with the line so they're the owner as well
 and it would would depend on tmpa and also depend on this council on what's decided
 thank you mayor pretend melter uh thank you uh to be honest i'm not 100 sure
 how it impacts westgate well i see it's sort of near but but not not exactly overlapping uh so if
 i'm missing something that's kind of my question and then and then uh i guess i would just ask so
 are you leaning to the blue line doing it overhead yeah yeah either the red or the yellow or the blue
 line um since text is just blew it up again all right i'm sorry i narrowed it down to blue
 yeah the the blue line has become increasingly favorable uh just do the we won't have to require
 easements from the landowners and we can we can keep the line in the existing easement
 and i'm sorry what was the original question am i missing something like it you know i i gather
 you brought this forward because it it's near the westgate area but it wasn't obvious to me how it
 might impact any of our thinking about that area what what the implications were for westgate so
 did i miss something no city engineering had involved dme and the the preliminary discussions
 when they're creating their presentation that you guys just talked about and so dme management
 thought is appropriate for us just to bring it to you at this time yeah mayor procham this is
 sarah that i asked them to do this to one give the council heads up because of the proximity of this
 project uh two uh quite frankly to show that there are other things in addition to the development
 of property uh in relationship to westgate but there's other things such as this uh replacement
 of this line which is in close close proximity but also will you know there will be construction
 work going on at some point in that area so i asked them to do it so you'd have a
 continuously look at the bigger and bigger picture so to speak and mayor procham if you look at the
 the options the pink line does kind of abut the westgate neighborhood pretty closely so i think
 that just that being an option out there made some sense to bring it forward yeah i see that
 okay thank you appreciate that thank you david spot on uh okay um so uh councilman bird councilman
 mcguire i was just wondering about the the total cost that you um noted there what's the percentage
 of the actual work in moving the line versus the the funds that would need to go in to acquire
 you know to run through those properties are the homeowners i'm sorry landowners are they
 is it a money thing you know for the lack of a more decorum on that
 is it sure if i can comment on that specifically okay but but i do know the construction costs are
 generally a third of the overall cost sometimes more um the for the red line about a million
 dollars of that was just easement acquisition so if that gives you some kind of idea okay thank you
 catherine mcguire thank you um two questions so the the non blue lines so i know that there's a
 there's an underground blue line option there's an overhead blue line the option are all the other
 options um that that you presented to us today um underground no they're all overhead overhead okay
 um uh okay so basically everything that's on the table is overhead yes okay that answers my other
 question thanks okay okay well thank you very much i appreciate the presentation and and yeah i'll
 tell you what's noteworthy for me the cat dentin 35 as we had a conversation with them with respect
 to um uh hersbot on the other side and so i didn't know their property ran this far to the south
 that's great to know but uh yeah so uh thank you very much it is helpful thank you uh city manager
 for bringing that and kind of give it it giving it some perspective uh thank you mark for having
 a project that doesn't need direction thank you all right have a great evening okay that takes us
 to um uh e which is id 21560 receive report hold discussion give staff direction on pending city
 council requests good evening mayor and council i'm back and i will share my screen
 let's see i don't want to do that one i'm going to stop sharing and change over
 just make sure i get the adobe version that's the one i wanted so that we can view it
 full screen okay thank you this is rachel ball through mendoza assistant to the city manager
 and as mayor mentioned i'll be presenting to y'all this evening our pending city council request
 just as a little bit of background for everyone the uh we'll we'll hear up to seven requests
 tonight and we actually have three um and i'll introduce each one and the elected official that
 made the request will have up to one minute to describe and justify it and then the remaining
 officials will have up to one minute to provide feedback and indicate their support for use of
 staff time to respond to it and then of course we'll respond to all the requests where consensus is
 reached so first this evening we have our one from council member davis regarding off-premise signs
 and it's there for you along with the staff information that we put in the backup and here
 for you as well and i'll stop sharing council members so that you can begin and mayor um or
 would you like to keep time uh yes i will thank you sure no thank you
 okay um so council member davis thank you sir i think the request generally speaks for itself
 especially if you read it along with something in our friday report about the uh the mr frosty sign
 down on fort worth drive we've got a goofy provision in our sign code because we don't
 allow billboards in the city of denton that if you put a sign or a mural on your building
 that's not an illegal billboard but if you put it across the the parking lot from you on your
 neighbor's building it might look pretty cool and attract business to your to your establishment
 but it is runs afoul of our sign code now it's an illegal billboard not a mural not a piece of art
 not a sign it's a billboard now because it's not on your property my request is really just to
 address that narrow issue in the sign code the consultant stuff that's in the staff response
 comes into something that's brought to my attention uh by the legal department there's
 been a lot of developing case law on this point and some other aspects of the sign code it is
 probably time for a refresh of our sign code regardless that's where that consultant comes in
 i'm happy just with the work session on my request that one narrow kind of goofy issue
 to make sure that we don't have business owners putting up perfectly thank you okay uh so uh
 comments council member guar thank you i would be in favor of a work session on the the narrow
 issue that council member davis is referring to um i'm not sure whether it would be worth the time
 and expense to um look at our entire sign code though thank you others councilman beck
 sorry i was in the wrong window uh yes i i actually uh want to reiterate that exact same concern
 um uh that i would be in support of a very narrow work session i'm concerned
 about the cost of a of a broad work session or a broad broad review okay thank you okay uh councilman
 roberter uh i support this actually would be very open uh to a adding on to that a broad look at
 issues that uh members of the community have brought forward to us regarding the
 sign ordinance in general i do think it's time okay okay um anyone else
 seeing none okay i i'll be in favor of the narrow look at it to get us to four uh so we
 can move that forward and and that and so that gives us uh so that was um council member uh
 maguire beck armator and myself just for those keeping track all right um so then the i'm sorry
 what i would just say i'll go to the next one okay great
 mayor hudspeth this one is yours for a work session to review the council committees and
 discuss their relevance and viability okay uh will you keep the time so that we i sure will
 thank you uh when you're ready
 again thank you uh so yeah just want to have a a discussion about boards committees viability
 uh function that sort of thing so that's just of it um just want to um open that door take a
 take a look at it give staff notes on your thoughts uh and then pull that together see
 what we can strip down uh build back up that would be viable and be effective and for example
 currently we we allow felons to serve on our boards i don't know if that's something we
 want to do or not but we need to have that discussion that's it
 okay uh council member and now i can keep time because i'm i'm not as biased mayor protein melzer
 okay uh well i'm very open to having this conversation interested in staff's input in
 that as well and as we discussed last week i would like to include in it discussion of some aspects
 of the appointment process for council committees i'd like us to consider allowing nominations from
 council members other than the mayor and i would like members to be able to remove themselves from
 consideration for a given committee a certain amount of give and take by council members was
 in effect part of the process under mayor watts because even without enshrining in the law he
 understood the need now our current mayor has graciously decided to take council input into
 consideration in the nominees he's putting forward today so i'm not insisting we do this
 before taking up nominations tonight i'm content to have these points come up along with the broader
 topic on council committees uh perhaps at the council retreat okay thank you
 so let's go council member davis councilman mcguire councilman berg
 thank you mayor i don't think i'll use my whole minute so i think i'll get started but
 um just a little i also concur with that i think these are worth a look some of them been around
 for a long time some of them have been amended and changed over time they have different processes
 and often staff will kind of either wonder aloud or bring up to these committees well what do you
 exactly do you see your role being in this particular conversation when airport committee
 is a good example uh when we formed the new sustainability committee that was a good example
 we had to have that conversation what's the role between the citizen committee and the council
 committee so i think it's a conversation well worth having okay and then so council member guire
 i'm not 100 sure if this is allowed but um mayor are you intending for this conversation to be
 regarding council committees citizen boards and commissions or both both both okay i am in favor
 of that and i am also in favor of mayor protem melzer's uh suggestion that we also discuss the
 appointment process as part of that session okay uh council member berg uh i'm in favor of us uh
 taking a look at our um process and i'm also uh in favor of allowing felons to serve on the boards
 if they've completed their time if they've done their restitution if they've done everything that
 they could do to finish out their time we should allow these people to um get themselves back into
 the community and be a part of the community i think that's one of our problems in this country
 is that we say that we forgive we say that we are um you know amenable to uh restitution but we don't
 continue we don't allow that to happen so uh that's my point thank you okay thank you
 counselor bet i think we're at four already but i'll just chime in that i support the variant
 of your suggestion uh that council or maguire and mayor protem uh put forward okay thank you uh
 counselor armature i just want to second and reiterate what
 but council member bird just said uh about uh second chances you know somebody has done their
 time they need to be able to re-enter society in all aspects i can't say it more eloquently than
 than council member bird so i i will stop right here but i could not agree more okay got it okay
 uh rachel so then we'll take up the third one okay
 our third one from council member armature is a policy direction to fly an lgbtq plus
 pride pride flag and a juneteenth flag at city hall and other city buildings staff-damed fitting
 for the entire month of june alongside the u.s and texas flags
 i've got here we are
 mayor will you keep time please yes thank you
 first one update to my request based on input by members of the southeast denton bulletin board
 requesting to fly the juneteenth flag just for the weekend of the 19th instead of all month long
 with an eye to a possible community made denton specific juneteenth flag for next year
 and also for this year to add the mlk rec center to the list of juneteenth flag locations
 nationwide and locally uh black communities and lgbtq communities of color
 have historically and currently seen their rights lives and bodies at risk and have
 consistently resisted and spoken out against oppressive legislation and practices in spite
 of the objections of naysayers raising juneteenth and fully pride flags are a zero liability way to
 advertise the denton city government doesn't just tolerate and support but visibly celebrates
 these communities and non-partisan holidays today the aclu texas and lambda legal sent a
 three-page footnoted legal memo showing zero liability in flying these two flags governments
 have free speech rights just like individuals do and that's okay um council member davis
 thank you mayor i actually have a point of order at this time
 okay state your point of order so we have a couple of procedure problems i think with the request as
 it's been stated um the pitch is to give policy direction but i think under section 229 g5 it takes
 four affirmative votes of the council to take any official action on part of the city on in the name
 of the city and the one minute pitch has been pointed out many times by this council is not
 a vote it's gaining consensus to give staff direction for a future agenda item and that gets
 us into section 230 which outlines the one minute pitch section 230 does not say we can use a one
 minute pitch to give policy direction it says we can use a one minute pitch to ask for a work
 session or for an isr i was quiet about this a couple weeks ago or maybe three weeks ago now
 when we did the letter to the legislature um it seemed like a one-off thing in retrospect i should
 have brought this up then i don't think we should make a practice out of using the one minute pitch
 to circumvent our normal procedure which is if we give direction we do that with a vote of the
 council or a work session not with a one minute pitch if the whole objection to one minute pitches
 is it's not enough time to fully vet an issue and have a conversation then we can't in seven
 minutes give full-on policy direction to the city uh point of order miss uh city attorney uh do you
 need those sites again uh we need some direction i i do need those again but it is a point of order
 for the chair to make a determination about okay so i'm gonna but can you so let me do this
 councillor davis can you give me those sites again sure uh section 229 g5 and that requires
 an affirmative vote of four members to take official action and then i just cited generally
 section 230 which is the entire one minute pitch it says nothing there about policy it says work
 session isr's information requests okay um well then i mean but legal i do need some direction i'm
 not familiar with those sites i mean i could take a break and pull them up or you can give me some
 interpretation to by which to to make a decision
 i'm sorry um council member davis one more time g229 g5 five okay and 230
 yes that's correct if the if the request is to take action
 it's not posted for that under 230 that's absolutely correct that it's posted to
 for a future work session to come back to take additional action okay um then
 so you if if the pitch is to bring this back for a work session
 that's possible okay sorry uh point of order point of order well i have one that i have to decide on
 first right so we got to take them in order you got to take the points of order in order
 um so i i i'm going to uh adopt the the legal interpretation again not having read it myself but
 understanding generally that it's captured correctly uh so i'll adopt that point of order
 uh and then uh i guess then legal help me stay on the on the right side of things is there an
 opportunity to rephrase a re-request or does it need to come back um how do we handle that
 it's posted as policy direction that that is that specific request that's asking for
 policy direction i think that that gives adequate notice to the public that there's going to be
 some discussion of that and it would be reasonable to take direction to bring it back for a work
 session to have that policy discussion if there's direction to do that okay uh so
 i'm going to agree with that analysis and then so we'll have that conversation
 around understanding it it will come back uh if if in affirmative it would come back for
 forward discussion right am i am i phrasing that right i want to make sure i get that right thank
 you okay so um okay councilmember orange you can state not a not a statement it is a point of order
 because you've already spoken and the rules stipulate you only get to speak once even if you
 you know even if you don't like what was said before the rules are you get everyone gets one
 opportunity to speak for one minute so if you have a point of order state that but if you're
 going to respond i have a point of order i have a point of order great then what is that point of
 order i received assurance in writing from the city manager uh that that what is the point of
 order though my point of order is that i was given direction by the city manager uh that we could
 give direction on this and actually be taken there's press and there's precedence for it and
 i will say that that we can still it's my understanding uh and maybe the the city attorney
 and he could you know correct me on this we'd still even in this work session uh you know
 suspend uh make a motion to suspend the rules if the interpretation of the current rules that i was
 given by the interim city manager is not correct it honestly it feels an advantage that this is just
 okay well let's have this moment no i okay uh so miss miss city manager yes you're not an attorney
 we don't expect you to to handle those things and so i know i'm not going to let you um speak to
 that i i you know i'm just not i'm not going to recognize you for that uh and then uh then i will
 take well no no i i no no that's it's the chair's discretion who i recognize right and i'm not going
 to recognize the city manager at this point and so not going to do it and so let's take a break
 i have another one well we hadn't ruled on your first one so we have to take them one at a time
 and so let me we're going to take a break and i'm going to read up on uh points of order because i
 don't know that you've stated one in the first one but i don't want to say that without doing
 my due diligence so we'll again it's uh unfortunately we're going to have the rules up so read up on uh
 motions to suspend okay we're going to take we're going to take a break councilman robert or a
 procedure thank you for yielding the floor so it is 8 19 p.m we're going to take a brief recess
 uh let's come back at 8 25 just five minutes uh and we'll pick this up thank you
 and uh welcome back to this meeting didn't city council it's 8 31 p.m we took a brief
 recess and so that i could kind of get up to speed on uh the procedures to make sure i'm
 given clear direction so um uh where we are is um councilmember davis made a uh point of order
 that point of order is upheld uh then councilmember armator made a point of order
 that had that did not stipulate a meeting procedure issue and for those following along
 a point of order is a meeting process issue so if you feel like the meeting is not managed
 properly you raise a point of order that was done properly but there is no there was no meeting
 procedure issue raised so there's nothing for me to decide on so we move forward uh councilmember
 armator yeah and this is again you've you've had your one minute to speak on the topic
 make a motion oh i know you know i this is procedural i'm making a motion
 okay what is your motion why can't i make a motion i can always make a motion to my motion
 is to suspend the rules okay this is a bare minimum okay based on the fact that this item
 was posted on the agenda okay that there has been a precedence for giving i was told by the interim
 city manager in writing that i could do this okay so based on the fact that through no fault of his
 own councilmember davis has just at this moment uh thought to raise this issue today i am making
 a motion to suspend the rules of procedure to allow us to give direction to staff at this one
 minute pitch session okay today rather than having a go to a work session if if i can't get a second
 and vote on that uh then we can proceed and uh put this on next week's uh agenda however uh
 juneteenth is approaching really quickly um and pride month will be halfway through so i think
 it's outrageous on something that's so meaningful to the community okay at this time when we claim
 that inclusion and being a welcome so i'm going to ask you to not make your statement in the middle
 of your um your procedural request or your motion right that's that's thank you so the the the point
 is this uh for the for the fellow for my fellow council members the request is a motion to suspend
 the rules understand that the one minute pitch process that was noted in chapter 230 that
 councilmember davis cited is an ordinance it is not a council procedure and cannot be
 circumvented the way it's it's lined out by a motion to suspend the rules we can't suspend the
 rules to circumvent a ordinance so there is no there is no path forward down that line and so
 again we're back to the one minute pitch councilmember armater is exhausted her one
 minute councilmember davis is exhausted as one minute i will hear from the others and then
 forward looking so that we're all on the same page here's here's the process uh going forward
 i will hear from other council members that want to speak we'll tally those if there's direction
 i'm going to take the unique uh approach to make sure we we get everything in and open the floor
 for what people want to be in that in that work session you so you can just note hey here's what
 i want to talk about give some detail so that staff can research that and come back with that
 work session understand this as well though chapter chapter 230 the ordinance stipulates
 you cannot you can't use this one minute pitch process to then get something to take action
 so this one minute pitch process only allows a work session from that work session you
 would then be able to take action going forward but you cannot do both in one at one time that's
 prohibited by the ordinance cited check councilmember armater please i'm asking
 councilmember armater i'm asking you not to interrupt me so that people can understand
 where we are thank you very much so as i was saying chapter 230 is uh an ordinance and that
 ordinance stipulates we cannot um take action uh take action in that you can get it on the agenda
 only at chapter 230 stipulates you can't have an action item come from the one minute pitch
 so an action item comes from the work session one minute pitch to the agenda agenda then to the to
 the action item that's how that flows it's prohibited it prohibits you leapfrogging those
 or putting those on the same agenda you can't have a action you can't have a work session in
 action item on the same agenda because it would all would have come from the one minute pitch
 which is prohibited by ordinance so that's where we are councilmember armored see armater spoken
 councilmember davis had his i stand corrected you you made a point of order we've arrived at that
 so i'm going to recognize you again if you if you are wanting to be recognized if not obviously if
 you don't speak on the item at hand then that's a no but i at least want to give you an opportunity
 so that we can get back on track so uh did you wish to be recognized to speak not at this time
 thank you other councilmembers okay thank you very much councilmember mcguire thank you mayor
 headsmith i would like to express support for councilmember armater's uh suggestion that we
 fly a philly pride flag and a juneteenth flag i think it's important that we celebrate and support
 our lgbtq residents and our residents of color um particularly in light of recent events that have
 revealed just how much discrimination is still out there um i would like to see this item placed on
 the agenda for um june 15th work session and um placed on the agenda for a vote at june 15 council
 meeting um i i would also um like to say that these these um symbolic gestures are wonderful but i
 really also want to see us pass a uh a comprehensive non-discrimination ordinance uh to have a more
 tangible impact thank you okay and just i mean again i touched on it but i don't want to i don't
 want to leave it unchecked we can't do both that's just prohibited by ordinates and so just just let
 me know uh sorry okay um so got it sorry let me keep it notes councilmember beck yeah i support
 the work session and uh i would be interested in calling a special meeting of at least three
 concurring council members uh to address the work session such that the vote could be actually had
 on the 15th okay all right let me see one okay thank you sure i got my notes anyone else
 mayor pro temelton i wish i understood what that three members thing is uh you know i was prepared
 to comment on what i thought was before us to say if you celebrate juneteenth or pride month i
 celebrate with you if it does come to a vote i'm certainly for pride and juneteenth recognition
 and for inclusion and i personally be heartened to see these i don't actually agree council should
 start making the flags over government buildings the next thing i don't want to see city council
 turned into a weekly show of symbolic witness test votes because we have the power to make real
 policy housing homelessness a 2040 plan that balances growth and quality of life these are
 priorities council resolved to address this year and real policy matters much more than symbols
 including non-discrimination policy and that's our job our charter leave ceremonial matters to the
 mayor so if council has to vote on it i'll try to vote for everything i hope in a work session we
 would try to craft a flag policy or process that would allow me to vote for every citizen request
 hopefully on the consent agenda so that we can work on policy and not just have flag debates
 that's done from real progress to me thank you um okay did i miss anyone council member
 i am with um i am going to agree with um council pro tem um metzler i think that our
 time should be spent on the hard work of policy development and procedural
 implementation i am very supportive of any group out there that wants to celebrate themselves
 but historically this is something just to the side for educational purposes i just don't think
 that uh i i don't think that the um support for african americans and the support for lgbtq community
 plays together i just don't think that that is something that needs to be connected
 because each one of those groups have their own special issues that uh that they have at hand
 and of course uh so i want to just stay focused on what our responsibility is to
 policy and procedural and implementation and direction and we can celebrate cultural things
 on its own thank you thank you um and so rachel if you'll keep the time for me please
 and let me know when you're ready
 begin thank you uh so i just as as the uh mayor of the city of denton i think it's important to
 to make a statement in this and i will read a proclamation and i read the proclamation i do
 do believe last year uh in in mayor watt's absence i forget it all runs together but i'll tell you
 this i'm a i'm a citizen and i'm a resident of denton we're all residents of denton and i want
 to take the lead of my peers that served on the uh it was the um i mean i made a note because i
 knew i was going to forget the the committee on the citizen and gates committee on citizen engagement
 my peers that are here a couple of them that spoke already changed that from citizen to
 community because they wanted to be more inclusive so they didn't want to limit it to uh citizens
 they said we need to be more inclusive and backed it out to include to change it to community and i
 embrace that's time there thank you okay so um that's everyone that wanted to speak and we do
 not have four in support uh so that that request dies for want of a majority support that concludes
 item e we do have our closed session now um and so um do we what how much time do we need to set the
 room okay i'm not sure that's accurate uh i mean i expressed my views about kind of the ultimate
 disposition but i said i'm open to the conversation in which i said i'd hope that we would create a
 policy that would lead us to not have to basically have flag debates so if you're counting how many
 are in favor of the conversation i count for and well i and councilmember bird i don't i don't want
 to speak for it i know she uh expressed support for parts of what i said i don't know for sure
 if it was all the parts but so so you at least have four matters not we have four so then i'll
 open it up for um uh discussion on our notes for staff so uh miss city manager if you can take notes
 um we will uh i'll recognize whomever wants to uh have comments on what goes into that
 discussion so that they can bring it back in its entirety uh counselor davis
 thank you mayor if the conversation is going to be had i think councilmember melzer put it very well
 there needs to be some shape or policy going forward so there's not confusion in the future
 so there's not confusion from citizens on how you get you know your your group's flag flown at city
 hall if that's what we go forward with doing that there's a a clear way forward of how to get that
 done um if if that's the the conversation we're going to have um then i think we have to have a
 full conversation not just one flag in a vacuum one time ad hoc yep okay anyone else uh i'll add
 to that to say i would like to hear from legal because my understanding is uh that would open
 the door uh in perpetuity so uh we would we would lose my understanding so i just need to understand
 if we can then uh once we start down that road can we reverse course uh and then i would like to
 hear from legal obviously we had uh one opinion from a group but i'd like to hear from uh our
 our own legal analysis if we do um deny someone an opportunity to um fly their flag and they
 file a lawsuit i just need to understand the the cost and what budget that comes from uh because
 that would need to be uh accounted for uh my understanding is you and and i'm right about
 this you can't control when someone sues you right you just have to respond and we all get those
 emails so uh i just want to understand it doesn't have to have merit for them to sue us right so i
 just want to understand understand the the repercussions if that happens cost forward looking
 and what budget that comes from and um how how many of those that'll help me understand how many
 of those we could have before it affects the the tax rate um and i think and then i guess also i'd
 like to know if staff could look into um what are we what legally are we prohibited from enforcing i
 guess there's some religious uh kind of issues to circumvent so then we would we would then uh have
 to exclude certain groups and then also furthermore the united states supreme court spoke to what it
 has a very broad definition of religious organization and so i'd like staff's analysis applying that new
 uh supreme court definition to groups so that we can understand uh if we approve if we're approving
 a group that's uh seen as a as a this is longer than a minute i'm given this is this this this
 this conversation shouldn't even happen i open the door so that staff can can note what we need so
 they can come back with the uh agenda item right fully baked or i can just wait and give the
 input then and it won't come back in time so i'm trying to give a heads up on what i want to talk
 about so that they can have it fully baked if that's okay you know so i think i'm doing the
 right thing here someone correct me if i'm wrong okay thank you so um then so on the united states
 i just want to understand it right the supreme court's definition of religions are different than
 the lay person and so i want to understand that analysis based on staff's opinion so
 point of order this is having the session clear in order man all right are you okay
 okay me yes no no i'm saying i'm saying point of order you're starting to
 ask questions about supreme court decisions okay that's the discussion that now we're saying we're
 going to have at a later date in a work session so you know if those were your concerns you
 should have mentioned them in your one minute uh but now that you've had your one minute
 uh you know we should not be having that conversation now okay well chair's discretion
 i outlined the process i said if it had four we were going to have this conversation so that
 staff could have the notes so that they could bring back whatever uh questions concerns and so
 that they could research that and bring that back that was stipulated at the beginning and i have
 that discretion to chair the meeting that way i understand you disagree and that's noted i respect
 that but i respectfully disagree that's to let my last note more you know you've uh so you've been
 heard uh miss city attorney just for clarification you've counted to four to come back for a
 discussion in a work session about developing the policy is that correct that is correct
 and and so yes yeah mayor that was my question because i'm trying to write this down is exactly
 what we're going to be doing so it's really more about setting a policy and the discussion
 regarding the policy not about that is that's that's my understanding yes so so and and that's
 a fair point and and let's get have a very clear record we are coming back for a policy yes that
 because if if you're if you're implying something else and i guess this all is on you mayor pro tim
 melzer so you said policy discussion and you're the fourth in so if you're if you're good if i'm
 if i'm miss phrasing then let's get let's have that out now because i'm not gonna i don't want
 to get i didn't say you know i want to have a very clear record on what's being requested
 well we had a lot of discussion about what was an acceptable use of the one minute pitch and what
 wasn't and it was clear uh to me anyway at the end of that that a work session would be the result
 so the only thing we were voting on was whether or not to have a work session uh on the the matter
 presented so i said you must include me in the counter core of those being willing to have the
 discussion in the work session uh you know i expressed my point of view about the substance
 of the request but i said that the thing that i would want to come out of that work session
 would be a flag policy and i think you heard councilmember davis uh you know concur on the
 need for that but to to then say therefore it's only that and not the substance of the request
 i don't really see how you could get to that so i think you know you'd have to say that it's
 uh a work session about the proposal that would include more broadly the policy that
 you know that uh would affect it okay well then i'll just i'm not gonna i'm not going to poison
 the pool um katherine if you can and you and your staff analyze it because obviously it's it's
 going to get scrutinized to the nth degree um so just uh make sure where you're clear you're
 comfortable on how it comes back um include the quotes as needed uh to to make sure where you're
 comfortable and we'll go from there okay anyone any other notes for staff great okay that concludes
 that item takes us to our closed session how long do we need to set the room mayor i think we're
 ready to go here great okay uh then i'll call uh call us well let me get the the wording
 okay i will convene the closed session at 8 52 p.m we will consider the following item
 and welcome back to this meeting didn't city council it's 9 17 p.m and we're back in our um
 we're at a closed session we're taking up our consent agenda so for the for though for my
 peers uh the only thing that was pulled was letter i for for a presentation i'll take a motion
 uh council member davis move approval of the consent agenda accepting item i
 counselor back i second that okay we have a motion by council member davis a second by
 council member back with the approving the consent agenda but for item i which was pulled
 any discussion okay seeing none council member davis i'll say you i council member back how say you
 i council member guire i council member bird i uh council member pardon me mayor pro tem melzer
 i councilor armature yes sure uh mayor hudspeth is a i as well that passes seven zero uh then i will
 call item i which is id 211073 consider adoption of ordinance of the city of denton a texas home
 rule municipal corporation authorizing the city manager or their designee to execute a contract
 with uh with probe america inc for outdoor control chemicals for the city of denton landfill
 good evening uh mayor members of council brian burner director solid waste for the city of denton
 appreciate the opportunity to talk to you a little bit about our odor control process at the landfill
 let me share my screen
 purpose of tonight's meeting is discuss the purchase of aeropure chemicals for use at the
 city of denton landfill i do want to review chemical safety information as well as discuss
 the odor neutralization process uh that results from the aeropure chemical use so what is
 aeropure it's a product of a company called probe america that basically is a biocide a cleaning
 agent and a deodorizer that is used to to eliminate mask and destroy uh odors and control dust now this
 is an odor eliminator not a masking agent so even though it does have a a good excuse me um even
 though it does have a a pleasant scent it is not a masking agent uh as such it does uh destroy and
 eliminate the the chemicals that are causing the odors causing them to be removed from the area
 we use these areas uh we use this chemical as perimeter odor control and a dust suppressant
 and also we directly apply it to the the trash in the working face to keep that area odor under
 control so why do we use this product under our existing landfill permit we are required to use
 various measures to control uh odors and dust within our permit boundaries uh we have uh over
 the over several years we have used and tested different products we found this to be the most
 effective uh product to use as well as being one of the easiest to apply so is it safe uh we have
 obtained the safety data sheet from the company and as a as stated on the the data sheet the
 hair appear does not represent an environmental or toxicological hazard pursuant to uh regulations
 seven uh 1272 uh it is not toxic uh to be on the skin to take internally or to inhale it
 in those exposures it is not found to be a carcinogenic not to be a cause mutations nor
 is it expected to result in any sort of reproductive toxicity so how does it work what it does is it
 breaks down and it breaks the bonds within the offending chemicals to cause less offensive
 chemicals or elements now granted the odor the materials that cause the odors in the landfill
 are varied based on the material that we get so trying to identify a specific oxidation state
 a reaction equation is going to be difficult but based on the testing that was done by the company
 in the preparation of of and and evaluation of this material there were several uh surrogates
 that were used hydrogen sulfide ammonia betanoic acid methyl methyl mercaptan trimethylamine and
 between these uh confirming their their reduction and elimination using various uh uh analytical
 methods either the chemicals were either totally eliminated or reduced up to from between 85 percent
 and 99.4 percent so it does do a good job of breaking those chemicals down uh staff recommends
 approval of id 21-1073 be able glad to ask or answer any questions uh that you might have
 questions for staff
 seeing none i'll take a motion councillor mcguire uh thank you so much brian for uh
 addressing the questions that we brought up uh earlier in the work session um i feel uh much
 more informed and i would like to move approval is there a second councillor bird uh second
 thank you we have a motion by councillor mcguire second by councillor bird discussion
 councillor beck yeah i'm gonna vote approval but the same token brian just just for clarification
 um i was interested i mean it does the top the the the aeropur itself um isn't isn't the uh i see
 that you you know you've shown that it's not toxic carcinogenic minogenic uh not a reproductive
 hazard all that um the the question is really after and and i guess for future reference you
 can get that back to me in the future is what are um at least samplings of the breakdown products
 once you've done oxidation of the uh trash uh organic compounds so what what is the result
 of aeropur plus trash is what i was asking not is aeropur carcinogenic um so i'm not going to hold
 things up for this but i wanted to be i want to take this time to say what my actual question was
 but allow you time to get back to me on that thank you okay thank you for that clarification
 any other uh discussion okay councilmember meguire i'll say you i councilman bird i
 councillor davis i councillor beck i councillor melter gotta i'm sorry you're muted i thank you
 councilman marmotor yes uh mayor hutz with his eyes well that passes seven zero thank you brian
 appreciate your patience um got it okay that takes us to our items for individual consideration
 i'll call the first item which is 2a id 211068 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of
 denton a texas home rule municipal corporation authorizing the city manager or their designee
 to execute a contract with jago public company for construction of the 2020 street bundle sector
 two project with geographical limits as follows north texas boulevard from from west oak street
 to eagle drive stella street to south bonnie bray street to north texas boulevard chestnut street
 from welch street to bernard street and welch street to from fannin street to collin street
 providing the expenditure of funds therefore therefore and providing a effective date
 thank you good afternoon my name is dustin draper i'm with the capital projects project manager for
 capital projects and tonight i'll be bringing you the 2020 street bundle sector two for award for
 construction contract the project over you as stated is for roadway reconstruction wastewater
 upgrades and water upgrades on the following streets stella street north texas boulevard
 chestnut street and welch street as shown in the map right beside us stella will be from north
 texas to bonnie bray north texas is from oak all the way to eagle and then chestnut uh hold on i
 have to look at my deal because it's covered up by the deal real quick just sorry about that
 chestnut is welch from bernard and welch from fannin to collins
 this one was shows on a csp which was an alternate delivery magic competitive seal
 proposal instead of using the low bid methodology for ifb uh as prior council gave us direction to
 look at alternative means of the methods for delivery of projects this is what was chosen
 basically the it's sent out and we sent it out to it was roughly 475 different candidates only five
 replied out of those four out of those five only four made the final cut did all the deals
 filled out all the forms were acceptable they break into personnel quality reputation detailed
 schedule written plan safety record and of course price for the total cost of ownership each one is
 rated as shown below you get a score of 100 categories breakdown in 10 35 10 5 and 40 for
 price uh as you can see here jago public is the company that's going forward tonight they had the
 highest rating at 76.05 uh the only other thing that i like to bring to your attention
 is always get a question about why reliable commercial construction in this case got a zero
 for safety it's not because they're an unsafe company it's because due to the scoring some of
 the forms that didn't get filled out it doesn't allow you to write them any higher than that
 because the forms weren't fit out properly in the future what we've been doing is we've been
 working with setting up for town hall meetings with our contractors to show them how to properly
 bid make sure all the forms so we can get a more competitive style bid the competitive sale proposal
 also gives you your best for a lot of a better word it gives you your best value for construction
 and quality of contractor our project schedule was this one was designed and prepared in house
 completed in february 2021 we went to public utilities board on may 24th council ward tonight
 notice received would be june 21st and the construction completion date would be june 21
 2022 and of course that is depending on whether as you all know this month of may has been a rather
 wet month staff's recommendation is to authorize approval for the contract with jago public for
 2020 street bundle sector 2 and a not to exceed amount of five million dollars 44 thousand six
 hundred and ninety one dollars which includes the five percent contingency sounded really quick to
 have any questions no it's perfect thank you uh if you can pull that down we'll see um if we have any
 council member guara thank you um if i recall correctly um that section of welch street from
 fannon to collins it there's also a dme uh a project happening at that location i think
 um can staff uh confirm whether that is the case and what the timing will be will those um projects
 be happening simultaneously so that the road doesn't have to be closed multiple times or like
 what's the plan for that so on that part of that i can't necessarily primarily speak for dme
 but what i can tell you is that we are coordinating with schedules try to minimize impacts any way we
 can uh dme's project wouldn't be the same style closure as mine is since mine's a complete
 reconstruct of the roadway mine is more intrusive uh those are things that we factor in with our
 scheduling uh on the order to contract when we went to say when we go to our pre-con meeting
 with the contractor that's when we usually work out all scheduling conflicts or any internal conflicts
 with other departments okay excellent yeah just as long as y'all are being uh cognizant of that of
 course um i was wondering if you could speak a little bit to the safety rating for jago public
 i know that you you mentioned that um one of the other companies that put in a bid had a zero
 rating but it was because they just so essentially yes ma'am since this is a new methodology for the
 city or the way a lot of cities use this method here and then we just recently started using it
 what we found out is when we took this to our procurement for the rating the way it's rated
 is if you don't fill out your forms and completely you do get the zero all these points can add up to
 your deal the safety for jago public it's based off of basically your safety reports for your
 proposal what your safety rating is your insurance things like that of that nature that's how you're
 graded and it was graded by uh the internal stakeholders review the initial proposals
 that are submitted by the contractors and then it goes through the procurement process for the
 grading system so it's a fair format okay hello this is christine taylor a procurement director
 i just wanted to follow up on answering for that so jago definitely had a safety score that was
 in the good range and so since this was our first csp we did a formula based ranking for safety
 when we looked at that so the company that have the five points received the highest score
 and then we did um then we went down from there on ranking so moving forward for the safety portion
 and csps we will have a range so if they meet on the safety scores they all could have a score of
 five whereas we and this one we did formula base so the person with the high with the best
 safety record received the highest points and we did went down from there so jago's safety record
 was definitely in a good range for us to go forward with them okay so what you're saying is it it just
 looks kind of bad because it was graded on a curve correct so this was our very first competitive
 seal proposal and so we did it formula based like how we you see the pricing so the lowest
 price gets the maximum of points and then we go down from there but when we looked at that in
 hindsight we definitely thought we should have applied ranges but with this one the way that we
 applied the scoring it did not signif significantly impact any of the overall ranking jago still would
 have been the winner regardless so we will have a range methodology moving forward okay thank you
 yeah that that helps um uh the last thing and i i just want to make sure i'm sure that uh the answer
 is yes but i just want to make sure uh given that that commissioner cheek on the public utilities
 board is the general manager at jago public um i want to make sure that he recused himself from
 this vote can can staff speak to uh to whether he recued recused himself on this i'll send that
 to christine taylor yeah so any vote at public utility board he does recuse himself from the
 voting when there is a jago contract on the agenda okay thank you all right any other questions for
 staff councilman burke basic question i was just wondering um the lot about the liability of um
 since we were talking about safety i just brought up the the opportunity to talk about the liability
 when something pretty much goes wrong with that does that fall back on the city or is that um is
 is that included in the contingency or is that directly on the uh the company that we're that
 we're contracting with so yes ma'am so essentially when you're when you go to construction if you
 award a contract night jago gets her nose for seeing they start work anything they damage is
 their responsibility it doesn't fall back so if like for instance if a sprinkler line gets damaged
 or somebody's mailbox gets hit the city facilitates to help with that but we know it is not a cost for
 us it's a cost to contractors and say cause the damage okay any other questions for staff
 councilor beck yeah i'm just going to encourage us for since we're taking out these big strips of
 property area road while we redo them one of the things i've noticed during our current renovation
 capital improvements is communications a little lacking so to the extent that you can encourage
 jago who is a longtime partner to maybe step up their game and be a little more communicative
 of scheduling and allow ryan's team or your team to to get that word out a little better i think
 they would be received by the public a lot more favorably yes sir on that account uh this capital
 project's foremost and upfront priority to always try to be as good at communication as we can we've
 you cannot in our in our world you cannot communicate enough the citizens are the
 constituents of y'all's and enlightened they pay my salary yeah if i can't take care of them what
 can i take care of thank you appreciate that uh so any other questions for staff seeing none motion
 uh council member davis
 move approval counselor beck second thank you motion by council member davis second by councilman
 beck discussion seeing none council member davis how say you aye council member beck
 aye councilman mcguire councilman bird aye council member armature yes mayor pro tem melzer
 your husband is a aye as well that passes seven zero thank you dustin
 Texas item b id 211031 consider adoption of ordinance considering all matters incidents
 and related to issuance sale and delivery of up to 59 million 410 000 in principal
 amount of city of denton general obligation bond series 2021 and mayor i do have one presentation
 for item b and c okay let me call that uh item c is id 211032 consider adoption of an ordinance
 considering all matters incident and related to issuance uh issuance sale and delivery of up to
 100 million 104 million 240 000 in principal amount of city of denton certificates of obligation
 series 2021 cassiogdon director of finance here to discuss the upcoming bond sale with
 you and get your recommendation i do have a brief presentation and i'll share my screen
 um just really quickly the the total um that we are requesting to issue this year um is 163.6
 million um that is um between general obligation bonds and co's um you can see the general
 obligation bonds are tied to that 2019 bond election um and for streets and public safety
 facility um and then the certificates of obligation are um some are for general
 fund that i'll go over and just in a in a subsequent slide and then for our utilities
 so again um the the geo portion of the the bond sale projects um the street reconstruction we did
 increase this amount slightly um from what we originally budgeted due to some of the the
 projects moving up in timing um trying to get those streets reconstructed faster um and then
 um the hickory creek road also moved up as far as what we originally scheduled for um in the bond
 election um and then the public facilities decreased slightly from what we budgeted but it
 will be we'll we'll sell that additional uh bond issuance next year next fiscal year to complete
 that project so with the co's they do have um a different uh requirements than the gos obviously
 the gos were voted on by the the citizens uh the co's have notice uh requirements that are
 in the that we we advertise in the paper as well as on our website um and this um the bond ordinance
 authorizing the sale of the co's has to be at least 46 days after the date of the first publication
 per state law and i do want to mention we have our bond council and financial advisors on the line if
 there are additional questions and so with those co-funded projects um you'll see the 2012-2014
 reconstruction the 8.9 million um that council authorized to to close out those street projects
 and then our vehicle replacement um fleet expansion 3-1-1 system that ryan mentioned earlier
 in the evening as well as our loop 288 building we did initially budget 2 million for this project
 however the cost came in a little bit higher we are going to go ahead and issue these bonds
 if council decides later on that we can use the arp funding to fund this project we will
 come back and request to transfer that money to a different project as well as the city hall west
 renovation council gave direction to sell bonds for that project as well
 for water we water originally budgeted 35.5 million in projects due to some
 scheduling and timeline changes where they are requesting to issue 18.8 million this year
 to fund that the their water projects and wastewater originally budgeted 32.8 million dollars
 you can see we're issuing we're scheduled to issue 18 million um some of their projects
 we were we did decide to revenue fund um and so we're only issuing 18 million in debt for
 wastewater projects again if you have any specific um project questions the the directors are on the
 line should be able to answer and then electric funded projects um our original budget was 61
 million we're requesting to sell 40 million for those electric projects for this fiscal year
 and so um the next steps if the council passes the ordinance tonight
 our preliminary date of sale is june 22nd with a closed date of july 20th
 okay thank you um questions for staff seeing none council member guara um thank you uh i
 was wondering if um cassie if you could speak to you know how um the sale of these bonds
 would impact um you know in the coming year the amount of our general budget that goes toward
 debt servicing sure so um we do the the general government debt is paid out of um our debt tax
 rates um and we're estimating about a five million dollar payment so that was included in our budget
 and in our projections is when we when we um brought the budget to council last year before
 when the the this fiscal year when the budget was adopted so um it will we we are expecting to
 increase the debt debt tax rate and that's really we've been projecting that since the 2019 bond
 election um was programmed and voted on and approved by the the voters so that that will be
 increasing as we issue that those that debt over the next several years
 okay any other questions i'll take a motion for let's so let's be specific so let's take a motion
 for item 2b first to be id 211031 that's we'll take that up first
 uh council member beck motion to approve council member guire second thank you
 motion by councilor beck second by council member guire discussion
 okay seeing none councilor beck i'll say you aye council member guire aye council member davis
 aye council member bird aye uh mayor pro tem melzer aye aye thank you councilor armature
 yes thank you uh and mayor hutchford's as well that passes seven zero i'll take up item
 two c which is 211032 i'll take a motion
 council member beck uh motion to approve thank you is there a second council member bird
 i second thank you so we have a motion by council member beck a second by council member
 bird discussion seeing none council member beck i'll say you aye council member bird
 aye council member guire i'm council member davis aye mayor pro tem melzer aye council member
 armature this is 2c that is correct yes okay uh may has with his eyes well that passes seven zero
 that takes us to uh thank you uh cassie takes us to um 2d which is id 211107 consider adoption of
 ordinance of the city of denton a texas home rule municipal corporation approving the settlement
 agreement reach between co-serve gas cities and co-serve gas ltd
 good evening again mayor and council this is rachel ballthorpe mendosa assistant to the city manager
 i have a brief presentation for you okay
 as the mayor mentioned um tonight i'll be discussing with y'all the co-serve settlement case
 just as a little bit of background um didn't is a member of the co-serve gas limited cooperative
 that represents over 130 000 customers in denton coffman and calling counties
 co-serve has over 2000 accounts in the city of denton
 the rate set case settlement process um we the process that we've gone through so far council
 approved the suspension in january to allow for a full evaluation and review of the rate filing
 and to see what strategies y'all may want to pursue and during that 90 day suspension time frame
 the case did settle and new rates were established so as part of the negotiated settlement the
 effective date will take place no later than august the 10th of this year and that reduces
 the company's requested rate increase of 11.5 million dollars down to 6.25 million and that
 represents a 45.6 reduction to the company's request just for a little bit of perspective
 there that means that the average customer impact and again where we look at just the average monthly
 bills here which are exclusive of any revenue related taxes and rate case expense recovery
 so for a residential account that might look like about a four dollar and 53 um cent average
 increase per month and then for a commercial account that would be 41.89 average decrease
 so in that ordinance that's a part of your backup and that we're putting forth for your approval
 this evening it approves the negotiated settlement and the new rates and just as a little bit of
 information if it's denied the co-serve will appeal the decision to the railroad commission
 where it would be consolidated with the ongoing case before it so once the commission adopts that
 settlement and it otherwise sets new rates they'll they will take effect within the city
 so that could have an impact on the recovery allocation of our rate case expenses if that's
 what ends up happening there so again that's a real brief presentation there's more
 meat in the backup documents that were shared but i along with several of us here on the on
 the call are here for questions should you have any all right any questions for staff
 seeing councilman maguire always me um i could you speak a little bit to um why there's this
 discrepancy why why residential costs would be going up while commercial costs went down
 yes so if um i'm gonna i'm going to refer back to the ais where that was documented a little bit
 more thoroughly um but it does have to do with how the the settlement was structured to where
 there is a monthly fee that did go up but then the the monthly rate went down but um i do want
 to call on jamie malden she's our consultant with loyd gossink in the matter she can provide um
 some more detail on that regard for us if we need jamie could you unmute yourself and and
 maybe discuss that a little bit with them hi yes good evening council uh this is jamie malden with
 loyd gossink uh the answer to that question is yes you are right the customer charge for
 commercial customers did go down but the volumetric rate went up so um the cost will actually be um
 they wanted to be more competitive with atmas but the company did which is why it was structured
 that way um but i will also let tell you that the residential rate increase for um the customer
 charge is actually still it's still pretty low in comparison to other gas regulated gas utilities
 in the state including atmas okay any other questions seeing that i'll take a motion
 council member davis move approval there's a significant reduction from what the company
 wanted to charge to what they would charge under the settlement okay is there a second
 mayor pro tem melzer second thank you uh so we have a motion by um council member davis and a
 second by mayor pro tem melzer any other discussion okay seeing none council member davis how say you
 aye mayor pro tem melzer aye councilman maguire aye councilman bird aye councilman beck
 aye councilman marmiter begrudgingly yes mayor hudspeth says aye as well that passes seven zero
 uh that takes us to thank you rachel uh that takes us to um item e 2e which is id 21911
 consider nominations appointments of the city's boards commissions and committees and uh
 katherine has helped me out is this where we left off no it's the next one correct the next one
 okay so um i'll turn it over to staff
 one moment mr mayor trying to get my computer going um so for the this item you actually there
 is no formal there is no formal presentation however you do have the nominees noted on the
 exhibit to the item yes sorry i always i always forget about these first uh so is there any
 questions for staff regarding the names presented seeing none um i'll take a motion uh counselor
 davis i move approval of the appointments as presented thank you um is there a second
 council member beck second thank you so we have a motion by council member davis second by council
 member beck any other discussion seeing none councilor davis i'll say you aye councilor beck
 aye councilman maguire aye council member bird aye mayor portin melzer aye councilman marmiter
 yes mayor husbah says aye as well that passes seven zero thank you now that takes us to
 f which is id two one one one one two consider appointments to the city city council committee
 development code review committee discovery discover denton advisory board at al
 thank you mr mayor let me go ahead and share my screen
 okay my name is rosa rios and i am your city secretary excuse me
 so i'm not sharing
 that's it thank you so to provide a little bit of background during the may 25th
 2021 work session and then the regular meeting that followed city council did review discuss
 and consider appointments to internal and external boards and commissions preferred updates by
 individual council members were noted as well as the legislative authority as to the appointing
 who can appoint city council member davis did move to approve the committee board assignments
 proposed by the mayor for the noted committees here
 following that mayor pro tem elzer did move and council member arm enter seconded
 in a majority of the council members voted in favor of the motion to postpone the item
 to today's meeting henceforth council member davis's motion seconded by mayor hud spath remained
 on the table as a point of order for consideration today proposed changes identified by mayor
 hud spath on the may 28th friday report will be detailed a little bit later on this presentation
 so you can see here for the council committees for the audit finance committee it'll actually
 show that council members the existing vacancy was formerly occupied by former council member
 ryan and the mayor's proposed appointments for council members mayor pro tem elzer council members
 arm enter and bird for the community on committee community engagement there was an existing vacancy
 created by former council member birdie johnson and the mayor's proposed appointments were
 mayor pro tem elzer council members arm enter and bird for the committee on the environment
 the existing vacancy was formerly occupied by connie baker and the mayor's proposed appointments
 were mayor pro tem elzer council members davis and beck for the council airport committee
 there was a vacancy occupied by former council member john ryan and the mayor's proposed
 appointments were mayor pro tem elzer and council members davis and beck for the community partnership
 committee keep in mind that at least two of those members have to participate on the discovered
 denton advisory board there were actually two existing vacancies as you can see formerly
 occupied by former council members baker and johnson and the mayor did propose to appoint
 council members mcguire and bird to fill those two dual seats and then of course council member
 davis to continue for the mobility committee we have council members or the former the vacancy
 was occupied by former council member john ryan and of course the proposed appointments were
 account mayor pro tem elzer and council members mcguire and bird for the development code review
 committee we do did or we do have two vacancies as here you can see formerly occupied by former
 council members johnson and ryan and the mayor proposed to appoint council members mcguire
 and bird for the unexpired term for the external committees of course we kind of used the term
 committees just kind of just to encompass all of them but the dallas regional mobility coalition
 which is a coalition we did have a vacancy formerly occupied by john ryan and of course
 mayor hudspeth proposed to you know be considered for the appointment and of course he would be
 appointed appointed until a successor would be appointed for the discovered denton advisory
 board again keep in mind that two of those members have to occupy a seat on the community
 partnership committee we have basically three existing vacancies that are proposed to be
 appointed by council members mcguire and bird to fill that dual seat and of course council member
 beck for the unexpired term noted for the lake ray roberts planning and zoning commission currently
 occupied by mayor hudspeth mayor hudspeth would continue with no term end date based on those by
 laws for the leadership team for the dana county workforce success leadership team there is a
 current vacancy formerly occupied by john ryan and of course the mayor had proposed to appoint
 mayor pro tem melzer and of course you see here for the unexpired terms that we are requesting
 now points of interest via the may 28th friday report mayor hudspeth did proposed a few changes
 for the audit finance committee and the council airport committee he proposed that during the
 one minute pitch held earlier during the work session to discuss making at a future work session
 should council agree to possibly discuss making these both inactive so therefore postpone the
 appointments to both for the committee on the environment he proposed to appoint council members
 davis beck and armentor council member armentor would take the seat in lieu of proposed mayor pro
 tem melzer and of course for the development code review committee he withdrew the proposed
 appointments and provided for city council to determine the membership um as normal your
 appointment uh or authority was to appoint that let me go ahead and stop sharing my presentation
 and i'll take any questions you may have great so we pick up with uh with the motion am i correct
 kathryn right okay thank you so we pick up with the motion as is so i'm going to recognize the
 movement uh first counselor davis mayor uh in order to proceed kind of the most expeditious
 way possible i would propose to amend my motion i moved approval of a number of committees
 including some that were not in the posting that was my bad it's kind of late in the evening i
 included the uh like ray roberts pnz that wasn't even part of that particular posting so i would
 propose to amend my motion that's on the uh been taken up from the table now to read i move approval
 of the mayor's nominations as amended on may 28th to the council audit finance committee council
 committee on community engagement council committee on the environment council airport committee and
 the council mobility commission excuse me mobility committee stop thank you and as the second i'll
 adopt those that that motion so we have a motion and a second uh that's been amended discussion
 uh mayor pro tem melzer
 sorry you're muted uh thank you i'm just trying to track here just the current motion
 then incorporate uh mayor your recommendations that were in the points to consider is that the may 28th
 yes that is correct okay slide six so uh if if uh you're amenable uh the only uh opportunity
 i would like to open up is to just give a little background i've in the past been on most of the
 committees because i had the time to do it and uh you know and i've done most of them for three
 years or at least two years but if there are if i'm if if there are others who would like the
 opportunity it doesn't it's not necessarily important to me to be on them in lieu of somebody
 else as covering uh i'd like to stay on mobility uh and if there are if there are other council
 members particularly new members who would like to be on one another committee but don't see a space
 uh you know i'd be very happy to yield you know if you uh uh would you know would accept their
 interest in it get where i'm going okay so yeah and so obviously if others want to speak here's
 here's what i'm gonna have a hard prohibition against uh i'm gonna cut you off if you're speaking
 for someone else i mean and i'm not not nothing to do with what you said mayor pro tem just setting
 the game rules going the rules of the game going forward if you will if you want to speak up that i
 as an individual want to be on a board great if you want to nominate someone else or volunteer
 someone else to do something i'm going to cut that off individuals can speak on what they want to
 serve on you don't get this to then serve up someone else or you know those sort of things
 so i i just don't think that's appropriate i think it's perfectly fine if you say hey i'd like to be
 on this board great let's have that conversation if you're but not to say hey i want to put mayor
 hutzpah on this board he'd be great at it not so much so uh any any other discussions
 uh counselor bet i just want to be clear on counselor davis's uh revised motion
 for that includes the may 28th this is also your your make your you're amending your motion to
 include the vacancies and to extract the dcrc and all the other items listed in the point of interest
 slide is that correct that is correct because that's a whole nother conversation because we
 don't have a process by which we prioritize uh nominees for the dcrc and there's more than uh
 than allowed so we'll we'll we'll parse that out there's individual items that will allow us to
 have that conversation after this but this is just a sweep of stuff that that uh we can knock out at
 once hopefully is that thank you yes i think that answered my question that we're matching the slide
 of point of interest yes sir thank you councillor foyer thank you um so just to clarify we are the
 motion on the floor is to approve audit and finance committee on community engagement
 airport and mobility as presented in the presentation but to approve committee on
 the environment um with the the notes from may 20th which would make that uh that committee made
 up of arm and turd davis and back is that correct that is correct okay um now it also said in the
 notes um that that you wanted to um postpone uh nominations for audit and finance and council
 airport committee um because you want to potentially propose making those inactive in the future
 um i would like to suggest that we go ahead and just do those nominations and then if we
 have to undo them later we undo them later well simplicity sure i mean it could be who's
 who's not there's just not enough people i guess if i take the the so yes we can just we can adopt
 them as is who's available but there's not enough to fill the boards uh but we'll just you know we'll
 leave we'll leave empty space matters not and if you have proposed appointments i'm here and i'm
 i'd like to nominate i'd like to vote to approve them okay councillor bird
 oh well let me hear so with all of that being said uh and i guess i must have gotten a little
 bit confused towards the uh d the uh code review am i on the code review am i not on the code
 code review i'm just a little bit confused i'm sorry guys uh rosa tell me what am what am i on
 again well and i can that's an easy one thank you great great great question so uh the code review
 we're going to carve out and do separate it has a separate process so there's more people that want
 to be on it than space is allowed so we're going to take that separate and and have that conversation
 so you're not right now and then um we'll discuss that as a as a body and and come up with a game
 plan okay i can i can deal with that awesome i got everything else i think i'm okay with everything
 else awesome counselor bet yeah i i just want to be really clear because there's a bunch of things
 being bandied around here so is the redone motion to postpone uh those two uh boards or um
 or a point right fair question so councillor maguire would like to see those a point that is
 but i'm gonna have to defer to yeah councillor davis i'll get you an answer councillor beck
 so my motion as stated is to fill those spots as the mayor made nominations to them and then
 we'll have the conversation well we decided earlier in the evening to have the work session
 to talk about committees and and all that kind of stuff later on but um in the interim my motion
 is to go ahead and fill those spots um just as the nominations were made and those committees can
 do what they're going to do and while we figure out what to do with them
 thank you very much uh councilmember davis that's very helpful councilman back back to you uh yeah
 that was the clarity i needed i just i just didn't know if we were voting on emptiness or something
 miss yes no great question thank you for the clarification there was a lot of moving parts
 any other uh questions discussion seeing none uh let's see we have a motion an amended motion
 by councilmember davis second by mayor hudspeth uh and so councilmember davis how say you
 aye um mayor hudspeth is an aye as well councilmember maguire aye councilmember bird
 aye councilmember back aye mayor pro tem melzer aye councilmember armater yes great okay so uh then
 that takes us um miss city attorney help me identify dcrc i see it so then we we do i need
 to call these others that we've uh resolved or no i don't believe that you need to call g i think
 those were all handled in the motion that you just made or that was just approved i think that h
 and somebody can correct me on this i don't think partnership was handled in that group or was it
 it was i'm looking yes community partnership uh committee would have been in well it's on
 slide four as maguire bird and davis councilmembers um and so i'm assuming it's it's captured in that
 tweet but uh councilmember davis okay so i'll read out what was in my motion again audit finance
 community engagement environment airport and mobility because uh community partnership the
 old hot funds committee is council appointed uh not mayor appointed we found that out for the first
 time two weeks thank you thank you then okay great so we'll take up item h uh so that's h which is id
 211114 consider appointments to the community partnership uh committee thank you councilmember
 councilmember wire i'd like to move approval okay so put forward uh so then let me let me see here
 so it's so that everyone's on the same page what's put forward is councilmember maguire
 councilman bird and councilmember davis that's what's submitted that we have a motion to approve
 by councilmember uh maguire do we have a second councilmember um bird i second that okay all right
 so we have a uh motion by councilmember maguire second by councilman bird discussion on the uh on
 this committee seeing none councilmember maguire uh how say you councilmember bird aye councilmember
 davis aye councilmember beck aye uh mayor pretend melzer aye councilmember armature
 yes all right mayor hudspeth is a i as well two h passes seven zero uh i'm gonna call item i i don't
 think we have a presentation i think we do have a caller rachel am i correct
 no sir the caller is for item k21-1117 got it uh okay oh so uh so i'll call item i because we we do
 need to resolve that so that's id 21115 consider appointments to the development code review
 committee and i don't uh rosa i don't have my notes can you tell me who all expressed an interest
 to be on that body yes sir so the um let me pull that out
 and i can find that email if i need to no you're fine so the council members that indicated an
 interest were maguire beck indicating a very high interest armature bird and davis
 got it okay so and so here's here's the discussion point no one we didn't give out instructions on
 ranking interest so i as i noted everyone's considered high interest i'm not we're not
 getting you know it's just hard to weigh that uh so everyone's high interest we have one two three
 four five people uh and uh we have three spaces so let me do it this way wait let me see if we can
 fix it is there anyone listed here that wants to remove their name from consideration uh councilman
 maguire yes i would like to remove my name from consideration for this and i would also like to
 just point out and remind everybody that council member davis is serving is currently in the middle
 of serving a term on this commission on this committee um and so there are actually only two
 positions that are up for debate because council member davis is on that committee okay thank you
 for that i appreciate that i need all the help i can get so that's council member bet council member
 armature council member bird are the three we have two spaces so i'll ask between those three is there
 anyone that wants to remove themselves from consideration councilor armature i
 yes i will remove myself from consideration uh because i i think that bird and and bec will be
 excellent new addition okay so the so now we have a slate uh so to answer your earlier question
 councilman bird yes you're you're on you're awesome uh okay so uh then i need a motion for that
 may i pretend melzer yeah i move uh approval of the appointment of uh council member bird and
 council member back to the uh development code review committee awesome okay is there a second
 councilmember armature i second okay okay so we have a motion by mayor the mayor yeah
 rosalie yes yes if i if i may just clarify so the appointment tonight uh would be for the unexpired
 term ending august 31st to 2021 at the same time that council member davis's term will expire and
 then what we will do is we'll bring the item back closer to that date for again submission
 of nominations what we'll probably do is go ahead and do a friday report asking for you know members
 to identify the interest to either continue serving or to serve for the upcoming term which
 would be um september 1 2021 through august 31st 2023 i just want to clarify that for the record
 mayor pro tem melzer is this committee even going to meet between now and august 31st
 you don't have to answer that anyway
 oh there you go mayor pro tem injecting logic into a perfectly good conversation uh okay so we have a
 motion by mayor pro tem melzer and a um second by council member armature noted that this will be
 back it's uh unexpired terms uh and so any other discussion okay mayor pro tem house say you
 aye council member armature
 i'm sorry yeah thank you uh council member thank you council member guire
 aye council member davis aye council member bird aye uh council member beck
 aye and mayor hudspeth is a i as well that passes seven zero i believe okay
 yes okay great uh that is i and then j is okay so let me call this this is uh item j which is
 id 211116 consider approval of the resolution of the city council of the city of denton texas
 appointing members to the discovery denton advisory board uh and obviously the city
 secretary will probably touch on her her email i think right yes i actually do have a presentation
 mr mayor excellent okay great there's some points i feel are important to reference
 absolutely thank you thank you so again this kind of rose i didn't come up it didn't come up
 okay i'm not sure why i'm not sure why it's in the coming up it's a yeah no it's this one
 that's awesome no that's the uh yes that's it thank you
 thank you i apologize for that i actually had my whole folder with all of my committee stuff
 on there and apparently i'm having a problem accessing them so um the first slide does uh
 present a um kind of a recap of the discussions that were held during the may 25th work session
 and regular meeting and of course the item presents for appointments um to to uh two of the seats
 so for the discover denton here actually for three seats so um as you can see here um there are
 three existing vacancies on the discover denton advisory board formerly held by
 council members uh johnson baker and ryan who are no longer here and of course the member
 selections as far as preferences were um council members maguire beck bird melzer and uh armenter
 and of course this would be for an expired term to end us noted and um again two of those members
 do have to serve on the community partnership board and we kind of just made a reference here
 to the community partnership board on who was interested in serving on that
 so points of interest and of course uh you know something that we would ask that you kind of look
 look or consider because the mayor is actually already a member that's automatically serves
 based on his election as a member to this board and then with the three seats for three seated
 council members to serve on that that will make four total council members serving on that board
 which of course kind of unofficially establishes a quorum and in order to eliminate the probability
 that a quorum of the city council will attend the meetings staff is recommending the appointment
 of only two members to the discover denton with those two members um serving as the community
 partnership board uh appointees which of course were earlier appointed and then our we have put
 out some feelers to discover dentin staff to discuss you know the the makeup membership of
 the committee and how many dentin seats should actually be on there and of course i would take
 that the two appointed members may lead that uh that discussion between the board and i'll take
 any questions you might have and i'll stop sharing okay so discover didn't i talked to them and they
 don't have a preference so they're amenable to the to the reducing it they'll do whatever they
 whatever uh they want us whatever we want to do so um just need to get some direction if we want to
 reduce it uh councilor marmotor yeah so so correct me if i'm wrong because uh we've been voting on a
 lot of things just now uh so i'm not on the the committee that is that was formerly known as the
 hot funds committee right the community partnership committee and i'm not on the new new formation of
 that correct correct um correct there is one what we consider kind of just a general seat
 so there is that one opening and then the two members that would comprise the
 in that case i remove myself from the discover dentin board
 okay let's get here okay so uh rosa can you work with them do you need to bring that back uh for
 them to um to nominate just the two or is that something you can amend tonight you would be
 able to amend it tonight if you want to just a point two okay got it um okay so the two that are
 nominated are uh it would be well is there not three no wait a minute mr mayor you would need
 to keep in mind that the two of the seats uh those two seats have to represent the community
 partnership board so kind of by acclimation you know having appointed the two council members
 mcguire and burg to the community partnership board then they would automatically kind of
 automatically serve on the discover dentin but council does have to approve the resolution with
 those two appointees got it so so what's being proposed is by ordinance council member bird and
 mcguire is that right that's correct got it okay so um is there any other questions about that so
 discover dentin board would be councilman appointees would be councilman mcguire councilman bird
 and then me by ordinance as well a counselor bet i just want to make this clean since my name was
 on the list and i'll just take my name off the list so then it's real nice and clean got it thank
 you i appreciate that uh so those two being put forward is there a motion
 counselor back motion approval thank you um make my notes thank you okay is there a second
 a counselor bird a second thank you so we have a motion by council member back
 second by council member bird any other discussion okay council member back i'll say you
 aye council member bird aye council member mcguire aye uh mayor protin melzer aye
 council member armature yes council member davis aye mayor hutzpah is a aye as well that passes and
 for those who can get that information to uh discover dentin that'd be great okay i'll call
 the next item and then we'll see if staff has a presentation and then we do have a caller so
 it's uh item k id 211117 consider approval of a resolution of the city of dentin the city council
 of the city of dentin texas appointed a member to the dallas regional mobility coalition
 would you like for me to present first before the speaker yes please thank you let's see if
 i can get this to work
 okay i'm going to have to be really nice to ryan tomorrow
 um so i'm here to uh present the appointment to the dallas regional mobility coalition
 again the first slide kind of recaps the discussions during the may 25 um work session
 and regular council meeting um and per the dallas regional mobility coalition city council
 is the appointing authority and the item presents for appointment to an existing vacancy
 the dallas regional mobility coalition bylaws do not establish a term end date for any appointee
 to this coalition um as you can see here the the seat was formally occupied by john ryan
 and the members that selected that indicated an interest were um the mayor hudspeth and council
 members maguire and beck and again the drmc bylaws do not establish a term end date
 and now i'll stop sharing and answering the questions you might have okay questions for staff
 seeing none uh so uh i i put my name forward if there's and so uh mr mayor yeah
 i was waving my hand sir i'm sorry it must be frozen or something councilman beck i didn't see
 any of those uh thank you uh i just had a clarification could the the no apparent end date
 could could i get a little clarity on what that means for starting and stopping you know i guess
 i'm a little unclear on what no apparent end date implies so the appointee the appointee was just
 basically continuing so such time as the board is presented for to the city council for another
 appointment or a successor depending on who it is that is appointed if the vacancy would exist
 maybe on the next election cycle or the next two election cycles we would bring that seat up for
 appointment unless you were to direct us otherwise so that's basically whoever we appoint tonight is
 in perpetuity until they're not a council person anymore yes or they choose to resign
 okay that that was the clarity i needed thank you okay and who else who else did i miss
 wanting to speak anyone okay uh i'll take a motion
 mayor pro tem melzer mayor sorry to interrupt the caller oh yes thank you struggling no it's okay
 one moment please while i patch her through
 she should be in now mayor okay carl are you there
 are you there hello
 hello i don't know i forget what the button is to unmute is it star six
 yes mayor star six okay um looking at who's in the meeting to see
 i don't know uh rachel what is the are you so i've got let me um
 what does it mean can you unmute the on phone i'm i'm not understanding why because i've got her
 and she can hear the mayor but she's not able to get them i can only ask to unmute through zoom i
 can't actually unmute it is it amanda brown right is it no no this is going to be eva greco
 mayor can we take the next one and then i'll i'll try this one more time to get her back through
 okay thank you for this okay uh so we'll we'll lay that on lay that on the table
 come back so we'll go with uh id 211118 consider approval of a resolution of the city council on
 the city of denton texas appointing a member to the denton county workforce success leadership
 team rosa hello oh hello hello oh super super eva you're on now we got it we got it unmuted
 apparently okay so rachel you're on both so i'll ask you that you'll mute and then so eva are you
 there yes i am sir okay okay so give me just one second so we will go back to item 2k i'll pick
 that up it's id 211117 consider approval of a resolution of city denton city council in the
 city of denton texas appointing a member to the dallas regional mobility coalition and uh eva if
 you can give me your name and address uh you'll have four minutes um to speak okay uh my name is
 eva greco my address is 802 west oak street apartment five in denton okay go right ahead
 okay um i would like to speak on this item and i've shortened it quite a bit because of the late
 hour so basically what i would want to see in a council representative if someone who will listen
 to the public and not give the public false hope or mislead the public as in today's presentation
 i would want someone to represent my concerns regarding monies received in particular by dcta
 by the from the city of denton being utilized appropriately towards enhancing
 public transportation and not going with private transportation i would want someone
 who will not misrepresent to the public what i say at a public meeting when i voice my real life
 experiences and concerns on enhancing public transportation my words were turned around by
 mr watts mr hud smith and mr suarez of dcta um i'm not going to go into the particulars due
 to the late hour but any council member is more than welcome to contact me at any time and i can
 go into more detail um in closing i would want to see a council representative on the dallas
 regional mobility coalition who has empathy and is not a member of the good old boys club
 i thank you ladies and gentlemen for your time that is it okay do we have any questions for the
 caller councilman armature yeah so thank you for speaking uh so just to clarify so you um in your
 previous uh addresses to city council about your concerns about uh dcta bus routes um you are not
 advocating uh for less bus routes you're not saying that fixed bus routes are bad but instead
 that they need need to be improved is that right i'm not trying to put words in your mouth i'm just
 trying to no um you're actually getting from what i have said um yes um my concerns at the council
 meetings for the last three years have been to enhance the public transportation um not
 eliminate it i don't know if the council is aware i assume you are but texas workforce commission
 is moving from teesley where the number one bus has a bus stop right there now for the workforce
 commission they are moving to route 35 north the stone hill um mall to and there was absolutely
 no transportation and a lot of the unemployed people have to go through workforce use their
 services people don't have computers use their services and this is going to be detrimental
 for the unemployed citizens of dentin the city of dentin thank you thank you so much our buses can
 hold a lot more individuals as opposed to a van which can hold only six individuals
 with no social distancing so in answer to your question yes i'm definitely opposed to the on
 demand and i have been being from new jersey i am have always been led by dentin council members
 and dcta members employees to they want my ideas and and things about public transportation
 but yet everything i've said has been turned against me publicly line for a moment
 okay well i asked staff a question related well um no no what question was just related to her
 or uh what what she just said i just wanted to ask staff um if it if it's possible to
 uh just a point of procedure question of procedure if it's possible to elect a member of the
 the public for this position or does it have to be a member of council i'm just wondering
 well you can you we have a nomination we have a we have a procedural question
 i understand i understand i understand we can have that conversation but let's wrap up the phone call
 and then we will have a discussion around council and you can nominate and you can ask
 your question about nomination let's let's do you have any more questions for the car okay sure sure
 if it's so uh eva are you still there yes okay yes ma'am i don't know um if it's possible uh to
 nominate a member of the public for this position i i understand that's not why you were calling um
 but if it is possible uh would you accept that nomination i think it might not be possible it
 might not it might just have to be an elected official in which case i'm going to be uh nominating
 a council member maguire but if it's possible to have a member of the public uh would you accept
 that nomination not if it's if it's possible you can say no or be honored i would be honored to
 accept it if it's possible okay okay thank you thank you and if not if not then i think um
 an elected official being on this maguire would be perfect for the position
 okay any other questions for the caller
 seeing none okay uh thank you miss you're very welcome good night ladies and gentlemen
 night okay um so uh councillor armature question for staff uh yeah so my question and apologies
 because it would take me too long right now to look it up on my laggy computer and phone uh but
 um does it have to be an elected official uh on on this committee or could it be a member of the public
 the language if i may is a single member being either a mayor or another elected official
 okay um so in that case uh
 i i would like to uh nominate allison maguire council member maguire uh who you know has has
 put her name in as uh interested in the dcta position which i know we're not voting on uh
 today uh but i think it's really good to have uh it's not i think it's good to have the same person
 on these two really important uh committees i can't i think the justice was a nomination now how does
 miss city attorney help me understand so there's a name put forward and then there's a motion at
 the same time how do we which which order should we take that up if you have well this is this is
 captioned as a resolution so presumably your motion you have comments about interest but then
 you have a motion to approve the resolution okay with the addition of a name for it oh okay so uh
 is that council member why is that something you would accept um if if my colleagues want me to
 serve in that position i would be willing to okay is is there a second and then i'll have plenty
 of discussion councillor melton a second
 okay we have a motion and a second and um i'll just say this i would ask uh for those that aren't in
 on this i guess there was there was a discussion uh had and i guess there's another discussion had
 um but i'll ask uh those remaining this is a board of approximately 14 people
 that are primarily mayors and it's uh it has been our practice and i think when you're talking about
 advocacy you're talking about city staff uh for example i'm in quarterly meetings with unt
 twu and those type organizations uh regularly that the rest of the council is not in on
 so it would be duplicating efforts and they would not have um all of the information at the ready
 and it would not uh serve the citizens as well in my opinion i'll say that i had this conversation
 in private uh trying to avoid uh this conversation in public uh i had reached an agreement and an
 understanding with council member maguire and something has changed and that is regrettable
 because i didn't want to um advocate this way in public um i figured we would have a private
 conversation and resolve this and that has failed uh so again i just say uh for the for the fact that
 the priority of the information that i receive from my office uh i just think it's important
 so uh that being said and i could be absolutely wrong uh but that's just uh where i fall on it
 and and uh someone will correct me if i'm wrong um but that's where we are so correct other other
 discussion councilmember maguire um i'd just like to ask um and actually i'm not sure if this is
 within the council rules but but um i you know either staff or mayor hudspeth um how uh those
 issues related to um mayors having access to more information than council members how
 how was that resolved when council member ryan was serving on this board
 i i am not aware of any information being provided outside of what has been provided
 to the full city council so i'm not really sure what you're referencing
 well for example we have a we have a quarterly meeting uh within what pardon me with t Texas
 women's university and uh in that conversation we talked about mobility etc etc same thing with unt
 and so it is a meeting that the mayor and management attend that the other committees
 do not attend i can't speak intelligently about the answer to that i'll just say uh from a from a
 kind of representative standpoint um again there's just that is a fact um and so um just putting that
 out there for the for the remaining voters uh that i'm just asking you to um obviously there's
 gamesmanship at play and that i respect that but uh council member bet
 thank you mr mayor um you know i i i want to listen to um issues where uh there there is uh
 needs of synergy and you know so you know you're you're expressing a desire to have
 synergy i i take that as an important point that but the question that councilor maguire
 asked was how was the synergy um taking place when it was uh councilor ryan and mayor watts or
 councilor ryan and yourself uh it seems like there's no difference in a district four representative
 and a mayor uh other than the person in the chair well i guess i'll just i'll just answer that with
 saying for example you say you cite your experience on p and z uh as a value add for different you
 know perspectives so i served on p and z as well right i've been i served on different committees
 since i've been here i am you know so i've been here the longest i'm not going to cite all the
 different committees and experience etc etc but just to say if you if you take my experience
 uh being elected since 2017 and give it no additional value than someone that was elected
 in 2021 that's your prerogative i just look at it differently right i think there's experience
 levels there's relationship levels at the county level at the state level where i can reach out to
 doctors matter of fact i can reach directly out to i did so recently to to work with dr stuckey
 on some issues here in town that doesn't come to this body that's just because i have a relationship
 having served for a number of time for for a period of time that then helps me advocate
 and move things along faster with greater uh outside back channels right i mean so i can go
 and reach out and connect someone so it's not the same as far as experience and it's not the same
 as far as active advocacy for the city of denning and moving things forward now if you want to i'm
 happy to share with you offline the emails and advocacy from all the different things that we
 get done outside of things but i just i don't think councilmember wire all due respect has
 the same relationships and the same access to advocate for the city of denton when you're
 talking about federal dollars state dollars etc etc i can i can pull those things together
 with greater experience but if you're asking me to have an intelligent conversation about how
 mayor watts did it don't know i mean no no i i know the point of clarity was not that um
 place seven representative uh hudspeth has a lot of experience that's a different argument
 than the argument you made earlier which was that the mayor has a special relationship that should
 be taken into account so i mean if you want to argue that that gerard hudspeth has has special
 knowledge that's that's that's a valid thing that we should consider but if you want to argue that
 the mayor does that's a that's a different argument that i don't think stands because john ryan was in
 the position that we're talking about so uh if you want to say that john ryan or gerard hudspeth
 have special knowledge i think we should take that into consideration uh but that you the point you
 were trying to make was the mayor and that's what i was confused on yeah and and i see you councilmember
 davis but and i'll just say this i i think i see it all at one right i think there's brian beck's
 experience on council brian beck's experience on p and z brian beck's professional experience you
 know it's just it all is it all rolls up to say here's a individual and here's the the kind of
 the tentacles of the qualifications experience levels value adds that sort of thing so it all
 rolls up into one but the fact of the matter that so it's it's a component of again hoping not to
 have this conversation in public but here we are councilmember davis just real briefly to say that
 the the appointment to this coalition is requested to be a mayor or other public official there's a
 reason why it's mostly mayors down there and that's not at all a knock on councilmember maguire's
 stature as a member of the council just like mayor hudspeth is an equal member of the council i do
 happen to agree with the mayor about his experience and relationships and those things but it is
 generally expected that we would send a mayor john was the representative uh former councilman
 ryan was the representative because he was the transportation guy that was that was his role in
 that particular iteration of the council um it it wasn't something that mayor watts wanted to take
 as his prerogative as mayor and put himself forward you'd have to ask him that but john got sent to
 all those transportation committees because he was mr transportation guy keely was typically
 backup transportation person and but they both served on the mobility committee committee for the
 council so it doesn't have to be the mayor but there's a reason why there's a strong preference
 for that in the coalition and just a very brief aside i think my favorite part of the meeting
 all day long was the part where the lady was asked to call in obviously by a council member to talk
 about how her words had been twisted and she had been manipulated and then the same lady gets put up
 as a stunt nominated to this committee uh that was probably takes the cake point of order
 okay it's not a stunt okay all right all right uh okay so um council member work thank you um i
 uh am very uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation i i'm not comfortable with the
 implication that there have been some kind of back backroom deals happening i would like to remove
 my name from consideration for this position okay um then that we have a motion council member
 i i i hope that uh council member maguire would uh reconsider i think the solution to you know what
 you're objecting to uh in these these implications i i i don't like these insinuations either um i
 think that uh you know under your representation uh it would be very it would look things would
 look very differently i see the fact that uh you you don't have a close personal relationship with
 lynn stuckey i think is an advantage um and and i think that i'm not a i think that
 there might be members of the public who might feel that way too and are tired of of seeing a
 you know what looks from the outside to many people uh like a a good old boy network um but
 so i would love to see you in that role if you wouldn't like to do it uh i would love to see if
 council member bird would accept my nomination if not i'd be happy to uh you know nominate myself
 okay it's it's but i think it's important to have some somebody new a new direction
 yeah and that's i would say that's okay so i'll just say i would ask as as a note i'm
 i don't know how else to say this but to say maybe we should come up with a new phrase besides the
 good old boy network right when when referring to me maybe that would be a better maybe there's a
 better term out there if you would be so kind i i greatly appreciate that your consideration
 and adjusting your vernacular accordingly thank you i appreciate it very much uh we just have to
 anyway okay so um councilman wires removed her name from consideration um is there a motion
 well you councilor armature you you can renew your you who else do you
 yes council member bird you mentioned yourself not to put you on the spot
 again that was my earlier rule and by the way i did put that member the public
 that okay okay we're not gonna we're we're not councillor do you want to that was not a stunt
 i was putting her on spot yes i want to nominate uh council member bird okay council member do you
 accept that i decline the nomination okay so councillor armature then i would like to nominate
 myself okay got it is there a second one more time okay we have a motion and a second for
 councilman mayor i said i'd like to speak if i may i'm not raising my my hand to move on this no
 council member bird seconded i do believe right am i correct yeah so we have council member
 armature has been nominated uh we have a motion by council member armature for herself and a second
 by council member uh bird my my statement remains uh we for the sake of the city i mean again
 people that are watching this it's got to be exhausting and so this is the second time we've
 done this around committees and and that sort of thing but i'm asking for those that remain
 outside of this network to um uh support vote no i'd ask for the nomination so that i can advocate
 uh for our citizens and i i think uh i've proven the ability to be fair and uh represent the
 majority and not a particular ideology not to circle around a change for change sake but to
 advocate for uh what's best for our community um and and move projects forward so uh that is
 that's my statement we have a motion any other discussion council member davis
 i will be the first to admit that council member armature possesses many skills
 many professional qualifications merit many areas of competency even areas of competency that i have
 no expertise whatsoever in and have no business speaking to forming a coalition is not one of
 them she is very skilled at breaking barriers bringing forward conversations that are uncomfortable
 but need to be had and i will fully acknowledge that i do not feel that council member armature
 given all of her other skills would be skilled at forming a meaningful and productive relationship
 with the folks in this coalition i do not think that she would best represent the city
 in this role others absolutely in this particular role i do not okay any other discussion okay uh
 council member armature how say you yes council member bird how say you no uh council member
 mcguire how say you yes um council member back how say you
 no council member to melter how say you i uh council member davis how say you
 nay mayor hudspeth is a nay as well that fails four zero i'll take a motion
 uh mayor council member davis
 um i move approval of the resolution with mayor hudspeth's name as the appointee is there a second
 council member bar i second okay there's a motion by uh
 council member davis second by council member guire um discussion
 seeing none council member davis how say you aye council member guire aye council member bird
 aye council member beck aye mayor pro tem melter aye council member armature yes
 mayor hudspeth is aye as well that passes seven zero that uh concludes item k takes us back to item
 l id 211118 consider approval of a resolution city of city of council city of denton texas
 appointing member to the denton county workforce success uh leadership team thank you i think we
 so is there a presentation or anything rosa there is mr mayor but it's basically the same as it was
 last time there's a vacancy created with uh mayor pro tem melter and um council member bird
 indicating an interest okay let me take up this council member davis
 i move approval of the resolution with mayor pro tem melter's name as the appointee okay is there
 a second uh council member back i second okay we have a motion by council member davis second by
 council member beck uh discussion council member davis thank you mayor i just want to say both
 members that express interest uh i think would be good additions to this uh workforce success
 leadership team i happen to nominate council member melzer because i think his uh particular
 professional experience and his experience with the city is going to be helpful with that particular
 group of people and it's a team uh outside outside uh opinions and public input are always welcomed
 with that group okay thank you any other discussion seeing none council member davis i'll say you
 aye council member beck i'll say you aye council member mcguire
 aye council member bird aye mayor pro tem melter i was wavering but
 since council member bird voted aye i'll vote aye as well council member armature yes mayor
 hudson says aye as well that passes seven zero that takes us to concluding items thank you rosa
 best presentation ever uh council member davis thank you mayor i have just a couple i'll try to
 be brief um my colleagues and most of the public i think is aware of this but it's uh with sorrow
 that i note the passing of jim jim englebratt uh he was a giant in our community um anyone who's
 been in denton any length of time uh knew jim and knew his work in the community he is a vietnam
 veteran a lieutenant colonel in the army reserve a businessman an educator a rotarian a president of
 the noon club chair of planning zoning and served three terms in the seat that i now occupy
 and i'm not being funny although jim would have laughed i have big shoes to fill um in this seat
 uh he sorely missed and services are going to be friday the 18th at 11 a.m at first united methodist
 uh families asked for memorial donations to the children's advocacy center den county friends of
 the family or first united methodist children's ministries and this is going to sound like an
 abrupt segue but i happen to think jim would have liked it there's an alligator in district three
 uh it's been documented we kind of know where it lives at uh it's all over social media kind
 of proud to have it in district three other districts got otters earlier during the pandemic
 now we've got a we've got an alligator um i'm trying to get folks to name the thing our gal had
 tom the turkey i think we can do better than that i'm kind of partial to crofford because it was
 found on crofford road walking around um but anybody who's got ideas uh let us know it'd be
 kind of cool to name the alligator got it councillor melzer first thank you very much for
 uh talking about jim minglebrecht i'll add to the list of his um noteworthy
 uh roles he's played he was just a a really good guy memorably good guy and i i'll never forget
 shortly after i met him and he knew i was interested in city government he almost insisted
 that i spent an afternoon with him riding all over the city to show me places where affordable
 housing had been built by different organizations mostly that he'd been involved in over the course
 of his time and then it's just a really committed uh good guy uh secondly um i would like to
 congratulate my wife on enduring 35 years married to me tonight is our anniversary i love you baby
 this is how we spent our anniversary awesome that's beautiful councilmember armitage um
 my deepest condolences to paul's wife no just kidding happy anniversary to you um they're amazing
 couple uh but but my sincere condolences uh to family and friends and community uh knew a
 former council member anklebright i only met him once he was a real gentleman and i'm really glad
 to have met him i will say about the alligator when i first read about it my my pet name for it
 was karma but that that doesn't really mean anything in particular uh you know relevant to
 this council uh but it's certainly you know this is what happens when we overdevelop creatures
 start coming out of the woodwork so anyway i hope nobody gets hurt by later okay any other anyone
 else including items i just want to also say thank you uh for to all that i've mentioned
 councilmember imbarick uh yes didn't get to serve with him but knew him well see him it's all in the
 community always a smile look forward to um kind of just um uh recognizing him and it's unfortunate
 but again just recognizing all the greatness and recognizing that his contributions to our great
 city uh we did so that all of our everyone knows we did reach out and and we did extend a card and
 flowers etc etc as a city so that's that's there um and and so i thank the city manager for helping
 me uh get that organized and happy anniversary uh mayor pro tem that's outstanding uh very cool so
 all right uh if there's nothing else seeing none okay i'll conclude it is 11 02 p.m and still 608
 uh say is the six six month eight day of 2021 uh we're done until uh next week thank you

        
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