Jun 16, 2015 City Council on 2015-06-16 1:00 PM
June 16, 2015 City Council
Full Transcript
>> Good afternoon. I wanted to welcome you to this meeting
of the Dent City Council.
There is a forum, a quorum present. It is Tuesday, June 16,
2015 at 103. We will go
on to our work session agenda items. Agenda item number one
is citizens' comments on consent
agenda items. Mr. City Manager, do we have any cards?
>> I do not. >> Okay. We have no one wishing to speak.
We will go on to agenda item number two, which is request
for clarification of agenda items
listed on the agenda for June 16, 2015. Any questions?
Council Member Johnson.
>> Thank you, Mayor. I would like to request that we pull
items K and L from the consent
agenda. I just think it is important that the citizens
understand and see what we have
spent to date on the crafting of an ordinance as well as
defending lawsuits. What we spent
to date and obviously these are requesting additional
funding to be budgeted for lawsuits
and crafting an ordinance. In the interest of full
disclosure, I would like for those
to be made public, please. >> Do I understand you like that
explanation
at tonight's meeting? >> Correct.
>> Okay. So that's pulling agenda items K and L.
>> Yes. Council Member Hawkins. >> Thank you, Mayor. I was
hoping I could get
just a bit of an explanation on consent agenda item A. I
know it's just wanting a resolution
and just and it said, you know, City of Denton has no
responsibility to pay that back. So
I just kind of wanted to understand that process. >> Sure.
And this is a little bit of an unusual
situation but it occurs periodically and I'd like to ask
Chuck Springer, our Director of
Finance, if he would explain that. >> Yes. There's a
facility in Denton that
is financed through this and so the City of Denton being
one of the cities in which this
is located in has to approve this financing even though it
comes through the Colorado
financing authority. So there's also in your backup a
letter from our bond council regarding
that that there's no obligation in terms of the City of
Denton on the debt. Just federal
tax law requires us to pass this resolution to approve it
since just a portion of the
financing is going to go toward the Good Samaritan facility
in Denton.
>> So it's kind of the city's way of publicly saying we
approve of this or?
>> Yeah. I think it's somewhat under federal tax law how
these financing authorities are
set up and what requirements they have to meet under
federal tax law and one of the
requirements is that they have to have the approval of the
community in which they're
issuing debt for that facility. It's kind of a nonprofit
facility so it's a little bit
different than a governmental debt. >> Okay. Thanks, Chuck.
>> Yes. >> So I just wanted to clarify. There's nothing
that the city needs to do as far as research or payment and
if they are late on their payment,
we do not have to take up for that. We're not obligated to
do anything.
>> We don't have any kind of obligation. >> At all.
>> This is just a requirement at all. >> Thank you.
>> This is just a requirement for federal tax law that they
have to get our approval
to go ahead and do the financing. >> Chuck, sort of as a
follow up on that,
because I know that sometimes we've been asked to consider
multifamily projects according
that have been filed or have been applied to the state of
Texas that may require something
from the city or it would help them get something from the
city saying, hey, we're okay with
this. This is sort of in that same vein. It really doesn't
obligate us to any financial
obligation or any type of contractual obligation. It's just
a requirement of whatever program
they're applying for. Is that right? >> Correct.
>> All right. Thank you. Any other questions of
clarification for the agenda? Yes, Councilmember
Robbins. >> I just had one more. F, please. Sorry,
George, I probably should have sent you an email. Just
whenever a change order comes
up like that, especially it's been done a couple times, I
know these are big projects
and it's hard to understand everything that's going to
happen there, but I just always want
to make sure that awarding a bid, there's not a strategy
kind of to that knowing that
there's change order measures put in place. So if we can
maybe just get a little bit
of an explanation what we found there or something. >> I'm
sorry. Joey, which item were you?
>> F. >> F, please.
>> This is it. >> Make sure I've got it right.
>> Yeah, let me ask Frank Payne if he could address that.
This is not an unusual situation
that has to do with the utility relocation. >> Sure.
>> Frank Payne is our city engineer. >> Well, that is
typically we wanted to
only have a change order if we've got a changed field
condition or if there was an item that
we knew we were going to have a change in the job and it
wasn't quite settled at the
time we bid. In fact, that happened on this job with the
wastewater tie in. We weren't
sure how textile was going to do a bridge and that was a
thinking change order number
one. >> Okay.
>> In this particular case, it's really the end of job
change order. It's justifying all
the items that went under or over during the course of the
construction project. And there
was a little bit of money in there for upsizing some of the
casing pipes for the bores because
they were just a little tight for the spacers on the pipe.
So really it's just clean up
at the end of this job. >> So are there times where it's
kind of
a time issue where we need to move forward but there's a
little bit of an unknown and
we're almost anticipating a change order? >> That does
happen. It's a little more rare.
In this particular case, it was just a matter of we have
over runs or under runs on line
items. And so if we're going along and we do final
measurement for payment of the last
of the job, we have to make sure that we have -- we get
back the money that are in the contract
that we didn't spend and we give them where we spent a
little more. For instance, in this
case we have more concrete saw cut or more asphalt pavement
repair than was estimated
early in the job. So it's just clean up really. >> Thanks,
Frank.
>> Is there any other questions? >> That's good for me.
>> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> Any other clarifications of the agenda items? Yes.
>> On agenda item D, the professional services for
consulting. I just had a couple of questions.
>> You said D. >> D.
>> I'm sorry. >> D. Yes. The waste management.
>> The conference plan. I'm sorry. I'm having a little
trouble hearing.
>> So I wanted to make sure that these are things that they
are going to provide in their
consulting services that we don't really know already or
have the manpower to find out on
our own. >> I'm sorry. Advance here.
>> No, George. He's not -- >> I'm sorry. John. Okay.
>> I understand your question is you want to make sure that
they're not items that we
are currently -- no? Is that what -- yeah. This would be
for the future going forward
based on the new facility planning that is necessary for
the expansion.
>> Okay. And my other thing is that are we going to have
the means to execute these findings?
>> We're currently -- yes, we believe so. >> We do. Okay.
All right.
>> All right. Thank you. George is just -- who's a Seinfeld
fan here? George is having trouble
with his left ear. So we're going to need to be sure I won
't go into the episode where
John talks about that. >> Thank you.
>> So yeah. Just sort of swivel your chair. Okay. Any other
requests for clarification
of agenda items? All right. We'll go on then to agenda item
3A. Well, we're going to move
agenda item 3A to further down in the program simply
because the parties aren't here yet.
They're traveling in transit. So we're just going to put
that down a couple of spots down
below. Is that right? >> Yes. I think we should have Tim
here by
about 2 o'clock. But if we can take them out of order until
they get here, I'd appreciate
it. >> Sure. You bet. Council have a problem with
that? Okay. Good. Thank you. Agenda item 3B. Receive a
report and hold a discussion and
provide staff direction concerning proposed revisions to
the City of Denton strategic plan.
>> Thank you, Mayor. As you know, this is an important part
of our whole budgeting process,
is the strategic plan. And I'm Brian Langley, our assistant
city manager who will present
this item for your discussion and consideration. Thank you,
Brian.
>> Okay. Thank you, George. Mayor, members of the council.
As George mentioned, the strategic
plan really does form the foundation of the budget. I know
Chuck will have a budget presentation
for you later this afternoon. The strategic plan and really
our goals for where we want
to be should come first. And then the numbers are
reflective of where we're trying to go
as an organization, where we're going as a strategy. So it
's really not numbers first
and then strategy. Strategy and then we design a budget and
a financial plan to fit that.
So with that as an introduction, I'll go ahead and jump
right into it. First of all, just
a little bit of history about the strategic plan. Some of
you I know are new on council
and don't have the history for this. But we really started
this process a number of years
ago and we created the original strategic plan in 2011.
That was the result of a number
of different discussions that we had with our leadership
team, our directors levels
in the organization, as well as some retreats that we had
with the city council. And we
also had a citizen survey which formed the foundation of
the strategic plan of really
some of the things that we wanted to focus on. We didn't
make any changes from 2011
really to 2014, maybe a few minor tweaks here and there.
But the significant changes were
made just last year in 2014. And the key things that we did
with that is we we enhanced our
focus on economic development, created a separate what we
call a key focus area for that a high
level goal for it. And we also created a separate key focus
area for sustainability and environmental
stewardship. And we incorporated the comprehensive plan
into the revised strategic plan. That
was a process we were going through a very lengthy process
with a lot of community input
and we wanted to incorporate that into the strategic plan.
And so we made those changes
last year. For this coming fiscal year 1516, we don't
recommend any major changes to the
plan. But what we're doing today in this discussion is we
want to solicit some feedback from the
city council to see if there's anything that you want to
change, if there's any areas that
you want us to focus on. And we also want to talk about
some of the specific action
steps that we're proposing for the coming fiscal year. That
's really the intent behind
this presentation today. So as a refresher, the five key
focus areas that we've identified
in the strategic plan and by the way that's attached as an
exhibit in your council backup
is the strategic plan for 1415. KFA one is organizational
excellence and for each of
these, there are a series of goals and objectives that are
much more detailed for each of these.
But these are the high level key focus areas. KFA two is
public infrastructure. KFA three,
as I mentioned before, is economic development. KFA four,
safe, livable and family friendly
community. And KFA five is sustainable and environmental
stewardship. So these are the
five basic focus areas that we've tried to identify in the
strategic plan that all the
other goals and objectives really flow back to. Are there
any questions on that before
I move forward? Okay. So backing up a little bit, what is
the goal of this process? What
are we trying to do? We're really trying to provide a high
level overview of key policy
goals for the entire organization. And as you know, there's
a lot of different departments,
a lot of different divisions, a lot of things going on in
the city that's sometimes difficult
to do to identify every single goal and objective that we
have. So this is meant to be a very
high level plan. There's also individual departmental
strategic plans that we have in each of the
departments who try to tie back to this plan. So those are
much more specific, focused on
specific outcomes in this plan. We're trying to ensure a
policy and administrative decision
making process based on proactive approach rather than
reactive. So try to say, what
is the things that we think are important to us? What are
the things that we're going
to focus on upfront rather than reacting to that after the
fact? We also want to create
stability for the community and organization. As elected
officials, you know that elected
officials come and go over the years, staff members come
and go. But when new council
members come on, new staff members come on, we want to have
some continuity. So there's
a plan for where we want to go in the future. This document
helps us achieve that. We also
want to link the organizational direction to the city's
established mission, vision,
and value statements. And we have those in the document.
And finally, we want to provide
an action oriented roadmap to achieve our vision. So what
are the specific things that
we're going to do to try to achieve this plan? We've
outlined those here for you. So some
of the action plans that we identified last year for you
was really the first year that
we had done that. We identified about 15 of those that we
were going to focus on. But
what we're trying to do with these is link the broad policy
goals identified in the strategic
plan with specific actions that we want to undertake. What
are we going to actually do
to actually make this work? Some of these are broader, so
it's kind of hard to make
that distinction of what are the specific things that we're
going to do. So we're trying
to identify those. And we want to provide policymakers and
employees with key milestones
for assessing our performance. So what are the things that
we're saying we're going
to do? When are they going to be done? Did they get done or
not? And we can see, are
we going to be accountable for those actions going forward?
So the objective that I'm going
to go through with you for these action steps I'm going to
highlight is to try to find high
level tasks that require some type of council direction or
funding decisions that we're
going to focus on over the coming months. Now, there's a
thousand things that we could
identify as action steps, but we're really trying to find
the ones that are important
from a council direction or funding standpoint. So when we
go through those, I'll show you
those in a little bit more detail. So here are the 14-15
last fiscal year, the action
steps that we identified. What I'm going to do is I'm going
to recap those for you and
show you the status of each one of those so you can see
where we are on implementing those.
And then I'll talk about going forward, the ones that we
are recommending for the next
fiscal year. So the first one that we had for KFA 1, which
is organizational excellence,
was to develop a financial plan to maintain reserves in
accordance with our policy requirements
over the five-year financial plan. And we did that with the
budgeting process last year,
so we marked that as complete. We also wanted to continue
to utilize the LEAP, the innovation
program and the lean government initiatives that we talked
about with you last week. We
wanted to continue to use those to generate efficiency and
effectiveness for the organization,
so we've marked that as complete, but it's really an
ongoing project. We're going to
continue to do those on a year-by-year basis. We also want
to try to develop a financial
plan to achieve the desired level of funding for street
maintenance. So this is something
that we've talked about with the councils. We're trying to
put more money for street
maintenance, but we really haven't identified what is the
specific goal that we want to
be at, what's the OCI level that we want to be at. So
through this budgeting process,
what we'd like to do for the coming fiscal year is identify
that with the council, talk
about that as a goal, and then put a funding plan in place
to achieve that. Finally, on
this page, we had beginning construction of the projects
identified by the Citizen Bond
Committee. We've done that. We actually sold bonds, the
first series of bonds, and we're
underway with completing all those projects. So some other
things that we identified in
KFA 2, which is public infrastructure, is construct a
required electric system infrastructure
improvements to meet future growth and development plans in
DME. That's something that I know
you've heard a lot about over the last few months, and we
're still doing that, but we're
making progress on implementing all those improvements. We
wanted to continue the implementation
of the bicycle mobility plan in KFA 2. That's underway. We
've been making a lot of progress
towards that. Begin implementation of the preferred growth
concept in the comprehensive
plan also in KFA 3. That's underway and in progress. And
then we had talked at length
a number of times about the Convention Center project of
looking at a partnership with UNT
and O'Reilly. That project has since went away. You're
going to be looking at another
concept later on your agenda today. So that's changed
somewhat.
The last series of things that we identified for 2015 was
to develop some specific economic
development strategies and initiatives to achieve our goals
in economic development,
and we've been working through that with you, and that's
complete. Complete the reconstruction
of Fire Station 2 and begin work on 3 and 4. That's
underway. Complete the rehab of
Lake Louisville water treatment plant. We have finished
that. It was a long process,
but we did get there. It was a huge capital project that we
had. And begin the process
of developing an MSD or municipal setting designation for
the downtown area. That's
something that I know Dr. Banks has been working on for
some time. He's made a lot of progress
on that. We should have that complete within the next few
months. And finally, identify
and prioritize our greenhouse gas emission reduction
strategies. Those are all things
that we identified last year and the progress that we've
made on them thus far. But most
of those are complete or substantially complete at this
point.
So let's shift gears.
We had a question. Yes.
Thank you, Mayor. On that point, I noticed in the backup
where you gave us the strategic
plan document. And when you list everything out by key
performance indicator, we put real
specific metrics on there as to the goals. Is that
something with the annual action items?
Because the metrics on these are in some cases unclear what
makes something complete, like
develop specific economic development strategies instead of
go. That could obviously be fleshed
out more in terms of what it means to be complete or what
it means for something to be underway.
Do these have more specific metrics that you guys have, at
least in-house, that are helping
you track progress on these?
Yes. The ones that we have in the strategic plan document
are high level type of metrics
that we've identified. But in the individual departments
and environmental services, as
an example, they have much more detailed metrics of what
they're following. We can certainly
share those with you.
I think what I'm looking to do going forward with the plan
is for the key performance indicators,
the KPIs, is to try to continually try to improve those and
make those more relevant
and meaningful so that they attach back to the goals and
objectives that we have. And
then additionally, what I'm looking at doing in the
document itself is identifying the
action steps that we've put together, the target dates that
we want, and then the status.
So every quarter when we're reporting on these, the council
and the public can see how are
we progressing on meeting those. But we can provide more
detail on the greenhouse gas
reduction strategies if you'd like us to.
I'm not sure if I answered your question, Kevin.
I guess we're highlighting key action steps for a
particular year that's essentially
drawn from the overall strategic plan.
And I'm just wondering if it wouldn't be beneficial as we
're thinking about what the metrics are
that would mean completion or underway or something like
that on these like it is for
these more specific action or key performance indicators.
Something that you could say whether we've met that metric
or we didn't.
Or even what complete means in that sense. It's just a
thought as we move forward. Because
I like this specificity because we all know kind of what we
're going after.
Yeah, I think as a follow up to that, this for 14-15, that
was really the first year
that we had identified action steps as something that we
wanted to include in this process.
So we may have been a little bit more general in the
statements here. But what I think you'll
find is in the next series of action steps that we've
become a little bit more specific.
So maybe it's clearer to see what is complete and what's
not complete. But if we're not,
we can look at trying to adding something that will help us
to determine that as a good
point.
Okay, so let's fast forward. So here are the things that we
're proposing as staff for 15-16.
What are the things that we want to do this coming year to
meet our strategic plan? And
this is really where we want some input from the council.
These are staff level topics
that we're going to cover. But what are the things that are
important to you? If we haven't
listed something, we really would like to know what that is
. So then we can determine
if we can fund that, how we're going to make that work.
Where does that fit in the priorities?
We'd like to begin that conversation as we go through the
budget process with you.
So the items that we've identified, what I'm going to do is
show you these by KFA. So each
key focus area, I'm going to go through several of these
and get your input as we go. And
hopefully, again, Council Member Rhoad, these will be a
little bit more clear as we go.
So the first one, organizational excellence, KFA one.
Develop a new city website and comprehensive
branding strategy. This is something that we've talked at
length with the Committee
on Citizen Engagement. We want to continue pursuing our
organizational efficiency and
productivity improvement programs. This is LEAP, innovation
, the lean programs that we've
talked about with you. Implement the performance management
recommendations from the LEAP program.
So remember, we talked about Project Now and Next, the
group that came forward to you last
week implementing all of those recommendations. And then
set financial goals for funding facility
improvements of facility improvements and fleet repl
acements with cash in lieu of debt.
So this is something that we've talked about from time to
time with the Council, but there's
a number of things that we issue debt for every year. Repl
acement vehicles, police cruisers,
fire trucks, ambulances, those kinds of things that we're
buying every year that we have
to replace vehicles with. There's also facility
improvements that we're making, HVAC improvements,
air conditioning units, those kinds of things are very
large, capital expenditures, roofs,
those kinds of things in our facilities. We don't have the
capacity to cash fund those.
So what we're doing is we're issuing debt for those every
year, typically short term
debt to match the vehicle's life or the improvement's life,
but it's debt nonetheless. And what
we'd like to do is transition over time to more cash
financing of that rather than debt.
It's a large hill to climb though. It's about $4.5 million
every year that we're issuing
for these purposes. So we're going to try to look at that
in the budgeting process to
see if there is any additional capacity that we have to
cash fund that. But it is a lot
of money that we're going to have to try to come up with.
All of these things I will say
to...
Oh, we have a question. I'm sorry.
So where does that show up in the budget if we do that? It
doesn't just go into the fund
balance. Does it become a line item for replacement of
vehicles, for example?
If we wanted to cash fund it, yes. Right now it's being
funded out of the capital program.
So it's in our debt service fund. It's a component of that
tax rate that pays for that, the debt
service tax rate. But if we did that, it would be probably
in the non-departmental line item
where we would try to transfer money over every year into
our capital program from general
fund revenues to do that.
If you look at police cruisers in particular, it's about $
750,000 a year that we spend to
replace some of the cruisers, not all the cruisers in the
police department, but ones
that are needing replacement. So that's a good first step.
If we could try to get to
some of that or all of that at some point in the future, we
know those are going to
have to be replaced on an annual basis. It would be nice to
be able to cash fund them.
I will back up to you and just say for all these items that
I'm going to go through,
there's going to be resource constraints on some of these.
We'll be bringing this forward
in the budgeting process, but there's a lot of things that
we want to do. But when we
get down to it and we don't... We may not have all the
resources to do everything that
we want to do. But these are, again, just the goals that we
would try to outline for
you.
- Thank you.
- Thanks, Mayor. Brian, you mentioned in there things like
roofs and some of these things.
So as a part of the process, and I don't know how it dovet
ails in, but some of the facilities,
for example, we've identified as this particular building
is not going to function long term
for this particular use or the users that are in it or they
're going to outgrow it.
Is that a part of, as you guys are looking at individual
facilities, so we need these
repairs because we don't have a plan right now saying here
's what the long term plan
is for city facilities, which I know we hopefully are going
to talk about that this year and
tackle that. Is there something that goes into the
conversation about, well, this particular
building we're not sure is going to be used long term
because of the problems with it
or whatever, so we might going to make minimal repairs and
try to get five years out of it?
How do y'all go through that decision making?
- The answer to that is yes, we do look at that. I know
City Hall West, for example,
we were looking at a few years ago potentially doing
something different with that building
and there were a series of things that had to be done to
keep it in good working condition.
So we made some more minimal repairs at that time. So we
try to look at that, understand
if it's going to be a long term facility, if we're going to
use it, and make sure we
use the dollars wisely.
- And I can't remember if it's in the backup later, but is
there something in here on a
key focus area? Because we talked about the space study and
all that stuff for the long
term. Is there a project for us to tackle this budget cycle
to determine or at least
work on long term facility needs?
- Looking, sir. Yes, we do have that as item number seven
on the next slide. Develop a
comprehensive plan to address current and future facility
needs. It may take some money
to do that the right way because we're trying to look not
only at what we have now, but
what we need in the future, 10, 15, 20 years in the future.
- And the point, Greg, is that that's part of, that's one
of our objectives here. Funding
it in the budget, you're going to see that cost of it
associated with new programs that
are being proposed or that have been suggested but aren't
included in the budget. That's
the debate that's going to come as we get into the budget.
- Okay. Thank you.
- Any other questions on that other slide? Okay, we'll keep
going. Five of 23. We have
a few more to go. So KFA 2, public infrastructure, we want
to begin developing and begin implementing,
not just develop a plan, but begin implementing a plan to
address parking issues in the downtown
area. It's something I know that the council's had a lot of
discussion on, but we've never
come back with a specific plan of here's something that we
're actually going to implement and
what we're going to do. So the goal of this item is to
develop that and bring back a specific
action plan for you to adopt and consider. Item six is
establish a parking lot maintenance
or replacement program for city-owned facilities. We have
over 35 facilities in the organization.
Some are used more than others. Some have more public
access than others, but each of
those have a parking lot associated with them. Some are in
very poor condition. We do not
have any dollars currently going towards the maintenance of
those parking lots. Certainly
no dollars going towards the reconstruction of those
parking lots. So what we're proposing
for the coming year is that we look at that and try to
develop a plan for how we're going
to maintain and reconstruct some of those parking lots,
particularly the ones that have
a high customer access point. City Hall East would be an
example of that lot next to the
railroad line is in very poor condition and something that
needs to be replaced or certainly
better maintained.
Question. Why do we not have that? I mean, I don't, do we
handle our buildings the same
way? I mean, do we have, do we budget a certain amount of
capital improvement funds to be
used for facilities maintenance and or why are, why have
parking lots been left out of
that or
we never have placed enough focus on it is one thing and
the other item is just competition
for resources every year. When you're looking at all the
other needs in the organization
and there are a lot Chuck's going to talk to you about
those in a minute of all the
different things that need to be done in the organization.
This is one of the things that
just falls down to the bottom of the list, generally
speaking, but it's important and
they're getting to the point now that they're just in very
poor condition.
And the maintenance cost goes up exponentially as you just
like buildings, the roof or whatever
HVAC, the longer you ignore those problems, the more
expensive it becomes to fix it.
Part of it is that we have a number of facilities. We have,
we're in three different city halls
that adds complexity to the issue and we're in 35 plus
buildings. If we were able to consolidate
some of those buildings into a building plan that we were
just talking about, perhaps that
might help with the cost and try to maintenance issues
associated with it.
I guess, and I mean, I've been on council a long time prior
to being mayor and so I don't
this, I always thought the facilities that we have have a,
you know, like for vehicles
and things like that we have it. So are there other areas
or things in the city, either
infrastructure or public that we don't have a plan on how
to maintain them or I would
just assume see all that because I didn't know this and I
mean, it's
Well, facility improvements that the facility improvements
and the vehicle replacements
that I mentioned to you before that's four and a half
million dollars about three million
of that every year is for vehicle replacement about one and
a half million for the facility
improvements. It could be an additional component to that,
but that's really more reconstruction
type items rather than maintenance. It's just something
that we need to look at going forward.
We just don't have the right resources in the budget for
the number of lots that we
have in the condition that they're in.
Okay.
No, that's a difficult one. It's cost for all of these,
unfortunately.
Well, no, I understand that we need to do it. I guess what
I'm saying is that I don't
remember in a budget presentation hearing that we're not
maintaining our parking lots.
We don't have a way to replace them or to maintain them.
And so you may have and I may
have missed it. So and I'm just I'm wondering what other
types of things along that same
line are we not recognizing we're gonna have to spend money
on that we're not and so that
goes is now we've got the budget in place, we were funding
things certain levels and
now I just almost just want to get it all out on the table
and go Okay, what do we need
to do and so we can that's all we can certainly try to
bring that back through the process.
And if there's other things we can try to identify it as
something that's had more focus
on it from the staff over the last few months and a couple
of years and we've been trying
to bring forward a plan of how we're going to do that. Okay
, part of it is trying to
take a better look at it to see what we need. Item seven,
we've already talked about the
comprehensive plan for current future facility needs. Item
eight is something we've also
spent some time talking about create a plan to remove or
relocate dumpsters and public
right away. I know I think there was an informal staff
report that went out recently to the
council on that and they have some costs associated with it
. Complete the design and begin construction
of a wayfinding signage package for downtown. That's
something that we have funds identified
for I believe that's been transitioned over to economic
development for the implementation
of that but actually complete that design and begin the
implementation of it. Okay,
I'm gonna shift gears now to economic development KFA three
. Item 10 is implement the economic
development strategic action agenda. If you may recall, we
had a retreat, probably a year
or so ago where we identified specific action steps that we
were gonna take. We identified
teams that were gonna undertake each one of those steps. So
this is really just saying
begin the implementation of all those ideas from those
teams. We also in number 11 want
to create a master plan for the redevelopment of the I-35
corridor with the changes associated
with that project and I-35 being widened and changing some
of the rights of way that we
have. We really want to look at a corridor plan for that
and we'd like to begin creating
that. Continue implementation of the comprehensive plan,
something we started last year but continue
to make the changes that are necessary to implement that.
Number 13, assess and rewrite
the development, DENT development code, become more
business friendly and be consistent with
the 2030 plan and be more efficient and understandable.
That's a big project, something that we're
gonna be pursuing this coming fiscal year to get that done.
I know that's something
we've had some discussions about in the past. And item
number 14, complete an assessment
of the development plan review process and begin
implementation of suggested improvements.
Something we've already done on the development review side
with engineering. We talked about
that last week with the LEAN initiative. This is looking at
the development plan review
process too. Okay, KFA IV, safe, livable and family
friendly community. Item number 15
is implement right of way management recommendations from
the LEAP program. Again, this is the
group that came forward last week. We had the project now
and next on performance management.
This is on the right of way side. There's a cost with this.
You've seen about $200,000
or so to implement the right of way recommendations, but we
're recommending that we try to do
that. Item 16 in our library services is to develop a
mobile library concept where some
areas that are underserved in the community, a mobile
service could be brought to them
to provide some library services. Item 17 is really an
extension of what we started
this past year, but complete reconstruction of Fire Station
2 and continue to work on
reconstructing Stations 3 and 4. Item 18 is something we've
talked about at length with
you with the fire department, but it's an assign an
additional medic unit to Fire Station
7 and implement the agreement with Argyle Emergency
Services District. When Chuck brings
up his budget presentation in a moment, he'll show you the
cost for some of those items.
They're pretty large, but it's an important issue for us.
Item 19 is evaluate the current
dispatch system and provide recommendations on changes to
improve efficiency, effectiveness,
and cost. This is something that Chief Falsgrove has been
talking about, looking at that with
Chief Howe, how they can better utilize the dispatch system
, and we're going to be looking
at a needs assessment of that to see how we can actually
proceed through that process.
Item 20 is pursue options to maintain a safe and inviting
atmosphere in the downtown entertainment
district. How can we do that in a better way? How can we
make that a more inviting area?
It's something we want to look at doing. Okay, I haven't
put you to sleep just yet. I have
one more slide. KFA 5, sustainable and environmental
stewardship. Item 21 is complete the development
of the municipal setting designation for the downtown area.
That's again a kind of a continuation
of what we had for 14-15, but to complete that process.
Councilmember Rodin, we should
probably identify some more specific measures of what that
means for prioritizing greenhouse
gas emission reduction strategies. Maybe make that a little
bit more clear of what's complete,
what's not, to your point earlier. Item 23 is continue
implementation of the bicycle
mobility plan. I know that's something we've been trying to
increase funding for to get
to some certain goals, just look at that going forward. And
the last one is item 24 is develop
and begin implementation of a sidewalk and pedestrian
mobility plan with an emphasis
in the downtown area. So we've been looking at sidewalks
across the city. We really haven't
had a specific plan for what that's going to be. We'd like
to look at trying to find
one of those key areas that we want to try to connect and
really focus on the downtown
area for sidewalk improvements. So those are the 24.
Looking for your feedback today on
those, if there's any area that has particular concern to
you, if there's other areas that
we should be adding as a focus, this is really trying to
determine where do we want to go
as an organization this coming year? What is the budget
going to be doing to try to
achieve for us? So later today Chuck will be talking about
the numbers with you, what
our resources are, what our capabilities are. End of July,
what I will do is provide you
with a revised strategic plan. All of the action steps that
we've identified, if there's
any others that you have, we can add those as well. As I
mentioned to you, the availability
of funds may impact what we're able to do in the strategic
plan and what we're able
to do in the budget. So we'll have to look at that in
concert to see what the capabilities
are. And then in August and September we'll bring back the
proposed budget as well for
discussion. We'll be talking about the budget as well as
the strategic plan with you in
more detail. And in September we'll be asking you to adopt
the budget and strategic plan
at the end of the year. Question? Yeah. Take it. So just as
a reminder, the strategic plan
was developed by what group or approved by what group? It
was through the leadership team
and the city council working through the retreats and
different discussions with the citizen
survey forming the foundation of that process. And the
final approval rest with whom? The
city council. Okay. And if there are changes to be made or
revisions, this happens on a
yearly basis as we do the budgeting process. Yes, sir. So
when we hear discussions about
well, why are we pursuing this? This is just a staff
initiative. Well, it may be in some
cases something that was recommended by staff, but it was
fully vetted by council and either
endorsed by council or there may be some cases where it
wouldn't be and didn't make it in
the strategic plan. Is that correct? That's correct. What
we'll do is we'll provide all
these documents to you. We'll be discussing it through this
process and asking for you
to approve it. Correct. So as I've gone through, I've noted
, Oh, I remember when we talked
about that, that was Councilman Johnson's idea or that was
what else's idea or that's
been brewing for a long time. So so we don't put names next
to it when we're doing the
plan. We just say, here it is now. This is our plan. Yes,
sir. I think what I would recommend
that we do for the action step is to try to identify the
department who's responsible
for it. Not so much a name, but a department and area who's
really focused on those. So
bringing those forward and a target date from when that's
going to be complete so we can
monitor that performance over the year. And the other thing
that I say this every year
when we get into budget season, the fact that we do the
plan first and then we try to budget,
build a budget to achieve our plan seems exactly the right
way that we ought to be operating.
Thank you. Thank you. Joy? Yeah. Sometimes in small
business, I struggle with doing these
kind of strategic plans because you get so bogged down with
just the day to day. So on
a staff level, I'm just curious, who is making sure that we
're moving forward with all these,
like how does that kind of check in work or is that through
Council? We typically try
to discuss this on a quarterly basis with the leadership
team to talk about where we
are with these different projects and making sure we're on
track and then bring that back
periodically to the Council through this annual process to
see where we are. That's primarily
how we do it. Okay. There's a ton on that list. I mean, it
's. There is. And this is
just again, just a top level slice of all those different
things that we're doing. If
you look at any department, there's hundreds or thousands
of things that they're going
to be doing over the coming year. These are really just the
high level ones that we think
we need some policy guidance from or funding decisions from
the Council. Thanks Brian.
It is a big list. I agree. I don't really have a question,
just more of an observation
that we both went through safe, livable and family friendly
community and also sustainable
and environmental stewardship. And there wasn't a mention
of addressing or maintenance of
the gas wells in the city near the homes. And so I'm just
kind of curious why that's
not in our plan. Well, it is something that we could have
in there, I believe as part
of one of the objectives in the plan. Let me see if I can
turn to that. We do have items
in there about air quality and goal number two of our KFA
five is to improve air quality
and greenhouse gas management. So we've tried to address it
somewhat there, but it could
be more explicit if you would like to have some more
details on there about that. We
can certainly add that air quality. It's a concern as well.
So I mean, it fits in there
as well as the water. So I was just curious. It's probably
not specifically called out
as management of gas wells, but at the Council's pleasure,
if that's an item that you'd like
to add, I think Dalton had a response to that. City
attorney just nudged me and pointed to
one of the items, which has to do with gas well inspections
and the percentage that are
passing on the first person inspection. One of the KPIs,
yes. So that's one. Probably
not enough, but at least there's some in there. Okay, good.
Thank you. Senator Wozni. So a
few comments please. On parking downtown, I would really
like to see the downtown businesses
incorporated in this discussion so that it's not just staff
and it's not just council,
but it's the greater business community because let them
weigh in the sum total of the greater
number of people I think will help us in terms of
suggestions. They think about this every
day because it's their livelihood. So I want to make sure
and incorporate them. On our
roads and transportation, for me, roads are number one. If
our buildings have to get a
little bit older and our parking lots have to get a little
bit rougher, for me the focus
is transportation infrastructure. So just as a personal
goal of mine to really figure
out and we need a plan, we need to figure out how to pay
for that plan and move forward
in that light, it can dovetail in with the sidewalks
because it makes sense to look at
sidewalks when you're improving a road so that it's done as
a package and that you're
not coming back after the fact with the sidewalks. With the
development review process, I don't
think we need to spend a lot of money on it. It's hugely
important, but there are cities
around us who have better systems and I think we need to
cast the net out, look at those
cities, see how they do their development review process,
make a few tweaks and implement
it. I think this is something that could be done sooner
than later and it just doesn't
have to cost the taxpayers a lot of money. Fire Station 7
and Medic Unit at 4 is just
top priority. So you've got 3,000 seniors out there who
have asked for this for seven
years so that's going to be hugely important as we move
into that budget. And last but
not least, I do want to look at the cost of the bus bench
program that our citizens have
promoted and brought to council on several occasions and I
know that we're talking about
a 10-year plan with the kiosk set up to get in out of the
rain. What our citizens are
asking for is a place to sit down. Considering the extreme
temperatures and the people who
ride need this, it's important to them. A lot of this plan
focuses on staff and focuses
on physical facilities. I want this strategic plan to focus
on our people, on our citizens.
So I think that has to be a priority. So thanks.
Yes, Kevin. Thank you, Mayor. I'm generally very pleased
with what you have highlighted there. I'll have a couple
suggestions for additions for
the conversation but I know once we get into budget in more
specificity, at some point
in time you'll release a number that you believe is kind of
the capacity for new supplemental
packages moving forward. So you obviously have, I think you
told us in today's presentation
kind of what the request totaled and at some point I think
we'll look at that number. Has
there already been an analysis just on these suggested
items as to whether or not they
would fit in whatever that magic number happens to be or
just laying these out here, does
that mean they still would have to go through that kind of
competitive budgeting process
that we're about to all go through? I think they would
still have to go through
the competitive process. What we're saying, these are going
to be our priorities going
forward for the coming year. This year, and Chuck will show
you a little bit more details,
but I think for '15-'16 we're looking at capacity of around
3 million. Now some of
the fire station improvements that we've talked about are
very significant pieces of that
that take down that capacity. Going forward, what we've
included in the plan is 1.25 million
each year of the five-year plan. There's about $11 million
of request that we have. So it's
a tough process. It's this way in every city for every
general fund. There's typically
just not enough resources to go around for the things that
you need.
So at some point in this process, as we look at these
suggestions and as we perhaps add
some other suggestions, I guess you'll be asking us to
prioritize this as all part of
this discussion, which is why we're doing this.
The other thing, and I've mentioned this the last couple of
years, and I'm not sure how
it would fit in, but that's the question of how we begin
thinking about adding some of
these social issues that we've been addressing to our
strategic plan. So we hear presentations
from the Community Development Committee that's overseeing
CDBG funds. We've got relationships
with United Way, with the school districts on a number of
key projects. The mayor's looking
at homeless issues, summer job issues. There's a lot of
things in the last few years that
I think we've really moved forward in some strategic
partnerships. How to put those on
a level of priority by being a part of the strategic plan
is a question of mine, just
to make sure that those remain priorities moving forward.
Has there been much discussion
on what that would look like?
My thought is that you could make it a separate goal, and I
'm looking at the plan, probably
KFA-4, safe, livable, and family-friendly community. If
that's something that's important
to the council, and I think it is, and I know it's
something we've talked about a lot, we
could look at adding a specific goal, try to determine what
a KPI is for that, and put
that in. We could certainly do that.
Thanks. That would be my suggestion.
Council Member Johnson.
So just to build on what Council Member Hawkins said, in
the corporate world, you kind of
deal with the same thing every year, too. Budgets and
everybody, and you're trying to please
everybody, and all too often you end up moving a whole
bunch of things forward one inch,
because you guys only have so much capacity, because you've
got your everyday, you know.
And what I was thinking about looking at all these is, last
year was my first budget cycle,
and looking at once we got down to the data in our planning
and development, building
inspections, got down to the numbers and looked at what we
were expecting from each of those
people to do. For example, building inspections. What we're
asking them to do is not humanly
possible. So, well, that has to be a priority, right? But
if there's a bunch of things in
here on the strategic plan that require additional
resources or additional time from people who
are already maxed out. So I'm just saying I would like for
you guys as a leadership
to do a little gut check and go, okay, we've got a whole
lot of different categories represented
here. We've got a whole lot of different things here that
require people to take time to do
something. And be very real with us as we go through this
on saying, you know, what
I was thinking about here was wayfinding signage downtown.
Okay, we've been talking about wayfinding
signage downtown forever, since I was on the downtown task
force, since we've been talking
about it for five or six years. Well, when you look at who
has to do that and what other
responsibilities those people have, it's no wonder we haven
't gotten it done, right? Because
they have more than they can do in a day already. So I'm
just saying if we're going to do it,
I would rather have ten things and you guys be able to look
us in the eye and say we can
absolutely nail these than to have 24 because you're trying
to make everybody happy in all
these different categories. And when you guys get back in
your office, you're going, how
in the heck are we going to do this? I mean, seriously. So
I would just say you have to
make yourself do that because there's the money piece of it
, but then there's also just
the time and what are we expecting of our people? Because I
'm seeing from our presentation
last week unbelievably positive grassroots things that you
guys are doing through your
own, you know, the lean initiatives and the things you all
are doing. The last thing you
want to do is stack a bunch of stuff on top of those people
that are excited about their
own programs that they've identified and then people won't
feel like they're doing anything
well. So I would just challenge you if it's really 24 and
you think you can accomplish
all of them, great. But if you don't, then let's just be
real about it and deal with
it. >> No, no.
>> I think what Greg just said, he's on my right side, so I
can. It's really important,
but it's important that we get all of this is we're talking
about strategic plan here.
And it's very important that we get all of these issues out
on the table and begin and
some of these we've got very specific numbers that we can
put within the budget process
right now. But we've got to get them out on the table. The
exciting part is identifying
them and the things we want to do. The depressing part is
when you get down to the decision
making and we've got to recommend and what you'll be
getting in August is a budget recommendation
that includes some of these and doesn't include some of
them. And that's where it gets hard
and it almost gets depressing that we just can't accomplish
all of that. And it's priority
setting. That's exactly what we're doing here. And I
understand what you're saying. We need
to say, give gut check and we need to be able to say we
simply can't do that within the
framework of the resources that we've got. That's the
process we're working through
right now. The leadership team and the ACMs and myself
trying to put together that document
that you're going to get in August that says some of these
we can do within this framework.
But we need, this is going to help us in your comments,
help direct us to put the things
in that document that we think are the highest priority
with the City Council.
I think just to add to that, if we are clear about what our
priorities are and if these
24 things or some set of those are our priorities, we've
got a great staff. I think you're going
to be very impressed with what we can do. If we've given
great direction, we can get
it done.
I've got a question. And I'm not sure that we've ever
really identified this either as
a staff or a council or defined it. What exactly are the
core services that we as a city believe
that we need to provide for our city? The things that just
absolutely are the number
one, I guess you would say priorities. And I don't, I mean,
people will say naturally
fire, police. Other than that, I'm not saying there's not
any, I'm just saying we've never
really discussed that. I mean, I know the strategic plan
tries to address a lot of things,
but as has been mentioned, there's never enough money to do
everything, obviously. So what
is it that we want to spend our money on first? And I don't
know if, I mean, we could say
streets, we could, but outside of three or four, I don't
know if we've really ever had
that discussion of what we think as a city are the core
services that we provide our
citizens that are paramount and that anything other than
that goes through this kind of
vetting priority process. And of course, that will change
over time, I guess, with the different
rules, but yet there are some things that are fairly
fundamental in what citizens should
expect from their municipality. So that would just be an
interesting discussion. It doesn't
even happen now. I just raise that sort of as a question,
because I think that helps
in identifying, I mean, if you're talking about economic
development, because without
that we don't raise revenue. Some will agree, some will
disagree with that. But it's just
having that discussion because we have all these
discussions and we sort of prioritize
them, but yet they don't really fit under any rubrics of,
well, this is this core service,
or this is this core service. And I know the strategic plan
tries to do that, but I mean,
it's huge. I mean, the strategic plan is huge. And people
are going to have different values
on what those core services are. So it's just a curious
conversation that I think would
be interesting. Because we've obviously, and I'm not saying
I agree with it, but there's
literature out talking about how in the region, we're the
second highest per capita budget
for municipalities. I don't know how they figure that. Don
't really care, quite honestly,
at this point. But it's a question, though, that spurred on
me is what are the core services
that we're spending our money on? So that's just an
interesting conversation. Yes, Councilmember
Gregory. You know, I don't think we frame it in exactly the
way you said it, but it
seems to me that we actually have that conversation every
year when we do the budget. I mean,
it's great that you're bringing up as we're having this
budget discussion. You know, I
don't know that we do. I mean, we talk, we sort of have a
pot of money and we try to
divvy it up. But yet, I don't know if I've not heard that
we're saying this is our main
priority. So, I mean, you may hear that, but sometimes I
haven't heard that because we're
facing increasingly more requirements or requests from the
community on spending money. And
if we're trying to maintain a competitive tax rate and
something that is not so on,
now if the citizens want higher taxes, okay, I don't think
that's the case. But we obviously
have very limited resources compared to what the needs are.
But how do those needs comport
with what the core services are? So, and we may, maybe this
budget cycle, we can try to
be more precise and, well, this meets this kind of core
service or what you think the
core service is. So, that's just sort of my own thoughts on
this. I mean, I like these.
It's just going to be a matter of how do they fit in the
budget and are they priorities?
Yes, Evelyn.
>> I think that's a great idea. But let's start with our
citizens because it's the services
for them to see what's a priority for them. So, I would
encourage all the council in the
time between now and the time we start numbers crunching to
go to their constituents and
use whatever tools they have to talk to their citizens, see
what's important to them. Is
there tax money? Let's see what ranks 1 through 5, 1
through 10 for the people who pay the
bills. I like that.
>> Based on that note, too, I did want to mention that we
will be having the results
of our latest citizen survey. We're presenting those in
July to you. So, that will hopefully
help address some of those points to figure out what are
the priorities of the citizens
and we'll have that before we have the budget document in
discussion.
>> Okay. Good. Great. Yes, Councilmember Rhoades.
>> What I love about going over this process periodically
is it helps, I think, even us
as a council refocus. Oh, yeah, we said that was a key
focus area six months ago. And just
like from budget perspective, even on other kind of issues,
we can easily kind of get
sidetracked because there's issues that come up time to
time that we need to focus on.
I've always thought it would be very helpful for me in
serving on council to be reminded
of this more often. And I'm wondering if one way to do it
is for every work session we
have, every backup information, I almost highlight at the
top, reminder, this fits into this
particular strategic goal that we've all agreed. Or even
this doesn't fit into any particular
strategic goal, which would be interesting to know if we're
having a big discussion on
it, whether or not we need to kind of set it aside for
something else to just kind of
stay the course a bit. But that's the value, I think, in
what Councilmember Johnson is
saying in terms of having a limited amount. Because it
helps me, it helps the citizens
get a sense of here's where we're going. The more you
spread that out, it's easy to get
lost in the minutia of everything we talk about on a weekly
basis. So I don't know.
Think about how you can keep putting this stuff before us
just so that we can keep chipping
away.
Okay. Point well taken. Thank you.
Oh, I'm sorry. Councilmember Hawkins.
Thank you, Mayor. Just to add to that, Kevin, I think at
the last retreat, one of the first
things I had said was I was concerned that my votes on
Tuesday sometimes weren't in line
with possibly the vision of the city, and I wanted to make
sure that that was in check.
And by doing what you just said, I think that does help
keep that in check. So I really
appreciate kind of keeping that focus and possibly seeing
this a couple more times a
year. Just we're just kind of in battle on Tuesdays, it
feels like, with these small
battles and kind of seeing the over thing. So thank you.
I love doing presentations. I'll bring back more slides.
Oh, we love them too. We love them too.
You've gotten very good about the slide count.
Cutting them out.
Yes.
Thanks. Not more than 20 today. I just want to point that
out.
Any other? Did you, let's see. Do you have direction?
I believe so. What I heard was looking at adding an
additional goal for some of the
social programs. I'll come back with some language on that.
And I had several other
points here that I'll bring back to you at another point in
the process.
Great.
Thank you for your discussion today. I really appreciate it
.
Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Appreciate it.
All right. I believe we're going to move back to agenda
item A.
Correct.
Is that right? So I'll call the item, agenda item 3A,
receive a report, hold a
discussion and give staff direction regarding proposed
Convention Center and
Hotel Project by O'Reilly Hotel Partners Denton to be
located in the Razor Ranch
Development Project, including a discussion and possible
recommendation on
economic incentives.
Thank you, Mayor. And John Fortune is our Assistant City
Manager who has been
working with the Convention Center project since he was
about 10. John, I
appreciate you presenting this topic for discussion.
Thank you, George. And thank you, Mayor, members of the
Council. It's indeed an
honor to be back talking about this project again. And I
would like to just
give you an update on kind of where we are and get some
conversation going with
you and get some feedback. And toward the end, Tim O'Reilly
with O'Reilly Hotel
Partners and Denton would be available to speak and answer
any questions that
you have as well. Recently, the city was approached by OHPD
regarding a project
that they have proposed to develop at the Razor Ranch Town
Center. They're
still talking about a 285 to 318 room NBC Suites Hotel.
They are also talking
about a 70,000 square foot, approximately 70,000 square
foot Convention Center
with just under 38,000 square feet of meeting space. This
is roughly
identical to the last project that we were discussing with
them toward the end
of 2014. Just to remind you, this would provide capacity
for conventions of up to
650 participants as well as provide meeting room or banquet
type seating for
almost 1,800 people. So this is a really nice amenity. It
would be a really nice
facility for our community. It would continue to help us
reach the goals that
we had established some time ago for a meeting space of
this size in the
community. I would also point out that it includes a Houli
han's restaurant and as I
mentioned a few minutes ago, it's at the Razor. This
particular facility is
proposed to be at the Razor Ranch Town Center and I have a
site plan toward the
end of the presentation I'll show you. A couple of points
that I would like to
make and that I made in the agenda material that I provided
to you is that
unlike the previous project, there are some similarities to
the previous project
but there are also some some pretty stark differences in
this proposal that's
in front of you. One of them is the OHPD would be the owner
of the Convention
Center. They'll own the hotel and Convention Center
actually and the city
as a result of that would not be responsible for issuing
any debt or
issuing financing any of the construction of the Convention
Center.
So that's a pretty big departure from the previous
agreement other than the
location. Those are the two significant changes. However,
OHPD is requesting a
performance-based incentive from the city that's still tied
to the same type of
revenue streams that we were discussing from the previous
project. Those are
hotel occupancy taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, those
items that are
generated from the operations and use of that specific
Convention Center and that
specific hotel. They're asking for those to be provided to
them as a performance
based incentive. The value to that is this is structured,
this would be
structured if the council were to direct us to move forward
this way just like
our other 380, Chapter 380 agreements that are incentive
based as well so that
the development produces the results. They are indeed
entitled to a rebate of
some of those those revenues. And in addition to those that
we previously
have talked about, hotel tax, sales tax, and property tax,
a difference between
this project and the one that we were previously discussing
where the city
would own the Convention Center is there's if the city were
to construct the
Convention Center and own it we would not have to pay sales
tax on the
construction materials associated with the construction of
that facility. Since
this would be developed and owned and constructed by OHPD,
there is an element
of that changes the nature of the tax exempt status of the
facility and they
would be required to pay sales tax on that construction and
they've asked for
some consideration from the city to look for a way that
which we could work on a
rebate for those those taxes since that's a new element to
them that they
didn't have previously. Another difference between this
project and the
last one is it would not require a tax increment reinvest
ment zone. We believe
as I've mentioned to you previously that it could be
handled through a Chapter
380 agreement, economic agreement. An element of that that
I would like to
bring to your attention is is it for the use of hotel tax
funds we would have to
have some management relationship with OHPD for the
Convention Center. I expect
that that would be handled through the Convention and Vis
itors Bureau. It is a
very minor role. It would not be a major day-to-day
operation oversight but it
would probably be more tied to marketing and specific event
promotion of the
at the Convention Center. But that would be an element if
the Council
directs us to come back we would be discussing that as well
as a Chapter 380
agreement. And then finally I would like to point out that
since we currently
have a Chapter 380 agreement with RED Development on this
specific property we
can't take the taxes that were committed to RED and give
them to OHPD.
We would have to amend the agreement with with RED
Development. They're aware
of that and as we would move forward that's something that
I wanted just to
keep in front of the Council. So this is a really short
overview. I'd like to do
now if you don't mind just take you to some conceptual
drawings of the project
and kind of just orient you. I know these are, Tim would
tell you too, and these are
probably very preliminary. I'm not sure these would be the
final configuration
but this would be the front of the hotel. Of course this
would be the
Convention Center side of the hotel and of course these are
just some different
views of the specific building as it's currently being
conceptualized.
There is also a different view that I'd like to show you.
This is the actual
Convention Center space itself and I'm having a hard time
reading this on this
screen. Let me see if I can orient you this a little bit.
This would be the main
banquet room. It's I think it's exactly the same size as
the main banquet room
that we were discussing the last time we were before you
and as you can see there
is a number of partitions that break that major room into
smaller
configurations. I believe these are 55 by
I just can't read it I'm sorry. 55 by 60 then these are 55
by 120 and these are
obviously smaller and then you can see outside of this main
corridor there's
additional meeting space here here and in this particular
area is the
breakfast bar. I believe this is kind of a shared space
with the hotel. It provides
a really nice meeting foyer for convention delegates and
meeting
participants and so I'm working with Kim Phillips and the
CBB they have reviewed
this and they think this is a very nice plan that we
continue to provide a lot
of opportunities. Oh sorry. Thank you John. Can you go back
want to just kind of
point out roughly where the restaurant would be on that
front view? I will try
and Tim may have to help clarify this. It's not a big deal.
Tim I believe it's
in this corner right here. So it's at the front? Yes. Okay
cool thank you.
And lastly I have a site plan that I'd like to show you and
this is not a full
site plan I wanted to give you a better depiction of kind
of the actual
location on the property. It's approximately 13 acres just
south of the
the current planned town center. If you can imagine the
town center being here
up to the north here is US 380 and then of course here just
to the west is I-35
and this Hotel and Convention Center site is located just
here in a 13 acre
site just south of the town center itself and hopefully
that gives you kind
of a general idea and overview of where the project would
be located. I don't
have a lot of other details to share with you at this time
as you recall we
came to you earlier in the year and we talked to you about
this project and
it was your request that we bring this back to you at a
point in time where the
O'Reilly family has reached some agreement with the Red
Development and
for moving this project forward and they have now done that
and I'm back to talk
to you because we'd like to receive your feedback. I'm
going to let Tim come up
and talk a little bit about the project he'll give you a
much more
eloquent description of it I'm sure than I did but if it's
your direction to move
forward what we'd like to do is receive that today and
potentially bring back to
you some of these agreements that would be necessary to
make the project happen
for your consideration shortly after your council break
toward the end of
July or early August so with that I'd be happy to answer
any questions that you
have and if not we can bring Tim up. Yes. Can you talk a
bit more about the
requirements that would allow Hot Phones to be used for
this project and so you
mentioned CVB having a minor role in some management
relationship with them
so what what specifically is the parameters on that? It's
very simple
we either have to own or manage the hotel in whole or in
part I mean the
convention center excuse me yeah excuse me. That's right.
So in this particular
in the prior case we were owning the convention center so
it was clear that
our use was tied directly to the ownership and the only
other way we
could use the hotel tax dollars for this use would be to
manage it and the
statute provides for that to be there entirely managed or
have some management
responsibility associated with it. And it doesn't define
how much of those
management. So in terms so this must be a specific
provision in the law relating
to convention centers that makes it makes sense. The hotel
occupancy tax. And it's the
hotel occupancy tax is generated just from this hotel. That
's that's my
understanding. And you know when we give that out to other
entities in town
there's a lot of strings attached in terms of what they can
spend that money
on. Is that changed too with the this provision in the law
for convention? I
mean can they only utilize the hot funds for marketing
efforts in the same way
that no no it's it's used for the convention center. We'll
have to delve
into that a little more deeply but it's my understanding it
can be used for the
broader a broader purpose. And the other question I had I
know the old project
was there was going to be space in it for a university
classroom space and the
backup mentioned there's no relation with the University at
this point. Do we
know that that's a conversation being had because that will
impact the
property tax valuation if that. I don't believe it is and
Tim can certainly
address that when he comes up. And is the idea to have both
of these built at the
same time? I believe it is yes. Great thanks.
We'll start here and just go around. You may have mentioned
this but on the
incentive if how what are the performance metrics and how
do we tie
them in on the incentive? Well those are some details that
we're going to have to
establish if that's the direction of the council we haven't
had that
conversation yet but those would be established and
typically a performance
base what I refer to a performance based incentive it's
tied to the outcome of
the project in terms of revenue. If they don't produce the
revenue they're not
going to get any back and so that's really what we talk
about when we refer
to it as a performance based incentive. Thank you. Council
member Hawkins. Thank you Mayor.
I'm trying to not compare this always to the old project.
It is. The last time we went
through this there was a pretty complex timeline you know
we would kind of
baby step it and maybe every other one the city would have
to pay a little bit
more money to either do a drawing or something I'm trying
to remember. It
seems like the way that this one is set up it won't really
be that way. The city
really is not on the hook in any way unless it's just an
incentive based on
performance and I know we're at the beginning stages but is
that... That's it
that's that's the way we see it at this point is that the
city's role is very
minor in this regard I mean this is no different than
another major economic
development prospect coming to the city wanting to develop
and us and us helping
with some infrastructure for their development through a
rebate of a
chapter 3 agreement. In this particular case the
infrastructure that we're
talking about is an amenity that we've been seeking for
some time and that is
a convention center meeting space. Sure. I just think that
's important to make
clear from the beginning because it's going to be easy to
get that confused.
Thanks John. So because we don't own the convention center
we don't get to spend
time here talking about the color of the brick or any of
that stuff. Boy I love
this plan. I do have a question about the rebate on the
construction sales tags. I
would sort of get that if they're going to be buying all
their carpet at Smitty's
you know a Denton clearly a Denton company but if they're
buying their
carpet from direct from the mills in Dalton, Georgia it's a
great name for a
town. We're not going to be doing a sales tax rebate for
that because that sales
tax isn't going to be collected here right? Well I probably
should clarify that
rebating sales tax is one option and clearly we would have
to address the
site as the location of where the sale occurred but I think
what they're asking
is just some equivalent amount that's tied to what they pay
in sales tax so
what if the council is interested in exploring that we can
certainly look at
the sales tax rebate itself on construction and then the
side is issue
that you raised will come into question. If not then we'll
need to look to see if
there's another way in which we can accomplish that
objective. At this point
that's something I would probably forget being able to give
direction I would
want to have some conversation maybe in closed session to
understand some of the
other implications of that. We'd be happy to do that. The
other question that I
can't believe them no I'm not even gonna I'm not even gonna
ask.
Yes Council Member Bosley. I'd like to see the sales tax
evaluation as well
before we move forward on that and would we manage or help
manage? Help manage
and so I would need to see a real definitive what does that
mean by help?
Sure we'll be happy to come back with it. We're really
thinking more of marketing
some of the same role that the CVB would have played in the
previous
Convention Center. And one of my things is who pays for the
marketing is that
is that fall under the help category and if so how much are
we responsible for
those limitations and is it a percentage you know O'Reilly
pays for some, City of
Denton pays for some and who in terms of the man hours of
CVB in booking events
and everything you know to really take a look at so that
you know it's it's going
to be a lot of responsibility to book and to market a new a
new event center
so that we have eyes wide open going in and we know you
know what it's going to
cost and that includes man hours because I don't know that
I want to be hiring
extra people to book events for the also what kind of
liability does a city have
by managing the events you know what's that going to cost
in terms of managing
those events and then is there's any thought down the road
of actually having
the Convention Visitors Bureau visitor center not on the
square but in this
Convention Visitors Bureau don't know if that conversation
has taken place
understand that can you know construction is going to take
a while but
if we have 300 to 600 visitors in Denton who are right
there saying what do I want
to do where do I want to spend my money comparing that 300
to 600 versus the
people who walk into the downtown facility we may not know
that right now
but it's something I think to look on down the line that in
terms of just
boots on the ground where are we getting the best exposure
and biggest bang for
our buck in terms of contacting visitors these visitors are
already here and
they're here for two or three days and it would be nice to
be able to not have
a second visitor center but quite possibly have the visitor
center in
this location something to think about thank you yes that's
my Johnson so I
don't know if Tim's going to get up and speak but I just
want to thank you for
not quitting because you know that the it would have been
really easy to go
I forget it after the last thing and I think that what we
're seeing here is
exactly what I think the consensus was which was if the
city could not be the
bank we really want this to happen so I'm just really
really excited that that
these two first-class companies have gotten together
although I did see John
when I saw this item on the agenda I saw John walking
toward Texas building I was
afraid he's going to go up and jump off of it so I had to
stop him so poor John is
the guy who has to talk happy to do it for his whole life
but but this a couple
of comments are one you know the it's a private project
that all that would be
asked of us as performance-based and it's really not even
an incentive so
much as as an as a reimbursement on some of these other
things but the I think
the bang for the buck that we get the risk is minimal to
zero and a lot of
bang for the buck right next to the town center so I think
there's so much good
about this you know I'm just going to challenge us to not
nitpick and look for
the little stuff to to get the minutiae if you will so as
Dalton said we're not
going to spend a lot of time talking about the brick color
just want to
remind everybody it's their project that's on private
property and if you
think about the amount of money that's going to be invested
in this I think we
could at least feel comfortable that they're going to bust
their tail to book
conventions so they can fill their hotels so they can pay
their debt so
there's a whole lot of good here and and I just wanted to
thank the staff for not
giving up which would have been really easy to do after the
last go-around and
helping help and get these two parties together thanks yes
I'm sorry I didn't
mention this before as we look at it also I want to see the
total possible
impact on our hot funds because I know in the past we had
talked about hot funds
setting aside some of the hot funds collected from other
hotels to help with
if when we were going to own the convention center that
would that would
go into a fund to help replace furniture and equipment as
time went on that's not
going to be the case now but councilmember was needs
questions about
about CBB made me think are there going to be other needs
for hot funds that we
need to be thinking about and so if we could in a
subsequent conversation
understand what those implications are absolutely we'd be
happy to
invite him up right now you would like to have a few
minutes just talk to you
say a few words thank you for coming in hey John and
council members and mr.
Campbell and mayor appreciate you all allowing me to speak
here for a minute
we I've been working on this for a long time John and I
were raised on this
project I think so it's been interesting has had a lot of
great twists and turns
but I guess any anything that is worth doing is worth
persevering and
continuing on to try to get the result that you want my
wife has told me many
times that I'm very hard-headed and I guess this is proof
positive of that and
she told me that whenever I left this morning about 5 a.m.
to get down here so
you know where I'm happy to continue talking about this
project I've had a
lot of confidence in your city and this area from the very
beginning I thought
this was a wonderful place for our family all 21 members of
our partnership
to come and and invest in a community and be a partner in
the community and
so I still think that and the the incentive package
hopefully we've
addressed some of the issues that were not positive about
the the other package
you know this development has been extremely interesting
since we started
talking with red development great company very you know
world-class
development company they're bringing an enormous number of
retail and restaurant
options to your community so it's been a pleasure working
with them and we've
developed a fantastic working relationship with their
company so and
that's been a relationship that will carry carry on for us
past this project
whether it occurs or not but you know in the essence of
this project and your
development in this area are so positive that you know I
felt continuing this
discussion after the events of last November and December
were a real
positive thing it it you know still has a lot of the same
merits what we have
done you know the economic model is really from an investor
standpoint far
inferior in this current model so you know this is not we
're not coming back
to the table with a situation where you know we're
expecting that that there was
you know a huge windfall of any sort the way that these
convention centers are
run and the amount that they cost to build 70,000 square
feet necessitates a
public-private partnership that's the only way these things
get done you
cannot finance one of these on your own and get it to cash
flow it just doesn't
work and we've modeled many of these out our team is has
you know built about 30
of these all around the country over the years and not one
of them that is open
right now didn't have public participation and it's a great
partnership when it happens and when it's done right
because you know a city
can bring a lot to the table for for a company like ours
you have a wonderful
CVB here and miss Phillips does a great job and she
understands I think the
dynamics between private hotel management companies and the
partnership
that is necessitated you know any any city that we have
hotels in our primary
partner is a CVB in the city anyway so that management
agreement is a pretty
simple thing to hash out in a lot of ways because in a
facility like this that
brings 20 30 million dollars in economic impact to your
community you know the
CVB would be marketing it anyway because it makes economic
sense and and so for
us to partner it's just the way it would have to work for
the city to sell itself
in conjunction with this destination so you know it'd be a
pleasure to work with
Kim and her team and and develop this management agreement
and I think you
know the areas of marketing and you know the room overflow
that we would get
which would be significant you know needs to be placed and
needs to be
placed fairly and in conjunction with the other hoteliers
in town so that
that's you know we've had minor talks about what that
management agreement
would look like but we believe it would be simple and in
the normal course of
hotel business so what we've done in order to try to save
costs is we've
taken a separate convention center and a separate hotel
that we had before and
basically combine them together saving quite a bit of
square footage again with
the financing of the deal it's it's critical that we
reduced the square
footage and we've done that within the face of escalating
costs of construction
in this area you know we've done a pretty good job of that
you know there's
still some some minor tweaks that we can but we've
maintained the size of
facility which is important to us and I think is important
to the city to
facilitate that economic impact that we're talking about
you know we've
maintained the 70,000 square feet 39,000 usable square feet
I think it's I think
John said six six hundred and fifty I think we believe
somewhere between 650
and 750 for attendees that stay overnight in Denton spend
money go out
in the community go downtown go to raise a ranch you know
spend their dollars and
and impact the community as far as University of North
Texas we have
continued discussing and not for the last several months
but again when you
have a hospitality school in a large hotel with the Hilton
franchise that's
up or upscale there is such a natural fit with that
partnership that we will
pursue that strongly and we we foresee having a very good
working relationship
and using the University of North Texas as you know really
the center of
recruiting for our company and training and and all the
good benefits of having
a student population in your facility there could be some
tax benefits with
that but we're not sure that's kind of a vague area you
know going back some of
you all the new council members we haven't talked a lot
about this but the
the reason that an embassy suites works in this area is
that it is a Hilton
property and Hilton and Marriott are by far the leaders in
their global sales
and marketing programs there are the the entities that can
bring the world to
Denton and their platforms and their reach both nationally
and internationally
regionally and even in the DFW area is is pretty amazing
and so when a community
like this that has so many things that going for it so many
benefits has a
hotel placed in its community like this that's that's an up
or upscale brand it
is it is a brand that that is you know has a higher price
it has a higher level
of refinement it has a different experience not necessarily
a better
experience for some some people are more oriented towards
the budget models and
and and that's why to have different levels of hotel
products in town is is a
fantastic asset for you know these types of Convention
Center but what we've seen
again and again and again and places like San Marcos and
Norman Oklahoma
University towns all over the United States when we develop
an embassy suites
which caters to both the business traveler and leisure
traveler on the
weekends with its free breakfast strategy and the Hilton
worldwide system
it brings an added element to the community of upper up
scale refinement
that that has always been successful it is always proven to
come in and serve a
niche that hasn't been served in a community like this
before and so that's
what we're doing we're using a model that's that's tried
and true and tested
and that's been used on multiple occasions throughout the
country and and
we think will be very successful in this community as well
so happy to be here
and like I said I have a lot of confidence in your
community loved in it
was great to be here again and eat at Hannah's I every
every visit to Hannah's
is a good one so many other good restaurants in town as
well I understand
but look forward to to being here more and and you know I
think what mr. fortune
explained is the the economic benefits that we're asking
for merely make this
possible they aren't a windfall it merely pays some of the
debt for the
convention center and you know the whole project itself is
right now modeled at
ninety two point six million dollars and you know that's
how much faith we have
in your community is to come here and invest that and you
know the many
millions of dollars and community impact and tax production
would hopefully
indicate to you all that would be a fantastic investment so
we're looking to
invest in a great place you're looking to invest in
yourselves in your community
and it seems like a great partnership so that's all I had
and I'd be glad to
answer any questions that you might have yes do you pay for
the infrastructure or
just red development we pay for all the infrastructure of
our site on site and
then read its Reds development of course raise a ranch and
they're they're paying
for the roads and the infrastructure and in their
development so you mentioned
you had several other convention centers like this projects
and so I assume
they're all doing very well yes yeah and when I say that
when I say we have done
them the team that that I have and have been lucky enough
to hire in my company
was formerly with John Q Hammons which is also out of
Springfield Missouri and
they're the company that did 30 or 40 of these and I'm
lucky enough to have
hired many of the people that made those happen so we we do
we're not supposed to
probably get a lot of information about that but we keep
tabs on those those
hotels and it's easy to do and they they all you know the
the tools that we use
to find that out or what's called Smith travel reports
their star reports and I
pulled one the other day on June 1st and it's a compilation
of several in the DFW
area of these large convention center hotels and they all
have enormous growth
you know rates above 150 $150 a night and they they do very
well so we don't
have one this size actually in our portfolio right now but
we have all the
people that have made it happen and manage them and have
all the history up
thank you thank you mayor thank you for coming back Tim so
I didn't know if we'd
ever see this day again so I'm excited about this but any
economic incentive
incentives that are asked for given at this point do you
foresee them just
being tied to the convention center or is it going to be
the hotel too is it
kind of treated as one project it's really treated as one
like the hotel tax
that can only be generated from the hotel itself so it's
really turned into
one project and the proximity that you see there it's not
two separate
facilities it's really really warm but you can from the
numbers that we have
you know construction bidding and so forth we know
approximately what the you
know percentage of total cost is between one facility and
the other so you know
like I said the the incentives are are hopefully going to
cover the majority of
the debt service on the convention center itself and that's
you know that's
the goal is to try to do that and like I said very
different from the deal we had
before it doesn't have near the financial impact and so
that's why we're
doing things like making the facility more efficient
smaller to try to keep
our investment group motivated to stay involved thank you
yes Kevin thanks for
coming here and talking with us today this is exciting and
potentially maybe a
game-changer for what can come into this project in the
type of retail hopefully
we can attract into it a question about we're too early to
get into specifics of
any sort of agreement or what what this and I'm sure you
guys will hash this out
as we move forward but do you anticipate part of that
agreement tying yourself to
certain parameters like the square footage of the
convention center as part
of any sort of incentive package that we agree to on the
front end in other words
to avoid a situation where we agreed to a certain package
and then later on down
the line the convention set of projects significantly shr
inks beyond what we
would think would we would want for the city of Denton yeah
I understand that
concern and you know if we're gonna build it and and you
all vote and commit
to these incentives that's the size we're gonna build it I
mean there any
question so you know however we would need to assure you of
that we'd be more
than happy to do it you know it doesn't with with our
company strategy it doesn't
make sense to not build a facility like this because for a
lot of reasons and
I'm not gonna get into all the details about you know our
company strategy and
growth strategy and growth potential and that sort of thing
but this is the
facility we want we think will you know will perform the
best in this community
have be the most resilient in recessionary times a lot of
things like
that so I have no problem in assuring you that this size is
where we're going
great thanks so Tim 93 million is kind of the current
estimate total is that
just a construction or is that land? No that's total
project cost. Project cost and everything yeah so in terms
of equity and debt how much if you could we spoke about
that before here's
what I'm trying to get at there will be people that will
give us feedback right
and I just want to make sure that that people get to hear
how much you're gonna
put at risk right you're gonna sign on dope you're gonna
sign on a debt
guarantee with a lender for some portion of 93 million
dollars and the rest that's
gonna be your family's cash yeah we hope to to obtain 70%
debt that's our that's
our goal so whether or not we can do that or not is you
know up to the lender
so so I think is it safe to say if you can't book
conventions your hotel won't
succeed right so you're gonna be working hard to book
conventions to make sure
your hotel can succeed so you can pay the bank and pay your
family members
back sure yeah the first thing that we're gonna do is hire
a director of
sales to start selling and working with Kim and her team
hopefully and start
marketing Denton Texas as a destination so make the pretty
pretty pictures and
yeah good awesome thank you well thank you thank you for
hanging in there
thank you for seeing the opportunity and the potential in
Denton I think as
councilmember Roden said that this project has the
opportunity to you know
I've get everything worked out to really be a game-changer
for that development
and for that part of our town and quite frankly for that
part of this region so
kudos to you and I'm sure we'll have some more specific
questions on layouts
and things like that the only question I have is is any of
the because I know
you said by building it as one you've been able to sort of
reduce costs is there
I'm when I'm looking at the layout here is all that layout
pretty much the
standalone like I see a kitchen mechanical room mechanical
courtyard
laundry are those utilized by the hotel as well or is that
sort of those that
space in those services exclusively for running the
Convention Center you are
you making use of some of that synergy to sort of help
double you know double
up on some of those yeah the facilities you mentioned like
a kitchen really has
to be dedicated to that Convention Center and some of the
other equipment
but the mechanical aspects of it are the big savings
because the old the old plan
that we had had to have two distinct HVAC systems
electrical systems so there
was a lot of duplication that could have had you know a
well engineered kind of
supplemental effect each other so you know this project has
I think eight
million dollars worth of HVAC systems in it so anytime you
can take a chunk of
that out of it is is pretty you can save a lot of money
quickly by making
efficiencies like this so we're hoping that our budget is
high as we saw the
last go-around no one knows until we go actually out to the
market and get that
out do you have any notions about contractors subcontract
ors as you are
you gonna use a local contractor are you gonna bring in
your own contractor and
ask them to do a percentage or shoot for a percentage of
local contractors how's
that gonna work if you recall in the last iteration we put
it out of my mind
okay we don't even refer to that then but some somehow we
came up with this
contractor that was called Clark construction and and they
've been a
great partner for us and have stuck with us giving us
budget costs and and so
we're gonna in all likelihood if we move forward this Clark
construction will be
our our general contractor they're a fantastic company they
've done many many
facilities like this and we're very pleased to have them on
the team and then
have they said anything about about local contractors for
any percentage of
the work well they they did bid the project out and and so
they have some of
the numbers and things tied down or they can reevaluate
them with a new set of
plans and and it makes sense there should be less costs
associated with
hiring local subcontractors but really you know at this
level it's all about who
comes in with the best number and the best resume at the
same time and so if I
would much rather have like I said the reason to partner
with then and the
reason to partner with University of North Texas is to to
have that local buy-in
same comes with subcontractors and I would if all things
being equal I try to
pick a local contract or subcontractor any day of the week
fantastic any other questions well Tim thank you very much
thank you very much
and thank you appreciate it further discussion yes sir have
a great evening
thank you it is boring that's true yes thank you Tim mayor
I'm based on the
conversation I take it that you're comfortable with us
continuing to work on
some of these deals and bring them back for consideration
is that sort of move
forward with the discussion to get some more specific
details and things such as
that sure absolutely okay thank you very much thank you
all right thank you John thank you mr. O'Reilly agenda item
C which is receive
report and hold discussion give staff direction regarding a
potential
economic development chapter 380 agreement for project
Ranger one thank
you mayor Amy Bissett is our director of economic
development and she's going to
present this item for your discussion in your consideration
and we also will have
some additional discussion on this item in closed session
thank you mayor and
City Council members I'm going to take just a moment to
load my PowerPoint on
that sure I will call to your attention as I get this
brought up that you have
two ordinances in front of you today that are the final
ordinances associated
with this item the terms within them are the same as our
last discussion and on
June 9th last week and the I think we lost our quorum okay
the project that
we're talking everybody's heard of the heard this one
several times at this
point I suppose the project that we're discussing this
afternoon is project
Ranger one and as you all know I'll start by introducing
Scott Cooper man
he's in the back corner back here Scott if you'll raise
your hand and Scott is
representing Ranger one today and he'll be speaking briefly
tonight when you
consider this contract for approval under individual
consideration and I'll
start by saying that we have been working with Ranger one
for but I would
say between seven and eight months now this particular
project came to us as a
lead from the state of Texas and we've had multiple site
visits we've had
multiple development meetings multiple meetings with
engineering to work
through the timing of this project and to accommodate the
needs of the company
that is looking at Denton just to give you a general
overview this is a
regional retailer of consumer products they're looking at
placing a new
multi-state distribution center in Denton located within
the West Park tax
increment reinvestment zone they're contemplating a
facility that's
approximately 800,000 square feet a little bit over that
actually with a
hundred and thirty million dollar capital investment and a
hundred and
sixty-five new jobs could you give us some perspective on
that size a hundred
and thirty million capital investment how does that compare
with other
projects that we've had in Denton or across the state
absolutely that's a
great question and I would say that in terms of capital
investment this is the
largest economic development project that the city of Dent
on has ever seen in
terms of square footage 800,000 square feet is
approximately twice the size of
the target distribution center and almost twice the size of
Peterbilt and
as it stands today and I would anecdotally share with you
that I think
that in terms of square footage this is likely to be the
largest economic
development project in the state of Texas this year by
square footage with a
sit with a single end user so you may see out at Alliance
where they're
building a million square foot building and there's
multiple tenants that are
going to go in that and lease that space that really was a
good question
to give you a visual of where this prospect is looking at
locating it is
northwest of Peterbilt on approximately 77 acres on the
west side of Western
Boulevard and north of Airport Road like I mentioned
previously it is located
within the TERS boundary and as you are all are aware the T
ERS project plan
today calls for three phases of infrastructure improvements
and phase
one and largely encompasses a water line a 16 inch water
main that would run from
Airport Road to highway 380 which is almost a mile and the
widening of
Western Boulevard from two lanes to four lanes and
associated wastewater and
drainage improvements and we are estimate at this point in
time is that
phase one improvements would cost between six and seven
million dollars and
those improvements would benefit more than just this one
project obviously they
would open up several hundred acres for potential
development the the the
interesting thing with Ranger one is just to give you a
little bit more detail
the timing of this project they are looking to close
potentially as early as
the end of June as early as at the end of June and their
preliminary and final
plats are currently under review within the city as are
their infrastructure
plans and the those plats in fact are going to the Planning
and Zoning
Commission tomorrow evening we are looking to finalize an
incentive
agreement with them prior to their closing date we expect
that the property
tax revenue that will be generated off of this project at
full build out will
be a little over seven hundred thousand dollars a year
currently as you know
both the city and the county participate in the TERS at 40%
and we have an
existing reimbursement agreement with Westray which is a an
affiliate of razor
investments where Westray is currently committed to putting
in the phase one
infrastructure improvements as you as you know Ranger one
would like to assume
responsibility for those improvements and also assume the
right to
reimbursement for the cost of those improvements in order
to control the
timing of their project as such you'll be considering two
contracts tonight the
first one is an amendment to the existing reimbursement
agreement with
rest Westray and I'll walk through some details of that in
a moment it's your
consent agenda item I and secondly you'll be considering an
economic
development program grant agreement for Ranger one which is
on individual
consideration agenda item C I will point out that the TERS
board yesterday
adopted resolutions approving both of these agreements
because they are a
party to both of these agreements the first agreement is an
amendment to
the Westray reimbursement agreement essentially what this
does is it
relieves Westray from any obligation to construct the
majority of phase one
infrastructure there are some exceptions to that called out
in the agreement
specifically traffic lights and drainage and it relieves
the TERS board from any
obligation to reimburse Westray for those improvements and
it does maintain
the option for Westray to construct phase two and or three
at a future date
and to receive reimbursement for that the other thing that
this amendment does
is it splits the TERS fund into two sub funds a Ranger one
sub fund which would
collect only the tax increment on the 77 acres associated
with Ranger one and
the Westray sub fund which would be the balance of the tax
increment for the
zone and it waives Westray's rights or claim to any funding
that comes into the
Ranger one sub fund the second contract that you'll be
contemplating tonight is
a grant agreement for Ranger one and this great agreement
has two terms
associated with it the first term is not a specific amount
of time it is instead
it ends when they when they have been fully reimbursed for
the public
infrastructure and that it is defined within a contract
which I outlined for
you earlier in my presentation we anticipate based on our
financial
analysis that that'll be approximately a four-year term but
it could be
accelerated or slowed depending on the exact numbers of the
project the first
term includes several sources of repayment for Ranger one
including the
use of development plan line funds those are funds in the
water fund and
wastewater fund and within the city that exists today those
funds were created by
resolution in 1991 by which we set aside some funding for
future economic
development projects that needed specifically water lines
and sewer lines
we anticipate that the water line associated with this
project will cost
over two million dollars and this grant agreement allows up
to one million
dollars in reimbursement for water line costs we anticipate
that the sewer line
will cost approximately eight hundred and sixty five
thousand dollars and the
grant agreement will allow for reimbursement up to that
amount up to
that amount and this all this grant agreement in the first
term of it also
includes a sales tax rebate on construction materials and
furniture
fixtures and equipment and this is a mechanism by which the
contractor
associated with Ranger one would set up a sales and use tax
certificate so that
they could source all the materials to Denton and then sell
them to sub
contractors and charge a sales tax at that point in time so
it's sales tax
that we would not otherwise collect that we will be able to
collect as a result
of something that we're asking Ranger one to do and we have
committed at this
point through this grant agreement that will rebate 100% of
that back to them as
another means for reimbursing them for public
infrastructure and thirdly this
phase includes or this term includes a turd reimbursement
out of the Ranger one
sub fund which includes the city's 40% and the county's 40%
of the tax increment
associated with the 77 acres on this project only and
lastly we would
contribute the city's remaining 60% for a total of and the
city's property tax
contribution would be a hundred percent until the reimburse
ment of
public infrastructure was was fully reimbursed the second
term commences the
first year after the full reimbursement for public
infrastructure improvements
and it lasts four years and it is an incentive grant of 60%
of the city's
property tax in a form of a rebate for four years and as
all of our grant
agreements contemplate that does have general clawback
provisions to repay
repay the city if the conditions of the grant are not met
and with that I will
answer any questions thank you mayor can you go back to the
slide it turds fun and
sub funds I just wanted to make sure I'm understanding that
correctly that one
yeah the money that is in the turds fun right now with
those would that money be
split into sub funds or is it money that goes into the tur
ds after the project
the money in the turds fun right now is would stay where it
is in the West Ray
sub fund but it's it amounts to about $2,000 so inconsequ
ential thank you the
reason for that Joey is that the tract of land that makes
up that 77 acres does
not exist yet
member was named in the total number on infrastructure that
this project is
going to provide west of 35 is is that a hundred and twenty
million hundred and 30
million in infrastructure I'm not sure I'm understanding
your question I'm
sorry the location and this whole package and this is on
behalf of the
citizens who are gonna you know listen and watch so that
they understand the
enormity of this investment in our city and so looking at
because the city can't
afford to go out and put in all this infrastructure and so
that's my my
question our number here on the infrastructure that this
project is
going to add to our city in that industrial area west of 35
hundred and
twenty million well the infrastructure itself that that we
're talking about
putting in is about six and a half million dollars worth of
infrastructure
120 is the whole project 130 million is their capital
investment in the project
project the city's tax base would benefit from and they're
coming to
invest 130 million in our city that is correct thank you
question on the the
sales tax rebate let me make sure I understand this concept
and if somehow
I'm stepping over some closed session line or something
somebody wave a piece
of paper at me or something because in some ways this seems
similar to what was
sort of reference to in our last agenda item on the
Convention Center incentive
it is the same concept okay did y'all go over that when I
was when I was gone
when I stepped out did y'all go okay well my understanding
is that somehow
there's an entity created that purchases the materials from
wherever Texas
Georgia California and because they're reselling it they
don't pay sales tax
at where it originates that's correct so that when it comes
into this
organization this entity in Texas and Denton wherever that
I guess didn't then
it's quote-unquote resold to a subcontractor subcontractor
so forth and
that's when the sales tax gets levied and that's the
portion that would then
come to the city that the city's rebating back to that's
correct is that
okay and the entity would file reports and pay the compt
roller for those for
that and the sales tax receipts of what they've collected
which we would have
verification that we've collected that locally before we
would rebate it back
it'd be the same as if you go to Walmart and buy it Walmart
's got to collect all
those sales tax send the report and then the cut it's just
same concept just a
entity specifically for this construction that is correct
we've done
it once before actually with the construction of one of the
hospitals in
town all right great any other questions comments okay
thank you thank you Amy I
will also share that I don't have anything additional to
add in closed
session unless you have questions that are that you feel
would be better
addressed in closed session thank you all right we'll move
on to agenda item D
which is receive report hold discussion give staff
direction regarding the
preliminary FY 2015-16 proposed budget capital improvement
program and five
year financial forecast thank you mayor and thank you Amy
mr. Chuck Springer is
our director of finance and will present this budget
discussion this afternoon
thank you Chuck thank you George drum roll please I was
impressed I could do
that without having to put my glasses on so I'm just happy
for that today thank
you mayor and council this is kind of the second time we've
begun to talk
about the budget this this year and I'll state that this is
just kind of a
preliminary look at the budget for the upcoming year I want
to give a little
bit a couple slides of overview a little bit of background
on our budgetary
process we're required by state law to annually adopt a
budget and set a
property tax rate by September 30th our fiscal year starts
October 1 and goes
to September 30th the adopted budget covers all operating
and capital
expenditures to give you an idea the major operating funds
general fund debt
service I won't go over all of those are utility funds it
also covers our
internal service funds which are really funds that are set
up where they provide
services across the city like our technology materials
management is
warehouse and purchasing fleet or self insurance and
engineering services in
terms of the general fund most of the time when we talk
about the budget or
seems like a lot of the energy is focused on the general
fund these are
the breakdowns it's really broken down into four general
categories
neighborhood services public safety transportation
administrative and
community services and those are the departments and
divisions within the
general fund of those areas and public safety takes up the
major part of that
right I'm trying to remember in my mind it's about 65
percent 60 to 65 percent
of the expenditures is public safety okay thank you and in
terms of kind of
what's going to be coming up next and budgetary dates the
utilities go through
the public utility board and they will make recommendations
it's at least
scheduled for their consideration on June 22nd for the
utility funds we get
the final certified values the property values come out of
the appraisal
district July 25th the city manager will propose a budget
will be sent to the
council and we'll have the first budget workshop to look at
the recommended
budget from the city manager on August 6th we're required
under state law to
hold tax rate public hearings to as long as as long as we
exceed the effective
rate and I'll kind of go over some of those calculations at
the August 6th
meeting we have to hold two public hearings on the tax rate
those have been
scheduled for the 18th and September 1st and then under
state law we have to hold
one public budget hearing which will occur on the 18th and
budget adoption
this year based on the council schedule is scheduled for
September 15th and in
terms of the themes we had a discussion with council on May
5th in terms of kind
of major budgetary themes but I've put these up here
competitive compensation
again a major theme the last several years has been
continued street
maintenance expansion and I'll show you some numbers on
that fund in a little
bit to expand the emergency services response capacity in
Southwest Denton
we've talked about that I've got some numbers in here about
that on the
utility side a lot is based on their infrastructure
replacement and
expansion to meet the needs of the growing city our
electric utility
continues to manage the TMPA debt requirements we have some
significant
debt requirements that go through 2018 another budgetary
theme that I added in
was to kind of maintain our conservative budgetary
practices as
outlined in the rating agency upgrade one of the strengths
that the standard
and poor's mentioned in their rating agency upgrade was
conservative
budgetary practices so I think that's important to continue
that and then
funding real quick question what that that's a what does
that mean
conservative budget I mean are there specific thing and you
can just maybe
put it out in the staff report just say okay either defined
by the rating agency
and I don't know or is it just so kind of yeah I think a
lot of it is kind of
just standard practices in terms of you want to balance
recurring revenues with
the recurring expenditures and a lot of it they look at
your performance you
know have you performed on revenues and expenditures the
last you know the last
several years how close are you to your estimates do you
control budgetary
expenditures so you're not exceeding your budgetary
authority are you using
your fund balance for one type one one-time expenditures
those kind of
questions and we generally every year when we meet with the
rating agencies
there's always kind of a lot of questions related to that
okay appreciate
that thank you oh I'm sorry councilmember road
thank you thank you with this timing is that by the time we
get the official
city manager budget it's August 6th this has happened a
number of times where
maybe we've asked for some something more specific or we're
looking for an
addition or some changes or some analysis or whatever it
doesn't leave a
ton of time to give that sort of direction because we don't
see the
specifics until the six we kind of talk in generalities but
if we're talking
about wanting to make several million dollar change-up or
something like that
it's not designed to give us a lot of options to give you
guys the time to
make those reports or whatever is there a way we can be a
bit more iterative on
that process to understand the extent of supplemental
packages earlier and some
sort of even if it's not the final list but something that
we can at least put
our eyes to and we can start making some recommendations
some suggestions I just
worry about that time because there have been several every
year I've been a part
of this I feel like there's been things where it's like
well there's just not
enough time to change that in time if we're gonna try and
adopt our budget in
a month that's it that's a question I guess for the city
manager and the whole
staff team because I want us to have the amount of time we
need to get stuff
vetted and not be pushing things real quick so can I ask a
question so are you
are you asking that that city manager budget and City
Council workshop
August the 6th maybe be moved up so you know a week or two
or three I mean are
you is that really you're wanting to see that information
sooner than that either
that or if there's a way to open up let us see behind the
curtains a little
earlier even if it's not the finalized budget to say here's
all the
supplemental requests and here's what we're kind of leaning
towards but we
want to get some feedback just so that there's right more
time to address that
I'm sorry let me know could come in a number of forms like
this let me take a
shot at a response to that this whole process is very tight
it's very
constrained in the first place and I think it'd be very
difficult to move the
August 6th meeting up earlier but I do think it's possible
that we could perhaps
send some very preliminary data on maybe the list of
supplemental programs with
price tags on them some of which you saw today in the
strategic planning
presentation that there's dollars attached to some of those
very specific
goals that we number as long as the council understood that
it would be
coming to you not as a recommendation yet because we're
still refining those
numbers and again the constraints of time or pretty given
the size of the
budget but let me visit with finance and try to determine
if there's a way we can
give you some preliminary picture of what we're looking at
that would be in
that budget and what the constraints are that you're going
to be looking at come
August the 6th I just think can Chuck correct me if I'm
wrong putting together
a formal presentation on what my recommendation is going to
be would be
very difficult to do before August the 6th.
Some of the time constraints is just when we get the final
certified values
and some of the requirements we have for it's called truth
in taxation where we
do the calculations in terms of effective rate and those
kind of things
I'll be honest with you after the 25th and before the 6th
if you've seen the
budget books that we the proposed budget books we're
usually doing that the whole
time weekends included so it's kind of all crammed together
. The date of July the
25th is really important I mean that tells us what our
limitations are
really and we don't have any control over when we get that
final number. We have an
idea of what that number is going to be but we don't know
the number of what that
praise value is going to be. Toward that point and I think
that was one of the reasons why I wanted
sort of the quote-unquote pre-budget meeting because and
you can correct me
if I'm wrong what I thought I heard you say that the 25th
which is the final
certified value which lets you sort of know here's the pot
of money here's what
we think we have to work with in essence that in some ways
and this may be wrong
so if I'm if this is an inaccurate assumption on my part I
certainly don't
mind being corrected because it seems like depending on
that number will
determine what sort of is the initial budget recommendation
and I think last
time when I when I was speaking it's like okay if we had
let's say we assume I
think I don't know when the assumptions 4% or 5% growth in
our five-year
forecast we have a certain assumption level and that could
a budget a
preliminary budget be based upon instead of waiting for the
July 25th number just
something that says well if we got a four or five percent
here's the budget
and this this this accounts for some of these strategic
goals some of the core
services now if you get eight or nine percent increase then
that Delta is
something that the council together with staff tries to say
because what I don't
what concerns me and then concern me what I don't want to
happen is that all
of a sudden there's one budget for certain in for certain
valuation and
then there's another budget for another valuation and that
sort of that limits
council's ability to try to prioritize sort of that Delta
from something we
figured has just been a basin does that does that make
sense but you almost can't
avoid I mean just looking at looking at the supplemental
programs by themselves
you're going to have a you're going to have 11 million
dollars worth of capital
programs the budget that I present to you on August 6 may
include 2 million of
that sure so you're going to have a list that you're going
to be able to
prioritize whether we know that July 25th number or not I
feel a real strong
obligation to make sure that I give you an estimate on the
revenue that's as
close to what I think it's really going to be on July the
25th as I can I don't
want to undershoot that dramatically just so that we'll
have a cushion there
to deal with when I finally get the number and then you
start in other words
my obligation I think is to give you as clear an estimate
as I possibly can of
what I think the revenue is going to be from the set from
the tax and what I
think will be we be able to fund with that knowing you've
got a lot of other
options to prioritize and you can change those and
interchange them as you want
to as a City Council am I but I'm not inclined again to try
to base a budget
on a 4% growth if I really believe the growth is going to
be 6% okay and that
and that's and that's my okay I didn't know if I was making
myself clear and
that would be my preference I mean to me personally in the
sense that or whatever
the number is because last I just know last year we I want
to hijack but I just
remember last year it was a four or five percent and then
as the estimates kept
getting larger and larger the budget sort of kept changing
and it's like wait a
minute I mean is how much do we need to run the city that's
core services and
then we have if we have a cushion based upon that need then
how do we spend
that and what I'm hearing you say is well I sort of by the
time I get the
July 25th number I might do it based on 3% but if I see it
's it's coming in at
6 well then I'm going to present a budget based upon 6%
instead of 3 and
sometimes I just think that it takes away to some degree
some of council's
ability to give direction on some of that funding it's not
a big deal but it
just really I'd hate to see a 10% increase come in and a
budget presented
at 10% that we've not really had much of a chance to me
that's not gonna have
well well it may not but it did last year yes Kevin it
sounds like there's
some possibilities here I mean I think the posture it puts
the council in is
when the first time we get the specifics is a month out of
approving it then any
time we want to make a change the question to us is always
posed well what
do you want to cut so it's like these are the things
presented in order for
you to raise something else up in priority that wasn't
proposed now we're
in the position of having to instead of saying what do you
here's the options
what do you want to prioritize instead of putting this in
position of well you
got a cut cut cut cut in order to get this thing kind of
inserted into this so
and I'm not looking for any sort of combative process I
just think it helps
if we have that data and maybe it is just a matter of not
getting the
proposed official budget but getting some insight into what
these supplemental
requests are so that as we're all looking at our particular
priorities and
then coming to some consensus on that I don't know that we
that we feel like we
have a little bit more sand I think two or three years ago
we did present a
budget that was that assumed that there was going to be
more revenue than was
needed to support the budget that was recommended to you
and and if you'll
recall and I can't remember you may not have been on the
council Kevin I can't
remember which year it was but council actually had a hard
time coming to a
conclusion on which ones of the additional programs they
wanted to add
in we wound up carrying some funds in the fund balance that
we went through
most of the year before council ever allocated those money
so the bigger
problem that you're going to have I mean I can present a
budget that assumes not
more than a 5% growth and value or 4% growth the challenge
you're going to have
is from the array the huge array of projects you're going
to have that aren't
funded in whatever budget I present of which ones the
council wants to add in
and I so I mean I think what you'll see for me on August 6
is something less
than what and I think this is what you're saying president
something less
than what I ultimately think in my best judgment that July
25th numbers going to
be and you'll have some latitude but again in the past
there's been some
difficulty in council coming to consensus on the things
that we weren't
able to put in the budget recommendation which ones became
the
highest priority of those that were unfunded but I think we
can work with
that and try to give you a budget it clearly gives you some
latitude assuming
if we think it's going to be at 6% percent you with a
budget that's at 5%
and even at that you're going to be able to trade things
out because you're going
to have a long list to choose from. Councilmember Johnson.
Yeah so I just I want to
build on that because again last year was my first time but
it was pretty I
felt frustrated because you're you know I'll just use that
that building
inspections and you know the CEO process and hearing you
know how many people we
had done without for so long and you know what the
challenge was we can't pay
these guys you know other cities are paying them more so we
're losing our good
ones and we can't find replacements and but so then the
decision there is
somebody's got to be willing to stand up and say well then
I want you to take
some money away from this person that's already in the
budget this you know from
take it away from parks and put more money in here so it
becomes this
challenge of who doesn't want to be the bad guy and and so
it just feels like
and I totally get it but you've been forecasting for a long
time I mean you're
not you're not waiting until July right so in any business
you've got your
forecast and you're based it on where was I last year what
's my run rate
looking like this year where do I think it's going to be
you know every business
I mean you start your planning process way early in the
year before you get to
now I can definitively say here's where I'm going to land
on my revenue and for
those of us that don't have that really predictable revenue
you've got a budget
based on history so I don't know what the solution is and
maybe it's just the
way we've always done it but you know I would really like
for us to have sort of
the here's the base budget right here's the predictable
recurring revenue here's
the base budget these are those services that we absolutely
have to provide and
when it gets into all the items from the strategic plan you
know as we as we in
other words if we really think it's going to come in at six
but we have a
five-year prediction that we're running at four or whatever
your deal is in there
Chuck where we would be I'd like to see us build a budget
based on that so it's
where our long-term forecast has been this is where we
think and I mean number
number one nothing says we have to spend it all but but
also there's not as you
said there's not gonna be a shortage of things to spend it
on but but it'd be
great if we're in that you know that meeting in August and
we learn of
something for example of and we're all of our quality
people in this department
are getting robbed everybody here is new because other
cities are still in our
senior so-and-so's and you just okay well we can't I made a
joke last year
could we train our new bikes are to do building inspections
I wasn't I was
making a joke but trying to send a message like these poor
guys over here
can't win and I would love to have had at that moment the
ability to have a
discussion to say you know what we need three more people
in there right now and
we need to have that in the budget without us having to say
so who who's
sitting over there is gonna suffer we're gonna take
something from one of them so
I don't know how we meaning if we build our budget to the
base plan knowing that
it's likely we're gonna outperform it then we're having
real substantive
discussions on what we're doing with the positive Delta you
know I'd like to just
have some of that kind of thinking versus waiting until the
lat you know you
get that July 25th and then the budget gets built to that
and then we don't
really have any great any gravy area to to to play with don
't make any sense at
all sure yeah that's my breaks so I'm completely new at
this but going back
to what you were saying earlier mayor on the priorities
other than like the
streets but really knowing what our city needs and what the
citizens want I think
is a good thing to tie in to here you know making sure
maybe we have surveys
out we have interviewed or talked with our constituents to
see what priorities
are and maybe have a wish list you know that that each of
us bring to the table
that beforehand to give to mr. Campbell and maybe he can
integrate that before
we see it and see what I mean I don't know I'm just kind of
talking here but
well and I think before they were before the elections as
far as give priority so
so that's been but I'm saying if you guys weren't involved
in that then I
would encourage you to to do that do that yes and when we
did do that we have
included on some of the programs that we're talking about
batting about right
now how to fun when things are specifically were brought up
by
council but it may have been before Keely and Casamani when
do we get those to you like
when do yeah as soon as possible tonight
July 24th well something I'd like to understand too this is
my third time
going through it the first two times it feels like you wait
and wait and then
this locomotive just flying by and you jump on and then you
're like and every
time you understand a little bit more but I want to
understand kind of what is
our capacity like for me this time around it's very
important I want to
throw some money at our streets but I want to understand
like how much can you
really do in streets you know until you're just kind of max
ed out we can't
really fix up any more streets we're going as fast as we
can we can't create
any more traffic and I'm not asking for another study but
if that if that's kind
of maxed out then I want to turn in throw money at people
hiring people
getting CEOs faster all the permitting process and I think
that's where I'm
struggling with through this budget process that August 6th
I mean you leave
there and you're just it's exhausting and I mean in a good
way but I just don't
want it to feel so fast this time around and so I'm trying
to understand like you
know if I can get a little guidance you know the street
street maintenance fund
you know we're going as fast as we can you know is that is
that possible to
understand more or does anybody know what I'm saying here
what's it's that to
me what I hear you saying is you know yeah we can give all
of our money to
streets but obviously there's other things to do so what
what is a
reasonable expectation of let's just use that as an example
the funding level
for that that doesn't begin to harm or damage other
priorities it's where do you
find that balance and it sounds like you're just trying to
well and I really
want our residents to know that's important to us too you
know and that
man I hear that every day all day long you're in our drive
around our streets
they're horrible yeah still and I want to make sure that we
're all just still
focused on that and getting that improved so okay trying to
understand
that would be very beneficial for me so may protein yeah
the we pushed the staff
to start listening to and making a list of council
priorities very early on and
that's why we actually heard that that that first wish list
of council
priorities prior to this election we're doing it again
today as we listened to
the presentation about KFAs 24 items on there that are part
of our wish list and
that wish list is based upon our strategic plan and now
they're we're
talking about that there may be some other things so I
think that that that
everybody is acknowledging this is a complicated process
because you have
ideas that are generated from staff ideas that are
generated from council we
have ideas that are coming directly from citizens and from
surveys and then we
have a really short window from the time we know what the
real dollar figure is
until we're required to pass the budget so it seems like we
're we're that the
staff is trying to accommodate what it is council has been
requesting as best
they can given the time constraints that we have well I
mean what I'm hearing is
that if we're going to have some some interplay with the
budget after a base
budget let's say that instead of having to figure out what
we have to take away
it's easier and more productive and kind of less
challenging to say what do we
want to add and so now I don't know not this budget cycle
but I think moving
forward you know I'd like to have a work session on just I
'm talking about
budgetary items for 2015-16 if you rattle your paper I'll
be quiet that if
maybe there's a different way we can do this from a
paradigm you know maybe next
year we can look at is there a way to do like this base
kind of budgeting and
then as we move forward as we get these supplemental
packages in or request in
other words try to not tie everything to this July 25th
date to where all the
sudden we are just compressed with all of this information
where well if we
have a if we have a base budget then we know that and as
you keep us informed on
what may or may not occur well then we can begin to talk
about so that as we
move forward we can begin to think about well this is what
we might want to add
given the contingency instead of we get to the 25th and the
6 and go gosh we got
to start stripping some of this stuff out so that's a
discussion for another
day but it's just it sounds like what I'm hearing is the
process is there some
flexibility in the process that would give us a different
way to do it that
might be more helpful and I'm I think I'm hearing what you
're saying and I
don't think I mean we're talking about two different
basically two different
elements on the general fund budget and one is resources or
revenues that we're
going to get in the other is expenditure and I think this
year we can make and I'm
perfectly comfortable assuming that we're going not knowing
till July 25th
but making an assumption that we're going to have some
level of revenue
coming in the best and I don't and again I like to make
that estimate as close as
we can but I can set the expenditure level that I bring to
you in August at
any level we want you so I could do that assuming it's
going to be less than I
anticipate the revenue is going to be so you don't get in
that cutting business
you got the option is and what I'm hearing you saying is
the option and is
I've brought your budget that fits within well within what
I really believe
the revenue is going to be and if we've in fact made a good
estimate on that
you're going to have some latitude to then go back in and
enhance the budget
recommendation that I bring to you I'm perfectly
comfortable doing that what I
hear you saying is bring us a budget that's the base of
what you're
recommending to it is less than you think the revenue is
actually going to
be and let us make the decision of whether or not it's
going into the fund
balance or we're going to add new programs and I can do
that all right any
other questions comments okay oh yes go ahead I'm a protein
you know there you
made a reference earlier to the survey that came out that
people have been I've
gotten a couple of emails on it it's from a group called
empower Texans oh you
mean back at that yeah yeah I think it I think the group
might ought to be
confused Texans because the questions I've gotten clearly
come from from
confusion that has been generated the article says North
Texas cities top 20
highest spenders it doesn't say Texas cities top 20 highest
spenders but North
Texas cities and and it has to do with a survey of 50
cities not all of the
cities in North Texas a lot more than 50 cities just in
Denton County Tarrant
County Dallas County and Fort Worth or in Collin County but
it does list
Denton ranked as number two spending per resident and it'd
be good to talk about
why we're ranked so high and and what we're talking about
in that spending
because it won't take but a couple of minutes I'm sure you
can do it or our
mr. Langley can do it either way you mean right now yeah
okay I think and I'll
jump in is right is chomping at the bit you know a good
part of this is they're
looking at our budget and we have an electric utility where
other cities
don't have an electric utility so that becomes a government
expenditure versus
if you have a private utility we have a full service water
and wastewater where a
lot of them contract with TRA or contract with another
agency so it's
kind of off their books those expenditures so when you look
at just
our our our full budget which includes all our utilities
per capita it's higher
now those other cities are getting those services but it
may not be through their
government the landfill for example very few cities have a
landfill and operate
their own solid waste so that becomes a governmental
expenditure in other places
you contract out and you pay a private company because when
you're looking at
our spending in our general fund as opposed to the spending
in our business
funds which one's higher oh our utilities much higher yeah
are you tell
I mean the the electric utility kind of dwarfs our general
fund I mean that's
just a that's just a reality in terms of the dollars and if
you look at the total
utilities this chart has the top the top four cities or
weather for Denton South
Lake and Garland of those four cities how many of those own
their own electric
utilities three where the further Garland okay and and so I
mean and we do
some comparisons I've got some charts in here on some
others and and I can do a
general fund per capita comparison we may have something
like that to do that
but even that you think about it like for us we've got
street maintenance and
a special revenue fund other communities may have that in
the general fund even
what they include in the general fund versus have others
sometimes it's a
little but it's gonna be a better comparison than take your
total
operating budget with whatever utilities it includes thank
you I'm just sorry to
do that little diversion off of the budget but but since it
's been buzzing
around no I think that's perfectly perfectly appropriate
for this because
and I didn't bring that up saying that somehow that was a
criticism on our on
our financial management in fact it's really the opposite
because in fact I
responded to people that I have no idea how they compute
this they're comparing
cities that are in totally different situations and you can
make figures do
anything that you want them to do so I don't put a whole
lot of stock in it but
what it does is just makes it I've always been wanting to
make sure we're
aware that we're managing the taxpayers money as
efficiently as possible but no
I don't I don't put a whole lot of a lot of stock in that
Brian or you you
want to know I don't put a lot of stock in it either I
would just give you a
couple of other I'll just tell you I think in my mind it's
apples and oranges
yeah they're looking at a lot of different services checks
describe
those very well to you that are not included in a lot of
other city
financials that's why it distorts that it's the same kind
of comparison that we
see on our debt obviously we have more debt because of our
utility operations
full-service operations in a lot of other cities so we've
seen this before
sure it's if you look at our operating budget it's about
five hundred million
dollars about a hundred million of that is general fund the
rest is all these
other services that we have so that gives you an idea of
the size of them
they're very large appreciate that thank you thank you
mayor pro tem for bringing
that up I'm gonna go to the assumptions for the general
fund and these are I'll
give you some numbers but this is what we based the numbers
on the growth and
assessed valuation we're estimating at 6% this year 4% for
future years we
increased this to 6% just based on the preliminary values
we've received so far
the debt service portion of the tax rate as you remember
when we had the bond
election 2014 the bond committee had based that on a three
cent increase in
the debt service tax rate so we've sold for the first year
Mary you're part of
the audit finance committee at that 6% growth rate and then
4% the next year
we're estimating the debt service tax rate would increase a
little over about
1.2 cents in 15 16 based on the debt that we just recently
issued and another
about 8/10 of a cent in 16 17 for a total increase of about
2 cents so we
think and that's the six-year plan going forward we think
that the total increase
will be about 2 cents and not 3 cents but that debt service
increase will be
reflected in the 15 16 budget and the other portion of the
tax rate the M&O
portion maintenance and operations portion of the tax rate
in these
projections remains the same in 15 16 and as you remember
there was a proposed
one cent M&O tax rate increase that was pushed off to 16 17
that's still in in
these figures and sales tax we've revised the estimate for
15 16 is 3%
above our revised estimates you've been seeing the sales
tax figures and we're
really estimating the current fiscal year to be about 1.3
million greater than
we budgeted so we built on to that for next year and again
we have a couple
more months of that to come in before we bring the budget
to you and for the years
beyond 15 16 we've just estimated a 3% growth rate and all
the growth and
franchise fees go to the Street Improvement Fund we keep a
baseline dollar
amount in the general fund everything goes to the Street
Improvement Fund.
Chuck before you go past that one and I'm gonna put this
out there and I've
mentioned it before I think I'd even mentioned it last year
as one of the
options you know we've got these different supplementals
that are coming
back I'd like to see what a tax rate decrease would be in
the form of either
a half cent or an increase in the homestead exemption which
I'd probably
prefer just so that that is another option because I know
that we've I mean
we can keep increasing we've got a one cent tax rate
increase in 2016 and 17 we
had an 11% increase last year with 8% of that I think going
to the general fund
and then I believe the difference going to the Street Fund
if I'm not mistaken I
may be off a little bit on the numbers so I just like to
see that as an option
to give the council an opportunity if that's something that
's so desired that
we would know what that cost would be and how that would
impact. So that'd be
just to clarify so I bring you back the numbers a tax rate
decrease of a half
cent maybe or a penny just yeah just either one of those
two that'd be half
cent or one cent of the M&O rate yes yes okay the
compensation and benefits
assumptions is really the same compensation plan we've had
for the last
two years an average merit increase of 3% equity
adjustments for those
individuals below midpoint and step increases for civil
service and the
future fiscal years have basically a 3% merit and step
increase package built
into them for the estimates. Health insurance assumes a 6%
increase in city
contributions in each year beginning in 15-16 you may
remember in 14-15 we only
had to increase that by 2% because our experience was much
better than kind of
the national average but we've for this assumed a 6%
increase and that's another
number that we're going to look at and try to finalize when
we bring you back a
proposed budget. Employee contribution rates have yet to be
determined on
health insurance and TMRS which is the Texas Municipal Ret
irement System the
majority of our employees are under that pension system our
fully funded rate is
going to decrease by about half a percent for calendar year
2016 so our
contribution rate is going down. We have a portion of the
workforce that's on a
fire pension fund which is managed separately but they
received the same
rate as a contribution as the TMRS rate.
Now we get to the numbers here. The decrease in the fully
funded rate for
TMRS is that due to the fact of the performance of the
pension fund?
Really kind of several factors they do a long-term actuar
ial study for each
city within of TMRS and part of that they have to estimate
what kind of growth
they're going to have in employees what kind of growth they
're going to have in
salaries and those type of things going forward so part of
our reduction is that
because of our experience and our utilities we've grown a
little bit
faster than they estimated so therefore they can decrease
it part of it is the
performance of the investments so it's kind of myriad of
factors but we
decreased last year also so it's a good trend. Okay.
I'll kind of jump into the numbers here this is just a
preliminary general fund
projection if I can use my pointer a little bit I've added
on here the
adopted budget you can see the adopted budget for 14-15 for
the general fund
about a hundred and two point eight million and you can see
we'd planned a
little bit of drawdown in fund balance a little over six
hundred thousand for
one-time expenditures right now we're estimating that we're
actually going to
have a bit of a surplus in the general fund two reasons
probably the biggest
one is the sales tax coming in much stronger than forecast
and we've seen a
reduction in fuel cost we've benefited from the same as
everybody else with
the lower gasoline and diesel prices so we're seeing
savings of about three to
four hundred thousand on that so with those two factors we
're projecting to
actually end with a positive balance the preliminary budget
here based on these
assumptions I've given you with the growth in AV and the
growth in sales tax
you can see total revenues are estimated about a hundred
and seven point four I
built in base expenditures which is the base budget plus
the compensation package
and other minor adjustments in there and I've also built
into here a line for the
cost for the station seven medic unit that the council has
entered into an
agreement with Argyle and then the cost of this interlocal
agreement which
doesn't start for a few years out until they've built it
what that comes down to
is the number you're talking about in terms of what's
available for
supplemental packages right now we're estimating about two
million dollars for
1516 and this is a great illustration of what I think we
were talking about
about this sort of budget process and the debate quote-un
quote base budget
because I know like the preliminary budget 2015 16 which
includes that
assumption of 6% correct that this current that is that 6%
or the
beginning the revenues is that in is that using a 6%
whereas last year when
you presented the four the five-year forecast as like in
year two we're
assuming 4% correct correct so last year this budget of
2015 16 was a 4%
assumption and so and that's really whether it's for
whatever I'm not but
that's what I'm saying is so if that changed if those
revenues if it was 2%
less that's what a couple million dollars I guess that's
about it's about
three-quarters of a million oh it's only because it's the 2
% of you mean the
growth the AV going from 4% to 6% yes saying it's about it
's about three
quarters of okay so then what I'm hearing you say is that
if that was a 4%
number that 107 426 those revenues would be then a little
bit over 106 million
then you'd basically add that to that new expenses to 2.75
or 750,000 yeah I
mean in prior years going forward with the 4% growth you
can see we have a
about a million two hundred and fifty an additional right
reoccurring
expenditures this year based on the number being higher it
's two million
dollars now you know recognize this number is a little
higher here because of
sales tax being above budget so if we're looking at the
baseline budget but we've
added the sales tax growth here so this number is larger
because of sales okay
so it'd be less than yeah you'd have the the 2% reduction
plus the in the
additional sales tax that okay but but that's my point is
that theoretically if
if we were doing that then that number two million dollars
may be almost three
to three and a half million dollars of because you've you
've moved them you've
moved the increase in sales tax you've moved the 4% you've
moved it down here
if you really think it's gonna be 6% and if you got an
increase in sales tax for
the budget does that make sense I'm just saying that am I
making sense on that
okay and I want to point out that this fire station medic
unit is also a new
cost yes so if you're talking about total new program cost
in here we're
really at about 2.9 million right versus to you I've just
built this in because
it's you know been an emphasis of the council and they've
entered into the
agreement with Argyle for that yes so so really what you're
saying is in all of
this discussion about about money to to continue to do what
we've been doing it
the base expenditure is a hundred four point four million
correct that that's
the preliminary number and the new money that we have
available based on our
projections for income is about 2.8 million but we've
already committed in
terms of the priorities that we've already been talking
about we've already
basically committed to eight hundred eighty four thousand
dollars for the
fire station medical unit so instead of having 2.8 billion
available to us we
only have 2.9 million or to 2 million available of new
revenue is that correct
I mean I don't know where this baby you're saying a basic
spending you're
saying the basic spin I'm saying I'm looking at the revenue
side right my
thoughts are based upon the revenue side well I'm not gonna
belabor that I've
made my point if I may I clarify Chuck help me on the 107 4
26 on revenue for
15 16 is assuming a what percent growth in RV 6% 6% that's
assuming a 6% and
it's assuming a an increase in sales tax of something but
it's in but it
includes a 6% growth in AV and if the base budget
expenditures plus the
ambulance of the medic unit is the one point 104 plus 884
then what that chart
showing us is that in order then to balance the budget with
a hundred and
seven million in expenditures we have about latitude about
two million
dollars worth of new programming correct hasn't been
determined yet
correct but if that growth right up in the revenue side was
at 4% that number
would be considerably that'd be probably about oh six
something yeah correct so
we'd have less than two million dollars to maneuver with
the new programming
correct based on these numbers what I'm saying is is that
if you if it's and
we're just using 4% for 4% if it were 4% and you're showing
that you got base
expenditures and it's showing we got a deficit okay it's
showing we got a
deficit yeah and there's an assumption on those
expenditures as well is that
just a base that that's what it was last year well it's it
's it's the same
staffing it's the base expenditures and what we start out
with is for salaries
and benefits we've included the compensation package 3%
yeah for
benefits percent hospital and all those assumptions yeah
and the team a little
bit lower of the tmrs rate so it makes those assumptions
for non salary
expenditures everybody starts off with the exact same
dollar amount there's no
inflationary growth built into it that exact same dollar
amount if they need
more dollars in a certain line item for a contract or
something that's called a
baseline adjustment and I'll touch base with that in one of
my future I'm not
going to labor it yeah it's okay I mean but I think though
what I'm saying is
I'm not the same one just if I could what I was saying
earlier if you look at
that column of 2015 16 and if growth in revenue is accurate
I could bring you a
budget that shows instead of two million dollars in new
programs that I would
recommend to you I could show that at one million dollars
and then you'd have
I mean the revenues I'm trying to project at what I think
they're going to
be the expenditures is where I've got the latitude to give
you an estimate of
what I think we should spend at a minimum and then you
could look at the
list and decide what else to put in there and I think that
's what you're
saying you'd like to do to some degree yes okay that's just
to take it one step
further I think what I what I would like to see is base
expenditures meaning
base expenditures right I don't know how we maybe the way
the budgets laid out
it's impossible to do but so earlier somebody was talking
about just what are
those basic services that we provide right so so your base
expenditures are
going from 102 to 104 so they're going up 2 million bucks
so if that's all
salaries and health benefits and those basic those
assumptions right if that's
nothing else in there that's not buying new trucks and you
know moving a
building and that this is just salaries for people that's a
simple okay that's
that that's what I would say though that's the base budget
then whatever is
left over would be all those other things in the strategic
plan that we
don't currently do that somebody wants to do it so if that
's what it is then
that you know that I guess I could work with that it just
seems to me like
what's happens is the budget that we're getting by August 6
th has each
department requested increases outside of salaries and
health benefits it's I
need more furniture I need you know I need to do this it's
it's the rack up of
all the individual budget departmental budgets getting to
that number is that
right or is that 104 450 is salaries and health benefits
that's it yeah and
usually how we show this is it will show the base budget
again and recommended
supplemental packages and break out those supplemental
packages and you know
for example the one-time supplemental packages are backed
out so if you get a
one-time supplemental package this year you start next year
without that yeah so
if you need any additional one-time money you have to
request it so what we try to
do is break out all the supplemental packages so you can
see here's the
baseline expenditures and here's recommended supplemental
packages so so
would the so the 104 450 is salaries and benefits so does
that include
additional personnel or is that that's just building on our
existing right let
me take it let me take a crack at trying to answer that
question the 104 450 is
our estimate of the cost to do the current level of service
that we have in
the organization all the programs that we're currently
doing all the things
that we're doing in our operations that's the money that it
takes to
continue doing that current level of service the 884 and
the 2 million that's
shown here in that column those are additional supplemental
programs new
services that we would do so that's kind of the difference
about 75% of the
general fund is salary and benefits of so a large
percentage of that cost
increase is related to the salary increases that we'll have
but but there
are other things in there too. Well what I'm saying so that
's different meaning the 104 I don't know that I'm able to
articulate because I think I'm trying to say the same thing
you are which is
base so salaries and benefits are salaries and benefits
right the 104 450
is here's the current level of service we're providing
which includes all the
programs that's everything we're doing yeah but but there
may be a program or
something we're doing where we would say right now well
this program over here is
is right now we need to we need to focus over here and that
has done its job so
we don't think if we if it's a give-and-take we think this
over here is
a more important priority and that doesn't need to continue
that's
different than saying this is our salaries and benefits and
you were saying
cutting people so I think what I'm trying to get at is if
there's a way
that we could get at this earlier so that we could identify
areas and help to
provide priorities before it's here's the base budget and
here's the
supplemental packages you guys pick which supplemental
packages you want to
do and I don't know I mean it's a little bit of a paradigm
shift but it's a
it's a engagement earlier in the process instead of just
assuming everything
that we did last year continues to make sense and we're
going to increase all
those expenses three percent and then we're going to go
decide what
supplemental things we do let me just add one other
clarification in that
process though is the supplemental packages are considered
each director is
coming in and making a presentation to George about their
entire budget their
entire operation what things are working what things are
not working what things
need to be changed how they need to be amended so it's
through that process and
through the supplemental packages that you see that we come
back with these
recommendations and look at all those things that's intent
is not to say we're
just going to continue to do everything that we've always
done and ever change
it yeah and I just want to clarify what I'm trying to say
okay what I'm trying
to say is not that I want to second-guess our department
heads directors
ACM's or get down in the weeds and dig into your individual
does not exact
that's not at all what I'm saying because I think we have
fantastic people
I'm saying from a policy and direction standpoint if we don
't have opportunity
earlier in the game because maybe there's a priority that
this council
would say this is an absolute priority we've decided that
this has to happen
therefore maybe what other areas could we look to to shrink
if we have to wait
until August 6 to do that we don't have time it just feels
like all we're doing
this is cutting so you know that's all I'm just throwing
out if there's a way
I think that's a very good point because because while I
think that's happening in
the budget discussions at the departmental level council
has absolutely
no ability to even peer into that process so there could
even be a program
that the council has put forward in the last few years that
we may want to
review and say something else has taken a priority I'll
just give an example
even though I think it's a good program should continue the
neighborhood
empowerment grant $50,000 that's about we're in our third
year I think at this
point I mean that would be an example of a type of program
that the council may
say given new priorities maybe we'd want to kind of realign
and there's probably
hundreds of those sorts of things that were even council
initiated things to
begin with we never see below the surface we never see what
what those
things are to even be able to weigh into that you know the
the Republican primary
presidential thing that there's now what 50,000 candidates
in the pool the buzz
word they keep talking about now is zero based budgeting
which is a concept of
saying come come to the table and saying everything now has
to be justified you
don't assume that we're continuing on from last year's
level of service and
moving on but it gives you the opportunity to kind of
review in a more
robust way what are those programs and from the council
level get a chance to
now that would be a significantly larger longer process and
I agree with you we
don't need to get into the weeds on that but I think it
would be an interesting
discussion to figure out what are some of those programs
that maybe council
looks at and says these were designed to serve the citizens
and perhaps they're
not as efficiently used or perhaps they don't rise to the
level of priority any
longer and perhaps we want to substitute something else in
but the current system
you're right doesn't give us the opportunity to address
that so so maybe
this is part of your looking ahead to the future years
obviously it's probably
too late that paradigm shift I agree it's it would be
helpful
I can skip a few if you'd like me to yeah this kind of
address a question that
came up in terms of fund balances if rate if revenues are
greater than
expenditures where does the excess go to by fund and it
really goes into the fund
balance like in the general fund we're projecting that we
may have an excess in
1415 it goes into the fund balance or working capital
within each fund special
revenue funds the utility funds all of those so the
revenues and expenses
within each fund if there's a deficit or a positive it adds
or subtracts from that
fund balance within that specific fund councilmember Haw
kins yeah thank you just
quickly that fund balance is that a city policy or is that
state policy or
something the targets yeah targets don't go back it's
adopted by council and
basically we have targets for the general fund and the
utility funds is
mainly and it's a it's a policy adopted by the council and
does that fund
balance have anything to do with our credit rating at all
when we issue they
look very strongly at the general fund balance in in terms
of that when they
rate the utilities they look at their working capital
position but the rating
agencies like to see a minimum of 15% and like to see a
cushion above that for
the kind of occurrences that may be heading our way or
heading up through
Texas whenever you have some kind of emergency or some kind
of issue
sometimes it's several years until you get really reimb
ursed for those those
kind of non-expected occurrences they like to see a cushion
for they can be in
terms of fund balances appropriated in the current year by
a budget amendment
which we've done before or in future years by the use of
reserve sometimes
when George proposes the budget there'll be some one-time
items that'll say I
think we're going to take those out of the current year or
use fund balance and
just my caveat strongly recommend the use of reserves for
one-time expenditures
just to avoid structural deficits where you want reoccur
ring revenues and
expenditures to be balanced this table here is is the same
table as before the
mayor to ask a question if we don't take the assumption
that some of these
economic development agreements are rolling off the 380
agreements and we
make the assumption in the prior table that when they roll
off they just become
an additional source of revenues that we can use for
projects or supplemental
packages in the future so what I've taken here is I've just
kind of backed
these new revenues so to speak out there's a couple 380
agreements that are
rolling off and you see this last number here one of the
sales tax agreements
rolls off in 1920 so if you were to take these and say we
don't want them to roll
in to revenues we want them to roll into like a specific
fund or something that
gives you an idea of over the five-year period what would
be available for
economic development incentives thank you that's very very
helpful just to see
number one what that amount is each forecasted year of
incentives that are
rolling off thank you that's good thank you in terms of
budget development we've
had quite a few discussions but when we talked about
requested supplemental
packages I put this together about a week or week and a
half ago I think the
numbers grown a little bit but we had about 10.3 million in
request we also
have baseline adjustment requests and really what those are
I talked about all
the non salary accounts are left at the same dollar amount
but if you have an
increase in a contract for example we pay a proportion of
the appraisal
district's budget well if that goes up during the year we
have to request that
as a baseline adjustment or our audit services cost goes up
those kind of
things that's considered a baseline adjustment or if you
simply need more
for fuel or supplies because of inflationary pressures
those are kind of
smaller adjustments and they're considered baseline
adjustments some of
the other priorities that were listed increased funding for
straight street
maintenance and cash funding for vehicle replacements and
facility
improvements and continued emphasis on the efficiency and
service improvement
efforts I did want to mention we started this the prior
fiscal year and have it
out a dedicated budget page on the website we've got a
little video out
there you can submit budget ideas submission form and then
we post all of
the information on that this presentation and all the
presentations
proposed budget everything is posted on that one site that
has a link to the
webpage and we also when we roll that out do a social media
push so folks are
aware of that in terms of the comparisons I said we kind of
compare
Denton to other Metroplex communities this just looks at
our general fund
sales tax per capita where we run in terms of dollars per
resident compared
to some others now there are a little bit if you look at
the bottom a little
bit different rates some cities have one cent that goes to
the general fund
others are a little bit higher we have a cent and a half
and this compares
basically property values per capita where does Denton fall
with with
mainly the rest of the Metroplex and some other cities
outside the
Metroplex that have electric had a question thank you
Chuck can you just refresh my memory where does all the
sales tax go I know
portion of majority goes to the state or something but just
yeah that all down
the total sales tax rate is eight and a quarter one and a
half cent goes to the
city's general fund half cent goes to DCTA and the
remainder goes to the state
six and a quarter percent goes to the state thank you don't
we have a half
cent that goes to reduce property taxes that's within the
general fund okay is
in the general fund so there's a one cent that's kind of a
general rate that
all cities have and we have a half cent dedicated to reduce
property taxes that
goes within the general fund I want to highlight the street
improvement fund as
this has been a real priority and I know this table is a
little bit busy but I
want to kind of go back to where we were a few years ago
you can see 1112 about
six point one million in the street improvement fund and
then in 1213 we
began adding bond funded expenditures so for 1516 what we
're projecting and this
is simply just the growth in franchise fees as well as the
growth and bond sale
savings about ten point almost 11 million for the street
improvement fund
and then we have about six million in bond funded
expenditures the plan say
for total expenditures of about almost 17 million and you
can see the growth
that has occurred and then these projections going forward
are simply that
same growth in franchise fees and bond sale savings the the
study on our street
condition is being updated but if you look at the study in
2009 just to kind
of maintain our level at that point we were at needed a
little over ten million
dollars I've inflated that at about three percent a year
and we kind of meet
that target in 1516 at about twelve point five about twelve
point six million
and that's taking sixty percent of what is in the street
maintenance fund to say
that that's directly going to OCI related spending and OCI
is just overall
conditions index really just the condition of your roadway
system and the
funding underway for the growth and street maintenance all
the growth and
franchise fees are dedicated the general obligation bond
funding and the Council's
can going to consider some proposed street impact fees that
don't really add
to street maintenance directly but help the street network
for expansion and new
roadways kind of take some of the pressure off of issuing
debt for those
type of projects is this fund is called the street
maintenance what is this fun
called Street Improvement Fund so that's why the geo bond
proceeds are in there
it's not just the proceeds still stay in the capital
project fund I'm just
showing these proceeds these are the amounts where we're
selling on an annual
basis for street maintenance street reconstruction from the
2012 and 2014
bond programs I guess where I'm getting a little confused
is because when you say
street maintenance street reconstruct the bonds can only be
used for street
reconstruction or new construction they cannot be used for
maintenance is that
correct correct okay and so a couple things first is I
think you referenced
it maybe Brian referenced it in his presentation are we
going to have a
dedicated work session on the topic of street funding as
part of this budget
process in terms of additional looking at additional
possibilities and options
and well and ways to actually I've got the last couple of
years of presentations
where we've talked about that but we've had some in terms
of additional funding
options for street maintenance funding where we've looked
at that and some of
those we're looking at the fee which the council's
discussed another option is to
simply take part of that additional funding that's
available in the general
fund and move that over and that's really what occurred
last year yeah I
think what I think what some of us have been asking for is
to say because again
it's where we're putting our benchmark in that 12.59 and O
CI related spending is
to keep things at the current OCI or what was already
deemed poor quality of
CI rating so we we met that and I think what we some of us
have asked for us to
say what's the target what do we need to be at and how much
is the spending
supposed to we how much are we supposed to spend in order
to get to that on an
annual basis and then what it's gonna what is it gonna take
to get us there in
other words to develop a 10 15 20 year plan to say we've
fixed the problem and
this is our kind of suggested revenue stream going forward
because if you
remember we had the discussion on the street user fees that
there wasn't a lot
of interest to that was almost seen as a last resort and at
that time I think the
discussion was how do we how do we come up with a plan so I
guess I'd encourage
us to have that discussion as part of this so that if we
need to make some
budgetary changes this go around we need to start that
process and when we talked
about the 10 million kind of being maintaining the level
and I think that
was at 63 in the study to get up to 69 and they were
talking about 13 to 15
million a year so I've kind of inflated that number and
that's about 17 and a
half million is what we should be spending there in terms
of increasing it
but we can have a work session based on what George wants
to discuss exactly
where do we want to get to and how do we how do we plan on
funding that I think
that would be helpful because I mean even as you look at
looking out in the out years
we're still depending on six million of that as being bond
funded and so to be
able to understand is there a more sustainable option
moving forward
knowing that we're going to need a certain amount each year
anyways that
would be helpful thank you well and I'll reiterate we're
basing a lot of
budgetary decisions for this issue on OCI and I would like
to include it in
that work session just have a to get re familiarize us with
what that is
because we're relying on that technology to make these huge
expenditures in these
decisions and I just want to make sure that I'm comfortable
using that as sort
of the foundation of our decision-making and to be reacqu
ainted with the science
of it and there is an updated study which is going on right
and hopefully be
done end of this fiscal year presented to the council - I'm
just gonna real
quickly go through the other funds other than the general
fund at the electric
utility fund again dealing with the debt payoff and
replacement of
infrastructure their five-year CIP of about 403 million and
this is the second
year of energy management operations what they proposed is
a base rate
increase of 4.5 percent which equates to a total increase
of about 2.9 percent
for an average residential customer but I want to caveat
this that the electric
utility is having discussions with the public utility board
about lowering the
ECA rate kind of the rate for cost of power so this 2.9
percent increase could
go down or be negated by a change in the ECA rate so just
to let you know that
that's coming forward the water utility one of the issues
they're really dealing
with even before this year is a continued decline in
average water sales
per capita which conservation is very good in terms of use
of the resource in
terms of raising revenue for that water utility it there
are some challenges
their focus is on infrastructure replacement needed
expansion and and
several utility relocations for state highway projects
their five-year CIP is
about 121 million with about 44 million revenue or cash
funded they're
continuing to have ongoing costs for maintenance and
cleaning related to
zebra mussels and they proposed a rate increase of 5% 15 16
the wastewater
utility fund their biggest upcoming challenge is some new
requirements for
phosphorus limits that will be in in impacting their cost C
IP of about 59
million with about 19 million revenue funded their proposed
rate increases 2%
and solid waste I'm not going to list all the projects but
there's some of the
major projects that they're involved with their CIP numbers
and their rate
increases a little bit different based on what type of
customer you are for
residential standard carts and large carts 2.2 1.9 percent
for commercial 4%
for commercial dumpsters and about a percent and a half for
commercial roll
off customers could you go back once line
regarding the new TCEQ phosphorus limits is is our only
solution at the
wastewater treatment plant or is there anything that we can
do to limit the
amount of phosphorus that's going into that I'm trying to
find another way to
to avoid the impact the most cost-effective is to treat it
at the
plant phosphorus is one of those discharges across the
system it's very
common and very widespread and so to put control technology
on all of our
industrial multifamily customers is beyond the scope of
what we could deal
with thank you
I want to mention the Tourist and Convention Fund I've got
the actual
revenues and ending fund balance we had a hotel occupancy
Tax Committee
meeting today we've got estimated revenues of a little
under 2.1 million
and the budget was 1.8 prior to a budget amendment that the
City Council is going
to consider today and the committee will provide budget
recommendations for the
upcoming year in this fund the debt service fund I've
already mentioned what
I'm estimating for the increase in the debt service portion
of the tax rate
and then the recommended capital program will come forward
with the recommended
budget and a good majority of the general capital plan will
be based on
the the plan six-year issuance from the 2014 bond election
can you explain a
little bit more about this fun I don't know if I understand
debt service fund
all the way so it's really a requirement when we issue tax
supported debt we
have to segregate that portion of the property tax rate
that's pledged to pay
off the bonds and certificates of obligation so when we
adopt a tax rate
I talk about a total tax rate but there's a debt service
portion and a
maintenance and operation that goes to the general fund the
debt service
portion under our covenants when we issue this debt has to
go into a separate
fund and it's really a matching of those revenues and the
expenditures necessary
for the upcoming year in debt service now we also have into
that fund it's
larger than just those tax revenues for tax supported debt
that's paid by the
utilities we also pay that debt service out of this fund
and all the utilities
make a contribution to that fund to pay their portion of
the debt service so
it's kind of matching of tax revenues necessary to pay off
tax supported debt
and the money that goes into those funds is that just to
pay the interest or is
that to actually start paying down that's principal and
interest that's due
each year the majority of it is actually for principal and
this is just another
comparison of one of the items we hear about is is total
debt this is just the
general governmental debt of Denton compared to other
entities and we get
this out of everybody's annual financial report so you can
see our total general
governmental debt this backs out debt of the utilities is
is is relatively low
this is a comparison we do every year
lots of questions any questions Chuck thank you very much
very comprehensive
I appreciate all good information thank you very much thank
you mr. city manager
thank you I think that concludes our open session portion
of this council
work session so I will convene the closed session now we
will not go into
closed session we'll convene it at 4 16 p.m. on June the 16
th 2015 we will
consider the following items consultation with attorneys
under Texas
government code section five five one point oh seven one
deliberations regarding
good evening want to welcome everybody here to this Denton
City Council
meeting on June the 16th 2015 it is now 642 if you would
stand with me as we
pledge allegiance to the US and Texas flag
states of America and to the Republic for which it stands
one nation under God
indivisible with liberty and justice for all
good evening got a couple of proclamations tonight the
first one is
the leap team appreciation day come on down Brian Langley
if you would like to
you have some people you want to bring down here with you
thank you mayor my
name is Brian Langley I'm an assistant city manager here
with the city it's my
pleasure to take a moment to welcome the lead participants
down here if you could
all come down to the front please they're hiding in the
back way back up
there the leap program is a program we created for the city
back in 2014 it was
a program designed to do two things the first was to
develop our very talented
employees to add their to their management and professional
competencies
and so they received about a hundred and four hours of
classroom training from UNT
and we also had them focus on two particular projects that
they were going
to focus on for the city one of those is the right-of-way
management project how
to improve that and the other one was focusing on a
performance management and
success in succession management programs in the city they
did just an
outstanding job for us and and they exceeded all of our
expectations and I
want to take a moment to just recognize them so I'm gonna
ask them to introduce
themselves and to tell us where department Megan's youth
and I'm with the
fire department Lansing Bentley I'm the manager with
community improvement
services division hi Nureen house right and with
engineering services Mary
Dickinson I'm with the electric department Kevin and Mullen
and I'm with
the finance department vernell Dooley I'm a sergeant with
the police department
I'm Jim Mays with the Parks and Recreation Department and I
'm Rodney
Patterson I'm the building official for the city of Denton
all right thank you
very much again these folks just worked extremely hard over
the last 18 months
or so on these two particular projects and working through
all this classroom
training again I just want to say thank you very much for
all of your efforts
well I think this is a prime example of how city staff
really works hard to make
sure that they continue to try to find ways to create effic
iencies in the
workflow and also to help the citizens so I really do
appreciate every one of
your participation and I'm going to read all nine proclam
ations no I'm kidding
there's a proclamation for each one of you and and I will
read the first one
and and then hand out the rest proclamation by for the
mayor of the
city of Denton whereas the city of Denton partnered with
the University of
North Texas to launch its first leadership excellent and
enhancement
program leap in January of 2014 which was which was
designed to provide a
formal program for developing leadership and management
competencies and
employees and to provide a project task group to examine
specific issues facing
the city and consider alternative and innovative ways to
solve challenges and
whereas the program required approximately an 18 18 month
commitment
from the participants and whereas participants received
approximately a
hundred and four hours of training covering 13 different
competencies and
this is above and beyond their normal job duties and
whereas the lead
participants for 2014 and 2015 split into two teams to work
on separate
projects that benefit the city the first project focused on
right-of-way
maintenance in order to further improve Denton as a
destination for residents
business owners developers and visitors the second project
focused on improving
performance management and succession planning in the
organization and
whereas on June 9th 2015 the lead participants presented
their final
recommendations for their projects and whereas the city of
Denton has been
extremely fortunate in having enjoyed the dedication and
outstanding work of
the lead participants and wishes to recognize the
accomplishments of the
participants and whereas the following individuals as a
members of leap have
applied his or her numerous talents and skills toward the
advancement of the
city and has earned the full respect of his or her fellow
employees and City
Council members Lansing Bentley community improvement
services
Ethan Cox customer service I feel like I should have y'all
raise your hand as I
call out your name I'm sorry where was other Mary Dickinson
electric Brunel
Dooley police Noreen house right engineering and real
estate Jim Mays
parks and recreation Kevin and Mullen finance Rodney Patter
son planning and
development and Megan shoot is fire now therefore I Chris
Watts mayor of the
city of Denton Texas do hereby proclaim June the 16th 2015
as leap appreciation
day in the city of Denton and would encourage everyone to
show their
appreciation to the lead participants and the work they
have done to give back
to the city of Denton let's all give them a round of
applause
everyone smile say money or budget thank you all very much
and thank you for your
continued work with the city really appreciate it it's a
wonderful help
thank you
Kiwanis day who's for Kiwanis come on down who's got a pro
clamation who's the
ringleader of this group okay just introduce yourself and
your the people
who are down with you and tell us a little bit about Kiwan
is day my name my
name is Robin Meyer and I am the lieutenant governor for
division 8 in
the Texas Oklahoma district of Kiwanis and I'm also a
member of the Denton noon
Kiwanis Club Kiwanis is a glow I international organization
with our
mission being to improve the cut the world one child in one
community at a
time we do service project projects like I said globally as
well as locally our
first worldwide service project was eliminating iodine
deficiency worldwide
which we did accomplish in the 1990s our current worldwide
service project is
eliminating eliminating neonatal tetanus and they just
recently announced that we
have eliminated that in India and we partner with UNICEF on
that project there
are your local clubs have their individual service projects
which you
will hear about in the proclamation and we also sponsor
kids groups in the
elementary level the high school level college level as
well as adults with
disabilities they are all part of the Kiwanis family pass
the mic down let
everybody introduce themselves and tell us which club you
belong to okay I'm
Jan Hillman and I'm president of the Denton noon Kiwanis we
're the oldest
Kiwanis Club here we're 90 years old I'm David Piccolo I'm
the vice president of
the new club I'm Barbara Lurig and I am the president-elect
of the ropes and
ranch club I'm Carol Rauhauser and I'm the president of the
ropes and ranch
club and I'm Kathy lambs and I'm a member of the ropes and
ranch club I'm
Brenda Jones and I'm also a member of the ropes and ranch
club I'm Michael
lambs I'm member of the ropes and ranch club past
lieutenant governor of the new
division 8 dr. Bill Rauhauser member of the ropes and ranch
club last year I was
governor of Texas Oklahoma we had 228 clubs Dave Everly a
member of the ropes
and ranch Guana's club I'm a past president I'm John Ryan I
'm co-vice
president of the didn't breakfast Kiwanis Terrell King I'm
a 52 year
member of breakfast club I'm Mike Oglesby a member of the
Denton breakfast
club salty Rochelle past president of the Denton noon club
and it's only
appropriate that our mayor stands up for with his who is
also a Kwanian
absolutely I'm a member of the noon Kiwanis now they
probably wonder if I
am because it's so difficult sometime to make the lunches
but I tell you what
what we have some great service organizations in this town
and Kwan is
is one of them all the clubs I really appreciate the time
and dedication and
not just your time but your resources as well to really
help out the citizens of
Denton and also those worldwide so thank you very much it's
my honor to read this
proclamation proclamation by the mayor of the city of Dent
on greetings whereas
Kiwanis in international was founded in 1915 and today has
more than 300,000
members in 8,600 clubs in 92 countries is worldwide and
whereas Kiwanis is
celebrating its 100th anniversary at their international
convention and
whereas the fifth object of Kiwanis is to provide through
Kiwanis clubs a
practical means to form enduring friendships to render alt
ruistic
service and to build better communities and whereas the
Denton Kiwanis club was
formed in 1920 1921 and today has a hundred and twenty
three members who host
the fourth of July fireworks show sponsor Kiwanis clubs
children's clinic
and fundraise with several events including the taste of
North Texas and
whereas the Denton breakfast Kiwanis was formed in 1960 and
today has 46 members
whose fundraise who fundraise with several events including
the turkey roll
bicycle rally which brings close to 1,000 riders to Denton
each fall and
whereas the Kiwanis club of Robeson ranch was formed in
2007 and today has
60 members who fund fundraise with several events including
an October
magic show and whereas the Denton Kiwanis club sponsors
youth organizations at
Aubrey High School and Betty Myers Middle School and
whereas the Denton
breakfast Kiwanis sponsors youth organizations at Denton
Ryan Geyer and
Liberty Christian High Schools Harpool Liberty Christian
and Immaculate
Conception Middle Schools and UNT and whereas the Kiwanis
club of Robeson
ranch spot sponsors a oh Acteon how do you say that action
oh okay okay sorry
action club something anyway action club at the Denton
States yes it's not that
I'm having trouble I just need to get more literate at the
Denton State
supported living center and a youth organization that let
me read that again
the Kiwanis club of Robeson ranch sponsors an action club
at the Denton
State supported living center and a youth organization at E
vers Park
Elementary now therefore I Chris Watts mayor of the city of
Denton Texas do
hereby declare and proclaim June 25th through June 28th as
Kiwanis days in the
city of Denton and urge all citizens to celebrate the Kiwan
is on their 100th
anniversary
thank you all very much for what you do for our community
and I just have to
put in a plug 4th of July fireworks at an Apogee Stadium so
look forward to
everybody been out there what a what a great show that is
so thank you all very
much thank you you bet
okay I have a water environment Association of Texas Award
and PS are
you going to be telling us what this is about
I'm PS Aurora I'm assistant director over wastewater first
I'm going to have
everybody introduce themselves and we will tell you a
little bit about the
award okay la right beneficial reuse manager were
responsible for the
composting operation and a float reuse program rusty Will
ard and the water
reclamation plan superintendent mark Ron J I'm the water
reclamation
maintenance manager Heather goings I'm the industrial pret
reatment program
manager Darrell Baker field service supervisor for the
beneficial reuse
Jerry Lilly operations manager Kenneth Moore electrical
electronic foreman for
the city water reclamation thank you there and council
members this is really
a pleasure you know last year if you recall the city's
wastewater collection
system got the award Sydney Allison award from Water
Environment Association
of Texas which is wheat that was for the asset management
program that we have
here is one of the best in the city and it can compete with
the best in the
country this year we got the award for the plant of the
year for the concrete
plant for plants which are over 15 million gallons per day
treatment
capacity so it tells you we are in good company we got
cities like Dallas and
Fort Worth and Houston and all the big ones out there so we
are very very happy
and delighted to receive this award there are a couple of
items that made
the plant to stand out I'll very briefly go through some of
those the plant uses
about the lowest amount of electricity or power to treat
per million gallon of
wastewater so it makes it a very green plant in that regard
the Texas
Commission on environmental quality and EPA you know they
have discharge permit
requirements so in the affluent you cannot have more than
certain amount of
a particular parameter I'm happy to tell you that all of
the parameters that we
are allowed to discharge and we have regulated on we were
lower by 82 to 97
percent compared to what is allowed by the regulation and
that is all the
hard work of these guys here what that tells you is that
the quality of
affluent going into the pecan Creek and then on down to the
Lake Louisville is a
very high quality and last but not the least the compost
operation that makes
us a very green plant here we take all of the sludge we don
't put that in the
landfill we take all that sludge we also take all of your
yard waste all of the
lumber that comes which is usable lumber all of that is di
verted from the
landfill it is mixed in with the sludge to make compost
that we sell and
hopefully you come and buy it from us we make a lot of good
product there if you
were to stack one year's worth of sludge and all of the
yard waste and all the
lumber on a football field it'll be 58 feet tall so we take
all that and we make
compost with it and with that I do want to recognize and
thank everybody who is
here these guys and the plant staff they work 24 hours a
day the plant is working
seven days a week 365 days a year 366 on a leap year we
thank you very much
yeah I'll go ahead and read the award it's the Water
Environment Association
of Texas municipal wastewater treatment plan of the year
award category 3
presented to City of Denton pecan Creek wastewater
treatment plant for
consistent outstanding performance of daily activities
beyond the normal call
of duty April 16 2015 thank you very much thank you very
much appreciate it
and I will tell you it's departments like this I mean you
know they do their
job day in and day out and it's probably one of the most
important jobs simply
because he you notice that he said the affluent goes into
pecan Creek and then
flows down to Lake Lewisville I believe it was and that's
where we get some of
our drinking water so I will tell you we've got such great
staff at the city
who really promote the health and safety of our citizens
and I really want to
thank you guys for what you do and for bringing home this
award thank you very
much
the Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure
including a code of
conduct which applies to citizens as well as council
members these rules were
enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decor
um here is a brief
review of the rules that apply to citizens reports citizens
will have four
minutes to give a report there will be an electronic beep
when time has expired
if the remarks are not concluded by that time the citizen
will be asked to stop
speaking if the citizen does not cease and a second request
is made the mayor
will request to have the citizen removed from the council
chambers citizens are
asked to not approach the dais if a citizen has papers or
other materials to
hand out to the council please let the city secretary know
and she will have a
staff member distribute the materials to the council the
attorney general has
ruled that council members may listen to citizens speak and
may ask questions of
citizens for clarification of the issue council members
will not engage citizens
in discussion of a topic because to do so could potentially
be a violation of
the open meetings act when speaking to the council citizens
are to direct all
remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to
any individual member
please refrain from making abusive personal impertinent
profane or
slanderous remarks anyone who violates this rule will
immediately be removed
from the council chambers citizens adherence to these rules
will help make
an effective presentation and will preserve the order and
decorum of our
proceedings copies of the rules of procedure are available
from the city
secretary
BA which is citizen reports three is Willie Hutzpah
regarding Southwest Denton
issues mr. Hussle if you come forward just state your name
and address well
your time will begin my name is Willie Hutz with I live at
623 Newton mayor and
council members I'm here to talk about the same issue I
said I would talk about
over several weeks I was treated very unfairly in the in
trying to establish
the business that I now have the only way I could get some
relief from the
city personnel in how they treated me was to hire an
attorney and after
several thousand dollars got some reprieve from that I'm
over the next
four months I would admit estimate having four minutes at a
time to talk
about this I'm going to bring my case to you normally you
will follow your
administrative advice and just sit there nod and count the
minutes when I
can finish and you can go on what you're doing so I'm
really talking to the
public I'm bringing my case to the public for a public
opinion on what
happened and I will be given the facts as to what happened
in me trying to open
my business and what I was told it's one thing to just tell
me what the rules are
and then I'll try to abide by them but when you change the
rules for me and not
for a certain lawn person in town then I don't know what to
do and if you lie to
me don't lie to me just tell me the truth so that's what I
'm going to bring
before you before I get into that though with this little
time that I have I want
to say to you thank goodness for your the sheriff the city
chief the fire chief
rather and the chief of police here what's happening in McK
inney will be
averted here because we are getting together and talking
unlike the city
leaders not city leaders the paid city administrators who
don't want come out
to anything that that we are having of color I've been
doing this for years
your city leaders do not come out to African-American
activities that are
just of a nature of getting together and celebrating no
matter what cause they
never show up because again the city the fire person the
chief of police the fire
chief chief police and the sheriff we will avert the McKin
ney situation
because we're putting together a group of people that
should something happen
we're talking to each other that should have come from your
this administration
this paid administrative staff but it didn't never have
they come to anything
and never do they ever show up to anything that we have
what kind of city
personnel leader is that well that's to be seen I will talk
about that later so
what happened in my business is I was told that I need to
get certain
ordinances done one of the main things is I said I wanted a
resale store to
sell things that are used that's what I've said from the
very beginning I
wrote it down resale somehow this city attorney here said
that no you didn't do
that and you should have new stuff in that building well
that started it now
I've been at a lot of energy and money to open my business
the resale store at
the corner of Bonnebury and Oak and now I was told I must
leave until I got an
attorney which cost me a lot of money as I said before the
next meeting I come to
I'm going to start laying out that and I have emails and I
have copies of
agreements and everything that I'm going to show because
the city administration
won't listen to me they said we've got everything going for
us we have the
attorney and we're using your taxpayer dollars to take care
of that you can't
do anything you know I couldn't till I got this real smart
attorney cost me a
lot of money but he's smart and you'll be hearing from him
again thank you
agenda item number four is the consent agenda if council
member Hawkins consent
agenda a through J I believe we're pulling K and L okay
thank you councilmember
rodent I second that we have a motion and a second for the
consent agenda item
for the consent agenda item excuse me save K and L which
have been pulled and
will be heard as in items for individual consideration let
's vote on the board
please
consent agenda item passes unanimously say for K and L we
will now take up the
pool to consent agenda items item 4k which is considered
option of ordinance
of the city of Denton authorizing the approval of a
professional legal
services agreement buying between Terry Morgan and Associ
ates PC in the city of
Denton providing for expenditures of funds and providing
for an effective date
Mary would you desire to take up item L along with item K
and I could explain
them both sure if we need to vote on those individually or
I assume that if
one is going to vote for one they'll vote for both but that
might not be true
but I'll be glad to explain them at the same time okay let
's explain them the
same then we'll take separate votes I'll go ahead and call
item 4l consider
adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton authorizing
the approval of a
professional legal service agreement by between Terry
Morgan and Associates
Mary and counsel these items are ordinances authorizing the
approval of
professional legal services agreement by between the city
of Denton and Terry
Morgan and Associates that is true as to both items K and
item L the first item
is an item applying to transactional work adding an
additional $100,000 to
mr. Morgan's contract to work on various transactional
issues relating to our
gas well ordinance amendments item L relates to an
amendment to the
professional legal services agreement between the city of
Denton and mr.
Morgan for additional funds related to litigation matters
and so I'll be glad
to stand for questions or provide any additional detail at
the council's
discretion before we take questions I have a card to speak
so I'd like to ask
as it will is it Weston but I'm sorry I'm sorry mr. Witten
apologize for that
if you'll come down and state your name and address your
time will begin
my name is Will Wooten my address is 1400 more and drive
Denton Texas on this
agenda item I would like you to table this agenda item and
for a more public
hearing for this lawyer what you're gonna vote on tonight
is a reflection of
his work and I think we need more time as a public to
really understand if this
guy really need deserves another contract for another year
for $100,000
so I would like you to table tonight's vote on this so we
can have a public
hearing thank you thank you councilmember road I just have
a question of the
attorney and the reason for the distinction in the two
ordinances is to
separate out what these services are for correct correct
one is for
transactional work and the other is the litigation work and
so it's important I
think publicly it's been spun in the media on several
occasions that the city
of Denton has spent a million dollars or more fighting the
fighting for the
frac ban in court and at least according to how we've if I
'm understanding this
correctly the significant amount of that one million
dollars has been over the
course of a couple years just trying to figure out how to
properly regulate
oil and gas in the city of Denton is that correct not
necessarily relating to
the ban councilman that is correct I've run the numbers
over the course of four
years so these are cumulative numbers for the amount of
expenditures over four
years and if you add the litigation expenses and the
transactional expenses
around the numbers this morning because I assume the
council might ask this
question that number is nine hundred and thirty thousand
dollars 951 and 27 cents
and the lion's share of that is the transactional work now
all of this is
not related to Terry Morgan there have been consulting
experts and some other
individuals who have worked on these cases so it's not all
to this particular
firm to date we have spent two hundred and twenty one
thousand five hundred and
seventy eight dollars and eighty four cents on the
litigation matters thank you
for clarifying councilmember Johnson thank you mayor yeah I
had asked that
these be pulled because I thought it would be I don't have
a question if
you're waiting there thinking I'm gonna ask you a question
thank you the I asked
that these be pulled because I think it's important that we
understand that
in the I think it's important the public understand the
legal fees and what
they've been spent on thus far because it looks like seven
hundred thousand
dollars roughly working on the ordinance ordinances and up
to this
point and about three rough little less than three hundred
thousand for the
preparing for these lawsuits which we really haven't done
anything on yet it's
the preparation work so I think it's important that people
understand the
distinction between the two knowing that the work for the
ordinance the roughly
seven hundred thousand dollars or what it would be if this
is approved
essentially was negated by HB 40 meaning much of that work
we're not going to be
able to use that which would not be Terry Morgan's fault or
our fault we've
all been working diligently to get to an ordinance that we
could enforce so I
just think it's important that I mean we hire the best
legal counsel that we can
and we believe we're receiving value for the service and
unfortunately there's
been a lot of money spent up to this point that we're not
going to be able to
necessarily use but also to understand that depending upon
what happens with
these lawsuits we're just getting started on the defense
part of it so I
don't know that another hundred thousand is going to do it
and I think it's just
important for the citizens to understand the magnitude of
what we're facing in
terms of legal fees thank you mayor pro tem Gregory thank
you mayor
madam attorney you talk in your legal language so so help
me out you're
dividing these fees into transactional fees and litigation
fees litigation fees
means preparing for or defending lawsuits or bringing
lawsuits against
someone is that correct yes or and in that respect there
have been three
lawsuits okay we have defended and then would you explain
what transactional
means so that I can understand yes sir the transactional
work relates to the
office work that we have done the research the writing with
regard to these
ordinances and also the negotiations that we have been in
with Eagle Ridge
and that's essentially the office practice work that we
have done is it is
related to the gas well issues thank you very much
councilmember Riggs I just wanted to also add that in our
city in our budget we
spend over a million dollars a year just on our on our
legal team on our lawyers
that we have in-house I just wanted to make that known as
well and the Terry
Morgan the 700,000 is that for also Eagle Ridge does that
all add up for him for
the work that he did in Eagle Ridge or is this just for
this these lawsuits
the what I'm referring to is transactional work includes
the
negotiations with Eagle Ridge and the work that we have
done on the ordinances
today and again this is not all Terry Morgan we've worked
with other law firms
as well and consulting experts so I have a question are we
voting to pay him are
we voting to renew a contract for continued work we are
voting you would
be voting to amend his contract for this additional sum of
money okay
councilmember Johnson so do we need to vote them on them
individually separately
I would prefer that just simply because they were pulled as
items for
individual consideration thank you I'd like to make a
motion to move approval
for item 4k councilmember Oden I second that we have a
motion to second for
agenda item 4k let's vote on the board
motion carries 6-1 councilmember Gregory thank you mayor I
move approval of 4l
councilmember sorry mayor pro tem we get used to that
councilmember rodin I second that we have a motion and a
second for agenda
item 4l let's vote on the board please
well emotion carries 6-1 moving on to agenda item 5 agenda
item 5a is
considered option of ordinance of the city of Denton on a
second reading
confirming and approving a boundary adjustment agreement
with the city of
Corinth Texas adjusting a mutual boundary of the city is
not exceeding
1000 feet thank you mayor and city council members the item
before you
tonight is an ordinance adopting a boundary adjusted
adjustment agreement
between the city of Denton and the city of Corinth that
would bring an
additional 0.29 acres into the city of Denton the property
is
located and generally speaking right off of I 35 near State
School Road more
specifically it is located on the north side of Winston
Drive approximately 139
feet east of the corner of Waterford Way and when Winston
Drive it is
currently zoned as a plan development to give you a little
bit of background on
in October of 2014 the city account the City Council
approved a detailed plan
for 1.37 acres and they're currently undergoing a final
replat from one lot
to nine lots with the purpose and is to allow the developer
to create a single
family residential development the request from the
developer is that you
approve a boundary adjustment agreement that essentially
adjusts a mutual
boundary between the city of Denton and the city of Corinth
and you heard the
ordinance for the first reading on May 5th and you're
hearing it for the second
reading and consideration of adoption today here's a visual
representation of
the additional acreage that we would be bringing inside of
our city limits the
next steps for this developer that if approved they would
amend the plan
development to extend the boundary to include the new area
and proceed with a
final replat with that I'll stand for any questions
customer Hawkins thank you mayor Amy can you just go back
to that map where it
shows that red line and just explain that which the
straight line right above
the red line is the existing city limit line today we would
be I apologize we
would be adjusting that to the new red line and encompass
ing that that area in
between of point two nine acres okay thank you and it's
essentially so that
the boundary is not cutting through those nine lots right
in the in that
case the homeowners would be in two different taxing
jurisdictions thank you
any other questions for staff count mayor pro tem Gregory
thank you mayor
I approve move approval of 5a councilmember Hawkins I
second we have a
motion to second for agenda item 5a let's vote please
motion carries 7-0 agenda item 5b consider adoption of an
ordinance of the
City Council of the City of Denton Texas providing for
authorizing and approving
the execution by the city manager of a purchase power
agreement for solar
generated electrical energy I'm sorry Mike Grimm is our
executive manager and
municipal electric and he will present this item for your
consideration thank
you Mike mayor members of the council and and citizens of
Denton today I'm
excited to talk to you about a solar power purchase
agreement opportunity
that comes before the council the two items today is the
opportunity itself
and then the staff recommendation we had issued a solar RFP
request for proposal
on January 29th 2015 we had asked nine respondents to
provide to us solar
opportunities between the sizes of 10 to 50 megawatts as a
result of the
responses that we received Bluebell solar who's a subsidi
ary of next era
capital holdings who also is associated with us on a wind
farm was evaluated the
top respondent if the council were to approve this request
by staff the solar
would increase the City of Denton's renewable portfolio
from 41% to 46%
without being a driver for rate increase the output would
provide energy that
would be approximate to 4582 homes having solar installed
on on their
rooftops the commercial operation date will be on or before
December 31st 2018
with the addition of the solar this is what our projected
portfolio for power
mix looks like for the City of Denton as you can see we
already have our 40% wind
energy we would add this solar the 5% we take methane gas
from our landfill that
gives us a total of 56% natural gas 23% and with the
additional 5% it
lessens our usage of coal by 5% the solar PPA opportunity
is located in
Sterling County Texas which is just west of San Angelo
Texas and you can see here
in the on the map this is Austin and there's Denton and
then here's the area
in Sterling County and this being a good region for the
generation of solar
energy the staff recommends that the City Council authorize
the city manager
to execute this long-term solar purchase power agreement
with Blue Bell Solar LLC
thank you mayor pro-tim Gregory thank you mr. Grimm thank
you for bringing
this to us I think you've been aware that it's been a long-
term goal of
council to be a leader in the state and the nation in the
use of renewable
energy for a while what was our ranking our ranking was was
number one that was
we had more renewable energy per capita and wind energy
than any other city in
the US and and some other Texas City has has beaten this
out right well the way
they've done that they've done that with a lot of what's
called a paper renewable
energy credits we're actually taking physical power and in
some they're
taking physical power and paper renewable energy credits we
're our
wind farm is in Munster Texas anyone drives out highway 82
west can can see
the wind farm and and all of the energy generated there
goes where goes to the
city just right here yes well thanks for that and let's let
's shoot for some
higher numbers any other questions for staff councilmember
Rodin I move
approval of agenda item B councilmember Johnson thank you
before a second I
just want to say in public what we what what we said in the
work sessions the
folks at DME kind of do what they do very quietly and don't
ask for a whole
lot of credit but I think we've got the best in the
business and they continue
to find unique ways to use less coal and use more renew
ables now wind Sun methane
gas from the landfill and it's just really awesome the
talent that we have
there and we should all feel fortunate to have our own
utility and a group as
talented as this so kudos to Phil and your whole team I
think this is
wonderful and I'll second thank you thank you thank you
share those
sentiments we have a motion in the second for agenda item 5
b let's vote
please
motion carries 7-0 great thank you appreciate it
agenda item 5c which is considered option of an ordinance
of the city of
Denton Texas approving economic development program grant
agreement
between the city of Denton and the board of directors of
tax increment
reinvestment zone number two of Denton thank you mayor miss
visit who is now
here in capacity as our director of economic development
will present this
item for your consideration thank you mayor and City
Council members it is my
distinct pleasure to be standing before you tonight to talk
to you about a
project that we know as project Ranger one this particular
prospect is someone
that we've been working with for seven or eight months now
at the very least
and we're very excited to see them coming to the city of
Denton I'm going
to before I go into the details of the economic development
grant agreement I'm
going to introduce a representative from the company but
before I do that I just
want to give you a quick overview of the the impact that
this particular project
has for the city of Denton this project is going to consist
of an approximately
130 million dollar capital investment in the city of Denton
and it's going to be
a project that is more than 800,000 square feet on the
ground when all is
said and done just to give you a little bit of perspective
and our largest
industrial business in Denton today is a little over 500,
000 square feet and
that's Peter built the target distribution center that
opened a couple
of years ago is about 400,000 so this will be more than
twice the size of that
project it is likely to be if not the largest one of the
largest economic
development projects in the state of Texas for this year
when you take a look
at it from the perspective of square footage on the ground
for a single end
user it has been fun project to work with I will say that
in addition to
having a representative from the company here tonight we
also have the project
manager from the engineering firm here tonight who we've
been working
diligently with to get all the engineering in place and
with that I'm
going to turn it over to Scott Cooper man he's representing
Ranger one tonight
and he's going to share with you some details about this
project and then I'll
go into more detail about the economic development grant
agreement
thanks Amy mr. mayor council members good evening I'm Scott
Cooper man I've
played several rows of roles on this project to date I've
been the
traditional site consultant on behalf of the end user but I
'm also acting in the
role of manager of the single-purpose entity that is
acquiring the the land
on behalf of the end user as well so I just want to give
you a very brief update
of where we stand and that summary of the investment of the
project to date I
think most of you know what's going to be acquired is a 77
acre tract along the
west side of Western Boulevard and as we said the end user
will ultimately
design construct and occupy the facility for the regional
distribution of consumer
products as Amy mentioned the construction and size of the
building is
going to be 832,000 square feet to start with there's an
additional about a
50,000 square foot fueling and maintenance facility for
their vehicle
fleet and there's also expansion area plan for about a
hundred thirty two
thousand additional square feet this has been a long
process our I went back and
looked at my notes our first visit to Denton after starting
the whole search
last August was September 25th of last year and we're
getting close to the
finish line the the due diligence is is pretty much
complete we're in the last
stages of title review the final plat approval which we
know which is
scheduled for tomorrow and the approval of the of the
incentives this evening
are really the two final hurdles that we need to cross
before we get to the
finish line and close on the property which we're
anticipating being before
July 1st potentially even sooner this is an outline of the
property as I said
earlier on the western side of Western Boulevard about a 77
acre tract I also
included an aerial view a similar facility this is an
actual facility owned
by the same end user entity and another another community
another part of the
country relatively similar overall site you could see a
large amount of paved
area due to the the truck and vehicular parking that's
required and the large
buildings that that would serve for the storage element as
well Amy had
mentioned about a hundred thirty million dollars of
investment I thought it'd be
helpful to break it down a little bit further for you
relative to the
structure the various components of site development the
acquisition of the land
all the equipment that goes into the building the the truck
and vehicular
fleet soft cost to get it designed and approved a total of
investment of
approximately a hundred thirty million and as you can see
job creation of
approximately a hundred sixty five new jobs average wage of
about twenty one
dollars an hour seven point two million in annual payroll
in addition to all
that in addition to the traditional economic benefit of
jobs and tax
creation this is an unusual project in that the end user is
going to invest
money in public infrastructure to get the roads and
utilities ready to
accommodate their building and we're going to do it out of
pocket initially
and obviously a portion of this this grant involves the
repayment of those
funds you can see here a summary of some of the major
components of that public
infrastructure well it's into the the paving of Western
Boulevard the the
water and sewer improvements which are considerable the
total hard cost of that
investments about five million dollars in addition to
another million
dollars of soft costs again relative to design permit
review and inspections and
I wanted to point out what that means in the way of
additional industrial land
that's now going to be served in a far more complete
fashion by utilities and
roads the area south of Jim Crystal as you can see outlined
in blue are the
areas that are going to become largely user ready because
they have you know
additional access and infrastructure improvements that's
about 218 acres and I
believe that the land owner is already in discussion with
more than one entity
because that land is now in the foreseeable future going to
become you
know fully utilizable in the near term in addition to that
north of Jim Crystal
we are extending the water line 16 inch water line about 36
00 linear feet
rendering about a hundred eighty three acres you know with
major water
extension which certainly is getting it a lot closer to
being a user ready status
as well so that's a brief summary glad to answer any
questions grateful for
your consideration your support and I want to reiterate
what a pleasure it's
been working with staff and everyone at the city on this
project today a couple
questions councilmember Rodin thank you mayor welcome to
Denton thank you for
coming here tonight and being a part of this conversation
as we consider this
request and thanks for your interest in investing in our
city along those lines
it's always helpful for us to understand what makes us
attractive what are the
assets of Denton so as you were kind of considering sites
you could have gone
anywhere in the country what was it about Denton that was
attractive to this
particular investment project it's never one thing it's it
's usually going to be a
mix and in this case it certainly was certainly the you
know that the
confluence of interstate access because it's a distribution
facility is just
about perfect the area here in North Texas allows us to
serve a much greater
region it's a multi-state region that this facility will be
servicing we like
the fact that there's other distribution facilities here
nobody in the site
selection business likes to go in and pioneer and be the
first one in a
community doing a particular type of function the fact that
there's you know
existing facilities here doing something similar and
thriving is a big deal for
us and gives us a lot of internal comfort we like this
particular piece of real
estate you know you think finding a land site is relatively
easy it's far more
complex when you really get into it finding a site that was
available in the
right configuration in the right spot with the right kind
of uses going on
around it was relatively difficult and we found one here
that we really liked
obviously the the labor pool and the analysis we've done we
think is very
favorable and we think we'll find success you know finding
a local workforce here
and we like the community you know part of this is analysis
there's a lot of
analysis and you know an investigation that goes on part of
is just a gut feel
that this is the right place to I hope that answers your
question thank you
very much councilmember Johnson thank you mayor
lots we want to thank you on a little bit of a different
front and that is you
know we've had distribution facilities built here in your
guys case you said
I'll go pay for the street for the road and the
infrastructure and all that
stuff and I just want you guys to pay me back and you know
that's what
partnership is I mean that so it really says a lot about
the way that you've
been working with our staff and what they you know what the
way the
relationship has been going but also you know for me it
gives me a good feeling
about who this company is and the type of citizen and
partner they're gonna be
we've had others that were built and this community is very
giving right so
there's a lot of involvement and United Way and a lot of
other you know
organizations the behavior from the beginning that we've
seen from you guys
is that of this is really going to be a great partner so I
just want to thank you
guys for jumping out there and offering because nobody has
an unlimited checkbook
but the fact that that you guys would make that commitment
which opens up a
lot of other land for us as a city to be able to bring in
more companies like
yours which is a very clean use by the way and and so I
just want to thank you
for kind of the spirit of which you guys have worked and we
've heard nothing but
great things about you guys from our staff as well so I
appreciate that I
appreciate the sentiment councilmember Hawkins thank you
mayor I too just
wanted to welcome you here and hearing you say that's a
hundred thirty million
dollar project project and you're still going on a gut feel
gives me hope as a
business person so and I love to hear that you're gonna be
you're interested
in having a local workforce too so I just wanted to
personally just welcome
you and thank you for being here so councilmember Bosney
welcome to Denton
thank you for seeing what we all see and what we all
appreciate you're in my
district so thank you special thank you from district 3
throughout the campaign
I talked about economic development west of 35 this is what
it's all about it's
so important that this is extended infrastructure not just
for you but that
you're willing to go above and beyond what is necessary for
your business to
allow that whole area now to pop so thank you thank you I
want to extend my
welcome as well and I certainly want to thank staff for
working hard on y'all's
behalf and I want to thank you for for what you bring to
Denton and I think to
hear also to express councilmember Hawkins sentiments to
say that part of
it is just a gut feel I get that I get that that sometimes
in investment
projects and things such as that there's that intangible
that can be so vitally
important but welcome I look forward to hearing the
presentation further about
what the partnership will be and look forward to a
successful project seeing
no more questions Amy thank you very much thank you Scott
you bet I want to
take a few minutes to walk through the the components of
the grant agreement
that you'll be considering tonight first of all this is an
economic development
program grant agreement which is authorized under chapter 3
80 of the
Texas local government code that chapter states that
municipalities may use public
monies for economic development purposes that are for the
public good that add
jobs that diversify the tax base and promote the type of
economy that we'd
like to see more of in Denton and so this is a grant
agreement that's that's a
part it's a chapter 380 grant it has two terms associated
with it the first term
is specifically to reimburse the end user for the public
infrastructure
improvements that they outlined in their presentation a few
minutes ago and that
term essentially will use a variety of funding mechanisms
to to repay them for
that infrastructure over how whatever amount of time that
takes we anticipate
based on our financial forecasts that that will take around
four years and that
will include a variety of funding mechanisms including the
use of
development plan line funds which are funds in a water
utility budget and
wastewater utility budget to essentially put water and
sewer infrastructure in
for major economic development projects which this
certainly qualifies secondly
we're also going to include a rebate of sales tax on
construction materials
furniture fixture and equipment and they will it will
include a reimbursement
component from the tax increment reinvestment zone which is
why they are
a party to this agreement and then lastly the city will
include their
additional 60% of property tax revenue that will go back to
the ranger one end
user until they've been fully reimbursed for that
infrastructure we estimate that
that's going to be six to six and a half million dollars
and it will take
approximately four years to reimburse them at the end of
that term a second
term will begin that will commence as soon as full
reimbursement has occurred
and that will be a four-year economic development grant
that is a 60%
property tax rebate on real property taxes collected by the
city of Denton
with that I'll answer any questions any questions I guess I
just have a couple
just to sort of to refer back to a little background this
is in TURS 2
which was set for a 20 year term I believe is that correct
25 25 years so
longer which is used to the agreements of the TURS where
that the contributions
to the TURS both from the city and the county were used to
pay for reimburse
whoever would put in that infrastructure is that correct
that's correct we
created the tax increment reinvestment zone in December of
2012 and the purpose
of that zone was to create a fund by which we could get
public infrastructure
into that area so part of what the reimbursement will
include is funding
out of that that TURS fund that's correct so we're getting
it probably
most likely a lot faster than we would before which then as
he has got it
pointed out opens up that other 218 acres or some odd acres
to project-ready
that's correct yes this accelerates the infrastructure
going in the ground
considerably and allows our economic development efforts to
be accelerated
as a result all right mayor pro tem I saw you okay any
other questions or
comments from council seeing none councilmember Hawkins
thank you mayor I
move approval of item 5 C mayor pro tem Gregory second we
have a motion and a
second for agenda item 5 which one was it see let's vote on
the board please
a motion carries 7-0 thank you wanted to ask councils indul
gence or if they had
any comments reservations we've got the next agenda item
which is D which is a
reading of annexation which means we have to go through
what we did last time
and read eight legal descriptions but immediately following
that agenda item
is one regarding no parking on locust and we do have two
speakers I know we
have several speakers following that but we have two
speakers and asking your
indulgence if we can sort of flip-flop those and get that
out of the way so we
bring the speakers down and get them on their way that all
right I will take now
agenda item 5e consider adoption of an ordinance of the
city of Denton Texas
prohibiting parking on the east side of North Locust Street
from its intersection
with Parkway Street to its intersection with East
University Drive thank you
mayor and I'm going to ask Mark Nelson who's our director
of transportation if
he present this item for your consideration and then you do
have two
cards thank you George mayor members of council appreciate
the opportunity to
come before you this evening this particular item was
presented last week
at our traffic safety Commission and I have just
essentially used the same
presentation for ease here same information was presented
Monday night a
week ago so quickly the particular item in front of you
background on this was
in November of 2013 parking signs on the north end of Loc
ust north of Oakland had
been removed as part of a maintenance program to improve
our city signage
throughout the community to replace old faded and old faded
signs that had lost
their reflectivity essentially what happened when those
signs were removed
we did not have ordinances in place to effectuate the no
parking so therefore
we could not enforce so what essentially happened
unintended consequences is it
introduced on-street parking this item came before the
traffic safety
Commission last summer we staff was requested to look into
it we brought it
to the traffic safety Commission in April a couple of
options primary options
that we looked at was restricting the parking on the east
side of Locust from
Oakland University and then the other was restricting it
from Parkway to
University which is just just north of the post office here
primary concern was
improving safety on the on the roadway due to doors opening
into the travel
lane as well as for pedestrian for persons getting into and
out of their
vehicles it also allows for and provides a wide out wider
outside lane
person to text dot standards now with going with a 14 foot
wide outside lane
traffic safety Commission had a there was a few citizens
that came to that
meeting they asked us to generate some additional data and
bring the back and
bring the item back for consideration at a later date again
we brought it back on
June 8th of this 2015 just last week I think the best way
to take a look at this
might be to look at some graphics here this is
demonstrating where we have no
parking on the west side this is on the northern portion
and demonstrating where
the no parking is proposed here and that takes it down to
Parkway and then on the
right side you can see where it would reduction of about 27
spaces south of
Oakland and on the north end we'd reduce north of Oakland
here upwards to about
30 to this location just north of these residential units
and that that kind of
shows that in a separate graphic here so these are some
photos that have been
taken over the past three or four months you can see where
this vehicle service
vehicle has got the trailer up on the curb likewise with
the truck behind it
same photo here what this demonstrates you can see the
large delivery truck
out into the left-hand lane creating a you know wavering
into the other lane of
traffic here you can see this is looking southbound north
of Oakland where the
vehicles are parked fairly far north just north of this
there's a right turn
lane to eastbound University so the vehicle start obstruct
ing some of the
traffic movements there but you can see a little further
south how close the
vehicles are getting to the white line this demonstrates on
the bottom photo
this demonstrates where this vehicle small sub compact or a
smaller SUV has
hiked the right wheels up onto the curb which is an illegal
parking this is the
intersection just on the south side of Locust and Oakland
you can see the SUV
here there's a parked relatively close to this intersection
you can see a
vehicle in the right lane obstructed as well as the far
left lane obstructed
down the way definitely here at Locust and Sawyer just on
the south side of
story you can see the smaller vehicle one might consider
that a subcompact but
a smaller sedan nonetheless is already is crossing the line
here in this narrow
urban shoulder here are some photos where we show the other
SUVs up on the
curb smaller coupe vehicle here well up onto the curb
trying to squeeze into
this narrow urban shoulder again just another shot here
with the two vehicles
also obstructing some of the solid waste services so points
of consideration
that traffic safety Commission requested us to look at was
to reduce the width of
the existing lanes we went out and measured it a number of
low spots along
there and we see that we're roughly in many cases at 11
feet or less than a at
11 feet or less than 11 feet therefore that does not meet
the text dot standard
of a 12-foot drive lane in some cases text dot will permit
something less than
12 feet generally in the 11 foot on a temporary basis you
might see that out
on interstate 35 while they're doing construction but again
it's during a
temporary temporary situation eliminating the left urban
shoulder was
also an option shifting the additional width to the east
shoulder there's
roughly anywhere from 18 to 27 inches on the left side so
left on the left side
of the yellow line that was requested to look at if we
could move that yellow line
or work with text out to move that yellow line in this case
we looked at the
right urban shoulder the narrow urban shoulder in many
cases it was six feet
or or less and it still resulted in a non-standard a nine
foot wide parallel
parking so nine foot is our standard with this six foot or
less plus the 27
inches that that's widest would still result in a substand
ard or smaller
parallel parking also looked at restricting on restricting
on-street
parking by a specific distance from the intersections which
would be coming back
from the intersections to improve some line of sight well
excuse me we still
felt that there was staff felt that there was still would
be parking in
substandard or or less than nine foot wide parking stalls
and so recommended
against that also look at restricting the parking to
compact vehicles we're
having some compliance issues in some of our compact
parking areas even or we put
paint down on the ground or on the pavement just north of
the square we're
having compliance issues there so we did not want to try to
implement that at
that in this location along the street segment also one of
the requests was
reducing the speed limit from 30 miles per hour this is an
on system it's a
textile roadway there lowest speed is at 30 miles per hour
unless you are in a
school zone there are no schools on present in this roadway
segment and so
that would not be a feasible solution at this location one
of the other requests
to do to address some of the speeding that was one of the
other questions or
one of the other issues that was brought up at the April
Traffic Safety
Commission when this was originally considered was the
speed down that in
that road roadway segment and what we looked at or with our
engineering
department is that the the traffic volumes at that
particular location at
particular intersection though they might have it on the
north the northern
move the north south the north movement on Locus the cross
section would not
have the requisite 500 vehicles or the mix of 500 vehicles
per hour for a
specific amount of time so neither a traffic control device
whether that's a signal or a multiway stop would be
feasible at that
location so those were the points of considerations that we
looked at the
recommendation that staff was moving forward with was from
Parkway 2 or
restrict parking on the east side of Locus from Parkway 2
University the
effects roughly about 60 spots demand would shift to the
neighborhoods and
then they did not impact a number of spots there near the
greenhouse and the
Ragsdale Vision Center what we thought or what we believe
is improved safety
based on the doors opening into the traffic lane line of
sight issues at the
intersections would be improved we have driveway encroach
ments in the area and
then also the wider shoulder would complement our bike plan
and provide
safer movement for some of the other vehicles that use our
roadway again
staff was recommending option one and our Traffic Safety
Commission did vote
in favor of recommending option one by a three to two vote
with that I take any
question that you may have on this particular item council
member Hawkins
thank you mayor thanks Mark with that vote being three to
two there you know
it I drive that road a lot too and it does seem to make
sense I mean if that
door does open you know it's definitely in that right lane
but where my concern
is I guess I'm curious how many door hangers were put out
you know and it
only there's only ten responses back and can you tell me
how many door hangers
are approximately here we had a mailing list of roughly 180
so we sent out
notices to 180 addresses in that area we worked with our
community improvement
services our code enforcement officers to go out and place
somewhere in the
neighborhood of 170 plus door hangers so you sent out a
hundred and eighty
notices and then there are a hundred and seventy hangers
and there were only ten
total responses and there was only one that was opposed to
this what we had
correct we had one that was opposed to it that responded to
me other than
coming in front of the Traffic Safety Commission they
called or emailed a
response back to me we put that in a in your backup and
there was one individual
that's with the art warehouse was concerned about having a
loading
supported it to a certain extent but also was requesting to
have a 15-minute
loading loading zone in that area okay thanks more council
member Rodin thank
you mark just to clarify a few things so in terms of what
was previously signed
as no parking it sounds like there wasn't an actual
ordinance in place but
that was just the the segment of locus from Oakland to
University was that
which we took the signs down correct that is correct yes
sir so just going
back to no parking on that by ordinance it's just kind of
going back to status
quo prior to 2013 that's right that'd be correct so what we
're so what we're
really just to clarify for myself and I guess everyone else
who's thinking
through this is perhaps the more controversial section is
the parkland
Parkway to Oakland segment and so you mentioned 60 parking
spots that's in the
entire segment from Parkway all the way to University yes
how much of those are
just Parkway to Oakland do you know what the break part
Parkway to Oakland is in
the neighborhood of 27 so it's about half and half on those
two as we look at
there's been a number of questions raised about what could
possibly be done
if working out with text on in terms of narrowing lanes or
switching over lanes
or something like that what's what's on deck to do some
major roadwork on locust
is there anything kind of lined up in the near future I
understand that that
our utility department is looking at doing some
infrastructure improvements
and when that would be completed I don't have a specific
date I think that's
within a five to put in a five-year time frame I know that
when that takes place
that the logical order of things would be to reconstruct
the pavement as the
many of the utilities are underneath or would impact the
underneath the roadway
and was there any way to assess of the folks using that
because it obviously
when school gets in session there it seems like people are
parking there more
than right now when school isn't in session was there any
way to assess who
are those folks parking there any way to do a survey that
gives you any accurate
data other than anecdotally it seems like a lot of probably
the best response
to that Councilman I we did not have or spend staff time
going out doing any
type of survey or visiting with any of the folks parking in
that area and final
question I'll let some others ask is locus I was just
looking at the the bike
plan map and it is designated as a bike route which I
assume means for some
future bike infrastructure project to be going on there but
legally if that was
clear of parking in the urban shoulder bicyclists could
access that and while
it's not a dedicated bike lane in the technical sense it
still would function
as a safe space for its cycles cyclists correct that from R
2C you may recall
that the federal government or and through the state they
're looking at
using the wider outside lanes 14 feet or wider to allow for
some of those type of
movements in this case moving or having the opportunity to
move bicycles from
one activity center downtown to TWU as another activity
center but yes sir
thanks more
councilmember was knee I see this as a perfect example of
perfect world versus
practical in a perfect world we wouldn't drive on oak and h
ickory with cars either
but we need that parking you know those are tough streets
and correct me if I'm
wrong but I think those lanes are 10 feet wide is that
correct I have not gone
out and measured those I would have to defer to our I think
they are I think
they are 10 feet so my point we talk about parking in Dent
on as an issue and
now we're talking about removing parking in convenience
seen people who live
there people who work there we're not replacing or giving
any options for
other places to park we're just taking parking places away
again in a perfect
world it'd be nice to have a wide street and plenty of
places to drive and park
but it's not the case we're an old city we have old streets
and that's just part
of the practical side of me that says don't rock the boat
on locust I know
it's a text out road but this is Denton and so we have to
give consideration I
just I don't want to take away those parking places is it
possible to
remeasure and give some thought to duplicating what we do
have on oak and
hickory which is I think 10 foot in terms of car lanes and
extend by is our
parking on Locust five feet that strip where people park
how wide is that and
some cases it's up to six feet which is generally on the
northern end as you
move further south it gets less than six feet and then
south of Congress it next
down to less than four feet and on oak and hickory is the
parking seven do you
know I don't have an answer for that I think it might be
seven so that would be
my answer I know it's tough make the lanes just a little
smaller but allow
people to continue to park if I may answer one question I
think you raised
was can we restrict it down to 10 feet we've we've been in
communication with
the area engineer text out area engineer their standard is
11 feet and so
we would have to go back and and work specifically with
them and find a
solution to see what what or if something less than 11 feet
would be
acceptable to text out at this point
may approach him Gregory I wish I'd known you were going to
ask the
measurement questions I've measured all those streets and I
've lost a couple of
tape measures in the process because cars don't slow down
for me even when I
have on my best but oak Street has a couple of different
widths but it's
wider in most of it and hickory Street is significantly
wider if you're talking
about West hickory and West oak it's it's odd but the here
's the difference is
that oak and hickory are city streets and Elm and Locust
are text up facilities
in fact they're US highways right a combination of highway
77 and highway
377 is that correct right this may be a question for an
engineer and I don't know
why I should be asking it but but it's almost a psychology
question too because
you know Sherman Drive is a tech stop facility it's farm to
market Road 428
much wider lanes slightly higher speed limit and there's no
no parking signs
from Locust Street all the way out to loop 288 and nobody
parks there nobody
parks it and I have a feeling it's because of where that
that white line
is painted that urban shoulder is painted I don't know
likewise University
Drive is US highway 380 15 mile an hour speed limit faster
no no parking signs
and nobody parks there but here we have urban shoulders
that are not wide enough
for cars to park we've seen that it's not wide enough it's
really not even
safe they're pulling up onto curbs not safe and they still
can't get out of the
highway but they're parking there and so the Traffic Safety
Commission is
recommending that we put no parking the staff is
recommending it I think I'm not
asking the question just summarizing what I've heard and
thanks for your work
Councilmember Johnson thanks mayor well here's how I see it
mark and I want to
make sure that you that I'm not missing anything that you
were showing on the on
the on the aerials one it was no parking before we took the
signs down from from
Oakland North that's correct yes sir so the the challenge
is even if we narrow
the lanes by a foot even if we could get that variance from
TexNOT you still
don't have room for a car to park you may have room for the
car to park but
no room for the door to open so my sense is most likely
those are students
TWU students a lot of them parking there I know that many
of those homes along
Locus have been converted to businesses over the years you
know if you have a
business I think you should be responsible for trying
parking for your
business I think it's a convenience thing to people will
just pull up and
hop out because I'm only going to be here for a minute but
I just see this as a
responsibility from a to provide a safe environment for our
citizens if we could
widen it to make it safe I would love to have parking there
but the fact is I
don't think from what I've seen I've just been measuring on
here there's no
way even if you if you moved the stripe on the other side
and you shifted lanes
and you narrowed them to 10 feet I don't think you could
get room to swing open
a door and have a person get out and be safe so the
conversations about parking
but really this was never striped for allowing parking with
signs posted to
our parking or right I understand correct right so I mean
really I think
what we're doing is enforcing something that was already
there it should while
there weren't signs from Parkway to Oakland it it should
have been
understood that it's not safe to park there but if somebody
is I think we have
responsibility to put signs up so that we protect our
citizens so it's a bummer
we're gonna lose 27 parking spaces that created parking
spaces that used to be
there but they weren't really parking spaces before and I
think this is one
where you catch a little backlash but the fact is we've got
a we've I think
we've got to create a safe environment for the people that
are driving through
as well as for the people that were parking there thanks do
you agree thank
you seeing no more questions for staff we'll call our two
speakers up the
first one is Kate Linus if you could come and state your
name and address and
your time will begin hello mayor and council members my
name is Kate Linus
and I live at 1120 North Locust and I've lived there since
Christmas of 2012 so
I've been there for a while actually when Mark showed the
one photograph of
the Lexus pulled up on the curb that's my neighbor dr. Till
otson who has asked
for several years to be allowed to make it a parking space
for him so he doesn't
have to pull his car up on his curb so he does have a
parking lot in the back
that's for his clients because otherwise he'd have to cross
the street twice a
day have you ever tried to cross Locust there is no way to
stop no requirement
for the vehicles to stop between the light at Parkway and
the light at
University and so if you do remove parking for safety
issues and believe me
I understand you're causing other safety issues what about
Elm Street people are
parking over there too so now they're going to cross from
the west side of
Elm Street two lanes of very fast traffic they don't go 30
there walk
across walk across two lanes of traffic on Locust Street so
there is another
safety issue you guys need to think about pedestrians there
was no mention
of bike plan in any of the information I received the two
door hangings the two
mailings there was no request of how to get information or
information of how to
provide that information such as those nine individuals did
on attachment e for
yours which was the Locust Street no park results mr. Schut
man owns a
business mr. Hutcherson owns a business mr. sorry Vaughn h
uddleson the two
Mullins is and dr. Ragsdale they're all there from Oakland
to University granted
Oakland to University if you're not going to have parking
there okay that's
where you already had no parking but what about those of us
who are residents
the businesses that are on Locust the fact that it is a
text dot street and is
it supposed to be 12 feet drive standard or 11 foot drive
standard mr. Nelson said
both of those a 9 foot standard parking space is that a
city ordinance is that a
text on ordinance has anybody asked tech stock whether or
not they're supposed to
be parking on either Elm or Locust have all the residents
received a personal
visit such as what was on one of the emails that came with
exhibit e you guys
might want to look at that because I know I never got a
phone call I got two
letters and two door hangers and I put those door hangers
on the car that parks
in front of my house on a regular basis and I have to ask
her not to park in
front of my one of my two driveways I'm really lucky I'm
probably the only house
or business on all of Locust that has an in and out and
that was put in okay
I have a lot more but I already read your letter thanks
thank you thank you
thank you our next speaker is my colleague you'll come down
and state your
name and address oh sorry oh I'm sorry councilmember Haw
kins I think he had a
question for you I apologize thank you Kate I was just
concerned we just didn't
get any feedback it seems like we sent out a ton why didn't
you send yours in
because I didn't know that I could give feedback I was told
this is the meeting
and I was unable to attend one of the meetings and I did
come to the second
one okay and I wasn't given any backup to say what was
going on I actually came
to the meeting okay simply because I was interested in what
the discussion was I
didn't know that I could have emailed or called for more
information all right
thanks Kate so okay one more question councilmember Briggs
do we have a door
hanger that we can see it's in the back it should be there
and like I said I
gave both of the door hangers I got to the car who parks in
front of my house
okay you brought up a good a good point about having a plan
I feel like we
should have a plan on if we're gonna take the cars away
because it does wide
lanes create faster traffic and there's already an issue
with speeding in the
whole whole city for either if we're going to put in a bike
lane or allow
bikes or crosswalks for pedestrians so the students can
cross that safely so
some sort of plan is needed thank you absolutely thank you
one more cast member
was me when were all these notifications sent Mike my point
did it come out when
we were all dealing with a 100 year rain event and people
were concerned with all
of the flooding issues I know and in my world every single
day was dominated by
can I get from point a to point B today safely and can I
get home so when was
all of this was it March April or did it impact me when all
this rain hit I know
that I received two different notices one was before I went
on vacation in May
and one was after I came back from vacation for the month
of May I think
that I received the first one a door hanger and then a
follow-up letter in
April I'm not sure of the date and then I did receive a
door hanger that was on
the door I'm not sure when that came through but the letter
I received was
right before the June meeting for the Transportation Safety
Committee or the
Traffic Safety Committee I think at the very least we need
to try to do the
public notification again because if this impacted that
gosh it rained for
four to six weeks and I think that would be the last thing
people would be
worrying about when all of this and if you had family and
other parts of Texas
you know you were scrambling to go help them so that that
would be for me
bottom-line to go back and get the public involved with
this decision I
think that had a big part to play in the lack of response
may I make one other
comment addressing that I don't know if the door hangers
the letters or any other
information went to any of those cars that park on that
street that would be a
good way to do it and I'm not sure how the number of 30 and
27 came about I know
that at least three cars can park in front of my house
alone so all right
thank you Mike if you'll come on up before you start your
time starts I
wanted to announce that there's a Honda is it CRZ that's
out in the parking lot
with alarm going off the license number the last four
digits are four seven two
eight so you got a Honda check it out but if not that's
okay all right
that means not only really part that's right Mike Cochran 6
10 West Oak Street
and mr. mayor members of council special greeting to you
new council members
welcome welcome to this great position I am opposed to
taking the parking off
there and I will explain why and that is I believe this is
a case of fixing
something it is not broken the area from Oakland Street up
to University Drive
I'll certainly give you that that's reasonable enough no
problem it's a long
TWA there no residents there on the east side it won't
impact them much at all
the area south of Marshall Street where the creek is not a
problem there either
because it's all businesses there anyway and there's off-st
reet parking there so
we're talking about the predominantly residential area
right in the middle in
the middle of this where there is a bit of parking there
you know in the 60s
there was a big trend in city planning and traffic to come
in and to make
boulevards and apply them and down in the middle of our
cities and they did
this everywhere they had a lot of ideas back then that we
've come to find are
contrary to livability standards that we would accept today
they've been trying
on Oak Street for 30 years which is why I'm a little touchy
about this because
it's exactly the same issue they've been trying to take
parking off of Oak and
widen it in an effort to have wider lanes and wider lanes
as we all know make
people drive faster driving faster we all know causes more
casualties and
fatalities and ironically enough the data shows it on one-
way streets it's
even worse there's a question mr. Johnson brought up about
that we would
just be returning to the status quo by removing the parking
during that central
area and I would have to say that I've been parking there
for 40 years and not
every day but but occasionally my dentist was there and I
do own property
there for the last 30 years there has always been parking
there there really
hasn't been a problem most people most intelligent people
when they open their
quarter they look in the mirror before before they open the
door on a busy
street I certainly do and maybe it's a Darwinian thing and
we're you know
weeding the gene pool a bit but nevertheless the average
person looks
before they jump out of a car on a busy street I don't see
that as being that
much of an issue but the real issue I see is that we've
heard a number of
comments about the not being able to increase or about them
wanting to
increase the lane width and I just believe that that it
makes for a less
safe position if I could have the document cam up here yeah
if you'll just
set it down it's they should the a lot of questions about
the parking standards
from text dot well I found this on the text dot website on
their urban design
our urban design criteria for urban streets they they do in
restricted areas
in certain areas and I think the inner city core of our
community certainly
qualifies for that they allowed a 10-foot zone is that my
all my time I
believe so good god I can't believe it went so fast if I
may ask just for a
little extra time yeah that's how quick yes lane widths 10
feet are appropriate
urban areas and have a positive impact on the street safety
without impacting
the traffic flow NACTO also allows for seven to nine foot
parking lanes NACTO I
won't take up my time by explaining it but I would say if
you look at lane
widths by comparison the center lane on Carroll Boulevard
is 10 feet I measured
myself by the way on Locust it's 11 there on Carroll at at
Oak it's 10 feet
on the the east side of it and so there are 10 feet lanes
all over town and it's
absolutely appropriate to to do this and I would certainly
urge us to not create
a problem I'll stop yes we have a couple questions okay yes
Councilmember Johnson thank you mayor Mike thanks for clar
ifying for me yeah
sure what I said was from Oakland to University reinstating
the no parking
that was already there okay that's what I was totally in
favor that's okay
everybody around me has selective hearing of what I say
accused of things
all the time I only hear what I don't want to appreciate
that the the the
question that I have for you is because I think you bring
up a good point the
question because you did a lot of measurements so and I'll
ask staff to
think about the same thing so if you had a ten and a half
or a ten foot lane
both lanes were ten feet right and you had the safe
distance on the interior
side which is no parking with which is already there what
what width does that
give you to the curb where you could create a parking well
if you push the
there's a line on the west side of the street that I'm not
quite sure why it's
there either none of these lines by the way you see on
other streets they just
seem to be on on these two but nevertheless you could you
could have a
seven and a half foot parking lane I think is what you're
asking if you did
that I believe at least and locus does change its
measurements but that was
about a 1200 block and I think it actually it's wider a
little farther to
the north further south it seems to get narrower and I
wouldn't recommend it
there quite frankly but just you know south of the other
thing there but
okay I appreciate you and if I may just say the parking
pictures that you saw
people parking up on the curb none of this happened before
they painted that
silly line on there because people parked and a truck is
six feet of cars a
little bit less than that there was never a problem on Oak
Street where we
have parking there's no line painted there people park and
cars don't hit
them and it's just a pretty pretty pretty easy equation
here the put the
line which I never quite understood created people thinking
it was a
parking line and and you'll notice is only Lexus though or
big trucks that
pull up on the curb most people you know would not be too
worried about it and
but that that created the problem and it didn't happen
before that happened
Mike you are master of answering an early question to
continue into several
topics well good job kudos it was more subtle than that
Mike you make our lives
much easier when you're vacationing in Italy I'm vacation
ing here I'm
vacationing here totally agree with you about the traffic
calming aspect of on
street parking narrower lanes and I don't think anyone here
is suggesting
that we widen the lanes I think we I don't think that's
part of the
discussion as being proposed here I think what we have is a
temporary problem
you and I have talked about this it's probably a more long-
term solution that
involves redesigning things along that street that may be
you know ideal
situations having on-street parking and bike lanes and
narrow straight a complete
street concept right so as we're looking at what to do now
that's why I asked him
what's happening in terms of road construction in the next
few years he
mentioned the utility so we're gonna be digging up that
street in the next five
years hopefully which would be a good time to do a complete
redesign but the
question is what do we do now in light of this and so to me
there's there's a
value question of on-street parking versus another large
value of this City
Council which is that could be a major bike thoroughfare
which now it's not
very safe for most cyclists if you open up that street so
how do you understand
the comparison of those two values of about 27 to 30 parked
cars versus a
major bike thoroughfare well I think there are more cars
that park along
there than 27 or 30 first of all second of all I would say
there was discussion
at the traffic safety meeting about enlarging lane to 12 to
12 feet by the
way the as far as justifying and getting all of that in it
's going to be
difficult quite frankly but what you've got it's a
primarily a residential area
there in the area we're talking about and perhaps a lot of
people didn't
respond to the door hangers because they were they were
tenants in rent and
rental properties in apartments and things like that and so
they may not it
felt like they could do anything about it or whatever else
that might be part
partial explanation with that but it's a residential area
and I would be willing
to bet that each of you living in a standard neighborhood
you your guests
park in front of your house when they come to visit and it
's a normal thing
and what I really hate to see is the residential nature
being further eroded
by and and that process being helped by public policy to
that encourages the
erosion of the neighborhood quality of the area and I don't
I think you know
people want to live there they want it they want to make
their homes there it's
not just a thoroughfare and it is a is an important part of
the urban urban
environment here we're trying to encourage people to live
in these areas
and make them more comfortable for people to live not less
comfortable and
that's what I'm what I'm concerned about as far as the bike
lane goes that's a
tough one it really is and I certainly encourage you know
bike lanes and I'm
all for it but when you you take the inconvenience that we
would create for
some of the residents some of the businesses and the TWA
girls I mean
nobody's speaking for them but they're gonna have to park
somewhere and I think
Kate said if they move them west they're gonna have to be
crossing a street which
it's traffic will be faster than it is now so that is a
real dilemma but I'm in
certainly would like to work to to help come up with a
reasonable solution and
because it's a it's a important thing for us to have bike
lanes but nevertheless
it's it's sort of pitting one interest group against
another and I hate to see
that all right I see no more questions thank you thank you
you bet I've got a
couple questions for staff I guess I understand the
concerns that have been
stated number one do we know how many residential
properties are in this
stretch because I mean I know there's some but it seems
like the trend has
been for those to be converted to businesses do we have a
count from here
to there as far as what no sir we've not okay we've not
gone through and
filtered it and as far as as far as because the interesting
thing is from
Eagle Drive up to Hickory on the square on Locust there's
this stripe as well
and I see cars parked there and I guess if we're going to
do this and I don't
necessarily think I don't have a problem with this on its
face what I do have a
problem with it being more potentially piecemeal like if if
if Elm Street is
the same way in other words if we're going to apply this
rule here are there
other parts of our city that have these kinds of
configurations where we're not
applying them I will tell you I had a meeting with TW about
some other issues
and this issue came up at our quarterly our quarterly
meeting and the police
chief did state that that she was in favor of the no
parking from a safety
perspective and I will say again I have parked on some of
the businesses there
and I will tell you Mike you're right you do look through
your door but
sometimes if the cars are parked behind you it's it's
difficult sometimes to and
some of those guys are coming down there pretty quick so
you I think the key is
are we able to implement any other traffic calming type of
activities on a
text-dot thoroughfare such as Locust or Elm other than just
speed limit I mean
is there are you able to put a crosswalk are you or is it
just you go and or
signal I and that those are your only options we could put
we could put the
crosswalk in there similar to what you see around the
square for example and
where you have some of the pedestrian bump outs to shorten
that distance but
again might you do that as part of the reconstruction
process of Locust and Elm
at that point in time sure okay and again you'd have you
enter into specific
agreements with with text-dot sure to facilitate that what
what could you
share a little bit of what precipitated this what this
issue as it did it
percolate from a resident or a business or or was this just
something that was
normally on staff's radar how did this issue sort of reapp
ear so I understand
that some comments had been made to our traffic engineer
and then last summer we
had traffic safety Commission brought it up and then we
started working through
our traffic safety Commission and a joint traffic safety
Commission mobility
committee meeting where where we were requested to look
into okay so there was
some there was some council subcommittee that was sort of
aware of this or is you
said the mobility committee had it you didn't come up okay
all right the board
just lit up so we'll go through the line here thank you
mark I appreciate you
answer my question we got several others here councilmember
Johnson thank you
mayor so mark I got I guess a couple of staff questions one
based on the zoning
there right because if you look there's a lot of those what
used to be homes
converted to businesses so if somebody puts a business in a
converted home
along Locust or Elm or those areas where that looks like it
's DCG for part of it
and it converts to dr2 for part of it if somebody puts a
business in are they
required to provide parking based on the use on their own
property my
understanding would be that it would change the use from
residential to the
business and it would require additional parking okay so I
mean I'm asking the
question if there's some special variance on Locust or Elm
where if I if I
if I take a house and I convert it to a business use I have
to bring it up to I
have to make it ADA and whatever else I have to do because
I'm changing the use
my question is because that's not in the central business
business district I'm
guessing if I take a house and I convert it to a dental
office and it's a thousand
square feet I'm gonna have to meet the code for a dental
office for a thousand
square feet and have parking on my premises I think Amy it
's more of a
planning question yeah so I'm not trying to put you on the
spot actually if I
recall correctly that area is a part of the central
business district those
boundaries are drawn differently than the D tip boundaries
are and so they're
exempt from those additional parking requirements so the
traditional zoning
doesn't apply no sir here gotcha okay so that's a challenge
problem but the
second question I have mark is did you if you measure the
full width of the
street say Locust I know it varies in different parts right
but in other words
what I don't think you want us to say parking no parking
parking no parking
right if you based on the width of the whole street can you
fit two safe lanes
that text that would agree to ten feet ten and a half feet
whatever they would
say they'll allow and a and a parking lane that meets their
requirements
because it is their road I understand the text dot parking
parallel parking
width is ten feet wide and so for example at Sawyer the
right shoulders
five foot three inches the right lane is 10 11 left lane is
11 3 and the left
shoulder is 2 2 so to answer your question at that
particular location no
well so I bring it up because you know Mike brought up some
some comparisons to
other streets in our downtown which are our streets so I
think it's important
to to bring up that what we're talking about here is what
would text dot allow
not what would we allow right so correct meaning comparing
oak while you look at
the two and you'd say yeah they're the same what I don't
want to do is I don't
want to this issue has been brought up it's been brought up
traffic safety has
been brought up to mobility which I'm on and there's a
safety concern so what I
don't want to do is to say well we really don't want to
take parking away
even though it's not been marked parking or allowed parking
or meet our parking
requirements it just hasn't been marked either way so it's
been allowed well now
the issue is before us and it's a safety issue what I don't
want to do is to go
say well people been doing it all this time so let's just
continue to allow it
because while you're right Mike you're right person should
certainly look in
their mirror before they open the door I worry about the 18
year old freshman
who's driving in that lane and maybe not prepared for the
immediate door opening
and because you see it I drive that street all the time
cars are often in
the middle more often than they are in two lanes going side
-by-side because you
can't drive two cars side-by-side so to me this is really a
safety conversation
it's not about what have we allowed before or what should
we allow if we can
safely have two lanes and a parking lane that text that
would agree to then I
would say let's do that let's restripe it and do it but
they're not going to
agree you can have it here next block no as the
measurements change so that's the
only way I could get comfortable with it was if we knew for
sure that we could
have two drive lanes and a parking lane that text that
would approve all the way
otherwise I think we are now as being aware of it knowing
it's a safety issue
while some people may be smart enough to not get hit and I
think Kate brings up a
good point that a crosswalk somewhere in there would make a
lot of sense and we
should if we're gonna if we're gonna do this then we need
to make sure we've got
some a crosswalk or two that's my input thanks
Councilmember Rodin. Thank You Mayor another question to
ask if this were to
get approved tonight what's what sort of timing does it
take to get this
ordinance in place get signs up notify people have a grace
period I guess is
what we typically do with something like this but what's
the timing of that?
Typically we look at a 10 to 14 day period to post it in
the newspaper and
then a 7 to 10 day time frame after that to schedule it and
get it posted. But I
mean to to actually install signs. Then correct and to
install the signs
because we'd be looking outside and again it depends on
workload if there's
some other priority issues in front of the traffic
operations that may bump
that a week or so. And so just a comment on that point
anytime in a university
town you got to re-educate a new crop of students every
year on this and
believe me there's a significant change and what's
happening right now in the
middle of June versus what will happen come the last week
of August when that
campus fills up again. And so I'm concerned if there's any
interest in
delaying this one way or the other we miss an opportunity
and we're gonna have
to wait almost a whole another school year to be able to do
it. There's a
timing issue I think and at play so thank you. Mayor Pro
Tem Gregory. Thank you. I
appreciate the type of notices the fact that they were both
mailed notices and
door hangers I think that's great. I was actually quite
surprised by the
responses that are in our backup to the notices. I was not
expecting so many of
the folks who own businesses along Locust Street to not
only be in favor but
but but say please help me out these cars are parking too
close to my
driveway I can't even get into my driveway and certainly
delivery trucks
can't get into the driveway it's creating a real problem.
That was a
surprise to me that there was so much more favorable
response to the proposal
than there was unfavorable response. I think crosswalks in
selected areas based
on engineering studies would be very appropriate. I
certainly get Mayor your
concern about the piecemeal nature of some of the the
issues. I have driven the
streets both Locust and Elm. I've ridden my bike on the
streets. I've walked them
and what's what's so odd is Elm and Locust aren't the same
width and Elm is
not the same width all the way down and when you talk about
South Elm and South
Locust they're much wider and South Locust has three lanes
so it's and so I
mean that's a reason why it's piecemeal is because we have
all of these
different conditions in different locations because these
streets were
built out over 150 years in different with different times
so so I think that's
part of the reason for the piecemeal nature but I
appreciate the staff's work
on this I appreciate the Traffic Safety Commission's
recommendation. Councilman
Gregor if I could respond to you the notices a number of
those individuals
used the phone number and then in those notices either on
the door hanger or the
mailed notice that went out to call me directly with the
direct phone number
that's how they reached out and contacted me as well as
from the email.
Appreciate it. Councilmember Wasney. Two last questions. So
it's a Text Dot road
but we came up with this sounds like in Denton are we
receiving any pressure from
Text Dot? Are there any penalties involved if we don't
follow through with
this change? There's no pressure from Text Dot at this
point in time no ma'am
we have been in correspondence with Text Dot and they're
aware of the vehicles
parking in the urban shoulder. But no penalties that are lo
oming from Text Dot?
No ma'am not that I'm aware of. Second question we talk
about traffic safety
have you compiled an accident report summary the last five
years if we talk
about doors opening and people being in car accidents how
many of those have
happened in five years? We had we had that and I believe we
're in the
neighborhood of it was on a three-year basis about 60
accidents total that were
reported unfortunately the way the reports were submitted
it didn't it
didn't take take that into account in terms of either a
line of sight or how
the door. So the 60 accidents could have been somebody
pulling through a stop
sign and being hit changing lanes and being hit correct but
not specifically
opening your car door and creating an accident? Correct.
Councilmember Hawkins
thank you mayor. I think TWU are they conducting a parking
study of some
kind right now too? They completed one recently as I
understand within this
spring yes sir. Okay well why I'm torn I mean Mike doesn't
even live in the
neighborhood here and the only person who's here from any
of those notices
sent out is one person and I'm just really struggling with
how to vote on
this if there's just such an underwhelming resident
response about
this issue and then three to two in traffic safety I know
that's not really
questioned towards you but I think that's why I'm
struggling with this
decision does it even seem like that important of a
decision to be made right
now if nobody even really wants to weigh in you know from
the neighborhood about
it anyway just just saying. Okay any more questions? I see
no request to speak.
Councilmember Gregory. Thank you mayor. Well I would move
approval of item 5e.
We have a motion. Okay Councilmember Roden. Before I second
this I think in
terms of direction Mark I think what I'm gonna second this
motion but I think
there's a lot of long-term things that need to be looked at
. The traffic calming
questions are significant you don't want to create more of
a raceway on there so
we need to look at what are the possibilities and we need
to start
thinking now about the utility fixes on that street and
what the possibilities
bring in terms of redesign of that street and then thirdly
I think we need
to look at crosswalks in certain key areas. Congress was
mentioned as an issue
already and I think we need to look at that intersection
because a lot of that
that's a pretty heavy use intersection going both ways but
also north of that
where you're gonna have students perhaps going off closer
to Elm and trying to
walk back to campus. I do know that TWU is looking at a
parking garage as
we've mentioned and some other things so I think they're
trying to address their
own parking issues which might alleviate some of this but
let's have the
discussion in the immediate aftermath of this so that we
can get some long-term
solutions along that street but on that note I'll second
this motion. We have a
motion in a second we have a couple of either questions or
observations or
discussion. Councilmember Hawkins. Thank you mayor. Well I
think I'm gonna be
voting for this no parking but I do want to add I mean I
know that this is
difficult to do but if all of a sudden there's no parking
signs up and there's
this huge outcry from the neighborhood saying they didn't
know about this what
do we do at that point it's just done I mean because it's
really concerning it
just feels like nobody knows about this. One option could
be to implement a
grace period in terms of enforcing those enforcing the cit
ations. But that means
this ordinance is set in motion I mean that just gives them
a little okay.
Councilmember Gregory. I liked all of those friendly non-am
endments that
Councilmember Rubin made and I especially like the idea of
maybe we
need to go into a partnership with TWU in a parking garage.
Do you think they
would be willing to build that closer to downtown? Council
member Johnson. Thank you
mayor I just want to make an observation I happen to be on
Locust the day after
all those door hangers went out I was at a small apartment
complex all six of the
apartments had the hanger on the door so I grabbed one and
I read it and I'll
tell you if I live there and I parked on the street I would
have responded I mean
it's very it was very clear that this is I'm notifying you
that this parking may
go away. So I hear what you're saying it seems like nobody
knows it could just be
that nobody responded you know and I think you got a lot of
rental properties
along there it sounds to me like the greatest concern was
the business owners
if you look you know I think we've got far more comments
back from business
owners saying do this it will help me then don't do this.
So it just seems to
me like like many issues if people aren't against it they
're not going to
respond I think we get a lot of that and that could very
well be the case here
just observation. One comment I want to make is you know
obviously the the
comments have been made that as you remove the parking if
that's the
direction that it tends to speed up traffic and there's
that's not a calming
device and I think you said that there might be a an
opportunity to reduce the
speed number one is that it was that part of part of that?
No that was that
was a point of consideration the Traffic Safety Commission
requested us to look
at because it is own system and it's urban arterial 30
miles an hour would be
the lowest it can be. Oh okay all right I thought it was
something higher. Unless
of course there's a school zone and there's no school zone.
Well then if
people are driving too fast I mean the one thing that the
city has available is
traffic enforcement and if it becomes an issue where we
need to make sure that
you know there's a time period where people understand that
it's 30 miles an
hour and it needs to be 30 miles an hour and however police
officers do their job
when handling those types of situations I certainly lead
that to their
discretion but we have some opportunity to help with that
and I think in the
long run as Councilmember Rodin had mentioned in Mayor Pro
Tem Greg we've
got to look at crosswalks whether it's before the any type
of utility
configuration even if it's on a temporary basis but we just
want to make
sure if we make this decision that the concern of faster
traffic and as Kate
said we don't want to solve one quote-unquote safety issue
to maybe
create another one want to make sure we do the things we
need to do to mitigate
those because we really haven't necessarily solved an issue
we've just
moved it but I will be voting for this motion as well I see
no other speakers
is that any more questions comments all right we have a
motion and a second for
agenda I don't even remember what agenda item this is five
five e5e let's vote on
the board please
I'm going to abstain from voting until is that okay I'll
have the madam city
attorney you'll have to address that please our council
rules don't allow for
just an abstention from vote from voting certainly if there
is a conflict of
interest then an affidavit can be filed and a recusal can
be had but our rules
don't apply for an abstention per se okay my issue is just
that there's not a plan
or a date for any of these safety things to come in so I
was okay perhaps a
negative vote is in order then for the council woman if
that's her pleasure
okay okay we have the motion carries five to two it is now
nine not nine good
heavens eight forty seven let's take a ten minute break
till about five
just want to also we're reconvening City Council meeting at
nine oh four on
June the 16th 2014 we're going to go ahead and move the
annexations which
y'all don't want to hear all these readings to the very end
of the agenda
so we're going to pick up an agenda item is it if F F 5f so
want to call that
consider adoption of an ordinance of the city didn't Texas
prohibiting parking on
both sides of West Mulberry Street from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m.
thank you mayor will
ask Mark Nelson our director of transportation if he would
come up and
address a no parking issue with the city council thank you
Mark hello again
pull up a quick presentation again this is a presentation
that was presented
last week at the traffic safety Commission and since there
's some background
West Mulberry Street was previously posted as no parking
similar to the
issue on North Locust we were doing a sign maintenance
upgrade to our signs
throughout our community due to reflectivity and some where
the signs
were taken down on both sides of Cedar from I'm sorry on
both sides of Mulberry
West Mulberry from Cedar to Carol Boulevard and longer the
short is is it
reintroduced parking along that street segment so we place
this item on the
agenda due to the request of one of the business owners in
that area and so we
did not go through a notification process other than making
some phone
calls to two of the adjacent property owners in this area
and one of the other
issues that this would impact would be downtown parking
capacity so this is a
photo of West Mulberry looking eastbound about midway you
see that to branch bank
here and this is the drive from their the drive from their
ATM machine this is
a westbound from that same location looking back towards
Carol Boulevard you
can see the signals there down at the end of the block
Carol Court's building
and a recent development here with some designated on-st
reet parking that was
developed as part of that development here so what we
looked at over a couple
of different options the request was to do no parking from
Cedar to Carol on
both sides one of the other options we looked at was just
looking at the
property line with Denton area teachers credit union we've
done a property line
in the past we've looked at implementing a no parking along
a property line
however that not very supportive of that because that
creates other issues
throughout the throughout the community with respect to
requests for parking no
parking in front of a specific home or business so we're
primarily looking at a
both sides of the street or at least the from intersection
to intersection again
this particular item would be a no parking restriction from
Cedar Street on
the east to Carol on the west so the two of the four
different options that the
Traffic Safety Commission looked at was both sides of Cedar
both sides of Mulberry
from Cedar to Carol both sides Cedar Carol 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
one side Cedar to
Carol all the time or option for one side Cedar to Carol 8
a.m. to 6 p.m. the
Traffic Safety Commission considered the issue heard heard
from Glenn McKenzie
from Denton area teachers credit union and recommended
option to both sides
Cedar Carol 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. essentially honoring the
request from Denton area
teacher credit union union to reintroduce or reinstall the
no parking
while at the same time honoring or looking at options to
maintain some
parking capacity in the downtown area so with that I'll
stand to answer any
questions that council may have. Is that 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
only on weekdays?
Thank you for clarification it'd be Monday through Friday
yes sir. Okay thank
you. Anybody else wishing to speak or ask staff questions
any observations?
Sorry Councilmember Wasney. I still have a problem with
taking
parking away from our downtown area and not having a plan
in place for you know
when doesn't matter 8 to 6 you know you're downtown and you
're scrambling to
find a place to park so I think until this city really gets
real with a
parking plan for downtown where are people going to park we
want to grow we
want businesses to thrive but patrons need a place to park
and it has to be
within easy walking distance so again I just have a problem
with taking parking
places away claiming public safety and we just don't have a
plan in place of
where people are going to park. Any other questions
comments for staff?
Councilmember Johnson. Thank you Mayor I'm gonna make a
motion to approve it but I
want to provide some clarification Mark and I appreciate
you getting involved so
quickly with VACU. A little bit of history because they
called me and
asked me if I could get in touch with somebody. They had an
audit or a visit
from somebody that for credit unions they come in
periodically to give them
recommendations on a variety of things one of them is
safety that was always
no parking before from a safety standpoint a bank or
lending institution
it's a big problem for them to have cars to be able
parallel park directly in
front of their front door access to their lobby. That's
really where this
came from was they really hadn't noticed that the no
parking had been removed
because not a lot of people were parking there. There's not
a lot of parking that
happens there during those business hours but there have
been times where
there's a car to park directly in front of their branch.
Given in their
particular case they've got a three acre parcel on the
south side of Mulberry and
a two acre parcel on the north side both with huge parking
lots in them. Obviously
people were probably parking there at a convenience so I
think in my opinion
here I drive that's my cut through to downtown from my
office as I turn
down Mulberry. I hardly ever see cars there during the day
during the weekday
so I don't really I mean I'm a big proponent of parking
downtown obviously
I've got a love for downtown and all the the businesses
down there. I don't see
Mulberry as a as a real need for weekday parking eight to
six we just don't see
cars on there so I think it's I want an accommodation of
somebody who's been
there for a very long time with a big investment down there
and just putting
back what was there for a long time. I don't know what our
process was when we
took them down if there was any notification or discussion
with any of
the people that were on those streets all I've heard was it
was no parking for
a long time and and then the signs just went away so I
think it's a very
reasonable request. Traffic Safety Commission approved at
five zero and
we're only talking about a very small number of potential
parking spaces given
all the driveways in that stretch and we're accommodating a
safety need for a
very large employer downtown so I'm gonna make a
recommendation for approval
of item 5f.
No well I don't know that we're we're not specifying an
option because we're
going right we're approving the same thing traffic safety
recommended and
that is option four correct? Option two. Do I need to
specify that in my
motion? If you'll just move to approve the ordinance as
written that's how the
ordinance is currently written. That's what I thought.
Councilmember Rodin loves to
confuse me. It's not hard. Make a motion to approve as I
previously stated item 5f.
Councilmember Hawkins. Oh yeah go ahead councilmember Haw
kins.
I'll second that. Pro Tem Gregory. Let's just point out
that
Councilman Johnson's putting his words into his own mouth
too. It could happen.
Okay we've got a motion and a second for this agenda item.
Let's vote on the board
please. Getting a little punchy.
Agenda item 5f carries 5 to 2. We will now go on to agenda
item 5g. Considered
option of ordinance amending initiative ordinance number
2014 - 1 prohibition of
hydraulic fracturing to declare cities non-enforcement of
same. Mayor we
don't have a formal presentation this is an item for
council to consider and
discuss several options that you've been considering with
regard to the fracking
man and the city attorney may have other comments. Any
comments from City Attorney?
This posting is is one that would address amending
initiative ordinance
number 2014 - 01 which is the prohibition of hydraulic
fracturing. It addresses the
potential amendments in a couple of ways. One it would be
an amendment to this
initiative ordinance and then there was the other
possibility under this posting
of considering an alternative and standalone ordinance. I
might add also
this morning that the city manager asked me if this posting
would be sufficient
to allow amending initiative ordinance number 2014 - 01 to
repeal it and my
response to him after I've reviewed this and considered it
is that yes. So there
are three potential issues before the council tonight
depending on the desires
of the council is it concerns handling this item. Council
member Rodin. Thank you
mayor I do have a question for our legal staff. As I was
mentioning to someone
here during the break this is such a complex issue because
it's not only is
it involving several entities the state, the city, the
citizens, the oil and gas
industry, two lawsuits. It also is seemingly the sands are
shifting by the
day and I think just in the spirit of full disclosure and
openness so folks
are aware kind of where we're at at this point could you
give a brief update as
to the pleadings by the Texas Oil and Gas Association and
the Land
Commissioner's office as it relates to yesterday's.
Certainly this is an area
that is fairly fluid and still moving quite a bit. The
Texas Oil and Gas
Association and the General Land Office both amended their
pleadings last
afternoon yesterday afternoon to add some additional claims
in their
pleadings. Additionally both the General Land Office and
the Texas Oil and Gas
Association have now both filed motions for partial summary
judgment with regard
to their amended pleadings. So those events occurred
yesterday very recently
and we have been briefing the City Council in closed
session with regard to
the implications of the amendments and of the motion for
partial summary
judgment so those are the most recent events that have
occurred Councilman.
Mayor Pro Tem Gregory. Thank you Mayor. Regarding that
Madam Attorney for those
of us who don't understand the legal system very well how
many times can you
amend a plea? How might and how does that work? There are
some some limitations on
when pleadings can be amended but generally Texas is very
generous with
regard to the number of times that a pleading can be
amended and certainly
this was well within the time frame and the rules in the
state of Texas as far
as amending these particular pleadings. Any other questions
before we go to the
individual speakers? What I'll do is I'll call the initial
speaker up and then the
next call would be the person who's going to be scheduled
to speak after that.
Our first speaker is Sharon Spies. If you'll come down and
state your name and
address for the record the speaker on deck will be Mr. Adam
Briggle.
Hey hi I'm Sharon Spies my address is 7501 Stallion Street
here in Denton. Two
weeks ago I stood here asking you not to vote on repealing
the ban. To be clear I
will never agree with fracking however it is with a heavy
heart that I now
understand there likely isn't any other option for the city
to take. It was no
surprise lawsuits were filed against the city when the ban
passed. When HB 40
became law many people incorrectly thought that the suits
would be
withdrawn. When the legislature passed HB 40 they flushed
democracy down the
toilet by preempting the possibility of the bans legality
being tried in the
courts where it should have been. One issue has now become
two. Denton must
resolve the two lawsuits and Texas must not lose local
control. It is a bitter
pill to swallow that Denton can no longer enforce its ban
and the other
300 cities in Texas can no longer enforce their ordinances
relating to
subsurface oil and gas drilling. HB 40 rendered them
illegal. Without local
control everyone in our state loses. If HB 40 were to be
validated in these two
lawsuits citing our now unenforceable ban, loss of local
control over oil and
gas ordinances would only be the tip of the iceberg. Any
locally initiated
ordinance in Texas would potentially be on the chopping
block. Because the
plaintiffs in the lawsuit just filed motions for summary
judgment time is of
the essence for this council to make some very hard
decisions. In an effort to
resolve those suits and the other reasons I stated, I will
now support you
if you were to repeal the fracking ban. This isn't a win
for the industry but
rather just one step on a long road ahead. Again it's a
bitter pill to
swallow but local control must be restored before any ban
could ever be
enforced. This current Texas legislature and governor have
shown that they don't
like the federal government stepping into Texas issues but
that they also
don't want its citizens exercising local control. It's
hypocrisy at the highest
level. To help affect a positive change I ask this council
to commit to forming a
coalition with other cities to fight the constitutionality
of HB 40 and to
continue enhancing our surface ONG ordinances. I also ask
everyone viewing
this meeting to please seek out each other to form a
separate citizens
coalition to help our cities overturn HB 40 and better
regulate the ONG
industry. Local control Texas, grassroots Texas, Earthworks
and Texas campaign for
the environment are some of the organizations that are
trying to do this.
And finally the most fundamental way to affect positive
change is for everyone
to contact your local and state reps, voice your opinions
about ONG drilling,
local control and any other issue that is important to you.
If you don't like
what they say and how they vote then vote them out of
office. Thank you. Thank
you. Dr. Adam Brighill is next. Oh do we have any questions
?
Seeing none. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Adam Brighill and
then on deck will be
Sandy Maddox. Okay my name is Adam Brighill 1315 Dartmouth
Place in Denton.
After an improbable victory at Behar the Texian rebels did
their best to defend
the Alamo against the overwhelming forces of Santa Ana.
They fought valiantly but
lost. When soldiers in General Houston's command learned
about the massacre at
the Alamo they were hot for revenge. Houston surely felt
the same way but when
he deliberated many of his own soldiers accused him of
being a coward they said
what are we waiting for? Of course there could be no real
doubt about Houston's
character or the fact that he still held the same goals of
freedom and
independence. Indeed it speaks most highly to his virtues
that he could see
through the fog of anger. He could see that this was not
the time or the place
for attack. To charge into the teeth of an emboldened Santa
Ana would have
spelled near certain doom. Courage is not to be confused
with recklessness. Houston
initiated a strategic withdrawal and regroup recruiting
supporters from
across the state. He knew that Santa Ana's arrogance and
greed would cloud
his judgment and eventually throw him off balance and when
the time was right
victory was his at the Battle of San Jacinto. When it comes
to our fight for
health safety and democracy we have not yet had our San Jac
into but if we can
navigate this perilous juncture wisely and if we can foster
alliances across
Texas victory can be ours. I do not envy your position and
I do not know what
wisdom demands in this situation but I do know that I don't
want to give them
a legal ruling to legitimate HB 40 which is still nothing
but the rotten fruit
of political corruption. We must not let them use our band
to christen this
unholy thing. Now if you really believe one of the options
on the agenda tonight
will avoid this fate and moot the lawsuits then go for it
but if not then
it seems to me that repeal would be the better part of
wisdom. No matter how this
plays out there can be no mistake that HB 40 has sown the
seeds of its own
demise. For as we speak tonight we hear the voices of the
people rising. We can
see their eyes are open now. I sense a great fear in the
desperate ruthlessness
with which the opposition is conducting its business and I
think they're right
to be afraid. In the end victory will be ours as long as we
are attuned to the
abiding power within us. The power of community and
citizenship, the power of
your own innermost voice. Four years of working on this
issue and I have learned
there is a power far greater than the authority conferred
by institutions. Thank
you. Mayor Pro Tem Gregory. Dr. Brighill you're not born in
Texas are you? No. You
have a great command of Texas history I applaud you for
that. Thank you. Any other
questions? Thank you Dr. Brighill. Sandy Maddox and then on
deck will be Rodney
Love. Sandy Maddox. I don't I will read her name and
address into the record
Sandy Maddox 408 Vineyard says I do wish to speak. It's
checked opposition didn't
needs explicitly any action taken as a result of HB 40
committed to enforcing
ban once HB 40 is overturned. Rodney Love if you'll come
forward and on deck
will be Brayden Finley. My name is Rodney Love. I live 700
North Austin. I just first want to say thank you for
your responsiveness to the last meeting and being willing
to give us the time
and also the options that from what I understand that that
we're considering
tonight. In my opinion, they're certainly better than repe
al for several reasons.
And so I would support you to try either of the two options
whether to have a
separate ordinance that makes our band an enforceable or an
amendment either
would be better than repeal. So I would I would I would
support you down that path.
I believe that that relates to some of the comments that
were made last time we
were here regarding our story. If we can maintain the
dignity of the voice of our
community and still concede to the bigger gun that's being
pointed down our
face which is what I think is going on then that's the best
option. If we can
somehow and I have no idea I have no idea you know what's
going on with these
these lawyer meetings and I'm sure y'all are doing
everything you can do but I
just want to make that very clear that I think that is a
huge difference between
making an ordinance that says that this band is unenforce
able and repealing the
band because it protects that our vote it protects our
community's voice and and
I would encourage you all to do everything that you can to
make that
happen and I just want to leave I got a little bit more
time left when I was
here last time I asked some questions and one of them I
didn't quite get a
complete answer on but it's kind of the obvious question
that I with the big
caveat I'm obviously not the lawyer I don't understand all
that's going on
with y'all right now but but some very basic fundamental
questions are if then
HB 40 and this burgus asked me to read the claims which I
did if HB 40 then
makes our band to be unenforceable and invalid then what
what is the interest
that the plaintiffs have because the way I understand it is
that the judge in
order to file a complaint or a suit then you must have
significant interest and
something happened since that please explain that to me I
don't quite
understand why in this situation that that these suits
would not be considered
moot I just I don't why he why the judge would not dismiss
this and I you know it
seems like an obvious question I probably don't know enough
but I'm just
gonna leave it out there and see if this is an opportunity
if it's not if you
can't respond to it then then that's that's how I leave it
I still don't
understand completely why we wouldn't present this to the
judge to dismiss
this because there is no interest if there is interest I
don't understand
what it is maybe you can explain that we have a question
from councilmember
Hawkins and then are you able to answer that in a short way
if I ask it okay I
don't know exactly how to repeat what Rodney said but I do
want to understand
why if it's an unenforceable now in HB 40 trumps our
ordinance why it is not now
mute did I ask that correctly that's correct okay well I
think the easy
answer there is we are in litigation and there are two
sides to this dispute and
certainly one side can argue that it believes this to be mo
ot the other side
can certainly argue in their opinion it is not of course it
's up to a judge so
as in every legal issue there is a risk analysis and a
consideration with regard
to what could potentially be gained what is potentially on
the table and fair to
say this council has really struggled to try to do the
right thing here vis-a-vis
the community and vis-a-vis all of these issues before them
so without getting
into detail on any of that I think you can all be justly
proud of the work
that they've done on these issues councilmember mayor pro
tem Gregory are
you aware that when the when Texhoga amended the lawsuit
that they also now
are claiming that our moratorium on on drilling while we're
working on revising
our ordinance is both illegal and unconstitutional no I'd
have another
that no pardon me no I did I was not aware of that
amendment no that may be
part of the answer to your question right okay council
member Hawkins - I'm
gonna try to word this in a question too but maybe say this
more in you know
layman coffee shop terms if are you aware I'll just follow
councilman Gregory
that I I think we got some possible advice that it could be
an option that
the judge would say that we would possibly try to enforce
this at any time
if it was still on the books is that correct in what we've
heard I'm trying
to am I saying too much have I already somebody turn off my
mic no
councilman we all think you're great there are a lot of
possibilities in this
there's a lot of options and all all three of them are a
possibility is that
correct well as far as action tonight is that what you're
asking yes right there
are three possibilities on the table for the council to
consider tonight those
two that you mentioned and then of course the the repeal
the amendment of
the initiative ordinance by repealing it so that's the
third option councilmember
Briggs I just wanted to to confirm that you brought up the
moratorium but
repealing our ban doesn't necessarily deal with the more
the moratorium does
it it's a separate so these are separate so it doesn't
necessarily it's one
lawsuit but they added the moratorium into their pleadings
but it but by
repealing our ban it doesn't get rid of that separate issue
which is the concern
because of that that's the concern that the judge would not
consider this to be
or the claims to bill and be I think I'm following you I'm
not all clear on this
any other questions seeing none thank you very much thank
you thank you for
your time we have is it Braden Finley Brandon I'm sorry and
on deck will be
Larry Beck my name is Brandon Finley 806 Denton Street didn
't Texas it's a heck
of a spot we're in now I'm just wondering what as far as
the amendments
that the Texas oil and gas Association in the general land
office the
implications of those is there any chance that anything
other than repeal
is going to stand up or if we just amend it's not our ban
anymore if we put out
another order into the band still on the books as is and
can't they still attack
it I'm just not really clear on how that all works we asked
for more time we asked
for more options and repeal we've got that but I don't know
if any of it
really does this any good still HB 40 the state pretty much
said that our vote
doesn't count there's nothing we can do to go back on that
now the state made
the decision we didn't vote the right people in before and
that's where we're
at they're trying to put a lot of pressure on us to get
this move through
quick so I mean obviously I know we have to make a decision
tonight if there's no
way to defend the band and repeal is the only option then
we need to have a
backup plan to fight HB 40 or we're gonna lose local
control like we already
started to to the oil and gas industry what is what
industry is next who else
is gonna come after it and try to take more control that we
've already had
taken away I just really want to know I mean I heard
someone mention earlier
working on a coalition with you working with other
communities and also the
people organizing to do something to fight HB 40 but I
haven't heard anything
like that from a lot of the council so I guess I'm just
wondering what where are
we going from here what's the plan I mean if we have to
leave the band behind
whether it's through amending it out of existence or ordin
ancing out of
existence or repealing it then where are we going from
there
any questions or comments I think you just asked us well
where are we going
from here well I've got I'm taking down a couple of these
questions I know last
time what we did is we we held the questions for the end
and then we we
answered those so I think that would be a good process if
we did that last time
to do that this time so that I've got one of from the last
speaker than this
one of where are we going from here okay any other any
other comments any other
comment I just want to say that you all took a note to
uphold not only the laws
of the city but the state and the country and I think this
case city has
to come first we have to fight for our own vote I mean that
's really what we're
fighting for here now is our vote and that's something that
in America
shouldn't be an issue we shouldn't be having to fight for
our vote to control
our own health self being health safety and welfare so that
's really all I have
I mean this is I found out about this yesterday like a lot
of today like a lot
of people so I mean I'm still just kind of I mean is there
any way we can stop a
partial summary judgment or is there any other way we can
delay them or anything
else we can do to get more time from what I've read I don't
think so okay I'm
sorry we have a question count oh it's not a question thank
you sir okay
mayor I think thank you I think it would be it would be a
value just to explain so
the last time when we talked about this issue we wanted to
have an open
discussion and there was a lot of questions and answers
happening from the
podium in the dais typically that's not the case right so
meaning typically
what's not happening is aren't asking questions and
receiving answers right
well if there are questions we'll record those and what so
in on an item for
individual consideration it's my understanding that unlike
in citizens
reports and things such as that there can be questions that
typically on items
for individual consideration there may not be this number
this quantity so you
can maybe do those real time but in this kind of format it
just seems to have
worked better too if someone has a question we write it
down and then and
try to answer it at the end is that sort of what you were
well I just don't want
people to be in the situation with ask a question then we
're all staring at them
because we don't feel like we're supposed to answer them
and then they're
looking at you like no no and that's true and that's why I
made the comment
that what we'll do is we'll take the question yeah I just
want to make sure
people don't think we're sure yeah but we also don't need
to have a ton of
exchange either thanks sure well thank you thank you for
that clarification
and I believe Larry Beck is come on down and then we've got
John Betten on deck
good evening council members my name is Larry Beck I live
at 915 East Sherman
Drive with my lovely wife Roseanne thank you for allowing
me to speak to you
tonight I'm here to voice my concerns as thousands like me
and didn't are about
all the effects associated with extracting natural gas in
close
proximity to our home our schools and our parks where we
raise our children we
understand we need to provide the source of energy so we
can heat and power our
homes and our businesses and we understand the need for
businesses to profit from
their efforts that provide this source of energy along with
concerns about
individual mental rights but we don't live in a vacuum we
share the air and
the water in the land we call then the place we call home
the environment that
we attempt to make safe so we can raise our families and be
productive members
of society things we place great value on so we need to
provide sources of
energy and profits from those efforts poses a health and
safety risk to what
we place great value on we think it only prudent that we
find ways to address this
so we can all benefit you know despite this reasonable
outlook and the fact
that a majority of us voted to ban fracking within our city
limits wealthy
special interest in cahoots with their cronies in the state
legislature and
governor's mansion have overridden our voice by invoking
arcane laws policies
and regulations written before we fully understood the
effects of drilling and
fracking so close to where we live out our lives rather
than work with us and
amend outdated legislations reflect changing times these
people have
ruthlessly chosen to do only what is in their best interest
to the detriment of
everybody else so here we are tonight to consider how
should we deal with this
new law written in smoke-filled rooms and by those very
people who profit from
shell gas extraction many who don't even live here we
understand that from the
legal point of view that there is little that y'all can
possibly do as a city
council to continue to stand with us regarding the lawsuits
to defend our
fracking ban but I would earnestly ask that you keep the fr
acking ban on the
boot the books but without enforcing it if however you feel
you have no choice
but to remove what we have legitimately fought for we ask
that you do so in a
manner that is that demonstrates publicly that you have
taken such action
only under duress of a bad law this I think will reflect a
united front to the
special interest who have heavy heavy-handedly canceled our
vote and
show them that though they may have won this battle the
fight is far from over
and that we are just as resolved now to fight for what we
value as we were from
the beginning if you cannot include wording in any
resolution or action that
you take tonight in response to the lawsuits of texoga and
the GLO as well
as HP 40 then consider making a separate statement in the
form of the
public record that shows you object to actions that sil
ences your constituents
and will work in every legal way to help after the efforts
those who have chosen
to put profits over people in so doing you will continue to
have our unflinching
support and will remain a vital part of the movement whose
day will yet come and
show everyone that we are on the right side of history
thank you thank you mr.
Beck and on deck will be Michael Hinnan hi my name is John
Benton I live at 515
Robertson Street in Southeast Denton my comments will be
brief first thanks to
you who have supported the ban have denounced HP 40 it does
not go unnoticed
a second I know that many of us are at a loss of what to do
and it's confusing
with all the legal action but if you continue fighting this
I know that many
of the people in Denton will continue fighting with you and
like any confusing
process like a child learning to walk or speak some f
umbling and persistence is
required in creative action and if you persist with us and
continue I know that
we will persist with you perhaps if a repeal or an
amendment to the ban is
required and necessary it can be complemented with a
concurrent action of
an official statement that will seek solidarity and
coalition with other
cities that have also had their bands overturned and
perhaps a reality if any
funds are saved from not from less litigation those funds
can be reallocated
to something like pursuing that coalition or supporting
state
legislative action I don't know those are some suggestions
and that's all I have
to say thank you thank you very much Michael Hinnan
Christopher I'm gonna not
say this correctly but it's Clavin will be on deck Michael
Hinnan 724 Thomas
Street I'm speaking in support of the item of 5g that would
be non-enforcement
of the initiative ordinance and providing for an immediate
effective date
however I am concerned that this would not be sufficient to
end the current
litigation status that we are in a famous Texas singer has
a song with
these lyrics that we all know you got to know when to hold
them and know when to
fold them since the City Council met two weeks ago I like
others here tonight
have had an opportunity to discuss and to think about the
options that are
available to you few of us including myself were ready to
go two weeks ago
and play the repeal card in the deck we were dealt but now
if this council
on advice of its lawyers and in consideration of the recent
events that
have happened decides to go there I will support it I won't
like it you won't
like it of course we're not playing a card game this is
serious but it's clear
to me now that we don't have a winning hand it is time to
deal again and this
time to include other cities around the state of Texas to
enact a better repeal
a repeal of HB 40 so I say it's time to fold them and to
walk away in this go
around and to start again I ask that you commit to reaching
out to other Texas
cities to join in a campaign to defeat HB 40 I also ask
that you commit to
directing the city staff to push to the envelope the very
outside edges of the
envelope to the powers and to the regulations that we still
have under
state law to regulate fracking in this city to the utmost
of your abilities
under the current law thank you thank you thank you mr. H
annon
Christopher you're up and then will Wooten is on deck
thanks my name is
Christopher club Bundy I live at 511 Robertson Street so
economic
development must serve the human person the majority of
human persons in the
city tried to govern economic development in this city city
they found
that they could not because the state passed a law that
suggests that economic
development doesn't have to serve the human person the
majority of human
persons in this city agree with this disagree with the
state's passing of
this law this city's leaders have pledged to represent the
majority of
the human persons in this city I recommend that our city's
leaders if they
must repeal uphold their pledge by allocating the money
that would have
been lost in the court fees and cost of sue to be used to
help the majority in
their city address the disagreeable law thank you thank you
will and then up on
deck will be Tara Lynn Hunter hi y'all will Wooten 1400
more in drive okay so I
for one am tired of being bullied by the Texas are the
Texas oil and gas
Association and oil and gas in general we've been bullied
for six years I think
if y'all pass an ordinance tonight that ordinance should be
to ban at Ireland
from the city no no one in this room or no one in DAG or no
lawyer has told me
that sleeping beauty option is not a possibility you might
be hearing
something differently but no one has told me otherwise so I
do not support
repeal I support one of the two agenda items that are on
the agenda tonight I
do respect those that are leaning the other way because of
strategic values
but I feel like they're basing their ideas on some myths it
's definitely not
true that all initiatives in the states will in the state
will be damaged by a
court ruling in HP 40 that's just that's just not true also
the moratorium has
been added as y'all pointed out so even if you repeal the
ban tonight you're
going to have to repeal the moratorium also to get this
lawsuit thrown out
because they will if we have to repeal the ban we have to
repeal the
moratorium these are both in there so I'm not for that I
think I think there's
kind of a myth around that we're gonna be able to build
this coalition with the
cities around the state just it's just gonna appear out of
thin air I want
everyone to remember that the Texas Municipal League exists
and they lost
this in this legislative session and they weren't exactly
reaching out to
other cities and they didn't happen this time I don't see
why it's gonna happen
in two years and my last point here is that if you repeal
the ban there will be
larger protests not smaller protests I am under the
impression that some of you
think that the protests will end if you repeal it because
we won't have anything
to defend the opposite is true if you repeal we will have
dozens and dozens of
dozens of people out there and yeah I just wanted to end my
time here with a
quote from so there's a planning and zoning Commission
meeting in 2011 where
Eagle Ridge had been caught fracking without a permit for
ten years and they
were they went in front of the planning and zoning
Commission to get that permit
that they should have had for ten years and we interrupted
your meeting and we
we said these words we demand that the city regulators and
the city regulations
are observed and that violators are denied the right to
operate in this city
that was in 2011 and we made good on that promise so yeah
no repeal and I
understand if y'all have to do it but I've no one has said
that you guys
cannot do what Adam Briggle coined as the sleeping beauty
option and if you don't
I will hold it against you and many in this people many
people in this room
will hold it against you thank you thank you
Tara Lynn Hunter and then on deck will be Ed Sov
hi my name is Taylor and Hunter I live at 2210 Westwood
Denton Texas first of
all thank you I think that the choices before us tonight
are results of the
input of the people who spoke at the last public hearing so
I appreciate that
I want to open by acknowledging that none of this is what
we truly want I
can't get up here and honestly advocate for any of the
options on the table we
said with our vote what we want and that's nothing less
than a fact free
denton but I understand the difficult call that must be
made at the current
crossroads so I would like to offer these these thoughts
regardless of what
the City Council's final choice of action is the result is
the same our
vote the vote of the people who live and breathe here has
been overturned by an
industry whose greed is never satisfied but there are some
things you can help
us as a community with the battle of the story and the
headline tomorrow morning
I want you to put a public statement out calling it a
strategic withdrawal rather
than a repeal if that is the route that you choose this
indicates that you're
choosing your battles but are still committed to the long
term I want you to
cite your clear purposes in doing so so that the oil and
gas industry does not
have a foothold to say that even the City Council of Denton
agrees that the
ban should not be in place a strategic withdrawal in order
to fight the unjust
law of HB 40 is what I'd like for your statement to say I
want a resolution to
declare a frack freedom holiday in order to honor the
historic campaign and vote
of the people that's a really easy thing to do and I think
it's an appropriate
one along with a public statement I'd like to see real and
tangible steps
taken to fight HB 40 I'd like to see a city-led petition
for mayors and other
city officials to sign across Texas to repeal HB 40 I think
that's a very
appropriate thing for Denton to be leading we can work on a
petition at the
grassroots level and you can work at the city level I'd
like to see a city grant
to fund a speaking tour across Texas to spread a petition
to repeal HB 40 I'd
like for you all to go with us to speak to other cities
about how we can join
together across Texas to fight the fight to restore a local
control you have a
roomful of people here who are now professional grassroots
activists and
very good at building movements so we'd be fantastic at
helping you organize
such a tour
all right I just want to say that this morning there was a
beautiful act of
civil disobedience a 92 year old great-grandmother took her
rocking chair
out to the frac site and sat there for her community in
front of the front
gates of the gas well along with her son to call attention
to this unjust law so
each and every day that fracking is forced back upon our
community that
voted it out we should be asking ourselves what are we
going to do today
to further the battle to restore local control to protect
our community from
the danger of fracking and ultimately assert the will of
the people thanks
thank you
and so Ed soap and the next on deck will be Cindy spoon
good evening my name is Ed soap I live at 1620 Victoria
here in Denton Denton's
fracking ban is and always will be a great great victory
the ban exposed
industries deceitful actions and dangers and the selfish
interests of our
legislators it exposed the consequences of poorly regulated
drilling and fracking
the degradation of human health and of environmental
quality Denton's ban has
clearly shown what a city and its citizens can do to
protect themselves
through vigilance democratic action and unity the industry
tried to divide us it
failed the industry outspent us it failed the industry lied
and distorted
the truth it failed and now industry and the legislators
who are its servants
have passed a law effectively nullifying our ban and neg
ating the local power of
all Texas cities to simply protect the health safety and
quality of life of
their residents well industry will fail again if we and our
city government
continue to work together with the transparency activism
and unity that
produced our historic ordinance in the first place only now
it's not just a
Denton issue it's a state issue it's about electing
supportive and honest
legislators it's about moving forward and creating and
following a clearly
defined and long-range legal strategy to build alliances
with other affected
cities to amass factual data documenting the inadequate
protections
afforded public health and safety by HB 40 and to give
voice to those who have
suffered and who are suffering to do this effectively Dent
on's ban must be
repealed the repeal will remove legal obstacles that could
hamper future
initiatives to protect the health and safety of not only
Denton but of any
Texas city that wishes to restore the local control taken
away by House Bill
40 repealing our ban is not an admission of defeat it is a
call to action it is
an opportunity to expand Denton's narrative not to silence
it working
together we can and we will restore the democratic process
and strive to end the
theft of our right to a healthful and safe environment
stolen by the oil and
gas industry and by a corrupt and arrogant state
bureaucracy thank you
thank you mr. Sov Cindy spoon and up next will be Eric mall
Cindy's been
2210 Westwood I first want to say I support a lot of things
Terlyn said her
ideas are really good and I hadn't thought of those things
before so I like
those ideas I have been coming to the City Council meetings
for this topic
since I was 19 years old five years ago and every single
time have in have wanted
the same thing I wanted a ban on fracking since I was 19
and I wasn't
alone in that position so that's where I'm coming from I
want the Sleeping
Beauty option I want y'all to pass a new ordinance saying
they aren't going to
enforce the ban I don't support repeal I want you to leave
our ban on the books I
also second someone else said it earlier that you all
should rest assured and
I hope everyone in our community also rest assured that our
resistance and our
movement is not going to stop until we have frack free
lives no matter what you
know so no matter how it's voted I'm gonna continue to
support and encourage
acts of civil disobedience and civil unrest because I'm not
gonna sit idly by
while people are being arrested and sent to our county jail
like what happened
this morning with my friend Theron and his 92 year old
mother Violet I think
that's unreasonable and not only do I think that's
unreasonable I think it's
unjust not only do I think it's unjust I think it's kind of
disgusting I hope
that our City Council and everyone in our community can
adopt a no-compromise
attitude when it comes to defending our health and safety
and that goes for
everyone in Texas I know that it seems like it's really
overwhelming because
we're up against such a big thing or whatever we feel like
that or feels like
we're getting our teeth kicked in but I guess I just want
people to feel
comfortable demanding a higher standard of democracy and
that we don't have to
settle for something that's clearly so undemocratic and
like ridiculous and that
if we actually understand who's driving this attack on our
vote we can see how
undemocratic it is like for example the Railroad Commission
I think that we
should abolish the Railroad Commission and I don't think we
can just elect
better people it's crazy to think we can just vote better
next time we should
abolish the Railroad Commission and replace it with a new
institution with
an eye towards local control and renewable energy people on
the Railroad
Commission including Christie Craddock whose father Tom Cr
addock has served 23
consecutive terms and now his daughter's has this powerful
position in Texas also
George P Bush a Bush family these are oil dynasty families
that are leading
these attacks on Dentonland right I think it's important
for us to understand
that I read in the lawsuit that George P Bush is suing
against Denton one of the
one of the lines in the lawsuit is that Commissioner Bush
and the general land
office have the sacred and solemn responsibility to the
school children of
Texas to manage oil and gas leases for state-owned mineral
interest and
state-owned lands within Denton that's in the lawsuit I'm
sure you all know that
but I don't know if everyone knows that and we just if I
could just go for 10
seconds over my time it's um it's crazy to think about the
kids that go to Geyer
High School and had five frack walls around them when that
's like the basis
of the lawsuit they were gonna accept that as democracy and
also I just want
to give a shout out to my friend Dylan who's in the room
right now and she's
13 years old and she lives probably about 150 feet away
from the vantage site
right now and it's crazy that she's been spending the first
two weeks of her
summer vacation protesting vantage with us and it's crazy
that she's here right
now and at 13 realizes that her vote might not matter and
that she can't
depend on democracy to keep her water clean and feel safe
in her own home so
it's really that has the Sleeping Beauty option understand
who we're up against
its oil families it's not you know just want us to have a
higher standard of
democracy thank you thank you
Eric and then Ron Seifert hi I'm Eric Ma I live at 2210
Westwood not totally
prepared to be as eloquent as some of these other folks but
I totally agree
with the Sleeping Beauty resolution to pass another
ordinance saying that this
one won't be enforced my understanding of the lawsuit is
that even if we do
decide to repeal the ban Texsoka could still argue that
they want the judge to
declare the whole thing unconstitutional and just not
accept our rolling over and
then push for even more so I think that would be a terrible
loss and regardless
of all that I think that it's really important for y'all to
show us that you
are with us I haven't seen that yet you know obviously we
had to vote ourselves
to get this ban because City Council was never willing to
do so and you say you're
willing to defend it but I mean I certainly haven't seen
any support for
the people of Denton out actually at the vantage site
trying to defend our ban I
haven't seen most of you offering support with the
exception of Keely thank you so
much for your support but I think that there's a lot that
you could do given
your power Terrilyn had some great ideas other ones would
include funding for you
know additional health services health screenings you know
people who live near
fracking like we should have at the very least data on the
kind of illnesses that
people have that cost money to go around and do those
studies you know we need to
have air testing we need to have water testing and the city
of Denton I wish I
had the numbers with me I looked up a while ago y'all spend
far more money
hiring more people to go around regulating how tall our
grass is there
are more people who regulate how tall the grass is because
because yeah some of
us have gotten those notices we're like oh you didn't cut
your lawn pay this fine
there are what two regulators for all the 300 gas wells two
dudes who are people
who've been in the industry their whole lives and we're
supposed to trust these
guys you should be hiring the people of Denton dozens of
them to have real
paying jobs to go out and make sure that these frackers are
not poisoning our
water and bending all the rules that we do have and that we
should still be able
to enforce despite HB 40 and I again want to reiterate that
I don't know if
it's part of y'all's impression or plan that if you repeal
the ban that it will
somehow take the the wind out of the sails of the the
movement of civil
disobedience I don't I don't know how you really feel about
it you know we
haven't talked personally but it's not gonna stop just
because you repeal the
ban and it's gonna continue and this wave this sleeping
dragon that has been
woken by HB 40 all throughout the state it's gonna replace
a lot of politicians
around the state they're they're gonna be gone and y'all
will be gone with them
unless you stand with us so thanks thank you Ron and then
we've got Rebecca
Hina Hosa
hello my name is Ron Seifert I live at 1400 Marin Drive so
I am someone who can
also understand and appreciate that y'all might feel like
you're stuck
between a rock and a hard place and that you don't really
want to be in this
position and you want to stand with the people of Denton
and enforce a fracking
ban onward and forever and the only reason you're making
these amendment
proposals is because this is the most strategic and
effective way to fight for
a fracking ban in the long term and so as I understand it
you all are asking
that we we the people to help you you the government make a
competent and
informed decision on which of these options will move us
closer to our
shared goals of a frack free Denton so and surely it's not
lost on y'all that
the impact of these amendment proposals let alone all the
talking of repeal might
feel a lot like a bunch of politicians selling us out
especially when
juxtaposed to our recent experience of the powers that be
in the state
colluding with industry to poison our communities on a
daily basis for
nothing more than greed and moneylust so as I see it y'all
's problem is rooted in
trust y'all are asking us the people to trust that y'all
the government will
uphold our democratic will even after you are not compelled
to do so legally
with a repeal scenario y'all want us to believe that these
hard choices are
necessary in the short term because y'all are committed in
the long term to
protecting to a protracted legal struggle to realize our
long-term shared
goals so here's the rub even if I do believe that one of
these amendments is
a strategic move in the long term y'all are offering close
to nothing to reassure
the people that y'all are fully committed to that long-term
fight nor
does it seem that y'all have any plan in the short term
this is highly
problematic I mean why should we trust your long-term
commitment to these camp
to this campaign when in the short term it feels like you
're abdicating full
responsibility to trust it to protect us from being
poisoned like our my friend
Cindy just said there are people in this room right now
that have silica stamp
blowing into their backyards into their homes through their
windows they're
breathing that particulate matter they are being poisoned
right now and your
sacred duty is to protect them and I don't know what your
campaign plan is if
this is if it's truly the case that your hands are just
tied and you really want
to be on our team that you just can't then what are you
gonna do to support
citizens like violet Palmer and Theron Palmer who are
actually taking action to
protect ourselves you know this morning miss Palmer who has
been mentioned as a
92 year old elder respected in our community said that
quote I am standing
up today because never in my lifetime has there been such
an egregious
disregard for the democratic process in Texas so if you
agree with violent
sentiments and you want us to trust y'all's convention
conviction then prove it just
prove it do something to suggest that you will stand by the
community while we
protect ourselves from being poisoned or you'll do
something to protect us but
don't ask that we trust you and then do nothing to show us
that that trust is
legitimate thank you thank you Rebecca and then on deck is
Rosemary
okay Candelario sorry if I mispronounced that hi my name is
Rebecca
Nejosa I live at 621 Schmitz Avenue Denton Texas I guess
first and foremost I
want to say congratulations to the residents of Denton and
all of their hard
work they have been an inspiration to different parts of
Texas I'm originally
from South Texas and folks there as we're speaking are
flooding their city
council rooms because they're protesting against flaring
happening in their
communities so as we're here flooding this council room
there are people in
South Texas in Edinburgh Texas doing the exact same thing
so thank you all and
that being said I want to advocate what Tara Lynn said
about organizing a Texas
wide tour to connect with other mayors to build a
resistance against HB 40 there
are people that are supporting Denton across Texas and I've
seen them like I
said on top of that I support the Sleeping Beauty
initiative coin Sleeping
Beauty initiative by a dr. Adam Brighill I don't support
repealing the ban I think
it needs to stay on the books and there needs to be a
record to show the kind of
resistance that has happened here in Denton against fr
acking I also advocate
like health screenings need to happen in vintage
neighborhood TCE key only has a
few monitoring systems in the entire city of Denton that's
not enough we need
more air monitoring we need more water monitoring we need
to be checking our
land systems to make sure that our topsoil isn't polluted
completely
because of fracking and I guess we also I don't know if you
all realize this but
Denton Texas is a gem in the sense that we have one energy
provider which is
Denton municipal electric and I read recently in the paper
that we y'all have
the option of ending the contract with the Gibbets Creek
coal plant in Bryan
Texas Denton should not only be free of fracking but we
should also be powered by
100% renewable energy so I support any decision to end the
contract by 2018 and
Denton be the first city in Texas to be 100% green energy
powered so ending that
contract with the coal plant switching off of natural gas
energy and supporting
the wolf ridge wind farm in Munster Texas by increasing the
wind capacity and I've
left a lot of voice messages on your voice machine Dalton
Gregory about Beyond
Coal initiative since 2010 and I've talked to you Kevin Rod
en about it so
many times over the years and so yeah I think Denton Texas
needs to stay
frack free and be powered by 100% renewable energy because
we have that
power thank you thank you thank you Rosemary and then Kelly
Bar
Rosemary Condolario 602 Woodland Street you did a pretty
good job it trips a
lot of people up I'm here today to urge the City Council to
respond to Tex Ogas
filing for a summary judgment in their lawsuit by filing a
motion to dismiss I
know this is not popular advice many people believe this
Avenue may open us
up may open our band up to being ruled unconstitutional by
a judge this is a
risk many people are unwilling to take I however want to
use my short time today
to talk about why we need to take this risk in the book
success without victory
lost legal battles and the long road to justice in America
civil rights lawyer
Jules Lobel admits that in a utilitarian view of the law
quote to
succeed means to win concrete results to change the legal
rules to win damages
for your client or to obtain a court injunction and quote I
believe this is
the kind of reasonable win-based strategy that the city has
been urged to
take but Lobel cautions against such a narrow definition of
success
particularly particularly when a short-term legal win may
come at the
expense of longer-term political gain Lobel points out that
virtually hopeless
test cases brought to challenge unjust policies is a
recurring thread in the
tapestry of American law and he persuasively argues that we
should view
success as a living out of values persistence in the face
of great odds
and the strength to stand up for principles even when
defeat seems
inevitable and I think we've heard tonight and two weeks
ago and over the
past number of years that this is something that Denton
really believes in
I believe that we the people of Denton are in a position
where we cannot respond
to Texoga and the Texas legislature with reasonable
measures we all know that we
are in an unreasonable situation where oil and gas
interests effectively govern
our state where quote-unquote commercially reasonable
practices are
allowed to trump our ability to make choices about our
health and safety we
have no hope of stopping stopping fracking in Denton let
alone in the
state of Texas if we agree to continue to fight on their
terms and make no
mistake HB 40 is their terms if I filing a motion to
dismiss we expose the way
our whole political system in Texas including the judiciary
is in the pocket
of oil and gas and then all the better remember while our
band passed through a
democratic process so did HB 40 it's just that the
legislature and their
friends in the industry are telling us now that their
democracy holds more
weight than our ours does Texoga wants to shove this point
home by forcing us
to repeal a ban that is in fact already unenforceable we
can't give into how
they want to play the game we need to reach for true
success a Denton without
fracking and if we need to lose in the short term then I
say so be it as we've
been singing out in front of the vantage site for the past
few weeks ain't no
frackers gonna break us Denton love is much too strong
thank you
thank you Rosemary Kelly Kelly bar and then up on deck is
Maile Bush Maile
Bush hi my name is Kelly bar and I live at 701 West Sycam
ore Street November
4th 2014 is the first day in my life that I felt proud to
be from Texas so
I'm really incensed that our band is stuck between this oil
caked rock that
is the Texas legislature and the hard place of being at the
mercy of oil and
gas lawyers that's a pretty terrible place to be but these
are really
difficult circumstances and none of our options are really
clearly any better
than others in the long term not all of us here are going
to agree about what
should be done and this I think is entirely reasonable so I
'm deeply
conflicted about what the right decision is and I think I
'll let more
experienced voices speak to what Avenue y'all should take
tonight but you're
free to press me on this point questions too what I do want
to speak to is what
the situation means for us I think this is an important
thing to consider right
now there are several narratives floating around that try
to express the
kernel of what we're going through in this situation right
now but I think in
various ways they all try to hijack our story and use it
against us so I just
wanted to point them out one of these narratives claims
that the real issue is
a financial one that it's Denton taxpayers money pitted
against the oil
and gas industry money I think it's pretty clear why that
one misses the
mark right the situation has always been about the
protection of people over the
protection of revenue streams and I think we all who have
been hearing this
situation about the situation for the last four or five
years know this
another narrative has it that the most important issue at
stake is local
government run amok right I also think that it's pretty
clear to us that
something is run amok and it's certainly not local
government right we've been
trailing behind this industry trying to pick up the pieces
of tainted water
broken infrastructure sick people and unusable land left
behind by an industry
that refuses to abide by being a decent neighbor another
narrative has it that
the central issue is the protection of private property
rights but it's also
clear to us that prioritizing mineral rights over surface
owners rights make
surface owners second-class citizens and I think in a
democracy like ours that's
intolerable so I think the situation is better summed up in
this way we are
reasonable people responding reasonably to an extreme
situation we've been
fracked in a different way and they didn't even have the
decency to take us
out to dinner first and we are not alone in this Denton and
every other home-rules
city in Texas have been fracked by a state government that
is more concerned
with concentrating their power than protecting us they are
eager to
fracture districts or gerrymandering they show that they
concern for exporting
their responsibility for citizens health safety and
protection and they also
shared the show their concern for extracting profits for
their friends and
business partners and HB 40 is a concentrated cocktail of
these concerns
and it's being shoved down the policy pipeline that empties
right into the
heart of our cities but our solidarity runs deeper than
whether or not we are
in consensus about any one decision including the decision
tonight those of
us who are here and didn't became strong because we were
being fracked we are
still strong because Denton is still being fracked and we
remain strong as
long as citizens around around Texas are being fracked and
not only ways that
involve natural gas this is a story about people doing what
needs to be done
for what they love we love this place Denton is our home
and we love each
other enough to fight for one another's health and safety
and in the long run to
fight with everyone across Texas who is affected by HB 40
so I submit to you that
ought to be our ultimate goal in whatever our long-term
strategy happens
to be challenging the constitutionality of HB 40 thanks
thank you
Miley Bush is up thank you and then Deborah Armator is on
deck if you'll
just set it there they should be able to zoom in on it I'm
Miley Bush I live at
4501 Lacewood Drive I feel like I've said all the words I
can say about this
I wasn't even sure that I was going to speak tonight but
this afternoon this
happened there was a lovely light rain this afternoon and
my daughter begged to
be allowed to go out to play in it she spent some time
outside and this
happened as a parent you do everything you can to protect
your children to
protect all children I try my best I try my hardest I give
it my all but I allowed
my child to play in her backyard and this happened this
happened and I cried
I cried for my child and for the children living near Nail
Road for this
is what their future looks like I work hard for this ban so
that no other mama
has to go through this and it breaks my heart that more
families are going
through this right now in spite of our best efforts because
this is still
happening I have already emailed you many words and I still
stand by those
words although it breaks my heart I believe that repeal is
the next right
step and I think that we need to take it because this
shouldn't happen we have to
work with the circumstances that we have whatever your next
step is whichever
one of the options tonight it is I want you all to think
about my daughter think
about all the children out on Nail Road think about your
own children and
grandchildren all of Denton's children when deciding what
that step is find a
way to make this stop happening I just wanted to remind
everyone of what we're
actually fighting for we have a question councilmember Haw
kins yeah thanks for
showing that how close do you live to a gas well we are 450
feet from one pad
side and there was a compressor station 800 feet the other
direction thank you
thank you thank you very much oh I'm sorry we've got one
more
councilmember road thanks for sharing that what would you
mind sharing what
your daughter's name is Cassidy she about five six five
yeah I've got a
seven-year-old daughter so she looks very similar but I
think that's the
that's the heart of the issue thanks for participating in
this struggle and for
sharing that today thanks thank you thank you thank you
Deborah's up and then Dylan Reeves
hi my name is Deborah Armantar and I live at 2003 Mistywood
Lane I can't
believe that we're even talking about repeal today I didn't
see it on the
agenda I don't know if the agenda was quickly updated when
this decision was
made I believe people will be very angry and I don't mean
those of us in here who
all know right now that repeal has been added to the agenda
I understand your
point that it's legal for this to happen I trust that but
people are going to be
very upset the thousands of people who voted for this ban I
'm talking about
risk analysis I I get that there is a risk involved are we
not to repeal
there's a risk involved when I cross the street maybe it
would be a better idea
you know for me never to leave my house that would
guarantee I would never be
hit by a car when I cross the street but of course you know
we can't live this
way I obviously don't support repeal I don't even think we
should be
discussing it it's my understanding that we have at least
21 days is that correct
for a to to respond to a court to a summary judgment at
least 21 days that
that was my understanding so there is no rush whatsoever
they're gonna wait the
balls in our court now we get to decide what to do let's
not just throw that
ball away some somebody was talking earlier about this
being like a card
game knowing when to hold them and knowing when to fold
them to me that
this is more like a chess game and we're not in checkmate
right now a summary
judgment does not put us in checkmate we are in check and
this is a game of
check and of chess the first move was made when the fracker
started fracking in
our town the second move was made when when grassroots
citizens tried to
cooperate working with industry to try to come to a
resolution and industry
showed that they didn't want to work with citizens so then
it was Denton's
turn and we voted on a ban we had them in check not check
mate but check then
they come out with HB 40 and these this this new addition
to the lawsuit which
is from what I understand from my lawyer friends I've
talked to you no big deal
should I continue or should I just stop if you just wrap up
your thoughts that
be fine yes anyway that's you know that you know in my mind
the only situation
and by which we can be in checkmate is at the level of the
federal Supreme
Court that's the way due process works in this country that
's the way I learned
it in high school that's where my kids are learning it and
you know if we want
to really do something for our children let's show let's
give them a little
lesson in the way that democracy works not only in the
sense of our vote
counting here in Denton but let's show them that we can
take this up to the
Supreme Court level I support the the Sleeping Beauty
option and like I said
I I'm appalled that we're even talking about repeal today
we do not have to
decide on this now I think thank you thank you Dylan oh no
Dylan Reeves yes
is up yeah I'm sorry sorry Deborah and then up will be and
then on deck will be
Michael big breaks I'm sorry yes my name is still in Reeves
and I live on the
corner of Nel and Spring Hill Road I wanted to start off
saying a quote by
Bob Marley you're not supposed to feel down over whatever
happened to you I
mean you're supposed to use whatever happened to you as
some type of upper
and not a downer and I think that that quote pertains to
what is going on here
and I'm pretty sure that everybody here has felt
discouraged angry saddened
knowing that you are raised saying you can have a voice as
long as you use it
you know in different ways by voting and then being told
you know because we see
a profit we're gonna take your vote and we're gonna rip it
up and throw it away
and that it it really disgusts me to know that that to be
told that we have
freedom but that is not found here in the United States it
is not found and
you know to see fracking going on I don't only speak and I
mean I don't only
protest against for my family and I self I don't protest
only for my neighbor's
health health and I don't only protest for the people that
live in crumb I
protest for people that live in the state of Texas and you
know the frackers
they go in there and they're working they're trying to make
a living for
their family without knowing that they are going home
having all these
chemicals you know on their clothes and they're taking that
home to their family
and they are not potentially making their family sick and
you know it it
kind of it makes me sad to know that fracking was banned
and then because one
man with power one man with money saw that there could be a
profit made he
just took everybody's votes everybody's words and feelings
and then just threw
them away and I kind of wanted to close saying a quote by
Bob Marley saying get
up stand up stand up for your rights get up stand up don't
give up the fight
because it's true and we can't give up that's it council
member Briggs I'm so
sorry for you I'm sorry when you guys hear me in
closed session is this that I'm passionate about it's our
children and
our democracy and their health so I apologize if I seem out
of place but
this is the passion that I feel she reminds me of my son
and I see every day
okay this is I'm sorry this is happening to your generation
I just feel bad for
everybody that's living in the generation not just only for
the kids but you know
we have elderly people that we need to take care of and
protect and putting
these fumes inside of our air is not helping you're right
sweetie
any other questions thank you very much thank you for
coming down
Michael and then up next would be Jean price Michael Briggs
2311 Houston place
of a few thoughts and some questions first of all two
speakers ago I think
she's totally right that it is unfair and not forthcoming
that repeal was not
mentioned at all in the agenda for tonight it mentioned two
distinct
options and so I think that's why a lot of people are not
here because they
trusted that you guys were listening to what they said last
time and that repeal
was not on the table for tonight so that's why they're not
here speaking
their mind on that because they liked one of these two
options that you listed
and they expected you to go with one of these so I think
that it would be wrong
of you to repeal tonight I mean you can still consider that
but I think that you
should post that as its own agenda item so people can be
properly informed and
voice their opinions so I think that that should be off the
table for tonight
not necessarily and ultimately but for tonight I don't
think you should vote for
repeal I have a few questions I guess for the city attorney
there's got to be
some sort of a precedence for a situation of this type to
where there is
a lawsuit and then the defendant which being a city has an
ordinance of
non-enforcement versus repeal and what has a judge accepted
in the past like
there's maybe not related oil and gas or fracking but that
's got to have happened
before like what are the odds of this of non-enforcement
ordinance being
sufficient to make the lawsuit moot or to be dismissed I
mean it seems like
that's kind of what we're weighing here is the risk and the
balance of those two
things so I'm wondering what the legal precedence is and
can you cite any
history of cases that are the most similar to this and also
if in the
instance that we were to make an ordinance of non-en
forcement and the
judge was to find that that was not sufficient and then did
issue the
partial summary judgment is there a way to appeal that
partial summary
judgment to a higher court and claim that the issue was mo
ot at the time and
that there should not have been a summary judgment and that
could be
possibly reversed by a higher court because we said the
issue was moot and
they may agree with us is that a possibility and can we
keep going up the
levels on that basis another question is if we were to repe
al the ban I'm just
worried about legal standing for the city and or DAG to
actually have a basis
to fight on if that didn't exist what are we fighting for
there's nothing
concrete that were that were that we're going with it's
just that we're upset
but we don't have a law in place anymore that we're that we
're trying to fight
for and another thing is if ultimately not tonight because
it shouldn't be on
the table but you did decide to repeal I think you need to
very heavily
consider the optics of this I think it's super important
how this is perceived
from the outside because this could easily be perceived as
a as a failure
and that we've given up and so if we do this we need to
spin this properly and
issue a proclamation an official proclamation saying that
this is a
strategic move and we're going to keep fighting and that we
need to spin this
in the right way because that's very important and I think
that there should
be time taken to to plan that in advance and not not just
do this off your off
the cuff so I think that that something should pay
attention to okay any
questions saying that thank you thank you Mike
Jean price and then on deck is Jonathan Adams yes my name
is Jean price I think
you should repeal the ordinance it's a state issue it has
nothing to do with
fracking one way or another these people that are against
fracking
should get the cities together go to the state by the lobby
ists they need or
whatever and fight this battle where it needs to be fought
at the state the city
has rules the state has rules the county has rules you're
not changing that by
passing a ban or whatever this lawsuit has cost this money
that's the reason I
voted against the fracking not because I'm against fracking
or for fracking it
was I didn't want to pay the extra taxes extra fees and
other things that this is
going to cost me I understand the little girl having the
issue take it up with
the state they mean every two years you know for six months
you know you got six
months to go down there and talk to them or they've got
commissions you can go
talk to the Commission's you can hire your lobbyists you
can hire whoever the
oil and gas industry isn't the only one that has money now
the Democrats have
plenty if you want to hire them because this is a
democratic issue not a
Republican issue it does sound like Al Gore talking here
tonight with all these
people I just want people to understand that I'm not for fr
acking I'm just for
people figuring out what branch of government to use and to
use it
properly the city is not the place for a fracking man the
state is use it the
other option that they might consider with the state I've
been thinking about
this is maybe the Barnett shell make a special commission
for the Barnett shell
and then all the cities within the Barnett shell could go
to this Commission
and impossibly get something done about the fracking like I
say just go to the
proper place that that's my concern is people learning
where to go I think and
some others think have mentioned to me even that I'm not
paid by any lobbyists
or anything from the oil and gas industry I came up with
this opinion on
my own is they could get more publicity by doing it here
and I'm sorry they went
to jail for their protesting but if they were outside
Walmart or Kroger or some
other industry in our city trying to stop business you know
they'd be held
off to jail too so that's just part of it I mean yeah you
have the freedom to
speak but you also you know sometimes have to pay for it
thank you all right
thank you let's see Jonathan Adams and then Sandra Swan my
name is Jonathan I
live at 2210 Westwood so right now I'm selling this the
side of fighting as
hard as we can to keep our ban sleeping beauty option seems
to be our best bet
and I think we should give that a try I think a reappeal is
going too far right
now and I think we deserve the dignity as world is watching
right now also I know
that some of the city think that repealing wouldn't give us
a basis for
protests anymore but I can assure you that it will only
continue to grow I
think that even if a lawsuit is on the wake the industry
has awoken a sleeping
giant we need to make sure that you're gonna support us in
this upcoming fight
100% so before repeal can even really be considered what I
really want to see is
the City Council really standing behind the people of Dent
on I want to see you
all standing with the protests right here in town today as
a 92 year old great
grandmother Violet and her son Theron put themselves on the
line however right
outside of of this upcoming agenda item I haven't seen a
real effort on the part
of the City Council I want to see a genuine effort on the
part of all of you
to fight HB 40 and create a network of cities to actually
fight HB 40 so I echo
everything that several others have proposed involving
coalition of cities
being created by whatever means and what better city to
initiate the process than
Denton so I just want to remind you that we will all be
working to hold you to
that we've been working night and day to fight this
industry here in this town
and I really want to see you putting your all into this
because as it is and
- miss Briggs I haven't really seen any work moving forward
since we've asked
you to do this two weeks ago so further this is just
another suggestion that was
mentioned earlier there is a great deal of money that was
set aside for fighting
any lawsuits that might come up and so I really want to see
that money go into a
fund that would fight HB 40 and would return local control
in Texas and
additionally and I said it two weeks ago and I'll say it
again I want to see
everybody in the zoning board of adjustments go because as
I understand it
they granted the variance advantages new completely egreg
ious well site on Nail
Road so these are the kind of things going on in the city
that we need to be
see exercise from our community like a pest and thanks
Councilmember Johnson
thanks so you and several others have kind of brought up
the comment that you
don't see us doing anything any of us doing anything really
to fight this or
you know to work on it or stand behind the band or you have
any idea how many
hours we spend on average in a week of our time in these
meetings closed
meetings individual meetings with the attorneys individual
meetings with
citizens meetings with industry any idea well and I know
that you've come up with
this agenda Adam here tonight and we know that you have put
a lot of time and
effort into this but on a statewide level that's what we've
been asking for
we have been working to fight HP 40 we haven't seen any
effort on your part to
do that right so the question have something so the
question asked you is
do you have any idea how many hours in a week on average we
spend working on this
how many hours Greg in my case in the last two weeks at
least 30 okay outside
of these meetings so all I'm saying is it's really easy to
get up there and
make a statement like that and we just kind of have to sit
here and listen to
it but it would be great if you reached out and had a
conversation like ask a
question hey how many hours are you guys spending working
on this before you make
a statement like you guys just aren't doing anything I'm
looking for a debate
from you I'm just saying you know we spend countless hours
away from our
families and our jobs to do this for free so you can come
up and insult us if
you want but you ought to have a basis for your statement
thank you just really
quick though I mean we haven't seen any concrete evidence
so we want to see that
before you get up there and just start to make these
statements okay so thank
you and we also spend a lot of our time out there at nail
road and we haven't
seen any of you out there with us so thank you thank you
Sandra my name is
Sandra Swan I live at 1413 Cambridge Road here in Denton I
came up to
emphasize a point that was brought up earlier by Will Moot
in and I think
deserves serious answer before any move is proceeded with
it was mentioned that
the lawsuit has now been amended to include the moratorium
therefore if you
simply repeal the ban the suit still is there and they can
still do a summary
judgment against the city so then what is the point of repe
aling the ordinance
if the suit is still going ahead because it includes the
moratorium that is this
very serious question that needs to be answered and that is
all I would like to
say thank you thank you thank you
okay that's those are all the cards that we have Council
member Rodin thank you
mayor I'm sure everyone's kind of taking some notes
questions they have and I
just have a couple to get this discussion started and first
just to
clarify if at any point prior to a vote on this if a
council member feels the
need to get some legal advice in closed session is that an
option okay we are
probably posted for close great so I'm gonna ask a couple
questions that are
technically legal in nature I'm gonna try and make them
broad enough so that
the intent would be to educate the public so like these
answered in public
if possible when you have a summary when there's a plea for
summary judgment is
that the right term terminology that that happened
yesterday and we tried a
particular option and say that failed in terms of getting
that particular point
mooted which would be the the goal of what we're trying to
do here is the
defendant able to go back and try again with another option
or is that whatever
option they bring to the table in terms of arguing their
side of the case once
a summary judgment is given there's no second chance to go
back and try
something else is that correct
let me parse through that just a little bit because it
would depend on how I
suppose the ruling were issued if a summary judgment were
issued against the
city it would depend on how that were cast by the judge but
I'm assuming
looking at the facts that we currently have on the table we
would the summary
judgment will be issued in your hypothetical against the
city
indicating that the case was not moved and then it would
move forward and then I
suppose your question then is could you come back then and
repeal the hydraulic
fracturing band ordinance at that point in time and and you
could you could
certainly look at that possibility down the road if you
chose to do that that
would that would also be a possibility but I guess I guess
more specifically in
this case we're not the ones in the driver's seat of this
we're not asking
the judge for a judgment the other side has correct and so
we will have our day
in court to give our side and we're gonna present them with
whatever we've
decided today as some sort of case to say on the point of
the frac ban we
think that this should be that particular point should be
declared moot
based on what we did today if the judge says no I disagree
I agree with your
opponent's case on this is there a scenario in which then
that would be
kicked back for further action of the city or they're gonna
make a judgment and
then it's and endgame well the judgment would be issued
based on their their
pleadings the pleadings that they have filed and the
arguments that we would
make that's right no there's no go back and try again and
come back and
re-argue this thing that would be an appeal situation at
that would be an
appeal situation and so a couple questions have been asked
related to kind
of the legal effect of a repeal in the certainty of that
getting us to where we
want it to get us in terms of declaring on the point of the
frac ban that it's
been mooted the illegal effect of a repeal as opposed to
the legal effect of
I guess we're calling it the sleeping beauty options one of
the sleeping beauty
options can you talk a bit about that just hypothetically
imagine the city
had passed an ordinance and the city was challenged on the
merits of that
ordinance by someone or something and then the city repe
aled that in some sort
of defense of that lawsuit what level of certainty in that
hypothetical
situation would that have the effect of mooting it as
opposed to a separate
ordinance or an amendment to an ordinance that is a non-en
forcement
ordinance well in layman's terms if the ordinance is repe
aled essentially the
the entire issue is pulled out from under the the
litigation hence lawyers saying
that the issue has become moot and that would be the basis
for repealing rather
than taking this sleeping beauty option I guess we're
referring to this now
within the extended family of the lawyers who have been
looking at this
and pursuant to the question of one of the speakers I think
it's fair to say
this is certainly not a familiar option to any of the
extended family of lawyers
who have been considering this and so it's it's a little
outside certainly our
experience in anything that we have seen or are worked with
in the past so to
just clarify and I appreciate the lawyer and layman's terms
but I repealing an
ordinance would would give us a high level of certainty
that it would
accomplish what we'd hope it to accomplish and that is to
moot that
particular point whereas a an ordinance of non-enforcement
doesn't give us that
level of certainty is that accurate I think that's a fair
comment yes thank
you I've got a question along those lines because there's
been a question
raised I believe even by our last speaker that the plaint
iffs have amended
their pleadings to include the moratorium and have issued a
motion for
summary judgment on two fronts the fracturing ban ordinance
and the
moratorium ordinance so if hypothetically there is some
action
taken either tonight or some other time that repeals not I
guess the sleeping
beauty is where you say it's unenforceable and that if
somehow HB 40
gets repealed then it awakens is that that's the first time
I've heard that
term so I'm trying to make sure I understand okay I just
want to make sure
I'm understanding what I'm talking about because half the
time I don't so if if
you let's say for instance hypothetically if somehow there
was a
repeal that occurred at whatever time during the summary
judgment motion
timeline on the fracturing ban but the moratorium which is
when is the
moratorium due to expire at least currently the moratorium
expires by its
own terms on August the 18th I believe is the the date of
the expiration of
the moratorium so it's it's limited by the varying language
in the ordinance
that put it into play okay so to keep that moving the
council would have to
take some affirmative action to extend that date otherwise
it will expire on
its own terms as was passed that's correct in prior time
that's correct so
then if you've got a repeal of the fracturing ban but the
moratorium is
still in play is there a way to remove or to argue in that
because first of all
you got 21 days let's just as far as walking through not
necessarily legal
strategy but the timeline the process the procedure so you
got 21 days from
the first Monday I believe if that's correct after the
ordinance is filed or
after this motion for summary judgment is filed to provide
an answer is that is
that correct to we have the 21 days to respond to the
motion for summary
judge and do they have a certain amount of time are they
given time to file a
response to our response or is it just those two responses
stand on their face
the original motion and our response well they might choose
to respond I
assume the likely thing is they would set it for hearing
and some date in the
future and that we confer with us with regard to a date and
and the matter
would be set so then if so you're talking about some and we
're talking
about business days the 21 or is that 21 calendar days 21
calendar days so in
your estimation given the facts here given the situation
what would you say
would be a reasonable estimation of if we did nothing with
either the
fracturing ban or the moratorium or is that this would be
heard that it
actually would be before the bench would it be 60 days 90
days do people have to
agree on an expedited hearing all depending on the court do
cket what what
are your thoughts that's going to depend on when the court
can set the matter for
hearing and that's going to be certainly the parties will
talk about a potential
hearing date but that's going to be ultimately outside the
hands of the
parties and in the hands of the judge so if if there is a
if there is a repeal
hypothetically just for the case of just for purposes of
discussion here on the
fracturing ban and somehow this does get heard prior to the
expiration of the
moratorium is it possible that the court sees those as
there really two issues I
mean they could have they just combined two summary judge
of motions into really
one and could they say well one is moot and the other one
the court can consider
that that's entirely possible we are looking at two
different issues one on
the hydraulic fracturing ban and the other on the mor
atorium they're
different issues there will be different arguments in the
parties I'm certain
will take different positions on those but certainly the
industry is is
asserting that even the moratorium is violative of House
Bill 40 so they will
take that position they have taken that position but these
are entirely two
different arguments and I don't think that we can
necessarily tie the issues
together with regard to the action we take at least in my
view we should not
and we do so and then one other question that I want to
recognize
Councilmember road so then if for some reason this hearing
on the summary
judgment motion even with let's say a repeal in place on
the hydraulic
fracturing ban occurs or is scheduled for after the date
that the moratorium
is set to expire and the council takes no action to extend
that time would
that sort of have the same practical effect as a repeal in
the sense of
rendering whatever motion continues moot because there's no
controversy
because the moratorium has expired well I think that's a
possum that certainly
is a legitimate impossible argument to make I believe that
is true sir
certainly and I would also remind all of us that as we
looked at this
moratorium it was actually some members of the industry who
asked the City
Council to extend the moratorium so that we could continue
to consider the
ordinance revisions in the face of House Bill 40 and in
fact I think we had more
than one speaker from the industry actually urging the
extension of this
moratorium so in that regard I think we can't really mix
our thinking too much
on these two particular issues because the purpose of the
moratorium really
was so that we could work on those ordinance revisions and
I think is in
the interest of everyone in the city to look at those
carefully and make sure
that we're going in a good direction there okay
Councilmember wrote yeah that's what makes in my opinion am
ending the plea to
include the moratorium quite absurd I mean especially in
light of HB 40 if now
I mean we're not the only city in the situation has to re
look at their
ordinance in light of HB 40 to say what what do we need to
do moving forward
that's going to take time and with it and we're certainly
demonstrating that
we're doing that so my question is I mean there's certainly
there's certainly
a clean way to deal with this particular question I don't
think the moratorium is
sacrosanct it's certainly not in the same way that people
are expressing the
the frac ban ordinances has a completely different orig
ination completely
different purpose it's temporary in nature arguably and so
this is my
question I guess madam attorney if we were to set on a
future agenda to make
this cleaner to prevent any possible judgment on HB 40 on
the point of the
moratorium and we were to set to repeal that earlier than
expected then what
happens I guess from an ordinance perspective is 2013
ordinance just
rules the day for any new applications for drilling and fr
acking in town is that
correct that would be right we would not enact the rev
isions on the table
leaving in place the 2013 ordinance right and so then that
would obviously
open us up to whatever industry challenge would want to be
made but it
might not be a bad thing to vest new oil and gas operations
under 2013 ordinance
given some of the decisions we might need to make moving
forward in terms of
an ordinance so that's just a statement I think if we're
looking for a clean way
out of that particular issue seems in a week we could repe
al the moratorium I've
got a question what is our next I mean I know we've got a
council break coming up
well first of all do we know what the date is where we have
the response to
summary judgment has to be filed by do we do we know that
specific date or if
we calculated that I have not calculated I don't know if
any of the other
attorneys working on these issues have I think they're nod
ding their head no they
have not looked at the calendar yet on it okay all right
how many council
meetings do we have before our summer break at least that
we have scheduled
I think we have one schedule on the 23rd and one on the 30
th okay I think we do
have several members gone for the 23rd meeting four is our
excuse me three as I
recall okay and what do we know of any any people who will
be absent on the
30th any yes I think mr. Rogan is gonna be absent on the 30
th we'll have three
members absent on the 23rd okay well you know I'm just
gonna throw some thoughts
out there and I want to address one of the things that was
discussed here at
the end and that's about us and the time that we spend and
look I'm not gonna and
I don't I don't think councilmember Johnson was really
trying I have not
spent the time that some of you have spent on this issue I
'm not gonna
pretend to say that I have some of you have poured not just
months but years of
your life into this I will say that since the ban has
passed there has been
an extreme amount of attention placed on Denton that I've
had to field I know I've
had to go down to Austin on several occasions literally
within a day's notice
and clear all the calendar and do because it's important
and to sit and
some of you who accompanied us down there some of you who
were there with
with with myself and the city attorney and city manager on
occasion you saw the
climate I mean and some of the questions and things that
that occurred and and
I'm gonna have to agree with the notion that we do have
quote-unquote three
legal options or actions that we could take tonight I mean
that the postings
are sufficient but I know that two weeks ago we we we owned
up that we might not
have been as clear and as communicative as we could have
been on you know things
that were forthcoming and I don't want to make that mistake
again you know fool
me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me and so I
think it's very
reasonable to ask that if this council is considering
seriously a repeal of
the fracturing ban that we should find a way to put that on
another meeting
schedule specifically directly if we want to include the
other two options
that's fine because I think we do owe it I think I owe it
to I can't speak for
any of my colleagues but I think I owe it to the citizens
who've worked very
hard on this and you know we asked for additional time or
you guys asked for
additional time we gave it some things have have happened
since then that have
changed the landscape somewhat so I'm okay with that the
reason I asked about
those two meeting dates is it doesn't sound like that
either one because I
think this is one where every council member needs to be
here and so from a
time perspective and a date perspective that's why I asked
about the specific
date for summary judgment response because obviously until
then I mean they
can amend and amend and amend that's that's fine but we don
't really have an
obligation to respond legally until that time has passed so
I'm real okay with
with trying to find a day that if that's what we need to do
is seriously
consider that which we put it on the agenda two weeks ago
sort of without a
whole lot of fanfare which I think understandably there was
some
frustration with that and so moving forward I'm okay with
moving that to a
different meeting if that's in and so we do still have
action people can still
make a motion people can still second and we can still take
a vote on any of
the three options that we have in front of us but that
would be my own thought
on that particular option based upon some of the feedback
and that you know
if you wait two or three weeks by that time we're gonna
have we're gonna be
running close to the response date and it gives everybody a
chance to sort of
have a clearer understanding and it would be specifically
post I understand
it meets the legal requirements but sometimes as we've all
learned there's
sometimes a little higher value than necessarily the the
law which sometimes
is the floor and not the ceiling council councilmember Br
iggs thank you mayor
for saying that I appreciate you acknowledging that I
really do I just
have a question are there are there other cities right now
with bans because
we see that other cities are affected by HB 40 I mean are
there lawsuits from oil
and gas right now to other cities I mean are they having to
repeal their
ordinances does anybody know if this is actually happening
anywhere else are
they asking for repeal from others you have any information
on that my
understanding is that Denton has the only hydraulic fract
uring ban currently
in the state of Texas now and I do know that this issue is
is widespread and
there are other communities who have been encountering this
but to my knowledge
Texas is the only state with hydraulic fracturing pan so I
'm just curious what
other cities if there's not any other cities under in a
lawsuit right now what
we could co we could have that coalition with but I also
wanted to volunteer
myself as that as that Texas flag person going to volunteer
to talk to other
mayors I'd like to do that
mayor pro-tem Gregory thanks well I like the idea in one
sense of extending a
little more time because of the posting tonight and I don't
think that I think so
far that that our delays and our considerations have been
helpful
because I think it's given people more time to digest
strategies and options
and I mean there are folks in this room that have spoken
tonight recommending
one option that have spoken earlier recommending a
different option they've
they've moved in their positions because they've they've
been thinking more and
more about it here's the thing that I'm hearing that that
is fairly consistent
among our citizens at least those who've spoken and among
the council members who
spoken here and and in our post sessions on the issue is it
we're all looking for
a way to move forward to negate the effects of House Bill
40 we don't think
that's good law it's not good for cities it's not been good
for Denton it's not
good for other cities and the issue is finding the best
place to have that
fight and the best way to have that fight and our citizens
have the leaders
of the movement to ban fracking have different notions as
to where the best
place to have the fight is and the best strategy whether we
should repeal whether
we should opt for the Sleeping Beauty I I am bothered by a
few comments that
were made tonight that if you don't accept my strategy you
're not a true
believer I'm real disappointed to hear that because there's
there's a lot of
people that that are very very committed to serving the
city who can have
different notions as to the best strategy to do that and to
suggest that
because you have a different strategy you're not a true
believer I'm
disappointed to hear that if you don't battle the same way
I battle you're not
a true believer I reject that notion also I think that what
we need to do is
figure out the best way to to fight for Denton to fight
with other cities and to
fight for other cities and and that's what we're struggling
with and if it's a
strategic withdrawal if it's another thing the Marines say
I'm not retreating
I'm just fighting in the other direction sometimes that's
what you have to do you
just have to fight in a different direction to to to win
the the biggest
fight and and that's what we're about and so I'm I'm
perfectly okay with with
the delay I can't remember what our agendas look like over
the next couple
of weeks well from what I heard I mean the 23rd where there
's gonna be three
members out and on the 30th so this would have to occur
sometime during our
break in July because we need to see if we even have enough
people available
yeah that's yeah that's the that's the concern council
member Rodin thank you
mayor sorry that my travels are causing a you're probably
thinking yeah I mean I
get I get the concern of the posting the reality is is that
the other side
changed the game for us the last minute what two weeks ago
arguably it was our
doing we could have been more communicative given a little
bit more
sense of what we were doing this time I think we're
attempting to be responsive
in line with what the law allows us to do in fact I didn't
even hear of the the
amended plea except for a call I got last night from folks
here that were
informing me of it and asking me is it possible that the
City Council could
actually consider a repeal tomorrow during that so I think
if if the
question is people weren't aware that the shifting this is
about the same
crowd that was here a couple weeks ago a lot of the same
folks a lot of the same
so I don't have the great discomfort that that would be and
if that's the
direction we need to go could some people be surprised sure
and that's
unfortunate but I think we're trying to be responsive and
and I think we got to
make the decision now if I thought that there were certain
certain data or
certain information or certain things that time would give
us that would help
us make a better decision that's one thing I'm not sure
that's where we're at
at this point so but having said that if that is the will
of the council I think
we can we can certainly find a time councilmember Hawkins
sure I was just
gonna agree with Councilman Rodin a lot of the things he
just said I don't know
what would actually change in a few weeks but I definitely
do not want to
surprise anybody and even I I think I had brought that up
you know if I was a
little concerned that it was gonna look like enough of the
public did not know
what was going on tonight two weeks ago though when we did
not make a motion and
just kind of let it die on the vine just to make sure
legally if that were to
happen again tonight is that kind of a similar situation
just if no motion was
made or right if we the council takes no action on items
before you then they
fail it takes for affirmative votes to pass an item so it
will not pass if you
just don't take action on it okay thank you councilmember
Wasney
HB 40 is a fact the lawsuits are a fact waiting two or
three weeks trying to
change a decision with a 21-day time ticker is it possible
to ask the court
for an extension on that 21 days how does that work it's
possible to ask
Texoga and GLO for some additional time to respond on it
and and work with them
and then potentially work with the court as well just based
on people being gone
and vacation schedules and the council is out for two weeks
in early July I
mean they can look at our published council schedule and
see for themselves
that we don't have council meetings there's a phrase that
time brings
clarity so I would like to explore trying to get an
extension on that 21-day
time ticker to allow this council additional time to figure
out what the
decision is going to be that we're gonna make okay thank
you councilmember Briggs
oh I was just going to talk about the 21 days as well that
seems you know like a
lot but if it's possible to you know extend that so we can
reconvene all
together again after our break and all this the people will
be back from
vacations and it'll be it'll be like a united a united
front and what we decide
we can do together and also I just have a question about
amendment is it
possible to instead of to replace the word repeal but not
not not in force is
there another word that we can do that's not so you know
what I mean like and
also I'm like nullify or and then put in there you know we
will do this until HB
40 is you know proven unconstitutional or something maybe
just forget the word
repeal and use that for HB 40 rather than I mean it can do
the same thing but I
mean it's just got such a bad feeling towards it you know
what I mean I'm just
curious if it has to be that word if there's another word
that can do kind of
the same thing without stasking well we could certainly
have legal staff look at
that see if there's some wordsmithing that may accomplish
that goal that would
try to accomplish the goals that we were trying to achieve
with the word repeal so
I think that's certainly something we can look at also is
it possible to ask
them not to or to put in the agreement for them not to be
able to talk about
what we've done like so they can't go out and use it
against us with other
cities like that we've we've repealed it I don't know if
that's an option or not
you know like a client privilege thing does that know well
well you're talking
about making some type of change in the ordinance to to to
sort of convey the
same thought or effect of the word repeal but wordsmith it
in a way that
doesn't have that kind of sort of brash real direct where
our ordinances are all
public so that would be the only that would be the only
thing there is the
ordinances would be public so then that would be something
that anybody would
have access to but they wouldn't have the word repeal like
the city of Denton
repealed their ban we won anything else councilmember
councilmember Johnson
thank you mayor I just got a couple of comments you know
there are a variety of
ways to attack any issue right and some people do research
and they write
letters some people go door-to-door and educate their
neighbors some people
protest some people get arrested Ed Sof thanks that earlier
tonight I don't know
if it's still here but he said one of the things he said
was the industry tried
to divide us with threats and accusations and I think we
all know that
happened I loved what Kelly Barr said we were reasonable
people dealing with an
extreme situation and she's right there too and this is
frustrating for all of
us and it creates tension but I do know this because I was
taught this by a guy
with a lot of gray hair you will never persuade someone to
your position by
attacking them and these people up here work their tail off
for free all these
people because they love this city as for me I've got a
wife four children and
a business that feeds 11 families so I won't be going out
there and protesting
at the site because outside of this job this full-time job
I have another
full-time job and then I have four children that need me at
home but I take
exception to any accusation that if these people don't go
out there and
protest or get arrested that we're not doing our job we're
not defending this
ban we've spent countless hours on this issue and continue
to tons of meetings
that we can't sit here and talk about so you know I just it
's interesting to me
that that the number of folks that have said tonight you
know well we'll replace
you or we don't trust you or if you don't come out there
and get arrested
with us then you're not working for us you're not standing
with us and I think
it's important that people understand that just because
somebody doesn't do
things the way you do doesn't mean that they're not in love
with this city and
believing in this city disagreeing with HB 40 disagreeing
with the way all this
stuff went down so I just want you know for those of you
that that choose to
make those sort of comments I'd like for you to just think
about this issue is
important to you we deal with a lot of issues that are
important to a lot of
people in the city we get calls from a lot of people saying
stop wasting our
money we get calls from a lot of people saying this isn't
that important focus
on this we have to balance all that and we do it for free
because we love this
city so think about that the next time you want to launch a
personal attack
against one of these kind people up here any other
questions comments you know I
do want to just share one just really brief sentiment and
and again I can't
necessarily know the struggle that each of you face in your
soul I mean I mean
obviously this has been your life for a long time but I
will tell you I am a
lawyer don't practice much I used to but I certainly have
that competitive spirit
and it's been quite a struggle for me to decide what really
is the right thing
to do here taking into consideration my own biases my own
personality traits
taking consideration how I can be competitive is like you
know I'm not
gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna fight this or I'm gonna fight
that but then to have to
step back and also go well wait a minute what is my long-
term goal what is my
long long-term objective this is probably been honestly one
of the most
difficult issues that I believe this city has ever faced
since I've certainly
been on counsel and probably since I've been indenting
which has been my whole
life I mean so one thing I do want to encourage us because
you know there's a
famous book that says a house divided against itself will
not stand all right
so the one thing we need to make sure we can have disagre
ements without being
disagreeable but I think I cannot I can speak for myself
but I think I can speak
for the people here I think we all have the same interest
how we get there how
we do it may be different doesn't make yours right mine
wrong mine right yours
wrong but I will tell you once the division begins and you
can have
division with you you can have disagreement but not have
division but
once that real division begins that's when things begin to
erode and that's
when you really lose your power no matter what the issue is
whether it's
your personal power or it's your community power that's
what that's what
happens and I can tell you it has been a struggle for me to
try to under because
I've had so many conversations with this very bright woman
right here and saying
you know well we can do this this this and this and you
know my competitive
spirit gets to boiling and it's like you know what that's
okay it's just it's the
law and then I also have to sit back and go well what is
our long-term objective
and and I'm gonna say this and and and I've only been
called by by one mayor
before the House bill 40 got passed but there has not been
a stampede of
communities beating my door down or blowing my phone up
saying hey we're
ready to stand with you and I'm not saying that as an
indictment on anybody
I'm not saying it that it's not out there I'm not saying
that it's not
happening I'm just saying that it's not as if we as the
city of Denton have
received a lot of support I mean you guys have received a
lot of support from
your grassroots organizations from around the state and
around the country
frankly around the world but as a municipal body we haven't
that that may
change and that doesn't mean that we can't all right so I'm
not making a
statement of of what I believe is the situation but I'm
just sharing with you
what the facts are I'm trying to be as transparent as I can
as being mayor of
this city in probably one of the most difficult issues
being elected at the
time that we had the seven-hour meeting and spending so
many hours talking to
all the different representatives of the media going down
and talking to
legislators not just during the public meetings but also
special trips to go
down there and meet privately to try to figure out how we
resolve this so I'm
all for if there's if there's people out there that want to
try to figure out a
way a strategic way to truly not just sort of emotionally
and but strategically
approach this issue and have clear concise legal goals
because that's how
it's going to get changed at least at this point so I
wanted to share that
with you just so you can understand from where in my shoes
what I've seen what
I've heard what I've not heard and and what I'm committed
to a councilmember
Briggs thank you again for saying that the cities and the
transparency I just
wanted to say one last thing we do need a plan I mean we
owe you guys that if if
anything no matter what what we do we've got we've got to
have a plan or even a
desire for a plan so right now we are not frack free there
's fracking going on
in our city is it we have to ask ourselves are we going to
be is that
something we want as I mean as a city and we need to really
look into that is
that because that's that's where where we're going to be
and what our plan
needs to go forth thank you councilmember Johnson thank you
mayor
obviously tough issue and nobody is probably no two parties
are probably in
full agreement on what the best strategy is my opinion is
that more time hurts
us I mean we're really what we're talking about here is
either not
enforcing our ban by repealing it or strategic withdrawal
what do you call it
or not enforcing our ban by passing another resolution or
ordinance that
says we're not going to enforce it the the end result is
the same my concern is
that I believe that the industry really wants us to go to
court I think they
really want us to fight it and I think they really believe
as I believe they'll
they'll get the court decision which is why they kept
adding things to it because
they want us to go fight it so I believe the best option is
to let go of the rope
and not give them the satisfaction of a victory in court
and I think the only we
can do that now as much as it bothers us the leaving the
ban in place and passing
another ordinance that says we're not going to enforce it
in my opinion the
that is to preserve the history of the hard work that these
people went through
that the vote happened and I believe that that history is
absolutely solid
it's documented it's been in the press all over the place
and it will continue
to be talked about the motion I'm going to make is that we
amend the ordinance
to repeal the ordinance so that those lawsuits become moot
immediately
because I think the risk of because you don't know what a
judge is going to do I
think we were all shocked that the legislature did what
they did as
strongly as they did it and as swiftly as they did it and
we have no idea what
their legal fees are so the end result is we either don't
enforce our ban or we
don't enforce our ban I don't think the risk of exposing
ourselves to giving
them the satisfaction of a victory in court and what the
legal fees could be
if they were awarded is worth keeping the ban on the books
for the purpose of
preserving the history because I believe the history is
firmly preserved and I
think what we're what we're faced with here is one of two
bad choices I mean we
don't have a good choice but but my fear is now if we're
talking about not being
able to revisit this issue for a month three to four weeks
we a couple of weeks
ago we said we want more time they watched that meeting
they had court
reporters here recording every word and this is the action
they took they're not
gonna stop and so I have a lot of fear that well where is
it gonna stop we don't
know what comes next but if we repeal the ordinance now we
do know for sure
that the lawsuits are mooted and we will not have the
exposure of giving them a
court victory or paying their legal fees which are gonna be
we think ours are
high theirs are gonna be astronomical and I just don't
think that that's a
risk we should take having to pay that given that the end
result is we still
don't get to enforce our ban so it's a it's not a good
choice but I think it's
our best bad choice so I'm gonna make a motion to amend
ordinance number 2014 -
oh one to repeal it councilmember rodent thank you mayor I
think we do need a
work session as soon as possible because I think what I'm
hearing from folks both
two weeks ago and today is there is this question of where
are we going from here
and there's a lot there's a lot of possible answers to that
and I think we
owe it to the community to now have a discussion of what is
our value as it
relates to this type of industry in the city what is our
values as individual
council members and as a council can we read some consensus
of that because
we've got a lot of difficult decisions coming up we've got
a moratorium that
we got to figure out what to do with that we've got a
ordinance that we fear
many aspects of it are likely to be challenged in light of
HP 40 so we need
to get that cleaned up and make some difficult decisions
along those lines
and I think prefacing a lot of that discussion with a sense
of where do we
want to head as a city to start that conversation of not
only how we deal with
our ordinance currently but also maybe having some
strategic discussions of
possibilities of tackling HP 40 long term let's talk about
possible city
coalitions let's talk about other sorts of strategies many
of which have been
brought up today but this is difficult the city of Denton
made history and
regardless of how we particularly end this chapter we still
made history you
made history and so I want you to be encouraged America is
filled with
stories of America's self correcting itself throughout its
history to move
closer towards justice and I think those those battles were
hard fought and they
were difficult and they took a long time and I think we're
in the middle of one
of those for our generation so it's with a saddened heart
that I will second
this motion to repeal as I think it's the best move for the
city of Denton
thank you councilmember breaks I just wanted to clarify
that no one is saying
that we're going to at this moment the time to to postpone
or to spend the
time is that we have 21 days plus and they can't do
anything right in those
21 days they can't amend or it can't get any worse than it
is now I need to
comment on that absent he signed rule 11 agreement mr.
Morris from the Texas Oil
and Gas Association and GLO on this time frame we will be
marshaling all assets
to move forward and to take action to defend against this
motion for summary
judgment we have no choice and whether or not we will be
able to obtain such
concessions is is uncertain and we have no would have no
choice but to apply our
assets to be prepared to defend against that motion so we
will have to do that
in the near future but we have 21 days to to to do what we
need to do before it
gets is that right or no is that not illegal I thought I
heard you say that
we cannot start preparing 15 days from now we've got to
start pretty pretty
close to immediately to respond to this motion for summary
judgment we dare not
wait on this it will not wait so if we do not get a con
cession on this timing
we've got to go to work immediately and I and by
immediately I mean tomorrow
councilmember Hawkins thank you mayor we all want Denton to
be frack free so
we're trying to figure out how to eventually get there but
I just I wrote
down a bunch of people all the speakers I may have missed
one or two tonight but
some people that really surprised me that even wanted this
repeal or may
probably not wanted but accepted the repeal I mean
everybody the very first
speaker Sharon to Adam to Larry to John to Chris to Terlyn
to Ed Sof to Miley
Bush so I just I'm gonna be voting in favor of this appeal
to and I just I
think that like you said get letting go of the rope I don't
know if I look at
it that way but there's just a long game and it feel like I
'm not getting the
wind knocked out of me but that's how I'm gonna be voting
so okay any any
other speakers I've got a question if somehow this no no no
you go ahead
councilmember Wasney just thank you to legal for clarifying
the 21 day because
I'm not an attorney so I don't understand all of the ins
and outs but I
understand what you're saying on that 21 day and if they
don't give us an
extension and we don't get started on whatever it is we're
gonna do for a
reply then our backs are really up against the wall and we
walk into court
unprepared yes precisely
well I'm speechless first time in a long time since I've
been sitting up in this
in this thank you you know I'm conflicted I'm just gonna
you know one of
my faults is I think out loud you know introverts typically
will process
internally and then speak and I unfortunately do the
opposite which gets
me into struggle sometimes in this situation you know I
would like to be
able to find an alternative time than to do that this right
here tonight because
I can tell you in my mind until I got the pleadings this
wasn't necessarily an
option I was pretty comfortable with with the two
alternatives that we had
and I think in the end my I also would favor repeal all
right but I will tell
you and DRC reporter sitting out here who interviewed me
when I left office
and as a council member and in that article I said
volunteered what the vote
I regretted the most on my six years on council and that
was voting for the gas
well out at razor ranch across from McKenna Park and the
reason was because
I felt I was being motivated by fear and and legal threats
and things such as
that and so am I probably 99% I'm okay with repealing the
ban I guess at this
particular juncture understanding that we are under a
timeline understanding
that we may spend some money I don't know if I'm prepared
to do that tonight
if we were to do this next week two weeks from now would I
be prepared to do
that most likely absolutely I don't have an issue with that
particular option I
think that I'm just I don't want to respond I don't want to
look back three
years from now and go you know I really regret that I did
this because I felt
like I needed to do it because of all these various reasons
and not saying
that you should or shouldn't this isn't about making any
kind of comment to
anybody who feels differently it's just it's just what I've
had to wrestle with
as we all have individually on how to do this so if I'm
having to vote tonight on
repeal with no other options no other alternatives or no
there dates in sight
moving forward that would be within this particular time
frame I don't feel
comfortable doing that tonight in this situation if you're
to ask me to do that
next week I've got to be honest with you given the facts
and given the situation
and given the the ability to to make sure that the posting
is it's legally
sufficient I totally agree with that but that that's where
I am on this
particular issue at this time councilmember mayor pro tem
Gregory
thanks well I I so much agree with Ms. Wasney's comment
that time clarifies
and I agree with mr. Johnson's what we have is a couple of
bad choices before
us and and now now what we have is a couple of bad choices
and we really
don't have a lot of time it didn't dawn on me that we know
we really don't have
time because of the clock ticking and because our legal
team has to prepare
because we still have a fight even even if there's a repeal
so then this is in
our hand is being forced you know our bad choices have been
dictated by the
state legislature who said you're preempted from enforcing
your ban and
and by the gas industry saying and we want to make sure
that we don't just get
a political victory but that we get a legal victory too so
here we are with a
couple of bad choices and the clock ticking so that's the
position we find
ourselves in this is one of those times when before I was
on council I would
look at what the council was having to deal with and saying
sure glad I don't
have to cast a vote but I'm gonna get to catch one council
member Johnson and let
me tell you where I'm coming from mayor because you said a
minute ago the next
week we have three council members gone right be totally
inappropriate to take
action on this item or three council members the following
week councilmember
Rhodes gone legal he wants to be gone yeah he wants to be
gone but but but we
have to begin preparations and you know we've had advice
from legal counsel in
our in our closed session about this and their
recommendations and all the logic
behind it and the understanding of they can't begin
preparations for our defense
until we take some action right so and that's why I said
what I said we have
two bad choices given the advice that we've had and given
all the conversation
that we've had and all the comments that we've had from the
public that's come
and spoken two weeks ago and then tonight almost the same
exact people who
spoke two weeks ago spoke tonight and and so while time
does provide clarity I
don't know what other options we're gonna find in front of
us in the next
two or three weeks but we don't have any assurance that we
can delay it and and
so that so the challenge becomes as I'm sitting here
thinking through it is we
have the options we have we've heard the input we've had
countless hours of input
from from our our own legal advisors and we have to make a
call and if we wait
three weeks to make that call I fear that we put our legal
team in a very very
bad position to be able to do their job so I mean for me I
'm all for more time
on things but in this particular case we need to prepare
the best possible
defense we can to get these things dismissed and I don't
think they can do
that in a week and so that that was really the the genesis
of me saying I
want to make this motion tonight is we're gonna sit for
three weeks and do
nothing which gives them time to think up more crazy ideas
on the other side
meanwhile our legal team can't begin to prepare because
they don't know what our
direction is so it sucks but I mean that's where we are I
think council
member Briggs well I'm definitely not not ready to vote
quite yet I mean
especially why the time that we take we can post it
correctly with what we're
really intending to do and not the bait and switch but we
can change the
wording we can find we can find the correct the correct way
to word our
ordinance that honors our citizens a little better I think
council member
Rodan and to clarify while I will be traveling the next
couple of weeks my
second of Councilman Gregory's sorry Johnson's Gregory
Johnson's motion to
amend this by repealing is not can it's without
consideration of that I mean I'd
be happy to if need be and I still might have to fly back
from from the travels
to be here because this is important but I do agree that we
didn't put ourselves
into this situation we didn't file and amend the plea
yesterday and so the
sands are shifting pretty rapidly I think some folks have
spent a couple of
times now coming up into the wee hours of the morning
giving us their thoughts
on this it sounds like what we're hearing is that even if
we were to extend
it a week or two the votes would be along the lines of the
current motion so
we're delaying it for something for something and I think I
think we owe it
to the community to move on on this particular point
because again I think we
have a lot of difficult decisions to make we're about to
discuss in the next
item what to do with our ordinance and whether or not to
give that back to P&Z
and what to do moving forward and that's going to be a very
difficult community
conversation and we're going to need to reorient ourselves
away from this
particular discussion of the band into what kind of
ordinance can we defend in
line of HP 40 and so I think the times of the essence for
that as well as this
particular issue so again just to clarify my interest is
not because I'll
be traveling for the next couple weeks it's because I think
that the timing is
right thank you. Councilmember Hawkins. Thank You Mayor.
Maybe a question for
legal is there a way to wordsmith this I know that when we
've done that in the
past it's just a train wreck a lot of times but you know to
possibly not use
the word repeal or something along those lines. You know
this is this is just my
thinking on it and some others may have a different thought
but to me if we are
going to move forward and argue that we're going to move
these lawsuits we
need to repeal okay this hydraulic fracturing band and I
don't think
wordsmithing is really the right approach to take if we're
going to do it
I think the word repeal needs to be in this ordinance that
's my opinion. Thank
you. Okay I see no other speakers I guess one one question
of clarification
Councilmember Johnson it sounds like that let's say for
instance
hypothetically which we can't at least on the scheduled
council meetings that
if if there were a time within the 21 days where we could
have a meeting see I
guess I'm not I don't see it as if we had more time and
please this is I'm very
torn by this I mean you make a very persuasive argument you
know part of me
says this is what I would vote for anyway so why do I want
to delay the
vote and then I have to go back to just because that's
where I am internally so
it's nothing against your motion and I certainly nor your
second councilmember
Roden but I guess I'm not so afraid of saying you know if
we if we had a date
within the 21 days of still saying to legal hey you gotta
you gotta start
preparing understanding that cost money understanding that
that cost money and
we want to try to save some money and I don't want to
discount that but I also
know some things I mean we spent six hundred thousand
dollars on writing an
ordinance that basically we're almost gonna have to you
know probably half of
it at least so is it the is it the the lack of being able
to give legal
direction or you're just saying look if this is this is
what it's gonna be
anyway we probably just just well just rip the band-aid off
and get it done
well I mean it's two things one I mean everybody's gonna
vote how they're gonna
vote yes and I think right now any every one of us probably
knows how that's
gonna go up here so the the idea of some people didn't come
and give their input
because they didn't think repealing it was one of the
options I totally get
that well we got a obviously a lot of new information last
night and then this
morning so the question I have is when you look at the the
input that we've had
the input that we've had has been very consistent from from
the very first
meeting about it so we've had our advice from our Council
we've had all of our
conversations we've heard a lot of great input we've heard
a lot of the great
input that we've heard the same input two or three times so
frankly I don't
think we're gonna hear anything different and I think we
all know where
we stand on this issue which one of the two bad choices we
're gonna vote on
so in that case why delay it and give our opposition any
benefit right I mean
meaning that we can't control what they're gonna do we can
't control that
they may amend their pleadings again we don't know what
they're gonna do what we
do know is right now the pleading's got amended and we and
we have to respond so
for me it's two things one we need to take action we need
to get on to the
ordinance which we can't get on to that until we deal with
this and our legal
team can't start preparations until we give them direction
so I just don't see
the benefit in delaying because I don't really think we're
gonna come up with
any new ideas yeah we really have three options they've
been laid out we've
talked about a med nauseam yeah so that's and so that's
where I'm at on it
I don't know that any new people are gonna show up and come
up with anything
different than what all of the experts have told us our
options are and you
know this reminds me of and I'm sorry that I mean I'll be
honest with you I
it is really difficult for me because I know the right
thing to do is repeal and
it reminds me of the public hearing on in July the 14th or
15th 15th July 15th
and I don't mind telling this story I mean I at the end I
leaned over to the
city attorney and I said man I can't I mean we had a
hundred people coming up
here advocating for the same thing and that is council
adopt this ban council
adopt this ban council adopt this ban and the stories were
just so compelling
and towards the end I was I was really struggling with that
until I thought
okay what is what is strategically the end game because I
can tell you right
now if we would have passed that band and it's nothing
against the two people
who wanted to do that at the time so I certainly respect
that but I think in
the sense time has proven out if we would have passed that
band is that if
these seven council members up here whoever was there at
the time folks we
wouldn't even be having this conversation I mean because we
would be
slapped down so bad and I think part of what has been such
that the the
compelling part of the story and what has allowed the
support to be garnered
is is the the vote is the public vote every article that I
read everybody
who's interviewed me has asked what was the vote what was
the vote of the
percentage of the citizens that's the real story Dallas
passed a bag ban they
just repealed it last week because they had lawsuits filed
against them if we
had passed this ban ourselves most likely I'm not sure it
still would have
stood as long as it has because of the vote but I may be
able to support this
under one condition and that is I want to put on the record
in this ordinance
in the whereas or in some other section of the ordinance
and we can try to craft
it here well it doesn't get crafted here then because
people have asked we need
to make a public statement about the importance of the
citizen vote about our
commitment to the citizen vote about the
HB 40 and how that nullified a vote of the community
somehow to put in language
that acknowledges the hard work the dedication and I will
tell you I'm not
sure who said that if we repeal this that somehow we think
this is all going
away I'm not sure where that's coming from because I can
tell you right now
I've never had that thought at all so I know that that was
sort of expressed by
several people but this isn't as I said and it's something
I wrote this isn't
the end this is the beginning so I can't accept it as it's
written because it's
just sort of very plain and vanilla and I don't think
really does justice to
what the community did and the history that was made and
the battle that
continues so I'm open to suggestions that that would would
help satisfy me in
that regard and if not then then I understand that there I
would be in full
support of a friendly amendment because I don't I wouldn't
disagree with that at
all I mean being able to put a statement in there that why
we're taking this
action you know as a result of HB 40 and you know that I
mean whereas the
citizens of Denton voted this and I mean all that any
positive statement we can
put in there to memorialize what happened and why we're
repealing it I
would be in complete favor of I mean I I think what we can
't do is to say
because if we say in here and the moment that HB 40 is
overturned it will be
reenacted well that that doesn't solve the goal of getting
a dismissal right
but I'd be in full support of a friendly amendment of some
positive statement
there about the about why this came about and why we're
repealing it for sure
and I think that you and the city attorney would do a
masterful job of
crafting that in 30 seconds we have councilmember Briggs
did you did you
have a comment I was just gonna ask about that proclamation
if because it
appears that you guys are gonna vote on that so I just
wanted to make sure that
that was gonna be in there so thank you for bringing that
up well and and there
can be a separate proclamation other than just what's in
the ordinance I mean
there's there's no limit to you know how we acknowledge
that but this is the
official record this ordinance is the official legal record
of what has
happened here if that happens and I want to just ensure
that councilmember
Gregory so I've got a whole host of so maybe there'll be
some comments I'm just
thinking of all the things I want to say like and whereas
the oil and gas
industry bought and paid for this great bill that's serving
them but not the
citizens of Denton I don't know and I'm wondering do you
ever get to say and
and although we think that this bill has taken away a
democratic vote of the
people of Denton I don't think you have those all those in
in those kind of
ordinance so I think we're gonna have to I mean I don't
even know are we limited
to the whereas is and then the City Council hereby ordains
sounds sounds
like the mover the movement of this ordinance is open to
accepting some
additional language in the whereas clauses so perhaps we
can craft some
additional language and offer something up
but let's go down the line and then give you an opportunity
to read that yeah
sorry Kathleen you're my friend but it's councilmember was
me I apologize
whereas I think we need a short break let legal craft this
and think clearly
without us talking in her ear and and come back in five or
ten minutes after
legal and then we can put it up on the board so that
everybody can see it and
comment on it so we know what we're voting for good okay
that's a tip 5 till
12 we'll come back at we're going to reconvene did the City
Council meeting
on this day June the 17th at 1225 a.m. do you have copies
okay okay we are we are
back councilmember Rodin your John is your request to speak
okay I'm gonna
ask the city attorney to read the additional language if
she if she would
please I'll be glad to and as the mayor and I were sitting
here he has asked for
a little additional language so I'm going to include that
in the the two
whereas clauses that we have worked on while we're on break
here in fact I
don't I read all the whereas clauses so okay whereas on
November the 4th 2014
the citizens of Denton Texas voted in favor of prohibiting
hydraulic
fracturing within the city of Denton Texas which prohib
ition was codified as
initiative ordinance 2014 - oh one prohibition on of
hydraulic fracturing
and whereas the Denton City Council respects and has
defended the initiative
of the voters of Denton and applauds the sustained efforts
of our citizens to
retain and protect local control and whereas the 84th
legislature enacted
House Bill 40 which bill took immediate effect on May the
18th 2015 and which
bill prohibits cities among other things from adopting or
enforcing hydraulic
fracturing bans and thereby nullifies initiative ordinance
2014 - oh one and
further nullified the citizens vote to enact the hydraulic
fracturing ban and
whereas the Denton City Council reluctantly deems it in the
best interest
of the citizens of this city to strategically repeal
initiative
ordinance 2014 - oh one and whereas this ordinance amends
initiative ordinance
2014 - oh one by repealing it in its entirety now therefore
the Council of the
City of Denton hereby ordains this ordinance amends
initiative ordinance
number 2014 - oh one by repealing it in its entirety there
was a motion on the
floor and a second with the original version is what was
read the version
that is that accepted as a friendly amendment or how do we
do that
procedurally I will accept it as a friendly amendment or I
can withdraw my
motion and make a motion with this exact language whatever
is easier sounds like
it was accepted as a friendly amendment and then we need to
inquire as to the
second I second okay all right we have a motion and a
second for agenda item 5g
let's vote on the board please
motion carries six to one next agenda item is 6a which is a
public hearing and
this is a continuation of a public hearing back in April I
believe and madam
City Attorney were you going to have some opening comments
before we open the
public hearing as far as what is anticipated or what the
purpose of this
agenda item is thank you mayor I think that would be in
order to clarify for
our citizens at least what the staff is recommending here
this is a public
hearing relating to the ordinance revisits which we have
been working on
over the last several months however with the enactment of
House Bill 40 it's
become clear to the staff that these revisions are going to
require some
additional work therefore what the staff is recommending is
that this public
hearing be reopened since it was a continued public hearing
any comments be
taken and that then the City Council closed the public
hearing and then
remand this matter back to the Planning and Zoning
Commission for further
deliberation and consideration just for the public's
interest what would happen
then is the Planning and Zoning Commission would take this
under
advisement and then come forward at a later date and make
recommendations back
to the City Council so that mr. mayor is the recommendation
of the city staff so
let me make sure I understand we're gonna open the public
hearing folks gonna
have an opportunity to speak but in essence the
recommendation from staff is
to remand it back to the Planning and Zoning which in
essence allows an
opportunity to begin to work on revising it than what we've
worked on before in
light of HB 40 is that correct? Precisely. All right this
is a public hearing I
will now open the public hearing and I believe some of you
had filled out blue
cards and address both this issue agenda item and then 5g
so I don't know which
ones those are but this is a public hearing so anybody
wishing to come speak
on this item certainly please come down state your name and
address and your
time will begin this is a continuation of the public
hearing considering the
ordinance changes and recommendation is to remand it back
to Planning and Zoning
for further consideration in light of legislative action
this is a public
hearing anybody wishing to speak yes come on down state
your yeah you don't
have to have a blue card or anybody can just come down
being a public hearing
state your name and address and your time will begin my
name is Ed Sof 1620
Victoria Drive in Denton I don't know this this is
appropriate at this time but
I'm going to say it anyway and that is I hope that we take
this as an opportunity
to strengthen the ordinance in ways that we haven't been
able to strengthen it
before with such things as mandatory air monitoring unann
ounced and frequent
inspections vapor recovery units and electric motors rather
than diesel so if
and I'm sure there are more that I'm not I'm not thinking
about but that you know
but I would hope we could take this opportunity to actually
strengthen what
pardon me what we can strengthen under the current legal
climate thank you
fantastic thank you mr. so yeah well and and and I well I
'll make my comments
later public hearing anybody wishing to speak please feel
free to come down
states your name and address and your time will begin
Michael Briggs 2311
Houston place I just want to ask in regards to that last
vote is there a way
to get that posted on the city website with the new
language tonight ASAP for
the media tomorrow because I think that's really crucial
that that needs to
be available immediately with the new updated language and
and when can that
be done and when can a statement from the city including
that be made it's
you know go ahead Madam City Attorney we have one
additional change to make to
the ordinance so once that change is made and I have
approved it I can sign
that tonight I think and I bet you the mayor will stay
behind and sign it as
well sure and then we'll have the ability to then post that
on the website
under our wherever we post these type of announcements I
see mr. growth sitting
in the audience and I said I suspect he would be willing to
help on that okay
yes to answer your question yes okay you bet this is a
public hearing anybody
wishing to speak please come down and state your name and
address and your
time will begin
hi I'm Carol so at 1620 Victoria and I have several other
suggestions to make
for the ordinance I was hoping that we could have a tablet
op discussion with
the fire department the police department about emergency
evacuation
about equipment about procedures in case of such as the
light lightning strike we
had what the public is to do when something like that
happens if there's
reverse 9-1-1 code red neighborhood notification I think we
need to sit
around a table and discuss all this so that the public is
very aware of what to
do and some people don't even know there's a gas well near
them with tanks
so just to just to have this discussion with the emergency
responders thank you
I think in light of what's happened I think that's a very
good suggestion
absolutely this is a public hearing anybody wishing to
speak please come down
and say yes sir come on down and state your name and
address your time will
begin
my name is Eric mall I live at 2210 Westwood and this is
just a really quick
question so you know we have these ordinances but we know
that the zoning
board of adjustment in one case I'm sure many other cases
granted a waiver so
that people that vantage energy did not have to file that
ordinance I asked this
question two weeks ago nobody answered it I assumed y'all
were looking into it
but nobody answered it why was vantage granted an exception
of the 1500 feet
setback okay thank you
the mayor asked me if I would answer that question it was
the zoning board of
adjustment which acted on the variance the zoning board of
adjustment is
created statutorily for purposes of considering exceptions
to ordinances
among other things the matter did go in front of the zoning
board of adjustment
and the in their authority as a quasi judicial type board
they considered the
matter and they did grant it so it was not within the cogn
izance of the City
Council but with a separate board with quasi judicial
authority and that's how
the decision was made can I maybe ask a question on that it
's my understanding so
correct me if I'm wrong that it was before the zoning board
of adjustments
because it was simply that's what is the procedure in the
moratorium to we don't
in other words we don't have this ordinance either that we
've got it our
2013 ordinance or the ordinances we've been dragged those
don't go to the
zoning board of adjustments the this variance went
specifically because it
was required or was available for the moratorium ordinance
is that correct
that's correct this matter went before the zoning board of
adjustment because
it was written into the moratorium ordinance that that was
a potential
appeal so if the moratorium expires then if somebody is
wanting to vary some term
in our ordinance regarding oil and gas oil regulation that
I don't even know
if there's a process for that it's it's at least I'm it's
not going to go before
them unless we write it in somewhere else there are some
provisions that are
written into some of our drafts and I believe our existing
2013 ordinance that
would allow some matters to go to the zoning board of
adjustments so that is
resident now in our 2013 ordinance all right okay thank you
this is a public
hearing anybody else wishing to speak come down and state
your name address
anybody else wishing to speak yes sir come on down and
states your name and
address please
hi my name is Ron Seifert I'm at 1400 Marin Drive so I have
a question about
like a consent amendment to this agenda item like is it
possible for there to be
regulation so that frackers would have to have the consent
of all impacted
community members in the areas where they are fracking
people that would be
directly impacted by sound by noise by pollution by air
quality by water
contamination that they would actually have to consent to
that happening in
order for fracking to take place around them that it could
not just happen
unilaterally is that a thing that we could regulate above
ground in this
formula and a city attorney personally I don't read House
Bill 40 as is allowing
that type of approach but certainly I hear you and
appreciate your comments and
your thoughts and we will we will think about all
suggestions made here tonight
so thank you for that thank you public hearing anybody else
wishing to speak
Cindy Spoon 2210 Westwood so bizarre it feels like three
years ago we're having
the same conversation I agree with the recommendations that
itself made I would
probably add no open surface pits evaporation pits also I
would ask a
question I don't know what I'm not familiar with the
current ordinance
honestly because I've been thinking about a ban so as there
is something with
insurance policies already in there what is the minimum
insurance policy that
they're gonna that frackers are required to have when they
frack and dentin or
how much can we increase that million dollar insurance
policy if you're gonna
frack and dentin or something like that um and then I mean
I feel like this must
be a given but I'm gonna ask just to be sure surely the
only public hearing is
not gonna be right now at 1240 after right there's gonna be
lots more of
these okay so even if there's things that didn't make it
great yeah and just
to clarify madam city attorney when you say the
recommendation of staff was to
remand to planning and zoning would that require a public
hearing at planning and
zoning for any revisions or modifications that are being
recommended
to City Council and then City Council would also have to
have a public hearing
on that or would it be that's that's right we in
recommending that this
public hearing be closed tonight we fully acknowledge that
there will have
to be a posting for additional public hearings one the
planning and zoning
Commission and certainly one here and recognizing that we
've had some
continuations of these public hearings in this very matter
before you so we'll
have to be another posting I guess another thing I would
add I'm sure this
is commercially unreasonable but it seems extremely
reasonable is I know I
know this isn't the case for a lot of folks within density
limits but I know
the neighborhood that Dylan lives in or the one that's
being affected by the
banter set right now uses well water which is contaminated
and if you talk to
the people that live in that neighborhood one of their
things is that
they also have to like now buy bottled water and use bott
led water for not only
consumption but also for cooking and stuff like that so I
mean can industry
pay for that or be like expected to reimburse those
families that are I
don't know that's one of the main things I've heard in that
neighborhood is like
now we're also footing the bill because they poisoned our
water so we don't use
it no I mean I I think if they're outside of the city
limits then obviously
the city has limited jurisdiction but I would certainly say
that someone feels
that their well water has been contaminated that if they
have the
ability to get that tested and to figure that out and I
think it's certainly I
mean water monitoring and air monitoring has always been
part of the discussion
and it's just a matter of now how do we mold this new
ordinance to try to fit in
with House Bill 40 understanding that I would fully expect
that I'm sure that
there'll be some things that we might get challenged on
depending on what we
wind up crafting but that's a good point that we can look
into is how do we
address that if it's if it's within the city limits and it
's a private water
well see what rules apply to that thank you this is a
public hearing anybody
else wishing I can't even talk wishing to speak please come
down and state your
name and address anybody wishing to speak call it one more
time okay we will
now close the public hearing councilmember Briggs I just
want to say
that this is our last line of defense now and so it is
extremely important
that we have the best ordinance and we work to get the best
one that we can for
our citizens thank you thank you for those comments anybody
else wishing to
speak saying none councilmember Hawkins thank you mayor I
move that we remand
item 6a to the back to the planning and zoning Commission
all right
councilmember Rodin I second that okay we have a motion in
the second to remand
agenda item 6a to planning and zoning for further
consideration and or
amendments let's vote on the board please
a motion carries six to one we now come to I believe I
think that's the end of
the agenda items except for new business no we've got one
more oh good heavens
okay you're right I'm sorry you shouldn't have expressed
agenda item 5 what is it
5d okay no no where am I hold on let me get to the right
place okay here it is
yes agenda item 5d consider adoption of the ordinances of
the city of Denton
Texas on a second reading to involuntarily annex
approximately 574.75
acres of land containing eight of the 15 annexation areas I
will tell you that
just to let the public know that we will be reading eight
captions and legal
descriptions so just for your amusement amazement we invite
you to stay with us
thank you I'm gonna ask Amy Bissett who's our director of
planning and
development if she would present this case and read all of
those captions
council members I'll be happy to read these captions for
you tonight will be
the second reading of the annexation ordinances before you
and this will be
the final reading I will go through each caption
individually and you'll have an
opportunity to take action on each ordinance individually
as you know an
annexation program was initiated in 2009 and 2010 following
an annexation study
by Freese and Nichols over 9,000 acres were identified for
annexation within
the city of Denton and at the time non annexation
agreements were offered to
those properties that were exempt for ag use and those were
five-year
non-annexation agreements that have come up for they've
expired this
spring at the direction of City Council we did offer a one-
year extension on
those not in and non annexation agreements for those that
were still
eligible for exemption but for those that were not still
eligible for
exemption they are now up for consideration for annexation
there are
eight areas that have properties within them that you're
contemplating annexing
tonight I'll walk through each of the eight areas
individually the first one
is PAA one the location is on the south side of Jim Crystal
Road north of Tom
Cole Road and west of Mosh Branch Road and it's
approximately 164.1 acres the
ordinance reads an ordinance annexing an area of land to
the city of Denton Texas
generally identified as PAA one of approximately 164.1 zero
acres less
those parcels identified in exhibit C located on the south
side of Jim Crystal
Road the north side of Tom Cole Road west of Mosh Branch
Road and more
specifically identified in exhibit a attached here to which
area is adjacent
to and abuts the existing city limits of the city of Denton
Texas and which
contains fewer than 100 separate tracks of land on which
one or more residential
dwellings are located on each tract providing for inclusion
of a service
plan in this ordinance excluding properties within PAA one
subject to
non annexation agreements for agricultural wildlife
management or
timberland use from the annexation providing for the
correction of the city
map to include this annexed area providing a savings clause
and providing
an effective date
do we take these one at a time okay I'm sorry my mind's
gone okay we have a
councilmember Hawkins thank you mayor I move approval
council mayor pro tem
Gregory sorry have motion and a second for PAA sorry PAA
one let's vote please
motion carries unanimously all right the second area is PAA
two an ordinance
annexing an area of land to the city of Denton Texas
generally identified as PAA
two south of approximately sixty two point six five acres
less those parcels
identified in exhibit C located on the south side of FM 11
73 north of West
University Drive west of I-35 and more specifically
identified in exhibit a
attached here to which area is adjacent to and abuts the
existing city limits of
the city of Denton Texas and which contains fewer than 100
separate tracks
of land on which one or more residential dwellings are
located on each tract
providing for inclusion of a service plan in this ordinance
excluding
properties within PAA to South subject to non annexation
agreements for
agricultural wildlife management or timberland use from the
annexation
providing for correction of the city map to include this
annexed area
providing a savings clause and providing an effective date
councilmember Johnson
move approval of PAA to councilmember road second that's
have motion second
let's vote please PAA two passes unanimously PAA three an
ordinance
annexing an area of land to the city of Denton Texas
generally identified as PAA
three of approximately two hundred and nine point one five
acres less those
parcels identified in exhibit C located on the south side
of Ganzer Road east of
and west of Barthold Road north of FM 1173 west of I-35 and
more specifically
identified in exhibit a attached here to which area is
adjacent to and abuts the
existing city limits of the city of Denton Texas which
contains fewer than
100 separate tracks of land on which one or more
residential dwellings are
located on each tract providing for inclusion of a service
plan in this
ordinance excluding properties within PAA three subject to
non annexation
agreements for agricultural wildlife management or timber
land use from the
annexation providing for correction of the city map to
include this annexed
area providing a savings clause and providing an effective
date mayor pro
10 Gregory thank you mayor move approval of PAA three
councilmember road I
second vote in a second let's vote on the board please PAA
three passage
unanimously moving on to PAA four an ordinance annexing an
area of land to
the city of Denton Texas generally identified as PAA four
of approximately
four point two nine acres less those parcels identified in
exhibit C
located on the south side of Milam Road north of loop 288
east of I-35 and more
specifically identified in exhibit a attached here to which
area is adjacent
to and abuts the existing city limits of the city of Denton
Texas and which
contains fewer than 100 separate tracks of land on which
one or more residential
dwellings are located on each tract providing for inclusion
of a service
plan in this ordinance excluding properties within PAA four
subject to
non annexation agreements for agricultural wildlife
management or
timberland use from the annexation providing for correction
of the city
map to include this annexed area providing a savings clause
and providing
an effective date councilmember Johnson move approval of P
AA for councilmember
Rohn second motion and second let's vote please carries
unanimously moving on to
DH two an ordinance annexing an area of land to the city of
Denton Texas
generally identified as DH two of approximately forty five
point eight five
acres less those parcels identified in exhibit C located on
the south side of
University Drive west and east sides of Thomas J Egan Road
north of Jim Crystal
Road west of Mosh Branch Road and more specifically
identified in exhibit a
attached here to which area is adjacent to and abuts the
existing city limits of
the city of Denton Texas and which contains fewer than 100
separate tracks
of land on which one or more residential dwellings are
located on each tract
providing for inclusion of a service plan in this ordinance
excluding
properties within DH two subject to non annexation
agreements for agricultural
wildlife management or timberland use from the annexation
providing for
correction of the city map to include this annexed area
providing a savings
clause and providing an effective date councilmember Haw
kins thank you in honor
of our mayor and move approval mayor protein Gregory and I
second with the
memory of the fact that these used to be controversial we
used to have back
house for these we have a motion in the second let's vote
motion carries unanimously
moving on to DH three an ordinance annexing an area of land
to the city of
Denton Texas generally identified as DH three of
approximately 16.99 acres less
those parcels identified in exhibit C located on the south
side of Springside
Road north south and west of Corbin Road west of I-35 and
more specifically
identified in exhibit a attached here to which area is
adjacent to and abuts the
existing city limits of the city of Denton Texas in which
contains fewer
than 100 separate tracks of land on which one or more
residential dwellings
are located on each tract providing for inclusion of a
service plan in this
ordinance excluding properties within DH three subject to
non annexation
agreements for agricultural wildlife management or timber
land use from the
annexation providing for correction of the city map to
include this annexed
area providing a savings clause and providing an effective
date
councilmember Hawkins I move approval of DH three council
member Rodin second we
have a motion in a second let's vote please
motion carries unanimously moving on to DH form an
ordinance annexing an area of
land to the city of Denton Texas generally identified as DH
four of
approximately 3.28 acres less those parcels identified in
exhibit C located
on the east side of Bonnie Bray Street west of Fort Worth
Drive east and west
of vintage Boulevard and more specifically identified in
exhibit a
attached here to which area is adjacent to and abuts the
existing city limits of
the city of Denton Texas in which contains fewer than 100
separate tracks
of land on which one or more residential dwellings are
located on each tract
providing for inclusion of a service plan in this ordinance
excluding
properties within DH for subject to non annexation
agreements for agricultural
wildlife management or timberland use from the annexation
providing for
correction of the city map to include this annexed area
providing a savings
clause and providing an effective date councilmember
Johnson you have a map we
could look at good I'll make a motion for approval of DH
for councilmember
Hawkins I second let's vote on the board stay awake here we
've only got one more
you're doing a good job Amy thank you
carries unanimously last one DH 11 an ordinance annexing an
area of land in
the city of Denton Texas generally identified as DH 11 of
approximately 62
point two acres located southeast of the intersection of
Mayhill Road and
McKinney Street and more specifically identified an exhibit
a attached here to
which area is adjacent to and abuts the existing city
limits of the city of
Denton Texas in which contains fewer than 100 separate
tracks of land on
which one or more residential dwellings are located on each
tract providing for
inclusion of a service plan in this ordinance providing for
correction of
the city map to include this annexed area providing a
savings clause and
providing an effective date councilmember Hawkins Amy thank
you for
reading all those I move approval mayor pro tem Gregory
second let's vote
please
motion carries unanimously is that that it all right the
last agenda item is new
business I've got a couple things but I wanted to give
colleagues an opportunity
to weigh in prior to seeing no request to speak just wanted
to give some shout
out out to a couple of organizations here in town one is
that queue they've
agreed and to basically post a pet on their website for
adoption you know I
don't know if it's pet of the week or but they've agreed to
to post that from
the Linda McNatt animal care and adoption center so I
really want to thank
them for for helping the city and being such a community
supporter of that
of that adoption center and second I wanted to just thank
US aviation saw
them at the chamber luncheon and they reminded me of the
great things that
they're doing out at the airport as far as they're
purchasing tremendous amounts
of fuel two to three million dollars worth of fuel a year
many flights had
probably five to six million dollars worth of new
investments and are paying
you know two to three hundred thousand dollars in property
taxes to the city so
he just wanted me to to remind the community that they're
out there as well
that there there are many good businesses out at the
airport of which
they're included so I really appreciated them bringing that
to my attention
councilmember Hawkins and I just remembered I wanted to
remind everybody
encourage them to come to the air show this Saturday so we
have an incredible
air show right in our own backyard just another reason why
Denton is Denton so
come on out yes councilmember Johnson thank you mayor for
all those still
watching we've got the remnants of a big hurricane headed
our way and it's
probably gonna be right on top of us in the middle of the
night and it looks
like there is a lot of rain in it I don't think it's gonna
miss us so
batten down the hatches and George you guys can go straight
to the emergency
preparedness center from here councilmember Briggs just
back on the air
show I talked to Amanda and they work really hard on that
and also it
benefits the Cumberland Presbyterian home so I'm gonna
commend them on that
that's fantastic thank you thank you for both of you for
that information any
other new items new business all right seeing none we will
we're not going back
in the closed session on the item that we had left so we're
going to move on so
So we're going to adjourn and I wish everyone a good
evening.