Dec 07, 2015 City Council on 2015-12-07 11:30 AM

738 and this is being televised as a Monday luncheon and we will now proceed with our agenda items the first item is agenda item 1a which is receive report hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding issues with homeless individuals panhandling graffiti and litter in the greater downtown area. Yes. Can I just do a salute to our World War II veterans because today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor and they were known as the greatest generation went through the depression in World War II and my mom and dad were part of that generation and my dad was in the South Pacific and found his bride in Auckland New Zealand and so out of tough things good things come forward and they fell in love in the middle of that war and and came back to the States and made a life and here I am so yeah so anyway just salute to those people we're losing them in great numbers and just want to honor them and salute them today. Yes thank you very much Councilmember Wasley for that it is a day for remembrance that's for sure so thank you very much for that. Mr. C. Manager. Thank you Mayor and I'd like to ask our police chief Mr. Lee Howell if he would present this first topic for discussion today. Thank you Lee. Good morning Mayor, members of the council. The topics of this agenda item are nothing new we've been dealing with them for years and we 'll continue to deal with them but as some of you were made aware through some citizen complaints the months of September and October brought the perception of an increase in both a panhandling and homelessness in the downtown area specifically about that same time we saw an increase in graffiti popping up not only the downtown but other areas as well across the city and we've also experienced around the same time an increase in perceived littering in the downtown area so there was a call for increased police presence around that time and we did respond to that and while I may be the main presenter of this information today strategically placed in the audience or a number of other directors and staff members that are going to be available to answer any questions or make any add to the discussion should you want to hear from them. So my purpose today is to give you the status report a few of you asked for that in regards to those complaints and also we're going to seek your direction on priorities on how to proceed to some solutions. So let me start with tackling a couple of the I guess the easier issues or less complicated. Number one graffiti let me say right up front that graffiti is not truly attributable to homeless individuals per se. The majority of it is not perpetrated by homeless. The the recent rise that we saw is attributable to three individuals and we got a break in that case. Back in November we arrested those three people. They were linked to a number of incidents all over town including the downtown. These are the folks that did some of the DASD buildings, the drainage ditches. They were responsible for a number of other locations including some electric boxes, electric meters that belong to the city, traffic lights, DM E poles, some other buildings in the downtown area and subsequent investigation has led to at least 66 locations in the city where these folks are responsible for the graffiti and the majority of those were not reported to us at the time that until this came up until the arrest was made. So we handle graffiti obviously is a criminal mischief in the criminal mischief statute is a crime and we handle the criminal aspect of that. Community Improvement Services handles the abatement of it and recently Community Improvement Services contacted a number of property owners and business owners in the downtown area and provided a information letter and a permission form to to get permission to remove that graffiti for them. Just as a refresher the local government code 250 requires municipalities to offer free abatement before we force someone to do that and that word is pretty much out so the business owners and property owners take advantage of that and now they pretty much report it and just ask the city to do it. In the last three years Community Improvement Services has averaged about 16 graffiti cases per month and the cost of that is in excess of $22,000. Recently they've taken over doing that also for DME and the street department. Real quick question chief. So let's say for instance somebody's got a piece of private property that gets graffiti on it and if the city abates it how do they I mean is it just they just go take is it white paint or I mean depending I mean if it's a painted building do they try to match it or if not do they try to send what exactly I mean and if that's too much not be an informal staff report might be helpful for that but just curious as to well that how do they decide that is why I have Community Improvement Services supervisor Todd Varner here to kind of answer those questions before if I might get some help from him okay yeah just real briefly sort of how you determine what methodology to use for that abatement yes sir we have a graffiti abatement contractor and we're moving dramatically towards chemical removal so we can just remove the graffiti from the property rather than having to cover it with paint gotcha there are times when that's not not available so our contractor will give with a property owner to make sure we match it as close as possible and make sure they're okay with it and understanding what what we're up against on doing that so but most of them right now we 're doing it but by chemical removal okay all right good thank you appreciate that yes I'm sorry that's my compliment so the program we had before was you could go down and pick up the city provided the graffiti remover spray you could go pick it up and try to do it yourself and we manage a lot of properties downtown and it 's been a big problem this program is a huge help I think to the property owners and tenants because people don't necessarily have the know-how depending upon what kind of paint was used or what kind of surface it's on so I think it's great service we're providing you know to our taxpayers and just to compliment the staff because I don't think that was done as a result of anybody yelling and screaming saying this isn't good enough it was just a proactive move from come down and pick up a can so I appreciate what we're doing there okay any other questions about graffiti oh sorry go ahead yes the cameras that have been recently installed on the square helped out with this at all I'm not aware of any specific you know detectable incidents that those have come into play but they certainly could okay so moving on to the issue of the litter again littering is is only a minor part of littering can be attributable to the homeless mostly the litter that we're experiencing the downtown areas just attributable to the crowds of people and it's becoming increasingly common after events and festivals some of the litter that's attributable to the homeless occurs in the parks and especially Mack and Roberts and also on some private properties and public properties where some of the individuals congregate the city parks department handles the trash collection and litter control the downtown area with their maintenance crews and maintenance landscape crews and they also take care of the flower beds downtown and they monitor these issues pretty closely and are always prepared to make adjustments to the frequency of litter controls if needed and parks director Emerson Voral is is here to answer any questions for specific specifically to the parks or if you have any we have a question Councilman Rood just wondering if we had information about frequency of pickups sometimes I'll be there on a weekend and it's a busy weekend and in some cases and sometimes these are the trash cans that are in the courthouse lawn so they're not even under our purview I guess but it's a matter of things being overflowing and so things tend to blow off as a result there's one freestanding trash can out near if not a donuts that I've noticed it doesn't have a top part it's not like the normal kind of compactors that we have and every Monday morning I go that 's overflowing so is there a frequency issue that could of trash pickup that can help with this the city staff empties the trash cans the the trash big belly dumpsters get emptied every Monday and then Thursday or Friday those are all all of those big bellies are on a system that communicates with three or four of my staff directly to their phones and lets lets them know when they're full the recycling big bellies down there get emptied on Wednesdays again same thing they get a message if they're full and then as far as the litter on the ground goes the contractor does that Monday Wednesday Friday are there some like again I'm just looking at this one in particular because I go there to get coffee often but it's it's sitting on the on the sidewalk outside of where hypnotic donuts area is and it's just a round container no top on it's not our big belly is that a city yes that's our are there are there others like that around my memory is that there was a request we attempted to remove most of those if all of them from the square when the big bellies went in right but there were some rather strong requests for a few of those in strategic locations to stay I just pointed out because I know in that particular area I tend to see a lot of trash around and I wonder if it isn't because it's overflowing and whatever so sounds like it's on your radar good okay before I move on any other questions concerning literary okay seeing none I'll move on to the the topics of homelessness and then the panhandling and let me say up front that community development division manager Barbara Ross is here if there's any questions you might have for her in general when we talk about homeless individuals we categorize them into sheltered or unshel tered categories unsheltered of course is somebody that's that's living in a place that's not meant for human habitation such as cars parks sidewalks abandoned buildings homeless camps or on the street approximately 12% according to some surveys the United States homeless population is considered unsheltered and chronically homeless and there's a strong relationship between the homeless and minor crimes such as public intoxication panhandling some minor thefts and trespassing as a community Denton of course as you know is extremely charitable place and has a strong sense of civic duty in providing resources to the homeless and we have a host of organizations that are engaged in that so in short that those that are temporarily homeless do have a lot of resources available and a path to get back to long-term housing including food jobs and other basic necessities primarily the people that we deal with are the unsheltered and chronically homeless and many of those individuals have issues of substance abuse behavioral health issues and criminal records that keep them from accessing shelters and some of the other services so there's also a portion of this category people who just simply choose to remain homeless and while the chronically homeless will take advantage of community services they are generally the least likely who are able to make changes by themselves to their living conditions and fact ually over the last several years there's been a decline in the homeless population both across the country and in Texas and it's been noted even in our largest city in Houston however during that same time frame we've experienced at least in numbers an increase in the homeless in the city of Denton and there's a number of reasons for that the greatest areas of increase here according to our last point-in-time survey which is done in January the latest increases in Denton homeless population was along among that unsheltered category and just as a reminder among that portion of the population there about 26% of them according to that survey report having a substance abuse disorder 17% of chronic physical illness and about 20% report having some significant behavioral or mental illness so on to the issue of panhandling the complaints we got the chief concern of the complaints we got was centered toward the idea of aggressive panhandlers aggressive pan handling differs from passive panhandling in that passive panhand ling is to to a certain extent is tolerated accepted or in some cases even encouraged by people giving money to people aggressive panhandling on the other hand invokes fear and is more likely to generate calls or complaints to you and me aggressive panhandling involves coercive measures including verbal confrontations following people being persistent leers or aggressive body language sometimes can border on criminal activity higher than just aggressive pan handling but rarely people report that they are likely to avoid areas where there's panhandling and especially aggressive panhandling and research indicates that the panhandlers though are very calculated and target certain areas where they will generate the best outcome so they tend to be attracted to areas where there's a greater level of pedestrians where people are more likely to have money and be willing to give it up there are more common in communities where a high level of social services are already provided and they're drawn to communities where people are free with those social services and likely to know be willing to donate so some of the specific factors well first of all let me say the I think what we were experiencing this fall that generated those complaints is we we reached in the downtown area a saturation level or what we would call a saturation level and we met or exceeded that tolerance that 's usually accepted there were a number of things in play we had an increase in the fall school backing being in session with some festivals and other things that increased the crowds we had some other factors if you understand that that the population is migratory and transitional we're going to experience fluctuations in that population from time to time in the fall in the spring or the two highest times we see that so specifically why didn't we did some research on this and we talked to a lot of people involved some of the other departments and some of the service providers and gathering all this information but if you look at the specific factors of why panhandling incurred there's they 're attracted to crowded sidewalks the presence of walk-up ATMs nearby areas where there are public buildings libraries parks places where there are college campuses or where college students gather places where there's impro vised shelter homeless camps or even private or public properties where they can get out of the weather they're attracted to places where there are restaurants and bars and a lot of other activity like that retail areas high veh icular traffic intersections so I think I just described the downtown Dent on area and a few other places in town so additionally when tied to the at the presence of panhandlers and the homeless population the downtown area is central to a ring of social services and we've included some maps exhibit one and two that outlined or detailed some of those services and show you the proximity of the downtown area and also throughout the other the rest of the city but many of them within 5 10 15 minutes walking distance from the downtown including the Salvation Army shelter including the parks including some other places some homeless camps that are close by so the downtown is a convenient area between shelters and food and it appeals to the unsheltered homeless as well as the sheltered homeless because it's in that proximity and is attractive for basically the same reasons additionally we hear consistently from service providers yes no you said something about homeless camps yes real briefly what exactly do you mean by that and are they on public property private property if so I mean what what's the status of that as far as just there's been there's a number of those around the city they're generally on private properties that are secluded by trees and not visually accessible from the roadways okay there's one located close to the Mack Park area which is why we see a lot of folks that hang out daily in the Mack Park and Roberts area there's there's several others around town there's been one for years up near the fairgrounds North University so that we're talking about just a place where it's a it's a known location and people frequent there can go in and actually we find that some of those places that some very charitable folks in the town or know that they're there also and stash resources there for people so they did we do go in the city department goes in and cleans up some of those areas sometimes with permission from the property owners they're generally like I say they 're generally not there are places that you wouldn't normally see your cross on a daily basis though so so when you say the city sometimes will go in and clean up with the permission of the property owner does that mean to go in and sort of disbanded or to in other words if somebody says hey I've got this there and I don't necessarily want that we all come in or do we go in clean up and then it still stays like that and then we go in and clean up again I think we're generally just clean up the litter and it does not truly ab ate those locations because we we have enforcement authorizations on some of those locations to move people off of there in some of that we some that we don't and so and my final question is maybe just even in the staff report is okay so if if we're getting a call from it so this is what I'm imagining we get a call from a property owner says I have one of these almost camps on my property and the trash is getting really unreasonable could you send somebody clean it up so we do but there's not any request to say I mean it's not like they're saying I want this not on my property so I guess I'm not quite sure now why we're going and cleaning up litter off people's property if they if they're still if they're still okay with the situation existing that is creating that in the first place yeah some of those are only thought are in response to that thing it's called the clean stream Barbara you may help be able to help me with this some of the some of it's in involved to the think the clean stream effort okay this usually I get that okay okay all right that just seems a little okay customer thanks thanks mayor so when you have the properties where you know and several of us in this room know where some of those are those the camps if it is okay with the property owner then do we leave it alone are they are they violating a law if they're camping on property with the permission of the owner no sir in fact we had back several actually several times this past year we had a lot of complaints from citizens driving by the the describe it as the old bill udder ford property on University and Bonnie Bray and there was a lady that was camping there in a tent for a considerable amount of time very visible to the public and I believe that properties now owned by the razor group and we contacted them and they said she wasn't bothering anything that it was okay for her to stay there so we had no authority to remove her well my question comes from a situation that I'm that I have recently become aware of a lot of the things that happen in the downtown area of downtown where there's a bunch of trees in the back and it's become a camp and I don't know if the property owner knows or cares but there's a business next door and those people do because um the goings and coming to some of those folks I don't think there's been an issue with that but they've certainly been intimidated by the situation so do they have any recourse when when a when a neighboring property is being impacted in some way I'm not trying to put you on the spot I'm just trying to figure out solution yeah no and that's a good question typically that the actions that we can take recourse on are going to have to occur on the property of the person who's going to be affected by the situation and I'm not sure if there's anything that's going to be done about it would it not be Lord I don't know if I want to go down this path but it would it not be a code violation for example if people are camping there and they don't have a porta pot to take care of nasty it very well could be yes right now I'm sure there's there's other co-violations in regards to litter and debris and things like that so okay well I'll talk with you offline about the situation okay all right thank you okay yeah and some of the research that we did and in talking to people we consistently hear from from service providers and the homeless individuals themselves that didn't has a reputation amongst the homeless community as kind of a stop on the map we have created a very vibrant fun attractive place to be and and unfortunately that's also attractive to panhandlers there's easy access to transportation obviously via the the highways and the a train that comes into play we hear from from the homeless themselves that Denton is a desired place to be that it's actually much safer than Dallas or other cities south of here in the Metroplex they're less likely to be victims of robbery and assault we're I guess suppose we contribute to the problem ourselves a police department in a way because we do hear from some of the folks that the police department doesn't harass them like they do in other cities so we also hear that you know cities along the a train route to the south and other Metroplex cities actually direct people to Denton because of the services that are available here and in fact we've heard that some service organizations in some cities actually are rumored to hand out vouchers that are used for a train tickets to get here so I want to also reiterate that pan handling is not specifically 100% attributable to the homeless there are professional pan handlers that we run across from time to time there are some college students some other people that engage in it that just say you know it's an easy way to make some money but I've also provided we've also provided another exhibit map that's the one with all the red dots all over it and it provides a look at the most common locations where we arrest people for violations and they claim to be homeless there's a couple of clear trends there one is that some of it is concentrating the downtown some of it is spread out throughout the whole city in 2013 we saw 336 solicitor panhandling calls in 2014 we had 503 and this year we've exceeded that probably will level out somewhere around 520 to 25 just since September 1 we had 141 calls many of those were self- generated by some of our officers by making contact with people only 13 of those came from the downtown area and several of those came after we stepped up some enforcement efforts and presence in the downtown only 20 enforcement actions resulted out of those 141 calls so we weren't getting a lot of direct complaints from the downtown area I think we started hearing things mainly indirectly via emails and and just face-to-face conversations but the communication network amongst the particularly amongst panhandlers and the homeless individuals is very good and so when you have people spread out throughout the city they know that there's an event or they know basically when the downtown will be crowded so a lot of them come from other areas of the city that are normally along retail areas or say University or Luke 288 they come to the downtown during those events and I think that's one of the things that contribute to what we saw this fall chief real quick question this the statistics that you had in September I think you said there was a hundred and thirteen contacts or complaints or something what what how do you turn that that 141 since September 1st to date and that's that's and because you didn't you said there was 20 enforcement actions yes so what's what defines the 141 and what defines then to take an enforcement action in other words that's a lot of contacts it seems like then you have 20 enforcement actions so what's the I guess what's the criteria or help me understand the difference in those numbers yes good question and to understand that really have to understand the enforcement process and so most of these offenses that we're talking about panhandling in particular soliciting without a permit even public intox ication disorderly conduct offenses are all class C misdemeanors by law for us to take immediate action on those we have to be present and it has to be observed so we get calls from people that say hey this guy in the brown jacket was down here aggressively panhandling we can go we can respond to that location we can find that person we can talk to him contact them and talk to him we may not necessarily be able to arrest them unless we observe them in that activity so that's that would be one of the 141 just that kind of contact and then the 20 would be you would have to be actually observing yes that activity as a as a law enforcement official yes okay all right thank you that's helpful oh I'm sorry councilmember road if I own a business on the square and there's someone in front of my business doing something I'm assuming that the entire sidewalk in front of business in our downtown area is all public property most of it is yes sidewalks and all that yes so the the private property owner I mean if someone stepped in and started panhandling they could without you observing it I'm imagining press charges or something along those lines is that correct I'm trying to get the sense of if I've got a business down there someone's doing it out there I observe it on 20 occasions you come on the basis of my word saying hey I saw that guy do it 20 times even though you didn't see it can any action be taken in that sort of we could we can get people if someone's willing to do it they can come down and sign in and complain affidavit and we can follow up on that but then and then that requires us finding that person summoning them to a court and having a trial basically and so it's a little bit more of a drawn- out process than just issuing a citation well important in that process also is understanding that citations by by this population of the segment of the community are rarely paid and often people don't show up for court so then subsequently there has to be a warrant issue for their arrest and an additional charge for failure to appear which means we have to go out and physically arrest them bring them to the jail in which case they still typically do not pay the fines they spend the night in jail they get out the next day time served so as a deter rent it is it is a momentary fix and a short-term fix and in fact we find that during certain times of the year depending on the weather physical arrest is actually welcomed to for because you get a chance to get in out of the weather you have a place to sleep get a good night's sleep get cleaned up a little bit and get something to eat so it's as a deterrent enforcement is a short-term fix at best recently some of the businesses on the square we signed a form that gave some police opportunity to help out without the business owner having to notify you can you speak a little bit about that and yes absolutely that brings me I'll work that right into the idea of the some of the solutions here mentioned there was a call for police presence in the downtown area we did stepped up that up and that's one of the things that we did was send people around to contact business owners and get enforcement authorizations that allows us on those private properties where people might congregate at especially after business hours or even during business hours it gives us direct immediate authority to be able to remove them if we have to we did get a lot of compliance from that a lot of people wanted to sign those enforcement author izations there are there were property owners and business owners that did not care about doing that so that's that's a tool that will help us kind of keep people moving and make it a less attractive place to congregate and stay so in terms of police presence a couple of things to keep in mind that it a consistent police presence is something that helps establish a base expectation by both the panhandlers and pedestrians on what will be tolerated and what's what's going to be addressed by law enforcement when there's a consistent police presence panhandlers tend to be less aggressive one of the things we 're doing also that we've always done with our community officers and our victims assistance coordinator Richard Goodoy is we we act as a an outright in an outreach strategy as a point of contact to refer people to available and appropriate resources and but we're making sure that all of our officers that work the downtown area especially are up on that and know what's available so another solution is enforcement actions I've already kind of outlined that and generally like said it is a a short-term solution our current ordinance does require a permit to solicit it prohibits aggressive pain handling so we can take action on those it does not allow for soliciting on city property as you mentioned a lot of that a lot of the downtown area is city property or in the streets except by special permit so by having a consistent visible presence we presence we can enforce some of the minor violations that go along with this as well like public intoxication trespassing soliciting pain handling disorderly conduct and that'll help establish some clear rules of acceptable behavior some other jurisdictions around the country have added regulations into their codes or ordinances some of them have done it through zoning depends on how their jurisdiction how their laws are set up but there are some things that have been done in other cities and regarding a panhandling or prohib iting panhandling during certain times of the day or in certain locations in some regards things like certain proximities to assemblies to ATMs things like that those are all things that we see come up in some other codes some communities have actually used zoning like said zoning regulations some have actually created designated panhandling areas and so they they allow it in those certain areas and you have to have a permit and you have to wear a lot of them have to be people have to be wearing a reflective vest or something now we have that incorporated into our special permitting ordinance if you're a charitable organization operating like in the medians like save the firemen fill the boot campaign but otherwise we that's not a restriction we have so generally individuals who report to be homeless make up about 8% of our total arrests that's about 450 a year public intoxication is the most common and there's also controlled substance violations trespassing and the panhandling and solicitation so in terms of police presence and in enforcement action I think that the consistent lesson that we see is and this is obvious I think here as well is that we we need to balance the the community's interest in providing help to those in need with the community's desire to feel safe and that's a balance that we always have to strike in a number of places but I think that's important to keep in mind on any of these solutions some other things a community relationships them obviously not all solutions are agreed upon by everyone and a strong real working relationship is necessary between the residents merchants city departments police department and others for a unified response toward the panhandling might just reiterate that resolution of it is not limited to a law enforcement response and there's a number of things already in place in regards to that in regards to the to the next bullet point social services obviously there's a number of things already in motion I mentioned some of the service providers you as a council obviously have identified the need for housing and some job issues and you 've identified the need for the city United Way Denton County co-sponsored impact coordinator I think that will go along with it to strengthen community collaboration there's a Denton County homeless coalition steering committee which we are a part that's been in place and they're coming up with some some good insight the there's a consensus I think that better data collection and sharing would be a would be a good point and involvement of a wider audience of stakeholders perhaps in a more intentional effort to educate and inform the community about solutions and community impact efforts would be effective and hopefully that would be something maybe that that community impact coordinator could concentrate on we haven't placed course and some of you participated in the Denton County behavioral health team again going back to the statistics and our point-of-time survey mental health treatment is paramount to relieving some of the the or addressing some of the issues along with substance abuse treatment programs and those are the two areas that probably where we are still lacking as a community I often said really that when you when in terms of the chronically homeless that we deal with that experience those issues that there is there is a still a lack of an endgame for them to get out of those situations and so therefore they that's why we see them revolving through the jails and constantly visited revisiting the same people over again and finally one one thing that is a solution that's worked in some places is what we call crime prevention through environmental design that affects both private and public properties potentially that can be handled through code zoning there could be we found some places where there were some grant incentives for it but essentially this is just being aware of the way things are designed and laid out especially in terms of places on private or public property that is attractive to homeless or encourages panhandling so some of those things monitored surveillance cameras like you mentioned that certainly that's one thing that comes into place but even beyond that we took take a look at the placement of walls fences shrubbery water features things that provide shelter like awnings alcoves things like that all of those places that create areas that are attracted to people to stay and are not visible to the general public inset doorways other structural amenities lighting is a big one many of our parking lots are very dark in the downtown area especially lighting on private properties where lighting highlights shrubbery that can make that can serve as concealment or alcoves or behind fences and so all those things are things that we could look at in terms of encouraging environmental design so again that is a status update on these issues and I would be looking for any priorities that you might want us to pursue in direction of those some of those solutions and at this point what other questions might you have thank you mayor so if you would go back to the list of possible solutions as you look at those as you consider the cost involved and as you consider the the complaints that you've heard because you're probably the person that's most connected with this or dealing with it from a lot of different angles are there solutions on that list that you think that that that you would recommend to the council that we move forward on well yes I think the biggest one first of all that and I mentioned that we're already have a number of things in place and that's in terms of the community relationships and the social services I think those are paramount from the standpoint I know that we can make a difference I would suggest that we and we are pursuing the redirection or deployment of some officers in the downtown area to try to build a and have a consistent presence in the downtown area so we've already taken those measures those would be I think the ones that would be most easy to to implement or already in motion the the crime prevention by environmental design has a lot of potential but that's a long long-term process and kind of requires remodeling or things to be put in place we couldn't do immediately well I ask that because I would hate to I know that there there are things going on I mean we've got the the task force on mental health which which is a big issue is in terms of chronically homeless and that would be in the social services area I'm thinking about some of the programs that other cities have put into place like Salt Lake City goes way beyond the police department but where they just looked at all of the money in all of the different areas that were going to serve homeless folks and they just put that all together and they provided homes and all of a sudden there's not a big problem with folks off the streets it particularly has worked well for veterans that are homeless so there there there are some things out there that we could do that are big but but if you have specific needs that would help you address the problem you know I just need to know one either now or if you think about it later or if as the next budget cycle starts up so that so that and and George if when when any of these requests come in these packets of supplemental requests if any of these address these kinds of problems if you could highlight those as we start our next budget cycle because we as policymakers can't can't do the your job for you but we can we can support you as you do it and so so if if there's something that you need if there's more budget money to re allocate for police presence we need to know thank you mayor chief did I hear you say that that you can that you can control panhandling by zoning we've seen that demonstrated in some other cities and I'm not sure I'm not familiar enough with our zoning regulations to really address whether or not that would how you would do that within the parameters that we have to work with here but in zones and ordinances sometimes are commingled in other jurisdictions under different systems so that would take a little more exploration to define here when I heard you say you mentioned something about zoning and I you know I really think about the downtown and obviously that's where the vast majority of the panhandling is going on other than you know interstate intersections but you know to me if you're in the safety of your car and you don't feel like rolling your window down then you're you know you're safe the I spent a lot of time downtown and I you know I would absolutely agree that the problem has gotten worse and worse and it's you know it's starting to feel a little bit like New Orleans sometimes when you're walking downtown in terms of the number of people that are you know if they're there playing the guitar and they got their thing out I totally get it but but they got the play in their guitar and they got it right what did I say their case there okay so what made me think of this what when you when you mentioned zoning was you know we are we're doing a lot to try to tackle this homeless initiative I think throwing real money at it and throwing a facility at it and so on and while I have a huge heart for those people I also know that it does have an impact on business and you know if moms walking out of the ice cream store with their with their daughter and there's a homeless man that's kind of scary looking right there you know that's that's gonna have an impact to whether or not she decides to return so I think about I think about the amount of money and effort that we have in our spending to encourage the redevelopment of our downtown and if if you were at the at the lighting on Friday you know it's working but I also know we're throwing a lot of money at this homeless initiative so I would like for us to explore is there a possibility of saying defining an area to say like the D tip for example to say there is no panel handling allowed in this particular area whether it be passive or aggressive because we do have so many outreach programs available for folks that are homeless if you're panhandling and you're not homeless there's other programs that are certainly social service programs that are available there's other ways for you to get money to take care of yourself so if that's a possibility I'd like to see us explore that I think the increased police presence but certainly what I've seen is they just move I mean they know the game there if they're professional panhandlers they know the game they move they know that you really don't want to go put them in jail so that's really not as you said chief that's not gonna fix it so I don't know who would be the right one to tackle that George whether it's planning or whoever but I'd like to see if that's a possibility for us to consider thanks hello chief so I have a couple of things and my main concern is just that people are not feeling safe and there was another issue just a couple of nights ago where a lady was approached in her car and people were banging on her windows for money and you know as a woman that that's kind of frightening and so my question is the police presence you said that you've stepped it up and there's people there more often but would you think a full- time presence around that area is needed definitely yes okay and my my other thing is speaking of what other cities do Albuquerque it's someone sent me this article where they give panhandlers day jobs a city bus drives around and goes to places where like pan they put the panhandlers in one area and then drive around and pick them up and give them day jobs they pay them nine dollars an hour but they can only do ten and so they pick up litter which may be helpful for for parks and pull weeds and things like that so that's kind of interesting thing that they do yes yeah you sent that to me and I appreciate that was a good article in fact they had something on one of the TV Expos about that yes Councilman road thank you Marin thanks for this presentation and for your attentiveness to this issue and the citizen concerns I office downtown and so I I felt it too as folks were complaining especially early in the fall I mean it is like nothing I've ever seen before and so whatever it is that you guys did between September and now because it's significantly less and I don't it's a good weather I'm sure there's factors that have nothing to do with us but whatever we're able to identify what we did do right I think something was successful I will point out another strategy because I did notice as soon as Evers or the old Evers hardware went back online man that that because it's got those two alcoves in their house people from the Sun I mean there was like a homeless can sitting in there and folks just as soon as they went back online that that whole stretch of hickory felt much more pleasant and so there might even be a strategy with as we see vacant storefronts coming and going to really work with those property owners or business owners to think through how do we create something that gives some vibrancy and keeping people coming and going because you know you can't do that if people are doing that another thing I'll just point out to everyone some of you guys might already be aware of it but serve Denton is in coordination with this outfit out of Austin called Aunt Bertha and they've got this they've designed this website that you can pull up from your phone called cares Denton org and you put in your zip code and you can find any resource for anything you might need in the area so there's you can find housing you can find food so it essentially allows any citizen to become a layman social worker if they're coming across somebody who has legitimate needs and wants them that they can pull up their phone go to cares Denton org and kind of help that person find what they're looking for so it'd be good to make sure we work with them to get that information out in terms of a report that I think you know I think of this Quaker Town Park area is kind of the Central Park of Denton and I think the homelessness issue extends beyond the square into this area that I think really prevents this whole area from popping like it could be in any given night you come by around five o'clock when you should like to see a bunch of runners no young lady is going to be running on that path because every single picnic bench is taken up by a group of homeless folks or homeless I mean it just it wouldn't feel safe my wife's a runner goes running early in the morning and expresses that same problem the library is a de facto homeless shelter for periods of time the pool becomes late in the afternoon I mean I have a heart for folks being able to get out of 105 degree temperature and go but if you're a mom with your kids sitting there and some guys washing his clothes in the pool it tends to turn you off so what I and I know that Park struggles with that and they're fear I know the library struggle with that I think what I'd like to understand beyond the square area is a report on what are the policies in place at the library level the park level the pool level not to address homelessness because I don't know that's not the role but to address behaviors that are sometimes associated with on the homelessness and are there policies in place that as a council member but even as a citizen could understand that so if I 'm a mom I've got my kids in for story time and there's this going on in the library what am I to do because I think the problem is larger and so I'm just curious to know what what we do along those lines thank you thank you mayor owning a business on the square for the last ten years I'm very happy that we're having this conversation and just to let you know the increased police presence in the last few months has made a huge impact you know there were times where I'd have a regular customer think that there were even drug deals going on out front of my own coffee shop and I couldn't figure out who they were and but just to watch you guys in action when you deal with mental health issues you're so gentle about it too so it's kind of this balance you know we we definitely as owners my wife and I we cared a ton about these people but we also have to run this business and it's got to the point where even our own employees had a difficult time felt intimidated on how to ask somebody to politely leave and then they don't and all that and just really thank you for the increased police presence I hope it continues and whatever that form was that we signed that's been a huge help too so just want to continue that and if we could just get more police presence you know even Sunday mornings is a real difficult time on the square and I know that's probably not the you know time you want to increase increase police but I don't think a lot of things are open on Sunday mornings possibly and they seem to go somewhere in particular on Sundays mornings but anyway I applaud you chief you're doing a good job so thanks thank you we have someone from libraries here that would like to speak if that's that's okay hi I'm Kimberly Wells I'm the manager of Emily Fowler right across the street and what we all were asking we do have a rules of conduct that Emily Fowler is very aware of the issues that we have when it comes to the homeless using the library it's not something again it's all about conduct not about them being homeless in the library it's about the things that y'all are addressing it's about mental illness issues it's about public intoxication it's about pan handling and we do have a very set rules of conduct that has if people sleep in the library you're not allowed to sleep so we do not immediately ask somebody to leave we give them a warning but we do note that there's been a warning so that after we've warned him a second time we can ask him to leave for the day we have different things that are made to keep the library from becoming a from having these issues overwhelm all the other customers that are that are coming in so we would be happy to provide that again we have just different levels of conduct if you're intoxicated on the property we do immediately call the police department and I do want to know the chief was saying about how they had increased presence in the downtown area we have really felt that we've always had a good relationship with the police department but when we've had to call them recently and usually it's just about someone who's refusing to leave the library who's mentally ill or something like that we've had a very swift response that many of the librarians have noted to me that it's made them feel safer so those small changes just on the how quickly the police get there and also we have a good relationship with the police when they show up they know us they also a lot of times will recognize and say so and so I thought you were gonna go you know into this program you can tell they have relationships with some of these individuals and have been trying to get them help so but we'll be happy to provide those rules of conduct because we we tweak them as things happen every every week or so follow-up are there behaviors or things that individuals can do where they are actually banned from the library and using the services yes we have two different kinds of you know there are small things where we ask them to leave for the day that's just a usually for all customers teenagers will say okay today it's enough come enough we have a library trespass where we tell somebody if they continue a certain behavior they're going to be trespassed for 30 days and that's just done with our staff we give them something that was all approved by legal that basically says you're not allowed on library property for 30 days 60 days 90 days that in it above that we have the criminal trespass somebody's intoxicated on the property my staff member their goal is to keep that person from causing trouble with the customers who are there their job is to then we call the police we say we have somebody who's intoxicated somebody who's doing something we want them criminally trespassed from the library and at that point the police come and issue a criminal trespass so our rules of conduct talk about a library trespass versus a criminal trespass so and if you get a library trespass and you return to the property we tell you then we're gonna upgrade it to a criminal trespass we've given you a chance to have 30 days to come back and I will mention something that happened the other day we had one of the police officers come in to deal with an incident and he noticed another gentleman who was there and he basically said do y'all have any issues with this particular person and we said we didn't he said he was surprised because he's caused issues in other places well we had trespassed him for a year before now he knew that we would do that so he didn't want to lose the ability for the internet for the air conditioner for all of that so he's been very caused us no problems because we have something that we can we can remove thank you so we've heard a consistent theme of police presence so thank you because I believe we made that request back in early fall so as we go into budget and I'll back up Dalton Gregory on this as we go into budget and you feel the need for an increase in personnel please bring that forward to this council because I don't want to be pulling them away from another part of the city and if we do need more people then let's make sure we have the money to pay for those people and it is a delicate balance though you know it's a delicate balance because we live in a free nation and it's a democracy and and we have freedom of movement and we don't live in a you know a form of government that that takes that away from us so it's a it's a fine fine line that we walk and I just want to compliment Chief Howell and his department and thank you but if you need more people let us know so I think we've heard that today it's making a difference following up on what mr. Johnson was saying about the possibility of zoning things like that I've noticed an increase in this tree entertainers who are asking for donations I understand there's a special term for that bus king I know that because one of my children does that and so far around town I haven't heard any that are particularly good that that that generate much of a crowd but I have been places where they generate big crowds and and I'm a little bit concerned if that becomes a problem because that's gonna impede pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks and people are gonna have to walk out in the street to get around so if you notice that that's becoming an issue or if the the downtown merchants know that that's notice that's becoming an issue I know that some areas have done things for they set aside a special area for street entertainers for busking a busking row or something like that that that allows for that to happen in a way that that doesn't present problems for the other pedestrians maybe it would encourage better quality street entertainment I don't know I love the idea who would do that the idea of someone going around and and and getting the folks who were panhandling and offering them jobs would that be the the Workforce Commission or I think based upon what I've read in the article and TV news report on that is that it is a nonprofit that does that with some I think possible financial assistance from the city and then after that apparently there's a shelter there in Albuquerque where they pick them up take do their work and then they can take them directly there so it's a very coordinated collaborative effort of different social services in the city to to provide that so yeah I think that's that's something that certainly who on the city staff George could could do a little more investigation on that if you would do a little bit of to see if there's any way that we could we could help or at least support that one one I don't know if it's a question cheap but really do appreciate your work on this and just appreciate your work in general I mean I think it shows in our city and in the the safety of our city if the downtown area I mean obviously there's a larger police presence in the downtown area because that's what it seemed the council was asking for and it certainly is beneficial to the entire city because of what we're trying to produce in the downtown and so let's not forget that as one of the the reasons for passing the TIF was to be able to provide additional services to the downtown area that would be required in order to maintain its desirability as it continues to grow and as it continues to mature and and and be more of what what we've always said we wanted to be so let's not forget that if that's something that we want to have on a more permanent nature that there is some we can talk about that as an option on some funding for specifically for that area at least that's what I recall when when we when we pass that so I just say that as an observation that that is an option if because I agree with you councilmember was you know we want to make sure that what we're doing there doesn't necessarily take away from the rest of the city but if it needs something augmented if it needs some augmentation in that enforcement down there that might be a source at least some contribution to a source of additional funds that may be available and and I too I've certainly echoed councilmember Briggs and mayor pro tem's ideas of you know that's a good idea to think about that as far as how would that all work how would that inter play I think that would come into play with some of the the homeless task force organizations who might be able to provide some some ideas and input into that and just what role the city would play is certainly something that I think would be a good discussion any other comments questions thank you thank you chief great presentation appreciate that update thank you oh I do have one other question was the people that you arrested for the graffiti any connection to that with the Confederate Memorial vandalization no okay no all right so no no headway on there's been nobody identified arrested for that particular incident no sir okay right thank you okay thank you we'll go on to our work session 1b which is receive report hold discussion and provide staff direction concerning city of Denton ethics provisions and state and federal law regulations and policy related to ethics issues and regulation of the conduct of public officials thank you mayor this council has had several discussions as has the ethics committee about the need for or the desire to make some changes to our ethics ordinances or resolutions and what we're doing today is trying to the city attorney is going to kind of brief you on the current status of where we are and what we're where what we're doing with regard to ethics for all public officials in Denton and hopefully receive some more some very clear direction on where you want to go what the parameters are of how you want to go with developing an ethics ordinance or modifications to our court so miss Burgess is going to lead that discussion thank you good afternoon mayor and council and thank you for the opportunity to visit with you a little bit about city of Denton ethics issues I would like to tell you up front we did try to post a closed session but apparently this is the Christmas holiday season because it appears that the Christmas Grinch in fact failed to get that into the legislature it was loaded it was approved but somehow it didn't print on the agenda and always it posted otherwise so we do not have a closed session for today so I apologize for that and and will attribute it to the Christmas holidays at this point in time I'd like to take a few minutes this afternoon to simply ground you in the city of Denton ethics provisions and also some of the provisions of state law so that as you in your discussions and think about where you want to go here in the city of Denton you will be aware of what currently exists here and certain provisions that do have application as a result of state law I've not included federal law provisions but there are also some federal law provisions that will have application then I would like to just step back because I do know that the council desires to have a little bit of discussion on this particular topic and provide staff direction as it concerns where you would like to go with these issues in our city so if I might let me move through briefly what provisions are currently on the books here in Denton and be aware that we do have an ethics resolution we do have some charter provisions and then we do have an ordinance provision that has application about which you've had some discussion previously also there are some policy issues I'm not going to go into detail about those but there are some HR policies those are management policies that have application as it concerns employees and there is there are a couple of other policies that that may have application if it concerns the council but our resolution on that at this point in time as it concerns ethics issues is resolution number 2006 it was passed in 2006 - zero zero three and it lays out the policies which will control as it concerns ethics issues and I have listed them here briefly they indicate that we will act ethically with integrity more courage be truthful we are to be service oriented and respectful to all fiscally responsible communicative cooperative and progressive and receptive to new ideas and timely and paying monies owed to the city so that is our ethics policy in a nutshell we do have charter provisions and with regard to our charter it's important to recognize that our charter essentially serves as our local Constitution and it is really the seminal document upon which we rely and to which we look as we prepare our ordinances and other provisions for the city of Denton so in that respect we have two provisions relating to ethics section 14.04 and that chart provision does reach back and reference chapter 171 of the local government code those are the conflict provisions about which you are familiar and you consider those you look at those as you act upon your various items on the agenda every week so you are familiar with those but not only is that provision found in state law it is also an item which was acted upon by the citizens and Denton when the local charter ie our local Constitution was enacted additionally there's a second section found in the charter it's section 14.05 it relates to nepotism provisions it does limit the ability for appointments to be made and employment to be had as it concerns persons who would be related to council members also you'll see here in a moment there are some nepotisms also in provisions in state law in addition to our charter provisions section 2 - 30 of our city of Denton code of ordinances is a matter about which you've had some discussion in the past this does relate to improper disclosure of confidential information the Ethics Committee has looked at this the City Council has considered this issue and the Ethics Committee will is recommending that this matter be brought forward and we have prepared this for your consideration at your upcoming December 15th council meeting so you will be seeing that here in the not-too-distant future if I might make one comment there as it concerns section 2 - 30 there was some information in the newspaper I think over the weekend indicating that it had application to elected officials let me just say that it does also have application by its terms and those terms are not changing in the revisions that have been made such that application will apply to employees as well so it's not only elected officials but it's also city employees. Anita, what you're saying is that's the application prior to any changes that are being proposed for the December 15 th meeting that that the provisions currently as it stands apply to both elected officials and staff members did I hear that correctly or correct as it's currently written and as the revisions come forward we are not changing that so it will continue to have application to city officials including city council members a border commission member or a city employee so it has application to everyone really in the city. Okay I want to just work through with you and I'll be glad to answer questions about any of these state laws if you want to go into more detail but really I want to list them to make sure that you're aware and to make sure the public is aware of what is currently on the books as it concerns state law that controls and governs the ethical conduct of public officials so let's uh let's work through these and what I've done here is just list them and really then state what the penalty provision is in the state law there are also some civil provisions that apply to some of these but I've listed the criminal provision here and we can talk about them in whatsoever detail you desire. Certainly the Open Meetings Act we look at that every week when we have our council meetings violation of the Open Meeting at meetings act is a class B misdemeanor public information act is something we also deal with on a day-to-day basis violation of the public information act excuse me is also a class B misdemeanor. Question. Yes sir. Just for those of us who don't remember this off the tops of our heads the difference between class A class B class C misdemeanors things like that could you explain that? Certainly. Let me move down a little bit and I'll hit that right now. Oh there we go. As it concerns misdeme anors a class C is a fine only and for these particular types of offenses it's up to $500. No jail time is available as it concerns a class C. For a class B misdeme anor jail time is available it's up to six months of confinement up to a $2, 000 fine or both for a class A misdemeanor jail amount up to one year fine amount up to $4,000 or both. Some of these offenses do carry a penalty that involves a felony. For a state jail felony the jail amount is not less than 180 days up to two years up to a $10,000 fine and both fine and jail penalties are available in addition. For a third degree felony two to ten years up to $10,000 fine and it could be both jail and fine. For a second degree felony two to twenty years up to a $10,000 fine and certainly both again available for a first degree felony five to 99 years up to a $10,000 fine and both jail time and fines are potentially available. So those are the potential penalties associated with these various offenses that I'm that I'm working through. Sorry to get you out of order. No it's okay. I anticipated it I just didn't anticipate it in that order. Okay so with regard to conflicts of interest these are issues where members have a conflict under state law and the member is required to file a conflicts affidavit with the city secretary's office and then refrain from any action as it concerns the matter either deliberation or discussion . A violation of the conflict of interest statute in Texas carries a class-a misdemeanor and again we work with these particular laws every week so you 're familiar with these. I didn't hit the competitive bidding. Competitive bidding and procurement issues very important because we want to make sure that we get the best price and the best product for our city as we acquire goods and services. So in state law there are criminal penalties associated with violation of the competitive bidding and procurement stat utes. It's either a class C or a class B misdemeanor depending on the nature of the violation. Additionally upon conviction of one of these statutes there is a forfeiture of office and a bar from further participation in city government for a period of four years either as an elected official or as an employee. Another legal question going on with this. So if a person is convicted of a class B misdemeanor or a class C misdemeanor, does that happen in the municipal court? Does it happen in the district court? Is there a choice as to where it happens? The municipal court has jurisdiction over class C misdemeanors again in these particular circumstances carrying a fine of up to $500. A class B misdemeanor, the jurisdiction is in state court and district court and the municipal court does not have jurisdiction over the class B misdemeanor. If there was a, let's say a city council person was being considered for a class C misdemeanor that would normally go to municipal court which might create an awkward situation since the municipal court is one of the municipal judges one of our three appointees. Would there be a way that that person could recuse himself so that a visiting judge could come? Would it be a situation where in a case like that it would go to district court to remove the appearance of influence in some way? Typically what would happen under those circumstances is the city attorney would call for a special prosecutor and ask that the special prosecutor review the facts and the circumstances of the alleged criminal activity and make a determination as to whether or not the case should move forward with prosecution. The judge could look at the situation and make a similar call and ask that a judge be brought in to hear the case in the event that the the case is forwarded for prosecution. And in a case like that, I'm just taking that last one, bidding and procurement issues, there may be some kind of paper trail. Would there be the ability of the prosecutor or the judge to subpoena documents either belonging to the individual charged or someone that might be involved in that? In all criminal matters and that's whether it's a class C misdemeanor or class B, an A, a felony, rules apply that are a little bit different from civil proceedings. Your subpoena power in criminal matters is not available. You would proceed instead if there is sufficient information and evidence with a different process as far as obtaining evidence. Remember that under our criminal system, an individual has a right to remain silent. They do not have to give up testimony or information as it concerns their guilt. The state is required to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They do not have to prove their innocence. I thought that there were times like a police officer or a district attorney could get a search warrant to try to obtain information. A search warrant with appropriate probable cause as ordered by a judge. So it would have to meet a test of probable cause. Yes. That would be to be in line with the Constitution with the Fourth Amendment. Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. Also might add that with regard I was just going to add with regard to the competitive bidding and procurement and any of the classes that I might teach with regard to ethics issues always try to point out that typically when you see problems throughout the state really throughout the nation of ethics types of problems they are going to relate with these bidding and procurement type issues because there's a lot of money on the table. Federal law also has application here and many times you will not see a state prosecution rather you will see a federal prosecution under such things as wiretapping or some other kind or not wiretapping but wire fraud or some other kind of federal statute including RICO type statutes. So many times these are federal issues. Yes sir. Thank you. On the conflict of interest issue I'm just going to give you a hypothetical to understand how something like this plays out. So council member Gregory hypothetically owns 50% in a business that is before the council for a zoning change and it represents over 10% of his annual salary is the amount he has invested in this particular company. He fails to disclose that, fails to recuse himself or sign a conflict of interest because none of us are aware of that but somebody watching on TV is quite aware of that, has evidence that Dalton Gregory did in fact violate that particular state statute. By the way I'm quite comfortable with being your example you go right ahead. All hypothetical. I think yeah. So in that scenario that citizen watching that has that information given that these are state laws that are being violated what's their next step? Who do they go to to lodge that complaint to get that process even started? Well they would have a couple of options. They could certainly go to our esteemed police chief I don't know if he is still in the room or not it looks like he's not but that would certainly be a possibility. Many times when there is a situation such as that the police chief will then contact the Texas Rangers and the Texas Rangers will come forward and conduct the investigation and if there is sufficient evidence to move forward then that matter this particular matter because it happens to be a class a misdemeanor would go to the district attorney and the district attorney would have the opportunity to review the sufficiency of the evidence and make a determination as to whether or not to move forward with prosecution of the case. You know one question I have this is probably a little bit more general question because these are these are state laws that are penal in nature. Yes. So correct me if I'm wrong because I really don't know the answer to this question but as a municipality of course we we have ordin ances that we classify as class C misdemeanors I mean I think in our last presentation some of those statutes on panhandling all that. Does the does a city have the authority to institute penal codes that may not exist in state law and if so to what degree in other words we can say let's say if there's not a panhand ling statute on state books we can say it's against a lot of panhandle class C misdemeanor. Is there a limit to you understand the gist of my question? I do. Do we have the authority to impose a penalty which is more than a class C misdemeanor? I think is your question. That's a that really wasn't what I was thinking but that's more of what I should be thinking. I'm sorry I missed it then. May I answer that also? Yes. Yes. That's what it should be. Yes. A municipality has only the authority to enact an ordinance that carries a class C misdemeanor and so we under some circumstances the fine can be up to $2,000 but it's got to be a public health or safety type of violation otherwise we have locally set the fine amount at $500 for the other offenses. Okay. Did I get to the gist of your issue? Absolutely. I just want to know what the extent of municipal authority was to levy criminal penalties. We cannot deem an ordinance to carry a class B misdemeanor or a felony third degree felony or any other type of penalty. We cannot do that. Thank you. Councilmember Johnson. So for clarification, number one if future questions if you can avoid the name Gregory period. So I'm gonna assume but just to be clear so if we did if we modified our ordinance and like say on Public Information Act if somebody if we had an ordinance that that said now we have an ordinance that also talks about a violation an act that would be an event that would be a offense contrary to the Public Information Act we can only enforce it to the level of a class C misdemeanor. Well actually we're perhaps colliding with some other legal principles as far as parroting what state law is then we run into those questions that you all have heard from me multiple times relating to such matters as preemption. Right so that's what I'm getting what I'm getting at I think you're answering is whatever the state controlling laws are we have to make sure we are in line with those or not mentioning those items in our own because the state law is governing is that? The state law as it concerns the Public Information Act is going to be I think preemptive in nature it's going to carry that class B misdemeanor were we to try to do something locally I would have some concerns that there's going to be strong pre emption and we could encounter some problems there even if we could find a way to weave through that we could only assess the class C misdemeanor type of fine. Okay thank you. All right moving on. Nepotism is a state law violation it does carry a class C misdemeanor and you all are going to ask me what a quo or onto is or a quo it should be quo oronto not an ass on it but a quo oronto proceeding is a civil type it's kind of a combination of civil and criminal because it's brought by the district attorney or by the AG to challenge the validity of the holding of office of an official and so if there is a violation of an official of the nepotism statute they could be criminally prosecuted if convicted they could be punished by a class C misdemeanor up to $500 and also the local district attorney or the state attorney general could bring a quo oronto proceeding and cause the elected official to be evicted from their office but that is who has to bring that particular proceeding. There's the concept of dual office holding and incompatible offices I don't really want to go into a lot of detail I'm sure you've heard me talk about these concepts in the past they are not criminal in nature but they are limitations on the ability of officials to hold two offices at one time either under the constitutional dual office holding provision or under the common law in compatibility of offices doctrine but no criminal penalty attaches to those provisions. Also resident and state law is a prohibition against tampering with witnesses and that is viewed seriously by by the state does carry a third degree felony and furthermore retaliation or obstruction also viewed very seriously by the state of Texas it carries either a third degree or a second degree felony type of penalty. Yes sir. [inaudible] Is it my understanding that let's say in the prosecution of one of those particular accusations or indictments or whatever they're called those that you just showed as far as tampering or obstruction right that's where those could come into play potentially with something that might have been normally classified as a misdemeanor but if those things exist in that case anywhere then they can be separate charges with with these higher levels of punishment is that whereas when you say retaliation or obstruction you mean on anything it's like whatever I mean if you're just found to be no there's let me show you what we do with retaliation and restructuring because they are particular as it concerns. Oh well if you've got it if you've got it later on yeah you can I had not intended to go into this unless you had some questions but let me just walk you through it since you do have a question. Tam pering with a witness is under penal code section 36.05 and what the state law there says is as depicted on this slide with intent to influence a witness by offering conferring or agreeing to confer any benefit to testify falsely or withhold testimony so hypothetically if a member tried to convince a witness even in municipal court to testify in a particular way or not testify at all or give them some sort of benefit I should say a promotion I 'll help you get a promotion if you will not say X in this court of law then that is tampering with a witness and again either a third degree or secondary felony. Obstruction or retaliation relates to harming or threatening to harm by some kind of unlawful act in retaliation or to prevent public service as a public service servant witness or informant and so that would be retaliating taking some kind of action against an individual as a result of their performing their civic duties. As we walk down through these state statutes you made a point when we were discussing the code of ordinances on confidential information that that applied to both public elected officials as well as employees. Is it safe to say that across the board these state statues are also hitting both of those? Yes. So it's not just us? Correct. Okay. Because there's been some concerns as folks saying our particular policy which is something and then appoints all these state statutes doesn't address employees of the city. The state law is clear that it does address the employees. Yes and I can't think of one that would not have application across the board to both elected officials and appointed officials and employees for that matter. These are criminal statutes. Sorry for flipping back and forth again I try to anticipate what the questions will be and and yet limit the amount of information I inundate you with . Okay so we've talked about retaliation and obstruction. The next item here the next bullet relates to disclosure of certain relationships and that can be there a C or a B or an A misdemeanor depending on the type of contract that's being considered. Now this is actually a provision that's in the local government code and it does require that any of us who might have certain relationships in contracting situations disclose these and so depending on the amount of the contract it could be an A or B or C. Got a question? Yes sir. So when you say it's a provision in the local government code does that mean that it is almost just repeating something that is being said on the state level too? No in the local government code the local government code is a state it's state law it's enacted by the state of Texas it relates to local governments and so that's kind of the Bible that you will see the lawyers carrying around I don't know if Aaron's got one over there but he might. Do you have a local government code? But it's a it is a it's a statute book that predominantly carries the local laws not entirely but there 's a lot caught afloat. Okay the personal financial statements each of you all file them the city secretary sends you a little notice and you file these I believe it's in March I think it's in March by March George files a financial disclosure statement. She also sends a reminder. She does yes she does . I have to file one as well and so should any of us fail to make that filing then we are subject to a class B misdemeanor. Gifts to public officials this is a little bit of a complicated provision in state law it does carry a class A misdemeanor designation generally public officials may not accept gifts however there are a number of exceptions including gifts of nominal value gifts that are offered by an individual when you are present with that individual that relate to travel and entertainment and meals and that's a specific provision in state law. Bribery the state legislature is not fond of they have designated that to be a second degree felony which as you know from your viewing of those provisions it's it's very serious. I need a real quick question and this goes back to I think Councilmember Rodin's question in the very beginning so just to make sure I'm clear about as the current state of the law is today at least it's state law because we only have a resolution so we're basically falling under the rubrics of all these particular state codes that you're describing that you gave to us in the backup. So if someone thinks that somehow one of those have been violated I won't go into any kind of hypothetical but just if you think something's happened that meets you know that violates one of these state laws so the process is you can either notify the chief of police of the municipality in this case City of Denton and it will be up to their discretion and most likely they'll move it on to a more of a third party investigatory arm like the Texas Rangers and or do they can they go directly to the district attorney's office I mean does it always have to flow through the police chief for the municipality or can it also go be directly made to the the district attorney for the county not just the city for the county and if so and if that's the case what how what is the form of that is it a sworn complaint sworn meaning you give a gift set of facts that you're aware of or and I don't know when I say sworn it has some it's a legal term of art so I'll use it in this but do they have to attest to it with a notary can you just simply write out hey I think this has happened and give it to whoever takes those kind of complaints at the district attorney's office and then they look at it evaluate whether it's on its face it needs further investigation I mean what is really want to understand that process and I don't want to get too bogged down in the detail but I just I want to understand and I think it'd be good for the public that what what it really happens if somebody thinks there's really been something that's occurred that they believe strongly that has violated one of these provisions I think what I'll do on that is allow one of the our prosecutors or someone who has been prosecutor my my prosecutorial experience is in military courts martial and also in federal court as a special assistant US Attorney so well you know I don't know that I can answer the question specifically Aaron or lucky can either of you answer the question or if we wanted to get through your presentation I mean that we go ahead do it now that's fine let's let one of the okay all right question lucky you want to step up John yeah microphone okay all right this is a lucky crumpler he prosecutes in municipal court and he was a state district judge in Arkansas for some 15 years and a prosecutor for a number of years before that and in very small cases it would be a situation where the interested party would fill out an affidavit in something like you have described which I would consider to be a very serious case that's something where the prosecutor would actually want to sit down with you and discuss your situation and say sir what what do you have what do you what do you think you know and we want to discuss it with you and learn everything that you know about it but then at some point he would say okay I need you to put what you know into an affidavit and from that then then he would work with you but at some point there would need to be an affidavit so he would have something that he could that he could go forward and work with there okay but so once that at what let's say that's that's happened the affidavit 's been completed it's turned in then it is on the department to then do the investigation to determine where it goes from there is that right and it would be processed just like any other criminal case okay except except maybe even a little bit more discreet than some criminal cases well and if I can add to that now I don't have a law degree I don't even have a veterinarian degree but I had some experience because back in the 20th century I served on the grand jury and if somebody had a feeling that there was something rotten in Denmark and they wanted to file a complaint but they felt that there might be some relationship between a sitting council member and the district attorney they're both elected officials there's another avenue that people can go to which is to simply write a letter directly to the grand jury the Denton County grand jury when the grand jury is formed the foreman gets a key or they did when I was on it they get a key to a mailbox and the and the district attorney doesn't have that key it's only the grand jury foreman and every week before the grand jury meets the the foreman goes and checks to see if there are any letters that have come with complaints that they want to bring before the grand jury so that the grand jury could direct after receiving the letter the district attorney or some other official to do an investigation so so there's there's even that I mean it's not very well broadcast but but but it's just yet another avenue available and I suppose that there's another avenue which is the Texas Attorney General's Office or the Secretary of State's office right there's a public corruption division there the Attorney General's office that would look into things thank you thank you lucky thank you I might add one more comment to that and that is that and I've mentioned this to the ethics committee the FBI's number one priority on the criminal prosecutions is public corruption and they will look very seriously at these issues and many many times there is going to be overlapping jurisdiction and if they feel that there is something that warrants investigation then the FBI will look at it and if it's appropriate then the United States Attorney for this district would prosecute the case and we have seen that a few times here in North Texas we've seen a few prosecutions so it does happen from time to time okay any other questions about that the next bullet relates to improper influence that's a class a misd emeanor the next abuse of official capacity that can be a class C misdeme anor and up to a first degree felony depending on the the amount of money on the table with regard to the misconduct at hand official oppression class a misdemeanor and then misuse of official information is a third degree felony under state law what is official oppression official oppression well let's just flip back there because I have behind my question slide this I learned from Kenny banks official oppression it's penal code section 39.03 and under color of office that means you are acting under the auspices of the office that you hold a public servant subjects another to arrest or it doesn't necessarily have to be an arrest that he knows is unlawful or impedes another in the exercise of any right and it also includes believe it or not sexual harassment under this particular provision and that is a class a misdemeanor something about information misappropriation right this is misuse of official information and this penal code section provides that if there is information that's not otherwise available to the public that is acquired by public official during the course of the exercise of their duty of their duties and that information is used to gain a pecuniary benefit then that the use of that information and or the disclosure later that nonpublic information for some reason so that brought is involved or harm to another or some kind of pecuniary benefit is in involved that would constitute a third degree felony and so just as a hypothetical let's say that there is a economic development issue on the table and a large company is coming into town that information is confidential and a member or a an employee of the city takes that information and uses it goes to the company and says when you come to denton I'm here I want to sell you all your stationary that information will be used in an improper way that is a violation of this particular provision it does carry up to a third degree felony okay I think I might have a couple more slides I apologize I think I know what you all are going to do and it's obviously clear I'm get it out of order I think that was the last of the controlling law you've seen these as George mentioned the Ethics Committee is has looked at some provisions and considering the possibility of whether denton needs some additional provisions City Council has looked at the confidentiality issue again that will be brought forward to you with a unanimous recommendation from the Ethics Committee on December the 15 th for some tweaking and a little bit of revision there and at this point in time the City Council asked that this information come forward in this topic come forward so that you can have some internal discussions as it concerns where you might want to go with these ethics issues before we proceed further so with that I will answer any additional questions you might have or I'll be glad to step back and allow you to have whatsoever discussion you deem is appropriate among yourselves any other questions for our City Attorney yeah yes thank you mayor so Anita there's a lot of state laws up there and titles and you're probably a lot more familiar with the detail behind them and you're probably pretty familiar with any changes that have happened in other cities in the state so given what we have I'm asking this question in earnest because there's a lot of information given what we have now in all the state provisions because it's been commented that some other cities have have added some things or strengthen theirs of course I've read San Antonio's but what do you see that's missing all right so do you see any categories that are not covered in the state or like what the other cities have done was it in reaction to specific incidences or was it that they went through it and discovered hey we're missing you know we're missing a category here we need to beef this up or what what let me let me take a crack at that and you'll tell me if I didn't answer it when I make a couple of comments as I look at what the City of Denton has done they've actually passed a resolution and it's got the articulation of some lofty principles it also however lists the state penal laws that have application and so I think it's first appropriate to ask ourselves why did the City of Denton do what it did in 2006 and we can speculate we can surmise I think at least one answer could be that the council looked at it at that point in time and said we really do have adequate state law on the books in in the opinion of the council in 2006 and so we don't necessarily need to have additional ordinance provisions additionally I would point out that we do have those charter provisions which create a little bit more of an issue and perhaps something we need to think about and remember that's the 171 provisions and that's the nepot ism provisions and so with the City of Denton charter reaching out and grabbing state law we have not the City Council but we do have our citizens our electorate who have said we the citizens of Denton through our charter want these to be the provisions and so from a policy perspective we have to consider what it is that our citizens have said in their Constitution as we look at where we want to go with that I would surmise that that might have been a factor as well now with regard to other cities it's kind of it varies there are a number of resolutions there are a number of ordinances sometimes you see a city react to a particular factual situation and move forward with some ethics provisions as a result of one factual situation trying to you know overall address some other things I don't know that there's any right or wrong or illegal or fattening type of approach to any of these types of issues it's just that cities look at it a little bit differently from time to time kind of circling back to the mayor's early earlier question of a city who adds additional things on to these state provisions so take for instance the conflict of interest provision from local government code 171 not withstanding the fact that as you just mentioned that's already called out in the Charter so at least our citizens at one point in time adopted that as our standard but say we wanted to add some provisions that made the the standards more stringent or something or created additional requirements for when a council member would have to recuse themselves from an issue based on some sort of conflict of interest by adding that is it true that whatever state law puts that as a class a misdemeanor if the city adds on and adds on an additional two qualifications if someone violates the state law provisions that's class class a misdemeanor if the city has layered on a couple of additional things violation of those particular additional points am I hearing you correctly that those could only be class C misd emeanor that they couldn't say no no we want this class a because that's what the state is so but the city wouldn't have the power to do that you're absolutely right on that point I would also add to that particular point that again since we are local Constitution our Charter has indicated that the 171 provisions in state law apply we would have to look at and struggle with whether or not we have actually been preempted by our own citizens from moving in a different direction on the 171 divisions so I'm not definitively saying one way or the other and we can have some more discussion on that but I am saying we would have to look at that as an issue we'd essentially be unilaterally making an amendment to our charter by an ornament or so it could be perceived as such potentially so just one more follow-up question so there's in some of these other cities San Antonio is one of them has this additional jurisdictional body that acts as I think they're called the Ethics Commission talk to me a bit about that a standing of a body like that in terms of jurisdiction and because as we were talking through what happens if somebody has an issue and they think somebody has violated the law on one of these several points that I've just been taking there's a lot of them several points the most efficient route it seems is to go to Chief of Police District Attorney talk to the head of the grand jury through through communication all these modes that we just talked about but it seems like in some of those cases they're adding some additional citizen body of folks that why they'd want to run that through them versus just going directly to the person who can prosecute I don't know but in terms of what a body like that could be charged to do from a jurisdictional point of view can a body like that prosecute can they subpoena can they force witnesses to come can they force somebody to show their bank account records what's the purpose of that body given all the provisions in state law to go directly to the person who can prosecute can you talk about the hypothetical body that some of these cities are have layered on top of all these things I certainly will glad to do that you're speaking I think with particularity to what you've seen in the San Antonio ordinance and that ordinance would purport to create an administrative type of body this is not a body that would look at criminal issues the criminal jurisdiction would continue and would remain where the criminal jurisdiction is so again if it's a class C it would be in the municipal court if it's a B or higher or a felony it would be in district court and so that changes nothing with regard to where the criminal jurisdiction might lie what it does is it creates an administrative body which is really an overlay to all of the other provisions and it would provide an administrative body where complaints ethical complaints under the ordinance would be filed and considered by the Ethics Committee now under the ordinance that you're referencing the committee would have subpoena power they have certain powers that are set forth in that particular ordinance to gain information and to to hear the evidence relating to these complaints that might be filed and so it is really in the nature of an administrative body I will say also it does have at least in San Antonio the ability to levy a civil type of fine I think the penalty there is $500 so it's administrative it's not criminal in nature it's a but it is looking at the local ordinance from a civil perspective in San Antonio that's how that works there also in San Antonio the charter has certain enabling language in it which would allow such a body to have subpoena power to have the power to levy these types of fines so that's a distinguishment between the San Antonio Charter and the city of Denton's Charter there is no such provision in Denton's Charter just one follow-up and all that to clarify so insofar as they're not a criminal body or addressing criminal issues but they could be addressing civil issues because they have that as part of their ordinance so hypothetically if they 're addressing an issue say conflict of interest it could be an issue could be running concurrently through a district attorney's office hypoth etically and through this body for its civil effects and I guess hypoth etically like is the case in other laws the district attorney or the grand jury or even if it went to court an actual jury could declare that person innocent but hypothetically that commission could declare that person guilty because I'm assuming their bar of determining guilt or innocence would be different than in a criminal case that that's accurate of course the standard for a conviction in the state throughout this country is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt on criminal matters with an administrative body that is not the standard and so consequently it's possible that a person could be acquitted of a criminal violation and yet conceivably could be found to have violated the ethics code so there's really it's really two different analyses so it's it's possible thanks mayor protein thanks well if if there's not any more questions for the city attorney I guess the thing that I've been wondering about for a while is you know if we need to strengthen the current rules if there are gaps in our rules or in the state rules their problems or weaknesses that are real I'm I'm all for strengthening our ordinance whether that means a revision whether it means starting all over again I'm okay with that but before I do that what I would want to do is really identify what the problem is right now and that's what we generally do you know we have citizens come to us and say we've got a problem with the towing rates and the way towers are operating we look into it and we identify yeah there really is a problem and so we get working on a solution for that we have citizens come and say there's a problem with predatory lending practices and the state law doesn't really do enough to protect people that are being harmed by these predatory lending practices so we step in and create local rules actually adopt local rules from another city that that allows us to do some of those kinds of protections so I'm trying to figure out what where where the weaknesses are where the gaps are I remember when I first got on council I had heard the same complaints that we have a resolution rather than an ordinance for our ethics and that it's not it doesn't have any consequences if there's a violation other than a reprimand from the council so when I got on the Ethics Committee I brought it up and we had a presentation that was not too different from the presentation that we've had today and and after I saw that presentation I couldn't figure out where the weaknesses were and I haven't found the weaknesses since then so I wrote a quote today it said it's a Pete Seeger quote it's important to learn to talk to people you disagree with well I think it's even better to listen to people that you disagree with I don't know if there is a disagreement or not because I haven't figured out yet where we've identified the weaknesses that we're that we may be attempting to correct with an ordinance like the San Antonio ordinance or any other ordinance I'm disappointed that San Antonio has come up because after I've read it it's like oh we could certainly do better than that but but so so if somebody could help me that where are our weaknesses what are the problems that we're trying to correct yes councilman Bosney well what I've just heard is a presentation on why we don't need an ethics law in the city of Denton what we should be doing is asking ourselves as members of this council how can we raise the bar how can we raise the bar to hold the public trust and that has been my mission from the time I sat at those election forums with many of you last spring when people asked what are some of the things you would like to do Kathleen and something that was important to me from the beginning was to really examine this ethics policy that the city of Denton has state law the laws that are on the books and then take a look at some of to your point the ethics laws that are on the books in other cities so while we talk about San Antonio it is certainly not the only model that's out there there are lots of models that we can study but we have to start somewhere so that was as good as any to at least start asking the questions so every law that's passed whether it's federal state local it raises the bar because it means whatever was on the books wasn't good enough so to your point and where I would like to see this council go our legal department started for the Ethics Committee a tremendous worksheet and you've got four different categories of state and federal law what Denton has on the books what the San Antonio law has and how all of that is a matrix at the end in the last Ethics Committee meeting when we left that room that's how we left it with staff would you continue to compile for the all the council because this was amazing to be able to sit and read and it brings to your point what's there what isn't there and it does point out what some of the loose strings are which is a tremendous point of conversation for this council to then take the next discussion on this is everything that's out there for another city good for Denton no but there's a lot of good law on the books in cities across the state of Texas that we can call through we can take a look at what do we need to fill the gap why and then have a discussion with our citizens on it before we ever pass an ordinance and decide we want to change this but that would be my recommendation for this council to say because the question that brought it to today is that we have council people question before staff spends any more time on this we want the council to discuss this fair enough well we're discussing it now so my request of this council is to direct staff to do what they've already started and continue to compile the four-part category get it distributed to council early enough so that they're not just being given it Friday night at five o 'clock and being asked to discuss it on a Tuesday but they're given it with 30 days at least to be able to study it have time to ask legal any questions before we bring it back to the council for a larger discussion and I think that would answer a lot of questions that everybody has and that would be my direction and my request of this council well if I could follow up I appreciate your answer but and I and what I think I heard you say to the question that I raised up where are the gaps where are the weaknesses all I heard you say is that we need to raise the bar I mean I heard in the discussion where there 's some of the there's some violations that we could as officials make that could be first degree felonies ten thousand dollar fine and ninety nine years in jail I'm guessing that we don't need to raise the bar on that particular area what I'm asking is do we have some specific areas have you identified or has anyone brought to you some specific areas where we have gaps where we've got some some gaping holes where there's either harm that has come to our citizens or to the city government as an organization or where we think that there 's potential harm because we have a gap or because as you say the bars too low have you identified any of those yet there are several one that is is glaring is that you can serve on this City Council step off and they have confidential information and for two years the San Antonio ordinance keeps that confidential information confidential because you could learn something on this City Council about economic development in a certain part of the city and I'm just using this as hypothetical that for two years the San Antonio ordinance puts that information under wraps so you cannot leave this council and then go off and use that for private financial gain it also San Antonio ordinance covers all of our city employees and is very specific in a lot of different issues because we are signing lucrative contracts huge contracts it has an ethics ordinance provision that actually covers people who are bringing contracts to the city so it's 38 pages of a lot of detail Dalton and that's that's it that's an example of there's there's so much business that this city conducts and we hold the public trust to conduct that business at the highest level with the strongest ethics and if there are provisions that are not adequately covered by the state then we owe it to ourselves to study all of that in detail before we make a final decision on where to take this as as a council if I have follow-up question but on your example of the confidential information as gained by our office I guess my question for legal for our city attorney is that does the state law have a time limitation or once you're out of office does that state law provision no longer apply and the only reason I ask that is to make sure I understand I mean that's a good that's a good observation I mean I don't know the answer to that question so is that does the state law say once your office ends you are no longer applicable to this provision that you're aware of or do we not know it does the state law does not tie itself to the holding of the office it does speak to when the information becomes public then the information it's no longer a violation of this provision to use that official information so it's not tied per se to your office it is tied rather to when the information in fact does become public then the information can be certainly so along that in sort of an example with your example so let's say I 'm going to use me I'm going to use me as the hypothetical so I'm serving as mayor and I sit in closed sessions and gain confidential information pursuant to my office as mayor in other words I wouldn't be privy to that information unless I were sitting in those closed sessions and I get resoundly defeated and in the next election and but that information has not become public in other words it's still when I my term expires when I get defeated I'm out of office but the economic development issues let's say that we're discussing closed session have not become public but I go out and I purchase property let's talk we're talking about DME substations so I know that we're looking at some substation land that hasn't become public and I go out and buy that land cheaper or whatever because it hadn't been made public even though I'm out of office could someone still bring a charge against me that I have missed whatever that's called misuse of official information even though I'm still not an official with the City of Denton. Right this is how I read that particular statute look at this third bullet disclosure of non-public information gained by means of office it does not require you to be in office it does not require you to be an officer if you gained the information by means of the office and then you later misuse the official information you gained as a result of holding that office being the mayor of the city I think you could still violate this provision if you use that information for non-governmental purposes and it doesn't look to me like there is a time limitation at all in this particular statute rather it looks like as long as it is non-public information this particular tag under this statute is going to have application. Okay well and and Councilmember Wasney I don't disagree with you that to look at a matrix and to see because you brought up this particular provision whether it's one that I mean it's in the ordinance it's just as an example but whether that's a gap or not I don't know until we look at it and then look at also corresponding state law to say okay how does it compare so I don't really have an issue with saying well I mean do we when we talk about raising the bar I guess in this particular case it seems like it's almost trying to make it a little bit more I say tight because this seems to not have any time limitations whereas the San Antonio ordinance says two years but I mean I guess theoretically you could still be held to this non-disclosure of non-p ublic information for longer than two years if it hasn't been made public so I really don't have an issue with looking at specific questions or things that are brought up maybe from other cities to say hey what's the state of this currently is this something that the city of Denton wants to take a look at I don't I don't have an issue with that because what you may think is a gap or not a gap someone else may think is a gap so to have that discussion I don't I don't I don't have an issue with that at all yes Councilmember Rhoads. I think before we go down the road of tasking staff with a lot of work again going back to Dalton's example we ought to at least be able to identify some big problems that need to be addressed to say that there might be some problems because other cities have other ordinances in place well that that counts for every single ordinance we have in the city and so that can't be the standard that there's another ordinance out there so let's all go look at it so I guess I 'd ask for some more specifics to know whether or not how I can give direction to staff on this issue but I need to see where the problems are okay Council member Hawkins. Anita may I ask you so I've had a few conversations where things that we discuss in closed session and so let's say we discuss something in closed session and I go out in the community and I directly or indirectly spill the beans I say too much and maybe it ruins a deal or something like that I could face criminal from what I understand and correct me if I'm wrong I can face criminal charges for doing that or and that's under not not necessarily well let me let me see if I can cut that with a little finer edge currently under this ordinance that has come under fire somewhat from some corners of the state and here in the city of Denton section 2 - 30 improper disclosure of confidential information would not allow you and would subject you potentially to a class C misdemeanor if you disclose any information including that information you obtained during closed session so with respect to that particular ordinance I guess I would have to answer your question yes remember bringing that back to you with a unanimous recommendation from the Ethics Committee that we revise that a little bit and pull those criminal provisions out so assuming that we address that particular ordinance in the future and amend that then that leaves us with the state statute and it's not going to be all information you have to look at these criminal provisions and make a call whether or not all elements of the crime would have application to the fact situation that you have described recognize here it's information that you gained as a matter of holding your office but it's used to either gain a pecuniary benefit or it's used for non-governmental purposes with intent to harm or defraud okay so you've got to be able to hit those elements of the crime in order for there to be a situation where a district attorney or the or someone else would look at this and say there is a problem here we're going to pursue it okay and I will I will sort of echo to some degree your sentiment I mean I think we'd want to have some direction on what it is we're if I mean even if it's just to the point of a council member wants a particular issue to be looked at in the ethics ordinance but yeah to say just go out here and research everything anything and everything I'd like to be able to hone it down a little bit more than that just so that we have some idea and certainly we've got this I think scheduled again for in January but by then certainly we'll be able to but anyway we've got some other we've got some other people that want to comment so I'm sorry yes Councilmember Gray's do we have currently an ethics ordinance city didn't know I don't believe we do we just have like a resolution so what goes in there or not can we be in agreement that that we can have an ethics ordinance and then discuss what the particulars are that we put in there is there harm in that yes councilman I think those who fear that we don't have an ethics ordinance haven't haven't properly looked at the state statute so the thought is because we have these list of values which is what those are in our resolution and I get it if that's all the city was relying on to address corruption bribery count conflict of interest was get along with one another then yes gaping hole but to the extent that we are under the jurisdiction of all those state stat utes which as we've pointed out in most of the cases carry higher penalties than anything we could ever enact at a city level if we had a city ordinance it would probably just simply point to the state statutes like we do in other city ordinances that do such that so if it's just for the appearance of saying people are clamoring for an ethics ordinance again I'd say sure if there's a need to address a problem that our current state statutes aren't addressing so that's my thought on that I mean to just say yes let's just do an ethics ordinance because it sounds good which is what I'm hearing a lot out there which is we don't have one again I'd ask people to go through and investigate each of these state laws which are to me seems pretty covering everything so I guess I'd ask you the same question that we asked Councilmember Wasney what's missing from that list that you feels puts the city at risk well I believe that our conflict of interest needs to we need to look at that a lot more and that's one persons doing business with the city that's another area I think that we need to look at just and talk and communicate and again I think it 's because our city is growing and it might not be something specific with this one council but it might be our duty as a council to put something in place for future councils and so that's what was the first one conflict of interest yes so on that part and I appreciate you pointing those two things out what specifically with the conflict of interest you think is is missing in the state statute that you would advocate us bringing forward for a city specific ordinance well maybe other LLC's that other people are involved in I don't really have anything specific but I can call on the public in those watching to send us emails with things that they may have that they would like to for us to look at and if I may perhaps that's an approach to do I mean if people in talking with citizens if hearing out there that other people were able to identify keeping holes that you all aren't able to do today to me that is of benefit I'm a bit hesitant to task our staff with going out and finding those and say examine these other statutes that are around the state and you report back to us I again if there's a need if there's a glaring problem then let's as council members representatives bring those to the table advocate for why we need to address those particular specific issues but that might be one way of approaching it and ahead of the January meeting when we're discussing this is you guys can do any of us can do homework on this issue and bring back some specific areas but again I need to be convinced that there's a problem before driving towards a solution. Councilman Watson. Well then let's address this topic of asking staff because I disagree with you this is a staff because they're the attorneys Kevin they're the attorneys now I specifically remember staff spending two years and almost half a million dollars working on a convention center that was not passed on the University of North Texas property and I didn't hear a lot of discussion at that point in time when I sat behind me in these seats saying oh I question all the time that staff is spending on this staff works for council let's get that clear staff works for council council works for our citizens so in that layer of work this is a job for the legal staff and ordinance is a law I am not an attorney Kevin I'm looking at attorneys in this room who are professionals and that is their job as professionals in our legal department to go through San Antonio law compare it with state law compare it with city law and find out how it how it meshes this is about the law and ordinance is a law so I am tasking staff and I am asking legal to spend the appropriate time on this so that we can have the advice to this council on what direction to take you may decide after you look at all of it that you don't want to take any direction at all but we owe it to what's on the books now what's on the books with the state and what's on the books in other cities that have decided that the state is not enough and let the attorneys come forward and give us legal advice because this is illegal to just look at council members and say well you need to just go figure it out for yourself Kathleen no we have a legal department that needs to figure this out for us and that is my request for this council today it is a legal responsibility and a legal law to study this it seems like we we all have a responsibility because there are times when council members identify a problem that needs to be fixed there are times when staff identifies a problem that needs to be fixed there are times when citizens identify a problem that needs to be fixed and and on my time on council I've seen that happen all three different ways I've seen council members take initiatives here is a problem here's a gap here's a weakness let's address this I've seen staff bring it to us when they've when they've discovered deficiencies sometimes just in trying to carry out ordin ances that have been enacted they say okay we can't do this the wording is not right we need we need to fix this problem and we've had as I've given earlier examples of citizens so to to you know I think we've heard that staff doesn't has not has not found a gap has not found a hole has not found a problem I am I am more than willing to hear if there's a specific area that's not addressed by state law that's not addressed by our rules that we need to address I'm okay if it if it if it's important if it makes a difference even if it doesn't make a particular difference to take the the the the council ethics policy that was approved through an ordinance and rework it into an ethics ordinance that's approved through council you know it's an ordinance instead but it's basically the same and maybe we need to make adjustments when we find a gap and we can do those at any time we're doing one right now that you guys are recommending to council on on the disclosure information so I'm all for that but but to to part of our current ethics rules say that we're supposed to be physically responsible we're supposed to be good stewards of the taxpayers dollars and that means that we that we keep our staff directed towards their jobs and we only give them an additional job if there 's a job that needs to be done if there's a problem that needs to be fixed so so again I'm going to say if there's a problem I'm more than happy to address it I'm more than happy to fix it and direct staff to do that just help us to identify what the real problems are what I was hearing coming into this is that that there was that that ethics committee wanted to basically replace our resolution with the San Antonio ordinance after I read the ordinance I was I was dismayed it adds a couple of levels of bureaucracy not only an ethics board but also the the chairman of the ethics board can appoint an ethics panel and that and it adds a staff person and I could go through a whole list of things that I find really problematic in terms of fourth amendment rights of individuals and and the city assessing fines and actually holding court and allowing hearsay information I mean it was like wow seven pages of those 28 pages or 38 pages seven pages was on lobbyist do you know and I've tried to wreck my brain do we have a problem in Denton with lobbyist I've never heard it raised by anybody so so to to to ask staff to spend a whole lot of time to replace our resolution with the San Antonio ordinance just seems the wrong direction to go unless of course we discover that we really do have those problems that we really do have those gaps that that that we're vulnerable by not having all of those seven pages of rules in place about about lobbyist or something like that I found this very helpful and I just I realized that the ethics committee is the only one that got this matrix with the comparisons and so I would like for to see if everyone else can receive that this because it is it is pretty helpful and there are when I read through it there are places where you know you didn't really think well this might could get stronger because it's just a law but you read it you think well yeah that kind of just makes sense so you know just a request that everyone get this so we're coming from the same place because I feel like on the ethics ordinance we've we've had a lot more and we've talked about some things a little bit more and so sure it's you know just to be fair so we're all coming from the same information I think that's it I mean I think that's a good idea because I know councilmember Ross me when you're talking about the Convention Center to me the distinguishment between what I think and you correct me if I'm wrong but the difference that I see in that discussion then this discussion now is at least the Convention Center back many years ago which I was on council during some of those discussions the council direction was move forward on this and do and spend the taft staff time spend the money research it and then in the end as we did our due diligence it was like okay here I think part of is what direction do we move forward and I think that's a great suggestion because I think what in some ways what you're asking for as far as okay show us the gaps do the research these time it sounds like a lot of it 's already been done in the sense of this this matrix that you have because I don't know what that is I haven't seen it but it sounds like there's been some most of that work already done in the sense of looking at state law compared to the San Antonio ordinance compared to whoever else I guess and looking at comparing contrast is that is that sort of what that is or is that just elementary cursory look or mayor just to clarify the document this is a document that the legal team prepared for the ethics committee and it is a confidential document we prepared this under attorney-client okay okay we can certainly distribute it to the rest of the council but it is an analysis of the city of Denton provisions state law provisions the San Antonio ordinance and then it provides our legal comments with regard to some analysis on that and I'll be delighted to share that with the entire council it is a review of four of the I forgot how many divisions of the San Antonio ordinance councilman Wasney you probably know that it's there are nine nine divisions this is an analysis of four of them so we'll be glad to get that to you in a confidential status let me ask a follow-up to the committee members to ethics committee members is the information that 's contained in that is that are you is there a desire to have a wider approach to the researcher is the information that's contained in that matrix the information that you would want to discuss at a at the council level yes well we have to start somewhere so we pulled out four sections out of the nine and so my request would be all nine sections to have a thorough discussion of what what is in it and again I come back to doesn't have to be San Antonio's ordinance but this is an excellent tool to be able to take a look at what what other cities have compared with the state what other cities have compared with the state and with Denton so I guess that would be the question and maybe we start one step at a time that we start with the initial four four sections because you haven't seen this and that you digest it and we come back and discuss these initial four sections before we task staff to add on the other sections for analysis and at that point then you all can start reading this as we prepare for I believe it's on the calendar city manager for January 12th we've got a place holder on the agenda for the 12th to have further discussion about the ethics matters so I would recommend we we lock that in and have legal distribute this to council and carry the discussion on to that day yes I have a couple comments and a couple questions for you Kathleen so so just you know for clarity because I think we all fall in this trap from time to time so earlier you said what you said we need to raise the bar to gain the public trust when you say we need to reign the bar we need to raise the bar so we can gain the public trust you infer we don't have the public trust and so when I think about the public I think about all of them so so I guess so then as we go through because for me if I'm going to do a research project over my Christmas break because I mean some of us have business to run and families and a lot of stuff and so I guess where I look at this I don't care if we if we decide we want to have an ordinance instead of a resolution because the most stringent thing we can create is a class C misdemeanor yet the state is predominantly felonies so like we're already governed by something that's real and tough and so if there's gaps in there I'm all for it I'm all for changing a resolution to an ordinance if that makes people happy frankly I just don't I haven't heard from really many people I mean obviously you've brought this forward I think we've I don't know four or five emails from folks four or five individuals but say you need to have a stronger ethics ordinance well that doesn't mean anything it needs to be stronger well so far always proposed it's take something out make it weaker so I'm saying if it needs to be stronger let's just identify in what way like specifically if if you're advocating for a stronger ordinance then say I want it stronger in these ways I want to add like you mentioned that provision earlier that that's not covered and then we actually it is covered in the state statute but I'm not an attorney either so if I read that and I read that I may not understand whether it's covered or not so I guess to me you know you said we have a lot of questions that everybody has asked okay cool what are the questions who's everybody so that we can get down into some detail of you know this provision or this category is missing or you know we asked mayor asked Keely what specific and you said look at other LLC's well that doesn't don't know what that means but maybe there's something that is missing or would say you know if if a if a city employee or a public official owns interest in a entity or business that owns interest in a property that the city is considering purchasing okay well that's already here it's already covered but maybe there's something in San Antonio's that we need to go yeah we're missing that one but I read San Antonio's over the weekend and unless the purpose of saying we want this because this thing is cumbersome and ambiguous as all get out in my opinion but I'll tell you what you will do if you adopt this you're going to eliminate a very large section of the population from being willing or able to hold one of these offices you're going to eliminate bankers attorneys contractors brokers anybody who invests in real estate anybody who owns real estate with other people I mean you're you're eliminating a huge sub section of the population from being able to or willing to serve because this thing is very conflicting and confusing but when you say an entity which the official or employee knows is an affiliated or partner of an entity in which any of the persons listed holds an economic interest as the finance section well if you go back and reference all those numbers it's basically if you know anybody who owns real estate that the city might buy okay well gosh that's almost everyone so I guess from where I'm sitting I would like to get I don't want to go do a project do a bunch of reading and we all come back and meet about this again because we got some big issues in front of us I'm perfectly fine with saying we're missing something in this category we're missing whole category or we're missing something that says if a council member owns interest in real property with someone who is selling a property that the city's buying and you know whatever get specific but I don't want to do a master's thesis project you know in the next three weeks to come back and say yeah there's really nothing specific we can point to so that's just that's where I stand on it let me make it let me make a couple of suggestions because I think in some ways what we're doing today is is it's really we're almost putting the cart before the horse because we're trying to decide what we want to talk about before we know what we want to talk about and I'm saying on January the 12th we're going to have this matrix that's going to be handed out now whether or not we I mean the legal aspects of that matrix maybe have to be covered in closed session unless we choose not to we can obviously choose not to but the concepts that are present in the matrix I mean I don't think anybody saying we have to figure all this out in the next month or two it sounds like that if we take you know if we look at this and we have a small bite at the apple and we say well because council in the end determines if just because we're talking about it doesn't even mean we have to have it I mean it sounds like what I'm hearing is simply a discussion on it and then the council can determine is this something that is worthy of the city having in an ethics ordinance or is this something that we feel as a body together whether it's a unanimous or not is okay with the current status quo and I understand about wanting the specific things but what I'm hearing is whatever's here these first four we might get in that discussion and realize gosh it might not be this long and then we go well what about these other things and I would highly recommend and suggest that over these next three weeks I don't think it's a project but just if you have something off the top of your head that you want to throw into that discussion as far as what you think might we might want to do something different I mean I don't I don't see the harm it doesn't sound like it's going to take an inordinate amount of staff time to they've already got something and that's a starting point and then we'll either decide do we need to move further in this discussion or do we need to further narrow it down because we're asking for it to be narrowed down but I'm not sure we've really had a discussion of what we're even talking about as far as what's on the table so I don't see the harm in moving forward with at least the information that's already been presented to the Ethics Committee to come back to us as a full council to say here are these things that you're talking about and you can say I don't agree with this I don't think we need this that's pretty quick I just we're trying to almost decide what we want to talk about without really understanding what we're really trying to talk about is the way I'm sensing it so I don't have an issue with taking what's been already researched what's already been done because it I don't even look at it as a San Antonio ordinance to me their concepts I mean they just happen to be in an ordinance and I've read it and I don't agree with all of it by far but the concepts I think are worthy of discussion if anything it helps us reiterate that we're already covered or and it helps put this in the public realm of discussion instead of well we're not really going to talk about any of this so that's where I am on it I don't have an issue with coming back on the 12th with at least some of the concepts and if we can narrow it down to you know specific bullet points or concepts not well do we want this particular ordinance provision but is it this this concept that we want to look at like conflict how far out does it go in chain of ownership in these kinds of things or if you own you know if I own apartment buildings and somebody's looking at a rezoning of apartment building down the street do we want it to I mean that seemed a little far-fetched but you know I have to recuse myself even though it doesn't affect me or anything that I have but because it's quote-unquote competition he told her things that you know are okay to talk about I mean if we haven't talked about them and as long as for me the the issue would be that it's not compacted that it's not a contracted conversation that all the sudden has to be decided in a month or two that we just we decide on a timely manner we 've had this thing for seven or eight years doesn't mean we have to resolve it in two months we may get into the discussion and realize well we really don't have a whole lot to talk about I just don't know that's what I'm saying there's a lot of unknowns for me so I don't think I need particularly to have any one particular council person or persons to say this is what I specifically want to talk about except I maybe see that as a representation in this thing that's been passed out I mean that's I mean it's not open in let's talk about anything everything now having not seen this document I don't know what that is so that's where I that's where I am with it so I'm not sure I'm following what your direction is though so let me see if I sure because what I'm getting at is I thought I thought that's what we're doing today which is okay so we have a resolution state law whatever this is what we have this is what San Antonio has we think we need to have what they have why because the following things are missing so what are those things so if what if what you're saying is we take we all get that document sent to us over here over the next few weeks we go we read it are we to each come because if we're gonna have another discussion let's make sure it's substantive sure so we can figure out if we're gonna do something or not so if what you're saying is read it come back and say okay and in this section I think this merits a change or further discussion or maybe I don't think we cover this now and I don't think state law covers it now city attorney does it cover it like just what happened earlier so is that what you're saying read it come back with your each of us come back with our own recommendations or questions about each section of I want this I think we should have this kind of change or I just have a question we're gonna work through section by section so what you're saying that's what I'm saying because I think I 'm totally good with that yeah just I thought well and I know that you thought and I mean to me this meeting I could be wrong was about giving staff direction on where it's what's the next step from here and I think all of this discussion that we've had has been important in making that because I personally wasn't planning on coming here and saying well I think we need to talk about this this this this and this I didn't really know what this conversation was that was going to be about so but it was a conversation that we needed to have so that staff and the council itself could get some kind of this is sort of like the beginning conversation of where do we go with this issue from here those were my thoughts on it so the way you enumerated what the next meeting would look like is what my my vision of it is is we're gonna discuss specific as you would call them gaps or things such as that go ahead Joey's been trying to get in yes councilmember Hawkins well - I hope part of the discussion is defining some of the things that are already falling under state law and just making it a little bit more simple to understand even when we're going through this and maybe changing our resolution from an ordinance and even if it repeats itself under state it can say this is under city ordinance and it also points to this state law I think that'd be very helpful because this those are pretty broad definitions and some of that and maybe we are covered or whatever sure however you want to word it but if we could make that you know and I almost just thought we had a city ordinance but I guess just a resolution and we kind of do because it's under the umbrella of the state law but I'm all for changing it to a city ordinance but let's define it's just more simply how state covers us so you know when we did the vulnerable road user ordinance one of the things that councilmember Engelberg had suggested was that we add in all of the state laws pertinent to pedestrian and bicycle rules of the road just as a restatement and we referred to the state law but then we also did that and and that would be fine with me to do something like that I just want to make sure that as we have that conversation again if there's a if there's a real weakness or if if you want to use the term there's a place where the bars too low and the sheep are jumping out of the pasture well let's raise the bar but but I don't want to have this conversation going for the next six months it already almost feels like a campaign slogan you know either your you're you should embrace a wholesale revision of our entire ordinance or you've got something to hide you know I don't think that's going to lend itself to good conversation of colleagues that are trying to to solve what could be very real problems and and and if there are problems I want to tackle them I want to address them I don't want those sheep to get out of the pasture I want the public to be protected but but to to do a wholesale change when it 's not necessary seems like a waste of energy on the part of our staff and it takes up a lot of valuable meeting time yes customer road work session time is valuable real estate and so we've talked about this for two hours and no one could identify a problem yet that to me that's important so I look forward to that meeting and I'm fine with it I just think we need to come prepared to identify those specific problems so we know whether or not to continue this discussion well and and I certainly would encourage my colleagues to do I mean that's the purpose of this meeting is to determine what it is and what kind of further discussion we need to have if any so I'm okay with that because whether it's a wholesale change or not I don't know yet because we haven't really had the discussion yes counselor and I will say that there was no real format for this discussion today there was no expectation level there was no format it was just posted as discussion of ethics ordinance so okay the meat and potatoes January 12th yes look forward to that yes so let me summarize at least for staffs direction you're going to get us that matrix that was prepared and then we as a council will come prepared with specific questions specific concepts or issues or specific language in the San Antonio ordinance that you would think that we need to raise the bar fill in the gap and then we can we can discuss that and then it will be sort of council direction at that time to determine how we proceed from that point is that is that is that clear with as mud Joey you're looking sort of muddy there okay all right fantastic mayor I'll be delighted to get you this document and as always the city staff desires whatever four of you desire we're just tickled pink with whatever you all want so let us know and to councilmember Rhodes that work sessions are invaluable real estate that is true and so we've had the last couple months we've been a little bit we've had fewer meetings because of the holidays and so I look forward to in January picking up our full schedule of council meetings together with the last Tuesday of the month to help us make up the backlog yes yes I appreciate your sarcasm there's a very serious there 's a committee on the environment that yes supposed to meet at 130 we're out and so we'll convene in here and let's just keep our seat so that we can keep moving and and ask the staff to come up to the table and we'll start at 240 for the committee on the environment any concluding items was our agenda number two one councilmember Johnson based on the very encouraging informal staff report we got about athletic tournaments just in a three month period and the type of revenue those are generating to talk about something really positive and exciting I don't know what the best route to go here is whether it's to an ad hoc committee or just ask the staff to look at this but I have had several citizens come to me and say we're missing the boat there are cities all over the place that have these huge indoor athletic facilities complexes and their hotels are booked the restaurants are full these people come for a three-day tournament whether it be volleyball or soccer or softball or basketball and Denton is so geographically perfect for such a facility and given that you've got so much entertainment and so much cool stuff to go do etc etc I mean look we just in this one report and what we're doing right now which I guess is just Roy outdoor ball fields that's a 350 thousand dollar annual positive impact just off of these ones that we're seeing in this report so I think there's a real public-private partnership opportunity there shutter to have that conversation in the midst of discussion of an ethics ordinance but meaning doesn't mean that the city needs to run it doesn't mean the city needs to own it but there's I think there's a real opportunity there from an economic development standpoint and I think even with partnership with the universities to have a multi-purpose facility that could be used by many public and I think that's a good idea any other questions sorry oh yes for your late meeting just wanted to publicly thank everyone who is involved in the holiday lighting festival on Friday I mean I think estimates were somewhere around 12,000 people came out to that and every business owner I've talked to downtown said they killed it like beyond any any previous year's example so thanks to all the citizens who came out made that crazy night success absolutely it was a wonderful night yeah anything else all right all right we 're adjourned thank you