Jan 12, 2016 City Council on 2016-01-12 2:00 PM

[ Silence ] [ Silence ] >> Good afternoon. I wanted to welcome everyone to this Tuesday, January the 12th, 2016, meeting of the Denton City Council. This is our second Tuesday work session and we do have a qu orum. Our first agenda item, we will be meeting in closed session . So at this time, where's my cheat sheet? At this time, I will convene the closed session at 2.03 p.m . on January the 12th, 2016. We will consider the following items, consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071, deliberations regarding real property under Texas Government Code Section 551.072, and deliberations regarding certain public power utility competitive matters under Texas Government Code Section 551 .086. So if we could, we'll go ahead and prepare the room for closed session. [ Silence ] >> Good evening. Good afternoon. I want to resume our Denton City Council meeting on January the 12th, 2016. It is 10 after 5. We are now in our work session reports. We do have a quorum. So we'll go on to work session reports A, which is receive a report, hold discussion, provide staff direction concerning City of Denton ethics provisions and state and federal law, excuse me, regulations and policies related to ethics issues and regulation of the conduct of public officials. >> Good afternoon, Mayor, Council Members, Mr. City Manager . This afternoon, I would like to further facilitate our discussion with regard to ethics issues and the possibility of additional ethics regulations in the City of Denton. Just by way of review of what has come before, the Ethics Committee has previously considered Denton's ethics provisions written into resolution and also state law. The City Council initiated discussion of City of Denton ethics provisions and also received a briefing from this office on December the 7 th, 2015 with regard to various laws in the state of Texas and other ethics provisions. And then the City Council, after reviewing and considering provisions set forth in the Denton Code of Or dinances Section 2-30, determined to repeal the confidentiality of information provision and this was done on December the 15th, 2015. So this afternoon, I would like to just open this discussion really and remind council and staff about some of the issues which we have bantered about and discussed in some detail in our prior discussions and I'm going to just lay out some of these issues and then open it up for council discussion. One of the issues we've talked about is what conduct is not covered by current law and current Denton ethics provisions . We've asked the question, what is the issue needing attention? Is it reality or is it perception? We have at least considered looking at other ordinances, including the San Antonio ordinance and perhaps others, and considered which ordinance might operate as a model for the City of Denton. We have heard some discussion about modifying the City of Denton's current ethics resolution and changing that into an ethics ordinance and perhaps adding some additional provisions. And then we have talked about the possibility of looking to other cities, perhaps similar in size to Denton, for an ethics ordinance model. And certainly the city staff is open to whatsoever the council desires to do. At this point in time, that's probably the shortest presentation that we've had in a while. But I do know that the city council desires to have some discussion on this topic. And I do know that the chair of our ethics committee also desires to make some comments. So I'm delighted to answer any questions and also delighted to step aside and allow the council to have whatsoever discussion as appropriate. >> Any questions for staff at this time? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Seeing none, yes, Councilmember Wosny as chair, you wanted to say a few comments, so you have the floor. >> The last time we talked about a proposed ethics ordinance, you asked that I come back and give specific issues as to why we need an ethics ordinance. You emphasized state law and wondered, is state law enough? So I've used to source Greg Abbott, who in 2012 was our state attorney general, who wrote an amazing white paper called the 2012 Texas Conflict of Interest Laws Made Easy. And it's an excellent read, and I've studied it and studied it and studied it, because I will refer back to it on several occasions. So let's talk conflict of interest. And do the state's conflict of interest laws apply to members of a local governing body who have a direct personal matter pending before the governing body? And according to Chapter 171, which we refer to on a frequent basis under state law, and I quote, Chapter 171 of the Local Government Code does not apply to direct personal matters of a member of a local governing body. It only applies to public officials who have a substantial financial interest. And that's the key, substantial financial interest in a business entity or real property. That's on page 11 of the Attorney General's 2012 white paper. Well, I maintain that state law is not enough because of the 10% rule. Let's define substantial financial interest according to state law. Being employed by a business entity will prevent a local official from discussing or voting on a matter involved with that business, provided more than 10% of the official's previous year's gross income came from his or her employment with that business. And that's why I say the 10% law is not enough. Conflict of interest must be defined in a much narrower scope. Any financial interest, past or present, in a business entity or real property should be the test for a conflict of interest . Next item, contracts made with the city of Denton. No member of city council should be allowed to enter into a contract to do business with the city. No exceptions. No allowance for competitive bidding or prior contracts. This rule must be extended to family members. State law and our current ethics policy have failed us on this matter. Next up, fiduciary relationship. And consider this regarding city council and the planning and zoning commission. Conflict of interest must also include fiduciary relationships. Example, a real estate broker salesperson is a fiduciary of their client. But what is a fiduciary relationship? Harvard law gives us an excellent description. It's a relationship of trust and confidence where the agent owes undivided loyalty to the client. The broker salesperson must disclose to the client any information that may benefit the client's position in a negotiation. End quote. This must include past and present fiduciary relationships. Because there is no sharp dividing line on when that fiduci ary duty comes to an end. State law does not address this issue. Next up, under the rules for members who are recused, state law lacks strength. And again, consider this regarding city council and planning and zoning. Let's give a definition of recused for the public that is watching and may not know what that means. You are recused or excluded. If it has been determined, you have a conflict of interest regarding a specific property, specific project. So how does the state fall short? If the determination has been made that you are to be rec used from discussion or voting on a project, state law allows the recused to attend closed sessions on the project. Now remember, you've been recused because you have a financial interest or a conflict of interest in the property or project. You should not be allowed to gather information on that project in a closed session. And again, state falls short on that. >> Kathleen, one question. On this particular one, there's been a couple, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but. Are these, when you say that state law allows someone to attend a closed session, is that information coming from that white paper you were talking about? Okay, so all these things are coming from, gotcha, just wanted to make sure. >> Coming from Greg Abbott, who was our state attorney general and now our governor. >> Thank you. >> Let's talk property ownership. We need to include this under conflict of interest and again, consider this regarding city council and planning and zoning. If you own or have any financial interest in property cont iguous or physically close to property being considered by the governing body, this must be included under conflict of interest. It must extend to family members and business relationships . The key is any financial interest and the key is what the state has to say about this. Again, I come back to Greg Abbott's white paper and I quote . The fact that an action would affect property physically close to an official's own property does not, in and of itself, establish a conflict of interest that would prevent an official from discussing or voting on that item. Unquote. State law is not enough. Any financial interest should exclude you from discussion or a vote. >> Question, please. >> Yeah. >> I don't have, I didn't know you were going to be reading from a document. Been handy to have it. So you're saying that his quote went on to say that the state law does not do enough or is that your comment after his comment? >> My comment, state law doesn't do enough. >> Okay, so that is confusing to me because you're quoting from him and you're going right on. So let us know where his quote ends if you don't mind. Just to help me out. >> Yeah, absolutely. Next topic, post employment. And again, consider city council, planning and zoning, and managerial employees. If you take part in negotiating or voting on a project, there must be a two year wait period before you can leave and go to work for that project, project managers or property owners. And again, this is coming from Kathleen Wasney and a suggestion that I see as a whole that we don't have plugged right now. State law does not address this. I bring it up because I've seen it first hand in other places that I've lived. Where either council members, planning and zoning, or employees have helped negotiate, close a contract, and then they leave the city straight away and have a lucrative employment contract with either a project manager, a project, or property owners. And again, state law does not address this and I think it's a hole we need to fill. So here's a question. Do we have the authority to strengthen our conflict of interest laws at the local level? The white paper says yes, and I quote. Yes, a home rule city may provide further and more restrictive conflict of interest limitations on its officials and employees, end quote. So comments, don't get sidetracked with tunnel vision over the San Antonio ordinance. It was provided as an example of what other cities have done. Conflicts of interest are inevitable. Let's focus on prevention, not punishment. Council also told me at the last discussion on this subject to work on my own. You directed me not to involve staff, not to involve the legal department. You questioned the time they had already spent looking into this topic of ethics. So I've created a grassroots think tank to write an ethics ordinance for the city of Denton. It will create the soil and the seeds. It will not be a finished product by any stretch of the imagination, as this is a project for city council and city staff. It'll be complete sometime in the next two weeks. If we move forward with this as a council, I'll provide copies to council, to staff, and to our citizens. And again, it is the soil and the seeds. It's not in any way a finished product. But I ask that you move forward with this discussion based on these major topics that we've covered today. Because the question this council had of me and held my feet to the fire, quite frankly, what are the holes in the city of Denton? So I've addressed what I consider the broad concepts of some issues that we have, holes that we need to fill, and I would ask this council to move forward on discussion and consideration of an ethics ordinance for the city of Denton . >> Councilmember Hopkins. >> Councilmember. The first one, I was trying to keep track . The first one I also had down as a possible hole, the 10% of the previous year's income to be a part of a deal. And I'd received an email that was kind of interesting. If somebody was on council and let's say that they didn't, let's say they made $50,000. And the person sitting next to me had made $5 million. How that could be such a. >> Healy. >> Healy, I see it in your future. >> I really do. How that could change the difference in what that council member was able to vote on. And so I would like us to possibly discuss on just maybe ca pping that or just have the discussion about that if there was a successful business person that wasn't able to always vote on everything. But somebody had a meager, more meager salary they were not able to. So just throwing that one out there first just as a discussion. >> Let me sort of start off. First of all, thank you for those thoughts. And if possible, what would be helpful to me is if I could get a copy of that. >> I'm happy to email this to staff and to council. I'll also provide a web link so you can print this off. Because I've read this so many times and he has created it so that anyone can read it and understand it. It really, really helped understand and it really emphasized where the holes were here. Because you could read this and say, but what are problems? Yeah, go ahead. >> Well, no, and so I, and of course everybody's welcome to make the comments if they want. But I'm probably not going to be able to comment specifically on, because first of all, I can't remember it all. And that's why I would like it. So I would, my thought is we'll have another discussion on this so that we can talk about specifics with a little bit more, because some of them I might have agreed with. And some of them I'd have to really look at it and make sure that I understand, number one, what was said. So if we could get those, that'd be helpful to me so I can understand sort of where you're coming. Because to me, this is what you're asking for. I mean, in essence, other than this ordinance that you are crafting or somebody's crafting. So that would be helpful to understand that. Those are just my comments on that. I don't really have any specific comments, but I just would like to get that so I can take a look at it. Y'all want to do get a, go ahead, go ahead. >> Thank you. I had some questions of clarification as well . I guess these all fall under conflict of interest, even though there were different subheadings. Is that how you understood each of these points? >> I guess contracts is something kind of distinct. >> Contract distinct post employment. >> Right, okay. >> Is distinct. Because fiduciary relationship also creates a conflict of interest. >> Right, so I guess I had some questions because, and to clarify, I guess it piggybacks on Council Member Gregory's question. He simply outlines the current law, I guess, and gets into detail as to what it means. Is he in that white paper, which I guess we can all take a look at, does he make recommendations about what's lacking in the conflict of interest laws? >> He does not, because Texas is a large state full of cities who are going to make their own laws. But he wanted to explain, what are the Texas conflict of interest laws? And because when we were in council and talked about this last time, what kept coming back to me was, but the state, but the state. So I really wanted to understand, well, what does the state have? And what are my issues? And I married the two. What does state fix and what do they leave for cities to address, basically? >> Sure, okay. Under the first conflict of interest thing, you made the point saying 10% law is not enough. And I think that's worthy of a conversation, although I think it's meant percentage wise, because 10% of 5 million is a significant amount of money compared to. So it's meant to be that relative sort of scale, as I imagine is the intent. So, but you mentioned, I'm just clarifying, you said any financial interest or land past and present? Is that what you said? As it relates to conflict of interest, that's what you would add in addition to the 10% law, or I guess as a replacement to the 10% law. >> I would replace a 10% with any financial interest. So that it's not a dollar amount. If you have a financial interest in a piece of real property, you should not be part of a discussion on voting. Whether your property is right next door or a certain distance. >> Okay, so I'm just trying to clarify. But you qualify that with past or present. So did you mean to insinuate that if I had a piece of land that I sold 10 years ago, that would be a requirement for recusal as a past? Investment in a piece of property I no longer own? >> Well, for clarification, and I come back, this would tie to the fiduciary relationship. If you were a broker on a piece of property and had a fid uciary relationship with that owner. And then on down the line, there was a vote and a discussion on a project that was coming to that piece of property. You need to recuse yourself because of the past relationship that you had as a business entity. >> Okay, that's another point. I guess just on that point of financial interest or land interest, what would be the point of something I had 10 years ago being meaningful to my ability to vote now? >> If you were a broker that had that- >> I'm not talking about broker. I'm just, you said any financial interest or land. You just own it. Maybe it's a house that all of a sudden is coming up for zoning or something that I owned 10 years ago. Why is that? >> My focus is if you own a business, you can own property and if it's contiguous, that's part of it. But part of it also has to fall under the umbrella of business ownership. So if you had a property listed 10 years ago and you had a business relationship with that property owner. My question for this council is, do you still have a fiduci ary relationship? And should you be a part of that discussion? So I'm not saying this is locked in stone. I'm saying this is something we need to talk about. And so in terms of Kevin Roden owning a home 10 years ago, no. Kevin Roden being a broker and having a fiduciary relationship with a property owner 10 years ago. Where quite possibly you still maintain a relationship with this property owner because he owns other pieces of property around the city. Again, we need to have a discussion on conflict of interest . >> Sure, sure. I would imagine no broker could ever serve on city council in a city our size. They probably have past business relationships with several people coming for council. So that's just a point I don't know much about that particular. But I'm just raising questions, I'm trying to understand first of all what you're saying. And then I've got a couple questions. >> Well, I can get back to that because I have a couple questions perhaps for our city attorney of some of the claims. So I'll let Dalton. >> Well, I'm very appreciative of hearing the details because I think this is helpful. And as I said in our last discussion, I'm not opposed to revising our ordinance. I'm not opposed to revising our policies. I'm not opposed to creating an ordinance in place of a resolution. I just want to know what it is that we're trying to accomplish. And specifically where we need to raise the bar. I really appreciate some of the things that you're saying because what I'm always interested in is specific definitions. Because my experience on the council for over six years is that everyone has their own personal definition of what a conflict of interest is. And I think that a very specific definition is much, much better than some broad squishy thing that's not really clear. So I want to, as we move forward and have discussions on these specifically, I want to know what the specific definition is. I'll probably have hesitation on some of the specifics because three, four years ago, I was an employee part time of the University of North Texas. I haven't been for several years. I will not be again. And I don't know that it's fair to the folks who elected me to disqualify me from having discussions if we get involved in a lawsuit with them at this particular point. I'm concerned about disenfranchising the voters. That put, especially for folks in single member districts. So I would want to be careful about how we craft that because during the time when we were involved in a lawsuit with the University of North Texas. And for a while, it did not represent 10% of my family's income. And then when my wife became a supervisor of student teachers, it did and I recused myself. And by the way, when I did that, I was recusing myself from the closed session conversations. Because that's where all of the conversations were taking place. So I thought it did, once you're recused, you're recused from closed session conversations too. I think under our current rules. If not under our current rules, that's certainly been our current practice. So all I'm saying is, as we go forward, I want to look at, I want to apply this to real life situations, to real life scenarios. For myself and maybe for other council members to see if indeed, as the rule is proposed, if that seems to be really what we want to do. Like Mr. Roden said, should I really be not able to participate in a vote on a piece of property that my brother and I inherited in 1982 and sold in 1992. Probably, I don't need to be excluded from that discussion. That was a long time ago. But we might want to have definitions specifically on that. >> And I didn't specify past employment. My talk was post-employment, where you're part of a contract deal here at the city. And this is what I saw in Florida, that people left and they went to work for a developer and doubled or tripled their salary. And they didn't have the protections in force to stop that. >> I certainly understand that, and I'm sympathetic to that . My big question on that particular suggestion is, how do you enforce that? Once a person is no longer employed, once a person is no longer on council, I will be very curious to see how those kinds of things would be enforceable. Because I think rules probably need to have some kind of enforcement provision to them. >> Well, you don't have to. I mean, I'm just, so some questions, if people have questions. I would like the list of questions, because I was struggling writing them all down. But let's say there's a situation where, well, I do own a small business downtown. And some of the other small business owners downtown, they 've encouraged you to run for business. They think that you would represent them well. And a grant or a project comes up where you have to vote on that project downtown. That specifically would help that area, but it would also help your business. Was that in one of the listed things? Would I be able to vote on that? Or I wasn't able to write them all down, I apologize. >> It's something this council will have to decide. Is there a geographical limit on where your business is versus what you're voting on? And again, that's something that we're going to wrestle with under conflicts of interest. If the city's going to vote on a project, a grant, a contract, something where it's city money, taxpayers money, we are the public trust. But it's going to benefit your business. >> Right. >> Maybe you should be in here, maybe you should not. >> So that's what- >> I think what I'm struggling is if those people that are from that area, kind of what Dalton was touching on, are counting on me being in that room to vote for them. But I'm a part of that area. So I was just throwing that out there. >> I think herein lies, and I think as we talk about these more specifically, because it sounds like most of us are wrestling with trying to remember the specifics and things such as that. And as we get that, we'll be able to at least come up with some of these. And I think for me, some of the things you've shared don't have no problem talking about them. Some of them are probably on its face at least what I understand without reading it and reading the white paper and understanding where you're coming from have some concerns. Not so much with some of the specifics, but maybe the underlying foundation or the interest that it's trying to address. Let's take for instance, Joey's example. Joey owns a business downtown. There's going to be something happening, vote downtown. I don't know what the visitor center, who knows what. Back in parking, parking garage, whatever. And that it's assumed that we are making that decision to try to bolster the business of all of downtown and therefore all of Denton. Simply because he owns something in a geographical location , by saying that he can't vote on it, sort of presupposes that his vote will be influenced by that particular issue or interest. The fiduciary issue with realtors, I think that's a good legal question. When does a fiduciary relationship end? I'm not so sure that with a broker, the fiduciary relationship begins at the establishment of the broker, buyer or seller relationship. And so my hunch is, it's very possible that it could end once that particular transaction has succeeded. Because I don't know, if that were the case, forget the ethics code. If it were the case that I owe a fiduciary relationship to all the people in the past that I've sold property to or bought property from or represented someone, does that mean I'm liable if something goes wrong that I have no idea about? So I think there's some real legal questions about some of these. What defines fiduciary relationship? What is the extent of that? So I think these are all good things, good for conversation . It's just, having not had this, I think we'll probably have a much more in depth conversation moving forward once we are able to see exactly what it is. And then we can send questions to legal to make sure that they have some of the questions that we have. So no, I appreciate you, first of all, working on putting that together. And I look forward to getting it and taking a look at it. So I'm not shutting down questions, I'm just, you know. >> And here's the ethics ordinance. So this is a lot of work and I think the think tank involved in it. >> Sure. >> But it's still a work in progress. >> Sure. Yes, go ahead. I'm sorry. Yes, yes, go ahead. >> A perception exists that we do not always operate in a way that puts our personal interests aside. And so for me, putting an ethics ordinance in place is to further the public's trust that their community is governed by people who have put those personal interests aside and in favor of the greater public good. So I sit on the ethics board and I am in support of an ethics ordinance. I'm not real sure about specifics, but I really like that we're going to talk about them and that the option is there to get into those. So I just wanted to put in my two cents in there. And that the purpose of this ethics ordinance is not to make allegations against past, current or future staff or officials of the city, it's just something that we need to have. So. >> Thank you, I appreciate that. >> Yeah. >> I liked part of the preamble to the San Antonio ordinance. Don't think much of the ordinance itself, but I like the preamble that you had referred to. And so I think borrowing from other cities and other wording can be good. One of the things that I want to look at kind of in a broad picture is what Ms. Briggs was talking about in terms of working to help folks understand that our job is to set aside our personal interests when we vote. We're voting on behalf of the whole city and what's best for the city, not what's best for us. We can't control how everybody individually perceives a vote. All we can do is the best that we can. The thing I want to do in a big picture is not create an ordinance that somehow disqualifies a segment of our city population from ever running for council. And I don't want it to put a hardship on council members or their families. Because we not only have responsibility for conflict of interest for our own, but I think for the first or second layer of family relations. And so I have a son-in-law who has gone to work for Fasinal . So I suspect that when it comes time for us to have a contract with Fasinal, and we have a couple now, when it comes time for them to be renewed, I'm going to have to recuse myself. And that's okay, what I don't want is for it to jeopardize my son-in-law's job with Fasinal. And I don't want it to jeopardize the city's ability to have a contract with Fasinal, if that's the best deal that the city can get. Because we need to craft this ordinance in a way that's in the best interest of the city. But it doesn't do a great deal of harm and put council members, family members out of work. So I want to be careful as we craft this to make sure that while we're protecting the city from conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts of interest. That we don't do significant material damage to council members or their families or the city because they can enter into conflicts. >> This reminds me of, because based on what you've shared, if some of those things were to come to fruition, I was on council and I remember the Bernard Eagle apartments were before the council. Okay, and I voted against them. And then I voted for an apartment rezoning directly across the street from a property that I own. Voted for the rezoning to have apartments. And I remember that an editorial came out saying that I had an issue because I was voting against the Bernard apartments because they were competition. But it didn't mention that I voted to approve the zoning for apartments directly, literally across the street from something I had. So I just want to be careful that, first of all, an ethics ordinance does not make people ethical. I mean, an ethics ordinance, people are ethical because of a set of values that they hold. An ethics ordinance and different rules, as you've described here, helps set some parameters of what the governing body believes is reasonable to try to, as Council Member Briggs, you said, engender this sense that, okay, these rules are enough to try to say, hey, we don't think that somebody who has something, a 10% or any financial interest, can they literally set aside their personal interest? Because that's really what these things are meant to do is, are you in a situation where, you couldn't reasonably believe that you could set aside your personal interest in that regard. So I'm all for the discussion. I think it'll be a great discussion. I think it'll certainly educate me. I think it'll educate the community. And what, if anything, that comes forward, I think will be something that will be a consensus, which is always helpful . So in that vein, I look forward to the discussion. I just, to me, in this regard, the devil will be in the details. The devil will be in the, how does this apply? What exactly we're trying to say, because I, like Mayor Pro Tem, we have to make sure that, depending on how some of these are crafted, it could dis qualify people who have great experience and great knowledge that can serve this body and this city, of which we do not get paid, that would really be helpful to the community. So I think this is going to be a very good discussion for this body as we move forward. And I don't know what you've got there as far as an ethics ordinance. I mean, I don't mind taking a look at that. That doesn't mean we're having to accept it or anything. So if you want to email that to me as well, don't have an issue doing that. I mean, might as well look at it all. I mean, if we're going to be looking at this, it's going to be a comprehensive discussion. >> It's not done yet. >> Okay, okay. Then we'll wait. All right, okay. Yes. >> And Mary, your example of the votes on apartment zoning. Is the perfect example of what I've said here and what I've said to individuals. That you can't necessarily control how the media or individuals decide to interpret your actions. Because in some cases, it may be in their best interest to sensationalize a vote and to ignore other votes that would discount the claim that you were voting in your own best interest in one case. But ignore the case where you were actually voting to create competition that was even closer to you. So that's the point that I have been making on several occasions when I say, all we can do is behave in what we think is an ethical, responsible way that's in the best interest of the city. But we cannot control completely how other people perceive or want to interpret our actions. Especially if they have some ulterior motive to interpret them in a negative manner. >> Yes ma'am. >> And while it's a lofty goal to say public officials serve the public and leave their private interests aside, across the country in all 50 states, people sit in jail cells who have broken that public trust and broken the law. So my goal is prevention, education, not punishment, because I think if we craft this carefully, we can circumvent angst from the public. We can establish a ground rule basis for elected officials, boards and commissions. I just know that we're not a little town anymore. We're not 30,000 people. We're growing quickly and we're sophisticated. And with that change comes growth and challenge. And that's why I challenge this council to really study this and see what we can do and how. >> Okay, great. Yes. >> Just one last note too. I definitely need to read this 2012 conflict of interest. I did not know that if you were going to recuse yourself, you could still sit in on closed session meetings. So that's, anyway. >> I don't know if I've been on council eight years and I've never known anybody that's recused themselves sit in on closed session. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Can I ask the city attorney to clarify a couple things? Just because there were statements made here and that's one of them. As it relates to somebody's ability to sit in on a closed session discussion after they have officially signed the document to recuse themselves, is that allowed by state law? >> Right, this document that Council Member Wasney is referring to is something we use on a fairly regular basis. That particular issue, I don't always agree with our attorney general and the opinions that they issue. I concur that that is written into this document, but that came forward as an AG opinion. Interpreting the statute and I candidly would never give such advice to my client. And I don't necessarily think that that was the best approach, at least in my view, for the attorney general in that opinion that they came down about in that particular instance. But that opinion is out there. I don't look at it with great favor and I would not advise that anyone recusing actually sit in on a closed session. I would advise to the contrary. >> So this white paper is an AG opinion? Is that? >> Well, no, I'm saying- >> Not that, okay. >> This is the white paper, but there is a separate AG opinion on not having to recuse. >> Sorry, Kevin. >> If you are, you can sit in on closed sessions if you do recuse. I just don't agree with that opinion. It is only a lawyer's opinion. I don't agree with it. >> Well, I don't agree with a lot of things Greg Abbott op ines on either, so that's fine. We're in good company. As it relates to, so remind us of that, we talked about this when we first talked about the maximum penalty that if we had an ethics ordinance that, as Governor Abbott said, or at least that it relates to conflicts of interest, cities can go above and beyond and add on layers if they want to. Home rule cities, I think is what you mentioned. Based on the powers of us as a city, if we were to add on something like, this is purely hypothetical, that beyond not just the 10% rule, but that if there's any financial interest, so it would be I guess a 0.00001% rule or whatever it was. What would be the maximum penalty that a city could levy against a council member or another official who violated that was found to be in violation of it? >> Right. >> Or any other ordinance that we create in an ethics ordinance? >> In our ordinances, a municipal ordinance can carry a class C misdemeanor penalty. And so in that respect, the class C misdemeanor would be less than what a court could impose on the same conflict provision, which is a class A misdemeanor. So that would be somewhat less. I also need to clarify one other point while I'm talking about some things that the Attorney General has asserted in this white paper. Just one other point if I might. And that is while I would totally agree with the proposition that a city council can be more stringent with regard to conflict provisions, where it just the state law provision, I do need to mention that we do have a provision in our local charter which acts as our local constitution. Our voters have enacted this provision. And our voters in our charter have actually gone a little bit beyond state law already to include not just officers of the city, which is what state law does in the local government code, but it also includes employees. Any officer or employee of the city having a substantial interest in a business entity or real property as those terms are defined in Chapter 171. So please remember that I believe Denton is a little bit unique and I'm going to bear down and do a little bit more looking in the next week or so. With regard to whether or not other cities actually have embedded this 171 provision in their local charter and in their local constitution. Because I've seen that we've been a little bit unique in our approach to some other things in the past. I've not seen this kind of embedded of 171 in charters with other cities. It may be out there, but I've not seen it. So I want to look at that issue a little bit more closely as we move forward and consider some of these issues. So we can make that note. >> I just want to clarify by virtue of the fact that the writers of our city charter, which was ratified by a city vote as it relates to conflicts of interest, said Chapter 171 is what we believe should rule the city council as it relates to that particular issue. >> Right, our citizens have voted this charter in. And so by the citizens vote, they have dictated and directed that they want Chapter 171 to be the controlling provisions as it concerns conflict. So again, I point that out. It's something that we all need to think about. I'm going to bear down on that and we can have additional discussion about that in the future. >> A couple other clarifying questions. One was on this question of post-employment. I think you need to do additional research on this, but are you aware of any ability of a city to regulate council members or staff members for that matter in what their employment choices are once they leave their official positions with the city? >> Since we've looked at San Antonio's ordinance, I think they do purport to, I suspect, that some other cities may as well. There is that issue of can you really, truly enforce that or potentially some other restrictions. And we will be looking at all of these issues that have been raised. Good questions, good issues. We'll bear down and look at that a little more closely as well. >> I guess my other question just, when we're talking about real problems versus perception. And I understand in a democracy, perception is crucial. But use the term, I think it was circumvent angst from the community. Is that angst that you are hearing from the community, is it based on, as you understand it, in the position that you're in, is that based on real problems? That you agree with them are real problems, that there's people, we're on the verge of corruption or we're in the midst of corruption in City Hall and but for an ordinance to clamp down on it. We need to save the public trust in here. Or do you think that angst is based on not real problems, but people think it's real problems? I'm trying to understand as you're carrying this forward based on conversations you've had from election to now, what's the basis of the people's concerns as it's being relayed to you? >> I'm not going to name names and throw dirt. >> Sure. >> But there are some issues that the city has had that threw some pretty big questions out there to the public. And so this isn't just perception, this is these are different issues that they have witnessed and that they have a real problem with. >> And I've heard some of those too, and I guess, I mean at some point I think if we're going to get down to bare bones , bare tacks on this particular issue, not that we have to name names, but we're going to have to name issues and be able to say, do we think that what the perception is out there is something that we think is a real problem? Or do we think, as Councilmember Gregory says, everyone has their view of what conflict of interest is. And in some case, once you sign up for city council, you're already in the mix of it. A lot of people think politicians just generally making a lot of money off these sorts of job. That's the public. So people are all over the spectrum. So while I appreciate you not wanting to name names, at some point we're going to have to get very specific and say , here's what people are saying out there or in the online forums or whatever. Do we think that that's a real problem or do we think people just have a misunderstanding of what actually counts as a conflict of interest because people throw around the word corruption a lot. Someone did it to me and I said, well define that, what is corrupt? And as we kind of went down through the course of his argument, it was well, anytime you give economic incentives , that's corruption. Okay, thank you. That's an interesting definition of corruption. So again, I want to be careful when we're carrying forward the citizen angst. We're going to have to get specific as to whether or not we as council members who are going to make policy here, believe that that angst is based on something real or whether we're going to carry forward in an ordinance, false perceptions and false way of thinking or bad ways of thinking about conflict of interest. So at some point, I think we're just going to have to get very specific. We're going to have to not name names, but name issues. >> I want to come back to the comment on the charter. Have we amended the charter? >> We have. We've actually amended the charter since I have been here and that occurred in. >> There's term limits. >> 2008, I believe. 2008, I think it was that we amended our charter. >> But my point is, the charter has been amended. What year was the original charter written? >> 1959. >> 1959. So my point is, there are times when a city has to grow and it has to change its charter occasionally to grow with it. And so I don't want that to be perceived as a roadblock from the public that the charter can be amended. And that it does not have to go to a vote of the people that this council can amend the charter, is that correct? >> No. >> Has to go to the vote? >> It has to go to the vote. >> Yes. >> And if I can. >> That's all right. >> No. >> Can I get interject? I don't think she, I didn't hear the city attorney saying that it was a roadblock. It's just a fact that our ordinances have to be aligned with the charter. And so we need to be aware that if we do something different, then that would probably require a charter amendment. And so that would have to be considered in the sequencing of an ordinance being approved. And or holding on an ordinance being approved until a vote before the citizens about a charter amendment. And we can recommend that ourselves or we can appoint a special committee to look at charter amendments. But a charter, the city council cannot amend the charter. It has to be amended by the citizens. >> That's right. And I have indicated I would like to look at this issue very closely before we certainly make any decisions on it. So we'll bear down on it. >> Sure. >> Perception or reality, the result is the same, eroded public trust. We have a really serious issue right now in our city with that. And ethics ordinance can safeguard staff and officials from perceived or real improper actions. So that's- >> I appreciate that, but I guess on my point, so someone calling us corrupt because we give economic incentives. That's a perception, it's based on angst. I'm sure there's a sense of angst that meditates that. But as a council member, do you agree that giving economic incentives is corruption? Should we carry that sort of angst forward just because it happens to be a perception that lives out there? Is that something that you feel the need to address? >> Was there a specific person or incident or property? There has to have been something that equated that situation to that corruption. What I'm thinking is that an ethics ordinance is a safeguard, right? It prevents that. It's something, whether real or perceived, it's something we have and that we follow. >> I don't hear that anybody's, I mean, I'm not hearing you say you're not for an ethics ordinance. I'm hearing you say how we determine if there is one, what 's in it, is based upon these, because I'm not going to name names, but I'm going to address an example, okay? When I was on council, I voted twice against a certain contract, okay? Now, but I don't think people, I've never really shared why I did that. Because depending on situations, I've got to look at Abbott 's paper. You've got to look at the issues you presented. But I didn't vote against that because I thought it was quote unquote unethical. I mean, people followed the proper procedures. They recused themselves. And in the end, this body made the choice of what moved forward and what didn't. People voted differently than I did, and so it moved forward. So I don't want an ethics ordinance to necessarily preclude political courage. Because I don't know if I would say that a council member, depending on a contract, I don't know all the specifics of anybody's contract that would do anything with the city. That is a fundamental kind of presumption. I'd have to see the particulars on that. I don't want to make such a broad statement. But again, this is just a, we're open to, I'm open to this discussion. So the devil's in the details, as you said, we're going to have to start talking about specific issues. So that when we do decide on what, if anything, we want, we have an understanding of what it means when we're saying, this is what we want. We have some kind of legislative history that gives some indication of, this is the interest that we're trying to protect based upon these kinds of examples. So again, I think it'll be a great discussion. Because at this table, there are all different kinds of opinions of conflict of interest, that we have a horrible problem in our community of government mistrust. I don't know if I necessarily feel the same degree that you do. I'm not saying that there aren't some people in our community who think that there's some issue right here that 's going on with council. And they're certainly entitled to that. And anyone who's different than mine is entitled to that. So we're dealing in the realm of interpretation and very subjective kind of concepts. But then the rules that are crafted are more of the objective. And I just want to make sure whatever I'm understanding is being proffered, that I understand exactly what the interests are that are trying to be protected. And exactly to what extent it really reaches out. Because if you don't craft something, when I read the San Antonio Ordinance, I thought first of all, nobody's going to be able to enforce this. Secondly, go Google the San Antonio Ordinance ethics ordinance as it relates to political candidates and to political elections. In the last mayoral election, every mayoral candidate filed an ethics complaint against the other. I mean, it's almost, anyway, I don't want that. I do not want that to happen in our city and it could very well easily get hijacked. And the final thing is, let's say somebody violates. I'm going to use me as an example. I get off being mayor, I go work for Red Development. Okay? I just use them because that's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head. I know it. Hope this doesn't show up in the paper like I'm now going to go up and look at Red Development. >> Got his resume. >> Oh, it will. She's grimming right now, writing as fast as she can. >> So let's say that happens, all right? And somehow I have violated, there's some ordinance crafted that restricts that to six months, a year, two years, whatever the number would be. And I have violated that. I'd like to know what the process is of enforcement, number one, and let's say somehow it can be enforced. So I get a summons or a citation to appear in court and I have a trial and I get assessed $500. >> Now if it rises to the level of something on the state, then by golly, if I had committed fraud or if I had a conflict of interest, then guess what? I could very easily go to jail for a very, very long time. So I just want to make sure I have understanding of all this, yes. >> And again, this is hypothetical. >> Sure. >> But if you signed an ethics ordinance coming into office and stated that, and you went off and worked. It would probably end any return to politics because the citizens would know that you violated that part of the ethics ordinance. So that this isn't just about punishment and fines and courts and judges. It's about accountability. >> Sure. >> And accountability to the people we represent. >> Yes. >> So, you know. >> Yeah, well I'll tell you, I hear you, but I sure struggle when, never mind, I'm going to, this is the time I just need to. Yeah. >> Let me call. >> Take it down. Yes, I'm three times. >> I think that brings up an excellent point. Because when you put something in an ordinance, it's gotta be defined. And when we define it, however we define it, somebody's not going to be happy. It was too strict. It was not strict enough. But where it really makes a difference is when people go to the polls. Because they don't have to have any definition and people, including myself. When I go to the polls, a lot of times the way I'm voting has as much to do with my perception of that person and their character and their ethics as it does their particular policies. And so I think that one of the best cures for ethical issues is elections. And I strongly believe that that's probably, for some people, maybe their motivation to stay on the straight and narrow. Because they're concerned about those appearances and how people will interpret them. And my experience here is that people have exercised a great deal of extra care in that regard. I seriously doubt that more rules or another layer of bureaucracy will cause people to have better character than they have right now. So I think that it's really more about getting clearer definitions, maybe establishing new definitions that we think are stronger, that serve our city better. But I think you've said it, and I'm saying it in a different way. I don't think that new rules or new bureaucracies will make people more ethical than they were before. And probably the best cure for ethical behavior is an election. >> I do have one other question and then I'm gonna be quiet . When and if the ethics ordinance that you're working on is presented, are you gonna make available the names of the think tank? >> Sure. >> Okay, fantastic. >> That would be ethical. >> Very good. >> I'm not gonna mention the San Antonio ordinance after this. I know I mentioned in close, but I did like when it said all city officials and employees are stewards of the public trust. And it said scrupulously avoid the appearance of impropri ety. I'd love that. But I know we're not supposed to focus on this anymore. The thing that I'm concerned about as we move forward writing our ordinance is that I want anybody who feels like they can represent the city well, if they're in business, a banker, a real estate agent. Anybody is not precluded or they can't serve on council anymore because of just some technicality. And I totally agree with what you said, Dalton. People decide on the ethics of the people every two years. I love that you said that. That's our ultimate ethic ordinance. But I am for an ethics ordinance, even if it does kind of point to what's already going on. I just want it to be very specific. And some of the questions I brought up like on the 10% rule and then if I'm an owner downtown, those kinds of things. But thank you for bringing all this up. So I want to say- >> Councilmember Briggs. >> I just wanted to remind you that in our recent municipal elections, we only had 3.4% voter turnout. So I'm not sure how many people showed up to vote for the ethics. >> We know exactly how many people showed up to vote. >> We'll omit for the ethics specifically. But we will see, I'm sure. >> Sure. >> Any other? Yes, Councilmember Rodin. >> In our last meeting, you accepted the challenge and came back. And I guess the question for us, because if we embark on this, the question was, do we embark on looking into writing a new ethics ordinance or do we not? Knowing that it's going to take a significant amount of time for us, significant amount of time for them. And so I guess the question that we need to address, and I 'm not sure why I stand on that question as to whether or not my challenge was, are there problems significant enough with the current addressing of these issues with state law that rise to the level of us feeling like we need to take this precious real estate that we have here in work sessions for the next six months or whatever it takes to do this. To sign our legal staff the time once we get kind of a draft ordinance from this think tank to spend the time reviewing that, having all those discussions. Do we think the problems that have been identified rise to the level of saying we feel a gut need to rewrite what we have enough to spend that time? because that seems to be the question that ought to be before us today because that's how we seem to believe it last time. I'm not convinced that those problems rise to that level yet from what I've heard today. So I guess that's the question for the rest of the council as to whether it does and that it deserves that much time and attention that there are real problems that we're addressing and spending this much time on. So I'll leave that to the rest of you guys. >> And I think it does deserve the time because public trust is a basis of government. Public trust is a basis for government. So I do believe we need an ethics ordinance and I do believe we need to take the time. I used the convention center as a prime example last time. Staff spent how many thousands of hours? How much money did the city spend on the convention center that wasn't passed on the UNT property? Thousands of hours of staff time. And council pursued it and it just didn't go anywhere. Now that it got approved in a different location, but I come back to, if we're willing to spend time, staff time, then this is a worthy project. >> I don't know what the convention center has to do with this, but I think it's worthy of a little bit more time to figure out if we want to continue down this road. I don't think that we need to either stop tonight, but I think a lot of good conversations come of this and some good examples. But I would want just a little bit more time personally. >> I'm for investing some more time. I think that with public confidence, we can only enhance our ability to work more efficiently and serve future generations. So that's what I think. >> Yeah, Kevin, I guess I'm open to having a little bit more time. But I don't, in looking at more time, and even let's say something comes out of it. I don't think I'm approaching it with the mindset that because we're doing this, I'm saying therefore we have a problem. I'm not so sure that I associate it having a problem with something that needs to be done here. I mean, look, I've looked at the Flower Mound ordinance. I've read the Keller ordinance because of what's going in. So, and those people aren't doing the Keller issue with the ethics ordinance, they're using another means to do that. So I just don't associate moving forward with the continued discussion as some kind of thought that, well, we have a problem here and therefore this is the only way to address it. It's almost like, okay, well, let's take a look at it. I'm open, I'm willing to look at these. And I also know that I'll probably have some limitations on some of these things depending on how they're crafted. But so I don't necessarily have an issue with that. That doesn't also on the opposite side mean that because I 'm willing to talk about it, therefore I'm willing to put some big bureaucratic ordinance in place that is very restrictive and possibly restricts who can run and so I'm just open to the discussion. So not thinking that the discussion represents a problem. So it looks like we're, and as far as legal staff time, I think there's a much more discussion at this level before , there's going to be questions of what's a fiduciary, blah, blah, blah, those kind of things. But and I will say in distinguishment of the convention center, because I know you brought that up last time, Councilman Wasney, that I was on council at the time and there was a very clear direction from council to move in that direction. Now it just so happens that number one, council changed and that direction changed. Whereas here, we're just now I think establishing with some , I don't know if dissent or disagreement, that might be too strong. We're establishing that there could be some direction of let's keep the discussion going. And see what falls out. So I'm okay with that. Yeah. Yes. >> And I'm certainly okay with more discussion. In trying to figure it all out. I disagree with your interpretation of the convention center because all of that staff time and effort. Look, we have a convention center. Nobody was wedded to a particular scenario. We were pursuing one scenario. It didn't happen. But to me, most of the time in the energy that went into that was done at council's direction. It was a council initiative and the result was a convention center. And a better project than the one that we had looked at originally. So I don't know that anything was lost from that. I don't know that anything will be lost from pursuing a turning a resolution into an ordinance and possibly changing some of our definitions. And possibly having a charter amendment that goes with it. I mean, I may be opposed to some of them. But I'll go with the majority of council on what goes to voters. >> I guess I have a question. Because it seems like we've talked a lot about the resolution and our current ethics. Didn't we repeal that resolution? We didn't repeal the resolution? >> We repealed only the section two dash 30 of the code of ordinances. >> That's my mistake. I apologize for that. >> Resolution, ethics resolution. >> It's still there. It's just that one section. Okay, well, see this was happening when you get old. Your mind goes bad. Okay, any more discussion on this? Well, I really appreciate the discussion. Thank you all very much. I don't even know what we're talking about now. I'm just teasing. Okay. >> Thank you, Mayor and Councilmember. >> Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Wasney for your presentation as well. We'll go on to our next agenda item, which is agenda item. Okay, I'm on the wrong, no, I'm on the right agenda. B, receive a port and hold discussion and give staff direction on downtown events. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> And I'll ask our Director of Development Services, Amy Bissett to present this item to you. >> Thank you, Mayor and Councilmembers. The topic for discussion this evening is recent trends in events that are being held downtown. As you have noted, we have seen an increasing number of interest and demand for being able to host events on weekends. And you have asked for a work session to be able to talk about what the trends are and talk about potential policies and best practices to help manage the increased number of events as we continue to see them grow downtown. And just to give you a little bit of background, the city has a special event application that's typically funneled through the Parks and Rec Department whenever there's a special event that's going to be held anywhere in the city that is on public property. However, in recent, I'd say the last year, year and a half, if it's an event that's being held downtown specifically, that special event application is processed through the Economic Development Division instead of through Parks and Rec. And so we've collected some data since October of 2014, which I'll share with you in a moment. But I do want to tell you that it's an event application that's been in existence for longer than I've worked for the city and I've been here almost ten years now. So the process hasn't changed a lot in that time frame. So I do think that there are some opportunities for us to improve the process and to look at our policies that surround special events. Whenever we receive a special event application, there are often anywhere between four to ten applications involved that are a lot of paperwork and they're scattered across multiple departments. Fire, police, solid waste has to look to make sure they have trash dumpsters, streets looks to see if they are imp eding traffic. There are a variety of departments that put their eyes on a special event application. But before we talk any more about that, I want to start by going into some level of detail about the trend that we've seen in events since October of 2014. So these are actual numbers since 2014. And I want to clarify that while these are events that take place downtown, they do not include events that are on private property or events that are in Quaker Town Park or on the courthouse lawn because those are under a different purview. These are events that typically take place on city property or in streets. And so it's not a full representation of all the events that take place downtown. So since October of 2014, we've had 24 events that have taken place downtown. And one of them has been an athletic event and that was the wildly successful turkey trot that was held for the first time this year. We'll talk a little more about that in a little bit. And ten of them were food truck related events. Six were music related events. And seven were what we would consider a street fair. This number does not include the community market. We would classify the community market as a street fair, but to put it in this data would skew everything completely because that event is held 34 times a year at approximately 1,000 attendees per event. So it's excluded from this data, but I just want you to be aware that that is another event that takes place. >> So what do you mean when you say street fair? Is that something where part of a road may be closed down for a period of time in order to conduct the event? >> The events that we categorized as a street fair during this time period included the St. Patrick's Day event on Walnut Street, an ice cream crank off on Walnut Street, arts, antiques, and autos on the downtown square, October fest, Day of the Dead, holiday lighting, and the community market. So they're events that don't really fall into another category, but tend to be just a variety of activities. >> Well, that's what I was thinking, but. >> So. >> I'd like to argue the coffin race is athletic. Just saying. >> That's a fair statement, Joey. >> I'm growing downhill. >> Do we have an event season in Denton? >> We do, our most popular month is October. We had six events take place in October of this year, followed closely by September as the second most popular month with five events. In fact, in the fall of this last year, we had an event every weekend from the time that school started to the time that we broke for Thanksgiving weekend, or for the Thanksgiving holiday. The third most popular month is April. There were three events that were held in April, and of course that would not include Jazz Fest, which takes place in April as well, since that takes place in Quaker Town Park. Just to talk a little bit about the trend and location that we're seeing, we pretty much categorized the downtown events into just a handful of locations. And the downtown square would be the streets surrounding the square in addition to the lawn itself, since the lawn wouldn't fall into this count. Walnut Street, which is the street that runs directly behind Beth Marie's, that has had several events that those business owners have worked together to host. Austin Street Food Truck Park, which is associated with Eastside. And Williams Trade Square, which is the parking lot that is owned by the city next to Wells Fargo Bank. And the McKinney Street parking lot, which is the one directly across the street from City Hall here that is adjacent to Oak Street Draft House. And then there were some miscellaneous other locations where events were held as well. So most of it, I'm sorry. >> Thank you. Amy, why are we counting Austin Street Food Truck Park, given that it's a private park, but not counting courthouse on the lawn? >> Sure. >> What's the reason of including that as part of these metrics? >> It's because whatever activities they held required a special event application from the city. So it may have been that they had to close down a street, or they needed health permits, or something that would have triggered a special event application with the city. >> So if something was held on the courthouse lawn that also triggered something like that, some sort of permit beyond the immediate courthouse lawn shutting down the street, we would have counted that as well. >> Right, exactly. Correct, that's right. >> And so you'll see that there were ten events that came through our city process that were held at the Austin Street Food Truck Park. They were privately held events, which is something that we certainly want to encourage more of. They are very well attended events and as you all know, the owner of that establishment is beloved in this town and when he throws a party, everybody shows up . So they've been very successful. They do host a lot of other events that don't necessarily trigger a special event application, so they wouldn't be counted in here. For example, their Wednesday night fun runs that they do. There's nothing in that that would trigger them to need a special event application or work through the city. Another example was when they held a trick or treat downtown on Halloween. It was very heavily attended. We heard 2,500 to 3,000 people, but it did not require a special event application. And that's part of what we want to talk about today actually is the challenges that come with a big surge of people that we may not have been able to anticipate based on the way our application process works today. So one example is the fall food truck fest, which would have been a kickoff for Oktopia. We had 27 food trucks attend and over 2,500 people downtown . The food trucks couldn't accommodate 2,500 people, so that spilled over into restaurants and spilled over into all of downtown, which we certainly want, but sometimes we don't anticipate how successful something 's going to be. And then other times, we are not fully aware of all the information that might be available to us that would help us better prepare for an event. For example, Oktopia or another music fest who may host something in Williams Trade Square that we would have a special event application for. But then after 11 o'clock, they continue their festival inside a bar on the square. And so the volume of people remains, but our level of support would not necessarily be there because we weren't getting the full picture in the end. Another example of that is the turkey trot. I think that with it being the first year this year, the organizers expected maybe 600, they were hopeful for 600 participants. They had to cut registration off at 1,400 participants and then had another couple hundred people show up the morning of. Being able to anticipate that volume of participation and be able to provide for the public safety necessary associated with that when you've got 1,600 runners on closed streets and a lot higher level of participation than we expected. That creates a problem. But then even if you start talking about 600 participants, how do we provide enough police and fire support to make sure that we're protecting the public while that event is going on? So a little more data here. Favorite events by attendees. The street fairs had the largest attendance and that would be something that you might guess based on the fact that some of our largest events, they fall into that category including Arts, Antiques and Autos, October Fest, Day of the Dead, and Holiday Lighting. And so that is certainly the highest volume in terms of participation. Our food truck events have averaged around 300 participants each. 35 Denton and Oktopia combined alone drew about 7,500 people over the three day music festivals that they held. And then we spoke about the Turkey Trot already. That was one event and drew 1,400 plus people. >> Did you count for a trick or treat on the square this past year in any of this? Is that going to be a new category? >> We did not account for it because that was an informal gathering. There was nothing that triggered a special event application. But that's one of the challenges that I think we have is how do we make sure that we're prepared for events like that, which was more of a social media, hey, let's all go out and trick or treat on the square. And then there were 3,000 people on the square. >> Because I recall people were saying you should have closed the streets. >> Yes, exactly. So those are definitely some of the challenges. But that's not counted anywhere in this data. So how many events closed streets? Most of them did not, but there were a handful that did. There were one athletic event and two street fairs that closed the square. East Hickory Street was closed twice, once for a music fair and once for a street fair. Walnut Street was closed three times for their three events that they held. And there were some miscellaneous streets closed along the way as well. The athletic event, the Turkey Trot, was the only one that closed the square and a lot of peripheral streets as well. In order to close a street, the applicant does have to notify every business and resident that's directly affected by the closing. They have to comply with state traffic laws. They have to get approval by our city traffic engineers, our fire and police and safety departments. And they have to provide a site plan, safety, detour, bar ricade plans. Everything has to be shown in a site plan so that we can verify that what they're intending to do would be considered safe and something that we've reviewed by all of our departments. And having said that, it does create some challenges. Saturday morning when the square is closed and everybody's trying to get to the square, we hear complaints about that. But then on the flip side of it, you hear when people believe that we should have had the square closed for the trick or treating event. >> Yes, I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> I'll just point to Dalton from now on. >> Yeah, no, just comment. >> You know, I think the other interesting thing to correlate, because when you showed kind of the pacing throughout the year, was kind of telling in terms of the perception you get. Because that September, October time is such a sweet spot for folks because the temperature is going down and so everyone 's kind of coming outside. They're taking advantage of those nights because it's new, it's fresh. And those tend to be the times when a lot of people are coming downtown and we happen to have a lot of events at the same time. So I think correlating these from a time perspective too probably accounts for that perception. Because it's just when everyone's trying to get downtown to hang out, half of it's closed for something. So I think that's just important to keep in mind. >> Councilmember Hawkins. >> Well, and it's interesting when you talk about the complaints of getting town town. Just having to own a business downtown is when we have our record sales when we get all those complaints of getting downtown. So just throwing that out there. >> And that's a good point. If there are five events in September and six in October, you've got every weekend booked and occasionally booked more than once in a weekend and so you 're going to come down there repeatedly for those entire two months and get frustrated potentially. >> Well, and to your point, some businesses have record sales on those days. And other businesses have to shut down on those days because if you're going to go buy a new refrigerator, you're not going to go to McNeil's on Art's Autos and Antiques Day. And you're not going to go try to buy furniture on those days either. So it helps some businesses, but it hurts others. And we have to be mindful of the whole mix. And we do want to keep a mix of enterprises going downtown. >> So some of the challenges that we've noted and have been talking about internally are that this is, the application process is cumbersome, it's repetitive. There's a bunch of paper applications. It's not streamlined or put together in a way that you only have to enter your name and address once. You have to put it on every application. And those are some things that we can work internally to solve pretty easily. I think we are challenged by the communication between city departments about special events. Right now we pretty much handle it by email and phone call. And it's easy for something to get lost in the mix when that's the case and we all have busy schedules. So there's definitely some miscommunication that happens where you may end up in a situation and the Turkey Trot is a perfect example where we could have and should have worked more closely with the police department earlier on to make sure that we had that event covered well. The challenge with that is that, and I'll talk about that a little more in a minute, is that it becomes a sufficient, or not a sufficient, a significant cost burden to the event organizer the way that our cost structure is set up on our fees associated with officers being present at public events. And street closures downtown, I think we've talked about that already. That it's a double-edged sword that we want. We want the density downtown. We want the events. And it's been a council directive for as long as I can remember to create an environment that encourages special events and draws people downtown. But it does have some negative consequences as well. And then just being able to have a comprehensive picture of what's really taking place at an event. So what is the total impact rather than just the impact during the time that they're on the city property or something that is triggering a special event application with us. So we've talked across multiple departments about some potential solutions and really brainstormed some things that we can do to help on a variety of levels here. Some easy things that we can do are to create online interactive PDFs to PDF forms to be able to streamline the application process. We also have an existing software program that we use for processing all of our other permits. But we don't process special event permits through our track it software. And so that's one of the things that we're looking at. How can we utilize that software program so that it eliminates a lot of that miscommunication or missing something in the mix in between departments. And that way, one of the good things about a software program like that is that you can log in and you can see every department and who has approved the permit and who hasn't. What issues are still pending that might prevent a permit from being issued. That's one of the things that we're exploring as well. I think that it's probably a broader conversation for you all to have about funding or rate options associated with providing public safety needs to special events. Depending on the event, several officers can be required in order to meet the public safety need. And currently that cost for the event organizer is $120 an officer, I believe, for a three hour time frame, which is the minimum required time. And that is really a necessity on the police department's part because of their budget. And they're here if they want to speak more closely to that . But one of the things that we've talked about internally is creating a flat fee that covers public safety. That an event organizer can learn to anticipate and budget for and it's not a moving target based on the volume of attendees. Although that's something that would have to be absorbed in our budget as a result of that. We can also assist event organizers in thinking outside the box for parking solutions. Parking outside of downtown and busing people in or something along those lines so that we don't take up all the parking downtown. We can look at the application to get better information rather than what are you doing at this specific time slot? What does your whole event look like? So that we can be better prepared for it. One of the things that, a couple other things that we've talked about is creating a special event committee to review applications. It might streamline some of our communication processes if the event committee sat and met once every two weeks and processed all the applications that were coming through. And agreed to everything at the table at the same time. And then one of the things that we've talked about is as we 've seen more and more of these events pick up is the possibility of making noise exceptions and or alcohol sales administrative appro vals in certain cases. Because as you know those come through city council every time there's an event that needs a noise exception or permission to sell alcohol at the event. That is all for my presentation. I'm happy to take questions or receive direction. >> This is great. Thanks, Amy. I like that list of solutions. It's almost not unlike kind of what you deal with from the other end of your job, which is like in the planning department and people coming in for permits. Because sometimes you're going to get new event organizers who are trying to navigate this for the first time versus season ones who know all the folks they need to go to. And you got to think about that new person just like you think about the experienced one. And it seems like you're kind of heading in that direction. Just a couple of questions as it relates to as we think about policies downtown. I mean it's certainly such a vibrant community. I love how things come up on the fly. You mentioned the Halloween fest. It can be organized in a couple of days. And every event we have is so unique to Denton and it was just created by a person or a small handful of people. And I love that. I love it. And I love that every weekend there's something going on for me and my family. How is it that when someone comes in and is a new idea, they haven't been tested, we don't know, they're going to have projections. How do they get treated versus others when they're asking for big things? So the Turkey Chart would be an example. Here's folks who came in and obviously they had kind of a weekly event so we knew that they kind of had some experience running something but this was kind of a new thing. But they were asking for shutting down streets. Another example would be, I think I brought this up a couple months ago. There was this new music festival. We couldn't find anything else for them. And I got concerned because we were shutting down half of that parking lot. And sure enough, it wasn't that well attended. Is there anything in thinking through these possible solutions that would deal with, how do we judge new ideas and whether or not we say sure, we'll shut that down for you or we'll close the street for you just based on what they tell us they think they can do? >> Sure. One of the things that we've talked about as a staff is potentially creating a policy where in order to be able to close a street or use a parking lot that's going to take away public parking, you have to have a couple of years of history or you have to have something that shows an event draw or attendance that makes us feel that that would be a just ifiable action. Today, the way it's written, or the way that we handle the special event application, if you come in and you apply and you want to shut down Williams Trade Square and you pay the fee, then there's nothing that would lead us to tell you no. And so that's certainly something that we can look further into is coming up with something to gauge. How we handle new events versus as they're growing and how often we would do that. >> Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it. The only other thing as it relates to multiple events on a single day or weekend, and by and large, people tend to get a sense of some other big events there so they're not going to try it. But we remember one occasion in which we had both Oktopia and the Blues Fest, I think it was, the same weekend and caused stress, both for internally and our staff and a number of police, but also for citizens who are having to kind of deal with a lot of noise. Is there anything that would try and facilitate that a little better moving forward? >> We do watch that very closely, and that's a result of that incident that you're referring to. In fact, when we get an application, we disseminate it across multiple organizations that have events. The Visual Arts Center, Quaker Town Park, anything that might have an event that would conflict with the event date that we're looking at, we'll disseminate that and look for conflicting information and won't allow them to go on the same day where it's going to be a conflict. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mayor. This has been a great presentation and I appreciate the solutions that you're offering. I've been sitting a long time and so I'm drifting in and out, and I might have missed. Did you say anything about the idea of limiting how many weeks in a row a street is shut down, or how many weeks in a row a parking lot is shut down? >> I did not. I spoke to the fact that in September and October, you would have closings or major events downtown every weekend for eight weeks straight. In fact, there was an event every weekend from the time that school came back in to the Thanksgiving holiday. And so we could look at that where there's a policy associated with not closing it more than twice a month or something. >> It seems to me just in terms of that mix of businesses downtown. And it also seems to me that while we certainly are not a small city anymore, we're not an enormous city and we have limited amount of resources in terms of how many officers are available in a single weekend for overtime or weekends on end. And there are other folks that are doing business downtown or that are doing events that have rightly or wrongly come to take for granted parking is going to be available. And when there is no parking available and when St. Andrew 's Presbyterian or First United Methodist Church might have a big funeral, and you really can't plan too far ahead on those funerals, you know? They just happen when they happen. And sometimes they're small like I hope mine's going to be, which will mean that all of my friends have already passed. >> You need to take a break. >> Yeah. But sometimes there are fairly big events that happen there. And I don't know that all of those businesses are always aware that, oh, this weekend William Square parking lot is not going to be available. So I want to -- I think another -- I don't know if it's a possible solution, but I would like to see a solution to the heavy impact downtown and the heavy impact on businesses that are not necessarily favorably affected by the events. >> I have a red flag on the public safety. Different events determine a higher number of officers on duty based on the event. And to have the flexibility for our police department to study the event, how many people they think are coming, and then really have their input on how many officers they feel they need to safely cover this event, because public safety is the city's responsibility. So while it's generous of the city to maybe help cut that fee, I don't know that I want to do that. I come back to the phrase pay to play so that if you are going to come to Denton and have an event here, we live in a world that police presence now at public events is ramped up in terms of numbers. I don't know that we'll ever see that end. So I don't want to have a flat rate for, oh, if you have 50 people, then you get this many officers, or if you anticipate 2,000, you get this because it's going to be determined by type of event. And I really want to give our police department the flexibility to say, okay, we're going to have to staff this up. And if the event organizer has to pay a little bit more for that public safety, so be it. >> Sure. I understand what you're saying. I think what I meant by flat rate was not a flat rate number of officers, but a flat cost associated with the size of the event. But then the police department would certainly have the flexibility to provide as many officers as they needed, but it would come down to a funding issue and whether or not that's something that the council would want to provide some funding to the police department to make sure that the officers could be there and whether or not that is a support that you would want to provide to those special events. >> I think they need to pay for their own security. And I understood rate options as, yeah, the money. So again , worthy of another discussion and maybe a matrix of what it looks like right now versus what you would propose. And also get our police chief to weigh in once we have that matrix. >> Sure. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for this, Amy. I love that the conversation right now that we're having, though, is not know that we're against festivals and that we live in Denton and all these festivals get to exist and we're trying to streamline the process. I 've been a part of a bunch of them and we definitely, we need to watch out for safety. There's been a couple times where I've been a part of a couple of them and looked out and I cannot believe how many people were out there. So I am not saying that I'm against that, but man, Denton has just got it going on when we have our festivals on these weekends. We live in a very cool, hip town and I love how they've just organically come together. So I wanted to just thank you for doing this because sometimes putting these festivals together is a little difficult. So thank you. >> Well, I'm going to give credit to my staff, Julie and Christina, do all the work and they 're sitting over there. >> Thank you. >> They're rock stars. >> Yes. >> Any other questions? Any other questions? Good. All right. Thank you, Amy. Thank you for that presentation. We've got one other session. Anybody need to take a break? We all good? All right. Move forward. I just was taking Dalton's cue about sitting in his chair too long. Okay. We'll move on to agenda item 1C, which is receive report, hold discussion, provide staff direction on the proposed development of surface parking lot on the old, on the site of the old central fire station. >> Thank you, Mayor Mark Nilsons, our Director of Transportation, and he's going to give you a very brief presentation. You've been sitting here a very long time. >> Thank you, George. >> Thank you, Mark. >> Mayor, may I say something real quick? >> Hold on. >> Just before Mark start. >> Stop, everybody stop. >> No, it's okay. It's okay. >> Just go ahead. >> Something came up very last minute on this project and I'm not trying to surprise you, but at the end of it, can I just maybe have a minute just to hand out something and I'm not, it was very, very last minute, so it will not be long. >> Okay, sure. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Mayor, members of council. As George said, I've got a very short presentation with about 40 slides. We're just going to flip the, really we have about 14 slides. There's a bunch of pictures because I'm an Aggie and I wanted to kind of walk you through some of the site conditions. >> I thought you were a Bama fan today. >> I am a Bama fan today. Roll T ide, my wife went to Alabama, so we got to watch an exciting game last night. With that, for discussion this evening, I wanted to just walk through, take a look at, take a look at the current site, so the site conditions, how we're utilizing that particular facility. I look at several different site options, development options that we came up with and then would like to get some direction from council at the conclusion of this discussion. So starting at the north end of the property, I'm going to work clockwise, northeast, different photos of the facility. You can see the facility that was built in the late 70s, kind of see how the property is being used now, really haph azardly accommodating some parking. Cedar Street, looking essentially south on the east side of the property. Cedar Street 2, you can see a part of the rock lot. I call that the rock lot because of the rock wall here and also dividing between one of the other businesses there. This is the Cedar Street lot, just adjacent to that. You can see some of the brick banding from the Cedar Street improvement project from a number of years ago. This is the rock lot. Again, you see the rock wall in the background here, utilizing it with utilizing that particular prop site for parking as well as accommodating some of the solid waste and recycling needs in the area. This site is from the southwest corner, basically looking at it from across the street from St. Andrew or on Bolivar Street. You can see here there's a retaining wall, which is here on the southwest corner. At that point, it's about 30 inches in height, that retaining wall. As you go back towards the east, towards City Hall West, you can see the red roof of City Hall West in the background. That's about 20 inches. The retaining wall is, that is. So again, current conditions. The facility is vacant. We moved out most of the equipment that had been in there. Public safety had been storing some material, as well as a few pieces of equipment in there, reserve equipment. We removed the interior walls a number of years ago when there was a mold issue with the facility. We actually were using it for what it was originally built for, as a fire station housing of firefighters. Again, we removed that environmental issue out of there. We capped the utilities at this point in time. We've got a demo permit issued, so we're ready if we get direction to move forward with that. And then, again, mention that the current use right now, and you can see that here in this photo here. Really just some overflow parking, and that provided for that part of the square downtown area. So again, we looked at three different options, provided that as part of your backup, a low option, a medium option, and a high option. So I'll walk through each of these with really just a few highlights on them. Looking at an estimated cost of about $110,000, and really where this red outline is, that's the building footprint. What we're suggesting here would be demo of the structure. Then filling that footprint with select fill, and then asphalt millings on top to create a temporary or all-weather parking surface. And then adding some additional lighting signage, and then, of course, marking to get some better flow and higher capacity of this parking lot. Again, this would be re-striped here where the existing flat work for the old approaches to the fire station bays are. The medium option, looking at a cost of about $250,000. Here, again, demo of the structure, filling it with select fill, and then taking a two-inch overlay over the building footprint, as well as all the flat work here outlined in this blue here. So we'd get a consistent or a level surface, reduce trip hazards, create a more aesthetic approach to it, and then, again, lighting landscape signage and marking of the property. What I'm showing here is if this particular option was advanced, we would put some type of a parking barrier here. So we'd reduce that access onto, or we would recommend that reducing the access onto McKinney, simply because this is somewhat of a high-volume street here with somewhat of a blind curve coming around through there, as well as proximity to Cedar Street. It would not meet current development standards in terms of having a drive approach so close to this intersection. So on the high option, looking at roughly just over a half a million, talking about a comprehensive design and reconstruction of the property. Again, we look at demolition of the structure. As stated in the backup, we would suggest in the use of employee city workforce to do the demolition of that facility. And then reconstructing all the pavement. And then taking the primary parcel, which is this area here that we've been focused on in the first two options, as well as taking this area here, which is the Cedar Street lot and the Rock lot, to do that comprehensive design and reconstruction of it. Then again, lighting, signage, and marking. We'd address the landscaping, do a 10-foot setback or some type of a screening around that facility. And then we'd also recommend taking a look at incorporating in that design, addressing the solid waste needs, not only for where you see here in the Rock lot, our recycling and solid waste for City Hall West and some other customers, but as well as other customers, solid waste customers that are on Cedar Street. So trying to clean up the solid waste presence on Cedar Street . This particular option too, we recommend as we go through the design process, maybe doing that filling of the footprint and adding some asphalt millings in there so it could be used on a temporary basis. We would anticipate roughly about a six-month design-build process as we go through the development process. That would be a kind of an optimistic schedule on that, but it could be used for temporary parking in the short term. Again, addressing some of the parking needs that you 've heard about with Amy's presentation earlier this evening. So again, just in summary, talked about the three options, low, medium, and high at roughly 110, 250, and then 525,000. Again, the high option is the one that staff would recommend and looking at a comprehensive plan and reconstruction of all three parcels to get some better efficiencies out of that. With a temporary parking service in the parking area in the short term. So the schedule on that mentioned that we would look at on the demo. We could probably start that by the end of this month with given direction to move forward. Could have temporary surface, parking surface in there in the March 1 timeframe. And then we would move forward if the direction is given on the comprehensive design. Going through that process, again, looking at a six-month, minimum six-month time frame to make that happen. We'd like to see if we could move it a little bit quicker. With that, that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to take questions. I can roll back to any of the slides if you would like to take a look at this. Do you want us to talk before any questions get asked to him? It doesn't matter to me. Who's got questions? Okay. You all want to hear him before we... I'll be fine. Go ahead. Thank you, Mark. I was approached by a few members of the St. Andrew's Church on Sunday and I just received this email today and drew up this map. So I apologize for not getting to anybody or it being late. But they had a pretty interesting idea. If you ... Mark, do you mind going back a few slides and just pulling up the map, please? Even right there. Right now, our Daily Bread, you know, they feed all the people right out of the church and they are definitely outgrowing their space there. And kind of... Let me see. I'll just kind of go through the points here. With some creative effort, there are three entities that would benefit in significant ways if something could be worked out. The City of Denton, St. Andrew's, and our Daily Bread. The city could pick up considerably more parking spaces. Joel, let me interrupt you just one second. So this is having to do with something with the fire station. I just want to make sure we're on posting. So yes, okay. Yes, we're on posting because... Okay. Well, I was just trying to go fast. Okay. I apologize. No, no. You're good. I just want to make sure. The ultimate goal is... What they 're offering is there's a parking lot that's just a little bit... I guess that would be west of the church. Do you have an area Mark really could pull it? I don't know that I have a... Okay. Never mind. And what... So just the idea came out is what if our Daily Bread were able to move into the old fire station and we were able to do something and put the parking lot on the other side of the church. And it was an idea just thrown out. There could possibly be more parking spots that way. And Mr. Warner, a representative from St. Andrew, he's been waiting here too. I told him sometimes people are able to speak, sometimes they're not. I know we're able... We've been sitting here a while. But I was just curious if we could just prolong this decision or staff direction even just for a week if we could just look into this before we demo it. I know this is so ele venth hour and I apologize, but I just got to it very, very late. Okay. That's all I'm requesting. Yes . My reaction to that proposal is I would be... I'd certainly be willing to wait a week or two weeks, but I would like to know also, I know at one time there was conversation about our Daily Bread relocating and working in conjunction with Serb Denton. Okay. And I believe there 's a bigger location that's available. So I would certainly want to hear if that has been pursued and why that would no longer be an option. And I think Mr. Warner and the other people... Sorry. Yeah, no. I mean, those questions he's asking, if it's going to be postponed, then that'll give us an opportunity. I don't want to certainly have that ad hoc conversation at this time. Yeah. And I agree. I don't want to make people stay later. If we could just... Yeah, we'll take the questions down and get them addressed. And regarding the options, I think, and you could leave it on this particular slide, I'm inclined to do a hybrid and go ... I'm more interested in maybe the money that would be involved in the middle option and using that different amount, the difference in that amount to apply towards the purchase of the property on Bolivar Street. You can go back to the other slide. You're talking about the old building next to it? Yeah. So that down the road, that would be even a bigger, more squared off lot that would be more able to handle either A, more cars, or B, if we decided at some later date to do an elevated parking garage situation. And I think that that would be way down the road, certainly after I'm off council. But I would like to look at that in terms of looking at the middle option and purchasing that other property. I was really pleased at both the middle option and high option that you included lighting, because I think that that's going to be very necessary, whichever option we do. Councilman Beasley? This is fantastic. I'm excited that we're even talking about this. Whether one thing comes up or another, being able to use the space and make it function is really exciting because it's just been sitting there for so long. And I too, like the second option, and what Mayor Pro Tem recommended is good. My question on the map is right there where the curve and gutter, the block is. And that one, is there parking there or is that just going to be open? How is that? This location here? Well, further back a little bit, like in this little cubby, I guess. In this area here? No. Up in the green space? The driveway area. Is that going to be? Is that going to be parking there? Yes. Yeah, okay. It's going to be utilized. What we're suggesting, and to make that clear, what we're contemplating now would be the removal of the footprint of the structure in this option. Backfilling it to level surface and then ca pping all the flat work here and around with the two inch overlay. Again, so it's a consistent surface all the way through and then marking it to meet a high density layout parking so that we could get, depending on how this works out, upwards to 75 additional parking spots. Okay, that was my next question. In that area, it would be 75 additional, so we have something to go on in any talk or decision that we make. Okay, thank you. Council Member Rodin. Yeah, I feel like three times now we 've attempted to have this conversation and there's always a last minute insertion of another idea that 's come through, which is fine, and I think people are seeing it's obviously in an interesting location. What I would like to see, if we're coming back and having that conversation, is this would have to get a bit more specific , almost to the point of somebody would have to put a proposal on the table, and even if that had to be kept in an executive session as it relates to a real estate transaction, we'd need to know what was being discussed before we could give any direction on something like that. I understand. But as in any case, I think it's always good when we see multiple problems that can be solved with doing things, so I'm certainly open to entertaining it. On that front, I'm also open to thinking, which is why another week might be beneficial as well. I keep hearing these talks of having a future discussion on City Hall West, and Mary, you've brought that up, even insinuating that perhaps you've got an idea for it, which is great. I think I've almost breached Texas Open Meetings Act by going outside it. I was admonished by the city attorney for that, so yes, I had explained it. I appreciate your political courage. Yes. Good one, brother. So the only reason I say that is because depending on what is decided happens with that, that parking lot's probably going to have to be part of the equation, and so again, as we're thinking about this comprehensively, I don't know when that discussion is set to come before us, but it causes me to say if we do end up moving forward with a parking lot, to do something on a lower cost if there's still some of those uncertainties, so that there's malleability there in what that ultimately becomes, or if we need to add something else to mesh with that sort of project. I know we just had a conversation about festivals and having no parking, so I just really thank you for everybody 's patience on it. It was a very last-minute idea, and so. If we can put a timeline of a couple of weeks on this, that would be good too, and I agree with Councilman Roden that we need some real specifics and numbers and what that all looks like, and I agree with Councilman Roden that City Hall West and this parking area is all one big discussion, and I think it's important to look at the big picture and not spend half a mil on a piecemeal something that we end up going back and having to change, but we need parking, and I really want to move forward with this because downtown parking is a nightmare sometimes, so compliments to staff for the three different plans, and we promise within a couple of weeks we'll give you a decision. Any other questions? Yes, Mayor Fortran. The other thing I would just suggest is when we get this back on, it would be great if we could have our conversation in a work session about your ideas and other ideas. Sure, okay. Any other questions on this issue? All right, thank you. We'll go on to agenda items, concluding items. I've got one which I thought about this, and I have to say with Mr. Huss with being here, I wanted to let him know that I thought a lot about what he said in regards to citizens' comments at the end of the meeting, and I'd like to have a council work session to revisit that in light of we have an open mic segment in the beginning of citizen comments where anybody can come and talk. We don't have a limit on how many times they can come. We don't have a limit on, you know, and they're always in the beginning, so I think it seems a little inconsistent to put people who actually want to sign up and talk about something at the back when we have people who can come up and talk about anything at as many times as they want at the front. So I want to revisit that because I think we need to make some modifications there, and we just have a work session on it because I think that would require changing our council rules as we did the last time, so I'd like to have that pretty expeditiously because that did sort of strike me as interesting in that regard. Yes, Council Member Wasney. And I'd like to see what are the rules in writing regarding whether or not a council member is allowed to attend a closed session of a board or commission so that there's been a little gray area there, and I think that would be helpful for the entire council to know exactly what the rules state and where that rule is located so that we know. Sure. Okay, good. Yes, Council Member Rhoade. We had a great conversation with the mobility committee on several topics, and one I just wanted to highlight because it's been a subject of citizen comment, and that is the need of more amenities for DCTA with benches and shelters, and so we got a report today on eight new DCTA passenger amenities that have been put in, one at Belle Avenue Administration, one in Dallas Drive, one on westbound Oak and Cedar, one on westbound University and Bonnie Bray, a bus bench at Charlotte Street and Avenue H, and a bus bench on the quarter of Oak and Frye, so that's governmental entities at work as a result of citizens coming up, so I thought that was great. As I was walking through downtown and walking in other downtowns around the country, I've been pondering this concept of downtown parking lots, but in particular as it relates to private parking lots. In some cases, a lot of cities are really moving to restrict the ability of private entities to when building comes down to replace that with surface parking just because of what it does to reduce walkability, so you can imagine downtown square if a building went down and someone put in a private parking lot in its space, that would be a major, in some people's opinions, that would be a downgrade of the experience of downtown, so I don't know whether or not we have any rules in place that would restrict that from happening in certain parts of our downtown area that might not be desirable, so I'd be curious on that. The other question is, I've noticed on a couple parking lots that are private parking lots, one of them is a parking lot, the other one's a business in the downtown area that have kind of become de facto used car lots. One is one of the DATQ parking lots that's become kind of an RV lot, sales lot, which is, I don't know if that's violating any COs or anything like that. I'm not sure it's the most best used for that sort of property, so it's something I'd like to look into. The other is a former gas station and I think skate shop that's also doubling as a used car lot. Again, I don't know the rules in place in our downtown area as it relates to that sort of business. If I can just get some report on that. Yes, Councilmember. For the, let's see, this is the fourth year in a row, you know, that I'm going to be a part of the Dancing with the Stars. I'm actually the emcee the third year in a row with Jill Jester, so I'm just warning you if you are planning on going to that, I am the emcee again and there are no refund s. So anyway, I'm just welcoming everybody to the event. It's a lot of fun, so. Right, Chris? Yes, it is. Okay, thank you. That reminded me of, that reminded me of one more other concluding item and I wish I had the details. Councilmember Roden might be able to help fill me in, but I am participating in the Great Conversations at UNT, so just wanted to, tickets are on sale to the UNT website. I'm going to be discussing City Council policies of past and present and how they affect our city, so I think you've got one on there as well, so. So anyway, wanted to bring that up. Any other conco, yes? Thanks, you reminded me about a couple things coming up and one involves an event the Mayor is a part of this weekend, which is a large-scale community service project as part of , go ahead, you talked about it. No, as part of the Mayor's Together project, so there will be folks that are meeting at the Civic Center at 8 o'clock to be a part of a couple different service projects and then convening for lunch, so I think the public is welcome. Oh yes, yeah. So, and then also on Monday is Martin Luther King Day and so there's a series of festivities, including a march from UNT through Southeast Denton neighborhood kind of convening around Fredmore Park, going all the way to the MLK Center for a five o'clock community celebration, which is an annual tradition. If you haven't been to that, it's great, so come on out on Monday and celebrate Martin Luther King Day. I heard something about that Saturday event at my church, but I really didn't know anything about it. Can somebody send some information to? Sure, we'll send out, yeah, Jennifer, Jessica, Jessica will send out some. And maybe I've gotten something and just didn't pay enough attention to it and I apologize that that happened. Yeah, one last thing for staff. Two or three weeks ago I requested the budget on what the budget is and what the present costs are for the transmission line expansion substation project because we're at 403 million dollars on that project. I know that Mr. Heath said he had seen that budget, so I'm assuming that it does exist . So if we could kind of chase that down, see where it is, and I'd sure like to take a look at those numbers. Anybody else? Fantastic. We'll stand adjourned.