Jan 26, 2016 City Council on 2016-01-26 1:00 PM

Good afternoon. I wanted to welcome everyone to this Tuesday, excuse me, January 22, 2016 meeting of the Dent City Council. This is a special called work session on the fourth Tuesday . It is 1.03 PM and we do have a quorum. In fact, we have perfect attendance today. So, appreciate everybody being here. We'll go on to our first item on the agenda, which is citizen comments on consent agenda items. >> We do not have any cards. >> We don't have any cards on that, so we'll move on to agenda item number two, which is request for clarification on agenda items listed on the agenda for January 26, 2016. Clarifications? Yes, Council Member Waske. >> I had some questions on the lease, which is under consent agenda A. And so I'm not sure if it's premature to be voting on this lease today. The other question is consent agenda D on the gas well fee ordinance. I'd like to move that to items under individual consideration. >> Okay. I've got a couple in response to those as well, but I want to hold the rest of my colleagues. Any other clarifications of agenda items? >> And I had some of the same questions as Council Member Wasney on, and I believe the, which one is the lease, is that A? And I don't even know so much if it's questions. I think, and understand that we got the lease on Monday, I believe, yesterday. >> Right, and we have a good bit of information that we planned to present this afternoon. But we sent the lease as I think yesterday afternoon. >> Right. >> And Amy has some more detailed information about that. We have it listed as a closed session discussion today. >> Okay. Well, and I- >> Perhaps we can answer some of those questions either there or in the open session on item A. >> Okay, well then my comment was going to be, I would probably have felt more comfortable, and I'll wait until we have the closed session to see what other further information came available. To postpone this simply because as I was reading through the leases, there were some things that I was a little more uncomfortable with with the leases. And then also I saw in the memo that there was still ongoing negotiations. So I'll defer my comments until after the closed session on that. >> I think if we could at least give the information to you in the closed session, that might answer your questions, and if it doesn't, then we can- >> Okay. >> Take whatever action you want to in the open session. >> And on item D, which- >> I'm sorry, you're talking about consent agenda item D? >> Yes, consent agenda item D, which is the ordinance on the gas well drilling fees. I've seen several emails that have gone back and forth on that. And as I read the backup and as I've tried to understand the reasoning of the fee structure, I think I would be more comfortable if we were to maybe ask for some clarification from the consultant who did this based upon. Some of these fees are based upon sort of clumping coming in together, but then the other is based on them coming in singularly. And I need to understand a little bit more of the paradigm, and I'm not quite sure. I don't know if we can get that done today, but I've already talked with the city attorney and she might be able to elaborate a little bit more of what our discussion was. >> Mayor, we do have that as a closed session item. >> Okay. >> It's closed session 1A. I have had some individual discussions with some of the members on this. So perhaps we could go into closed session and then- >> Fair enough. >> If you are comfortable, good, and if not, then we can certainly take your direction. >> All right, fantastic. Any other questions or clarification? All right, then we will move on to our regular work session reports, which is 3A. Receive a report and hold discussion, give staff direction regarding efforts to ensure reliable and affordable access to high speed Internet services for our citizens and businesses. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to ask Melissa Craft, who is our Director of Technology Services, if she would present this work session item to you. Thank you, Melissa. I appreciate it. >> Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Today we will be talking about high speed Internet access for the city of Denton. The intent of this agenda is to discuss the progress staff has made in identifying additional Internet connectivity options for our businesses and residents. Additionally, staff will provide recommendations to further expand high speed Internet access to connect residents and businesses to service providers. So part of the agenda, I'm going to discuss a little bit about broadband basics and the different terminologies, the difference between consumer grade and business grade Internet. And also provide some background information as to how do we get to where we are today. And also talk about some of the progress that staff has made in regards to high speed Internet options. And also some recommendations that staff has made this form . So broadband basics. Broadband is defined by the FCC as high speed Internet access that allows users to access Internet services at significantly higher speeds than those available through dial-up services. You know, what this means is users wanting to use streaming media such as Netflix, video, those kinds of things. Speeds and pricing for broadband services are going to vary for each city based upon what infrastructure is available and the number of customers in that specific area. So broadband basics. When we're talking about consumer grade, we're talking about something you would find at your home, a shared service, a best effort service. This service isn't guaranteed, it comes as it goes. And this is equivalent, the biggest difference between what we would call consumer grade, something you would find at home versus business grade, something you would find at Peterbilt. The business grade is a dedicated service. They basically carve out this Internet like you have your own highway, you're on your car, your own highway, and it's dedicated just for your use. Whereas consumer grade, that's shared amongst whoever's on it at that given time. So for instance, if I was at home at 8 PM, I want to go on Netflix, everyone wants to go on Netflix, I'm not going to receive that same level of service. So the, you see different types of terminologies there that I put up there. You have cellular as far as Internet access through your phones. You also have DSL. I want to highlight DSL because this is the current technology that the Denton Arts Center is using. So you know, Denton Arts, they download a lot of videos, they upload a lot of videos. They're using a really slow connection to be able to upload that. So that's not really meeting their needs. One of the things they're wanting is higher speeds so they can do more than one thing at a time. >> Just real quick. >> Yes sir. >> Did you say the parks are arts? >> Arts. >> And that's the building down on Hickory? >> Yes sir. They have a really slow connection. >> Okay, so there's not, you'll probably address this. I'm just surprised that they don't have the capability of a higher speed than that in that area. So I'm sure you'll answer that later. Okay, go ahead. >> Yes, I was just using that as an instance of some of the struggles that we've seen, some of the business and the non-profits that they expressed some of the concerns. While they do have Internet, it's just really slow Internet . >> Okay, all right, thank you. >> So let's talk about business grade Internet access. Again, this is dedicated Internet service. It has a guarantee minimum and uptime. It means that the specified amount of bandwidth that you'll get every month, you're going to get consistent and persistent. It also means it's been carved out for your dedicated use. You share that with no one else. Kind of like having your own information super highway you 're not sharing. The biggest difference with consumer grade as opposed to business grade, the business grade does come in at a little higher price. It takes a different technology to make that work and that comes at a substantially higher price. So some background. Broadband infrastructure is a fundamental need for the businesses in the downtown industrial corridor and other parts of the city. We've heard many businesses come to us and explain some of the difficulties they've had as part of trying to get their business going with the slow Internet. We also heard some of that through our economic development survey on August 2015. 41 out of 200 surveyors are wanting more options for higher speed Internet services. Additionally, the Good Samaritan Society, they have requested additional connectivity options. Now with the Good Samaritan, we were able to work, and we 'll talk about this in a little bit, but with charter. There's been three proposals from charter as far as to try to get them better high speed Internet access. As a result of these comments, since August 2015, staff has initiated several conversations with various Internet service providers, such as Verizon, Charter, AT&T, Grande, and Zayo to address the lack of high speed Internet. And also address some of the potential improvements to residential services. So next couple of slides, I'm going to describe the progress that we made with each of these providers and what they did as far as to improve some of their service offerings. Additionally, staff will provide recommendations to further improve at the end of the presentation. So Zayo, some of you might not know Zayo. Zayo is an international provider of bandwidth infrastructure. Right now they have over 6.9 million miles of fiber laid throughout the entire US and also global. In addition to providing this much fiber, they're actually looking at expanding here in the Denton area for Verizon. What Zayo provides, they provide backbone connectivity for networks such as Verizon, AT&T. What we call these people, they're the carrier's carrier. They basically build out networks for Verizon. Actually, that's what they're doing here in Denton as part of Verizon's wireless expansion. They're going to be building out the infrastructure for them. So here you see Zayo, their existing infrastructure throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. And as far as what they're planning to expand here in about three years. They're planning to add over 2,000 new miles in the Dallas- Fort Worth Metroplex. I believe they're under contract with the city of Fort Worth. They're expanding some of their infrastructure needs too. And also they're under contract with Denton ISD and also Denton County. They're goals to complete their fiber build out in the next three years. How does this pertain to us, to the city? Zayas were highly interested in creating beneficial arrangements to celebrate fiber. So potentially the city can find a case use for them to come in and build our fiber. One of the needs that will be coming up potentially would be for the traffic system, traffic management system across our different parts of the city. That could be a potential there. They also are providing dedicated fiber services to Denton ISD and Denton County. When a reconstruction, reconstruction, and repaving project is initiated, staff will be working with Zayo to join the open trench to reduce costs and reduce disruptions to the road surface. Yes sir. >> I'm sorry, Kim. Go ahead. >> That's right around the corner. Thank you. The question about what do you mean when you say Zayo will be providing dedicated fiber services to Denton ISD and Denton County? Is it just, are they just providing the fiber line and then someone like Verizon or someone else is coming on top of that to provide the service? >> What they're looking to connect is from school to school . Kind of like for instance, the city of Denton, we have roughly 40 facilities and we have DME connect all our fiber to connect the buildings together. They're going to be using it for private use. So there's a new school down on 380 and Zayo's going to build out the fiber for that construction. >> Okay, and I'll ask that question later. Thanks for answering that. >> Okay. >> I guess to follow up on that and shake your paper at me if I'm off. because I know there was some conversation about some agreements that the county and DSD had with Zayo in assigning some kind of thing so is that part of that or is this something different than that? >> We've got, if I could, I know we have an agreement on your agenda I think for February the second, the contract with Zayo for the county contract. We've got, I'm sorry, Larry, maybe here or Anita, but. >> Well, no, if we're going to- >> It's the county contract with Zayo on the second agenda. >> Well, I'll defer that to them. Yeah, okay, thank you. >> Verizon Wireless, they're planning to expand their wireless footprint in the Denton area. Primarily around the UNT. So there it goes to have around a highly density populated areas to have more Verizon coverage there. So they're building out pretty extensively in the Denton. >> And this is going to show my lack of even understanding of the bandwidth basics. Even though I have a computer science degree, that's really bad, isn't it? That's really bad. No, I haven't kept up. >> When you say, and I'm going to hear it, Verizon Wireless . So I'm thinking of, in my house I've got a cable line coming in, high speed internet. I say high speed, 30 or 40 meg coming in. >> That's considered high speed. Anything over 25, according to the FCC, is considered high speed. >> So when you say Verizon Wireless plans to expand their wireless footprint, does that mean instead of wires, they're going to have these little kind of things that I've seen in different places on buildings, pole attachments possibly? Is that what we're talking about when we say wireless? >> Yes, sir. >> All right, okay. Thank you. >> And again, these wireless options can be designed for small businesses. And attach on your exhibit one, it'll show you some of the pricing options for smaller businesses. Verizon Business can also provide high speed services for larger commercial businesses. If you look in exhibit one, the pricing is available for that too. That's a little more costlier. Verizon Business is primarily meant for the Peterbilt, the really big industrial type of business. As you know, Verizon is selling Fios to Frontier Communications. They anticipate to be ready to close near the end of March. And that's Fios. And that's primarily what a lot of our residential and our small businesses are using now. And I think that was part of the issue, well, how do we expand Fios? We can't really initiate those conversations till they close the deal in March. And hopefully, we'll be able to work with Frontier to look at how do we improve those residential services. Let's talk about Charter. So since August 2015, Charter, this is their consumer grade . Again, this is meant more for homes, small businesses. They upgraded the infrastructure downtown to increase speeds from 25 megabytes per second to 100 megabytes per second, four times more than previously provided. Charter has also expanded their network to be accessible to all of the industrial corridor. Excuse me. This is the business grade, so this is the- >> I'm sorry, Joey had a question. Yeah, no. >> When Charter did that, did they have to make any of their existing wire or whatever more capable of doing that, or were they just able to do that? >> Have they always been able to do this? >> I would have to get back with Charter. I believe they're using the same infrastructure, but I can confirm that for you. Yes, sir. >> They actually, Charter had to go add infrastructure downtown. I mean, for my business, Fios would not provide, Verizon wouldn't provide Fios. We were able to get Charter, they were very responsive, but they had to run, I forget how many blocks they had to go. To get it over to those, but what that did is then once they ran that first piece of infrastructure, now they can provide the whole block. >> I think they were able to connect it to the existing and then just- >> They just had to go a few blocks to get to one of their existing main hubs or whatever. >> They're also working to expand down to I-35 West Front age. They also provided high speed internet to the rail yard of one gigabyte. Charter's planning to offer speeds up to 10 gigabytes for commercial businesses. This is ten times more than what any service provider currently can provide. They also have designated 137 multi-tenant buildings that are considered immediately serviceable, which qualify for a substantial discount on high speed internet services. So this is more for the business grade. Gits and Meriden was one of those. I believe a charter spoke to the administrator, Michael Law son, and provided those quotes to them. So I think they have around three options they can kind of work with. I actually left a message with Freddie Martinez to get his insight and see what he thought. In the near future, they're working to double their downstream internet speed for consumer grade services. They do recognize that their current residential service isn't as fast as it should be, and they're working aggressively to change that. Three companies that we spoke with can provide additional high speed connectivity to the Denton area. Verizon Wireless is immediately available in a downtown area. Charter is immediately available in a downtown and surrounding areas. Again, they're working to improve their residential services. As far as staff recommendations, one of the things we're recommending, to develop a communication plan for connectivity service options to commercial residential customers. How do we get the word out of what's working, what's not? So hopefully we can develop a plan to gain insight from the public. Continue working with internet service providers concurrent ly to implement the described plans and identify additional potential options to expand. Again, we would like to initiate conversations with Front ier Communications to address potential improvements to residential services once they close that contract. >> Councilmember Johnson. >> Yes sir. >> So I don't have a computer science degree and therefore I'm really ignorant about all this. But having been a consumer and been through the- >> The pain. >> The paralyzing spot where you find out I'm moving my business into this new building, I've already signed a lease. Because I think most businesses just assume it's there. And so the question we get sometimes is, is there FIOS? Right? What we're hearing from, surprisingly from businesses even like suppliers to Peterbilt that are making metal parts. Is that they're no longer housing all their information on their own servers, but everything is in the cloud. So that speed becomes more important just for them to be able to do payroll and send invoices and that sort of thing . Can you help us understand what kind of business, what size of business based on what you see in the technology world happening is going to require what we would define as high speed today. And with your expertise, because I can remember when we got DSL and we all thought we're set, right? >> Yes. >> Is there, based on what you see in the technology world, so first is what size business needs it, high speed? And then what do you see five years from now? Because obviously we got ourselves into kind of a pickle when Verizon just said we're not putting in anymore infrastructure. >> When they sold the frontier. >> So as a city, I think we've recognized we're going to need to get out in front of this and be proactive instead of letting the market just happen. What do you see in say five years from now? What will the speed demand be from the average business? Because they'll go run, just like an electric provider, if you've got this massive user, they'll go run the line because they make money on it day one. But when you've got 15 small businesses on a street, that's what's happening on the 35W corridor now going south from Peterbilt, is they're doing surveys to determine is this feasible for me right now to go do it. Where there's tenants who want to be there that are Peterb ilt suppliers that can't, because they can't even run payroll on DSL. So can you enlighten us a little bit about what businesses are we talking about that need high speed and then what do you see the future demand as? >> Well currently according to the FCC, high speed internet is a speed of 25 megabytes a row. So that would be for instance, let's say at home, I have three phones, two tablets, and I'm streaming Netflix. That would probably be what I would recommend. So everyone can relate to Netflix, because I like to watch Netflix too. So I have, that requires five megabytes for one device. So you can imagine one device streaming HD video. If you're trying to download a DVD or anything like that at a minimum, that's what the FCC requires. So for a small business to medium business, it's going to depend on the consumer grade versus business grade if they want that dedicated connectivity. Usually in a business, for us, we have that dedicated connectivity with UNT. And we pay $1200 a month because we know whenever we turn on, we go on the internet, we get that service. For a smaller business, maybe ten employees or less, maybe they're in a coffee shop, you can potentially get away with the 20 meg. From five years from now, I can see the need only arising or needing to be faster. Just because we have everything connected to the internet. I've seen coffee pots. You can refill your coffee pot going on an app. You can turn off and on your car going on an app using the internet. So I think as far as the case use, it's only going to grow. Our cars do it now. >> Thank you. >> Does that answer your question? >> Yeah, it does. Thank you. >> I think that's a good question. I mean, I've made the point before that internet access is to the 21st century, what electrical access was to the 20th . And I think it's true. And these providers aren't interested in the economic development goals of the city. They're not interested in the digital divide issues of the city. So I think it's important for us to set goals to have a sense of thinking out five years, ten years, not just the immediate. What's solving immediate problems? Because as you pointed out, downtown got into a problem because no one was thinking ahead on the issue of internet access. So as part of this process, has staff started to identify goals looking out? What do we need to be in five years? Who needs to have it? What's that speed level? Ten years, what is that going to look like? Have we looked at maps in terms of what neighborhoods have access, which neighborhoods don't have access? Who has access, but who can't afford access because the providers are charging too much? Have we had that comprehensive discussion, or have you guys , as you guys have been looking at this yet? >> I think initially we were just looking at what can we get out of our current internet service providers and can they provide better service? Initially from those initial discussions and the ongoing discussions. I think charter's committed and they recognize that there's some deficiencies in certain areas in the city and they're looking to making it better. So that was one vendor. >> Yeah, I just, I hope in these conversations we need to include what their plan is to provide internet connectivity to the portions of our community who are least able to afford it. And they should have, I'm sure that each one of these companies has those kind of divisions within their company. But we need to ensure that we understand what their commitment is to that or if there's some solid goals or solid proposals on that because while we do need in the downtown area and all these other kind of things. But to address the problems that we have in this digital divide, we need to, especially if we're going to enter into this sort of holistic kind of comprehensive approach to our internet needs. That needs to be as much of the conversation as the other. So I just really want to make sure that we include that. >> So we did receive expansion maps from ZAO and also charter, a little more detailed. But it was more under confidential, usually service providers, they don't really want to show where their infrastructure plans are to the public. They have showed certain areas where they're looking to expand. >> Well, and I appreciate that and I appreciate the confidentiality of that. Again, I just want to make sure that as part of that conversation we get as specific about those neighborhoods and quite honestly as specific about costs because that's, I mean, if it's there, that's great. But if you can't afford to take advantage of it, well then that's a problem. >> Okay. >> Well, to go along with what Mr. Roden was saying, do we already have the information or is it easy to retrieve about under served neighborhoods, streets or entire neighborhoods that don't have any connectivity? Do we know that now? >> So there's a federal website that lets you check addresses as far as what service providers are in that area . >> Okay. >> So we can pull that information, yes. >> Greg and then Bill. >> So I was going to make two points. Maybe we could peel back the onion a little bit more. Because I think what I hear you say in May is we need to make sure that our underserved neighborhoods, the digital divide has been well defined, that as a city we proactively work with these providers to ensure that our lower income neighborhoods have high speed internet. I mean that basic, right? In other words, instead of being in the position we're in now, which is they decided where they wanted to go, well they're going to go. They'll put it in a 15 unit apartment complex right across the street from a business, the Fios, but then they won't provide it to the business across the street. Why? Because they make a lot of money on the apartment complex, so they don't want to provide it to a small business across the street. I want us to think about as a city, if we're going to work hand in hand with them, which ultimately helps them grow their business. I want us to make sure that they're willing to step up to the plate too and serve our neighborhoods that may not be as profitable for them. But it's almost like you want to play, you got to pay, right? You want to sell to all of our big businesses in this corridor and this corridor. We need to be willing to serve our neighborhoods that are really underserved and can't afford to pay the kind of rates that some areas can pay. That was the one, I think what you were saying. I would just like to get that clear with them. >> Okay. >> The second thing is I think it's important for us to understand, our economic development team works their tail off to go get, so we have, this is a real live example. A Peterbilt supplier that's going to lease 50,000 square feet and provide, I think it was 50 something immediate jobs. Literally, there was not a space available that had high speed internet. DSL was the only thing available. So we lost that user from Denton. They located an alliance. We lost the jobs, we lost the tax dollars, all because nobody was willing to provide high speed internet to them. And we begged, all that stuff. So it's important for all of our citizens, but what I want to make sure we understand as a collective body is we're spending a ton of effort, time, money, resources, and energy to go recruit companies. Only to have the company say we'd love to be here, but I have to have a space within the next 120 days or whatever it is. There's spaces there, but that was the example the guy used with me was, I can't run my payroll. So I just literally have no option. So I think working hand in hand with all that is really important. >> He wanted to say something? >> Yeah, no, that's what I was saying. Yeah, we'll go to him and then we'll go to you. >> Yeah, my suggestion, I think we're just hitting the tip of the iceberg and I certainly appreciate you all reaching out to them. Because we do have immediate problems and I think you were looking at some solutions to those. And I'm glad to hear that they're wanting to come to the table. My suggestion is in whatever appropriate format that we set some real clear goals. And other cities have done this to the point that they've even pursued offering municipal broadband options as a basic utility. The time's going to come when you can't pull a CO if you don't have that hooked up to your building. Just like water or waste water or electricity. Those things that we wouldn't imagine pulling a CO without those sorts of services as part of it. And that's going to be that way and we need to be thinking proactively. Because economic development, there's not a kid that's going home from Denton ISD who doesn't have to get on a computer to do assignments. And we're hearing that some of them are coming up to downtown because we got free Wi-Fi there, which is great. But we need to think beyond that and think to the future. So I don't know if this means a blue ribbon committee, that makes sense, that just churns away at this to look at goals . To look at all our available options including the possibility of providing our own utility. Given that we have DME present. I don't know that that's the best idea, but it's worth putting on the table. So I'm an advocate of just continuing this conversation so we can set those goals and start hammering away at it. >> Well, and I think as we do that, one of the questions I would love to have answered, I'm sure this is going to be closed session is it sort of, I find it just unbelievable that you have a utility provider. That has the infrastructure there, but they'll use, they'll go to this side of the street, but they won't go to that side of the street. And yet, they're using our street. They're using city right of ways to put this stuff in. And so a question for our city attorney that I'm sure will be answered in closed session or in a briefing is don't we have any leverage in terms of when we sign an agreement for allowing folks to use our right of way for them to be to equally serve all folks? >> Yes, Council Member. >> You know, I'm very excited about this, but why is it taking so long? I mean, is there a simple way to say, I mean, what has been going on? Why has this taken so long to get it to this point? >> I think it's just working with different Internet service providers. For instance, we reached out to AT&T several times and Grande and Potter responses are they interested in making their service better in the community. >> Okay, so there's not been any regulation that said they weren't allowed in this market or anything like that? >> No. >> Okay. >> Not that I'm aware of. >> Okay, any other, yes, Council Member. >> I was going to answer your question a little bit further . I mean, it's kind of the opposite. There hasn't been regulation even at the federal level that would require them to make sure it's available to all. So at the outset of Fiber, all these companies said, we're going to provide it for all, we're going to provide it for all. And the federal government believed them, so they didn't regulate. They said, fine, and it's just been a free for all. So they will go into neighborhoods that will pay for it and not into neighborhoods who won't. And so now you're seeing at the federal level, from the FCC point of view, saying we perhaps need to rethink that because we've got some significant. There's whole rural communities that have absolutely no access, simply because it's not in the best interest of the private provider. So just like the early 20th century, they thought about electric transmission and distributions from that point of view. That's what we're starting to see that wave come about as it relates to broadband. >> Okay, any other questions? >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, Melissa. >> We'll go on to agenda item 3B, receive report and hold discussion on the status of the enhanced right of way maintenance program. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to ask Lansing Bentley, who manages our Community Improvement Services Division, if she would present this to you. And just to let you know that there are some items coming up on a future agenda that will relate to this. Thank you, Lansing. >> Okay, thank you. >> Good afternoon. I'm here today to present some information to you about the enhanced right of way maintenance program. And this is going to be an update just to give you all some information as to where we are right now and where we're going in the future. Let me just give you a little bit of a reminder about the enhanced right of way maintenance program. This is one of the projects that came into being through the LEAP program that started in 2014. And so it's the project in terms to enhance the rights of way throughout the city of Denton. We came to you in June of 2014, presented some information. And then based on our presentation to you, we received $125 ,000 in funds to go ahead and move forward with a pilot project to work on eight different roadways. We ended up working on six of those roadways. One of the roadways was Mingo Road. We could not work on that yet because we were waiting on a Union Pacific Railroad agreement, which we now have. And also the other one was not a roadway, it's the rail yard over here. And we wanted to also do some improvements in that rail yard, but again, we needed a maintenance agreement from UP, which we did not have. So the $125,000 was focused on those six roadways and some other really high profile public right of way areas in the community. So we're going to look at past accomplishments. I'm going to let you know some items that are coming to you on an upcoming consent agenda. And I'm going to let you know the future plans of this project. Just to remind you that you all did increase the funding for this year. So we have a larger pot of money and we're bringing in about 33 different rights of way, which includes text out right of way and some drainage eas ements. And I'm going to talk to you a little bit later about the green ribbon program too, but I don't want to get into that right at this moment. But I'll start with the past accomplishments and mainly they're photographic. It's really the easiest way to show it to you. So if you'll look from left to right, the next five slides are the text out right of way on loop 288. And the only part of loop 288 that the state maintains is from US 380 northward up to 35. But from US 380 south down to 35E in the commercial area, that's the responsibility and the purview of the city. So we looked at loop 288. Again, there's 160 feet of public right of way there. And so we started at Colorado Boulevard right next to where Bed Bath and Beyond is, easiest way for me to tell you. And then moving northward up to Denton Crossing, Chipotle, Best Buy, that location. And so if you look left to right, you'll see top and bottom , a lot of improvement in that text out right of way. I'm just going to continue through a few more slides. Again, we're still along this area, along loop 288 as you continue on here. There's something you really can't see in some of these slides, and that's how much illegal dumping is going on there and how much trash and debris is collecting on these roadways. From the businesses, from the dumpsters, from pedestrians, from vehicles, virtually everything. The occasional uncovered load. This is one photo that you can kind of see. These grass and weeds get to about three to four feet tall. You'll notice that we did this this summer. You can see trash and debris in these. You really can't see the illegal dumping, but it's there. So those are just a few photos. Again, from starting at the top, left to right, this is a sidewalk along Woodrow Lane. You can see that it would become increasingly difficult for pedestrians to make it down. Anyone walking wheelchair, cane, walker, anything, just very difficult. And if you look over behind the fence line, you can see that not only did the sidewalk get done, but also behind the fence line and the public right of way was also done. In the bottom slide, this is on US 380. There's a, and this happens probably in a lot of cities, but in 2013 we had a lot of icy roads in December. And so when we go out and mitigate those through sanding them, sometimes those remnants of sanding those roadways are left. And so this is what ended up on the sidewalk at US 380. In some places it's 68 inches deep, grass and weeds grows in it. So you can see on the right hand bottom photograph where that was removed from that public right of way for pedestrians to get down that roadway. Here's another one. This is on loop 288. Some of it here was 68 inches deep. Again, there's dirt and there's sand, and then we start having vegetation. It looks unsightly and it becomes increasingly difficult for people to get down. One thing I want to bring your attention to in the after photo is that we didn't have the funding to go beyond this guard rail here. As we did in the top photo up here on Woodrow. But this year, it's part of the contract. We'll make sure that not only is the sidewalk on this bridge clean, but also about 10 to 15 feet in the public right of way there. This is a sidewalk. The top picture is a sidewalk on Teasley Lane as you head up towards Hobson. The intersection there is Hobson. And so we need to keep that clear for people to make it down the sidewalk. So again, we're clearing a pedestrian right of way there. Bottom photo is in the 3200 block of Colorado over in the eastern section of the medical district. And you can see a lot of tall grass and weeds and that kind of thing there. So those were removed. >> And seeing I've got a question on that previous slide. >> Sure. >> On this sidewalk. >> The top one? >> Top one, yes. >> Okay. >> The before picture. And I think it's not just unique to this particular location, but obviously there are places in the city where you have sidewalks and then you have private property or something like that that I mean I've got trees that sometimes people say hey, will you trim some trees over the sidewalk because my tree. So how is, I don't know how else to say it, but how is what we're looking at here not the responsibility of the property owner? Unless there's not a property behind this hedgerow. >> Right. You know, if these trees or this landscaping is on private property, which we would have to assess if it is. If it is, it is the responsibility of the private property owner. But to the degree that it hangs over, like a tree at your home hangs over the fence of a tree at someone else's home. To the degree that it hangs over your fence and goes over into your property, you're allowed to mitigate it if the other private property owner won't do that. So in this instance, we got a complaint on this. And so since it was overhanging public property, we went ahead and remedied it. >> Okay, so and that's great. So I guess then my question is, if someone has a tree that 's on their private property. And that tree is growing across a sidewalk that's public property. >> Yes. >> And they get a notice that you have to trim the tree to get it, whatever it is, ten feet or- >> Seven feet above the sidewalk. >> Seven feet above the sidewalk. I knew you would know that. >> Yeah. >> I don't know that because I don't have that problem. >> All right. >> So how is that any different than this? So if it's growing over, the city, how is it in one case it 's the responsibility of the private property owner whose vegetation grew over to public property and they're told you need to take care of this because that's the code, but then in those other situations we may decide to do it. I'm just trying to understand. >> Right, we can require the private property owner to do it. >> I'm not sure about this location. Josh, do you remember what this location is? I'm sorry to put you on the spot. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Okay, if you could go to the microphone. >> Okay. >> You can give me the details. >> Sure. >> This is Josh Mullen. He's our senior officer. >> Okay. >> And he's actually the person who's going to be overseeing this contract and monitoring the contract. >> Great. >> Sorry about my rude behavior there. >> Oh, it's not rude. >> Sorry. >> If that's all. Yeah, I'd love it if that's the only rude behavior we got. >> Go ahead. >> What you can't physically see are the private property owners wooden fences behind the shrubs there. >> Okay. >> On Teasley. These are the houses on Abbott Lane that back up to Teasley . >> Yes. >> And you're talking literally about six inches difference between private property and the Text Dot right of way. That's how narrow of a gap we were working with there. Everything on our side or where the sidewalk is that we trimmed was physically on Text Dot property, not on private property. >> Okay, all right, good. That's helpful. Thank you very much for that. >> Thank you, Josh. >> Yes, Council Member Roe. >> While Josh is up there, I just want to take, well, I just want to, it's a bit of a side, but I was just at a set meeting last night with Council Member Gregory and Josh is always there or someone from your team is always there. And I just want to publicly thank you and your whole department. That's exactly what I want to see from this department is building relationships with the neighborhood. He gets hits with questions complaining about community improvement services and get hit with questions asking why aren't you doing enough, sometimes from the same people at the same meeting. And a lot of neighborhood meetings I'm at and always handles it with great grace and gets them the information they need. So thank you for what you do. >> Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Rode. >> Thank you, Josh. >> I'm sorry, Council Member Hawkins. >> One add, Chris and I were at a meeting too. Community improvement services were there last night, so they were full at work. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Is that? >> Yes, I'm sorry, yes. >> No, it's all right. >> Go ahead. >> Okay, all right. Thanks, Josh. This is US 380, headed east, and you can see this is the Greenbelt entryway area. Again, this is something that Perth Municipal Maintenance Agreement is a purview of the city. Text dot states that they're willing to give us some assistance, but we first must request that assistance, and then they must have the resources available to assist. So in general, this is ours. And so you can see the after photo from the work that was done there. This is still at that same location at that corner there, the Greenbelt corridor. And you can see, again, there's a lot of trash and debris and illegal dumping that goes on here. So anyway, a general cleanup there looks much better. Back more towards the, in the center of the city again, this is the Marshall Drainage Way. And this is Austin Street sidewalk, right Josh? Austin, okay, sorry. Austin Street sidewalk. So you can see we've actually mowed, weeded, edged, cleaned this sidewalk area around the Marshall Street Drainage Way. And if you'll notice on the Marshall side, there is no sidewalk. So if somebody wants to walk, they have to walk in a street . And so by clearing the trash, debris, the tall grass and weeds along that drainage wall there, we've actually created a pedestrian path for people to stay off the street. And this is a really busy area. It crosses Austin, it loads into Locust, it actually ends at Quaker Town Park. So there's a lot of foot traffic in this area. So by maintaining this area, we've actually created, in essence, a pedestrian walking path along the drainage way. As you all know, we had quite a bit of graffiti this past year, and the PD did a really good job in putting an end to that, I think probably for the most part. So with our right of way funding, and we also have a graffiti contractor who does very, very good work on private property and has since 2009 in our division. But we also got him to remove the graffiti. This is behind, in the drainage way behind Denton High School. This is in a drainage way on Malone that's between Panhand le and Bonnie Bray. And just to let you know, there was also, you can't see it in these photos, but there was also graffiti on these private property fences and our contractor. Again, at no charge, the private citizen got rid of that graffiti as well. This is on the overpass of US 380 as you see it as you drive along Mingo going eastward. And you can see that the graffiti was removed from there. This is on Bonnie Bray. This is in the north end of town, Bonnie Bray, near loop 28 8. This is viewable from loop 288. Now I want to talk a little bit about the green ribbon project because that's where these next set of photos come from. As a part of our LEAP group's right of way maintenance program, we worked with you all to solicit the funding for the right of way maintenance in the public right of way. Tree care, tree trimming, graffiti abatement, mowing, as you saw, litter removal, illegal sign removal, that kind of thing. But also another part of our LEAP project was the green ribbon project aspect of it. And green ribbon, just very quickly, is a project or a program actually. It's a text op program. It's been going on since 1999. And every two years, a legislature provides funding to districts, to text op districts in the state that have counties that are in those districts that are clean air non-attainment. So basically, we're in Dallas district. Dallas county and Denton county both have some clean air issues per the EPA. So Dallas district always gets green ribbon funding. When we contacted Text Op, they provided $330,000 in green ribbon funds to the city of Denton. We don't get that funding. Basically, it's allocated, it's kept in a pot, and Text Op works with it. And what they are doing right now with that funding is redo ing the medians on Dallas Drive, redoing the medians on Fort Worth Drive, redoing the medians on FM 2181, and also redoing a slope that's up on University Drive, University at Bell. There's a large slope up there right across from T.W.U. that is the city's purview to take care of. So this Welcome to Denton sign is in the Text Op right of way on Dallas Drive. And so some of the $125,000 we were able to designate to parks. And I don't know if any of you have seen this recently, much improved. These are native and adapted plants. They're drought tolerant, can withstand the heat. This sign is now lighted at night. It's a very large improvement in the Text Op right of way on Dallas Drive. >> Do you know what the cost of that was? >> It was $4200. >> Great. >> And $4206.15. Okay. The next three or four slides I'm going to show you is on Teasley Lane. And we worked with parks and again provided some allocation to parks. There are about seven or eight dead pear trees in this median. And these medians, there's several medians here, I think there's about three. But what we wanted to make sure of is that when the state comes in and redos Dallas, when you turn the corner and you're on Teasley Lane, we need Teasley Lane to look the same as Dallas Drive. And then you go under the bridge at 35E, it needs to look the same as FM 2181. This part of Teasley Lane was turned back to the city about 11 years ago. It was not going to be funded under that $330,000 of green ribbon money. So we went ahead and funded it, I think it was about $50, 000. And the pear trees were removed. Now this is very early on in the project. This was this pass ball. They put in native trees, chinkapin oaks, bubba desert will ow. I see some golf muley here. I can't see what that grass is. It might be pine muley. But what we ended up doing was looking at the designs that were provided to us by Textodd and mirroring those designs, the way they were designed and the plants they were going to use. And we made sure that they're here on Teasley so that when Dallas Drive is done and FM 21 is done, it's one long contiguous thoroughfare with updated plants. And so these are a little bit of a distance. And these are again about a week after they were put in. Okay. So those were our past accomplishments. That was with our $125,000 that was provided in fiscal year 14-15. And then I mentioned I wanted to move on to more items. I want to let you know about some upcoming consent agenda items. It's no longer February 2nd. It's going to be February 16th. And what's coming forward are the right of way maintenance contracts for this coming year for the next several years. We'll bring those forward on February 16th. And also the municipal maintenance agreement that's being worked on right now between the city and Textodd. And the municipal maintenance agreement is just the four roadways or the portions of the four roadways that we're now going to be taking over and that they're going to be providing some funding for. We need to update that maintenance agreement to reflect that. And we, yes. >> Yes, got something. >> Sorry. >> Hawkins. Sorry. >> Would you call me? Before you move on, I was going to see if you could go back one. >> Okay. >> And I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but when we cut, when- >> The hill to the slide? >> Yeah, that would be fine. >> Okay, all right. >> When all the trees came down on Dallas Parkway and Teasley, and there was one other section . Just to put it bluntly, it freaked a bunch of people out. >> Yes. >> In which, I mean, but it's part of the project. You have to do that. So I just, I wondered if there was any marketing kind of, the next time we go about doing this, putting a sign, I know it's hard. You guys do try that all the time. >> You're right. >> And send out mailers. We're always trying to, nobody sends anything back. I get it, it's hard. But look forward to what's coming soon, not just, we just saw the movie The Lorax and they cut down all the trees. >> Yeah. >> And now everybody's like, we get it. But I mean, they're for a week. But then on next door, I was getting one, where are all the birds? And there was always, I don't know where the birds are. We're trying to figure this out. So just as a crazy thought. >> No, it's not a crazy thought. It's a good thought. >> Okay. >> And we need to make sure that we do that next time. >> We could have some final fit. >> And I think that Parks right now is really working on it . I think they've put out quite a bit with the public information office. But I do think even as we go along and take the steps as we go along, probably it wouldn't hurt to put a lot more out and so I agree. >> But it looks great. >> We got calls to. >> Yeah, it looks great. It really does. >> All right, thank you. So as I said, the right of way maintenance contracts will be presented February 16th. They're on the consent agenda. The updated municipal maintenance agreement will be on the consent agenda. And the Union Pacific Railroad beautification lease agreement. And it took us a while to get that. It's been probably about 18 months. But that's why we were not able to do anything on Mingo Road with that first $125,000. We didn't have the authority to actually go in that text dot, not text dot, sorry, UP right away and do that work. But we have it now. And we actually have a very, very good agreement from them. We actually have probably the only agreement that their real estate department can think of that actually allows us as close to the track as they're going to allow us. Normally the cutoff is 25 feet, and so that's not the case with our agreement. We were also able to get decreases in two sets of insur ances cut by 50%. So that was very, very helpful. And so that beautification lease agreement will be before you on February 16th on the consent agenda again. Future plans was the last thing that I was going to touch on. Once the contractors, the contract should be mailed out to the contractors, I think this week, maybe the first of next week. Once they're approved by council, we're going to meet individually with the contractors to make sure that they understand the scope of work. It's well beyond a mowing contract, it's a maintenance contract. It includes a lot of different things. We want to meet with them. We're going to take them out on the roadways to the different drainage areas, show them the bridges, the sidewalks, the things that we need done. We'll begin the cycles. Josh is going to be over this monitoring the roadways and the drainage ways and all the different areas and working with the contractors. We will have daily monitoring just like we did in the past contract. We'll continue to assess the feasibility of adding other right of way projects. The Marshall drainage ditch is a really good example. We had been looking at it and then we started getting complaints on it. It was a really easy one to add. And you can see what a difference it made. So we'll continue to look as we're out there and as the contractors are out there to find other public lands that are under our purview to maintain, that aren't being maintained, to see if we can slide them in and get them under the funding that we currently have. We're going to solicit community feedback. We did a robo call assessment about a year and a half ago. We got about 150 responses. Of those 150 responses, 52% of them said that our public rights of way were either in fair or poor condition. So once we really get this project rolling again and take in more of these rights of way, we're going to go out and I don't know knocking on doors or visiting with businesses and get their feedback on the project and what else they would like to see us do or what they would like to see us do differently. The rail yard project, again that's something that interestingly enough is something that we think maybe in the next 12 to 18 months that we will be getting another beautification lease for the rail yard from UP. They've actually proven to be pretty easy to work with. And you all may know this that right now the North Central Texas Council of Governments, DCTA, the city and UP have had four meetings this past year to look at the rail yard. And what's the greatest use? What are some other uses? Can the facility yard move up line somewhere? Can we get rid of some of the old rails? Can we have a beautification lease there? And honestly right now the information back from UP is very favorable. And so we're still working with them. So I'm thinking maybe in the next 12 to 18 months we may have a Union Pacific Railroad beautification lease for the rail yard. Lastly, we'll continue to come back and provide you with council updates on all aspects of this program. And I think, yes, questions? I'm done. >> Thanks, Madam Goods. >> You may have already answered this when Mayor Watts was asking about the trees and private property and right aways . But we had a couple of emails from some people about dead trees that were in the right of way. And whose responsibility is that? >> Okay, I'll bet it's the emails that I got recently. We got some on Friday from a citizen who was concerned about two trees that are in the parkway, which would be the public right of way on Oak Street and nearby on Oak Street. And so we sent an officer to go out and look at those and photograph those. They're in bad shape. They are actually in public right of way. We've contacted Haywood Morgan, our forester, to go out and look and see if they need to be entirely removed. Or if we can remove the damage in the dead limbs without causing too much harm to the trees. So they need to go down entirely. At this point, what we plan to do is go ahead and use some of our funding, since it is a right of way fund that we're working with right now. And use that funding to hire a contractor that the city has . This contractor does tree removal, tree trimming. Normally the contractor does it in city parks, probably in cemeteries, at city buildings, that kind of thing. But we will contact that contractor and use our right of way funding to go ahead and do something with those two trees. >> So does that need to be added to the program? Like the dead trees, so that way we can make sure funding is there for that situation? >> You know, it's kind of interesting. We actually, on Mingo Road, we actually talked about on the Mingo Road aspect of it, there's some large grows of really beautiful oak trees, but you wouldn't know it because they're so overgrown. They're covered up. So actually as a part of our current right of way contract, we are going to be taking care of removing trimming trees in the right of way on Mingo. And again, we'll pick up these on oak. But I guess if you're asking me personally, I think it's probably a good location for it. We would work very closely with Haywood Morgan and get his input and make sure that we're following his guidelines. But I don't see that it falls outside of the realm of vegetation management and public right of way. >> Just one more question. >> Yes, go ahead. >> In the one presentation you gave us a while back on 380 by TWA and across the street were all the honeysuckle. >> Yes. >> I drive that every day and there were some plans for that area. >> That's the slope that I'm talking about, the slope on University Drive. >> Okay. >> What's going to go back there is honeysuckle. >> Okay. >> So it's going to go back and be replanted sometime this winter. >> And that was one of the four projects that is in the green ribbon project that the state's doing. >> Slope. >> Yes, slope, yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for taking care of those two trees in the Oak Hickory historical area. They fell under public safety concerns for me. One branched out over the street that if it fell on a car, that's trouble. The other was branching out in a perilous manner over a sidewalk. So again, falls under public safety. So very important to me and I appreciate you getting on that. >> Sure. >> That's my role. >> Couple of questions. One as it relates to the street concept. How do we determine, you've touched on a little bit in one of your earlier questions. If you've got a sidewalk in front of your house and then you've got that little place of grass, which a lot of people planted trees in. And as I understand it, a tree in disrepair or in bad condition and that is my mind to deal with. As the property owner who maybe even planted that or bought that house when that tree was there or something like that. At what point do we decide we're going to stick that to a property owner or at least bill them for something we're doing as a city for something that's something under their domain. Because I imagine there's a lot of people who would love to get some free tree service from the city. >> Sure. >> And if they just let it go. >> Sure. >> What's our policy and when we will step in and when we won't and when we'll stick it to the private property owner and when we'll do it ourselves. >> Is it fun? >> I didn't mean stick it. I mean the responsibility to the private property. >> Okay, yeah. Who's accountable? Yeah. Yeah. If it's on private property, it's the responsibility of the private property owner. If it's on public property, it's the responsibility of the city. I talked with Haywood Morgan the other night and he's going to find it for me. There's actually some language, it's probably in sub chapter 13 of the DDC, that the city is responsible for trees in the public right of way. And so we would work on those trees if it's on private property and it's overhanging a city street or by less than 13, I think it's 13 and a half feet and over a sidewalk by seven feet. Then we would require the private property owner to do something with that. If they don't do it and we have to do it, we can basically trim that tree, send a bill. If the bill's not paid, we can file a lien. >> So I guess I'm trying to clarify what's public and what 's private in this case. Because again, in my example, you've got a property, then you've got a sidewalk, which is clearly public property. And then you've got that strip of grass between the sidewalk. Yeah. Is a parkway private property or public property? >> Many times it's public property. But all over town it's a little bit different. Some places have very little public right of way, some have large, vast amounts of public right of way because the city is so old it varies all over town. >> And we allow private property owners to plant in the parkway? I mean, it happens all over the place. >> I actually think that right now possibly, I'm not sure, it may still be required in the DDC of developers to plant in the parkway. That's getting a little bit out of my, I know at one point it was a requirement for developers, but I don't know if it still is or not. >> I don't want to split here, I just think that there's a distinction there. I mean, people have planted trees in that and to say this is now the city's responsibility to trim, to take care of. I have a problem with that in terms of good use of public funds when we're doing this. So perhaps there just needs to be some internal discussion of how to work that out. But the further question, this is great by the way, thank you for the presentation. It makes me wonder, I know we're kind of essentially through this project that you all have initiated. We're kind of dipping our toes in the water of really getting after these right away projects in a way that we haven't. And so my question is one of sustainability. I'm a little concerned if the way to sustain this is to just keep coming back with maintenance agreements and who knows next year we might not be interested in funding or something else becomes a priority. What do other cities do who are serious about tackling these sorts of things? And I hear some cities that have full-fledged public works department, they just have people on staff going cutting trees, picking up mattresses, stuff like that. Is that typically the model of what other cities are going? >> I can do a little more research into that, but just the initial research that we did as a leap group in bringing this forward. Was we checked with Dallas and Mesquite, I think Richardson . We had a handful of cities that we looked at and that most of them just dedicate funds. And some of them do it internally, some it's internal staff that takes care of all this and then other cities it's all contracted out. So as you say those that are very serious about it do have a focus on it and do fund it, do resource it in some way. Again, sometimes internally, sometimes externally with contractors. But to answer, maybe give a little more information as to your question. One thing that we looked at is that we have mowing at this point on these roadways and these rights of way 52 times a year. And what we really think is going to happen is that as we do this and as we maintain it, that it will get better. And some of these areas have never been mowed. And so once we do it, and also we're going to do some treatment of these areas to try and get rid of weeds and have more grass grow back. I really think that we're going to be able to do some of these areas less and bring in more rights of way and more areas under this same dollar amount. So what it's really going to require of us is to really monitor the areas, monitor the contract, and just keep a watchful eye. Right now, this will be our first full year actually doing it coming up. >> Great, well I think as we move forward, I think to, we 're going to be every year coming back into budget cycles, we're going to be renewing these maintenance agreements. If at any point you or your team has suggestions on ongoing sustainability, what's the way to make this, to look at the economics of continuing to contract this out versus bringing this in house. because we're already doing that in different departments. I think we're all kind of excited about what you're doing in this regard. And so just to be able to get a longer term view of what we need to do from a budget perspective to keep this going. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> I think the manager had something you wanted to add. >> Yeah, sorry. No, I was just going to, going back to Kevin's comment about the trees in the parkway. I mean, clearly if they need maintenance, and I know L ansing and folks deal with this all the time. Even if we have the authority and it's in public right away , we've got to be very careful to work with the property owners when we're trying to talk about removing trees. Even if they're not the most beautiful trees in the world, sometimes we need to be very careful because people consider those to be theirs even if they're in public right away. And what this discussion has brought about is that, and Keely I know that Lauren has talked to you about doing a tree inventory. And I think we're going to be coming back to council shortly about doing a tree inventory that will help us with all of those management issues. >> The other thing, it's in the AIS backup. But you didn't mention it, Ms. Bentley. But tell us, just remind us a little bit about how this got started as part of the LEAP program, the Leadership Excellence Enhancement Program. >> Okay. I'm going to answer your question, just kind of how this came to be, your same program. >> And this whole LEAP thing, what it's about. >> Okay. Leadership Excellence Enhancement Program started in 2014. And I think that Assistant City Manager Brian Langley really spearheaded it with human resources. Brian, do you want to come up and say something about it? Okay. Let me slip out of your way. >> Sure. >> Sorry. >> Councilmember Gregory, we created three separate programs. They all have really the same focus, and that's to increase efficiency, productivity of our employees, and encourage innovation in how we provide services to the community. So one of those was the Innovation Program. One of those was the Lean Government Program. And then the LEAP program was also one of those programs. And the LEAP program is one that we created to recruit employees from across the city, across different departments to look at how we could provide additional training and development for those employees and to prepare them to advance here at the city in their careers. And additionally, ask them to look at some real world kinds of issues that we had in the community and to try to deliver a solution to solve that. And so Lansing was on one of the groups for right of way management. We also had one on performance management and succession management. And those two groups have been looking at those issues, bringing it forward. And we actually started the second round of that this year. >> What a great program that encourages staff to use their brains and to come up with initiatives and creative ideas. And what a great example of how it's helping the whole city . >> Well, thank you. They've done a great job. We're very proud of them. >> One final question for me, and that is, the span of green space from the, I guess it's UP Railroad Trestle transitioning from Dallas Drive to Bell Avenue. >> Okay, yes. >> Eagle Drive, Locust, that whole thing. >> Yes. >> And then traversing north on Bell to that first street. It's where the council picks up the trash during the, is that railroad right of way? Because there's a lot up in there that probably can be, but then my thought was, is part of this program also not just maintenance, but to find areas that would be conducive for beautification. >> Yes. >> And things such as that that are really high profile in the city and it can be seen. I mean, everybody sees that. >> Right, right. And that's why we got involved in the, and collaborated with Parks on the Welcome to Denton sign. >> Yes. >> And trying to work on the medians on Teasley. But it's interesting you mention that because Josh is working on that right now. We're actually working some with Lauren on this and Steve Marchinkian with the railroad and Eric Omar with the railroad and trying to figure out getting rid of graffiti, painting the railroad bridge itself. We're also working with Textile. There's a little bit of dispute in there. We're going to work next week trying to figure out exactly where all the property boundaries are. What is Textile? What is UP? Is any of it city? And what can and can we not do? Because just to be really honest, that area looks, it needs a lot of work. And so we're focused on it. We're focused on it right now. And we've got calls into UP. They're actually working with us. Textile's working with us. And we're going to pick it back up next week. So we can give you some update on that at some future point because- >> Yeah, that's just a stretch of land that is very visible . >> Yes, yes. >> And we clean it every year, once a year. And we find some very interesting things out there. >> Yeah, I'm sure you do. It's interesting that with that railroad trestle right there and that embankment, it almost looks like an entryway right there. >> Sure, no. >> We need somehow to improve that appearance there. >> Okay, great. Any other questions, comments? Thank you so much. >> Just one other comment. Lansing touched on a few minutes ago about the cooperation and cooperative effort between the Council of Governments, the UP, the DCTA, and the city. That effort down there is incredible. And the cooperation and the coordination with UP, particularly the railroad, the LEAP team and Lansing specifically has probably generated a better cooperative spirit with the railroad than I've seen in years. And I just wanted to commend her publicly for the work that she's done and the cooperation that the railroad is giving us in that effort, so thank you. >> Fantastic, thank you very much. Great work. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Moving on to our next agenda item, which is agenda item 3C. Receive a report and hold a discussion. Give staff direction regarding the creation and implementation of small area plans and the creation of a small area plan for the Fry Street area. >> Thank you, Mayor, and I'm going to ask Sophie Humer, who is an associate planner in the planning department, if she would present this item for your discussion and consideration. Thank you, Sophie. >> All right, good afternoon, Mayor, Council. I'm Sophie Humer. I'm an associate planner with the city of Denton and Development Services. I'm very excited to be talking to you all today about small area planning and the Fry Street small area plan. Just a brief agenda for what I'll be going over this afternoon. I'm going to start talking a little bit about Denton Plan 2030 and small area planning and how they fit together. Next, I'm going to address the growing need for small area plan in the Fry Street area. And then thirdly, I'm going to take you through the small area plan process. So the Denton Plan 2030 was adopted in February of 2015, and it's our framework for growth, reinvestment, and quality of life within the city of Denton for the next 15 years. Small area planning is an implementation arm of the Denton Plan 2030. You see it multiple times throughout the Denton Plan. It's in our land use chapter, it's in our community character chapter, and it's in our implementation chapter. Small area plans allow for comprehensive long term plans, specifically to these four major areas. One is where we see major development opportunity. The second is where we see imminent land use changes happening. Third is where we see a lot of deterioration and abandon ment. And then fourth, where we need to plan for the introduction of specific uses. Small area plan process is especially important. We have community members and stakeholders that need to provide input, create that shared vision, and they help influence future development policies there. The city itself, across departments, is also able to address these localized issues and some of those challenges . So it's also important to remember that a small area plan is not necessarily a regulatory document. Small area plans do identify changes to overlay districts or even inspire the creation of new overlay districts. They may also identify other code amendments or call for the addition or concentration of capital improvement plans in a specific area. So the Fry Street area specifically has been identified as the first area to participate in a small area plan under Dem Plan 2030. Staff has seen an increased level of development, applications, and queries in this area, as well as new residential and commercial growth. It especially puts strains on parking, transportation needs . The existing small area plan for the Fry Street area is outdated. And most importantly, that future land use designation, the neighborhood university compatibility area, specifically calls for a small area plan. Just to orient ourselves, because when we talk about the Fry Street area, we don't necessarily just mean the Fry Street overlay district. If you can follow my cursor, this is Oak and Hickory. The location of Vortmans is right here. UNT is to the south. And this dark black border is what we've determined to be the project boundary. It is flexible. If we go into a community meeting, we need to adjust the boundary a bit. That can be done. But it's chosen based on a number of criteria. And I'll go through that kind of as I go through my presentation. So as you can see, it goes up north towards Scripture. It includes Jago, Normal, Brian, Fry, and Ponder as we move across. So just to talk a little bit about the future land use for this area, it is a neighborhood university compatibility future land use designation. That designation is there to ensure that new development, housing, university facilities are compatible with that surrounding single family, low residential area. We've already identified some goals that we'll bring up during our neighborhood meeting that we'd like to address through this process, namely parking, urban form and compatibility, as well as infrastructure and transportation needs. So the beginning of the small area plan process, community vision is just the most integral part of the small area plan process. We're hoping to achieve this in four different ways. The first is to have a steering committee. The second is to have a number of neighborhood workshops. The third is to have online feedback and notification. And the fourth, of course, is the public hearing process. So in exhibit five of your AIS, I provided a draft work plan, and that's what I'm going to be going through next in the presentation. The first is going to be the steering committee selection. The steering committee is going to be a very important part of this process. They're going to meet bi-monthly, attend community events, and be a large component of this process. Joining staff is proposing that each council person nom inate two individuals, and then a selection group is going to select one from each. The goal is to have a steering committee of seven people. It is a small area plan, so we don't need a large group, but we would like a variety of individuals. And that's been provided, I believe it's exhibit six of your background. Nominations for that would be due by Friday, February 12th by 5 PM. We are looking to start this pretty soon. After we've chosen the steering committee, we're going to meet in March prior to a kickoff meeting. And then a kickoff meeting is going to be held in March. The main activity here is going to be a noise analysis. It's a variation of a SWOT analysis, but it's a much more visioning type process. Often what happens with a SWOT analysis is that we just end up with a long list and nowhere to start. The noise analysis addresses the needs of the areas, opportunities that citizens see for the area, improvements, strengths, and their expectations for that small area plan. So the activity is there to set your goals and your expectations throughout the process. We're also going to hold a neighborhood meeting in April. This is going to build on that noise activity. We're going to have a more targeted conversation and breakout sessions. We're also hoping to present a draft table of contents for the plan. By May of 2016, we're hoping to update the Planning and Z oning Commission and City Council on phase one. Once we get into the summer of 2016, staff will begin drafting the document. And by August, we're hoping to publish that draft document online. And we'll also begin updating the Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council and begin revisions. At this time, we're going to have our second neighborhood meeting. The workshop is to provide a draft document to citizens, do breakout sections, and work over the document. Public hearing process would be initiated in November for December 2016 or January 2017 adoption. So that was phase two. Just to reiterate, our next steps would be to select the steering committee. We'll have our first steering committee meeting in the first week of March. And then the kickoff meeting will be held in the second week of March. Any questions? >> Councilmember Rhoads. >> As you mentioned at the outset, one of the reasons for considering smaller area plan is imminent change or interest in the area, which we know is high. In fact, I think there's a project going to PNZ tomorrow right in that area. What is the plan to do in the interim? And how long you're suggesting this takes if you've got folks who are ready to go, interested in doing projects and push them forward. Does that mean that the staff will always recommend denial until this is done of any new developments in that area? Or how are we from a policy perspective, from the staff's point of view, going to be dealing with projects in the interim? >> Sure, I can address that. We cannot stop a zoning application from moving forward. If a zoning application is submitted to the planning department, it goes through all of its requirements, does everything it needs to do. We move forward, we take that case to PNZ or city council. The recommendation is going to be site specific. So we know that there are many challenges that this place faces. It's parking, there are infrastructure, transportation needs, and those are all evaluated on a case by case basis. So as far as moving development forward, approval or denial is based on those factors and just on its face the criteria that we have in the DDC for rezoning. >> Council member Hawkins. >> Maybe it's a very similar question. So I'm a developer now. Are we adding just kind of one more layer? I'm trying to figure out what we're actually doing here. So I'm a developer, I'm trying to work, and so I have to work with the small area plan. And then the next, the other codes also. Is the small area plan going, and you said it's going to address specifically one area possibly. So maybe parking doesn't work in that area, so we would look specific to that area. How can parking possibly work for this development in that area? >> Yeah, the small area plan specifically would identify code changes that need to happen. Maybe it's reducing a parking minimum, identifying area that may be suitable for a parking garage. You as the developer coming in would only work with the codes like the DDC. For example, the fresh street, the overlay district. That as a developer would be essentially all that you see. Planning staff along with the guidance of city council would work with the implementation part of the small area plan to start addressing those changes. >> So the small area plan would be there before possibly the development would even be there. They would say this area, the parking requirement is not working, so it can't be one to one or something like that. It needs to change or. >> That's the impetus, the small area plan process. Those are the questions that we will be asking of our transportation staff. And of course of the citizens that visit the area that live in the area. Those things will be evaluated in the small area plan. And then the implementation arm of that is do we need to create an area like the downtown for parking? Do we need to identify those things? So I hope that answered. >> Well, yeah, here, move on to the other questions. I'll think of, but thank you. >> I'll keep going. >> Okay. >> I just want to step up and thank planning and staff for moving forward with this. Because you can't have a one size fits all for a city. You just can't. It doesn't work anywhere and it's certainly not going to work in Denton. And as we grow and we are moving at light speed, we need to slow down just a little bit. And the small area plan allows us to do that. I think this area came forward first because there are actually two big projects that are currently either on the table or soon to be on the table. And to bring in the neighborhoods, to bring in the people who live there. Whose life, work, because this is an area where there's just a real high interest of citizen involvement. So that you bring people to the table and say, this is your neighborhood, what do you see? So that I think it's actually a help to a developer. So that if that small area plan is locked up on the books, then a developer coming is going to say, I know the rules, here it is. So they're not going to run into a real buzz saw, because those small area plans as they develop around the city will enhance those neighborhoods. I think it will help the people who live in those neighborhoods, the businesses who have already invested in those neighborhoods. Because they're very much a part of this discussion. But I'm just thrilled that you're working on this, bringing it forward. And that you've chosen this as the first small area plan to pursue. And I just want to say thank you. >> Well, and I would agree with that, because definitely one size does not fit all. I think it was more procedurally, how does that happen? How does the neighborhood get involved? That sort of thing. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Couple of questions. So I want to make sure I didn't misunderstand something. When you talk about the neighborhood involvement, are you talking about what's inside the boundary? What's outside the boundary? Both, I guess. >> Sure, it would definitely be both. One of the specific problems we've seen with this area is parking spillover from UNT. And so something that definitely I know affects is Marietta . I've tried to park there in the afternoon a couple of times and haven't been able to find a parking spot. And so we know that the project boundary here touches other neighborhoods. And that's what we want to be sensitive to. So as far as public notification, this is going to be on the website. We're going to work on getting a dedicated public page through our public information office. We'll notify the historic districts are nearby. Of course, we also want UNT's input. And so notification is definitely going to take place outside of this boundary. >> And I guess that brings me to my next question is when I look at these boundaries, when I look at the boundary as it's drawn, and maybe I'm not quite understanding what the real purpose here. I mean, to me, when I look at this little leg off to the bottom right here to Mulberry and Hickory, I'm not sure exactly why that comes down to Mulberry, what the rationale was to not just bring it across Hickory and Welch. Because Welch defines Welch and even Scripture and why it goes up past Scripture because Jago's Scripture, Wel ch, Hickory Oak, they pretty much define that whole area. So could you help me understand just real briefly how these boundaries were derived? >> Sure. First, I want to address just maybe the first part of your question, then maybe we'll. A lot of this is actually a historic district. And so they have their own set of rules through the DDC. They're going to be impacted, of course, by code changes in this area. But they're not necessarily part of our study area. Welch Avenue A, south towards Sycamore, I believe those are UNT properties. But like I said earlier, these lines are flexible. So if we see a need for that, we can definitely look at that. >> Yeah, no, my only thought was just bringing, where you come down Fulton, past Hickory and then you take that, whatever that road is there on Hickory, you go across. And then you come back down, I guess that's Bernard or something, or Welch, or is that Bernard right there? This is all subjective, so I don't have any rationale except that the Fry Street area, most of those are either apartments or residential homes in that area out there, the DCN. So I'm just trying to understand what we're doing, but that 's fine. I'm good with that, that's a good answer. I thought I saw a hand over, yes, Council Member Rogen. >> Yeah, I guess the makeup of that committee is going to be crucial. The neighborhoods on both sides of this, I understand their interests. They have their own real clear small area plan in the form of an historic district with plenty of regulations in place . And it's an interesting thing that over the years, I've seen different people's tolerances for density. Different people's sense of urban landscape. I mean, there would be folks who would say, get yourself a big parking lot in there because we don't want to park in front of our house. Now that would completely destroy any sort of urban landscape in a place that is probably second to downtown in terms of an urban environment, the way the students understand it. So it's a difficult thing because there's not a lot of living property owners who live there. A lot of the split places rent plenty of property owners in that area. So I'm going to be sensitive to seeing what's that made of and even what clearly defining our goals or your goals as a planning department so that those are kept in track. So like I said, there will be some to the east and the west who would say just build large parking lots because that's what we're most concerned about. And that's perhaps not in the best interest of the city as a whole. Secondly, is there a way to involve as part of this committee some significant involvement from UNT? Understanding that as it relates to sharing parking lots and understanding possible collaborations with this spot, what their student housing needs are projected into the future. Are they at the table as part of this plan as well? >> Yes, something I didn't mention throughout the presentation is that we're actually going to have a very kind of close net technical group that will be working on this project throughout the entire process, probably meeting at least once a week, at least in the beginning. UNT is definitely going to be at that table. And so if it's the direction of council to also include them on the steering committee, that could certainly be looked at. Again, we were looking for an odd number, so the seven worked, but that can definitely be a consideration. >> Thanks. >> I'm going to, yes. >> Yeah, so maybe to add a little bit, this particular area , you have a significant amount of competing interest, and many of which may not be in the best interest of the city, maybe not be in the best interest of all of the properties affected. So the makeup of that committee is going to be really critical. I want to go back to, because I think I heard a question, what Joe was asking that I don't know was answered was, is the idea behind a small area plan that it's essentially an overlay, right? So in other words, you're going to set zoning within the small area plan? Or does someone still have to go through a rezoning process if the property is not zoned for their use? >> The small area plan itself is not a regulatory document. >> Okay. >> In essence, for lack of a better term, it's a miniature comprehensive plan. There will be a significant implementation section. For example, we've seen significant pressure on the actual Fry Street overlay district, which is only approximately, if you follow my cursor, this area. We've seen already one amendment to it. There are other amendments that are proposed to that area from outside developers. So we know that that area is susceptible to change. So one thing that we are looking at is that by August, we 're hoping to have a lot of this community input, a lot of some of the technical things addressed such as parking, infrastructure. Our next step then will be to start looking at an amendment to that Fry Street overlay district, which is only a portion of that district so that we can start implementing those changes. >> So- >> Those changes have to come to planning and zoning and to city council through the public hearing process. >> Okay, so it's more of a vision document, right? >> Yes, sir. >> I guess what I'm getting at is what, because I think it could be really helpful for someone. Let's say if they own three or four homes there and they've made this, there's a retail project that's over there now at Hickory and Welch where the gentleman had bought four homes over many years and then built his retail center. So idea being, here's kind of the vision. It's kind of an overarching vision so that you can decide whether you even want to attempt to do a certain type of project there based on what this vision says. But you're still going to have to go through zoning, SUPs, whatever our code requires, right? >> Yes, if it's outside of what maybe staff wants to bring forward. Something that could happen is maybe an extension of the Fry Street overlay district. And so, yes, you would have to come forward for rezoning. If it's outside of the parameters of its current zoning. >> And so my second question is, because this is so university dominant in terms of the folks that live there, it's predominantly students. Part of what we hear from folks that are trying to do developments there, even a smaller apartment project or town homes or whatever it is, is based on the zoning, all this parking is required yet 75% of the people living here don't have a car. So I could do more landscaping, I could do a different facade. I could do a lot of different stuff if I didn't have this part. So they're always asking for a parking variance. Is part of what this could do would be to say this type of project, if it's a predominantly student housing project or I'm saying project, it could be a fourplex. That there could be part of the overlay that the parking requirement would be adjusted versus having so much staff time being taken up by people asking for variances. because it's like everything that gets built down there, they're asking for a parking variance. Logically so, because it's not your traditional multifamily . Or would it be, that's not what this document would do. They still have to go through those processes. >> It would really be, so parking is a huge part of the discussion that we've been having prior to coming to you. Parking is going to be addressed comprehensively in this plan. Hopefully no matter what, the outcome of that is going to be heavily influenced by any data analysis that we do, citizen input, their vision for that. And it's going to take a pretty large collaborative effort on staff's part to make sure that we are addressing that comprehensively. Because we see these things happen repeatedly. So that's definitely a discussion that we'll have throughout the process. >> Okay, and then my last comment was the same one as the mayor's, is I'll just throw this out there. Is that leg that kind of just extends off the side going down Hickory and Mulberry, that seems odd to me. >> Okay. >> What I have noticed along Hickory especially is you have people now buying those homes and really fixing them up nice because, and I can see, now you can start to see in my opinion how Hickory could eventually look like Oak does. You see people really making an investment on those houses. So I just want to make sure, if for some reason it makes sense for that to be in there, I would just hope that part of the conversation is we don't want to do anything with this overlay or small area plan that discourages someone from buying an old house and making it look nice, but keeping that old character of those old homes there. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> Thank you. Well, when you first started, I thought I understood what a small area plan was. And now I'm not at all sure I understand. Because I actually thought that it was something more than just a vision document. I thought that it actually, in some cases, set aside some of the development code regulations. And replaced them with something that was more appropriate for that small area. But I think what I heard you say was that's not what it is. That maybe it's a vision document that gives guidance to the kinds of things that staff would recommend a variance form. What is it? Help me out. >> The small area plan can be much more prescriptive on that level. It's not as rezoning of this entire area. It won't go through that process. What the small area plan will do is it will set the foundation for future policy, development policy in that area. So if part of what we come out with is that we see, say, a new urban form that we want to see in this area. We want to say that multi-family needs to have, and I'm just throwing this out there, single family facade appearance on the first floor. Those are changes to the development code that will be brought forth in an overlay. So you have the small area plan, is its foundation. It'll be very prescriptive in the things that we want to change in this area. It's a micro level approach to planning. And then what happens is staff will bring forward either overlay districts, code amendments, we'll make suggestions for CIP projects. And that then has to go through its own public hearing process. >> Okay, I'll say I was surprised at the proposal for the committee that each council member nominates two folks and staff selects them. That's different. And as I read more of the document, I think I'm more comfortable. With the notion, because I think what you're trying to do is achieve that mix that you list in, I think it's one of the exhibits. Well, the steering committee application. >> Six, sorry. >> And I've already started jotting names down, people that I know that property in that area or something. I also jotted the name down, and I'm not going to mention the name, of a UNT staff person, who's also an architect, who also does some of the master planning for UNT. And I thought, well, would it be appropriate for that person to be on the committee? Or is UNT already going to have a sort of ex officio member sitting advising anyway? So, I mean, as the staff looks at the suggestions from council, if you see that, well, we said we were going to pick seven, but actually, it'd be better to have nine given this mix that we've had. Or maybe we even need 11, because there are really some other good folks. Are you all stuck with that seven number? >> No, nothing is stuck. We obviously want to keep it to a small number, because it is a small area plan. And we want to make sure that we are proceeding in accordance with our draft plan, with our work plan. It would definitely be germane to the steering committee to nominate somebody from UNT. They may be also able to provide more people to us that can work on the technical group. We already have some people that we regularly communicate with at UNT. >> Okay. >> Let's see. Go ahead and then give. Is that okay? I think he was. >> Okay, so just playing devil's advocate here. Some of this seems kind of redundant to me. If we were to just give staff the ability to make a lot of these decisions, part of this feels like it's just another P and Z kind of to me involving the neighborhood. And I think that I'm okay with it and trying to understand how there's different areas and make them able to develop, understand the parking issues and that sort of thing. But help me understand why we don't just give staff the ability to make some of these decisions and possibly just go to P and Z or why are we kind of picking a whole. It seems like baby planning and zoning kind of to me, that 's probably not the right word. And then the next level. >> Sure, no. And something I intended to do with the backup was provide you examples of other small area plans. In other cities comparable to Denton size and its form, small area plans are very common. And for me, from just my professional planning experience, neighborhood participation and neighborhood support for a plan helps you down the line make those changes that are necessary for the development community. And so that's really the goal of the small area plan is to make sure that we have that buy in of community vision. Your steering committee, while they are experts in their fields, property owners, we want them to take the information that we give them back to their community as well. And also touch base with them, not just with us. >> So this almost seems like if this works out the way that you're saying that we're almost courting the right kind of development. The neighborhoods worked with, is that ultimately what you 're saying? >> Yes sir. >> Cool, thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Back up to the timeline you thought for the ending of the smaller area plan to get it approved. What month are we talking about? >> Hopefully to initiate, the draft plan would be available in August and we would start getting revisions then. The initial public hearing process we would bring to work session to PNZ first in October or November and hopefully end up with adoption in December. >> So about a year from now roughly. >> Yes sir. >> And I think I heard you say, this has been helpful because I guess I understood small area. Fry Street has an overlay but not a smaller plan. Correct, so that it has a regulatory document guiding things like height of buildings and what not. You had mentioned, and it was just kind of an aside, that as soon as we get done with the small area plan, because that's going to include recommendations because it 's more of a comprehensive document, planning document, that we'd immediately kind of go into discussions of implementing some of those things. One of those would be creation of a new overlay district to better map with the small area plan. Is that correct? >> Yes sir. >> So the idea would be come January then we get on board with that sort of process. Here's why I'm concerned with the makeup of the district. An overlay, a small area plan is one thing. An overlay is regulation of all those business owners or property owners. >> When you do an historic district, which I think technically is an overlay, isn't it? >> Through the DDC, yes. >> So we would require that that has certain number of buy in from the property owners in there before something gets adopted. So if the whole trajectory of a small area plan is to ultimately kind of produce a new overlay document, in which case the very people who I would think we would require as a body to be agreeing to regulate, be regulated, would be precisely those property owners. Just like we would in, maybe I'm wrong with that. I know that's how we deal with historic preservation. We don't have an instance in which outsiders come in and say, we want to preserve that. That's not our property, but we're going to make those property owners do what we have to say. This is no different when you're talking about an overlay. Now, granted, there are some community goals and interests at play that might rise above particular property owners' interests in that. But in terms of how we tend to deal with that. So given the trajectory that the small area plan is leading to recommendations for an overlay, unless the property is significantly made up of property owners in there, I worry that we're going to get through a process of recommendations only to have property owners reject it after a year of working on it. And we're not going to feel comfortable applying additional regulations to an area that's not wanted by the property owners. I would think so. So I just want to think about that as we're thinking through this process, especially given how long we're talking it's going to take and the resources of our staff. So. And one way to maybe deal with that is whatever the final makeup of the committee is, we may want to simply stipulate that a certain percentage or a certain number of the members of the committee are property owners. >> And I guess I want to make sure that the paradigm that you just described, that's sort of similar to the historic district, is that the paradigm that we would be using as far as once we get past this stage and we go to quote unquote the overlay stage, would it be a requirement that the property owners, a certain number of them accept that? Is that what I'm understanding is the case here? Is that? >> And it's going to be a major undertaking for planning because that's what we want to. We want the property owners involved at the onset for this overlay district. And the overlay district isn't necessarily an outcome of the small area plan. It's certainly something that we need to see happen. Or rewrite even just of the overlay district to make it more readable for developers coming in. That's something we've heard as well. Nothing is set in stone from the outcome until we go through this process. Which is why we want it to be so front heavy with public participation. And so we recognize that and we definitely need that to happen. >> I'm going to interject, Sophie, if you don't mind. Councilperson Mayer, members of the council, I wanted to add a couple of things. One is to talk about the trajectory, Councilman Rodin, that you brought up. The overlay district, as you proceed with any enhancements or modifications to an overlay district, it is a public hearing process because you're amending what 's on the books already. So that does, number one, involve property owners and then potential future developers. That being said, when you look at the draft project plan that was provided in your backup material, it shows that that program plan, that project plan for a potential overlay district would actually pick up midstream almost when the draft was done for the small area plan. So you could ensure that whatever input you receive from your community, whatever input you receive from a technical committee, and whatever input you receive from your community stakeholders or your stakeholders in general, that that is also inserted in that document as long as it's logical. Furthermore, when we look at a committee and appointing a committee for just the small area plan, as we're talking right now. When we look at the nominations that you bring forward and through that, through our selection process, similar to what we've done in the past, for instance, for the comprehensive plan. What we would do is we can bring that back to you and you can assess and see if you're comfortable with the selection we've made. Perhaps you would want to add to that or perhaps you would want to revisit that you want additional discipline added to that committee. So we still have the time and the opportunity to do that. One of the things that was also raised was what happens to individuals who want to proceed and develop in this area? As long as you're in compliance with the current code or the development requirements, you can submit straight for building permit. If you ask for any amendments or alterations or variances, however you want to use that semantics in this term, then it involves the public hearing process. So what we want to see, one of the things that we've realized through queries, not through application submitt als, but through queries of development within this area that's outlined on your screen right now is, are we further compromising the existing overlay district? Or is it just a trend that we're seeing? And what should we do in order to ensure that development is possible, that flexibility is in play with these plans that we look at? So we're looking at it as a very comprehensive level. And I just wanted to bring that to the forefront because some of those questions were asked. So no development will be halted as long as they comply with these requirements. But if there are any amendments or proposed amendments, then we as staff have to analyze those to determine the vi ability of those from a land use perspective. >> Let me just ask a question that really gets down, sort of talking sort of high level. Let me get a specific example to try to get a little bit more clarification on what you talked about as far as do property owners literally have to, the standard by which this gets created, because what I heard you just say was there's an existing overlay district . >> Correct. >> And that if there's another overlay district that is brought forth amendments to it since it's on the books, it goes through sort of that zoning process of public hearing and all that, which what I didn't hear you say was that property owners within that overlay district, a certain number of them have to agree to it before it can be implemented. So this is just like a regular zoning area, is that- >> Correct. >> Because am I confused or- >> No, to put it even more concretely, I mean imagine if someone came and said we're going to do an overlay district over your house. >> Right. >> You have the ability to come and present your case to council and to PNZ and fight for it when all these other people think it's a good idea. We would say that's absurd, that I wouldn't have the primary decision making authority over the zoning of my piece of property. That's what an overlay district is, and at least how we pursue it in historic districts. Now maybe we have other examples of overlay districts in which we do it from the top down, outside in, but I think we're getting into very precarious waters to approach it that way. >> Yeah, I guess most overlays that I've been involved in have been more property specific, zoning issue specific of somebody brings something and we produce an overlay district because there's some certain restrictions that we want that the public has asked for the property. Whereas this is more of a- >> It's a larger boundary, agreed. If we look at an overlay district in the true context of the nature of an overlay district or a corridor, why do we do that? You have specific development criteria. You want to protect existing well established neighborhoods , for example, that was mentioned earlier on in Sophie's discussion as well. So we're looking at an area here. What you're talking about in overlay districts, we have used that, the city has used that tool to look at a, for instance, the residentially zoned property, but because it allows other uses other than residential. An overlay district or an overlay is applied to that specific subject property. In this instance, this is a larger area and it's a study of a larger area to determine the viability and to encourage development to come in. Yet we're not forcing an overlay piece or an overlay district on a specific property. And that is the small area plan process, the noise analysis that we will conduct, will enable us to determine what is going on and what are the concerns, because these boundaries are flexible. They will change. This was a graphical representation to provide to you to give you a bit of a semblance of what we're talking about. But it won't be carte blanche. This is the overlay and get an approved stamp on it. The intent is to solicit discussion and to understand the true issues related to development here. And what do we do to continue to attract development as long as it is compatible with and encourages and enhances the existing line juice pattern as well? >> And I totally appreciate that and think it's needed. I mean, when the CVS went in there, I thought the way we configured the parking requirements and the drive that comes in from, I mean, we totally made that small laundromat undevelopable the way that was done. And it's because of current codes and current requirements and things like that. There's a lot that needs updated. Totally agree. My fear is we spend a year doing this and it's not primarily working with primarily property owners. Maybe they're asked some questions along the way, but we get to the point of implementing these because we want to. We want to implement the recommendations and then we find ourselves in some contentious discussion and we're not able to do that. So that's why I almost wonder if there isn't wisdom to really say how do we court the property owners on the front end and say, you guys know better than us what calls you're getting in terms of people wanting to buy, what they're trying to do, what they're. Let's get you guys at the table, primarily so that you understand we need, let's have a vision section. And then start kind of broadening it out from there to surrounding neighborhoods who need to be included, to UNT who needs to be included. I just worry about spending so much time only to have a big fight on our hands at the end. >> Right. >> And of course we don't want to be in an abortive cycle of conducting lots of neighborhood meetings, coming up with draft programs. That's why what we did was in the project management plan that you see, just as a draft right now, is to initiate potential amendments, let's not call it an overlay district for now. I think if we were mudding the water a little bit that way, let's just call it potential or foreseeable amendments to the Denton Development Code as it relates to specific development criteria. If we see that there is a need to change that, if you notice, we've put it in a parallel track with the project plan, which then would warrant us to solicit that feedback from the stakeholders that you've mentioned. We cannot ignore that and we will not ignore that. >> Yes, Councilmember Wojny. >> Other cities have implemented small area plans as a tool for the planning department. And it enhances their ability to help make decisions based upon the people who live and work and own property in that area. I think this is just the first of several small area plans that we will see come forward in the city. As the planning department grapples with rapid growth, old neighborhoods, new neighborhoods, new business areas, and how to keep it all compatible. We already have fights going on right now with development coming in. So to say that we don't have fights now and so a fight at the end will diminish this, I just see it as a really important tool that planning is brought forward because it does work in other cities. >> Any other questions? I guess, didn't know where you all were on the presentation . >> I interjected and I apologize for that. I just wanted to make sure we were closing the loop on some of the questions that we had. >> Yeah, I guess as we move forward, really want to try to, because I understand Councilmember Wojny what you're saying . I guess the distinction I have with that is people who live and work in this area and own property in this area. What I'm hearing Councilmember Rodin say is we develop something and then we put an overlay district together as a draft. And then we bring it forward and then they don't want it. Well, they're the ones living there, so how do we balance those interests? So it's a good discussion and it's a great issue that you raise. And so I just want to make sure that we're doing this for the people that are there. And we get their input as far as what they think is best for that before we actually put some regulatory document that's in place. >> Absolutely. >> Mayor, if I can make- >> Yes. >> So I don't hear anybody disagreeing, actually, that this isn't a good idea. I think what we're talking about is how do we get there? And I do have some concern about seven appointed people to a committee. Who may or may not live there, who may or may not work there or own anything there, or understand potentially the bigger picture of how we work with UNT. So one of the things I've been thinking about is the predominant complaints you hear from the neighborhoods. As it relates to that project shouldn't happen because we already have a parking problem as the result of students parking in front of their homes. Because A, the student either doesn't want to buy a parking permit at UNT, because they do have parking. Or B, all the parking is full, the ones that they can afford and so they're going to go park. Well, I was a broke college student too. If I could do something for free instead of paying, I did that. So I would say part of the, I think we need to go 30,000 feet and then work down, right? Part of it could be, well, would it be proper for us as a city to say no on street parking in these neighborhoods? Between the hours of this and this. And UNT, you need to provide parking for your students. So making sure UNT is involved in the process I think is important. If we don't get the buy in of the people who live, work, and own the properties within those boundaries from the beginning. I mean, it's no different than the conversation about a historic overlay over downtown, right? And then the goal, the idea was by some people, just do it and tell the property owners what you did. Well, it'll never happen. And so to me, the selection of the committee that you guys are going to work with is absolutely critical. And I would not want to limit it to seven. I mean, maybe there's seven that we select, but then there 's others, other stakeholders. Obviously, you can't make decisions with a committee of 20. But ultimately, all that's going to come forward is a recommendation anyway, right? That ultimately, we're going to have, the council's going to have to adopt, right? So that's just my two cents. The property owners and the people who live there every day . But understanding that, getting down to what's the root cause of your concern about parking or transportation, and then how do we address that? And the answer sometimes has to be, well, UNT, you're going to have to handle that. In other words, maybe there's things we do to protect the homeowners and the neighborhoods that aren't necessarily what UNT wants. But if that's what we have to do to protect the neighborhoods, then so be it. So just a couple thoughts. >> All right, any other questions? Thank you. Was this your first time presenting to us? Good job. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. Fantastic. >> Now we have to cut your shirts, Lee. >> You're way better than Langley. >> In so many ways. I tell you what, let's take about a five or ten minute break because when we come back, we're going to talk about overlay districts. Yay. All right. So let's take. Okay, I want to welcome you back to this work session on Tuesday, January 26, 2016, the Denton City Council. We are going on to our, moving forward through our work session reports. Moving on to agenda item 3D. Receive report and hold discussion regarding amendment to the razor ranch overlay district amendment. And this is a public hearing item. >> Thank you, Mayor. Amy Bissett is our Director of Development Services and she 's going to present this work session item as you say for later public hearing. Thank you, Amy. >> Thank you, Mayor and City Council members. What we are talking about today is a zoning amendment. It is an amendment to the razor ranch overlay district. It is an amendment that the city is initiating for a specific purpose and with limited changes to the overlay to accomplish that specific purpose. Specifically, what we are looking to do is to eliminate ambiguities between the concept plan sub areas, which is just the boundaries of what's allowed in various areas within razor ranch. And in the conflict with past site plans. So I'll give you some examples as we start to walk through here. And our other purpose is to ensure the efficient realization of the vision of the razor ranch town center which was presented to the city council last spring. At which point in time we were directed to do what was necessary to this overlay in order to make sure that we could help facilitate that vision coming to a reality. In an efficient way and make sure that we weren't impeding the progress of the development that you all hoped to see as a result of that vision presentation. Before I walk through the details of the proposed changes, I just want to give a little bit of perspective or background on the project. The overlay amendment as it exists today was adopted in 2010 when RED development took over this portion of the project. At that time there were a lot of unanswered questions about how the development would respond to the changing retail market . At the time we were seeing a lot of changes to the retail market and we were suffering through an economic downturn. And so the overlay was written in a way to protect that area by certain criteria and design standards. But it was also authored in such a way to allow for as much flexibility as possible while maintaining those protections . That flexibility has gotten us into a couple of areas of ambiguity as the project has developed out over the last couple of years. And this is really just intended to tie up those loose ends . So a summary of the amendments, we are proposing to amend the concept plan which is an exhibit to the overlay ordinance. It's your visual representation of the development. We want it to reflect the current development as it is on the ground today or is under construction today. And future development as we see it coming down the line. Convention Center is a perfect example of that. And make sure that it's consistent with the vision that is proposed by the developer. This is the concept plan and there are essentially what we 're talking about here is slightly amending the boundaries of some of the sub areas. Each of the colors that you see here are a sub area that's defined in the overlay ordinance by what is allowed to go there. And what the vision of that specific area is. For example, the pink, the big pink chunk in the middle labeled RR1 on both the original and proposed document is what we are commonly referred to as the town center component. Which is the true vision of the heart of what this development will be. And so really what we're doing here is making a couple of just amendments to these boundaries and I'll point out what they are. The first one is to adjust the RR2 boundary which is the yellow that wraps around the town center. To pull in the Winko grocery store. Which when it was approved as a site plan, sat over RR1 and RR2. So it's really just correcting to make the actual document consistent with development on the ground. And we just took a look at it and determined that it was a better fit in RR2 than RR1. And we want to clean up the boundary lines. We also are looking at extending RR1 further south to encompass the entire hotel and convention center project site. Right now it sits on the boundary of RR1 and the hotel RROM F sub-district. Which again we just want to clean it up and we felt like it was a better fit to move it into the town center component. And the last boundary adjustment that we're proposing is a move of this hotel RR and multifamily component right here in green, moving that boundary line in order to just line up with the lot line. Because we know that the multifamily development that's contemplated there and has always been contemplated there. Will sit within the boundaries of the parcel and it makes logical sense to clean it up now. And this is just the zoning legend that's a part of exhibit B as well. All this does is make the same boundary adjustments but it continues to reflect the underlying base zoning for reference because that it is incorporated as a part of the document. >> Yes, question. It looks like the area that you just spoke of, the multifamily to the east of the- >> Here. >> Yes, that area. That it's now taking up more square footage than it did before. >> It does and really the intent is just to have it be consistent with the lot line. We are not changing any of the densities or the allowed number of units. So the development that's allowed there has not changed other than just the boundary has moved so it's a larger square footage. >> Then you've read my mind on that question. The other question was the area across the street from that in the original, there's a P and it's a light yellow or light green. It looks like there's a P but it's a different color, kind of a bluish color. It's the same thing and that's the park reserve. >> It is. That's the deed restricted area for civic use only. >> That's correct. >> Okay, wanted to make sure I had trouble seeing it on my, here on this one and on my attachment. >> The bubble plan, I'm sorry. >> I'm just curious, how big is that park space? >> No, no, wait, I'm sorry, I didn't see you. Go ahead. >> How big is the park space? >> Seven. >> Seven acres, is that right? Anybody can, anybody tell me how big is the park, Sophie? >> Ten to twelve. >> Ten to twelve acres, okay. There you go, thank you Scott. The bubble plan is a part of exhibit B as well. This is the component that we are removing entirely. This is the most problematic component that allowed for the most flexibility in the original overlay. It's problematic because it speaks to the fact that those sub area boundaries are fluid. And we're now firming those up. So this document was put in place at the time because we couldn't give real concrete boundaries six years ago when the development was a few years out. And so we're just removing it entirely. We are also changing the density zone exhibit to reflect the boundaries of lot nine R, which is that boundary move for the multi-family. But none of the other requirements are changing, not the number of units, density, trigger requirements, or anything like that. So here is the original one versus the proposed one. It cuts out the piece that we have now incorporated on the north side for our R2 for the WNCO and then it slides to the west to accommodate the actual boundary line of that particular lot . The site plan exhibit, this is the last exhibit that's being amended and this is for the north side only for the marketplace. And it is just replacing the original document with what's actually on the ground out there today. The last real amendment that has taken place in the document itself is that we have clarified the criteria for approving site plans so that there's less ambiguity in when a site plan would be approved. Essentially, the document now says if it is consistent with the DDC and is consistent with the overlay the way it's written, then it is permitted. And if the use is permitted. So it just takes out some of the ambiguity from that approval process. In summary, we are recommending this amendment to eliminate inconsistencies and ambiguities and to replace outdated exhibits and to make sure that we can accomplish the vision of the developer. We did send public notifications out, 118 required notifications and 237 courtesy notices and received no response. Planning and Zoning Commission recommends approval 50 and we recommend approval as well since we initiated it. >> Council member Wasley. >> Can we jump back one slide to show, and I think this proves the point of the discussion we had just a few weeks ago on our boundary issues on notifications. Because 90% of the boundary here, nobody lives there. We know it's highway, it's open space and so. Remember I brought up that I really want to take a look at how we notify people about things that are coming down the pipeline. And I think this is a perfect example. Now I know by state law, we're required to do a certain portion of this. But I think it also underscores that we've been relying on this for years. And this is a perfect example that, of course we didn't get any responses. So much of that, nobody lives there. So when we talk about modifying how we notify an area about a change, this is, just remember this map, this is primarily the tool that we've been relying on for notification. And I think it kind of falls short often in terms of really alerting an area. And so just remember this map when the discussion comes back up. >> Okay, thank you. Any other questions for staff? Yes, Councilmember Rhoads. >> I do, and I think I know the answer to this question, but I just want to clarify it for my sake. Back when we were talking about the convention center and the package that we approved for that, part of what we were adjusting had to do with what sort of available square footage for retail was taken offline as a result of the convention center project. Does the changing of these boundaries change that calculation at all? That had we known this back then, it would have changed our economic incentive package. >> These boundaries are a reflection of the site plans that were laid out right before the convention center was approved. So it is a reflection of that actual number. >> It's just putting it properly on the map of what we knew at that point. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Scott, good to see you. Good to see you. >> Yes, Scott Wagner, the developer, is in the room. I apologize, Scott. >> No, no, no. >> I'm introducing you to start with. >> Just want to acknowledge and say hello to him. Okay, we'll move on to our next agenda item, which is 3E. Receive report, hold a discussion, and provide staff direction on a proposal to renovate the old central fire station and examine surface parking options for downtown. >> Thank you, Mayor. John Cabrales is our assistant city manager who will be presenting this item. It's an item that you discussed a few weeks ago and bringing it back to you for further consideration. Thank you, John. >> Thank you, Mr. Campbell. Mayor, council members, I'm here today just to do a follow up discussion to the January 12th. A discussion that we had recently regarding the path forward for the old central fire station. Just going to briefly review, again, the current conditions out there at that site and the current use. Discuss with you again the low, medium, high options for converting that into a possible parking lot. Also discuss with you our findings regarding the hybrid proposal that was submitted. I do have some information to share with you regarding our daily bread discussion that we had. And then also to seek your direction as to what you want us to do. >> Just, and if council, any of my colleagues disagree with this, I have no problem with it. Because I guess we went over a lot of this just a week or two ago, is that right? >> Yes sir, that's correct. >> So yeah, I would suspect that this will, as far as the historical context, we'll move on through that pretty quickly. Okay, yeah, thank you. >> So as you know, that facility's vacant. The walls have been removed for several years now. All utilities are capped off, so there are no utilities at that structure. We are sitting on a demolition permit that has been issued to us. And as you can see, it's kind of being used as a defect or overflow parking right now. The site, the area in blue is city owned land. But you can see there where the structure is, but it also includes on the right hand side, on the Cedar side, the Cedar parking lot, as well as what we call the rock lot , which are two parking lots in that same area. And what's highlighted in green is the property we were asked to look at as a possible hybrid. Again, as we talked about some planning estimates for being able to demo the structure, turn that into a parking lot. We brought you three different options. The low option is about $110,000 to basically just remove the building and backfill and cover it up with some millings as well as minimal signage and lighting. We can increase that a little bit to the medium option, around $250,000. We will also do some curb and gutters as well as some barriers. Gives a little more room to maybe design the site a little bit better with a two inch overlay, asphalt overlay over that area encompassed in the blue line . Obviously landscaping, lighting, signage, and markings as well. And then finally the high option which will cost around $5 25,000. That's the more comprehensive approach where we can look at incorporating that everything there within the white line. So that also includes the rock lot and the Cedar parking lot. And this one will actually also address the solid waste receptacles, dumpsters basically that we have on Cedar Street that I know council has talked with the solid waste staff for quite a few times. We have some opportunity here to maybe improve the revet ment there and maybe expand it as well for not just trash but also for recycling. The hybrid option that you asked us to look at was this property just to the south of the fire station. It currently does have a business in there. It consists of approximately 7,500 square feet. It does have a 3,400 square foot structure on there. It is being used for HVAC operation business. We reached out to the owner and the owner is not interested in selling the property at this time. The prior uses for that area include a transmission repair business as well as upholstery. There is some possibility that we could have some environmental or contamination issues. We don't know for sure. Obviously, we'd have to do a study. There is also some grade elevation issues between where you see the blue box there and then just to the north where the actual fire station building is, is about at least a 36 inch grade differential . So it could make some complications in trying to incorporate that land to any parking design. At this time, however, it might flow better if we went to the east and incorporated to the rock lot. And I'm talking about right here. The grade elevation difference is not as great there as it is going in this direction. So that's information we found. We estimate if we do that, it may cost an additional 500, 000 to acquire demo and incorporate that property into the property that we already own. There's also, as I handed out to you, last time we were here, I believe it was our daily bread had reached out to city council to ask about a possible consideration of using the facility for a soup kitchen. You directed us to go back and try and get a firm proposal from them. They did have a meeting back on January the 23rd. Unfortunately, at this time, they don't have the financial or staff capacity to move forward and give us a firm proposal. Instead, what was given to us was just basically there, what they were considering to be an opportunity for partnerships between the church, our daily bread and city of Denton, which I've passed out to all of you. So we don't have a formal proposal from the church at this time. As a result of that, staff is still recommending that we have the option three, high option, to move forward. And if that's the case, I can give you somewhat of a timeline on how that can proceed. >> Couple questions. One Mayor Pro Tem and then Councilmember Warren. >> I've spoken with a couple of the people with the president of our daily bread group and he'd said it just won't work for them at this time. And I had recommended the hybrid and after given the information that you provided us, I'm not as interested in that, the cost and all of the things involved. So I'm interested in going with the staff recommendation for the option three, the high option. And if not, I could live with the medium option. If we do the high option, I would really urge that there is some consideration for the idea of retaining those rock walls. I think that those, if they weren't actually constructed by the WPA or the CCC, they are of the same vintage. And I would love to keep those and maybe even whatever type of landscaping amenities are put there around that to build on that theme. To kind of celebrate that the work that was done back in the 30s. >> I'm not sure either, but we can always ask Mr. Howard Martin. I'm sure he was employed at the time. >> [LAUGH] >> Councilmember Wasney. >> And option three, price tag is? >> Option three. >> The one that staff is recommending. >> Yes ma'am. Let me back up here. 525, you see it up there right underneath the heading. 525, which is just shy of half a million dollars. >> A little more. >> Yeah, yeah. So I think it's too much money to spend on a parking lot. And it's premature because we're not quite sure what we're going to do with City Hall West. I do want to see a parking lot. I think the 110,000 option is just shooting ourselves in the foot because I just don't think it's going to, the millings are not going to provide enough of a road base for good parking. And I think we need just a little bit more than that 110 option, which leaves us with a medium option, the 250,000. Which is a heck of a lot of money to spend on a parking lot . But we certainly need it in downtown Denton. But to jump off the cliff and spend 525,000 on a parking lot, I mean it's great. I love the plan. I think it's a beautiful plan. I just think it's way too much money to spend. >> Okay. Did you have a question? >> Yes. >> Yes, Council Member Hawkins. >> Are there estimates how much longer the option three parking lot would last? And longer than two or one or? >> No sir, I don't have that information for you. I think the option three we were looking at actually making it concrete as opposed to option two is just an asphalt, two inch asphalt overlay. So obviously it would last longer than the two inch overlay , but how much longer? I don't have that information for you. >> Okay. >> Chris. >> Council Member Briggs. >> I'm okay with the medium option if that's what everybody wants to do. So what would it take if we did find out in the future that this was something that we wanted to have forever and wanted to upgrade it? Would it just be on top of the 250 to add up to that? Or would it be a complete redo, like my question? >> Typically, once we have the design for this 250, if we want to then turn around and incorporate the cedar parking lot and the rock lot that are right off a cedar, we're probably going to have to put that out for design again. Depending on what we end up using for materials for that, we may have to scrape off that two inch asphalt overlay, dig everything up and then lay down the concrete parking lot. So I would venture to say that it's going to be more expensive than just trying to make the difference between the 250 and the 525. >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you, Mayor. Can you go back to the high option, John? >> Yes, sir. >> How many parking spaces, I don't remember, how many total parking spaces this yields? Does anybody remember? It was 80 something, I thought. >> Yes, sir. I believe it. We were going to get somewhere between, of course, it depends on the design, as you know, most things, as well as how much setback we have to do from the perimeter and then the revetment. So I believe we were looking at somewhere between 85 and possibly 95 that we might be able to, if we again used all the area within the white line there, that we would be able to design parking spaces. >> Yeah, so the cost to construct a parking space, that's a big number, is just parking is expensive. I'm with, I certainly hate to spend half a million bucks if we could spend 250. Here's the problem, we live in Texas, it gets to be 100 and something degrees in the summer and then it rains a lot in the winter. Asphalt doesn't last. And so my fear is, we go spend 250 on a band aid, and then we come back two years later and we scrape off the 250 that we just spent. Because I mean, you really do, you just got to remove it and start over if you're going to put concrete, which I would advocate for concrete because it's going to last 50 years or more. And Howard, you guys could probably give us some differences, but as much as I hate spending money, if you say, well, could I spend a little less and get parking? We get complaints about the temporary parking lot over here on Oak. I mean, it's gravel and so to me, if we're going to do it here, and I think there's some great ideas for long term of City Hall West. I just hate to spend 250 and then come back within four or five years and scrape off the 250 and spend 500 again. That just seems to me like, I think what I heard loud and clear from everybody was, as far as this body, we don't want to sell this. This needs to stay in city ownership and this needs to be parking forever. So to me, we go spend 525, do it right, build it out of concrete, have the landscaping done, and then we're done. I mean, it's only 250 grand. But it's really 250 that you waste if you don't do that. But I totally get where you're coming from, Kathleen. I want to spend as little as possible, but I want to do it right. >> Well, if I wanted to do as little as possible, it would have been the 110. So I'm willing to go the 250. Now, let's- >> I'm not debating with you. I'm just agreeing with you, actually. >> Okay, now, I will ask staff, we have an asphalt parking lot in front of City Hall, correct? Yes, and how long has the asphalt parking lot been out in front of City Hall? And how often has it needed to be dug up and replaced because it's used every single day? We have some staffers who have been here for a number of years. >> I would venture to say it's been there for a long time. And for the eight years that I've been coming to City Hall, I don't ever remember it being scraped up and having to be redone. So that means it's at least a decade old. I just know we're going to incur a lot of expense to do what we want to do and what the city wants to see happen with City Hall West. And I would rather take that 250,000 and instead of put it in concrete on the ground, spend it inside City Hall West in preserving and protecting that building because that's going to be an expensive fix as well. >> I have a question because maybe I'm confused. John, if you go back to the $250,000 option. Okay, so that's not building an asphalt parking lot. That's putting select fill and putting a two inch overlay on top, right? So that's very different from constructing an asphalt parking lot. I just want to make sure there's a very big difference in that. So this is like a temporary solution. >> Yes sir, that's correct. >> I mean this is no different than I'm going to put gravel , except I'm going to put a temporary two inch overlay on top of select fill. That's not how you construct a parking lot. So I want to make sure that I wasn't reading that wrong. So this isn't really, because it really wouldn't cost you much. It's not a whole lot of difference to go build that parking lot. If you're going to build it the right way to last a long time, doesn't cost you much difference to build it out of asphalt or concrete. For that kind of square footage. That's what I was thinking. That's why I was saying Kathleen, this to me is a $250,000 temporary solution that you know you're going to have to come back to because you just got two inches on top of select fill. >> Right, and also I want to make sure you're clear to understand, this is also a smaller footprint than the high option because we're only looking at the area within the blue line that'll have that overlay. The cedar lot immediately to the east does already have concrete, so we won't have to mess with that one. But the rock lot is currently asphalt and there's a lot of issues. It's got a lot of potholes and whatnot that are going to need to be repaired at some point. But those won't necessarily be touched as part of this design, the medium option. >> Where's the rock lot? >> That is, and again, we call it the rock lot because it's got the work project lot fence right here. And you'll notice there's no connection between this parking lot, this parking lot, and this parking lot. There's no connection there. And so this one is asphalt, this is concrete, and this would be asphalt. >> Yes, go ahead. >> As I think about it, and I said I could go with either one and I can, but I'm listening to the comments and I'm remembering things that my parents and other folks have said about being penny wise but pound foolish. You either pay up now and do it right or you try to go an inexpensive route and then you have to pay more in the long run. So I think I'm leaning more towards the high options to get it done. Because whatever we're going to do with City Hall West, there's probably going to be a need for parking and probably as much as possible. And if we can get more parking out of the high options, squeeze more spaces out, I think that we're serving that entire quadrant of the downtown very well to do so. >> Could you go to the slide on the high option just so I can? >> Sure. >> So, I'm sorry, go back to the previous slide, I apologize, the medium option. Okay, so I see the blue outline and I see where it says 100 foot linear curb and gutter and then miscellaneous parking barrier. And then I see a surface there, the apron of the current, is that concrete or asphalt? >> That's concrete. >> Okay, so what are we going to do with that under the medium option? Do we rip that up or do we put two inches over or do we leave it? >> We'll probably have to do a two inch overlay. >> On the whole thing, so you're going to tear the building down, do a two inch overlay on the whole thing? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. >> And maintain that consistency just within what's inside the blue line. >> Right. Okay, now go to the high option. Let me make sure, so in this one, when you say comprehensive design and reconstruction, that means you might provide connectivity throughout these lots or will they stay separate independent lots? >> No, we're looking at providing connectivity. We're also looking at providing possible tree islands so we can have some shaded areas which will come in handy in the summer. Having trash receptacles designed, if you're going to design a parking lot from raw land is what we're kind of looking at. >> Okay. >> Plus we have that added component of trying to design also that revetment so we can take some dumpsters off of Cedar Street and put them here on this property. >> Yes, part of my question is there's one cost that's similar to both of them and that's the demolition of the building. >> Correct. >> Do we know what the budget is for that? >> Do we have that number? We got a quote from a private entity and let me see if we have that number. >> Okay. [INAUDIBLE] >> So we're thinking it's going to be somewhere in the area about $31,000 to do the demo. >> Okay. Well, I certainly understand the concern with the price difference between the medium and the high option. I think eventually we're going to have to do, and even if we don't talk about ripping the whole two inches of asphalt off, in other words, if there's some way, what's critical in this difference is you've got a redesign that connects everything together. You've got shade. Looks like you have a solid waste where we've been talking about how do we deal with solid waste downtown. In other words, are there ways we can provide some common dumpster location? And I'm going to say this and I sound like a broken record and if Marty Rivers is watching he wants to probably come ring my neck, to be quite honest. But we're providing parking in the downtown area. And so one of my biggest questions is where are these funds coming from? Are they coming from the general fund? Are they coming from the TIF? Because we've had this discussion, we had this discussion in the last meeting. How do we quit nickel and diming the TIF on certain things because we want to do big projects? And one of the projects that's been anticipated or at least the plan has been is a parking garage. In other words, how do we solve the parking problem downtown? When I think about what it costs per parking space, how many are we getting out of this? 80? >> Again, depending on how we- >> Let's say 90. >> Let's say 90. >> You say 90. So somebody help me if my math's not right. But that's about $5,500 to $6,000 of space for total reconstruction. Now, my understanding for a parking garage is it's, gosh, I think it's at least double that. >> It is at least double that, yeah. >> So I'm okay with the high option, honestly, because I think in the end, I mean, I look at it with my own properties, I can sort of limp things along for a while. But if I do it right, and I think whatever we do with City Hall West, first of all, we're going to need a lot more money than $250,000, unfortunately. But this will also, I think, depending how it's designed and reconstructed with these islands and these trees and things. But I think that we need to look at a lot of this funding, or some of it, even if it's on a kind of an amortized basis because you don't want to drain that whole fund. Coming from the TIF, because it does specifically address one of the major issues downtown, one of the major reasons that that was put in place was for parking. And if you could go solve your parking problems for $5,000 or $6,000 of parking space as compared to 15 or 20, to me that's a better use of those funds. So I don't like spending that kind of money. I think in the long run it's money that will be well spent. I certainly don't want to spend that kind of money all coming out of the general fund at all. So that's where I am on that. To me it's more of a funding question, because I think it's a need, I think it's a good opportunity. But it's more of a funding question because of the financial, boy, here he comes. I'm going to have the conversation for you. No, go ahead. Go ahead. I know what you're going to say. Go ahead. >> Well, I was just going to mention that in our retreat later this week. We're going to be talking about the facilities plan and lots of issues associated with that. And one of the principle uses that we've been looking at for the TIF is for that to be a funding mechanism for whatever we decide to do for our downtown facilities with a new city hall, whether that 's surface parking or a garage or whatnot that might be. That's one of the things that we've been looking at. So I think we can have more discussion on that. What we have right now is for this funding source would be some COs that we had issued for facility improvements previously. So we've got a funding source for that. >> Not general fund. >> Well, yeah, it's being paid out of the general fund. Yeah, the debt service would be paid out of the general fund. >> It's debt service out of the tax rate. >> And if there's a, so I don't mind if we do a temporary, we do these reimbursements or these, you borrow money here and you pay. So I'm okay with having a discussion through a treater, but I would rather spend the money here. because if we're going to build a facility, if we're going to build a municipal facility in downtown, I don't know if that's really what the contemplation of the TIF was, was to provide for facilities such as that. But this was specifically named in the document for that. So in a parking garage is $20,000 of space. >> Well, what we've been looking at from a concept design is having a parking garage connected to a new city hall or a surface parking connected to a new city hall, which would also be public parking. So depending on where we want to put that city hall, that would be public parking that could be used by lots of people at all times of the day. So that's kind of the idea. >> Yeah, I'm not saying it all has to come out of there. >> It's parking, not necessarily the building that we've been contemplating. >> Just put it out there. >> Yes, Council Member. >> Well, just since I've got on council, the big issue has been parking downtown and I don't want us to finally get a parking lot and we do a temporary parking lot. I was going to say thank you, but so I'm definitely for the third option. I want us to do it right. I don't want us to go back whenever, years from now, and it 's falling apart and parking is still an issue. And then two, I wanted to thank council for at least delay ing this a couple weeks and thank Mr. Warner for your work and sorry it didn't work out , but I'm going to be recommending the third option and using TIF if we can, as much of TIF. >> Yeah, so I would battle very hard to use TIF funds. If you think about this and the relocation of city hall west staff to the other side of the square, you're talking about over 300 parking spaces downtown within one block of the square. I mean, that solves, I hope that ultimately we need a parking garage after providing 300 new parking spaces downtown because that says that it just continues to explode and that's wonderful. But the parking garage, park garage, park garage is all we 've talked about with the TIF. Well, what we're providing here is the equivalent of a massive parking garage between those two projects. At one tenth of the expense, probably, when it's all said and done. So I don't know how, I couldn't argue against using TIF funds for this work. I mean, whether you paid it back over time or what's ultimately a lease that comes with 230 something whatever parking spaces. I mean, I think we're solving the problem with these two very creatively. >> Councilman Rogan. >> Just to clarify, I'm fine with the third option. Given that both these parking lots are on that side of the square, one supporting a bit more hickory, one supporting a bit more oak. There's a whole lot more of reinvestment to just even existing buildings that can go on. And I think parking has been one of the reasons that's not been popping. So I'll be interested to track the ROI on this, because to see in the next year or two, if we start seeing businesses or folks wanting to kind of redevelop some existing buildings in a way that will bring us some significant projects. So I'm supportive of it. >> Do you have direction? >> So my direction, as I understand it, is we can, staff can move forward with the high option. So we can go ahead and start the- >> That seems to be the consensus we, of course, Councilman Wozniak, I don't think it has that consensus, so we appreciate that. >> And then we'll get back to you on the actual funding piece. I'm sure we'll probably have to have conversations with the TIF Board. But regardless of which, we can probably have this thing demoed and have at least a temporary parking use by early April so that we'll be ready for Arts and Jazz and all the other festivals that will be kicking off this summer. And then we'll go through the design process and then get the final design. >> I do have a question for Mr. Langley. >> Mr. Langley. Boy, he knows it's, you're in trouble now. No. Let's just assume hypothetically that we go the CO funding route at least initially. What kind of debt schedules are these type of projects typically put on? Is it 10, 15, 20 years? What is that? >> 20 years for facilities is what we typically issue. I don't know for this particular one, we were looking at various issues if it had been 10 or 20, but typically it's 20 years. It's long term. >> And what, have we issued COs already for? >> Yes, we'd issued 700,000 COs for facility improvements a year or two ago. This past year for, we were looking at acquiring some facilities next door and some other things that we had. >> Okay. And do you know what the rate was on this particular issue? >> Don't, I can certainly find out. >> If we can just have that at the retreat, because it may be that we can do that initially and then the TIF over time could pay the debt service on it. However you wanted to do it. It just, it provides a little more flexibility. >> Sure, and we can look at that. I think the other side of that question then is, well, if you don't have the funding source for what you're going to want to do with the city hall, where does that money come from? >> Sure. >> And so it's fungible in my mind. It's either one or the other, but we can have that discussion a little bit further. >> All right, fantastic. Any other questions? Okay. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Let's see, we'll move on to agenda item F, which is receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction on the Dent Renewal Plan and activities related to future power supply plans to meet the city's growth and needs. >> Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Phil Williams, General Manager of Dent Municipal Electric. I'll present this item to your consideration. >> Phil, before you start, I just wanted to sort of give everybody a brief overview of the handout that was at your desk. It's entitled the Clean Power Plan Overview of the Clean Power Plan. Basically, when I was in Washington attending the US Conference of Mayors, the standing committee on the environment had an EPA administrator there who gave a brief presentation. And this was the handout that they passed out, and I believe this information, in fact I think I did confirm it. There's a, and I can get you the link if you need it, but there's a link on the EPA website that this comes directly from. So this is from the EPA. So I thought it'd just be interesting reading, so I wanted to make sure that you all had opportunity to have that. And I have passed it out to the media as well. >> Okay, thank you. Mayor and council, we had the meeting this Saturday, Q&A session that council had directed staff to provide. We had 17 staff members and consultants in attendance, 15 city staff supporting us. And of course, attended by most of the council and some of the PUB members attended. Approximately 144 citizens, media and outside parties attended. We started about 930 and of course went until about two. We answered frequently asked questions on safety, rates, admissions, permitting, and alternate energy alternatives. 33 citizens spoke, some more than once. And of course outside parties asked, and this is just a representative list, certainly not all inclusive of the different topics that were asked about and questions we were asked. Just again, just to kind of answer- >> We had a question, yes. >> Sorry. >> Just on that point, I attended that as did, I think, just about everyone here. That was very helpful. Oftentimes in a public hearing, you get people asking questions, but there's not really an opportunity to get them answered. And people will make statements and there's no opportunity to really respond and get some good information out there. So I for one thought that that back and forth was very helpful for me. As someone who's kind of been a part of this discussion for a long period of time and sitting in this position, I learned a lot of new things from hearing that sort of interchange and sort of felt bad that here is a plan that council has directed you to look into and to explore and to put before the citizens. And you guys were up there in the firing squad and of the receiving of a lot of that. In some cases, some inappropriate comments, but in most cases it was very respectful for all. So I just want to thank you publicly and your team. It was expert testimony and it was very helpful. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. So this just adds to the list now of different public involvement and media coverage we've gotten over the plan. From the press conference that we had in October to, of course, post on our website, open houses, meetings with some city council members have had open houses. Utility board meeting, council meetings, and of course this forum and received coverage from Channel 5 News, Denton Rec Chronicle, Texas Tribune, and several different other media sources. Again, just in summary, the renewable denton plan, what we proposed reduces the emissions to serve our load, reduces rates, reduces the use of natural gas and fossil fuels. And something we haven't probably touted as much but deserve just as much recognition is the tremendous reduction in use of water in serving our electric load. These plants will reduce that significantly, but not only the plants, but the use of solar and wind, increasing the use of those over the market generation we obtained sources from now, would greatly reduce the amount of water we use to provide electricity. And then, of course, we've also looked at different sites as far as comments and papers have been written based on the Clean Power Plan, the ERCOT's written. The Broward Group has done a presentation, which is a consulting firm that's been used by ERCOT. Navigate's done a study of Austin's plan and the SIN Analytics did a report for the Southwest Power Pool. All these different ones, and we'll have links to these on our website. And all these studies have indicated going towards the use of renewable energy and being able to back that up with this type of quick start generation. And so all these have pointed to that as the coming future. ERCOT certainly, as far as the grids within the United States, leads the nation in the amount of wind that it's having to incorporate in and having to become accustomed to what resources you need to back up that wind power. Another thing from the ERCOT website is their planning as far as where we're going in 2022 and in 2030, their forecast of what percentage of the load would be used by, supported by natural gas, the percentage of cold decreasing, the percentage of wind increasing in Texas, and of course, solar making a significant increase. Nuclear would, the amount of nuclear power generation would stay the same, but as a percentage of load would be decreasing in the future. So certainly what we're proposing is not a step of what ERC OT sees as the future of what's happening with the increase in wind and solar. So with that, just open to any further questions? >> Councilmember, I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tem, excuse me. Thanks. I too wanted to offer my thanks to you and to the staff for the great job you did of answering questions. I tried to pay really close attention until one o'clock and I lost it. I had to leave. So I missed the last hour and I haven't gone back to check. I think I heard maybe one new question that I had not heard asked or answered and that had to do with the noise impact of the plant. A gentleman who was representing the Green Valley Community Center, it used to be Green Valley School, it has a historical marker. I think a bunch of Vietnam veterans went in there and helped restore that. And they were asking a question about the noise level there . And I was so impressed that an answer was ready for that. And I'm looking to see if that answer has been added to our FAQs in the page and it does not look like it, I would suggest that we get that in there. Along with that map that shows the decibels and maybe a little bit of information as to how those were determined. But what I think I heard them say was there at the location where the Green Valley Community Center is that the ambient noise level is around 40 or 42 dBs and that this, when operating, might take it up to 45. And two to three decibels is considered an unnoticeable difference. So I was impressed with that. When the air conditioner kicks on there at that facility, it'll be much more significant than the plant. So I was wondering if we have any notion about the render ings of what a building would look like that these would go in. I remember that we saw some months ago. Do we have any notion as to what kind of facility the generation units would be in? >> Yes sir, we have renderings of that, that we had to open house, second open house, and we'll certainly put those on the website. We have had some citizens use the renewable dentin at city ofdentin.com as a place to ask questions. And we've had some citizens from that area ask those questions. We'll send renderings to them, have those discussions with them. >> So that might be good to have there too. And I was interested in one of the questions. Well, what's the term about that this would end up being a stranded asset at some point? And I'm thinking about two other generation plants in Dent on. They're located at the corner of Bell and East Hickory. One of them on the southeast corner and one of them in the southwest corner. One of them is the visual arts center that's used by the Greater Denton Arts Council. And the other is a facility that's used by the central fire station and fire administration and a firefighters museum. So I'm just wanting to look at these facilities and make sure that they're going to be able to have the same kind of long term benefit to the city that those two facilities have had. And indeed, they've not turned out to be stranded assets at all. >> Thank you, sir. >> Councilmember Hawkins. >> Phil, I didn't give you a heads up on this, but do you happen to have Saturday's presentation on somewhere back there? If you don't, that's okay and I can- >> There's a safe chart and what chart are you looking for? >> It was one of the first slides that was showing a comprehensive rate schedule almost or a debt schedule and it had two lines. The top one kind of went like that and the bottom one- >> I don't think I have that one. The one I don't have. But I can maybe answer your question. >> My question was, and I'm trying to remember, it seemed like the two, I'm trying to remember which line. It was business as usual or if we went with the renewable plan. And what year, the top line went like this and the bottom line went like this. Then they kind of met up where it almost seemed like the rates were going to be very similar. Possibly like five years from now or something. Am I remembering that correctly? >> So until 2019, the rates would stay together. 2019, the renewable debt plan would break from the business as usual. Because what we're looking at is two and a half percent a year in base rate decreases from that point going forward. >> And what year is that again? >> It started in 2019, they would break apart. And then going forward- >> No, it's just two lines. >> So going forward, those lines come back after we pay off the TMPA debt in 2024. And then going forward, I'm not sure what brings them back together. I guess the significance is we do have savings. >> Right. >> But the more significant thing is it gets us to 70% renewable. I mean, we have such a significant reduction in emissions. To get a reduction also in rates is a bonus. >> No, and I understand that. I love that part of the plan. I'm just asking a couple questions. If we were to wait to that point, part of the hurry with this is the exchange rate right now is very favorable to us . And then to move to 70% and it also helps us deal with the TMPA debt too. >> Correct. >> And so I was just, I don't know, maybe my light bulb moments are happening way after everybody else's . But if we were to wait to that point where both of those curves, the exchange rate could be different. There could be a lot of different variables that have changed. And that's why we're kind of trying to push this forward now. >> That and then also the pricing right now in the market for renewable energy that's unbacked. For renewable energy to go buy some of these wind energy contracts. Many of those price based on what the competition is in the air-con market. And the competition is the gas-based generation. And gas-based generation is at a pretty historic low right now. And so if they're pricing based on that market, we just see this is the time when we'll push ahead and take advantage of that before the rest of the market starts going up. Because when the rest of the market goes up, those wind power contracts and solar contracts could go up also. Especially at wind. I don't think the solar, I think the solar will continue to go down. But certainly the wind power contracts will track with whatever the market will bear. And it'll go based on what the gas contracts are. >> And I think that's, I just noticed that when I had gone home, I was, what if we had just kept as business as usual and waited there. And then we're, because it felt like we were possibly at the cusp of all these new things happening. And that seems like it's been part of the argument. It's been some people, they think battery storage is way off. No, it's coming, GM is doing solar right now and all that. That was just my question was understanding that graph. Why we want to kind of do this now every day we kind of wait. It costs a little bit more money for different reasons and that's why I'd ask. But I didn't have the graph prepared here, so. >> We'll be glad to get back with you in the discussion. >> Any other questions? I've got a couple comments, a question. Yes, Councilmember Washington. >> Well, I want to thank the 250 citizens who gave up their Saturday morning to come to City Hall. It was standing room only for citizens who were not there. They were upstairs, they were downstairs, they were having to stand up and they were here for four hours. And I think it really indicates the level of citizen interest that this project has sparked. In addition, I want the public to know and be aware of that 300 letters have been delivered to City Hall. To different council people over the course of the last couple of weeks. Indicating a number of different issues and one of those suggestions is to hire an independent analyst or consultant to come in and take a look at this plan. So what are they looking for? They're looking for more than just one option. Now we say, well DME is qualified and you are qualified. However, on big projects, you hire consultants. You have an engineering consulting firm. We heard them give a presentation two weeks ago. They oversee the transmission line substation project. They are an ongoing consulting engineering firm that helps us and helps DME with this enormous project. So we also asked for an estimate of what this city spent over a one year period 2014, 2015 on outside consultants. The figure was $11,800,000 that this city spent on consultants. So I am coming back to a request of this council to seriously consider hiring an outside consultant. To come in and give us two or three options to look at all the costs, look at all the technologies, look at all the options before we actually jump off the cliff and make a decision on this. You've read the emails, you've read the mail, you've been to the meetings. When have you seen a public meeting with that many people on a Saturday morning? People are interested, they care and the one overriding consistency, including that we had a public hearing one night. Over and over and over again, we had a request from the citizens to bring in an outside consultant to take a look at all this. I said last time, worst case scenario or best case scenario , we come back to this plan and we vote for this plan. But at that point in time, we will have explored all the options. We will have looked at everything possible and considering the money that we spend on consultants in every department, on every topic. This is the energy future for the city of Denton. And I'm imploring this council to hire an outside consultant and outside analyst to come in and take a look at the energy options, but also to take a look at the money, take a look at the cost. What are those options? What is the balance? So that we as a city have a choice on what direction we take. And based on the absolute grassroots, huge response that we have seen personally, and I'm not sure if everybody realizes that this 300 letters were delivered to City Hall. We confirmed that with our city manager. So I'm going to come back to that today and ask that this council consider that. And I appreciate your consideration on this. >> Yes, Council Member Briggs. >> I also would like to have a third party analysis as well . And to ask council to delay the vote on the resolution for the two gas plants. And if we can't do the third party analysis or come to agreement for that, at least maybe put out an all source procurement. So we can compare all the different sources that come back to us and that meet our needs and then we can compare them to the gas plants. If we're not going to do the analysis, maybe we can just put out an all source procurement to see what comes back for our needs. And then the council will have something to compare it to. Right now we don't really have anything to compare it to. >> Yes, Council Member Johnson. >> So you and I have agreed in the past on why don't we hire some main day consultants. And I think I was the one that asked for that report. And what was eye opening to me is we have this catch all phrase as consultants, even where you're hiring an engineering firm to do drawings , right? That kind of got grabbed under there. So I'm not opposed to hiring a consultant, but here's what I want to say about that. What kind? We're going to hire bank consulting to look at it from a pure economic standpoint because I would bet you that, meaning so I'll just call it like I see it, right? If people are against fossil fuels, period, and I think that's a large percentage of the people that are really concerned about this, it doesn't really matter whether it makes a good business case or not. And I can appreciate that, meaning that's what's important to them. They're passionate about it. So whether the payback is five years, two years, or 50 years, it doesn't matter because it has to do with fossil fuels. So to me, I would say we have to take, if a person is against these plants because they use fossil fuels, duly noted, right? We need to hear everyone. But as it relates to hiring a third party consultant, no matter what the answer is from the consultant, that group of citizens is still going to be against it and they're going to be upset, right? So that's just in my opinion. So when you look at consultants, you hire a consultant for a specific purpose. You've got business consultants, whether they tell you this is a good economic decision or not. Or implementation consultants, how to implement a plan. You've got environmental consultants who would tell you here's what the impact is going to be. So I don't mind hiring a consultant, I really don't. I mean, this is a lot of money and I'm not so sure that we need to build too. I mean, all that's left to be decided, I think. To me, I think the process is, okay, do we move forward with gas fired power generation? To me, the way I've been thinking through this is, I understand that if we go build two plants with 12 units, because there may not be any more permits issued down the road, we've staked our claim and we have them. Part of the argument is, well, we just create more capacity for ERCOT, we get to sell power to ERCOT. But if we're building these for backup, I want to build them for backup. So then you get into, well, what's the backup requirement on peak based on our presentations? All that stuff has to get figured out. I think the process is, are we going to build gas fired power generation or not? Then what are we going to build? How many? How many units? One location, two locations, and all that. So my concern, I don't mind hiring a consultant. My concern is this. You have to decide what kind, what is your mission for the consultant? If you say to the consultant, does this make sense? If it's Bain Consulting or a business consultant, they're going to say, in what way? Does this make sense based on the impact to the environment versus coal? Well, that's not what they do, right? So I guess what I'm saying, I would throw it back to you. I'm not opposed to a third party consultant, but we're going to have to decide which kind and what concern are we trying to address. If we're trying to address your concern, which I think is spending the money, that's one type of consultant. If we're trying to address Keely's concern, impact to the environment, that's another kind of consultant. So I think, because if you say, I want to do this so that the citizens feel like that we've now looked out for their best interests. If the answer is build it and you hired a consultant that looked at the economics, you're not going to really satisfy any of the people that are worried about fossil fuels. So I think that has to get worked out if we're going to go that route. >> The charge to a consultant would be the issue that's before this council, and that is, we have made the decision that we're going to do 70% renewal. And the charge to the consultant is, what are the options for the other 30%? What are those options? If we're looking at the next 20 to 30 years, what are those options? Two, then we have two, if you need a numbers guy, then you also bring in a numbers guy who works with the group that's looking at the options for the 30%. Because that's what it boils down to. I'm not looking at, I need to supply ERCOT. I'm not looking, because right now 69% of these power plant usage and production will go to ERCOT. What I'm looking at is the city of Denton. We've got a 30% shortfall of energy to take care of. We're going to do our 70% renewable and 30% backup. And we need the backup. The question is, what are all the alternatives for backup? Then you also have the numbers people who come in and look at balancing. Because you always are going to have, we just saw it with the parking lots. You always have a champagne plan and you have a beer plan. Well, you've got to look at, this council just looked at the options on the parking lot and chose the champagne plan for the parking lot because of those reasons. To have that choice for this council to actually make a solid decision not just in spending $240 million, but it creates the energy future for the city of Denton for the next 20 to 30 years. It's important. It's one of the most important decisions I feel this council is going to make when we're on here. And to jump into a tunnel and say we have one option, up or down, I think is a real mistake. So that's my charge to the consultant. And if we need more than one consultant to look at these two different options, the money, but also how to bridge that 30%, I think we owe it to ourselves as a responsible governing body of this city to look at all those options. We are not technically qualified to look at all this information and make a decision. I have spent months trying to read this technical information. And I challenge anybody in this room to really read it all and understand it all. It's hugely technical. So to have some other eyes on it, to take a look at it, and again, if we wind up right back here, well we can look our citizens in the eye and say we did do diligence on this and that's what they expect of us. >> May I approach you? >> Thanks. Well, I'll come back to my long standing feeling about consultants. I haven't had the negative feeling about consultants that some of you all have, but I've had a criteria that I've used. And that's as we look to consultants when our staff doesn't have the time or our staff doesn't have the expertise. Clearly our staff has had the time. Clearly our staff has the expertise. Now there's another occasion when I have on occasion been willing to look at a consultant. And that's when having another set of eyes, another opinion , would build a broader level of support among the community. I don't think that would happen this time. If a consultant came back and said the plan recommended by DME is a solid plan. If a consultant came back and offered any other kind of a plan, that included the use of natural gas generation. Especially natural gas generation in a proximity in Denton County. I am quite certain that those who are calling among most of our citizens for a consultant will say the same thing that we heard said about the consultant report that was given to Austin. Now before that report was given to Austin, we had a representative from public citizen here. And I asked him two or three times, other council members asked him, what is your recommendation for Denton? He said, hire a consultant. Hire a consultant. He was even more specific. He said, do what Austin did. Hire a consultant. And as soon as the report from the Austin consultant came out, we got within 24 hours, we got a letter saying that that consultant's report was biased and flawed. And I am absolutely certain that in this particular case, in our setting, in the situation that we have right now, if we have a consultant that says anything to the extent that they think that the Denton municipal plan, the Denton renewable plan is a good plan, that we're going to have cries of it was a biased consultant. It's a flawed report. He was, the consultant was not independent enough. The consultant didn't have enough renewable expertise. And the reason I'm certain that that would be the case is because that's exactly what happened in Austin. So I don't see, in this case, any justification for doing it. The statement that we've only been shown one plan, I don't think is even accurate. Because we've seen a lot of different alternatives. We've seen a white paper that is discussed. Well, if you went to battery for backup, here are the cost, here are the issues involved. This is why we didn't recommend that as part of our plan. We had a whole white paper that showed all of those different suggestions that we've heard over four months. And so they've looked at other options and they've shown us cost comparisons for four different plans. So it seems to me to be not necessary. I understand why there's folks that want it. But I think if it came back with anything that confirmed what DME did, that the same response would be. It's flawed, it's biased, you need to hire another consultant. So how many consultants would we need to hire before we were satisfied? >> Councilmember Briggs. >> Okay, so I have a lot of notes here that I've been making. And the first one I want to respond to, Mayor Pro Tem. I've had contact with a council member in Austin and Austin Energy has not yet presented that study to them for some reason. So I just wanted to let you know that it's been out for a while and they have not felt comfortable enough or have not on their own presented it for a vote or to show them. I don't know why, I just know that it hasn't been presented and in the meantime they've issued something for storage. So, and then I also wanted to talk about the white paper that we have. There were 16 or 17 renewable energy options and every single one of those was not going to work, not going to work. And you know, maybe they're not. But I need more than just a little two, three words and then says not going to work, personally. And I think it's actually 13%, not 30%, that these gas plants are going to feel that we're looking for. That's even a less amount, correct? On the new chart? Right. 17 and 13, right? Yeah. 17 market, 13, the deck. Okay. It's the 13% is all that we're looking for here with these gas plants and that is what I wanted to ask to issue that for to see what we can get back besides the gas plant for that 13%. Also, Councilman Johnson, it's not just environment. I am also really concerned about the money. We got the staff and formal staff report that said right now we're already at $548 million in debt for DME. We add this, we're shooting on up there to $800 million in debt just for our DME customers. That's our rate payers. And I know, as you said, Phil, we are going to have to make an investment in something. And we're going to incur debt, but is this really the investment that we want to incur? I mean, the debt we want to incur for this investment. I'm not so sure of that because I don't know that we can look ahead 30 years and know about gas prices. So that's also something I want to look at with a consultant. And there are consultants that do utilities and they'll do all of this together. It's not that we have to hire individual consultants or third party for each one of these issues. There are people out there that will do an overall view of this. And also lastly, I also want to clarify because I got an email from you, Mayor, and it affected me because I do communicate with a lot of people. And something you said in there where you thought that there wasn't compromise, that people had their feet dug in the ground. And I took that and so I went out. And what I found was that not everybody, it seems to be that with the 70%, people saw that and took that and went 100%. And so that kind of got lost. But within my discussions and conversations, I realized that the ask right now is for no new fossil fuel infrastructure. It's not for 100% because that's a goal. And everyone knows that at this moment in our life, we are dependent on fossil fuels. And that's not something we're going to get out of tomorrow . And so we're not saying, and they're not saying let's not use what we have because that's a possibility that we are going to have to do that. It's just let's not make this investment right now without knowing it's our only option. So I felt like it's not that we want no fossil fuels at all . Eventually in the future, 30 years from now maybe, but right now, that's not the ask for the majority of people. Right now the ask is just to wait and not commit to this investment. >> Councilmember Harkin? >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> I'll go over here. >> Councilmember Luebs. >> First I want to say I have so much respect for DME, all the work that you've done. And I definitely don't think when the term jumping off the cliff, that is not the right term. It's just if this is the road, we want to choose to go down . And just that being said, I am for hiring an outside consultant at this point. I just, I do want their, even if it is biased and flawed, I'm willing to take that risk. I feel like Denton can figure out who to hire, what we want from this consultant, a timeline. But that's something that really does concern me, is this time limit of if we hire somebody, how long it's going to take. And I've heard it thrown around a lot that this is used as a ploy to stretch out a project so long that it will eventually die. That is not why I want to hire a consultant. I want to hire somebody to come in and say, here's this city that's already 40% renewable. They're trying to go 70% renewable. They are a home-role city. They're trying to keep their rates down. They're trying to do all this. We have this rocking DME team. Come in, double check our work before we go down this road. I think that hiring a consultant at this point, and maybe I 'm naive, it could possibly bring the community together. Not all of them. I think Greg's right. There are some people out there, fossil fuels, no. We're not doing it. But I think that there are some that it's about the money and just our future, what's our exit plan, those sorts of things. And if we set a time limit on it that's reasonable to everybody, we have X number of questions whether they have to do with the environment, emissions, debt, financials, keeping the rates down. I think that that could be a good thing. That could be something that could bring our community together. It just seems like the more we kind of just keep battling, it's just sides keep getting, like one more goes to this side, one more goes to this side , maybe that's my read. But I do not mean that in any disrespect to DME at all. You guys are amazing. And so at this point I am for hiring a consultant. Council Member Briggs, if we did hire a consultant and it came back recommending the renewable debt and plan with two gas fire generators, would you vote for it? >> I'm not going to answer that right now because I don't know that. I would have to see who it was and we would all have to agree the questions, the answers. And one of the gas plants generating 70% for air caught, I mean, right now is what's affecting me with having the two. >> For sure. So I don't know that that would be a recommendation from a consultant unless that is our goal that we say to them that we want to do. But I will get behind the consultant's report. I will stand behind it if it's something we can all agree on and the questions and we're a part of the participation. I would stand with council on that. Even if it recommended to the exact plan we're looking at. because I think that to me that's the crucial question and I agree with Council Member Gregory. I think we have a lot of folks who have a pretty strong opinion about fossil fuels and I get that. I understand that. I agree with it. I happen to agree that this is the path forward to 100%. That we're doing something that no other city in the nation is even attempting. And I am concerned that you're not getting your answers to your questions. I mean, if it is true that you think there's alternatives on the table that haven't been thoroughly vetted by our staff. The question for me is can they thoroughly vet them? So you mentioned you're not getting sufficient enough answers for some of the suggestions to meet the 13%. Let's give our staff the chance to answer those questions. So be very public about what those questions are, what alternatives you think. I mean, we've heard everything under the sun, from staying on coal to getting Tesla batteries on every single house in our city. As some sort of aggregate battery system, to staying the course, to crossing our fingers and hope that this battery storage magically happens in five years, we've heard a lot of those things. I don't think there's anything new that will come out in terms of alternatives or suggestions. So if there are some specifics that you're hearing that you don't feel like our staff has sufficiently addressed, before we go and hire a consultant to do it, let's give our staff the chance. Let's just be clear about what those alternatives are that you want to be analyzed. And I'd love to hear that as well. I just think that they have analyzed a lot of options and people just haven't liked the answers. And so I'm not for a consultant. I think we've got the information we need to move forward and make a decision. >> I have one more. >> Yes. >> So. >> Put off my comments as long as I can. >> Yeah. So a couple things I think are really important in the context of when we're saying things to our citizens, right? For example, my gosh, we have 500 something million dollars of debt and this will put us at almost 800 million in debt. Well, that's really scary to somebody that doesn't deal with those kind of numbers every day, right? So you go, my gosh, how in the hell will we ever pay it all back? My gosh. Except when the staff report we got over the weekend, right ? We have a Moody's credit rating of triple A. DME's debt to operating revenue is a triple A Moody's credit rating. Put that in perspective. Not many people get that. So meaning your debt to your operating revenue is, if you look at our performance throughout here, you can carve out DME versus the other parts of the utility . Look at our financial performance. Well, when you do 170 million a year in revenue, $700 million of debt really isn't a big deal. Except if I want to scare somebody and I say, this is going to take us to 800 million in debt. Well, that's not hard to do unless you explain, but that's really not a problem because we have a triple A rating with Moody's. Meaning people are dying to loan us money because we operate very well and pay it back. The other thing I think is important is DME is really a unique animal, right? So, because I look at it totally different than parks or streets or engineering or planning. I mean, DME is really a standalone business that's owned by the city. And in a standalone business, you've got to have the people on your staff that have the expertise to run that business. I don't for a minute think that this team of experts want to go spend $200 million just because it seems like fun. They don't have anything else to do with their time. I think they got a charge that said, we want to get to 70% renewable by this year. And they've been planning it and doing their research and figuring out how do we get there, right? That's what you do in a business. So part of it is a little frustrating for me in that there 's no celebration going on that we're like leading the country. We're going from 40 to 70. Instead, all this focus is you shouldn't do this, there's better alternatives. When, I mean, if we don't believe anybody, let's believe the EPA. And if you all read this, I'll admit I did read it earlier during one of the presentations. It says here's what we're doing is exactly how you do it. This is how you get to the renewable, what do they call it? The clean power plan, the ultimate clean power plan. So I hear a financial concern, we shouldn't take on this debt. And I see a AAA Moody's rating and we're about as healthy. And then comparison to other cities, and all those other cities don't have transmission, I don't believe. So if you look at the bulk of our large, large portion of our debt has to do with the transmission system. So I think we don't really, it's frustrating to me because I think we've got a bunch of rock stars at DME that are doing so much better than their competition. We got a three-legged plan, right, and we seem to not have any conversation about reliability or rates. And then we read from the EPA, and I really have no problem hiring a consultant. I really don't. Where I stand on hiring a consultant, I'll shut up, is I don't recall being contacted by one citizen, one, wanting to tell me that this doesn't make financial sense. I can't think of one, actually. And I've talked to many of our largest taxpayers, even though this is revenue supported. I don't hear it. I don't hear anybody saying the math doesn't make sense, or the money doesn't make sense, or you can't afford the debt. I don't hear that. Everything I hear is about, the concerns I hear are as it relates to fossil fuels and fracking. So I have no problem hiring a consultant, I really don't. I think that we're going to spend money. We're going to spend some period of time waiting for the results to come back. And the results are going to come back to do exactly what our own experts have said and what the EPA has said. And then we're going to revisit all this stuff again with the same people. And I'm okay with it. I mean, whatever people are against, I'm okay. So again, I always just go back to the data. The data says we're in great financial condition. The data says we're on the right track from the EPA and the data from the folks who came to tell us this was a bad idea . When we say what is the solution, they can't offer a solution. They say you should form a citizens group and study it. So nothing against those people. It's just that's the way I see it. But I'm happy to hire a consultant if that's where we end up. You know, I learned something. You know, I'm going to really take chair president. I'm going to take a few minutes, so I'll just, everybody just sort of just lean back in your chair, get you a drink of water, get comfortable. Yeah, Phil, there's no sense for you standing up there. You know, I came on council in 2007. And within about, I'd say probably three months was the Fry Street vote. And I don't know if you remember the Fry Street vote, but very contentious. A lot of public participation, a lot of passionate energy. I spent up to today, I probably have not spent any more time on any issue than that Fry Street issue. Really talking to the citizens, talking to the neighbors, talking to the developer. I can honestly say that this is probably the most time that I've spent on an issue. And I'm not talking about the public time. I mean, we've spent seven or eight hours in just public time with the public having actual interaction. That's not considering all the public time we've had in here talking about it. But I've spent countless hours from all the emails that I 've received. I've probably read every article that I've been sent. I can say that unequivocally. And gladly so, because I'm going to go and get a job as an energy consultant when this is over. But, and so I've read all the articles. So in some sense, do I think I have enough information to make an informed decision? I think I do. I do, based upon cost. Now, if we're talking about fossil fuel or no fossil fuel, that's not really where I am in this discussion. The email that I sent to you saying that I felt like positions were dug in, and I'm not just saying that's just only on one side. What I did mean was that it seems like on the no, like you said, we don't want any more fossil fuel infrastructure. That's really what the crux is, is we've got something, no new fossil fuel infrastructure. And that's where I probably diverge from that opinion. And I will have to say, when I went to the Energy Committee , the Environmental Committee at US Conference of Mayors, the lady that talked just gave a very brief overview. She primarily talked about Flint, Michigan and the water problem there. So I will admit on public that I did read through this during some of those other presentations. And what leaped out to me, and what's really leapt out to me is I've read a lot of dialogue on the Internet, read some of these papers, and read all these things that many of them say that, not to say you stay on fossil fuels, but that natural gas is the bridge to really bumping up the renewables around. So it's like, okay, well, I get that. Do I agree with that? Maybe, maybe not. So I read the Clean Power Plan, which I don't think anybody would say that the EPA is a bastion of conservatism when it comes to environmental policy. I don't think that would happen. And I'm not saying that in a derogatory way, I just think it's the truth. I mean, they really want to make sure that we're aggressive in our environmental policy as it's applied nationally. And I agree with that, and certainly don't have a problem with it. So when I read on one of these first bullet points, where it says fossil fuels will continue to be a critical component of America's energy future. I'm thinking, okay, they might be talking 15, 20, 30 years, but that's a pretty big statement. But I can get by this, like okay, they understand that you just don't cut the spigot off. The Clean Power Plan simply makes sure the fossil fuel power plants will operate more cleanly. All right, I get that. And I understand how people can disagree with that. So this isn't about me trying to beat up anybody that has a different opinion of mine. So I read on, and it talks about really how this plan works . And it says EPA is establishing interim and financial carbon dioxide emission performance rates for two subcategories of fossil fuel fired electric generation units. Number one, fossil fuel fired electric steam generating units, generally coal and oil fired power plants. Two, natural gas fired combined cycle generating units. And I thought, why did they say combined cycle? Why did they leave out any gas generation? I've sort of come to the conclusion that based upon at least our permit and the minor source of emissions, they don't really see that as a major source of emission, whereas a combined cycle, because it's running all the time, emits those sources. And we've had testimony from the public that in some ways there was a preference to combine cycle natural gas units because they were more efficient. So I thought, okay, and it's okay. And then it talks about the building blocks that this plan talks about in the final clean power plan. EPA determined that the BSER, which is the best system of emissions reduction, consists of three building blocks. Building block one, reducing the carbon intensity of electricity generation by improving the heat rate of existing coal fired power plants. We're looking at divesting ourselves of that, so I just discounted that one, because I don't want to own a coal fired power plant. I think we can do better than that. Building block two, substituting increased electricity generation from lower emitting existing natural gas plants for reducing generation from higher emitting coal fired power plants. Now it says existing natural gas plants, and I got stuck on that word. I thought, what are they talking about? They're still talking about combined cycle gas plants. Okay, fair enough. Building block three, substituting increased electricity generation from new zero emitting renewable energy sources for reduced generation from existing coal fired power plants. It's almost as if that's their number one goal is to get rid of coal fired generation plants. So I just took that as additional information. I do want to address some things that were said at the public meeting, and I do appreciate the public coming out on a Saturday. I appreciate staff coming out on a Saturday. I appreciate the input, but I want to just state a few things that I really categorically disagreed with that I heard some statements made. One is that we're going backward. There was a statement made that we're going backward with this plan. I really, I cannot conceive, I just can't understand that conceivably how somebody could make that statement. When we're going from 45% to 70%, which is a 50% increase in renewables. And we are better, we are better. Right now, 40% than probably any state in the nation. We're certainly light years ahead of many of the cities in the US Conference of Mayors on renewable energy. Existing now, we're not talking about people are pledging to go to 100%. I'm saying we are 40% right now. Now going backwards for me would be we're canceling the wind contract, which by the way is backed up with natural gas. We're canceling the wind contract. We're going to rely on the Gibbons Creek cold fire generation plant to help us with our peak energy. I don't think anybody in this room would disagree that that would be going backwards when we just simply do that. One was somehow because we're getting rid of Gibbons Creek or if we divest ourselves from that, and I have a big issue, I have a big observation about that . That somehow that admission still gets attributed to us when we say it's still existing. Well, we don't own it, but it's still existing. Therefore, it's on your back. And if you build some other fossil fuel plant, you are adding to emissions. I just disagree with that. Because if I have a gas-gassing car, I mean, Council Member Briggs, I think you have an electric car. And if I got rid of my truck, which is an eight cylinder, probably drinks a lot of gas and admits a lot of bad stuff, and I traded in on a hybrid or a fully electric car, do I fully expect that when Joe Bob is driving that thing down the road, that those emissions coming out of that tailpipe have my name on it? And so I disagree with that kind of characterization that somehow that still inures to our benefit or detriment. Comparisons to TNPA, there's been a lot of comparisons to T NPA's financials and the debt. I've been on the TNPA board for five years. I didn't make any decisions that got us in this place. We've been trying to figure out how we get out of this place. And Gibbons Creek for many years has served the city of Denton well. When natural gas prices were at $12 or $13 a BTU, 1000 BTUs , let me tell you what, our electric bills were doing really okay because of that. But it's ready to move on. We have a different and higher calling. But the idea that it's going to be this sinkhole of expenses like TNPA is just not the case. Any debt, whether it's batteries, whether it's coal fire generation, we're going to have debt. If part of the charge to the consultant is how do we do this with no debt, we're going to get maybe one option and that is buy it off the market. And when you look at battery storage, when you look at compressed air storage energy, when you look at liquid compressed or liquid air, I forgot what it's called. Somebody just sent me a proposal, actually a proposal which was more expensive. These plants, if they're built, if it's approved, those are put on a 20 year amortization schedule, they're done. Gibbons Creek has been being paid on for 30 years, 35 years . Refinanced, financed in the worst possible way with CADs. It means you can't refinance, you have to pay the interest. So, totally different. So, it was unfortunate to hear some of that. The debt, $547 million, that's a lot of debt. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of that included in that is the current still $141 million we still owe on TNPA. Which is part TNPA debt, part of our debt on the books. By 2018, we had a report, by 2018, close to 70 million of that will be gone off of the TNPA side and the debt we still have on our books to be paid off in 2024 will be reduced down to about $45 to $50 million. So, you take off $100 million in, what is that, three years ? Two years, two or three years? So, that debt figure goes way down, all right? So, and I unfortunately built my, not unfortunately, I built my business on debt. Built my business on leveraging debt and good financial decisions. So, having said that, there's two things I want to bring up that make this difficult for me. Let's say we weren't even considering the consultant's discussion, the consultant decision or issue. The reason why I have difficulty, first of all, voting on a resolution next February or next week is because I think there's two outstanding critical issues. Three actually for me that would make that very difficult. One is, I can't vote on something to approve of something that I don't know what it is. I need a definitive plan. I need something that says, this is what we're doing, here 's how we're getting there, up or down, yes or no. Second, we have some RFPs out on renewable energy proposals . I believe they've either come in or, and I would like to see those before I decide on what exactly we're going to do moving forward. And number three, and we will go more in this maybe in close session, but I don't think it's any secret that we have to decide at some point what we want to do with TNPA. This plan has assumed that we are divested from TNPA. I want to make sure that that is the case, that there's not some hiccup that can happen later on, that there's not some change of circumstances that make us change our mind. Because I'll be honest, I don't think there's anyone sitting at this table that would want to make a vote on a plan that presumes TNPA is out of our system. And then somehow, we're asked to stay in TNPA. You think we have some interesting passion right now? It pales in comparison of how I would perceive that going down. So I want to make sure that when we say that's what we're going to do, that we are on a definitive path, that's exactly what we're going to do. I came in here prepared and I'm still going to state it. I was going to make my own plan proposal. And I'll just tell you on the issue of the consultant, the last thing I want to do is try to decide that do I want a consultant or not want a consultant based upon how I think other people may respond to it. That's not going to be the basis of my decision for a consultant. The basis for my decision on a consultant would be, do I have enough information that I need, that I think my colleagues need, and that I think the community needs to see in order to feel comfortable with whatever decision is made. Because I will tell you, no matter what a consultant comes back and says, half the people will appreciate it, half the people won't. So when it comes to a consultant, I have a couple questions . And they're sort of rhetorical, except I do want to answer it here after I get through, which you all wake up. Is number one, how do we choose one? I don't want to have a battle. I don't want to spend six months fighting over a consultant . I mean, there's a lot of professionals out there. And to confirm your report, I did speak with somebody at the US Conference of Mayors and I mentioned the report to them, and that report has not come before council for a vote or any action on that Navig ant Report for the City of Boston. So you're absolutely correct in that. They have not considered that. So how would we choose one? What kind of time frame are we giving them? How many days will it be? And exactly what is the scope of it? For me, the scope is simply, look, we want to find the most economical, forward thinking way to say, hey, okay, what's going to be the thing in the future that will get us where we need to be on the 70% and then ultimately 100% renewable that is the least risk, both financially, all right? Because technologies change. My hunch is in the end, it will come out, if not what we got, something pretty close to it, maybe with a couple of components. So this is what I, if I had my druthers, this is what I'd say. And this is the whole issue of the no compromise that really I've struggled with here. Because it seems like, I mean, if somebody's saying we don 't want anything that has to do with natural gas, compressed air storage, that I said in your email, compressed air storage energy requires natural gas to heat it up and to compress it. So anyway, this is what I've been thinking about as I've looked at all this information. And if we didn't go through a consultant, which I'll just say it up front, depending on what the time frame is and what the charge is, I don't have an issue with that, quite honestly. I don't want to drag it out six months. I don't want to drag it out 60 days. Somebody can get in here, look at the plan, who's familiar with the technologies, and someone mentioned at the meeting, we need a renewable energy expert to be the consultant. No, we don't. We need somebody who's in the business, a professional, who looks at these things with as much of an unbiased. And this level of distrust that is permeating our community regarding all this, we're just going to have to move through it. We're just going to have to make the best decision we can and trust the professionals if we decide to hire one. And everybody else is just going to have to understand it. This is where we are because it makes no difference if you say you want a renewable expert because you don't think that these people on the DME team that somehow they're all fossil fuel guys. I'm sorry, I think some of the things that were said were just way out of bounds at that meeting on Saturday. But this is what I would do. I'd say, you know what, okay, what do we got here? We want to be able to back up renewable energy. We want to go to 70%, which that's not going backwards. I've told the city manager, I've told others, I've shared. I probably, even if we were all in agreement, I don't know if I could approve a 200 megawatt plant based upon all the information that I've gathered. Based upon the technology that's moving, based upon the cost savings. Yes, somebody said you're leaving $150 million on the table . I would say, okay, well, what do we want to do? We want to back it up? Okay, 110, 120, 130 megawatt plant, however those things get divided up. Let's add money. And I thought, what's the amount? Let's double. What's the amount of money that we provide for solar panel installation for residents? You know, people wanting more solar installation in Denton. Well, it's almost cost prohibitive if you don't have some help. How do we look at, you know, how do we continue to look at these other sources of potential energy storage? Batteries, man, they're going to have to come a long way because they give about four to five hours of the kind of megawatts that we need and then they're done. And guess what with batteries? Until the technology changes, you get about a 15 or 20 year life out of them and that's stretching it. And you certainly don't get the capacity you had at the end that you had at the beginning. So the debt we accrue for that, we will have to have that debt accrue again. So if a consultant can help answer all of those questions in a very timely manner, it's a very succinct charge on that because until we decide what we're doing with TNPA, I could probably never decide on a plan because it's that critical that we decide what we're doing with TNPA. Because maybe does TNPA have a place in here somewhere? I don't know. Now, I don't know enough about that. But I would hate to elect to get out of TNPA and all of a sudden, something happened in the political realm, who knows what? Gas spikes, I don't know. That's another question I have is what does gas have to be for TNPA to be in the money? I don't know. That is exactly how I feel about this whole process and about what we're trying to decide here to do and what, if I had my mind, I'd say here's a compromise. People don't want fossil fuel infrastructure, okay. But we're going to need it to be able to back up renewable energy. So let's find the minimal amount we need to achieve our objective for renewable energy. People want more opportunities for solar. People want more opportunities for alternative type of energies, okay. Well, we probably provide some of the largest incentives in the state for solar installation. And this is what saddens me. This is what really gets me down as mayor, is that we are doing so many good things in this city with our energy. One of the people who's very passionate about this movement just had solar panels put on their home, which is great. We're doing so many good things. We have such lofty goals, but we get so siloed and we stuck on something that for people it's very important, emissions, greenhouse gases are important. Reducing the carbon footprint is important. But when I look at this whole plan and I think we are moving renewables up, we are relying less upon fossil fuels to provide the energy needs for our citizens. When I tell people at United States Conference of Mayors that we're at 40 to 45% and we want to move to 70%, let me just tell you, the person I spoke with at Austin said, maybe we should be listening to you guys. So we've lost a sight of what we all have done together. And so if we want to continue the fight about fracking, that the state came in and said, we just can't do it. And if people want to hang their hat, then you can never ever do anything that uses any more fossil fuels. I'm sorry, I just don't think right now that's gonna work. And it's just sad that the line has been drawn that clearly . Because I think we can find some common ground where we can give some here, we can take some here, we can provide some different direction here that will meet these interests. Not all of the interests that everybody wants from every side, but it's working together. And because I've been on council for six years, been mayor for almost two. And I've never seen it like this. I've never seen it like this. And we're a good town, and I appreciate people's passion. But let's find some common ground. And if it takes a consultant to do that, if that's all it takes, is 30 days, whatever, what, $50,000 or something like that, I mean, good heavens. I understand about is it gonna make a difference? It may not make a difference, but I can tell you right now, it'll make a difference for me when I come back and I see whatever's recommended and we tweak it a little bit and I go to press that yes. I don't care what anybody else thinks because we've done what I think would be a prudent thing to do when looking at spending $250 or $300 million. I look at the convention center, that whole process. The community came out was against the first version, all right? Not bringing that back up to simply say I trust the process . Because what happened? We tweaked it, we worked on it, we found something that was better. We found something that met more of the needs than not. I feel very confident we can do this. And honestly, the people on the fringes, they're gonna get left out. Because what's gonna happen is we're gonna come together, we're gonna find something that works the best for the most . And that's where we're gonna move. And if a consultant can do that, I will be glad to be able to say, here's the report. And if they can show me that you can do this and you can do this more economically and you can do this. And that is no slack on DME. I have to say, I really appreciate what DME staff has done. I mean, they've taken some hard questions. It's my understanding that some people have had their Facebook accounts hacked for some reason. Not saying who's responsible or not, but it's just getting really to the point of, come on. And people can say the same. Why didn't you go tell the people out in Aubrey? Okay, well, you know what? We haven't voted on it. We haven't voted on it yet. So this distrust that just seems to permeate this whole issue, if the way to get past that is a consultant, I'm really all for that. Because then I can say, okay, we gave everybody, and I'm not gonna fight about a consultant. I'm not gonna spend this whole energy fighting about who to hire. There are people out there that can be chosen. I'm not saying that we get to approve the contract. And if three or four of us don't appreciate, if four of us don't want that consultant, we'll pick another one. But I don't wanna have a fight over consultant because there's professionals out there who will look at this issue like they've looked at this issue for many, many other cities. And you know what? If it comes out the same recommendation as Austin or same as over here, when you look at these cities that are going to 100% renewable, Georgetown, gas backup. San Diego just plays 100% renewable. Southern San Diego Power and Light or whoever their electric provider is, 33% renewable, that's it. Platte River Authority, that is a coalition of four cities, four Collins and some of the cities around there. Over 70%, 75% of their energy comes from coal. And we all know Colorado's pretty, they're pretty forward thinking in their environmentalism. So when I look at what Denton's doing and what Denton's trying to do, good heavens, we're not going backwards. We are trying to leapfrog over everybody else. So we've gotta find a way to move through this and the people who wanna come with us and try to achieve this goal, let them come. And the people that don't, fair enough. So I'm okay with a consultant, but I would want a consultant to be picked within two weeks. And I want it done by the end of March or the middle of April. Because there's still other questions outstanding regarding TNPA and some other things that I think would, as we hear these issues later on, I think will give some of us like, okay. But that's where I stand on this. I don't think there's anything else I really have to say about this issue. And I'm sure everybody's saying thank God. But I've been very silent on this for a long time. Because I've wanted to really do my research. I've wanted to convince myself of the technologies. But if it takes just one, if it takes a report from a professional to pull this council together, to do the right thing for the city of Denton, that is a small price to pay. I consider a problem in direct proportion of what it takes to fix it. And if that's the fix that it takes, there's gonna be people who don't like it. But if it can help create some collaboration and bring this community back together at some level, not everybody's gonna wanna come and that's fine, then I'm willing to do that. And so however we need to do that, it sounds like there may be a, I know you don't wanna necessarily do that, Kevin. You do, I think, Councilmember Briggs, my understanding is you do not. >> No, I just hope that if we get a consultant that they can get the report faster than you gave that presentation. >> [LAUGH] >> I'm teasing, I appreciated everything you said. >> I'm fixing all the wrath that's been built up for over two months is fixing to come out on Mayor Pro Tem. >> No, I really appreciate what you did say. And I really appreciated the fact that you pointed out that the proposal that was presented had a lot of forward thinking stuff and has been mislabeled because of that. But I agree with you, there's a majority of the council that wants to do a consultant. I really would be very disappointed if it took longer than the time frame that you laid out, I would be very surprised if it could happen that fast. Well, I think if we give that charge and we stay on top of it, I don't see how it can't. Because I think our staff has laid out so much, has already so much detail, these people aren't gonna have to come in and reinvent the wheel. And if they try to, that's when somebody has to step in and say, hold on a second. Hold on a second. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. I mean, that's gonna be, I think, up to us. I mean, I know it takes time, but we can maybe get a report back on that. But that seems to be, yes, Councilmember Rote, I'm sorry. >> I certainly appreciate your sentiments and I'm glad you reported back from what you learned at Council of Mayors. I think this is an important report. And every time I go to one of those national conferences as well and you see the comparison of other cities to where Denton is and our progressive nature on these issues, there's no question where we stand. So it is interesting that our own community sometimes forgets that or maybe doesn't appreciate that or understand that. I'd be curious to ask Phil some questions about this consultant because my guess is you give someone a 60 day ramp up time. We're going to get them hired in two weeks. They're going to have to somehow figure out how to put an RFP or respond to an RFP in two weeks for something they may have not been paying attention to. My guess is they're going to be asking you guys to consult them during that 60 days just to wrap their head around all the stuff that they've already done. Is that even a reasonable time frame for a, I know nothing about this particular consulting world. I just want to make sure we're setting expectations appropriately. >> I don't know. Certainly there are people out there who have done these studies, as we pointed to, but that may be the kiss of death, right? If they've already done a study similar to this, but certainly those would be the people who could ramp up the quickest because they already know the market. They've already done similar studies and could progress the fastest. Someone that's coming from a different market or not familiar with the ERCOP market would have a harder time ramping up. But certainly those familiar with the ERCOP market and familiar with this situation have done similar studies would be the places we could look. >> Don't go here. >> So one of the questions that came out, a couple years ago I remember when Boulder, I think it was a couple years ago, and I think it was Boulder. I was considering adopting their own municipal power utility. And it started being posted on Facebook as this is the way to, or over the internet as this is the way to really get ahead on renewables because they saw if we took local control, we weren't beholden to the power companies that could care less about our particular desires for renewable. We're going to do this much longer. People started passing that around because they put together a great video and they said, why doesn't Denton do this? I'm like, well, Denton's had a municipal electric company for some time. And in fact, we've been pursuing renewables precisely because we had that sense of local control. So I was actually surprised to hear, I can't remember who made this remark during the presentation, that as Boulder was considering that when they were looking for, I guess you can call it consultants. I don't know, you can tell me what it is. They invited yourself and Mike Grimm to come up and consult them. Can you talk to us a bit more about the nature of what you provided for them? >> Not consult, but they did ask us to come up and speak to their city council and to speak to their staffs about what was involved in forming a municipal power utility and what the benefits of municipal power utility. And also to describe what gains we've made in moving towards a renewable environment that they desired. And that was their frustrations, they wanted to move towards that. And so they asked us to come speak to them, their city council, their city staffs, which Mike and I did. >> And where are they today? Did they adopt? >> They, city council has voted to proceed ahead. It's a pretty long legal battle for them to buy out the assets of the investor on the utility that serves them presently. And so they're involved in the next year or so or more in that battle to negotiate the terms, if that could happen. But the city council has voted to proceed pursuing that. >> And Mayor, I don't think the community is divided. I think there's a small, very vocal minority. When I go to the grocery store, when I go out, folks aren't divided in the city. So I think we've got to put that in context. And if our goal is to win over those folks with a consultant, perhaps, I just don't think it's going to happen. So, but if you guys want to go that route and we can get it done in a timely manner, I'd certainly support it. >> The mayor brought up a really good point on TMPA and the timing. So if you could outline again, Phil, the timing on the TMPA , because your point is spot on, that we could move forward with a plan based on assumption. And we need to move forward on a plan based on rock solid, here's what we're doing, and a timeline. So in terms of the TMPA and is it the fall of 2016 that actually opens the discussion legally in terms of whether we stay or whether we go? Is that the timing? >> According to the power sales agreement that's in effect today, September 2016 would be the first option we'd have to express our options of what we want to do going forward. It wouldn't be the last chance to express that, it would be the first chance. >> So that's an important date, September 2016. So this is the end of January. So while we're in a hurry for this consultant report, I'm not certain we're going to have an absolute yes or no on TMPA until September of 2016, is that correct? >> Well, I have some additional information I'd like to share with the council. We have an item posted on closed session. >> Closed session. >> That provide more information on that. >> Okay, thank you. >> Well, I would point out that we don't have to wait until September to have our answer. And that it's going to be an awful lot easier for us to have an answer about TMPA if we have an alternative. If we don't have an alternative, it's going to be very difficult to have an answer. So that's why I think it's imperative that we get to a point where people are comfortable enough to make a vote on this. >> My point on this September was not to wait until September. My point on the consultant timing was that I know we're talking two weeks, four weeks. Realistically, I think if we're looking at maybe 60 days, 60 days, 90 days, we are still months away from having that absolute drop dead deadline September of 2016. So I don't want to say stretch it out six months. I'm just saying realistically, we're not going to have anything back in our hands in two weeks or four weeks. So that's what our staff is good at doing. They put out requests for our qualifications all the time. And let them jump on this immediately and come back with a staff report so we can get some timing on all of this. >> So I would take the possible direction to be that for staff to come back on September 2nd with some options for council, how you'd like to proceed. >> September 2nd. >> Excuse me, February 2nd with some options of how to proceed. >> Options being? >> Options of how to proceed forward as far as procedures of what a consultant could do. Let staff gather some information about what can we do from a purchasing law standpoint, check for a purchasing department, and come back with some ideas. >> I just want to be clear because I think Kathleen, you started by saying I want the council to agree to hire a consultant. And I thought one of the things you said was to tell us what our options are. I think we have to be very clear with the consultant what the scope of their work is and what the objective of their work is. Because consultants will also come back to you and say, here's all your options. We already know what all of our options are. I think we want a consultant to come back and say either the solution that you came to is the best solution. Or the best solution with these tweaks. Or it's not the best solution. This is the best solution to back up your 70%. Don't come back and say, because I heard what you say is tell us what our options are. I don't want a consultant to come back and give us options. We're right back where we are now. I think we know the options. I want a consultant to come back and tell us what the answer is. Is this the answer? Or is build something different or buy something different? Or this technology you didn't consider but this is really the answer? That's what I'm after. And I think that's probably what you were saying. >> In other cities, we learn. Other cities learn from us and we learn from other cities. And other cities have RFQs that are already out there written and we can take and take a look at what they have. I think council needs to take a look at that so that we're all in agreement with what that charge is. But I think that's probably the most expedient manner is to take a look at what other cities, because we're not the only ones in this quandary. We're going on all over the world. So let's take a look at some other cities in the US. What their RFQs look like, what the RFQs are asking for. And our purchasing department is really expert at following through on this and lean on these people to help us through all this. >> Regarding that, one of the things that was said in the course of our conversation that I'm not sure is accurate. Is that we've all committed and given DME direction that we wanted 70% renewable. That's not the charge that we gave to DME. The charge that we gave to DME was increase renewables as much as possible. While keeping our rates affordable and while keeping our reliability. So my question is to this group, do we still have a commitment to all three of those goals? >> Yes. >> I do. >> Is there anybody that does not? So that's gotta be part of whatever the criteria is that they're judging this plan or another plan is does it meet all three of those goals? Because I've heard in the context of a lot of the conversations where people are basically there's a group that has basically dismissed the idea of rates being important. And rates are extremely important to our rate payers. So good, we're all of one accord. >> Well, in hiring this consultant, I definitely don't want to start it from zero. The way I pictured it was here's our renewable plan that we want you to take a look at this and everything you just said I totally agree with. Is it reliable? Is it renewable? I forget the parts of rates and then rates and just tell us the 13% part. Do you feel like that's the best route to go? That's why I want a consultant. I want specific answers or specific ideas to this plan in the right amount of time. Not in 60 days if that's what we decide. That's when it comes back. This cannot be a prolonged long, long thing. So that's. >> I forget which work session it was. But it was during a renewable dentin presentation where council, I think it was Dr. Banks was here presenting some information. And I recall that we talked about wanting an air model study. And we kind of said, yeah, let's go do that. And I'm just curious what happened with that or do you remember? I think we were talking about Dr. John from UNT at the time and then. >> So are you talking about the emission study? >> Well, it was an air model for the air, I think it was some kind of. >> It's related to emissions. >> Right. >> And so I know, and I'd have to have Dr. Banks respond to that. I know he has had a conversation with Dr. John. I know in his discussions with Dr. John, that at that time, this was right around Christmas, that he was having issues with the massive computer that he uses. Since that time, the more revelations came out that hey, this is a reduction in the use of gas. And so if there's going to be a reduction in the amount of gas, that's going to lead to a reduction in emissions. And so I think it took the foot off the gas, I guess, as far as really needing to press forward with getting a study from Dr. John. >> So you decided not to pursue that? >> I know there was conversations with Dr. John, but I think the discussions were, after looking at those data mission study, and in looking at the overall use of gas decreasing through this plan, that it was assumed that that would decrease the emissions. >> It was assumed, and Dr. John said you don't need my study. >> I don't know what the conversation was with Dr. John. >> I'm just curious, because I was remembering that, and I was curious. >> Okay. >> The results. >> Council Member. >> Yeah, I think the scope is going to be important, because we can't treat this like some scientific equation that has a definitive answer. I mean, it's a question of values. What are you valuing? And then when you say what's the best option, like you stated at the beginning of this discussion, best under what condition? What are you looking for? And at the end of the day, that's a policy question. It's a value question. And I think we're going to be back stuck at the same table, having our same values that we're putting forward here today and saying we think this is the best going forward. So if there is a scientific question not answered, let's get that answered. But let's be clear about what that scientific question is. I don't know what that is. If there's an economic question that's not being answered, then let's be clear about what that precise economic question is. I don't know what that is. I don't think that's been defined. So when we say it's going to come back and say this is the best, I just need to be comfortable knowing what exactly we're asking for. And so we probably need to leave here giving some sort of direction along those questions. Because if he's going to go look at the possible scope of types of consultants, that question or group of questions needs to be defined. And if we wait to define that until February 2nd, then they 're going to have to go back and look for folks to meet that definition. It's going to take another two weeks. We're going to be back here and we're never going to meet that deadline. So I hate to hash this out further, but I haven't heard what the precise question is we're being asked to put in front of this consultant. Because at the end of the day, I think it's a political question. It's a policy question. It's what do we value? What do we think our citizens value? And do we think it makes sense financially for our city? And that's what we make that decision every time we meet without needing consultants. So that's our job. So please enlighten me as to what questions we're hoping to address. >> Go ahead. >> Well, my understanding was that we were going to get the consultant and say we have this 13% hole that we need to fill. We know our goals. We know what we want. We know that 70% has been addressed. This is something that we want to do. What is this hole and what options do we have to fill it that meet the three criteria? That is what my understanding was, that the reason we were going to do that. And it wasn't that we were going to say, hey, this is our plan. Is it good? Yes or no? I mean, I thought that we were going to go to a consultant from a different perspective. So we may need to have that discussion. I don't know. I thought that we were looking for other options or this option which may be included as the best option to fill that 13% because that's what we're discussing. Everything else, I think, everything else hasn't been an issue. >> I think for me personally, it's just how much money we 're going to be spending. How many more years, my son Royal is going to be reliant on this energy source. Things like that, the road that we're going to take. Are we at the cusp of different technologies? I know we've heard lots of different, I wouldn't even say their opinions, but some people say battery storage is there, some people say we're going to be more reliant on solar soon. I just feel if we had a third party, an outside person come in and answer some of those questions, it could possibly bring our community together and put us on a similar path. That's why I feel comfortable that we've done enough work. Now I have tons of respect for DME. I really do. And I think before we go down a road and spend this much money and really commit that this is worthy of doing. We can do this. So that's why I want to still do this. >> So Mayor. >> Yes. >> I'm just going to, because I heard both of you guys say and then I heard you say something over Kathleen. Here's the challenge to us. If you use generalities, general terms, you say to a consultant, tell me what my options are. Then they're going to come back and tell you what your options are. They're not going to say, here are all your options. This is the best option. Here's why this is the best option. This is the most cost effective, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this is what you should spend on it. So what I'm saying is I just have a lot of experience with consultants in my past life. If you don't get very specific with the scope of work you 're asking them to do and you ask them things with generalities like, am I jumping off a cliff here? I'm joking with you, Kathleen. Is this a good idea? Okay, what I'm saying is we're going to have to be very specific because if you give them a general scope, they're going to give you a general answer because they want to get hired again. That's really what they want. So all I'm saying is to me, it is very specific. Here's the body of work that we've done. Tell me if it's flawed. Where is it flawed? >> Yes. >> That's the conclusion I got to. Is that the right conclusion? Is there a better conclusion? And if that is the right conclusion, is that the right amount of money to spend? Or can I do it for less? I think we got to drill, while I'm saying this, we just got to drill it down very specific. >> I agree. >> Because we're not going to get it done in 30 or 60 days if we don't get very, very specific. >> I'm just throwing that out there because I don't mean to back and forth. >> No, I'm just saying what I heard. >> Because I just didn't want this to, we don't do this project because the consultant took a year. That's why I threw that out there. I don't know what the time limit is, but I didn't want that to be a ploy. That's how this died, is because we hired a consultant. And I've heard that. That is not the reason why I wanted to. So I don't know what that time frame is. >> We need the math teacher to check our work. >> We have a two day retreat this week. My challenge to council is to go home and write down three of your top issues for a consultant. Bring that back to the retreat, which is in two days. And let's take a look at that list. Meanwhile, I would charge staff with reaching out to other cities and take a look at their RFQs that when they're wrestling with what are some of the RFQs looking for so that we can look at some of that language as well. But we have a retreat in two days. Go home, write down your three top, bring them back to this retreat. >> City manager, you had commented on it. >> No, I just think it just seems to me, listen, I think all this is good dialogue, but I'm not sure if you ask me what's our charge. At this point, I could tell you what it is. But it may be that we need to try to come back either on the second or the 16th and give you some information about what consultants might be available or approached. What's their availability? Could they even get on the study and how long would it take them to do it? And potentially, what's the scope of what we would ask them to do? React to the plan we already have or develop a new plan and let you all react to something we can provide to you in answering all those questions. I don't think we're gonna be able to have that kind of a thing for you to react to on the second, but we might be able to have some outline of what we could react to on the 16th. >> Okay. >> For thought, food for thought. >> I like that plan. All right, Phil. >> In closing. >> Yes. >> I do want to express appreciation from the staff as far as appreciation shown by the council and the PUB members in support for us as going through this process. And I appreciate that. I also want to appreciate a very heartfelt note I got from a citizen who has really struggled with and studied this project as we proceed through it. She sent me a note that said, emotionally, I don't like the use of gas. But from where I've seen your discussions, I understand now and understand why that might be the best plan going forward. And so I appreciate that kind of conversation we can have with the citizens and moving forward. Whatever direction the council gives us as we've seen, this plan is a reaction to direction given by council. And it was our shot to try to provide, to respond to what you direct us to do. You have a very capable staff at DMA and capable city staff that supports us and helps us to achieve our mission and will be ready to respond to whatever direction the council gives us. >> Phil, I want to say that in no way is my desire to have a consultant look at this on the most expeditious manner. In any way, discounts the plan that's been proposed. It's more of a, hey, okay, we're spending, I don't know, Kevin, if my desire is to bring together this so-called division as much as it is. You know, it's a $200, $300 million deal. It'll take us a little bit of time. And my hunch is it's going to come back something, if not similar, something fairly similar. Not because natural gas is a bridge fuel to increasing renewables, but it may not. But I don't think anybody up here would say the desire to have a consultant is any kind of indication. Or about what we believe about DME staff or their proposal or how they'll work for whatever policy direction we give. So I know it would be hard not to think that. And I will certainly willingly acknowledge that. And I hope we've had a long enough relationship that you know that that's not it from my perspective. I don't think it is from anybody else's, but I'll let them speak for themselves if they so desire. So I appreciate, number one, all your hard work so far. All the hard work you have yet to put into it. And your willingness to really sit and listen to the citizens, even when it didn't feel like it was very much fun. Yes, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions, comments? All right, we are now, we've terminated our open session. We will now go into closed session. I will convene the closed session at 5.37 PM. We will consider the following items, consultation with attorneys under text agreement code section 551. I wanted to welcome everybody to this special call work session, special call council meeting on the fourth Tuesday . It is January 26, 2016. We do have a quorum. If you will stand with me, if you're able to pledge allegiance to the US and the Texas flag. Thank you. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. >> We'll move on to the first item of our very lengthy agenda. Is the consent agenda. Council member Wasney. >> I'd like to pull item D and move it from consent agenda and put it under items of individual consideration please. >> Okay. Council member Hawkins. >> All right, so I guess I can almost go through every item here, but let's see. >> There's items A through F, I know I'm repeating here, but B and C are staying. A, E, and F are postponed for another date. And council member Wasney pulled D. So I know I said that the most confusing way, but did that make sense? >> So the only items that we're considering for the consent agenda item vote will be items B, C, and C. >> That's it. >> That's it. >> Okay, all right. So council member Hawkins, your request and invitation, did you make a motion on that? >> He did, okay, I'm sorry. May I approach him? >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second to approve consent agenda items B and C. Consent agenda item D has been moved for individual consideration and consent agenda items A, E, and F have been removed entirely from the agenda. >> And E. >> And E, yes. Okay, all right. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries unanimously. We will now consider agenda item D. I'm on the wrong agenda, I'm looking at a closed session. Agenda item D, which is considered option of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, repealing ordinance number 2013-248 and enacting a new ordinance relating to planning and development fees as it concerns gas well drilling and production in the city of Denton. >> Mayor and council, I'd like to introduce first assistant Erin Leal to clarify a few points with regard to the action that the council will be taking as it concerns this item. Mr. Leal. >> Thank you. There's been some concern by certain, by members of the community concerning one particular fee that's within exhibit A of the ordinance that before you tonight. If you turn to exhibit A, you will look under the heading gas well development site plans. There are two fees, one for an initial review first two years and the second is an initial review after the two years. The former has a charge of a proposed fee of 3960 and the second has a proposed fee of $7570. This concern by members of the community has been that what the city is attempting or is proposing to do is to offer a fee reduction for gas well operators who file gas well development site plans within the first two years after this ordinance is adopted. I'm here to tell you that that is not the case. What we have here, what these numbers represent in the first two years and the after two years are the city's anticipated cost to recover for the services it provides to the operators in reviewing the applications. Now as the council knows, we charge fees for the different services that we provide. One of the things we have to be careful when we charge those fees is that those fees can exceed the costs, our cost in providing that service. If we exceed that amount, then there's the possibility that we could be a claim for an illegal tax under Texas law could be raised against the city. So we're very careful in setting those fees, especially with the gas well ordinance. In this case, we hired an outside consultant who met with the city staff, interviewed them, determined what activities they were all doing in relation to all the activities listed in Exhibit A. Specifically the gas well development site plan and calculated what the cost of service would be for the employees. In addition, the consultant, talking with the gas well administrator, they made an assumption that the majority of operators who come in and apply for gas well development site plans and thereby giving up their old gas well development plots, those activities would occur within the first two years. In fact, we would be receiving a huge number of applications, most likely in clusters. And when that happens, when you have a lot of applications that are being reviewed at one time or two times, then you develop what's called an economy of scale. Your costs in providing that service go down the more applications that are filed. Now I know that sounds counterintuitive, but that is how, that is what, if you studied economics in college, that's an economic assumption. And so, during the first two years, the consultant calculated that our city's cost to recover our service that we provide during those first two years will be $3,960 per application . After two years, there won't be too many, the assumption is there won't be too many gas well plots left to be converted over the gas well development site plans. So therefore, the cost increases. And so again, it's not a fee reduction, it's just we're trying to recoup. Consistent with state law, what our cost of services will be. And they are based on the consultant's assumptions. >> Okay, any questions for staff? Council Member Wasney? >> So to make clear, the first ordinance, the first time around, included wording that was very specific in terms of offering an incentive to gas well operators and that that wording has been removed in this ordinance, is that correct? >> That is correct. Last August of 2015, when staff proposed a fee ordinance at that time, there was a proposal to reduce the fee by up to 90%. We therefore were charging a lot less. But that was really consistent with the council's direction , so we did not include that in this ordinance. >> You are correct. >> And that that fee was actually $760 at that point, and that that fee now is $3,960. >> That is correct. >> Thank you. >> Council Member Briggs? >> I just wanted to say that I am comfortable voting yes on this. And after the 90% reduction in August came out, there was a lot of questions and staff was asked. Or you went and hired a consultant to see if the fees that we were charging were consistent with what we could charge legally. And I am okay with what we received back from the consultant. Thank you for doing that. >> You're welcome, ma'am. Council Member Wasney? >> And I want to thank staff for hiring a consultant on this. Because I think it gave us some guidance in terms of current law, that we are limited in terms of what we can charge. If we charge too much, it's considered a tax. And so we walk a little bit of a fine line. Is that correct in terms of what we're allowed to charge legally and what we're not allowed to charge? >> That is correct. >> And one last question. Are some of the fees that are on this proposal, there are fees that have been added that were not in the first, the original proposal? >> Yes, there are some, the expansion of fees such as the number of gas wells. You'll notice that during the annual inspection process, we've expanded the fees based on the number of wells that a operator has at a particular pad site. >> Yeah, I'm comfortable with the changes that we've implemented too. And I thank staff for following through with that. >> Any other questions for staff? I'm so tempted to make a motion so that I can watch the city attorney attack me and tell me how wrong I am. Mayor Pro Tem. >> I move approval of the motion. >> I move the item. >> Okay, Council Member Johnson. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second for consent agenda item D, which was converted to an item for individual consideration . Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries unanimously. We'll now move on to our public hearing portion of the agenda. Agenda item 3A, hold a public hearing, consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, amending the procedural and development standards for the Razor Ranch Overlay District by superseding the previously approved Razor Ranch Overlay District classification am ending chapter 35. And we will now open the public hearing. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to ask Amy Vissiter, Director of Development Services, to present this public hearing for your consideration. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. The zoning amendment that you'll be considering this evening is a city initiated zoning amendment for the Razor Ranch Overlay District. The purpose of this particular amendment is really procedural in nature to clear up some ambiguities that are existing in the ordinance today, and ambiguities between what's been developed on the ground today, or is in the process of development versus what is in the original concept plan. The amendment is also intended to better align the overlay ordinance with the vision for the development, which was presented to you last spring. And at that point in time, you gave direction to staff to streamline the ordinance and make a more efficient process that had less ambiguity in it so that we could facilitate the successful development of the vision of the project. Before I walk through the details, I want to give a little bit of a history and context of what we're doing tonight. Red development became involved with Razor Ranch in 2010, and at that time, the overlay ordinance that exists today was adopted. An overlay ordinance essentially takes a base zoning and adds to that some design criteria, some use restrictions, and other things where you can create a very well intended and well visioned development. And so that's why the ordinance exists today. I'm going to briefly summarize the proposed amendments that we're discussing tonight. The first one is, actually the majority of them are related to amending exhibits only. And the first one is related to amending the concept plan, which is the visual depiction of the project and the intent of the project. So that it reflects current development and future development as proposed by Red Development in their vision. On the screen, you'll see on the left hand side is the current concept plan that's in the overlay ordinance, and on the right is the proposed. The only change here are some, the moving of some of the boundaries of the sub-districts. The sub-districts essentially set out what uses are allowed within those areas and what the criteria are for those uses . And I'm going to outline what the changes are here. We are taking the current Wynco grocery store, which is in construction today. And moving it into the sub-district called RR2, which is more of the peripheral development that you see in yellow around the edges of the development. When Wynco came in with their site plan, they overlapped RR 1 and RR2 boundaries. There were allowed in both districts, so their site plan was approved. This is just a clean up of the exhibit to reflect the actual development. We're also relocating the RR1 boundary on the south to encompass the convention center and hotel project. Which that site plan has also been approved and it currently overlaps RR1 and the sub-area right to the south of it. The last boundary change that we're making is the east boundary of RR1. We'll move slightly to the west in order to line up with the lot line of lot 9R. Lot 9R is the area in green on the right here that is intended for a multifamily development in the future. The zoning, underlying base zoning here, nothing changes. The exhibit simply moves the lines or the boundaries of the sub-areas again, but reflects the same underlying zoning. The bubble plan, which is exhibit B2, will be removed entirely from the zoning overlay. This bubble plan was intended when the overlay was adopted in 2010 to allow for some flexibility in the boundaries of the sub-districts. And it is not needed today. We now have a much more firm site plan and know the future of the development. The density zone plan is also being modified, but it is only being modified with respect to lining up with the lot line of the lot on the western side of the multifamily zone . It is not contemplating any changes to the density that it 's allowed or the number of units that are allowed or the triggers of development that must be met before multif amily can be constructed. The site plan exhibit, which speaks specifically to the marketplace, which is on the north side and is already complete, we are simply replacing the original proposed development with what's actually on the ground today. Lastly, we are clarifying the criteria for approving site plans so that it is a more streamlined approval process. The site plans are measured against the Denton Development Code requirements as modified by the Razor Ranch Overlay District. And looking at the permitted uses of the sub-areas, and if all those criteria are met, then the site plan is assumed that it would be approved. In summary, we are recommending a zoning amendment here simply to eliminate inconsistencies and ambiguities and to help facilitate the efficient development of this project. We mailed out 118 required public notices and an additional 237 courtesy notices. And letting the neighboring property owners know about this proposed zoning amendment, we received no responses. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommends approval, as does staff. And I'd be happy to answer any questions for you. The developer is here as well if you have any questions specifically for him. But in this case, the city is actually the applicant since we initiated this. >> Okay, this is a public hearing. So do we have any questions for staff prior to taking public comment? Seeing none, thank you, Amy. This is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak, please come down, state your name , address, and your time will begin. >> My name is Willie Hutzpeth. This is early night Willie Hutzpeth. I live at 623 Newton. Two things, that young child really did express my feelings about some of the things that go on in here. Sometimes I wish I could do that, but they take me out here . But anyway, that's another subject. Would you put back up that site plan and show where you sent the notifications? >> Sure. >> And tell me, how far up Bonnie Bray did you go? I can't tell on that. >> It's up, it's- >> Where's scripture? >> The scripture's all the way down at the bottom. >> The scripture's down on the south border. And then on the north border is the border of the razor ranch development on the north side. >> So the southern border's in hooking. All right. >> I didn't receive notification and my property's on Bonnie Bray, but I see why now. It didn't pass scripture, so that's all I want to do. >> All right, thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? Anybody else wishing to speak? All right, we will now close the public hearing. Council member Johnson. >> Move approval. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second for agenda item 3A. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries unanimously. We'll go on to our final agenda item, which is, I believe, concluding items. Agenda item number four, council member Johnson. >> Thank you, Mayor. For all of you that are here tonight, and those of you watching at home, I'd like to invite everybody to come out to the Gateway Center Friday. There's a Friday lunch. It is the Your Beautiful Fashion Show benefiting the American Cancer Society. This is a group of ladies in Denton that got together several years ago with the idea of doing something local to try to make a difference in cancer research. And I believe, I believe it's been happening for five years . I don't remember exactly. But on their own, this group of ladies has got this going. And I think they said the other night that they've raised almost a million dollars for cancer research, 100% of the proceeds go to American Cancer Society for research. So for those of you that want to see a bunch of beautiful cancer survivors strut their stuff across the stage, go see the ladies. If you want to have a good laugh, you can see me strut across the stage. So please come out and support them. Thank you. >> Council member Wasney. I'd like us to revisit our cell phone policy in the city of Denton. I know that communities around us are enacting some tougher laws regarding handheld cell phone usages. And our police chief had a total of 40 accidents last year that were attributed to cell phone use. We had a fatality on 35W, not this Christmas, the Christmas prior. With other cities taking a look at this, I would like us to reexamine. I know that we have a ban on texting. I would like to take a look at a tougher law and bring our police chief in to do a presentation and get our citizens involved and just have a discussion. >> Thank you, Council Member Briggs. >> A couple of things. I have been taking the class, a RAD class. It's through the Denton police. It's rape, aggression, defense training. And I just cannot say enough good things about it. The instructors are great and it's very empowering to women and it's $15. And it is very worth it for those who walk to their car alone at night or feel unsafe, it's very helpful, so don't mess with me. And also, I took a ride with Community Improvement Services . I went out for a day with Caleb Norris and it was very informative as well. So those guys do, they get a lot of negative publicity, I guess you'd say. But they do a really good job at keeping our city looking nice. And I just kind of wanted to give a shout out to that department. >> Fantastic. I've got one, so anybody else has one? I want to invite everybody out to the Irma P Hall Lifetime Achievement Award and Reception, that's Friday at 8 o'clock. It kicks off the Black Film Festival, so I'm going to be reading a proclamation there. So just wanted to let everybody know that and come out and join us for that great celebration. Anything else? Seeing none, we will adjourn.