Mar 03, 2016 City Council on 2016-03-03 2:30 PM

[ Music ] Good afternoon. I wanted to welcome everybody to this special call meeting of the Denton City Council on Thursday , March 3rd, 2016, about 2.32. We do have a quorum. If you'll stand with me, if you're able, we'll pledge the United States and the Texas flag. Thank you. [ Applause ] Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state, under God, one indivisible. Okay, we'll go ahead and call our first agenda item, and really our only agenda item for the open session of the City Council meeting. It's agenda item 1A. To hold the second of two public hearings to consider annexing approximately 4.400 - man, it 's not even late - 4,132.4 acres of land contained in 10 of the 15 annexation areas. And since this is a public hearing, I will go ahead and open the public hearing. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I'm going to ask Amy Bissett, our Director of Development Services, if she would present the information relative to these annexations for the benefit of the audience, both here and at home, and recognize that this is probably the same presentation that the council saw earlier at the first public hearing. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Mayor and council members. What you are considering today is this is the second public hearing in which you will hear from the public regarding annexations of properties that have currently have non-annexation agreement extensions on them that expire this month. Before we do that, I want to walk through a little bit of background about how these annexations came about and when and what the intent of the city was at that time. A little bit of background, the Denton Plan was adopted in 1999, our former Denton Plan. In that plan, there was a need for additional acreage and at that time, the Denton Plan called for an annexation program. And this public hearing is a part of that annexation program, kind of on the tail end of it. At the time that the Denton Plan was adopted in 1999, the city was about 39, 000 acres in size. The plan looks at anticipated growth, population change over a certain amount of time and the need to accommodate that growth for new residents of Denton and that is when the annexation plan was called for. The population projections showed at that time that we would need an additional 25,000 acres approximately to accommodate the population growth, primarily to accommodate single family residential growth, although it also called for additional commercial and industrial projects as well. As a result of that, in 2009, the city initiated an annex ation study. The result of that annexation study said that we would need an additional 7,500 acres. Between the initial adoption of the Denton Plan in '99 and the 2009 study, the city had grown during that time, but we were still short approximately 7,500 acres. The Denton Plan actually states to adopt an aggressive annexation policy in order to manage the density and quality of growth within the current ETJ. The goals of the 2009 annexation study were to protect the north I-35 corridor and the future west loop 288 corridor. When you see a map in a few minutes of the proposed annex ation areas, many of them are concentrated in these two areas. To manage the growth in the city's CCN, manage land use in probable growth areas, create a logical, contiguous city of Denton border, to reduce pockets of unincorporated areas, what we are commonly referring to as donut holes within the city limits, to provide future growth areas as recommended in the Denton Plan, and to create a system for priority ranking of potential annexation areas based on a scoring system. The results of the annexation study identified two different types of proposed annexations. The first one, the study called potential annexation areas, shortened to PAAs, which we still refer to today, and those that we're contemplating today are PAA 1 through 4. The goal of those proposed annexation areas was to increase acreage in the city to accommodate growth and to focus on development patterns. The donut holes were the other types of annexations that were recommended in that study. We shortened that to DH, and you'll see those referred to today as DH 1 through 5 and DH 14. And these are smaller pockets of land that are inside the city limits today, but are pockets that remain within our ETJ. In 2010, we commenced the annexation program to accomplish the goals of the study that was in 2009, and that is the program that is continuing today. So in 2010, we initiated annexations, but there were properties within these proposed areas that were eligible for a non-annexation agreement, which essentially postponed annexation to a future date. So they received five-year non-annexation agreements in 2010, and last year around this time, those that were still eligible for an exemption received a one-year extension on their non-annexation agreements. Those are expiring now, and they're set to expire this month. This is a map that shows all of the annexation areas contemplated today. You'll see that the PAA 1 through 4 areas are those in the northwestern quadrant of the city, and primarily surround I-35 on the northern corridor or the future Loop 288 path. The others, the donut holes, you see mostly to the south side of the city. I'm going to walk through each annexation area to show a more close-up map and the general location. PAA 1 is near Jim Crystal and Tom Cole Road, and it's approximately 741 acres. PAA 2 is near FM 1173 and University Drive, and it's approximately 476 acres. PAA 3 is near Ganser and Bartold Road, west of I-35, and is approximately 465 acres. PAA 4 is at Milam Road and Loop 288, and is approximately 1105 acres. DH 1 is at FM 2449 west of John Payne Road, and is approximately 261 acres. DH 2 is near University and Thomas J. Egan Road, approximately 203 acres. DH 3 is near Springside Road and Corbin Road, and is approximately 279 acres. DH 4 is near Bonnie Bray and Fort Worth Drive, so it is 274 acres. DH 5 is near Brush Creek and Country Club Road, and is approximately 321 acres. Lastly, DH 14 is near Robertson Road and Thoroughbred Trail , and is approximately 2 acres. Displayed above is the 2016 annexation schedule. This is the second public hearing. Following this public hearing will be the first reading of the annexation ordinances on April 5th. Then we will publish the ordinances in the Denton Record Chronicle the following day, and the second reading and adoption of the ordinances is scheduled for May 10th. That completes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. I have one question. Any Councilmembers have any questions? On that last, I call it doughnut hole, the little one that 's only about two acres. You've got the red area and then you've got the gray crossh atch area around the black. What is? DH 14 is the entire area, including the crosshatch area, but all the rest of it's already been annexed. Only the red has not. The two acres is the piece left. That is correct. Is there a structure in there? Is there, I mean? I can look. I've got my records with me and can... Oh, we've got somebody here, I think, to speak to that. So, alright. Thank you. You bet. Thank you. Alright. Fantastic. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mayor. Several people have raised issues about the increase that they will experience in their taxes. And I've heard that from folks that have 25 acres, 8 acres, things like that, where they're actually engaged in agricultural activities. They're growing hay, they're raising cattle. Can anybody talk to the agricultural exemptions that are available to those folks? Are they available? What does that do? I know I've been surprised when I've heard some of the changes in the tax roll on some of the exempt property out around the airport and how low it was. So is there somebody on the staff now that can do that or is that something that we could ask for in the future? Would it be better to ask for in the next meeting? Well, if I could, Mr. Mayor, if I understand your question, Mr. Gregory, the ag exemption that they would have is obviously dependent on being qualified for that exemption through the appraisal district. Annexation in and of itself will not change their eligibility for the ag exemption. Okay. And I'll ask Aaron to correct me if he thinks I'm mistaking that. The ag exemption, if they qualify that, would apply and they'd be eligible for that whether they were in the city or not. So it wouldn't automatically jump or increase the appraised value of the property just because it's within the corporate limits of the city. Now, if there is a home on the property, that would then go on the tax roll at whatever the appraised value is and it would go on the city's roll where it had not been on the city's roll before and would remain on the county's roll as it had in the past. It might just be helpful for us. I mean, there would be additional taxes because there would be city taxes in addition for the land. But my understanding is that city taxes on land that's ag exempt are pretty minimal. And if we could just maybe possibly get an example of a piece of property that was ag exempt, what the city taxes are on that ag exemption, you know, per acre or something like that. And I think we could probably do that even with property that's been annexed in the past to show history of how that 's occurred and how it would occur on properties going forward. I think that would be helpful for everyone. We'd be happy to do that. Thank you. Councilmember Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. I know the answer to this is probably for Aaron, but there 's -- we heard the term, you know, taxation without representation a few times the other night. And let's say that we were to adopt this and annex and there was an election in a month. There's never been a case where you're able to expedite that and get the people that had just been annexed into the city as registered voters so they could vote. They would have to wait for the next election. Depending on the annexations when they occur, then yes, there would be an actual cutoff deadline set by the state statute in which one can register the vote. So if the annexation is too close, that is a possibility they may not be eligible to vote in the -- But you never have heard of a reason where there's a -- you can expedite that and then a certain case or something like that. No, the state law is pretty uniform. Okay. Ms. Briggs. Last meeting, someone mentioned a restricted covenants, and I hadn't heard that before, and I was wondering if that was the time to ask or is that later? Do you have any more when you say restricted covenants? Yeah, an individual said that was on their property and it cannot be annexed, and so I was curious about that term. Restricted covenants? I can speak a little bit about restrictive covenants. What they usually do is they put some type of a hindrance on how a property can be used. An example would be property can only be used for residential purposes, not anything else. That would be a restrictive covenant that would go as part of the property that's filed with the county. As far as a restrictive covenant working hand in hand with annexation, I have not heard of that. I'm curious. I mean, I'd be willing to look to see if there is such a document that might affect annexation, but typically I've never heard of that. Okay. Thank you. Well, and if that comes up again in this meeting, then we can maybe get some clarification from the speaker. Any other questions from council members before we have the public hearing? Or at least hear public comment? All right. Without further ado, what I'll do is I'll call the first speaker and then the one that will be on deck. Janelle Harris, please come forward, state your name, address, and your time will begin. And on deck will be Janelle Burch. They should pop that camera up here pretty soon. There you go. You need it zoomed out or can you zoom out just a tad on the camera? Okay, sure. Okay. Sure. The mic, please. Yeah. So we make sure everybody at home can hear you. I'm Janelle Harris and I live at 425 Fry, but we have property out off of I-35 just south of where Loop 288 comes in. The goals of 2009 annexation study basically was to increase city acreage to accommodate growth. The non-accession agreements serve to protect planned growth and allow continued use of that land. Forming and ratcheting in our case, we have had that land in our family since the 1950s prior to 35E and Loop 288. The free market determines the real need for development and it aids funding in that infrastructure. The service plan looks great, gentlemen and ladies, but there's a disclaimer at the bottom that sort of takes all the hint of possibility of what we might get for being annexed out of the realm of possibility when you look at population density. Development itself triggers automatic annexation. We signed that non-accession agreement with the full understanding if we sold any of that property, we would immediately have to comply with all city regulations. So there's not anything that prevents us as a city from holding progress back. The non-accession agreements help move that forward. A couple of the other goals were to protect the North Inter state 35 corridors and protect the West Loop 288 corridors. The existing non-annexation agreements that we have do this very thing. Non-annexation agreements can be extended up to 45 years under Texas Statute Section 212-172. We're not asking for a 45-year extension. We would like to consider an extension because our goal is to extend our non-annexation agreements in support of the 2009 annexation study. Just let us retain control of it as farmers and ranchers in that area until it becomes necessary through normal development of that property. And I do appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today and make our desires and goals known. Thank you. Thank you. Janelle Burch and then up next will be Terry Medder. My name is Janelle Burch. I live at 4478 Country Club Road in Denton, presently out of the city limits. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. I've already told you the history of the Burch Family Farm dating back to the 1930s. I've been told that back then it really was in the country. This map was taken from an actual survey map showing the floodplain of our property. Hickory Creek comes in and borders on our east side and goes all the way down to the south. From the west comes Rorick Branch. Sometimes some of the areas is between two flooding creeks when we get the rain. The 2030 plan as presented today and the other night annex ing these areas kind of gives the city bragging rights, sort of, by increasing the total acres available for growth, but in actuality no development can happen in floodplain. Therefore, the total acres available for growth is grossly overstated. The city wants to have, wants to annex to have control. Well, like the previous speaker talked about, the non-ac cess agreement do that quite nicely. And I'll refer to page two, section two, developmental plan . If there is typos in that, that's my fault because I typed it. But it is limited to farm and ranch related uses. It's spelled out very clearly. And therefore, we're restricted as it is. When we went through the 2010 annexation, the reason was for closing existing holes throughout the city. That was according to the Denton plan 1999 through 2020. Holes will continue to exist at least until 2031 because of the restrictive covenances. And back then there was at least three allowed to several property owners during that 2000 annexation, totaling over approximately 900 acres. All of these properties of these three, and I don't know how many there are altogether, are in close proximity north of Donut Hole 4, which we're part of Donut Hole 4, and east of Donut Hole 5, which we are all of Donut Hole 5. Therefore, annexing us at this time will not eliminate the holes within the city annex property. Our preference as well as our good neighbors on Bonnie Bray also in Donut Hole 4 is we do not want to be annexed. Please renew the non-axation agreement currently on the properties in 15 years would really be great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Terry, and then we've got Dan Hampton. Good afternoon. I apologize for my appearance. I mistakenly thought the hearing was tonight and I just came in fresh off of a mower. I had handed out, or I asked the officer to hand out where I enlarged the notice of public hearing to focus more on my property. I live at 4021 Corbin Road in Denton. Corbin Road currently has a grand total of two homes that have not previously been annexed. As I wrote, my property is south of Corbin Road. The bottom half of my property is all flood plain and cannot be built on. The top of my property includes my home and horse barns as I raise horses and sell hay. I have two gas wells on my property and as a result on the top part of the property that is non-flood plain, there are all kinds of easements and gas lines going back and forth so that you cannot build on it because you can't build within so many feet of gas lines. The property across the street from me that is owned by the Haven Hills is also largely flood plain. It has one home. So on my property it is a grand total of me and across the street there are two residents. So I assure you that these two pieces of property are not going to be an area of growth. Years ago, I don't know, I'm not politically savvy, so I don't know how many of you were on the City Council back then, but our Corbin Road used to go all the way up to Airport Road. There are two water crossings and unfortunately there was a significant incident. And so the City Council voted, much to our chagrin, to close at two places where I show the dead ends. So my property, where you drive in to get to my property, is right before a dead end. So to access my property you go down one dead end on West Court, then you turn onto Springside, which I'm showing you here, and you hit another dead end so that you can get to Corbin Road. So this is not an area of great growth. A, you can't build on our property and B, it's very complicated to get to it. The, sorry I just lost my train of thought. There are four signs as you drive along Springside that tell you you're going to get a dead end, there's nowhere to turn around, so it just is not an area that there is going to be any boom. And as the two previous speakers have said, the non-annex agreement covers the city to protect the city should we ever sell our property and somebody figure out how to build on it. My property has access, or has no access even though we are on 35W. I check with the state of Texas with all of the expansion down by Fort Worth up to the Alliance Airport, and currently the only schedule the state has to widen I-35 up to where the two I-35s meet is in the year 2026. In 10 years is when they're slated. At that point arguably there would be access to my property and if something changed about the gas lines, the gas wells or floodplains, arguably it would be an area for expansion. But at this point there is going to be no growth other than my baby horses that are increasing in population. Thank you for your time. And if you could extend it to 2026 when we may have access from 1935, the non-annex agreement, it would be most fair. One more point. I did check with the tax assessor's office and there is five acres of my 156 acres has been slotted out for the gate and access to my home. They told me they couldn't tell me how much my tax would go up, but that there is an estimator on the website. And my property tax on that non-ag exempt property would go up about 34%. I asked in exchange both back in 2001, the non-annexation agreement and recently with Ms. Boykin, we have no city water, we have no city sewer. I asked if we were annexed and my taxes go up another third on that piece of property, what benefits do we get? Are we going to have city services? And I keep being told nothing is slotted for the two homes out on my road. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Dan Hampton and then we have Chris Atkinson. Good afternoon, Councilman. Councilman Gregory, I want to thank you for your question regarding annexation and residence or agricultural exemption. That's been kind of a silent thing in the past that really had seemed to brought itself to up front. My name is Dan Hampton. My address is 2798 Robinson Road, Denton, Texas. I am DH 14. I am the little red rectangle that you mentioned earlier. I want to make a couple of comments on that. First I want to go back to something that you've already seen or have spoken to today, and that's the Denton Plan. Adopt an aggressive annexation policy in order to manage the growth and quality, I'm sorry, the growth density and quality of growth within the current ETJ. I am currently in the county. This is a little over two acre lot compared to some of the other people speaking today. I'm a small fish in a large pond. I'm also feel like I'm one of the younger ones, not before the physical age, but because some of these people have been here much, much longer than I have. I've been there for 35 years. Our home has been, our property has been assaulted on two sides recently from the construction of FM 2499. I have lost acreage to the west side. I have lost acreage to the north side for the construction of 2499 and the widening of Robinson Road. So there's not a whole lot left. We are completely self-s ufficient. We have no city services at all. I see no material gain for the city other than some tax dollars to annex this property where there is a liability on my part to pay those taxes. The rural residential is something that the county has granted along with the agricultural exemption, and that's what we would like to maintain. And I would like for your consideration, I'm just going to put the maximum amount of time the law permits for non-anne xation. And that's my comments to you and for your consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Chris Atkinson and then Robin Gregory will be up after Chris. Mayor, Councilman, women, good afternoon. My name is Chris Atkinson at 4525 South Bonnie Bray. Please take note that I have an Argyle address and reside within Argyle ISD. Due to time constraint, I must cut to the chase. There is vast majority support from landowners against annexation in 2010. I understand this fell on tone deaf ears and went ahead anyway. That support remains today. There remains far more concern than not that the plan will still proceed for some reason despite a new council. The landowners and taxpayers voice decisions by a majority hold the only real legitimate decision making, at least morally. Government bodies are welcome to and should plan the future for and within their jurisdiction. But by attempting to impose anything unproven and without any basis, especially outside the confines of their area, literally crosses the line. The annexation schedule slide shown this week is telling enough in the final timeline entry, May 10th, reading and adoption of the annexation ordinance. Seems a bit predetermined and cavalier in the face of the taxpayers who were wooing badly for said taxes. Much has changed since the old case reaching back to 1999 is laid out. And it's still only built on qualitative factors like anticipated growth, projection or population projections. But from the doughnut hole perspective, the argument is even less stable. Logically eliminating pockets. We need some detail on what that logic entails besides coloring some boxes for the sake of it looking nice on a map. I understand some of the properties in DH4 have non-annex ation agreements in place out beyond 2030. So these pockets will never go away and will always remain. Or at least they will for another 15 plus years. I'm also confused about the proposals concerned where to put these many thousands of people allegedly coming to Dent on in the near future. Well, they're not coming to our properties unless they buy them or we invite them to dinner. Well, they're not, you know, we're not developing our land with apartments in neighborhoods. It's simply taken already. This area is already occupied. And as I pointed out Tuesday and today, much of it's in the floodplains. So there's no basis for large scale development of what's in our consideration here. If there's no place for incoming people to go, they naturally understand this and go somewhere else. Not call any hotel at capacity and ask to review their occupancy policy. That's how it works in the real world. I don't see any condo towers in Denton. Maybe you could start there with the obvious current bounds of the city. Correct me if I'm wrong, but some of these tattoo and use tire cinder block shops a few blocks away would be more attractive to me as potential land of interest to accommodate future residents with vertical growth than trying to come up with an argument to take over the rural areas first. We are way down your priority list in terms of geographic expansion. Unless you're thinking of buying us all out, mowing down high dollar estates and centuries old farms and building your high density dreams. But there's a few obvious problems with this. Those people aren't here now. There's no factual belief. These imaginary folks want to live that far out in any of these areas in our consideration if they were to get here. By the way, they're going to Frisco. And no less, especially in this housing market, you can't afford us, nor can we afford you. So in what unproven world does hypothesis of future trends justify taking over our unincorporated identities today? Providing us with no actual increase in services, but certainly increasing our taxes by thousands nonetheless. Ask me how I know. It turns out my four acre property was annexed in 2010. I moved there a year ago this week. I think we may all believe for now the most agreeable solution to this for both sides is not stealing donut holes . It's granting more time to prove your vision, compromise. This would include fairly reversing the 2010 annexation properties to their former jurisdictions that remain right in the middle of all of this. Or at least allow the consideration there on a case by case basis. Such as if they're engaged in ag production and let the dust settle here for everyone. We understand there's an option to issue non annexation agreements again for several more years. And there really should be, I think, an agreeable leading option moving forward for everyone here. In light of this proposal's highly debated unstable basis that originates from 1999. I recommend first optimizing the space within Denton proper to not prematurely disrupt, offend, and even bankrupt the many people, communities, and jurisdictions that call home a beautiful home. A beautiful place outside the city. Thanks for this time. Thank you. Robin Gregory. And then up will be. Bette Carter. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council, for allowing me to be here again. Robin Gregory, 491 Hickory Creek Court. I'm not going to waste your time with a lot that I've already been over. Just know this annexation has never been voluntary. We have been held hostage, signed an agreement, or be annex ed. Obey the terms of the agreement or the city would call it null and void and we would be annexed. Not voluntary on my side. My bigger issue here today is what it has to do with the choices you actually have to make. And I've heard some say that you have no choice but to annex. You must annex and that is simply not the truth. Yes, it is true that annexation can proceed against the wishes and the desires of the citizens. It's probably not the most prudent in light of the current negative political climate out there. You don't have to be very observant to see that the American people are fed up. They are fed up with government cramming stuff down their throat that they have neither voted for nor want. We're tired of it. We don't want anything else. But go ahead, it sends a powerful message to your voting population that the will of the people mean nothing to council. And that is not acceptable to me. The other exception, the other option you have is to give us an opt out, whether it's one year, five years, 15 years. We already know that some got seven when we were told only five would be given. We already know that some have restricted covenants, I'll be happy to address that for you at some point in time. And that takes them out to 2030. Why is that? Why did my opinion not mean anything? I asked for 15 years, I got five and then one. Many of my neighbors, approximately 20%, did not even get their opt out extension last year. That's wrong. 20% is wrong. The third option you have is probably the best decision. It's a decision that sends a strong, much stronger message to the public than any word you can speak. And that's your vote. You can send that message that says you are still a council that governs on the premise of our founding fathers to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people . That's a message that you can only drive home with truth and sincerity if, if you vote no to annexation, because that's what the people want. I'm going to leave you with a short story told to me by someone I respect. A man watched a documentary on World War II where the Jewish prisoners of war were held captive by their German captors in concentration camps. And every morning they were marched out to a ditch that had been dug. And they were told to run down in that ditch where they were shot and killed, murdered by their captors. And yet the people saw them, the other prisoners saw, and they ran down into that ditch every day. And this person told me, I've made a choice at that moment that I would never run down a ditch if the option and the outcome were to remain the same. But I would turn and fight and I'm going to tell you something. This girl's going to turn and fight because you hold the key. The option may not change, but possibly I can change it for someone else down the road. Possibly I can. I can make a difference in someone else's life. And I'll be doggone if I'm going to run down a ditch for something that, that you should not even have control. If you were to try to do this annexation today, you could not get away with it. You would have to send it to vote that the laws were changed. The vote is yours. The choice is yours. What message will you send to the people? Thank you. Bent Carter and then Larry Pocras. Good afternoon. Dalton, how you doing? Long time no see. About six years on when I recognize on the board still Mr. Gregory, everybody else on the city council is all new that voted for us six years ago to annex this or non-exit policy . You see on the I've got it here right the little circles. There's where we live, about 12 acres. And I got the little circles behind us. So you see those 10 road off of Ganser and the PA for area. All single family residential areas, agriculture exempt. Most of most of them run a few cows, goats, horses, chickens. I guess what we're here is asking to see and back to your point, Mr. Hawkins, representation with a taxation that representation. We never got a chance to vote for any deal. We don't until you annex us. That's when we get the vote after it's done. Not before. So that's what everybody's upset about. We're here at your mercy, basically. It's your vote. And we hear the planning zone is going away and we got the donuts and is it making it harder on them or harder on us? My taxes are going to go up 30, 35 percent on my house, not necessarily on my agriculture land, but on the house. I know they'll go up some on the agriculture. But no water and sewer is coming. You're not going to help me offset the expenses I had when I replaced the sewer system, my septic system, two years ago at $7,000. You're not going to help on that. You're not putting the sewer line down Chin Road. You're not putting the water line down Chin Road. Spent $2,000 on a water well last year. It's not cheaper to live in the country if you all think it is. Nobody thinks water is free. Anybody that lives in the country knows it's not free. It costs a lot of money to keep a well running. Also, take care of your septic system per the state and county regulations. So what you're asking is you're going to tax us 35 percent. You're going to say, well, you get police and sheriff and all that. We've got the sheriff now. We don't need the police department. You say fire protection, the vast fire hurt and Icing is still three miles away. The same thing it was six years ago. I don't have any better fire protection now than I did six years ago. So I'm asking, like everybody else is asking, to extend the non-exhalation until it makes sense. When you got water and sewer and the water hydrant sitting at the corner, fire hydrant, and you got sewer running down the front of the Chin Road, then I won't be up here arguing with you. But until those things happen, I can't see why I've got to pay 35 percent more. And I ask you, if somebody come to your house and say you pay 35 percent more in your taxes and you don't get anything additional, would you not be standing in the same spot arguing the same point? That's the point I'm trying to make. Why am I taxes going up when I get nothing else really than what I have now? You say trash service. I have trash service. Pay for it every day, every month, just like everybody else has to. So we have everything we can comply by all the ordinances that we have. I don't understand why I'm getting taxed additionally and brought in just because it makes it look pretty on a chart somewhere. I'd like to see when we stay as unannexed and get an exemption just like all these other folks. A lot of them are more, can talk a lot better than I can, but we're all asking for the same thing. And we're asking you, like I said, there's only one person which adopted one here six years ago, and we stood and talked and we've known each other since we were both dark-headed. So we're asking you all again to not annex us and extend the agreements until it, like one of the other folks said, makes sense. When there's development around us, when the hunt's down the road, it's the other place to some other developer, and they start putting in taxes and then putting in land and you're putting in the development that you want, and there's water and sewer there and you run it down the road, then annex us because we're in the city then. But until then, we're still in the country and we'd like to be left that way. Thank you. Thank you. Larry Pokrus and then up will be Paul Tuts. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. I'm Larry Pokrus at 908 Wolf Run, Ponder, Texas. And my neighbors and I, we've been asking the citizens of Denton around and trying to find some input that they say, you know, whether they think we ought to be annexed. And we tell them, we're not getting any service or anything for it. And they said, well, that's not a good deal because our streets in Denton are horrible. And if you all drive down the city streets in Denton, you 'll have to agree that about 80% of them are terrible. And they said that we would much rather them spend money in our town other than in the next few years of $2.8 million or whatever that was. So nobody that I've talked to yet has been for the annex ation of property. And the next thing I would like to ask you and ask you when I go away is you're trying to protect the I-35 corridor and the Loop 288 corridor. Where are you trying to protect it from? The people that live in these areas are not going to change . I mean, probably the next 30, 40 years are going to be just like they are. They're not going to sell their property, build condomin iums or anything on it. So I don't understand what you're trying to protect it for. But I would like to ask for at least a 15-year extension on the annexation agreement. And that's all I have to say. And if you all can answer my question what you're trying to protect it from, I would appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Paul Tubbs. I think that Paul Tubbs. Paul's not here. Okay. All right. I'll just read the card. Paul Tubbs, 4277 South Bonnie Bray, Argyle, Texas in opposition. Next speaker will be Patricia Logan. And then up next after that will be Sylvia Pena. My name is Patricia Logan. I live at 4269 South Bonnie Bray and my address is also Ar gyle. When my husband and I bought that property out there in '99 , we tried to get facilities, the water, the gas, and even our mail from Denton. They would not give us anything. So we went to Argyle and they were very willing to help us out. But we do have a well, excuse me, and we had put in the well before we went there. But we have tried to get water since and we have not been able to get it from Denton. And in fact, Denton changed our address a couple of times before we ever got it settled. There was a confusion in that. But we are on the same situation that all of these speakers have been here. They've come forth and I've listened to them and I could go in and say everything that they have said. I agree with everything because we are in the same situation. But I won't go into that. But I do say I don't know how in the world that you could build any more houses. When my husband and I went out there on Bonnie Bray on 377 in '99, we could just pull out on 377 anywhere. They have built so many houses out there now it is even hard to get our grandkids to school in the morning. The traffic is horrible and they are just building and building and building. And when we first went there, they had one school in Argyle . Now they have built three schools. They're fixing to build a new middle school. So if you look out there, I don't know if you've been out away and look out there. There are so many that have flood areas that you couldn't build anyway. But on the other hand, those that are out there, if you would drive up and down there, you would find out the traffic and how many houses have been built. And none of us want to be annexed because we went in the country. We've lived in the city and we don't want any more of the city. We want to be in the country not only because there are several of the seniors out there that retired out there, but also we're raising our grandchildren out there. And we've heard that people have brought their families out there. They live together. They're all in unity. We have wonderful people that live out there. We have wonderful families that are our neighbors. And please consider us on this annexation and have compassion for us. Those that are seniors can't afford any more money going out to Denton. And our young people, our children that have children, cannot afford it. They're up here, even though they have good jobs, but they still can't afford it. And I would ask you to really have compassion on us. And when you put your head down tonight, pray a little prayer and ask God to help you to make the right decision. Because, you know, this is our future. The people here that live out in the country here are our future here. And we want to stay there until we go. And I see some of y'all are not getting any younger either. So consider that and God bless. Good parting shot. Sylvia Pena. And up next will be, is it Norberto? Yeah, that's my dad. He doesn't want to speak. He just wants me to speak for him. Okay. All right. Well, I'm just going to read you his card as opposition as well. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Sylvia Pena, 470 Hickory Creek Court, Crum, Texas, 76249. I am here to I was not going to speak today. In fact, I have a sick child and I needed to take her to the doctor and decided to come here because approximately an hour ago, after I had been calling all morning, found out that our properties were annexed last year. And my mom and dad and us did not know about it. So I left my preschool class and ran down to my principal and said, I got to get out of here. I need to go tell these people that we're annexed. We're that 20 percent that she was talking about that got annexed without knowing. When I asked questions, she said there was an agreement ma iled to Bonnie Bray, which was my parents home address. And I said, when? And she said, last year sometime. And I said, well, what what did you need from us? And she said, well, those agreements had to been signed and they had to been mailed back to us for it to be extended another year. And I said, did you ever send something to 470 Hickory Creek Court from Texas where I live? And she said no. And then I said, well, my mom does not speak English. And you have any idea how much junk mail she gets on a daily basis? She's constantly weeding out things that are sent there for my brother, his business, my daddy, not ourselves that we're still getting mail there that we didn't I don't understand why it was sent to them. And she said, I don't know, ma'am. I really think you do need to come tell the council what happened to you all because she said that she would try to brief you guys before I got here. But that she wanted me to come tell you. I'm I'm really upset. I mean, that's that's it. Thank you. And so we have given your information to the city attorney to take a look at that. We want to make sure that we're going to take a look at that. Thank you for bringing that to our attention very much. Thank you. The next speaker, we Deborah Cottle. Oh, OK. Good afternoon. She brought up an interesting point. In fact, I had it on my list of things to talk about. We have received so many different maps, some saying that our neighbors are annexed, even though they never got a certified letter. This last round, they sent it certified. But other rounds prior to that, they didn't. I got mine certified, but my other neighbors down the street didn't. And they got one in the mail. And then the word started to spread. I'm still confused because I'm March the first is when my document terminated. I know some other people have March the first. There's a lot of conflict around what you get your answers from and everything. I know you guys are in a bad position. I'm not going to ask you to say a prayer tonight or anything like that. And you can probably sleep well. But you're the face of the city, and that's who the city bl ames for things because you're the face of it. And they expect and think that you may be getting your information correct. You have city employees who feed you these nice little PowerPoints that we sent out these, we did this, everything 's checked in balance. We've checked all the legal things. That doesn't seem to be what's being echoed here from even the historical council when they were going through that, oh, they had these meetings and all the voters were polled, all the residents were polled, and we've ticked all of our balances. That sounds great. But sometimes you're not getting all the information. You may think everything is meld out. You may think all the dates say March the 16th. You may think it's tied up in a bow. But it really isn't. And that's unfortunate for you guys because you're out there in the public and you are the face of Denton. You're the ones that they go after, not meaning any threat there. So one of the things that they went through and told you what all this was about was they were going to reduce the doughnut holes. Well, we already know that that didn't happen. They created doughnut holes in our area. PAA1 didn't have any doughnut holes except the milestone is just somehow miraculously popped in there and they're not even up for anything. No one has the answer to that. The future growth, well, I think PAA1 and our area, you would never put houses out where we are when you buy all of us out and everything because we're in the middle of an industrial park. You would not, as the city grows, I think the plan looks pretty clear that with the airport and all the million plus square feet that they're building out there, we're not going to be apartments. Half of our land's in a floodplain. So that's not going to happen and that's been talked about. But I understand growth. I understand fiscal responsibility. That's the background that I come from. What I don't understand is when all these things start to grow, you have a plan and you had it. You have control over us. But do it when the development is imminent and it's not imminent. You've got to make, there's been these deals made that you 're not even aware of that some people have these long coven ants. We were only told five years. That's not the truth. You start comparing all these notes that you haven't been made aware of and it's not a nice clean little diagram that you expected. So I really hope that you think through some of these options and I do hope that in the future you, for all of Denton's decisions, that you start to get better information coming your way. Thank you. Those are all the blue cards we have and I will read the white cards in the record before I do that. This is a public hearing. So you didn't have to fill out a blue card to speak. So anybody that's wishing to speak, please come down, state your name and address and your time will begin. Anybody else wishing to speak? I'll go ahead and read the cards. Nelda Hackett is in opposition. Larry Green in opposition. Shirley Green in opposition. Nelda Birch Hackett in opposition. Richard Birch in opposition. Mark Cole in opposition. Linda Cole in opposition. Carol Womack in opposition. Robert Harris in opposition. Richard Harris Jr. in opposition. Patty Womack-Garry or Patty Gary Womack, I'm sorry. There's not a check here, but so in opposition. Okay. All right. And then I'm going to try this, but 3320 North Moss Branch Road. Is it Stasis? I'm sorry. Okay. Apologize for that. Is in opposition. Those are the cards wishing not to speak. So I will call one more time. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak that has not either spoken or turned in a white card, please come down and state your name and address if you'd like to speak. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. And so you had filled out the white card. No, no, come on down. You're right. That's fine. I'm Steve Doss. I am opposed. In 2010, you did annex a lot of us. I have three parcels on Moss Branch Road. You annexed two of them. The other one was AG, which is not annexed yet, but it's proposed to be annexed. My main concern is in 2010, my two parcels and most of the other people on Moss Branch Road got annexed, and about two weeks after your annex, you came down and painted stripe on each side of the road with little reflectors in the middle of the road for about three quarters of a mile. Before that and after that, there was no stripes. Two weeks after that, you came and tore the road up, and you repaved it, but why did you waste money? You know, I'm sure there's a lot of places you could put that money to better use than come in and paint stripes down the road and have it tore up in two weeks. And I appreciate the payment. The road's a lot better now, but there's still no stripes, which we don't need anyway, and we didn't need it to start with. Two weeks later, you tore them up anyway, so please use your money wisely. Know what the right hand is doing with the left or whatever the case may be. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Singh, you want your comment before or after the public hearing? Council Member Ware, go ahead. I just have some questions. For staff? Yeah. I'll go ahead. Okay, I'm going to offer one more time, just so we can have it clean. Anybody else wishing to speak, come down, state your name and address, and your time will begin. Okay, we will now close the public hearing. Mayor Pro Tem Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. Just wanted to get a couple of questions on the table for staff to get us some answers. I reiterate Council Member Briggs' question regarding the covenants on properties. I believe they were referred to north of the DH4 area. I think they said that those covenants went to 2031. Wanted to get some information about the letters that went out that we heard about from Mrs. Pena. If those were certified letters, if they were not, we need some background information on that. Then I'm going to have a question in closed session about when letters are signed, non-annunciation agreement letters are signed, about the vesting of those, what state rules would be vested when those letters are signed. But that would be for closed session. And that's all of my questions right now. Thank you. Council Member Johnson. Thank you, Mayor. So I have a similar question, legal question, in terms of what is the state statute in terms of notification, why there would be some that are certified and not. Is there a requirement related to annexations that we give certain types of notification? And then secondly, and I don't have to have this answer right here. And then secondly, is the requirement to send to the owner address, to the property itself, or to both? Meaning there's some notifications we send out, even if there's a tenant, it has to go to the actual location and to the owner's address. And sometimes it's not. I'd just like to understand what the statute says in terms of notification. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? And this isn't for action tonight. This was just the second public hearing. And so seeing no further questions, we will now adjourn our open meeting. And I'm going to go ahead and call the closed meeting here, and then we'll recess down to the work session room. We're going to go now into closed session 1A, consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code, Section 551.071 . So if Council Members could join me in the work session room. Thank you all. Thank you all. Thank you for coming.