Good afternoon.
Wanted to welcome everybody to this Denton City Council
meeting Tuesday, April the 5th,
2016 at 2.03.
And this is our work session.
And we'll have a regular session at 6.30.
First agenda item is citizen comments on consent agenda
items.
Seeing none.
Move on to agenda item number two, request for
clarification of agenda items listed on
the agenda for April the 5th, 2016.
Okay sure.
First of all on item 4D, note that the city attorney has
provided you with a substitute
ordinance there.
There was a slight error I think in the posting and this is
a correction for that item on
4D.
Then I'd mention also public hearings 6A, which is a
continued public hearing.
When you get to that item tonight, we would recommend that
's a continued public hearing
that we go into the public hearing, but the applicant has
asked that that case be withdrawn.
That's the overlay on Fry Street.
The applicant has asked that case be withdrawn.
And then on item 6F, which is the annexation public
hearings, we don't plan a presentation
on those public hearings and I think we'll have some
discussion in closed session about
that.
But unless Anita, you had something to add to that at this
point?
I would just add-
For the benefit of the public, we do have non-annexation
agreements on all eight of the reference properties.
We have noticed this as a public hearing, however, and so
for the benefit of the public,
who has been noticed, we will have the public hearing.
But going forward, since we have the non-annexation
agreements, we will not be reading annexation
ordinances on these eight.
Okay.
And then I understand something about consent CC through JJ
, which is-
Which are the non-annexation agreements.
We're going to pull all of those items and take them
individually.
Okay.
All right.
CC through JJ.
Well, isn't-
Yes.
Isn't there one on BB to a non-annexation agreement or are
we just going to CC?
That was one of your questions?
Okay.
Pull them all from BB?
Okay.
All right.
Any other-
Yes, Council Member Johnson.
I don't necessarily want clarification on this, but on item
E, on consent, the Summer Food
Service Program with Denton Independent School District, I
just would like to highlight once
again here's another item where the city and the school
district are working together on
something for the betterment of the community and just to
highlight the great working relationship
that we have with the school district many cities don't
enjoy, I think that's worth
highlighting.
So whether we want to pull it and make a statement in the
regular meeting or I'm fine with just
highlighting that here for the record.
Okay.
I think it's important to continue to build on that
partnership that's so good.
Okay.
Great.
Yes, Council Member Briggs.
Are we going to discuss item H or pull it?
We all, council got a letter of appeal from another company
regarding this bid and I didn't
know if we were supposed to discuss that or if it had been
settled.
H?
No.
You're talking about-
Is that a different thing?
Is that not the Scarab International Composting Machine?
Is that not in regards to that?
No.
Is that correct, Bill?
Are you-
Okay.
I just saw compost and I saw compost here in the appeal and
I assumed they were together
and I was just wondering to make sure if that was something
we needed to talk about.
It's okay, Mayor.
Let me ask Elton if he can address that.
Sure.
Perhaps he can clarify it for us.
Okay.
That would be good.
Thank you.
This is Elton Brock, our procurement manager.
Thank you.
Hi.
I'm Elton Brock, George, council members and Mayor.
The machine that was brought into question with the notice
to council, actually we had
three quotes that were received through cooperative
purchasing agreements, through HGAC, Bob Board,
and so Texas Government Code 271 allows the city to use
that method, one of those cooperatives.
And one of the vendors that actually did the complaining
was the highest price vendor.
They were 13% higher than the vendor with the lowest price
machine.
So Elton, based on that, the recommendation would not
change?
The recommendation would not change because it was just
absolutely a lot higher.
It was 500 and something thousand versus 463 or something
like that.
So these are just quotes that were obtained through
cooperative agreements.
So we asked for pricing to compare what best value is in
regards to those machines.
And certainly the department, if the department felt like
the machine was that much superior
in functionality, they would have written a best value
statement and brought it here
to council recommending something that was higher.
Okay.
I just wanted to address the letter that we received.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Yes, Council Member Wasney.
On agenda item F, it talks about the tax incentives for
developers.
And there's a portion in there that says 25% of employees
are to be hired who live in Denton.
So my question is how do we check up on that?
And has it ever been considered to increase that 25% or
what thought process went into
getting to the 25%?
Thank you, Mayor, I'd like to ask Caroline Booth if she
could address that.
And in my understanding is that we're asking that the
current policy be continued for the
time being and that there may be, but I don't know if that
would be an option or a consideration
for change.
But if you could address the specific question, Caroline.
Certainly.
Council Member Wasney, I appreciate you bringing that up.
It's a good point.
What we're doing, like George said, is readopting the
existing policy.
And the item that you mentioned in the policy is an
additional consideration, which we ask
companies to review that list and identify if they meet any
of those additional considerations
for us to judge the quality and the benefits of the project
for Denton.
So that is something, if a company does indicate that they
intend to hire 25% or more, we do
have methods to verify that with them, both in the
screening process and then after the
incentive is granted, we do ask them to verify that
annually before payments are made.
So if that's something that when we bring back the rev
isions to the policy to the council
later on in coming months, if you would like for us to
review that and bring some different
options to you, we can do that.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I have a question.
This topic has come up recently.
So that's an additional consideration, almost like a, so
here's all the requirements.
Correct.
Here's additional consideration that if you're willing to
do some of these things, that might
help us as we evaluate those requirements, right?
Yes, that's right.
Probably a legal question, but is it legal to require a
company to have a certain percentage
of their employees to reside in a given geographical area,
city, state, whatever?
Sure, as a condition of granting the incentive.
Sure is.
Okay.
So that might be something that we want to bring up when we
look at this thing down the
road of overall revision.
I think that would have some benefit.
Follow up on that.
Do we have anybody that's taken that part of that?
Do we have any companies out there that have received an
additional compensation for incentive
due to that factor?
We do have companies who have listed that among their
additional factors, and that's
taken holistically in the decision, along with other things
that they would list.
And what you can do, what the policy states is that each
additional factor can allow for
an additional 5% on the incentive percentage.
And so, yes, there have been companies who have used that
in the calculation of the percentage
of incentive that could be available to them.
Okay, so what I heard you say was we do have some
incentives that we have granted that
they received that additional 5% if they were to do this 25
% or more.
And so do we have a protocol or a process on some type of
interval to verify that?
We do.
If that's a condition that's written into their agreement
as you must invest this much
capital investment, you will employ this many people, you
will employ this many of them
from Denton, we do go back and verify that.
If you are looking for specific agreements that have that,
I would have to get back to
you on it.
I don't have those at the top of my mind right now.
Okay.
And so I want to make sure I understand exactly when these
additional factors come into play.
So you say if it's written into the agreement, the actual
incentive agreement that applies
specifically to that company, you will do XXX and X, and
let's say this is one of them,
25% employees.
Can they receive the benefit of that extra 5% if they put
down that we're going to do
this?
Can they receive the benefit of that without it being a
condition in the agreement?
I think let me take this back to the way that we review
incentive applications and bring
them before both the EDP board and the council for their
decisions.
So when we analyze a project and bring it before EDP and
then council, we present the
range of options that are available in terms of what the
company qualifies for under the
policy for incentives.
So it could be, there's a base amount based on their
capital investment, and that equates
to a certain percentage and a certain length of time.
Where these additional factors come into play is that can
increase the percentage amount
and/or the length of time of the incentive that they can
receive.
So we present those options to you.
Sort of there's a base option and then there are options
that are increased based on those
additional factors.
So that's what helps the council make decisions about the
percentage and the length, is the
additional factors.
But if you want, if council chooses to include in the
incentive agreement as a condition
of receiving the incentive, this 25% of local employment,
then that can be put into the
agreement.
And I might be wrong about this, Amy, but once that's
written in there, if that condition
isn't met and we verify it, I don't know exactly how the
decrease is made in what the company
would receive.
Does that make sense?
I don't know if it's a, you don't receive any of your
incentive because you didn't meet
all your thresholds or you can receive a percentage.
I think Caroline is right that there's a difference between
determining what a company will qualify
for and those additional considerations are used to
calculate what they're qualified for.
Whether they end up in the incentive agreement as a
condition of receiving the incentive
is handled on a case by case basis.
And not all of the things that make them qualify for a
certain amount or all the considerations
are then written into an agreement.
It just depends on exactly what the direction we typically
receive from EDP and council
on the specific conditions and how those are measured.
Now when something is written as a condition, for example,
what we see most often written
in as a condition is a certain number of jobs at a certain
wage.
And if that threshold is not met, we have a reduction of
the incentive based on the,
it's pro-rated based on what percentage they did meet.
Honestly, I cannot think of an incentive agreement where we
've written in the 25% employed by
Denton residents as a condition of the incentive agreement.
It has been a factor that we've utilized in analyzing it,
but I don't think we've ever
used it as a specific condition whereby then we've required
a company to go back and verify
that.
>> Okay.
Okay, so what I heard you say was that we've got these
additional 5%.
Let's take the employment for instance.
Oh, it's basis 25% and we're going to employ 25% of our
employees are going to be from
Denton.
Oh, so you could qualify for a 30% incentive, X amount of
years.
Great.
So the city passes it, council passes it, but in the
incentive agreement itself, that
condition of that additional factor is not a specific term
in the incentive contract.
>> Historically that is true that it does not always
translate directly into a condition.
A good example of that is a record of service within the
community.
That is an additional consideration if a company is a good
corporate citizen within the community
if what they typically do is demonstrate that at the time
of the application and that is
their verification.
That is how they qualify for the consent.
>> Yeah, I've probably taken this way off where it needed
to be because this is obviously
a discussion we can have when we come back to review.
But anyway, did I see any hands over here?
>> Not on this one.
>> Do what?
>> Not on this one.
>> Oh, oh.
Are you on this one or are you on a different one?
>> I'm on this one.
>> Okay, yes, go ahead, I'm sorry.
>> So just to bring us back and to clarify exactly what we
're approving tonight, in the
backup it just includes these three kind of minor changes.
>> Yes.
>> Including the two new seats that we've already added,
updating the census track and
then declaring effective dates accordingly.
So it does mention though that this is a requirement every
two years to bring this back.
And so when I'm gathering from the AIS, and correct me if I
'm wrong, that we're fixing
these changes to get it amended, but that there's a longer
conversation in place currently
that will result in a more robust overview of the entire
policy, is that right?
>> That is right.
>> Within this year or what are we talking about in terms
of?
>> Yes, within this year.
>> Okay.
Yeah, I mean, I think given a couple of high profile issues
as of late, there's been a
lot of interest in this topic in the community.
And to be candid, a lot of misunderstanding of kind of our
policy or difference between
incentives or reimbursements and things like that.
So just a cue, I guess, to the agenda committee.
I mean, I think before it goes too down, the staff making
recommendations, I think there's
a lot of interest perhaps even our council providing some
direction or at least having
a conversation that this might be worth a work session
prior to that point.
>> Sure.
>> Is that all?
>> Okay, I see no other questions.
>> Thank you.
>> Yes.
Consent agenda?
Yes.
>> On I and J together, it's an emergency repair of a 27
inch water main and then on J it's
emergency replacement.
Is there any policy in place when there's an emergency that
it still needs to be voted
on?
>> You know, if there's an emergency, I would hope that
staff or management could make that
call.
But I know the dollar amount there is over where we need to
vote on it.
>> Generally, if it's something that's ratifying, generally
this is ratifying a decision that
was made, but our practice has always been to bring those
emergency measures back to
council because oftentimes they don't include necessarily
taking bids in the same fashion
as we might otherwise if we weren't facing the emergency.
And the amount that's over the amount of the city manager's
authority needs to come back
even though it was -- >> So did this already happen?
>> Yes.
Yeah.
Tim, I think Mr. Fisher can address specifically the status
of both of these projects, but
they have both occurred, I think, or are under contract.
>> The repair to the 27 was already done for the water line
.
And then part of the reason that happened is when they were
getting into the repair,
things got complicated, so they had to do the line stop.
And that required a cost and a special vendor.
The roof on the tank happened as a result of a discovery of
a contract we had to paint
the tank.
And we had issues with the roof, so we wanted to expedite
that.
That is still under construction, but it's under contract.
>> I just wanted to make sure that this wasn't still a
problem and you were waiting for us
to vote on it so we could fix it.
>> No.
And that's the purpose of declaring an emergency.
It allows us some executive authority to pursue resolving
the problem, and then this is a follow-up
measure to gain the necessary approvals.
>> Well, I hope it passes then.
So do we.
>> I hope so, too.
>> May I approach you?
>> On the roof, I was at a funeral yesterday at Highland
Baptist Church, and I saw that
-- what the heck?
At first I thought it was a flying saucer that had landed
in McKenna Park.
And much to my disappointment, it wasn't.
But what was the problem?
>> The tank was built in 1951, so it was 65 years old.
>> Hey, hey.
15 -- the early 50s were very good years.
>> I understand.
I was born then, too.
>> Don't use a little word there.
>> And the supporting rafter system was in a state where it
was non-referable.
And so removal and replacement was really the only
available solution.
And so we thought we did a pretty good job of getting some
pricing, because we actually
got, I think, four or five quotes on that.
>> Yes.
Councilman Wasney.
>> Okay.
This is on Consent Agenda Item S, and it's a $10 million
concrete contract.
And I understand that what we're talking about today is
just adding on 475,000 to the $10
million.
But my underlying question is there's talk of an RFP versus
-- I read through a lot of
the exhibits, and Exhibit 2, Exhibit A talked about
automatically renews.
And so my question with something that's this big, $10
million, just a little staff background
on is this an RFP each time?
Is it automatically renewed each time?
And if it's automatically renewed, I'm just curious, how
long has this company had this
contract?
>> Let me ask Hamilton to address the question.
Mr. Brock, thank you again.
>> The contract was bid out and has been bid out for
several years.
Floyd Smith's been doing business with the City of Denton
for 40 plus years.
This last time was about two years ago.
We took it out through an RFP process.
Floyd Smith responded.
We brought it to council to approve it for that total
amount.
And it's over a three-year period.
It's a one-year contract with two options for renewal.
And so at the end of that one-year period, it's
automatically renewed unless either party
does not agree.
And so any expenditure over $250,000 is brought here for
city council to approve.
Any of those expenditures less than that through that
contract are approved with just a purchase
order.
>> And so my second question, how long has this company had
this contract?
>> This contract has been about a year and a half in
existence.
Prior to that, it was about three years.
So every time that we put that out for bid, Floyd Smith
responds.
So they have the best pricing.
>> So they've had this contract for about five years.
>> They've done the concrete work for the City of Denton
for 43 or 4 years is what they
told me this morning.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
>> I have a question to sort of piggyback on that.
And I think it will be in that posting.
If not, rattle your paper.
Received a report, and this probably isn't for you.
Received a report or some comments about the different
types of projects that this company
performs as far as sidewalk repair, curb repair, things
such as that.
And that we have a pretty big backlog of these types of
repairs.
And as far as numerically something, 90 something, and then
time frame is, I can't remember what
it was, yeah, 18 months or something like that.
So I guess when we're increasing the price or the contract
amount, I guess I would like
some information.
I don't have an issue with this, but as I sent in the email
, I'd like to get some information
on why do we have such a backlog, who sets the priorities
of what gets done first, and
if we need to, and if this company can hire some additional
people to cure that backlog
within the contract amount, I certainly would want to
encourage that because when I saw
those numbers, I was a little surprised because they have
had the contract for over 40 years,
and to have 90 something projects behind, even though there
's some others that have
taken priority, sometimes if you got to-- I mean, we've
asked contractors before, can
you work all night?
We're willing to pay extra on road projects.
But I just would like to have a little bit tighter
examination of--
Yeah, I think it'd be good if we could get you a more
detailed report on that rather
than trying to answer that.
No, no, that's fine.
I just wanted to bring it up because we were talking about
this and the increase in the
amounts.
Any other questions for-- oh, we'll go to Mr. Councilmember
Johnson.
I don't know the detail and I'm not trying to get in the
weeds on every little thing,
but if we've got that much of a backlog, my dad's in the
concrete business.
Sometimes jobs are so big, they might have three suppliers
working on one job at the
same time just because of the volume.
So if we have that big of a backlog and the funding is
already in place for it, then maybe
we consider multiple vendors to do multiple projects and
get that backlog done faster.
I'm not trying to get in people's business with the weeds
or whatever, but meaning if
there was some policy that would need to be or some
direction given from council in order
to increase the speed at which the backlog is getting run
through, I'd love to see that
come before us.
Yeah.
All right.
Councilmember Rhoad.
Thank you, Mayor.
This relates to just item six-- I think it's six.
Which one?
It's one of the public-- it's the first public hearing.
And this is perhaps the third time that I recall this being
posted with a qualifier
in the posting saying the applicants desired that we not
consider it or it's being pooled
or something like that.
Legally, why is it that we continue to post it?
If it's being requested to be pooled, could it just not go
away until it's ready to be
put back up?
This is posted because we're looking at two different
issues.
When we post a public hearing, it's for the benefit of the
public to come forward and
comment on the item.
It's not for the developer necessarily to come forward,
although they do.
But we've posted this for the public, so we need to go
ahead and have the public hearing.
I doubt there's going to be anyone who's going to be very
interested since it's being withdrawn.
But to honor the public and the fact that they have a right
to comment on this issue,
we need to give them that opportunity.
And we post it as being withdrawn because certainly we don
't want to act on it.
The applicant is withdrawing the issue, so it would require
no action.
So in the past, I think our-- correct me if I'm wrong.
The way we've treated this is just not-- I think even
called it.
I think we've just made an announcement that it's been
withdrawn from the agenda and not
even had a public hearing.
The reason I ask is because there's a lot of interest in
this particular project.
And I think every time we kind of put it back up there,
there's this kind of chicken little
effect of are we going to be discussing it this week, are
we going to be discussing it?
And I think our desire is to have the public kind of focus
on when that is going to actually
be discussed.
So if each time it's posted, but with the qualifier in the
posting that the applicant
has no interest in us considering that, can we just remove
it until it's ready to be put
forward?
I'm just trying to avoid confusion for the public because
this is an item of interest.
Well, of course, the council has by their prior action
continued it to this date certain,
which means it goes on the agenda.
Oh, we have.
Because the council directed it to go on the agenda.
Yes, sir.
OK.
Thank you.
Well, we can remedy that this time.
OK.
Any other clarifications on consent agenda items?
All right.
We'll go into work session agenda item three work session
reports three a receive a report
hold discussion to give staff direction regarding a
proposed citywide sample tree inventory
and tree canopy analysis.
Thank you, Mayor.
I'm going to ask Lauren Barker, who is our KDB guru manager
.
KDB program manager.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
I think she would present this item for Council's
consideration and discussion.
Thank you, Lauren.
Well, the question is in the organizational chart, is guru
or manager at a higher level?
It's higher than a manager.
Oh, well, I think we need to move her to guru then.
It's higher than an ACM.
Thank you, Councilman.
Well, good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Mr. City Manager.
I'm here today on behalf of Keep Denton Beautiful to talk
to you about moving forward with an
effort to obtain updated information on the state of Denton
's trees, our tree canopy.
We are fresh on the heels of launching the new Denton Tree
Initiative, which many of
you may have heard about.
This is a partnership effort between Keep Denton Beautiful
and the city to plant 12,000
trees in Denton over the next three years.
This initiative is funded through the Tree Mitigation Fund
through the city, and it's
a direct result of the leadership of our Council and of the
Keep Denton Beautiful Board of
Directors that this whole initiative is really in place.
By approving this initiative and the six new programs that
comprise it, you have ensured
that Denton continues to be a leader in the areas of tree
care and tree preservation,
community forestry, everything related to trees, basically.
But the groundwork, I want to tell you just a little story
and then I'll get started with
the slides.
The groundwork for Denton's leadership in the area of
community forestry actually started
at least 25 years ago when my predecessor and the former
director of Keep Denton Beautiful,
Cecile Carson, sat down with John Cooper and Tom Harpool,
both leaders in our community,
to draft up the application that first earned Denton its
Tree City USA status.
Coincidentally tonight, we will celebrate 25 years, our
silver anniversary.
It's a pretty big milestone as a Tree City USA.
We are one of the longest running, we're in the top 10
longest running group of tree cities
in the state of Texas, so it's quite an accomplishment.
And I'm sharing all of this with you because really the
groundwork has been laid for us
to be leaders in this area as a city.
We're now reaching another critical point in our city's
history when we really need
to arm ourselves with more data and more knowledge to help
ensure that the decisions that we make
have a positive impact on those who come after us.
So the groundwork has already been laid.
Today I'm asking for your help to help continue this legacy
.
My presentation is pretty short, it's just 15 slides.
I'll breeze through them pretty quickly.
I want to leave plenty of time for questions.
I know you probably have them.
During my time I'll give you the why behind this project,
the details of the project itself,
the estimated schedule and cost, and really finally discuss
how this data could be used.
There are a multitude of uses that can be derived from a
tree inventory or a canopy
analysis study.
And I will define all those terms for you in a second.
So I'm going to start with the why.
Have you heard of this TED Talk?
Start with why.
Simon Sinek.
The idea is that we begin with the purpose behind what we
're doing rather than the what
of what we actually do.
I like this a lot because really we're not talking about
what we do or how we do it,
but the true reason behind it.
First and foremost, this project, the why, is a direct
result of requests from individual
council members and from the citizens of our community.
Numerous citizens of Contact to Keep Denton Beautiful have
contacted the city to express
a desire to update the data on Denton's trees and urban
forest.
So this is what initiated our investigation at Keep Denton
Beautiful into how we could
most effectively and economically get this information for
the city.
The other why behind all of this is our very real need for
data and the sort of analysis
that a tree inventory and a tree canopy study can provide.
The most recent data that we have is from a 2010 study
completed by faculty and students
of the UNT Geography Department.
In this study looked at one key attribute of Denton's urban
forest and that is percentage
of canopy cover.
Canopy cover percent is frequently used in the forestry
field as a measure, a basic measure
of canopy health.
Typically speaking, the higher the percentage number, the
better and the more benefits that
can be derived for the community.
There are national standards that are set by leading forest
ry organizations such as
the American Forest Organization.
Most of the Mississippi, we're looking at a standard of 25
to 30 percent.
So Denton does have some prairie land.
I know that that's a question that's come up in personal
conversations that I've had
with citizens and we've seen some traffic on our Facebook
page referencing this.
If you look at the map here, the westernmost side there
kind of where Robeson Ranch falls,
that is definitely prairie ecosystem, but pretty much the
rest of it is cross timbers
forest.
So those are going to be your post oak trees, live oak
trees, blackjack oaks, and Denton
is really pretty heavily forested in that sense and you can
sort of see the pattern
there how it lines out.
Yes sir.
Question.
And it's just sort of dawn on me as you're talking because
the canopy coverage takes
into account in the formula the entire square miles of the
city limits, correct?
That's correct.
It's city wide.
Well, oh and city wide when I think of...
Plus ETJ in this particular study.
Okay plus ETJ.
In night in...
2010.
That was the entire city plus ETJ.
Because when I just look at the map and I see, okay when I
think of Denton, I think
of the loop.
See how the loop's going around.
Then you see I-35 coming in shooting down to Dallas.
You've got obviously a lot of development south of that.
But when you look west and sort of northwest where it's
much less dense.
Right.
That factors in to this tree canopy coverage so it'd be
very...
Because it is an average canopy cover.
It is an average canopy cover.
So you're correct.
That factors in.
So it would be interesting if they could...
Because I think it skews it.
And I come to this conclusion based upon the talk from the
chief yesterday talking about
how many square miles we have and how many fire stations
there are.
Because we've got so much undeveloped land that it would be
nice to know well what we
consider the city.
What's the canopy coverage in that area?
And bifurcate it because it gives us...
Sort of a... Factor all that in as one number gives an
unrealistic sort of I think characterization
because it's not developed.
What you're touching on is definitely accurate and it's my
next point.
Okay.
The limitations to canopy cover as a measure of tree health
and of the urban forest in
general.
So you are correct.
By factoring in those westernmost areas into that average
canopy cover percent, we could
potentially skew that data and you're not necessarily
getting an accurate picture of
what the true...
It doesn't delve into some of the details as well that a
more in-depth study could get.
So there are lots of different studies methods out there.
I'm sorry.
Did someone else have a question?
No.
Go ahead, Kevin.
I'm sorry.
I was just going to add to that because it's an interesting
discussion.
I'd be interested to hear more of what you have to say.
But the thing that typically is pointed to as the reason
for a lowering of that percentage
is clear cutting because of new development.
And so if you see already naturally a certain portion of
your city that is undeveloped,
meaning it hasn't seen that development potential yet and
yet has very little tree coverage,
that also helps with that thinking of data.
Because if you were to say what part of our city is
developed and then what's the percentage
there, especially as this whole discussion will tie into
tree mitigation codes or standards
as it relates to development, that will be the crucial part
of the piece that we'll need
to understand.
So anyways...
Anytime you're talking about a natural ecosystem, it's very
complex and it's really hard to
pinpoint one root thing that could cause it to be the way
it is.
There's so many different variables that influence that,
which is why we can't necessarily point
to development or clear cutting or anything for that matter
as the sole cause.
I think it all impacts and influences what we currently
have.
We can hypothesize though that the canopy has changed based
on the development in our
city, but the fact is that we don't know for sure.
We don't know that that's the cause.
We don't know that the canopy has reduced.
But we can establish a baseline of information.
Canopy cover has limitations.
I want to give you an analogy.
Knowing just the canopy cover percentage would be
equivalent to only knowing that the population
of Denton is 122,000 people approximately without delving
into the demographics of that
population.
So it becomes very difficult to craft services, to make
sure that you are reaching people
and helping people the way you need to that you're serving
your population when you don't
know who you're working for.
And the same applies for trees.
So what we don't know is how much it has changed, but we
can look at the specific benefits,
risks, and opportunities available to us through this kind
of work.
One such opportunity is to work toward what we've outlined
in the Denton 2030 plan, which
is to view Denton's trees as green infrastructure.
And that is something that's specifically noted in the 2030
plan.
Inventory-based analysis can provide us with per tree
benefits in areas like economic return,
property value increases, and improved health and quality
of life.
And the sort of analysis that we are going to be proposing
to you also is used to identify
risks associated with community trees along that second
bullet point there.
For example, hazardous limbs, insect or disease threats,
dead or dying trees.
I'm sure that you've all heard of oak wilt.
There's also another disease called emerald ash borer that
is to the north and the east
of Denton.
It is a big scary thing in the forestry industry because it
completely wipes out ash trees.
By not knowing how many ash trees we have, how many oak
trees we have, we are putting
our tree population at risk here in Denton to be able to
craft and come up with a plan
for how to address this if it is an issue for us.
Yes, sir.
Julie.
Yeah.
I was a little confused why that percent canopy cover was
in the backup other than just to
give kind of some data.
For reference.
It's just for reference.
And it doesn't necessarily mean that we're trying to get to
37% because we probably can't
attain that in our area.
No.
And that might not have been fair to include it just for
that reason that setting a goal
for canopy cover percent if that is a measure that the
council would like to use has to
be specific to Denton for the reasons that we discussed.
So I think that looking at other cities, it can be helpful
just for determining, you know,
where they're at.
But it doesn't necessarily mean that that's where we need
to be or want to be.
And that wasn't the implication of including the just for
your reference.
But coming back to what the mayor said, if you really look
at our city, it's higher than
19% because we're incorporating all of that kind of Western
open space.
So while you look at Austin and Dallas and say, wow, they
're so far ahead of us, I think
when you really look at our city core, you know, we're so
much better than 19%.
So I'd like to think so, but I'm not sure, you know, it's
hard to know.
With all due respect, it's hard to know when we don't have
data to rely on.
Except just looking at that map and the whole Western swath
.
I really know that Western swath and it's just a lot of
yeah, a lot of a lot of prairie.
We got that nice clay soil out there too.
Councilmember Johnson.
Lauren.
Yes, sir.
So I wonder as a part of this study, I'd be interested,
usually not a big fan of comparing
us to other cities and a lot of regards, but as a part of
the study, it would be interesting
to see are there cities that are similar in terms of, you
know, you've got a pretty vast
difference between Western half and Eastern half in terms
of the cross timbers versus
the prairie.
It'd be good to know if there's data out there other cities
that have done these same types
of studies that we compare ourselves to that have a similar
situation.
Ecosystem.
Yeah, just to get a feel because what I'm guessing is going
to come out of this is some
set of goals.
Yes, sir.
And it'd be nice to know whether, you know, if we set this
sort of goal, this is what
you can expect in terms of return on the investment and so
on.
So if it's hard to do, I know, but as a part of it, because
the frustrating part is if
you compare yourself to Austin, well, they don't have pra
irie land.
And so then you go like, well, we're behind, but we're
really not behind.
Right.
And I stress that it's not a contest either.
So, you know, and I've had to tell myself that looking at
it, honestly, just, you know,
with the organization that I work for, knowing that we have
work to do, but I think that
comparing to these cities, you're correct, is probably not
a fair comparison.
Well, I'm just, yeah.
And to look at others that have more.
I'm not beating that dead horse.
I'm just saying if there's a way as part of the study to
find some other folks, we
can compare ourselves to to measure how we're doing, I
think it'd be good.
I can definitely look into that.
I know that our ecosystem is pretty.
Only if it doesn't increase the cost of the study.
Duly noted.
So the last thing that I want to note on this slide is that
canopy and inventory assessments
can help to set strategic direction for community tree
programs along the lines of what Keep
Denton Beautiful runs for the Denton community.
So you see now this is somewhat self-serving.
Our board is very interested in looking at how we can work
smarter in terms of these
community planting programs.
So identifying areas of planting opportunity, looking at
impact over time, maybe targeting
or removing certain species from our giveaway programs.
And all of this information can be derived by looking at
these kinds of projects.
So the other why comes back to the vision that I was
telling you about at the beginning
of my presentation of Denton as a leader in community
forestry.
So in addition to all of these really wonderful
accomplishments, I want to say we also have
this full-time urban forester who was here a second ago.
Oh, there he is.
So the fact that we have a full-time staff urban forester
also speaks volumes about Denton's
commitment to community trees.
And we have an opportunity to continue this leadership,
this legacy.
So I want to quickly touch on the alignment with current
city goals and priorities.
I know that's a lot of text.
Sorry for that.
The Denton 2030 plan, strategic plan, and sustainability
plan for the city all have
elements that align with this project or specifically call
out the notion of conducting some sort
of study or determining what our management plans will be
in future years for setting
a goal for tree canopy cover.
There's a lot of different things that are looked at.
And you see the comparing tree canopy there.
It actually comes directly from the 2030 plan.
And it references management planning, protection of the
tree canopy, and green infrastructure.
So now I'll delve more into the project itself, what we are
proposing, and what our research
revealed as far as options for updating our data on Denton
's tree population.
But first, since I'm not admittedly a certified arborist or
a forester, I want to review these
terms with you.
I feel like it's beneficial to understand what we're
talking about.
When we say urban forests, that's the collection of trees
that grow within a set area.
So our city, our city's urban forest is within this set
area of our city limits.
The tree canopy is the above ground portion, pretty simple,
where the leaves and branches
overlap above the ground.
Tree inventory systems is actually a whole field of study
that focuses on analysis of
urban forests through lots of different methods and
approaches.
There are a range of these assessments that can be done.
Tree canopy analysis and eye tree sample inventory are the
two that we'll be focusing on.
The canopy analysis uses aerial imaging, similar to what I
showed you on the map previously
that we had conducted with UNT.
To obtain a map of the urban forest, it uses spatial
analysis to assess distribution of
the trees and to identify areas of planting opportunity.
And then an eye tree sample inventory takes a sample of
land plots, inventories all the
trees on those plots of land, and then derives averages or
benefits for the entire community.
So it's a little bit more cost effective and time sensitive
sort of process than a full
scale inventory.
The purpose or goals of this project are, we're determined
by examining other cities
tree inventory projects by talking with city staff in
various departments and by consulting
our friends at the Texas A&M Forest Service who are a
wonderful resource for us.
So first we hope to establish a baseline of data for Denton
's urban forest information
so we know what we have to start with.
And I will note that any information that we would gather
through this process might
not necessarily be comparable to the study that was
conducted in 2010 simply because
the methods would be different.
So if that number comes back and it's different, higher,
lower, whatever the case may be, that
could be the cause of that.
And I just want to note that on the front end.
We want to understand secondly the structure and the
function of Denton's tree population.
So in other words, what are the basic attributes or
characteristics, health distribution, and
then the benefits of the urban forest for our city.
And you can quantify these down to the dollar.
There are formulas that will look at things like community
health benefit, property value
increases and so on.
And they can calculate dollar benefit return back to the
community.
Third, we're looking to obtain information that can help
guide our approach to things
like planting and maintenance of trees.
And fourth, we hope to learn information that will help us
target distribution of trees
through the Denton Tree Initiative and other programs.
So what we're proposing are two projects in one.
We have firstly the tree canopy analysis, which again,
aerial imaging, and we can get
a spatial distribution of trees along with an updated
canopy cover percentage.
So it's a little more in depth than just that simple fly
over with the canopy percent.
And then we have the iTree Eco Sample Inventory, which does
a sample of trees.
Go ahead, Kevin.
On that second one, you mentioned it's a bit more
lightweight, I guess.
I assume that's less expensive as well.
Is that-- I don't know what you purchased.
It sounds like it's a software program that you're able to
get.
But are you able to kind of-- once you kind of have that
program installed, are you able
to use that over a number of years to take random samples
for whatever you happen to
be looking at?
iTree Eco is a software program, and it's more of a tool
that you use through the process
of the inventory.
However, the data that you compile can be exported into
other software programs and
manipulated through things like ArcGIS or other programs
that the city already uses.
It can be transferred to the open data portal as a layer.
I've discussed that with tech services, and that is a
definite possibility.
And so while the iTree Eco program in and of itself is
probably not something that you
would use in perpetuity, it can talk with other programs
just by translating that data.
So I guess the snapshot that you get-- here's my question.
So in the Tree Canopy Analysis, it's a pretty larger, more
involved snapshot that you're
going to do, and then you're going to repeat in however
many years from now.
Think of that as your big picture, your umbrella.
This one also gives you a snapshot at a certain point in
time.
I guess my question is, does whatever we would be
purchasing as part of this allow me to
go back in a year and say, OK, we've had these projects on
the ground in this particular
area, and I want to take another snapshot, because I want
to understand what that did.
From the point of view of that, does it give you that--
What you're doing is establishing a controller baseline so
that you can go back later.
And that is a big idea behind it, is that you would be able
to go back and measure impact
over time, because it is a snapshot.
But it would require a new--
It would require a new--
That's always my question.
OK, thank you.
You'd have to update that.
Now, it might not be as complex, because you'd have that
baseline of information to work
from.
You could target it more.
If you had certain areas that you wanted to look at, you
could target to those rather
than doing a full scale.
But each of these approaches fall squarely in the middle of
the scale that I was referencing,
where you have canopy cover percent at the very most
simplistic end, and then a full-scale
inventory that pulls every single tree in the whole city,
and inventories, the health,
and species, and size, and all of that.
These are right in the middle of that scale.
Yes, sir.
On your first bullet point, tree canopy analysis, I really
would like to see if they can bifurcate
that sort of intercord that seems to be bordered by 35,
Luke 288, here's what this is, here's
what the other is, here's the total combined.
Because if we're talking about using data, and especially
for moving forward and doing
analysis five years down the road, if we don't bifurcate it
like that, we're not really getting
the data we want.
And that is, are we losing tree canopy coverage because of
development code issues?
We had a big huge heat wave, when was that, 2011?
2011.
So that was after this one study.
So lost a lot of trees to that thing.
So I really, to me, if we just did it the way we did it in
2010, we've wasted our money
on the tree canopy analysis.
And this is different.
This is an analysis, it's sort of tomato, analysis versus
what we did was a canopy cover
percent assessment.
So it's a more basic level, you're really just getting that
percentage of canopy cover
and that's all you're getting.
So I guess what I'm saying is I would like for...
It's not as easy to manipulate with that one.
With this one you can.
Okay, to split it out and to be able to look at those
segments.
Yes, absolutely can.
By land use category, all kinds of things you can do with
this.
Just geographical areas for it?
Yes, absolutely.
By soil composition, I mean, you name it, we can break it
down.
Well, a couple of things.
I thought that 2010 was intended to be the baseline.
I think that the technology has advanced in such a way that
six years later it can serve
as somewhat of a baseline, but it's going to be difficult
with the...
Because that, what we did in 2010, isn't necessarily done
just on its own anymore.
We're getting canopy cover percent, but through something
like a canopy analysis, we're getting
much more than that.
And one could imagine that in 10 years from now, technology
will advance again and it
will make the one that we do now seem somewhat antiquated.
Absolutely.
The other thing is that sometimes development does not
always reduce canopy, because if
you talk about neighborhoods that have been placed in an
area that had been an open field
like part of my neighborhood, the neighborhood north of
Cooper Creek, they call it Hannah
Estates now, there weren't any trees out there in the 1960s
.
That was all pasture land.
Houses came in and people planted trees in their front
yards and their backyards.
There are a lot more trees now than there were then.
So I don't know that we want to completely separate those
out, because I suspect that
as time goes on and as we see some of those areas west of
35 develop, there are more trees
in ropes and ranch now than there were 15 years ago.
And some of those trees that are 15 years old, some of
those red oaks, are providing
some nice shade now.
So I think that you're going to see that we can learn that
development is not always the
enemy of tree canopy.
It goes both ways, because it is a managed landscape.
But I don't think the analysis on the two separate areas,
at least based on that map,
that's not really effective, because if five years from now
you have a neighborhood move
into that prairie area, when you go do your next one, it's
going to show, okay, well,
in this area it went from 5% canopy coverage to I just
think that this 19% is got people
that were using that as a number saying, God, we're getting
rid of all our trees, and so
that's my only rub on that.
The question that comes in a managed urban landscape, what
do you want the canopy to
be?
And when you look at cities like Denver or Washington, D.C
., they have intentionally
set goals and worked toward those, even though historically
those areas are not heavily treed.
And so it becomes an issue of do we want trees here or not,
rather than were trees historically
here and should be here, or should we be higher than this
percentage, or, you know, those
are kind of points in my perspective.
If they're split out, then that goal analysis makes sense.
But if you've got one number for an area that's pretty
heavily done already and one that's
not, I mean, it's just critical that the data be as
accurate and reflect, because I think
to me that's just, that's almost a non-negotiable.
If we're just going to use one number for the whole city,
city limits, the data doesn't
seem to give me anything that I can handle.
It's not deep enough.
I agree with you.
Yes, Kevin.
It almost reminds me, oddly enough, of the zones we created
for impact fees.
In thinking about this in a very similar way, which, so
there might make sense to look at
some real clear distinct zones for whatever reason we
determine, and maybe that's part
of the process, but, and that was on my list of questions
to ask is a goal, because I don't
know why we'd be doing this if we didn't have a goal
attached to it, and I don't know if
you're prepared to kind of suggest something, but I think
as part of this process as we're
moving forward and assuming we give the direction to do
this, the cities that I've seen that
have these goals, it's something that everyone can kind of
get behind a number.
It's like we're at this, we're heading towards this, and
here's our path to do it.
We're including the tree giveaway program.
We've got this business program.
We've got these new codes that we're working on for
development to try and attach that.
We'd obviously need a plan, which is a little bit, of
course I'm no expert.
It's a little bit obtuse to me how they get there.
For instance, I'm looking at Baltimore.
They have a goal to go to 40% by 2030 something, and so
they must have a plan in place.
So all that to say, my suggestion would be, and perhaps we
have a single goal, and then
it's broken down into here's how that translates.
I agree with you on that, but are you prepared to kind of
give suggestions along those lines
in terms of a goal, and here's our path to get there?
Would you like that to be a part of this conversation?
And if so, is that something we have once this analysis
comes back, or is that something
we should kind of have going concurrently as we're doing
this?
That would be the caveat, I would say.
My suggestion would be to get the results of this sort of
project back and then determine
what is a reasonable goal to be setting, not only based on
our ecosystem, on the growth
patterns of the city, but also on where we currently are
and what it will take for us
to get to a higher number.
And that percentage is a number that's used in many
different cities as an indicator of
health of the urban forest, and it is an action plan in
many cases.
We want to get to this percent, so I think it would be
great to include that.
I think it is a little bit premature at this point.
So this is an example of what you can get out of a tree
canopy analysis.
This is just a map.
You get raw data, of course, that you can manipulate and
import into other programs
and divide out the way the mayor was referencing.
But you can see how the map graphs change over time.
They can chart some basic structural components of the
urban forest, and they can also identify
areas of planting opportunity.
You get that updated percentage of canopy cover as well to
boot, but lots of other information
besides that.
And this shows a sample inventory report.
Here's a couple of page excerpts from the end result, the
end summary of a sample inventory.
So this approach delves deeply into the urban forest
characteristics on the ground level,
and also the community-specific benefits and risks
associated with the urban forest.
So you can actually do a risk assessment.
As I said before, you can get per tree benefits or benefits
for the entire urban forest.
And then the most important information in some cases is
just the characteristics.
What do we have?
And that can determine where we need to go from there in
many cases.
They have a lot of other in this chart.
What is other?
You can delve into that a little bit.
So looking at the schedule, and I'm nearly done with my
slides now, but the schedule
for the project, I'll note that we have issued an RFP for
this simply to account for the
seasonal constraints.
Our goal is to complete this study, if approved, in the
summer when the leaves are on the trees.
That's the ideal time to complete it.
We also wanted to determine if we were on point with our
cost estimates so that I could
come to you with a good estimate of what this would
actually cost.
So the project could begin as early as May and would take
approximately four to five
months by what we're getting back.
And the total cost estimate is approximately $150,000.
We're proposing that the full cost be paid out of the tree
mitigation fund.
So finally, how we can use this data.
There's a lot of different ways.
We can calculate the impact of our programs and education
efforts.
We can start to look at long-range urban forestry goals for
departments like planning and parks.
We can even do a lot of really neat things when it comes to
public communications and
citizen engagement, where we're incorporating this
information into our open data portal,
involving the public, making the information itself public,
where those GIS wizards that
we have out in the community can actually take that raw
data and do even more analysis
on our behalf.
So risks from dead and dying trees.
And then we have now a wonderful group of citizen
volunteers that have just -- those
are a couple up on the upper right-hand side -- who have
just completed the Citizen Forester
Training Course that is part of the Denton Tree Initiative.
They are ready, willing, and trained to go out and assess
risk or anything else that
we want to look at in a targeted way from obtaining this
information.
It would really help us to work smarter in that sense.
And the last thing that I want to cover is future
considerations.
So I don't like to come up here and just tell you the flat
$150 price tag and say, "This
is all we'll ever have to do," because as Councilman
Gregory touched on, there will
be changes.
There will be changes in technology.
There will be changes in our community.
As outlined in the Denton 2030 plan, there is a goal to
have a management plan for the
city.
And what that means is a multiyear approach for how we
manage our community's trees.
This is just a draft timeline with associated cost
estimates.
These are estimates only.
This is not part of the RFP.
This was research that was done independent of that process
.
So every three to five years is the industry standard or
ideal for how frequently you would
update information as part of this process.
And over time, you can increase the depth of information
that you're getting to where
toward that bottom five years or so, you're actually
looking at things like on the very
end where you could have a software program that actually
generates work orders for maintenance
of public trees.
A little alert could pop up and tell you, "This tree needs
to be pruned now at this
location."
So there's lots of really neat things that can be done with
technology simply by getting
this information and having it in a raw form where we can
incorporate it and use it day
to day.
That is further off, but I wanted to show you this just to
show you the realm of possibility
in the long term, what is out there.
But really the middle ground is where we are landing and
what we're recommending to proceed
with.
So in summary, we are recommending to move forward with the
combination of the tree canopy
analysis and the iTree ECO sample inventory.
And today we're asking your support to bring proposals back
for your approval at a future
meeting.
What questions do you have?
I'll take those.
We'll take a few breaks and then we'll go to Council Member
Hawkins.
I just want to start by saying thank you so much for this
presentation.
We are a community that loves our trees and value them very
much.
I do get many emails sometimes.
So do we.
Yeah.
When lots are clear, "Look what's happening!"
I mean completely.
And I feel the same way.
I just wanted to clarify, Mayor, what you were saying.
So you're saying a survey of the city limits and then one
of the ETJ and then one that
is all together.
So we have debt for our future growth as well as our - I
was just trying to see what you
were saying.
Sure.
No, for me it was just when I - if you wouldn't mind
putting that map up again, please.
Sure.
Lauren, thank you.
And however they want to do it, I'm not telling them how
they should do it.
I'm just saying from the data perspective, when you look at
that map, I'm assuming that
map represents the city limits of Denton.
Is that city limits and ETJ?
City limits and ETJ.
Okay.
So some of that's in the ETJ that we're calculating is
pretty open space.
But when you look at the core area with the border's loop
288, you come down I-35 and
then go down the leg 35 heading to Dallas, that's got a lot
of green in there compared
to the other.
So when we say we only have 19%, we're taking into
consideration all of that area to the
west and north that has no trees, but we're using it in our
calculations to say we're
- I'm just saying I'd like to know what it is in what we
really call the core of the
city and then the rest.
So however they want to do that, I'm not going to tell them
you got to do this map and survey,
but I just don't want to have one number that includes
everything taking into consideration
where there's actually no development and there's no trees
because it's prairie.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I'm just curious because we're doing a lot of annex
ations and a lot have happened
since then and a lot will happen and so eventually our city
will be larger and so I was just
trying to figure out how they were going to do that, but I
understand that.
Well, and that's even a good point too.
We've done annexations that may incorporate even more sort
of treeless land and part of
it is because the big conversation around tree canopy and
trees is when people are driving
around in the city and they see a development going on and
they see this, you know, they
remove all the trees and then they have to come back and
mitigate it either through mitigation
tree mitigation funds or they replant and so it's - we're
destroying all of our trees
is sort of the message and then they look at the tree
canopy coverage and say 19 percent.
We've only got 19 percent tree canopy coverage.
Well, when you're including in that hundreds if not
thousands of acres that are undeveloped
within the city, well, I just think it skews what's really
happening where we're actually
all living and if you want to have two numbers and then
combine them together, that's fine,
but I just - if we're going to use data, I just think we
need accurate data and so that
one number, that 19 percent, you could break it down into
various components of the city,
but when I just look at the map, that's what I saw.
You will get more than just that one number through what we
've proposed and you can take
that data and break it out in any way so it doesn't have to
be multiple studies.
It can be one -
Yeah, and that's fine.
Not knowing how they do it.
I just -
Break it out on the back end.
Let's see, Hawkins and then Mayor Pro Tem.
Well, an interesting study maybe would be the percentage of
canopy compared to the percentage
of population.
Yes.
Just where - just how those compare, so.
So, two, I'm trying to understand exactly how canopy data
is collected.
I mean, to me it seems like there's some depth to canopy
two.
I'm sure that someone's flying over and taking a picture.
Right.
You don't have to go into great detail, but how is that
done?
So through the flyover assessments, they go down to about
one meter off the ground and
then there are methods that have been developed to where
you can pull out things that are
ground shrubs or other things that might falsely contribute
to that canopy percent number.
So you go down to about a one meter resolution with the
satellite or other methods that are
out there for doing those flyovers.
I think Haywood can answer that in more detail if you'd
like.
Yes.
I wonder if they do use trams.
Yeah, just to add what Lauren just mentioned.
Whenever the crews are out doing the sample and collecting
sample data on the sample plots,
there is actually a data field for the depth of canopy for
each individual tree.
So that also factors into how they calculate the amount of
actual canopy on the sample
plots.
Okay.
Thank you.
I would be curious when we're asking for quotes or
proposals to do this to see if with the
current technology, I think it would be really fascinating.
I like being able to dig a little deeper into the data and
I would think that it might be
possible to do something like I see the advertisements on
TV for real estate.
So you can draw a circle, you can draw a giraffe.
So could I take my finger on some data map that they've
done and draw out my neighborhood?
Let's see what the canopy percentage is in Idiot's Hill or
what it is in Southridge or
Forest Ridge and compare those kinds of things to see.
So if that's possible, I think that would be an excellent
thing to consider as we do
this.
I think the information is definitely possible to get by
neighborhood, by council district
or whatever, however you'd like to break it out.
And if it cost an extra $100,000, I'm not that curious.
It would not cost extra.
I think it comes part and parcel of just the analysis on
the back end that we can ask them
to break it out in certain ways and that can be part of the
list.
I don't anticipate that that would increase the cost.
And if it does, we have an urban forestry or community
forestry intern, we have a GIS
division in the city.
I think that these are things that are easily handled, at
least by my understanding on the
analysis side through ArcGIS or a similar program.
And the other thing that goes along with this, you know, I
think the mayor has a good point
about if we're going to be setting goals.
But I don't want to set goals that are foolish because we
have some soils, you know, part
of the reason for that that we see there has to do with
fields or, you know, agricultural
activities from 100 years ago, but some of it has to do
with the soils.
And I don't want to set some goals to grow a bunch of trees
in an area that's not really
that suitable for growing trees and it causes us to have to
way overuse irrigation in order
to keep them alive.
It may not be the best thing to do.
I mean, there may be an area where instead of trees, we
want different kinds of ground
cover.
I'm not smart enough to figure that out.
But one of our former mayors, Ray Stevens, don't sit there
and agree with me so fast
when I say I'm not smart enough to figure that out.
Ray Stevens did an almanac of the state and it showed
different aquifers and sub-aquifers
and it had different types of soils in different areas.
And I know that all of those play into the picture.
So I don't know how small the analysis goes on the soils if
our friends at A&M --
Yes, there are maps and databases already in existence that
you could cross-reference
this data with.
And U.S. Forest Service could assist us with that.
Texas Forest Service, they've already talked about that
with us.
So I just want to be careful.
Because you know when you go to buy a tree at a nursery and
you look at something like
does well in well-drained soil, well, that would be your
sandy soil along the lines of
what we have in the cross-timbers area.
But then you've got your clay soil, which I think what you
're saying is that some trees
don't do well in that and that's correct.
You'd have to target the species to make sure that you're
getting the best selection for
that area.
And we can do that this way.
Yes, we'll go down.
Just trying to wrap this up, you need direction, correct?
Yes, ma'am.
And I would like to say let's move forward and we're clear
on what, 150,000 I'll give
or take and how -- what are you looking for today?
Move forward with the RFP.
Yes, ma'am.
Move forward with the RFP and bring you back some proposals
for approval.
And that's the direction I would like to take this.
We have a couple more questions.
Councilmember Rodin.
I agree that we should move forward.
And it's funny, about a year ago I think we had this
conversation and the council said
no.
And at that time I think our interest was we're looking at
a big fund that wasn't being
used, that we wanted to see some trees out on the ground.
And I think there's a bit of frustration to say let's just
get out there and do this.
We don't want to fund more studies.
We don't want to do that.
And I think in large part thanks to you, your team and your
vision.
Parks is planning way more trees than we are right now.
I mean, this concept of the various initiatives that KDB
has put forward to get trees out
there.
I mean, KDB is probably one of the most goodwill generators
, departments that the city has.
Thank you.
In everything you do.
And the mural project, which isn't the topic here.
I mean, the amount of Facebook posts I've seen just
highlighting those very low cost
murals that have beautified our city is great.
So I think in part due to the innovation of you and Haywood
and the rest of the team,
we're now at a point where we're saying yes, this is a
logical next step because you guys
have done so much in this last year.
So thank you for that.
Thank you for spending.
I appreciate that.
I'm happy to give you the green light to continue.
You've got a good team.
Yes.
As you know, I am 100% ready to do this.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Everybody.
Forward, forward.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
You bet.
All right.
We'll go on to agenda item number two B, receive report,
hold discussion, give staff direction
regarding the city's budgeting and special revenue funds in
the capital improvement program
of the city.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Chuck Springer, our director of fans will present this item
for your consideration.
Thank you, Mr. Springer.
Thank you, George.
And I appreciate Dalton, you putting the clock up so I can
time myself here.
I'm not sure what I'm shooting for.
Want to cover kind of the last groups of funds that we
haven't gone over in other presentations.
And there are really two groups of funds, special revenue
funds and the capital improvement
funds are the budget.
And I'll go over kind of their budget and purpose
description and funding sources very
quickly.
Special revenue funds are used to account for revenue
sources that are restricted or
committed to certain expenditures for specific purposes.
Usually this is two reasons.
One is by legal restriction or commitment.
Examples are the tourist and convention fund.
That's the hotel occupancy taxes.
State law restricts what those can be used for.
So we have to track those separately to make sure they're
used for that purpose.
Grant funds, again, the grant agreements and federal and
state law on the use of those
funds so we segregate them out.
Another example is the downtown TURS fund.
State law sets out what we can use those revenues for as
well as the ordinance that adopted
the TURS.
Kind of a second set is committed by action of the city
council.
And all of these are really under accounting rules and
regulations in what is considered
a special revenue fund for accounting purposes.
A couple examples of committed by the city council, the
street improvement fund.
We segregated that out and the city council during the
budget process sets a specific
contribution of franchise revenues for street improvements
and street maintenance.
Another one is the downtown reinvestment fund where the
ordinance adopted by the city council
sets a contribution of a certain portion of mixed beverage
revenues for the specific purpose
in terms of downtown grants.
Here's a-
Can you just go back real quick?
Do you know the percentage on the street improvement fund
for the franchise fee?
We've actually set a dollar amount.
We've kind of frozen a dollar amount.
I think it's about 6.223 million stays in the general fund.
Everything above that goes to the street improvement fund
from franchise fees.
But it's based on the council budget each year.
So we basically said we'll set an amount that stays flat in
the general fund and all of
the additional plus the growth in franchise fees goes to
the street improvement fund.
I'll cover a few of these others up here.
Another example is the recreation fund where all the self-
supporting recreation and park
programs paid by fees, their revenues and expenses are in
that fund.
I covered the tourist and convention fund.
The traffic safety fund is for red light camera violations.
Again, under state law, those funds can only be used for
specific purposes related to traffic
safety and pedestrian safety.
The downtown reinvestment fund I covered, the tree
mitigation fund is again by ordinance
of city council that we just talked about.
Those revenues are specifically restricted as to what they
can be used for.
There's some park land, the dedication and development
trust funds.
When development occurs, I covered the downtown tours and
the grants budgets.
Just to give you an idea of other special revenue funds in
the city, you can see this
list here.
For example, police confiscation.
If the police confiscate property related to criminal
activity under federal law, they
can only use those for police specific purchases within the
police department.
>> We'll send those stuff back.
>> Another example is like the parks gas well fund because
the gas wells were on park property.
Those revenues have to go toward park purposes.
You can see the donation funds in here.
That economic development investment fund was the new one
that was created by the council
during this last budgeting process.
We'll actually bring back an ordinance to formalize that in
the next meeting or two
to again meet the accounting rules and regulations.
>> Question on that, on those donation funds.
I'm not sure that I've ever seen that on a list before.
I could have seen it last week and forgotten about it.
Police donations, fire donations, animal control donations,
library donations.
We created a park 501C3 park foundation to collect those
funds.
Why did we do that differently or did we need to do that or
would it be better if we had
>> Generally, I think they give to that.
But if people leave it specifically for these, like for
example, the library, they've gotten
some recently that are in people's wills where a certain
portion of the estate, they want
to go to the city of Denton libraries and it comes to that.
The animal control donations, part of that was for the
building of that facility and
now there's funds that come in donations that are used to
purchase supplies.
>> You could do it either way then.
You could create a separate organization or you could
simply do it through the city.
>> As I understand the way foundations work is a lot of
times it's dependent on what you're
trying to expend that money towards.
Public school foundation, for instance, has a lot more,
they're a lot more nimble in their
ability to give out scholarships, their ability to fund
grants for teachers and things like
that.
That if it was tied up in public funds, the restrictions as
we know are much more difficult.
Perhaps there was a reason at the origination of parks that
was along this line.
Sometimes it's the purchasing requirements.
We're under a lot of certain purchasing requirements that a
private foundation isn't required to
do.
If there's no more questions on special revenues, I'll go
to the capital improvement program.
This is really for funding of capital assets of the city.
In terms of how it happens in the budget, as the first year
is formally adopted by the
city council, we normally show you a five-year capital
improvement plan.
So the additional four years are really for planning and
projection purposes.
The formal adoption is of the first year.
These are generally multi-year projects.
A lot of them take more than a year.
So the accounting funds are a little bit different.
They're what we call multi-year accounting funds.
You think of the general fund, whatever's not spent, that
money rolls into the fund balance
at the end of the year for capital project funds.
Those funds stay within there, but there's not kind of a
close out at the end of the
year.
They're for multi-year projects.
The funding sources are debt issuance and cash or revenue
funding for the most part.
And in terms of this, we kind of adopt the program
altogether.
But in reality, there's several different actual capital
project funds of the city based
on two different criteria.
One is the use of the funds.
We have a separate capital project fund for the electric
utility, for water, for streets,
for facilities, public safety.
We also, because of federal tax law, have to segregate
money that's debt funded that
we've told tax exempt bonds for versus cash funded.
Because there's some federal restrictions on tracking those
expenditures out of bond
proceeds, we're required to calculate what's called arbit
rage, where you're not allowed
to earn a higher rate of return than you're paying on the
bonds.
You have to report.
So for those purposes, we split those funds out.
So for example, we'll have an electric bond funded capital
project fund and an electric
cash funded, the same for water.
So I don't want to give you the sense it's just one pool of
money.
They're segregated for those purposes.
This is just out of this year's budget for 15, 16 in terms
of the total capital budget
for the one year of the city.
Let me point out that how this is budgeted, this total
program available, this is an estimate
of what's going to carry forward into this year.
These aren't new funds, but really what's existing that we
haven't completed.
Like for general government, you see that large amount.
A good portion of that is the RTR funding we received for
the Bonnie Bray and Mayhill
projects that we haven't expended yet, but we have those
funds on our books.
So we kind of start out with that.
But these other columns are what's coming in the current
fiscal year.
The other funding is really cash funding that's going into
these funds.
And then we've got the certificates of obligation issuance,
the GEO issuance, and a total proposed
budget.
And this is just trying to put a lot of small numbers on a
chart because we're the finance
folks who like to do that.
Now this is just to show you the general government five
year CIP.
And again, we've got 15, 16 here.
And you can see what are we selling in general obligation
bonds.
We've broken them down by what bond election and what
proposition.
And then we've got certificates of obligation.
And then we've really got the cash funding.
Some examples of those are the park funds.
Those come from those dedicated park funds we talked about.
The bike lane funding, we put 200,000 in each year.
So those are some of the cash funding.
And then the out years.
I will mention on tonight's agenda in open session as we've
got the parameters ordinance
for the sale of certificates of obligation this year and
the sales of general obligation
bonds.
This isn't thousands, I guess.
Yes.
Yes.
This isn't thousands.
Such a small number.
A question about this, and I'm thinking back in this last
year on a number of issues that
kind of arose that sometimes circumstances kind of create
an opportunity or something.
And we're all kind of looking at a large price take for
something with no real kind of revenue
source or identified funds to pay for it.
So if you think about the discussion we have with Denton IS
D, I think we found a good solution
to that.
But one of the options could have been let's invest in
creating some pathway for the interim
or something.
The question is, what funds do we have available to do that
?
It wasn't part of our budget.
Is there a way to think about CIP moving forward that would
give room for those sorts of, I
wouldn't call it emergency, but perhaps circumstance
related or time sensitive issues that might
arise under any given calendar year that could be set aside
for projects like that?
So that the council could have the ability to give
directions for something, whatever
that happens to be.
Is the way to do that moving forward, I'm just floating the
question, is to limit the
amount we put out in terms of maxing out what we put out
for election.
So in other words, instead of doing 98 million if the
council was interested in the next
five years of having 10 million available for projects like
that, that weren't locked
into specific criteria as part of a bond program, is the
way to do that just simply to say here's
the direction we want to give, council wants 10 million
over the course or whatever that
happens to be, let's lower that to 88 million in terms of
what we're taking to the voters
and then we have the capacity to have that sort of thing.
Does any of this make sense?
Normally what you see when I talk about these final four
years as planning process, I would
hazard a pretty strong wager that we'll add some more
projects within there based on priorities
that come up.
An example, we had the discussion with FIRE yesterday and
we really decided to add in
this year an additional 3 million that wasn't even planned
at the beginning of the year.
So normally you see those kind of projects in certificates
of obligation when you do
that.
I mean, we could always put in the five-year plan like a
contingency amount or other projects
that are unspecified and put a few million dollars in each
year just for planning purposes
so when we projected our debt rate and those kind of things
, we could take that into account.
We could do that very easily.
You tend to see those under certificates of obligation.
Okay.
And so it becomes a debt capacity issue that you don't want
to have too many of these 3
millions that you kind of bring into the picture without
realizing, oh, our capacity just shrunk
or we need a tax increase or something like that.
I just throw that out to the council as we get into budget
time as we think through different
tools we have at our disposal.
Perhaps that's something we want to pursue.
Councilmember Hollings.
Chuck, you had brought up tonight's vote on 5A on the COs
and then on B on the GOs there.
Am I understanding this right?
That's for general obligation refunding.
So we are refinancing some old debt?
Well, it's for both.
We're going to issue the general obligation bonds, but we
're also issuing general obligation
refunding bonds in conjunction with that sale, which will
refund old debt.
It's about -- I'd have to look at my numbers -- about I
think 16 million of existing debt
that we're looking at refunding because we can go from
roughly a 5% interest rate to
a 3% interest rate and have that interest savings.
So those are sold as separate kinds of bonds?
No, they're sold altogether.
So really general obligation bonds, the term general
obligation means that the only revenue
pledge is a property tax pledge of the city.
So it's either by voter approval that you can do that or by
refunding authorized by
the city council.
So that will be one bond issuance, but it will include in
it the new money for the 2012
and 2014 bond election projects and a portion of that that
are refunding bonds that will
be strictly used to refund existing debt for interest rate
savings.
And when we refund that debt, that savings goes somewhere.
It really reduces our debt service expense in future years.
For example, tonight it's over about a 12-year period.
We're estimating I think it was about 118,000 each year
that we're reducing our debt service
going forward.
So in other words, if you were at a million a year for your
debt service expense and you
reduce it by 100,000, then your debt service schedule
during those years goes down to 900,000.
It's kind of similar to refinancing a mortgage.
I'm going to be paying so much a month or so much a year.
Now my payment goes down a little bit.
Okay.
It's a follow up to this question.
So does that savings that we save by refinancing go to help
pay off like you said that 100,000?
Will that be cash that we have to go in to pay off that
debt?
It really lowers your debt service expenses in future years
.
So think about your mortgage.
I was planning on paying 1,000 a month and now I'm only
having to pay 900 a month.
So that's available.
So really the impact it has is it lowers what you need for
your debt service tax rate in
future years by a little bit because your total debt
service is a little bit lower,
if that makes sense.
So for clarification, the refinancing of GO bonds, those
are bonds that were already voted
on in past, in prior years.
And sold in prior years.
Refinancing simply save an interest expense.
Correct.
Correct.
Thanks.
Anybody else?
Okay.
And then just next steps, what's coming forward over the
next couple of months.
I think we've shown this each time.
I think the police department presentation date may have
changed a little bit because
of some meeting changes.
But other than that, some additional fund topics coming
forward at your next meetings.
Yes, kids on the road.
Since we're talking about special funds and I see on June
14th, and I think this has been
raised a couple of times in the last couple of months
already, but I think there's an
interest in looking into the possibility of ultimately we
aning general fund off that 6
million left or 6 plus in franchise fees in diverting that
totally to the street fund.
A couple council members have mentioned that.
So that obviously takes a plan.
It takes a 5, 10 year, whatever that plan happens to be.
But I hope to see that floated or at least a concept of
what that would mean for next
year's budget, the next five years budget in terms of what
our options are to do that.
So that we can at least have a council conversation on that
.
That would be helpful.
Just real quick.
That's why I was earlier asking if it could be a percentage
possibly and then if we have
a plan and it keeps building up until it is weaned off
rather than a dollar amount.
So I don't know.
And let me just mention, yes, we can do that.
But realize every time we reduce franchise fees, we're
reducing funding available to
the general fund.
So it's basically saying we're going to reduce what's
available to the general fund and move
it over to street maintenance.
It gives us more street maintenance, but it takes away what
's available for additional
ambulance units and all those kinds of additional funding
in the general fund.
So it's a trade off.
I hate to bring that one up, but it was very yesterday.
Question on the -- when you talked about the analogy on the
mortgage.
And so we have a reduction in debt service.
Correct.
Let's just take the mortgage example.
So if I have $100 savings, I've got two choices basically.
I can take that difference and go spend it on whatever I
want, which I know we can't
do that necessarily.
Or I could go ahead and put that $100 back on the principal
amount and pay off the mortgage
faster than what it was originally scheduled to do.
So let's look at if these savings that we're accruing by
this refinancing of the bonds.
Because it's in the debt service fund, which is the debt
service tax component.
If we identify this reduction in debt service, are we able
to -- first of all, I'm sure we
could elect to -- I guess if you could pay the principal
off, you can pay it off faster.
In other words, reduce the amortization period of the bonds
unless there's some covenant,
bond covenant that would restrict that.
Or it increases our debt capacity without having to raise
tax rates.
In other words, if you're saving half a million dollars a
year on debt service from all these
refinances, you can go out and issue more debt and you're
still at the same level but
you get more value.
Or can you take that difference and bring it somewhere else
and use it for something
else?
In other words, what do we do with that?
Well, normally what we do and what our debt policy calls
for, and there's some federal
tax law restrictions on what you can do with that money, is
we try to do level savings.
In other words, if it's over a 10-year period, we have
level savings.
So it's level amongst those 10-year periods.
Other than that, you could kind of have a one-time savings.
We don't recommend that.
It's not in our debt policy.
But if you had some kind of financial catastrophe and you
said we really need savings all to
occur in next year to help us out, that's possible.
You can't really -- that savings isn't realized until
future years, so you can't really take
those dollars and apply them somewhere else.
All you're really doing is reducing your future
expenditures, if that makes sense.
Sure.
But if we budgeted for that -- I guess we're only budgeting
it a year at a time.
But when we do our five-year forecast, we're saying we've
got X amount of dollars that
we're going to have to be spending on debt service.
So I guess where it comes into play is when you're doing
your yearly budgeting process,
as these savings accrue, you have maybe greater capacity
without a tax rate increase.
We absorbed the tax rate increase in this last budget.
Where we did that by shifting the tax rate.
Right, but if we refinanced and saved $500,000 over the
next ten years, each year, 500 a
year in debt service, you could theoretically go, well, if
we had an emergency come up,
we were forecasting this.
I guess it just depends on how you forecast it and how you
pay it.
And realize once you issue debt, your principal schedule is
set.
In other words, we issue so many bonds that are going to
mature in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.
You can't kind of come back and change that.
All you can do --
You can't pay it off early.
The only way you pay it off early is you can take existing
revenues and defuse those bonds.
In other words, put money in escrow to prepay them.
Yeah, you can't pay it off like you pay off your mortgage.
Correct.
Correct.
And in expanding municipal bonds, there's usually a ten-
year call date.
So you issue 20-year bonds with a ten-year call.
So we tend to refund it to that ten-year call.
We can call those bonds beyond ten years.
But then when we've issued them again, they generally are
not callable.
Any other questions on -- is this the --
This is it.
Yeah, Council Member Briggs.
For clarification for tonight's vote on the general
obligation, you said there could be
an election or Council can approve --
Well, there's -- the two kinds of general obligation bonds
are those approved by the
voters --
Right.
-- or refunding bonds that are just refunding prior issued
general obligation bonds --
And that's tonight.
-- approved by the voters.
Correct.
Okay.
And I'll go over a little bit more details.
Those are regular items.
Tonight and the CO.
Thank you.
Okay.
Anything else?
Fantastic.
Well, that seems to complete our open work session reports.
We will -- what we'll do is I'll go ahead and call the
closed session and we'll take
a break, five-minute, two-minute break.
We'll complete the closed session at 3.40 p.m.
We will consider the following items.
Consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code
section 551.071 and deliberations regarding
real property under Texas Government Code section 551.072.
Replica of the Oval Office, which is the President's office
in the White House.
This is exactly how it looked during President Bush's
administration.
And I was honestly shocked that people were so willing to
respond to us and say, "Yes,
we want you to come."
We got to go to the top of the courthouse, the campus
theater, the Denton Record Chronicle,
and my personal favorite, our own private concert with
Brave Combo.
This is our version of the song "Chopsticks."
All right.
Hit it, Carl.
[music]
You know, we went six stories down into the basement of
FEMA where they have their command
center.
These are just not places that everybody gets to go.
So it was...
Honor the Texas flag.
I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state, under God, one
indivisible.
I'll come down for a couple proclamations.
Okay, the first one is Arbor Day.
Come on down, Arbor Day.
Yay for trees.
I'm going to read a proclamation, but before I do, I'd like
for you guys to share with
us a little bit about what we're proclaiming today.
My name is Lauren Barker.
I'm the program manager for Keep Denton Beautiful, and we
are here today to proclaim April 23rd
Denton Arbor Day.
We have the Denton Redbud Festival that is celebrated on
that day this year.
This is Denton's official Arbor Day celebration, and this
year we actually celebrate a big
milestone.
It's the 25th year, the silver anniversary of Denton's
status as a Tree City USA through
the Arbor Day Foundation.
We have a long history of caring for our trees, and we're
really excited to celebrate with
the community on April 23rd.
Don't miss it.
I'm Haywood Morgan.
I'm the urban forester for the City of Denton.
Really excited to celebrate Denton's 25th anniversary of
our 25th year being recognized
as a Tree City USA, which puts Denton in some rarefied air
among cities in the entire United
States and the world.
Thank you.
You know, they planted, I guess they've gotten all the
trees planted along the, I think it's
South Eureka Park or that South Lakes, South Branch Park.
What a, it looks great.
It just looks absolutely fantastic.
So this is a proclamation by the mayor of the City of Dent
on.
Whereas in 1872, J. Sterling Morton proposed that a special
day be set aside for the planting
of trees.
Whereas this holiday called Arbor Day was first observed
with the planting of more than
a million trees in Nebraska.
A million trees.
That's a lot of trees.
And whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation
and the world.
And whereas trees can reduce erosion, cut heating and
cooling costs, clean the air,
provide habitat for wildlife, and serve as a renewable
resource of wood and fuel.
And whereas trees serve as green infrastructure for by
increasing property values, enhancing
the economic vitality of business areas and beautifying our
community.
And whereas the City of Denton is celebrating its 25th
consecutive year as a tree city USA
through the National Arbor Day Foundation.
And whereas in celebration of Arbor Day, Keep Denton
Beautiful annually holds the Denton
Redbud Festival and Children's Arbor Day programs, as well
as numerous other community forestry
programs to encourage the community to plant and care for
trees.
And now therefore I Chris Watts mayor of the City of Denton
Texas do hereby proclaim Saturday
April the 23rd 2016 as Arbor Day in the City of Denton and
urge all citizens to celebrate
Arbor Day and to support efforts to care for and plant
trees for the betterment of our
community for this and future generations.
So thank you very much.
We got a we got a flag.
There we go.
Fantastic.
Okay.
Okay.
Give you the right one.
Yes.
The next project is the Arbor Day.
And it's a project that's been in the history of the city
of Denton since the beginning
of the 20th century.
And it's a project that's been in the history of the city
of Denton since the beginning of
the 20th century.
And it's a project that's been in the history of the city
of Denton since the beginning of
the 20th century.
And it's a project that's been in the history of the city
of Denton since the beginning
of the 20th century.
And it's a project that's been in the history of the city
of Denton since the beginning
of the 20th century.
And it's a project that's been in the history of the city
of Denton since the beginning
of the 20th century.
The next proclamation is Don't Die of Doubt Day.
Come on down.
If you'll once we get your crew here, introduce all of you
and tell us what we're proclaiming
today.
I'm Katie Moreno with the American Heart Association.
And I want to thank you for recognizing Don't Die of Doubt
Initiative in collaboration with
our wonderful hospital partners and our fire partners.
I'm going to let Chief Glenn talk about it.
Well, the fire department flies the EMS and we can train
all of our firefighters and paramedics
like we have.
The council can keep helping buy more ambulances, putting
them in every station like we've done.
But none of that matters if the people that have signs and
symptoms of a heart attack
don't take the first step and call 911.
And that's why we, the fire department and the hospitals,
have all partnered with the
American Heart Association and Mission Lifeline on this Don
't Die of Doubt campaign.
We've been advertising it real strong the last year, but we
want everyone to be familiar
with the signs and symptoms of heart disease and to don't
hesitate and call 911 right away.
First symptom.
Hi, I'm Debbie Corley with the Heart Hospital Baylor Denton
.
Hi, I'm Dr. George R. Jefferson George.
I'm a professor at the University of North Texas and the
recipient of the great work
of the fire department and so on.
On January the 15th, I had a cardiac arrest.
There were no signs and symptoms.
And it was only because people did call 911 and I had
coworkers that knew CPR and then
the fire department was there almost immediately.
And so I received the treatment that I needed to be saved.
I'm so honored actually to be here.
So thank you very much.
Hi, I'm Dan Donaghan.
I am the chest pain coordinator at Presby Denton.
And the big thing with everybody in town with all the
hospitals with the fire department,
with survivors, it's all about not ignoring signs and
symptoms of a heart attack or learning
CPR, getting out into the community, teaching CPR and
making that impact.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United
States and we can make that
impact.
Hello, I'm Jerry Kirby.
I'm with the Denton Regional Medical Center and we partner
with the American Heart Association
also with the -- and also the EMS with the Denton Fire
Department.
It's real important that we get this campaign out that to
call 911, some people don't know
that the fire department is very capable of doing the same
thing that the hospitals are
doing.
So we really support that the fire department and American
Heart Association.
Well I appreciate you sharing your story as well because I
know we can read these sometimes
and we understand what we're trying to encourage, but you
're a real live example of how important
that is.
And so thank you for doing that.
As a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton, Texas
, whereas cardiovascular disease
is the number one killer of Americans and whereas in 2014
more than 4,800 North Texas
residents over the age of 50 suffered a heart attack and
whereas every 43 seconds someone
in the United States has a heart attack and whereas only 40
% of people experiencing a
warning sign of a heart attack called 911, that that's only
40% of people experiencing
heart attack signs called 911.
And whereas treatment can be delayed up to an hour for
those who drive themselves and
whereas reducing treatment time by calling 911 is vital to
surviving a heart attack and
whereas medical treatment is initiated by the 911 dispatch
er and delivered by EMS who
can identify and treat a suspected heart attack upon
arrival at the patient's location and
whereas the American Heart Association watched the Don't
Die of Doubt campaign to educate
North Texas residents on the value of calling 911 at the
first sign of a heart attack.
And now therefore I, Chris Watts, mayor of the city of Dent
on, Texas, do hereby declare
and proclaim Tuesday, April the 5th, 2016 as Don't Die of
Doubt Day and call upon the
citizens of Denton to heed all warnings and to call 911 at
the sign that they may be experiencing
a heart attack.
This could save your life.
So I want to thank the American Heart Association for
really bringing this to our attention
and everyone in Denton who participates in that and
actually literally saves lives.
So thank you all very much.
I do want to share one story before they leave.
As we were meeting in my office talking about this, I
shared with them that one day I was
driving from Dallas and was experiencing some heart palpit
ations or something like that
and I just continued to drive myself to the emergency room.
And I got a little chided for that.
So this is as much good for me as anybody else.
So again, thank you all very much for what you do for our
community.
You bet.
Thank you all.
Before we go into the normal part of our agenda, I wanted
to make an announcement that agenda
item 6F of the public hearing has been withdrawn by the
applicant.
So if anyone is here for agenda item 6F, the applicant has
withdrawn that application,
so therefore we will not be...
Oh, I'm sorry.
6G.
So if you're here for 6G.
That's my apologies.
That's my mistake.
6G.
If you're here for 6G, the applicant has requested that
that be withdrawn, their application,
their withdrawing application.
Well, I think we have to do the public hearing first.
Yeah.
Yeah.
6A also we will...
They're going to withdraw that, but due to technical
procedures, we do have to open the
public hearing.
So if anyone is here wishing to speak on that, they
certainly will have the opportunity to
do that.
So moving on to our next item in the agenda is presentation
from members of the public.
The first one is A. We're going to see the procedures for
citizens' reports.
The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure,
including a code of conduct,
which applies to citizens as well as council members.
These rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and
to preserve decorum.
Here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizens'
reports.
Citizens will have four minutes to give a report.
There will be an electronic beep when time has expired.
If the remarks are not concluded by that time, the citizen
will be asked to stop speaking.
If the citizen does not cease and a second request is made,
the mayor will request to
have the citizen removed from the council chambers.
Citizens are asked to not approach the dais.
If a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to
the council, please let the
city secretary know, and she will have a staff member
distribute the materials to the council.
The attorney general has ruled that council members may
listen to citizens speak and may
ask questions of citizens for clarification of the issue.
Council members will not engage citizens in discussion of a
topic, because to do so could
potentially be a violation of the Open Meetings Act.
When speaking to the council, citizens are to direct all
remarks and questions to the
council as a whole and not to any individual member.
Please refrain from making abusive, personal, impertinent,
profane or slanderous remarks.
Anyone who violates this rule will immediately be removed
from the council chambers.
Citizens' adherence to these rules will help make an
effective presentation and will preserve
the order and decorum of our proceedings.
Copies of the rules of procedure are available from the
city secretary.
Regarding establishing a Denton Forensics Center.
Please state your name and address and your time will begin
.
Thank you.
My name is Dalton Allen.
I reside at 111 Lexington Lane in Denton.
And a few months ago, I had a burglary at my house, middle
of the day.
The door was kicked in.
We have cameras all around the house.
We have cameras inside the house.
So we were able later to watch this guy, where he went,
what he did.
And the police were out very quickly.
They were absolutely incredible.
I can't say enough good things about what they did and how
they handled themselves.
They collected fingerprint data, DNA data, the place where,
you know, footprint data,
whatever it was to collect, they collected.
And I made a comment to one of the officers that with
facial recognition software, what
it is today, and with all of the things that we have at our
disposal, we have probably
a good chance of catching this guy.
The comment that I received was, well, really it takes six
to 24 months to get this information
back to us.
So I started thinking about that.
And the concern that I had, of course, is, well, what
happens to my neighbor if they
go over there or goes across town to your house or goes
somewhere else?
Or what happens if somebody is in a home when it's burglar
ized?
Then violence can increase.
Other things can happen.
And we don't have a way to get from here to dealing with
that problem.
So I started doing a little bit of research and honestly
found that the sheriff's department
a few years ago had purchased a couple of mass specs, which
was about $200,000 worth
of equipment that Sheriff Travis passed on to UNT to put in
their lab whenever he took
over office.
And it's there and it's functioning and it's working well.
And quite honestly, UNT in critical instances will help
local law enforcement with their
lab.
It's very professional.
It's very good.
But we don't have anybody to work in that lab, to do
anything to bring forth the needs
of our local police department.
I believe that there's a very quick way for Denton to
become much more adept and involved
in forensics type data that is needed to control the people
that are on the streets doing things
that we don't want them to do.
UNT does have a lab if the council would get with UNT and
have a discussion, establish
a professional relationship in there to where the police
department could actually utilize
that lab for 15 or 20 hours a week.
UNT needs data from the police department to do all of
their research.
That's where their research comes from.
It's a symbiotic relationship.
Something I am absolutely positive can be worked out in
this way and it gives our law
enforcement professionals immediate access then to forensic
data that they've never had
before or the ability to produce that data.
The other thing that we need to do is actually address it
in the budget and its budget time.
So that's why I thought this might be a good time to visit
about this.
I've seen the budget the last couple of years.
I haven't gone back past that and there was, I forget the
name of the end of it, crime
scene technician was in the budget that's been cut the last
couple of years.
We need another crime scene tech.
There's an existing crime scene tech right now that
actually has so many other responsibilities
that they're not able to, is that, I don't, my hearing aid,
am I done?
It was but we do have a couple questions for you.
Okay.
Councilmember Wasney.
So two questions.
The first one, the six to 12 month wait, that was on the
fingerprint and DNA, is that correct?
Fingerprints they can actually produce local fingerprints.
If they've been in the Denton system they can produce that
pretty quickly.
Anything outside of that, it's my understanding they have
to go to the FBI and that is a wait
but I don't think that it's that long just for fingerprints
.
It's whatever it takes for the FBI to get it back to them.
Yeah, if you could just maybe stand up.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Just thank people over the meeting.
Were you able to hear me?
Yes.
Okay.
So the six to 12 months was the facial recognition and the
DNA, were those okay?
I didn't get into a lot of detail on that question.
I'm sure the police department can give all of that
information in detail but it's my
understanding, yes, facial recognition things and DNA is a
much longer wait.
Anytime you get into DNA or anything to do with a homicide,
that by contract goes to
Fort Worth ME.
So it's not handled in Denton anyway.
But all of the, I mean there's drugs.
There's all kinds of stuff that is necessary for the mass
spec and DNA issues that we cannot
do that we don't get information back for for criminals in
the city.
Second question.
So the crime scene tech was cut from the budget, is that
correct?
And is there anything else that you want to add to the
presentation in terms of strategic
partnership with UNT, crime scene tech added back in, of
course coordination with our local
police department.
Is there any other piece of this puzzle that you would add
to finding a solution?
One more thing if I may.
A natural offshoot of beginning the process of working with
the UNT lab and working that
over time, excuse me, is also for the city to determine
where they want to have a lab
of their own and start that process.
It'll take a couple of years to get it certified but there
's also a couple of budgets that
are involved in that and planning that can be done to
actually achieve what we need in
the city.
We're growing so fast.
We have things that are happening that nobody knows about
that we've never seen before outside
forces that are looking at Denton and wanting to operate
here.
We just need to be prepared for that.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Couple more questions.
Oh yes.
Council Member Hawkins.
Sorry Mayor, thank you.
Are you saying that we're down to one crime scene tech now
or we have zero now from the
research?
We have one crime scene tech that isn't able to spend the
time on the crime scene issues
because she has other responsibilities that keep her from
that a lot, not all the time.
So budget-wise we need somebody that can take that load off
of her and then we need an additional
crime scene tech.
That's my take.
Sure.
There are people that know a lot more about this than me.
What I'm trying to present to Council is that we have an
issue that I don't think Council
was even aware of here and I wanted to bring it to the
table so that you guys could determine
how best to proceed.
Thanks for coming out.
I live in your neighborhood.
I'm sorry that happened to you.
One other question.
Council Member Briggs.
I appreciate this information.
I didn't realize.
So did you actually talk to someone at UNT?
I have spoken with a couple of individuals but not the
right ones, people that know what's
going on there at least to a degree, but they're not at the
level of making decisions.
That's something that you guys can handle.
To reach out.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
The next speaker will be Zach Youngbud regarding renewable
dentin.
Is Zach here?
Okay.
I do not see Zach.
We'll now move on to agenda item 3C which is additional
citizens reports.
We have one card.
If you would come down and please state your name and
address.
Your time will begin.
It will be Tiffany Hudspeth.
Name and address and your time will begin.
Yes, ma'am.
Okay.
My name is Tiffany Hudspeth and my address is 316 North
Bonnie Bray Street.
I'm from 7601.
I just had a brief comment about the dentin renewable plan
regarding the proposed dentin
energy center.
I just wanted to voice my support for building that energy
center.
I read through the research.
It was very thorough and I can tell that a lot of care and
concern was put into that
research.
I think it's a really good plan for our city.
It makes sense economically because it actually causes our
rates to go down instead of up
and also is environmentally responsible because it
increases the use of renewable energy.
That's all I have.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll go on to agenda item number 4 which is consent agenda
.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Oh.
Okay.
We got one more speaker.
Deb Armantor.
Come down and state your name and address please.
Your time will begin.
Deb Armantor, 2003 Misty Wood Lane.
I wanted to talk about something that just came up today,
actually something that I just
found out about.
That is that I just heard that the Buc-E's request for a
variance on that environmentally
protected area was pulled from the agenda.
What I heard from the people who live there is that they
had received 21% opposed signatures
from people who live within 200 feet of the Buc-E's.
So in other words, they had gotten 21% of the signatures
from those people.
They only had to get 20% of the signatures of people who
live there in order for it to
take a super majority on council to override that request
for variance.
So on the one hand, that's good news for the people who
want to protect that one little
strip of nature that's dividing them from Buc-E's and also
helping them with various
drainage issues.
On the other hand, it means as they found out that Buc-E's
can put in a request any
time they can renew that request.
And these same people who work so hard to get these
signatures and scramble together
at the last minute will have to go through this whole
business all over again and get
all new signatures.
So I sincerely hope, as do they, that it's not going to
come to that.
I hope that Buc-E's will see that this 21% of signatures
means that these people don't
want this environmentally protected area encroached upon.
That I'm fearing the worst, as are many of them.
So I just wanted to report that, even though I assume all
of you know, I just wanted to
publicly report that to whoever's watching and who's ever
listening, that we should all
prepare for the worst and pray and hope for the best for
those of us who are against this
encroachment.
So that's all I wanted to say.
This is the open mic portion.
I don't know if questions are allowed during that time.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
Thank you.
Seeing no more cards, we will move on to consent agenda
items.
Consent agenda item number four, Councilmember Hawkins.
Thank you, Mayor.
This is a little confusing here, but I move approval of
consent agenda items A through
double K, but we are going to be pulling a number of them
for individual consideration,
and that is double B through double J.
Okay.
Double A, too?
Clarification on the motion, please, sir.
May I assume that the motion would include the substitute
ordinance on item four D to
correct a transposition of some figures?
My mistake.
I forgot about that.
Councilmember Rodin.
I second the motion as corrected.
I'm not going to try to repeat that motion, so I'm going to
-- we have a motion.
Let's vote on the board.
Motion carries seven zero.
We will now take the consent agenda items that were pulled
for individual consideration
in order.
And the first one being consent agenda item for individual
consideration, B, Baker-Baker.
Mayor and Council, we pulled -- or we ask that all of the
items related to these non-annexation
agreements for agricultural land associated with these
annexations be pulled, so they're
all off now for individual consideration.
And I'll be glad to go through as we work these off and
tell you which ones did merit
a change.
Item B, B does not have a change on it, so the council is
free to pass that item with
the information as put forth in your backup.
All right.
Thank you, Madam City Attorney.
Councilmember Wasney.
Just so the public understands that -- thank you.
The public understands that everyone in that area signed a
non-annexation agreement that
reaches to the year 2020.
Yes, ma'am, that's correct.
And this is -- this particular item relates to item areas
in DH1.
So B, B relates to areas in DH1.
Okay.
Councilmember Johnson.
Move approval of item B, B.
Councilmember Hawkins.
I second.
We have a motion and a second.
Let's vote on the board, please.
Item Carried 7-0.
Item for individual consideration, CC.
Mayor and council, there are some additional non-annexation
agreements that the council
will need to add to the ordinance associated with item CC.
So if the council would pass the item as it is in your
backup, but with the addition of
the non-annexation agreements that we've handed out, which
are labeled as DH2.
Okay.
Councilmember Rhoad.
Thank you, Mayor.
I move approval of item CC with the additional non-annex
ation agreements given to us.
Mayor Pro Tem.
Second.
Councilmember Wasney.
And again, for the public, just to emphasize that these are
non-annexation agreements that
have been signed and extending all of that to the year 2020
.
All right.
Let's vote on the board, please.
Motion Carried 7-0.
Item D, D.
Mayor and council, likewise with item D, D, if the council
would pass this item with the
backup in your packets, but also with the additional items
that we have labeled item
4, DD, related to DH3.
And then there was a late coming one that we recommend that
you also add to that.
Oh, strike that.
I'm sorry.
That relates to another item.
So strike that.
It's only the one labeled the DH3 in your additional backup
.
Councilmember Rodin.
Thank you, Mayor.
I move approval of item DD with the additional agreements
as stated.
Councilmember Hawkins.
I second.
We have a motion to second.
Let's vote on the board, please.
Motion Carried 7-0.
Individual item EE.
Mayor and council, once again, there are additional non-
annexation agreements to those that are
set forth in your package and your backup.
So if you would pass this item with these additional
agreements, that would be acceptable.
Mayor Pro Tem.
I move approval of item EE with the additional agreements.
Councilmember Johnson.
Second.
We have a motion to second.
Let's vote on the board, please.
Motion Carried 7-0.
Item F.
F.
Mayor and council, with regard to item F.
F, there are no changes.
And so if you would pass this with the backup in your
packets, that would be acceptable.
Councilmember Rodin.
What happened?
Sorry, the board went crazy there.
I move approval of item F.
F.
Councilmember Hawkins.
I second.
We have a motion to second.
Let's vote on the board, please.
Motion Carried 7-0.
Item GG.
Mayor and council, there are additional non-annexation
agreements associated with this item.
So if you would pass it with your backup and the additional
non-annexation agreements as
handed out to the council.
Councilmember Johnson.
I move approval of item GG with the additional non-annex
ation agreements as stated.
Mayor Pro Tem.
Second.
We have a motion to second.
Let's vote, please.
Item Carried 7-0.
Agenda item II.
Oh, did I miss one?
We missed HH.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I've got it checked off.
I shouldn't have.
HH.
Agenda item HH.
Okay.
With regard to agenda item HH, there are no additional non-
annexation agreements.
So those in your packet are the ones that we have.
So if you would pass it as presented in your council backup
.
Councilmember Hawkins.
I move approval of item HH.
Councilmember Rodin.
Second.
We have a motion to second.
Let's vote, please.
Motion carries.
Now we'll get to II.
Agenda item II.
Mayor, with regard to agenda item II, there are additional
non-annexation agreements to
those in your council backup.
So if you would pass it with those additional non-annex
ation agreements, please.
Councilmember Johnson.
I move approval of item II with the additional agreements
as stated.
Councilmember Rodin.
Second.
We have a motion and a second.
Let's vote, please.
Motion carries, 7-0.
Last item for individual consideration from the consent
agenda is item JJ.
Mayor, once again, we have additional non-annexation
agreements associated with this item.
Which is PAA4.
So if you would pass it with the additional items, that
would be acceptable.
Councilmember Rodin.
I move approval of item JJ with the additional agreements.
Mayor Pro Tem.
Second.
Councilmember Wasney.
And again, just to clarify, these are all the annexation
areas and these people have
signed non-annexation agreements extending all of that out
to 2020.
All right.
Let's vote, please.
Motion carries, 7-0.
We'll now move on to items for individual consideration.
Agenda item 5A, consider adoption of an ordinance
considering all matters incident and related
to the issuance and sale and delivery of up to $93,840,000
in principal amount of City
of Denton certificates of obligations.
Thank you, Mayor.
Chuck Springer, our Director of Finance, if he would
present this item.
And you do have some speaker cards on the next three.
Thank you, Mayor and members of the Council.
The first ordinance for consideration is for certificates
of obligation for this year.
In terms of a brief breakdown of them for general
government purposes, it's $8.125
million.
I do want to highlight a couple items on there.
One of them is the land acquisition and construction for
the fire training facility.
In a total of $3 million is included.
There were some discussions at yesterday's Council meeting
on that.
Also $15.7 million for our solid waste, $7.5 million for
water projects, $3.87 million
for wastewater projects, and $57.85 million for electric
projects.
Just to highlight on the electric projects, about 68% of
that is eligible for transmission
cost reimbursements through the state system.
Highlight a couple more items.
The City sells this debt in accordance with the useful life
of this asset.
So a portion of this debt is going to be for a five-year
period, about $8.7 million, $3.6
for a 10-year period, $22.8 for a 20-year period, and $57.
85 the electric portion for
a 30-year period.
In addition with our debt, we standardly issue it with a 10
-year call feature to take advantage
of lower interest rates and refunding.
The ordinance in front of you sets forth the parameters for
a planned competitive sale.
About the third week of May is where it's currently planned
.
A maximum amount of $93.84 million, a maximum maturity of
30 years in 2046, a maximum net
effective rate of 4.25%.
With that, recommend passage of this ordinance.
>> All right.
We do have a speaker on this agenda item, so I'd like to
seek public comment.
Mr. Willie Hudspeth, if you could come down and state your
name and address, your time
will begin.
>> My name is Willie Hudspeth.
I live at 623 Newton.
Point of order, and my time can take that.
It can go.
I want to know.
If you pull an item off your consent agenda, then it
becomes an item for individual consideration.
Why weren't we allowed to speak at that item?
We should have.
They were items for consideration.
You did not have the authority, as far as I understand, to
just willy-nilly vote those
things in.
And I wanted to comment on them.
Secondly, I'm going to get to all of this money you're
spending, and I don't know where
it goes, just for the heck of it.
I don't know.
I guess everybody else does.
There were 37 consent agenda items.
37.
What that means is you, somebody, somewhere talked about
these issues without the public
knowing anything about it, other than having to do a lot of
research, which I'm going to
start doing.
By golly, you're not going to spend this kind of money in
this item, A, that's a lot of
money.
I have not one clue as to what that money is being spent
for and if it's justifiable.
But you have a lot of stuff hid, or not hid, that I didn't
get to see in the consent agenda.
Now I want my question answered.
You will then hide underneath, around.
This is an item that is not what we're supposed to be
discussing here.
Well, it's going to come up again.
I want to know why I didn't have to get to speak to those
issues that were for individual
consideration.
Madam City Attorney, would you like to respond to that?
No, I'll be glad to speak to our council rules with regard
to that particular issue.
Once we do pull the items off of consent, we will typically
, as a matter of practice,
allow blue cards on those items.
To my knowledge, there were no blue cards on these
particular items.
Mr. City Manager, were there blue cards?
There were not any here nor in the work session where we
sometimes consider consent agenda
items.
So those could have been spoken to in a normal process at
that time as well.
Council Member Hawkins.
Yeah, my question was for Chuck.
So I can wait if anybody else needs to speak.
No, you're the only one in queue.
I just wanted for clarification just the timing of this.
You know when it says City of Denton Certificates of Oblig
ation Series 2016, why are we doing
this at this time?
In terms of backing up a little bit, the capital budget is
considered by the council as part
of the budget process and these planned issuances occur at
that time.
We generally don't sell until a little bit later in the
year.
One of the reasons is the debt service impact.
So we kind of delay some of the debt service impact a
little bit later and we pass a reimbursement
ordinance letting us kind of begin the initial design on
these projects and then try to sell
more when we're ready to get going with the projects, not
necessarily have the money on
hand too long and paying interest on that before we're
going with those projects, which
is kind of a standard timeframe.
It also allows us if we sell in May, we generally start
getting some preliminary values in it
in April so we want to feel comfortable about what our
value is going to be to pay the debt
service on these items, especially the general government.
So that's kind of where the timing in May occurs.
Thank you.
Mayor Pro Tem.
Thank you, Mayor.
Mr. Springer, we got the backup for this item, 5A, and that
was made available I guess Friday
or Thursday at noon, something like that, is that correct?
That's in the agenda item backup, yes.
So in that, I'm looking at it right now, I see a big list,
for example, vehicle replacements,
North Texas Boulevard improvements, facility maintenance
programs, land acquisition, parking
improvements.
Then there's a list for solid waste projects and we see
individual items listed with the
amount for each one of those items.
There's in that solid waste area 38 different items that
are specifically listed, is that
correct?
Correct.
And then we have another list for water projects and I see
six different ones of those with
an individual amount for each one of those totaling about 7
.5 million.
And we have those for each of those categories, right?
So those have been available for the public to peruse since
when?
Really since adoption of the budget.
That's proposed in the proposed budget.
We give details to council and then in the adopted budget
it's available on the city's
website.
And also I failed to mention that prior to this action for
certificates of obligation
as required under state law, we come to the council and
pass what's called a notice of
intention to issue the certificates of obligation and we
publish that information in the newspaper
over two consecutive weeks and that has to occur at least
31 days prior to authorization
of the issuance.
So that also has occurred back in February and March.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Councilmember Briggs.
So my question is about the transmission cost of service
recovery that you mentioned on
some of the substations.
So when we get those reimbursements back, where does that
money go?
Does that go back to pay the principal of the debt or does
that go into a different
fund?
It goes into the electric fund which is it becomes a
revenue of the electric fund and
that's where this debt service is paid for, the principal
and interest out of the electric
fund.
So it's a revenue of the electric utility fund to offset
those costs.
And there's a return associated with that so we get a
little bit above the actual cost
of it.
There's kind of a return that also comes to the city.
Does that answer your question?
Okay.
Councilmember Johnson.
Thank you, Mayor.
So, Chuck, simplify it for me.
We're issuing bonds for items that we've been talking about
for in many cases since last
August?
Correct.
September, all the planning.
This is now just actually issuing them because it's time to
go do the work.
Correct.
Thank you.
Seeing no more requests to speak, Mayor Pro Tem.
Thank you, Mayor.
I move approval of item 5A.
Councilmember Hawkins.
I'm going to second.
We have a motion to second for 5A.
Let's vote, please.
Motion carries 7-0.
Agenda item 5B, consider adoption of an ordinance
considering all matters incident and related
to issuance, sale, and delivery of up to $32,710,000 in
principal amount of City of Denton General
obligation refunding and improvement bonds.
Thank you, Mayor.
I ask Mr. Springer to also present this item.
Thank you, Chuck.
Thank you, Mayor and City Council.
Our second item to consider for debt issuance, this is
related to bonds authorized by the
voters in the 2012 and 2014 election.
We're planning to sell $4.4 million from the 2012 bond
election and a total of $12.38 million
from the 2014 election for $16.78 million of general
obligation bonds.
We're also proposing to refund approximately $15 million of
outstanding general obligation
debt.
These bonds are at an interest rate of approximately about
5%.
We can refund them at an interest rate of about 3%.
So the additional amount is for proposed refunding.
The savings is estimated at about $118,000 over 12 years of
level savings.
With that, I'll answer any questions you may have.
So the parameters of this, again, we plan a competitive
sale sometime later in May.
The parameters ordinance in front of the council authorizes
a maximum sale amount of $32.7
million, a final stated maturity of $2,036.
The refunding must provide a minimum savings of 3.75% of
the refunded bonds.
And the delegation authority ends in October, but we plan
this sale this May.
Okay.
Thank you.
We have a card request to speak.
You want to ask him a question first before?
Sure.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Mayor.
Sometimes when folks see an agenda item like this about
refinancing, the conclusion that
is sometimes drawn is that we are somehow delaying paying
the debt or that we are trying
to pay it out longer.
But that's not the case, is it, here?
This is sort of like when I had an interest on my house at
6% and then the mortgage rates
went way down and I could refinance my house at 3% and save
myself a good bit of money
in interest over the life of the loan.
Is that the same kind of thing that we're seeing here?
It's similar to that.
In other words, we're not extending the maturity at all.
We're paying the outstanding debt that we're refunding over
the same term just because we
have lower interest rates.
Our total payment each year will be less.
So we do the refundings for savings.
The City has an outstanding debt policy where that 3.75%
minimum savings, we do that.
Under federal tax law, we're limited how many times we can
do a refunding.
So we try to do it when interest rates are low as they are
currently to reduce our outstanding
principal and interest.
And to follow up, we're authorizing you to do this if at
the time that it happens that
those rates are at that level so that we're seeing that
significant savings.
That's correct.
And who experiences that savings?
Well the taxpayers overall.
In other words, the principal and interest is paid by a
portion of the City's property
tax rate.
So as we experience those savings, it lowers the impact of
the debt service property tax
rate.
Thank you.
Okay.
Seeing no more questions at this time, we have a speaker,
Mr. Willie Hudspeth.
If you'll come up and state your name and address, your
time will begin.
My name is Willie Hudspeth.
I live at 623 Newton.
Thank you, Councilperson, for letting me know how ignorant
I am.
The county government, the commissioners did something
similar to me as you've done.
You pointed out that.
And the attorney.
Well we had a meeting earlier.
It was discussed then.
And then the others communicated to me that, well, it's
been on the books for so many
months.
You should have done it then.
This is the very reason why so many citizens, and I'm going
to get to this debt money that
you're saying we're going to receive some benefits from.
This is why so many citizens are saying enough's enough for
people who seem to vote the same
way.
The decisions were made by the four.
And we're tired of the consent agenda items that we can't
talk about.
But now I'm finding where you've got to come to the meeting
during the day when you should
be working.
Well I can promise you this.
You've made me feel like I'm stupid.
That's probably not a good thing to do.
Because now I'm going to go to work and I'm going to find
out what's going on in this
city.
I have to spend the time.
Doesn't seem like anybody else has the time.
Maybe they don't.
I don't see how anybody can have the time to do all this.
I sure would like to know from you, how many of you knew
about what was going on in that
area where I was confused?
Did you read all that information?
Well good for you if you did.
So I'm going to start reading it.
Now this money that you're saying we're going to save by
paying the debt off early, I sure
would like to know how I'm going to receive some of that
money in my savings.
That's going to be saving to me.
I don't see how I'm going to get it.
My light bills are still going up.
The water bill is still going up.
I'm still having to pay for a container in my business that
I don't use and I don't have
a choice but to pay it.
I don't see it.
So if I'm saving money then I guess the person who pointed
out my ignorance, because I didn't
know everything about what was presented and it was
presented here early enough for me
to know it, so I'm ignorant, I'd like for him to show me
how I'm supposed to save that
money whenever he gets a chance to.
All right.
Chuck, I have one question.
Thank you Mr. Hesbitt.
You mentioned a savings and then you said level savings.
I think I'm a little confused.
So you said it's $118,000.
That's not $118,000 per year, is that correct?
Yes it was per year.
Okay.
I was saying we standardly try to make it a level savings.
Okay.
I got you.
Instead of it.
In terms of taking it in one year, a lump payment, try to
spread it out over the life of the
bonds that we're refunding on an even basis.
So it'd be about $118,000 conservatively estimating a year
over a 12-year period.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Councilmember Rhoad.
Thank you, Mayor.
Chuck, I know a lot of these as part of being part of the
bond programs of 2012 or 2014,
there's places on the website you can go to find out some
general information about it,
but some of these issues are of great importance to folks.
Street improvements, which streets are getting fixed, which
traffic signals are going to
be bettered, which sidewalks.
There's $700,000 in sidewalks.
Does that exist somewhere publicly that someone can find
out which specific projects are being
funded with this money that we're issuing through this vote
today?
Or if not, is there a way we could get some of those
details put online shortly?
I think we kind of have generally all of the projects
within like street improvements that
were going to be done.
I'm not sure specifically if we have on the website exactly
which ones are going to be
done by each year's sale.
We can get that information.
I do think we have the sidewalk program, for instance,
scheduled so we can at least prioritize.
Yeah, I think that's helpful.
Given how many people voted for this, and I think some of
those items are of great interest
nowadays and just seeing what's going on, I think it just
helps kind of celebrate what
we're funding and getting a sense of moving forward.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Councilmember Johnson.
Thank you, Mayor.
I move approval of Item 5B.
Councilmember Rodin.
Second.
We have a motion and a second.
Let's vote, please.
Motion carries, 7-0.
Going on to Agenda Item 5C, consider adoption of six ordin
ances of the City of Denton on
the first reading to involuntarily annex lands containing
six of the 15 reading annexations.
I know we've got some modifications to that.
So Agenda Item 5C.
Mayor and Council, let me open on this, and then I think Ms
. Bissett has some information
to provide to you as well.
This item relates to annexations that we were directed to
consider over the last month or
so, and recall that earlier in our meeting, we adopted some
ordinances accepting non-annexation
agreements.
This item would pick up those very, very limited areas
where non-annexation agreements were
not pro-offered to the city.
So since we had to post this item very broadly, and since
we were so successful in getting
these non-annexation agreements, and we have been able to
whittle this particular agenda
item down considerably, so let me address this very briefly
.
We will be striking any areas to be annexed in DH2, DH3, DH
4, PAA3.
There are some very limited areas in DH14 and in PAA4.
We will proceed on first reading tonight.
And Ms. Bissett does have the captions to provide to you
and can give you any additional
detail about those properties about which we will proceed
tonight.
We do have a card wishing to speak.
Mr. Willie Hesbuth, if you'll come down and state your name
and address, your time will
begin for agenda item 5C.
My name is Willie Hesbuth.
I live at 623 Newton.
See, again, I need to do my homework, and I am going to.
I'd like to know what the individuals think about being
annexed.
I hear the terminology that communicates that some, but I'm
not clear as to what the citizens
think about the annexation.
And I'm at a disadvantage because I'm speaking before the
presentation.
So what I'm going to do is make notes.
And then I'm going to then bring up items that are
presented in the presentation that
I didn't get to hear before I'm speaking now.
Then I'm going to bring them up then, because this is out
of order.
Presentation should have been made, then I should speak.
But if you didn't do that, that's okay.
I learned how to play the game.
And I've been doing this for years.
So I will speak later, somewhere even tonight or next
meeting, about the issues that are
brought up after I've spoken.
Anybody?
See no questions from counsel?
Do we read the captions?
Is that it?
Yes.
And this is Amy Bissendorf, Director of Development
Services.
I do not have a presentation to make.
I am here to read into the record the two captions
associated with these potential annexations.
There are two areas, as Ms. Burgess mentioned, DH14, which
is a little over two acres.
And then a group of properties that are all under one
ownership in PAA4 that is approximately
853 acres.
And with that, I'll go ahead and read the captions into the
record.
The first one reads, "An ordinance annexing an area of land
to the city of Denton, Texas,
generally identified as area DH14 of approximately 2.1021
acres located on the south side of
Robinson Road, east of Thoroughbred Trail, west of Marbella
's Court, and more specifically
identified in Exhibit A attached here to, which area is
adjacent to and abuts the existing
city limits of the city of Denton, Texas, extending the
city limits so as to include
the property within the city limits, granting to all the
inhabitants of the property all
the rights and privileges of other citizens and binding the
inhabitants to all of the
ordinances, resolutions, acts, and regulations of the city,
providing inclusion of a service
plan, providing for instructions for filing this ordinance
and correction of the official
city map, providing severability and conflict clauses, and
providing an effective date."
The second ordinance caption reads, "An ordinance annexing
an area of land to the city of Denton,
Texas, generally identified as area PAA4 of approximately
853.6143 acres located on the
south side of Milam Road, north of Loop 288, east of I-35,
and more specifically identified
in Exhibit A attached here to, which area is adjacent to
and abuts the existing city
limits of the city of Denton, Texas, extending the city
limits so as to include the property
within the city limits, granting to all the inhabitants of
the property all the rights
and privileges of other citizens and binding the
inhabitants to all of the ordinances,
resolutions, acts, and regulations of the city, providing
inclusion of a service plan,
providing for instructions for filing this ordinance and
correction of the official city
map, providing severability and conflict clauses, and
providing an effective date."
I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
>> Councilmember Wasney.
>> So originally, we had very large areas that were
targeted for annexation, correct?
>> Yes, that is correct.
When we went through our agenda tonight, the AABBCCDDEE,
those were also huge areas where
those same citizens had signed non-annexation agreements,
which postpones all of this action
until 2020, so that we are now down to a very minute sum
total of areas that are actually
being annexed into the city.
Is that correct?
>> Yes, that is correct.
We were originally looking at annexations in 10 areas.
We were instructed by the City Council to offer non-annex
ation agreements to all of
the property owners in nine of those 10 areas.
And every property owner in all nine of those areas has
signed a non-annexation agreement
with one exception.
>> Thank you.
>> Mayor Pro Tem.
>> Thank you, Mayor.
So there were a few people that got the non-annexation
agreements, and then they chose not to sign
them.
They chose not to enter into a non-annexation agreement.
>> One property owner received it and chose not to enter
into it.
That is correct.
>> Are you sure that that person was able to receive the
information?
>> We have a returned receipt by certified mail.
That is correct.
>> Okay.
Thanks.
>> Okay.
Seeing no further questions, Mayor Pro Tem.
>> I move approval of 5C as presented by staff.
>> Councilmember Rodin.
>> Second.
>> We have a motion and a second.
Let's vote on the board, please.
>> Motion carries 7-0.
We'll now proceed to public hearings.
Agenda item 6A is continue a public hearing and consider
adoption of an ordinance regarding
amending subchapter 35.7.5, the Fry Street Overlay District
to create a new sub-district
and development standards.
This is a continuation of the public hearing, so we are in
the public hearing.
The applicant has asked that this be withdrawn, but this is
a public hearing and a continuation
of a public hearing.
So we will certainly take public testimony.
I have no cards.
But anybody wishing to speak on this item, please feel free
to come down and state your
name and address and your time will begin.
This is for agenda item 6A.
Anybody wishing to speak on agenda item 6A?
>> Close the public hearing.
>> One more time, agenda item 6A.
Anybody wishing to speak?
Okay.
We will now close the public hearing.
And the applicant had asked this to be withdrawn, so I
believe no further action is required.
Is that correct, Madam City Attorney?
>> That is correct, Mr. Mayor.
>> Question -- oh.
There was a question.
Yes.
Councilmember Rodin.
>> I had this question during our work session, and that
has to do with why this keeps coming
onto our agenda, even though the applicant is not
interested in us hearing it.
I understand we are the ones who continued it, so that is
why it keeps coming back up.
But what tools -- I guess this is a legal question -- what
tools are at our disposal
to keep from creating confusion to the public?
If and when this does ever come before us, there is going
to be significant interest
in to be able to focus attention on when that day comes
versus keep putting this on our
agenda.
What can we do now?
What are our options?
>> Well, Mr. Rodin, as you mentioned, this particular item
did come forward because the
council did continue the public hearing to this particular
date certain, so staff was
obligated to put this on the agenda, hence seeing it
tonight and then receiving the announcement
that it has in fact been withdrawn, necessitating the
council take no action on this particular
item.
This matter or any other related to the Fry Street
development will be handled in due
course, just as we do all other zoning cases.
So if there is another application that comes forward, we
would have a requirement to issue
a notice of the public hearing, publish that, and so a
notice will come forward as it does
in all other zone cases in the future as it relates to this
particular development.
>> So one other question.
No action doesn't equate to not approving.
Is that correct?
>> No, this is a withdrawal.
There is nothing for the council to act on.
>> Thanks.
>> Councilmember Johnson.
>> Thank you, Mayor.
I think for clarification though, if I remember correctly,
the first time that this was on
our agenda for a public hearing, it was either the day
before or the day of the meeting,
the applicant requested a continuation, if I remember
correctly.
And so once we continued it, it was on the agenda again,
right, they asked for another
continuation.
So it seems like we were, I mean, to be fair, if they ask
for a continuation and we say no,
then we have to vote on their item even though they asked
for a continuation.
So we kind of didn't have a choice here.
We had a choice.
We could have said no, we won't continue it even though you
're not going to be prepared,
which it just doesn't seem like that would have been the
right thing to do either to
them.
>> Right.
>> And then a public hearing, we've got an open public
hearing, we need to get that public
hearing closed.
And so we can do that tonight and then take no actions.
>> Okay, thanks.
>> And I guess, Councilmember Rodin, because you had been
talking about, it seemed like
that the posting had stated on the previous postings that
something about withdrawal,
but this is the first time, unless I'm mistaken, this last
sentence on this posting says the
applicant has requested that this item be withdrawn because
they are proposing additional
amendments.
Was that contained in the postings of the previous ones or
is this new?
>> Mayor, I'm sorry, I've slept since then, so maybe Ms. B
issett can help us.
>> The applicant made that request after the Council had
continued the public hearing to
this date, so the notice was put on there for everybody's
benefit.
>> Okay, so it wasn't on there in the past.
>> That's correct.
>> Okay, all right.
So, Councilmember Tim.
>> So they're withdrawn because they're proposing
additional amendments.
Does that mean that these additional amendments would go
before P&C, before they come back?
>> It will be in a new case and will start over again.
I mean, the whole process was- >> An entirely new case.
>> That's correct.
>> That's not clear in the way that it was stated, but that
's helpful.
Thank you.
>> Yes, sir.
On a withdrawn application, then they would need to start
completely over on a brand new
zone case.
>> Councilmember Wasney.
>> Yeah, I'm just happy to make that clear to the public
that when an applicant withdraws,
that it does start over again.
So for the people who are listening, the Fry Street project
will start over again and go
through planning and zoning before it ever comes back to
Council.
Because there is a lot of interest in this project.
>> Okay, any other questions before we move on from this
item?
Because there's no action to be taken.
That's correct.
>> No action to be taken.
The item has been withdrawn by the applicant.
>> All right, thank you.
So we'll move on to agenda items.
Agenda, I'm sorry.
>> You did close the public hearing.
>> I did close it.
Yes, I did.
I did close the public hearing.
>> Yes, you did.
>> Agenda item 6B, hold a public hearing and consider
adoption of an ordinance regarding
a change in the zoning classification from a neighborhood
residential 4 in our 4 district
to an employment center industrial ECI district on
approximately 5.1 acres.
>> Thank you, Mayor.
Did you open the public hearing?
>> I'll open.
Yeah, we'll now open the public hearing.
>> Thank you, Mayor.
And Amy Bissett is our Director of Development Services.
We'll present this case.
Thank you, Amy.
>> Thank you, Mayor and Councilmembers.
If you'll give me just a moment, I'll get my presentation
up for you.
>> Thank you, Mayor.
And what you're considering tonight is a rezoning for
United Way of Denton County.
And more specifically, they have applied for rezoning for a
change from neighborhood residential
4 in our 4 district to ECI employment center industrial on
approximately 5 acres.
The project is located on the south side of Morse Street,
approximately 295 feet west
of Woodrow Lane.
The current zoning is in our 4.
The intent of the NR4 zoning district was established in
2002 with a city-wide rezoning.
It reflected the existing low to moderate density single
family residential areas along
Morse Street.
And the anticipated continuation of the single family
context was contemplated with industrial
and commercial uses fronting Woodrow Street, which you can
see running north-south in the
exhibit displayed above.
And the property was previously owned by the Denton Housing
Authority.
ECI is the proposed zoning district, which you can see in
the exhibit here that the current
zoning on the left shows that there's a current boundary
between ECI and NR4 that exists today.
And their proposal is to extend the ECI further to the west
to accommodate this project.
ECI allows for professional office and community service
uses.
The surrounding properties to the north, east, and south
are ECI zoned as well.
And in 2014, the 2.3 acres just to the east was rezoned
from NR4 to ECI.
So we've seen a pattern at this point in time of this area
growing in terms of this type
of commerce.
The future land use plan indicates that this area has been
designated for business innovation
use, which is intended to encourage business parks and
offices and employment centers.
It is a compatible land use adjacent to single family uses,
which is certainly the case in
this particular project.
Rezoning to ECI would be considered consistent with the
business innovation use and therefore
consistent with our future land use plan.
The considerations that staff analyzed, the property shape
and the proximity to the other
commercial uses limits its future use as residential.
The ECI zoning designation would permit the intended office
and community service uses
and would be located close to other nonprofit and community
uses that would be compatible.
The surrounding land uses, as I pointed out, to the north,
east, and south are commercial
and industrial in nature.
And the adjacent property to the east was just recently rez
oned to ECI.
The office uses would be required to conform to subchapter
13 of the DDC, specifically
mitigating the impacts between the office uses and the
adjacent single family properties.
In order to approve a zoning amendment, the following
criteria must be met.
The proposed rezoning must conform to the land use element
of the Denton Plan 2030,
which would be the business innovation use, which in this
case it does.
The proposed rezoning must facilitate the adequate
provision of transportation, water,
sewer, schools, parks, and other public requirements and
public convenience.
The public notifications were mailed out on February 21st.
40 required notices were sent
within a 200-foot radius and an additional 78 courtesy
notices were sent within a 500-foot
radius.
To date, we have received one response in opposition.
Based on the considerations presented and the requirements
of the DDC, we do recommend
approval and the Planning and Zoning Commission recommends
approval as well by a vote of 7
to 0.
They met on March 9th.
The applicant is here.
I'd like to introduce Lyle Drescher.
He is with the United Way Board of Directors and he will
present further information about
this.
>> We have a couple of questions.
Do you all want them before or after the public testimony?
We got Roden, Briggs, and Hawkins.
>> Okay.
All right.
Fantastic.
Yes.
Mr. Drescher, if you'd like to come forward and state your
name and address and your time
will begin.
>> Mr. Mayor and members of the Council and Mr. City
Manager, my name is Lyle Drescher.
I'm a United Way volunteer and I drew the short straw and
am the chair of the Facilities
Committee for United Way and for this facility.
And I'd also like to just take a second to recognize all
the support from the United
Way Board of Directors and staff that are here in support
of this application.
So I think we have the majority of the house right at the
present time.
I think the staff report completely outlines exactly the
purpose of this rezoning.
The United Way is under contract with the Denton Housing
Authority to purchase this
5.1 acres subject to the rezoning.
The current United Way office space that is currently under
lease is operating, you know,
just slightly under 5,000 square feet and that includes
offices and meeting room space
and auditorium space.
And with the increases of our needs to serve the community,
individuals and families and
taking on some additional roles and with partner agencies,
obviously we need some additional
space.
We're proposing to build approximately 10,000 square feet
of auditorium and meeting room
space and then house the necessary administrative offices
for United Way staff.
This also allows us to partner with Denton Housing
Authority and provide them some additional
space routinely for the use with their clients and meeting
with those clients and the various
things that they do at the Denton Housing Authority.
So this is going to work in great partnership with them.
Early on, prior to our going before the Planning and Zoning
Commission, we took the proactive
approach and met with the neighborhood.
We had two different neighborhood meetings.
We had one at the MLK Center as well as meeting with the
Sedna neighborhood group.
Those went well.
We had great feedback from both of those and so we've been
energized with that area.
We want to be a good neighbor.
We continue to partner with them during the design process
and keep them involved and
engaged during that so they know what's going on and just
be a part of what we're doing
in Denton and particularly in that particular area.
So I will be sit down and I'll be glad to answer any
questions that you might have.
Anybody have questions for the applicant?
Thanks Lyle.
Yeah, I was going through the P&Z minutes and they had
spoke a little bit about, you
know, the relationship with your project and the
neighborhood and some of the protections
that y'all were going to put in place and just that patch
of trees that's going to
be there.
Can you speak a little bit to that?
Yes.
No, the picture's not up.
We all got to imagine.
The site plan that's in your packet, the aerial shows that
cluster of trees right in the middle
of the two lots right in the track.
But looking at the subdivision requirements in the setback
of the building, it appears
to us that the building will be nestled fairly close to
those trees but because of our need
to accommodate the drainage requirements on the site, that
with the detention and things
that may be involved with that, we will be able to protect
almost that entire tree canopy.
So our intention is to not destroy any more trees than we
would have to.
Likewise, or in addition, the parking would be in the rear
of the building which is onto
the whatever direction is to the rear of the building which
is in the more open spaced
portion of that tract of land, thus not destroying any
other trees unless absolutely necessary.
If this does pass, is Gary Henderson going to get his own
office?
In the storage room.
That's all I have.
Thank you.
Councilmember Briggs, do you have a question for the
applicant or just for staff?
Well, I did but it was pretty much answered.
I was looking for placement of the building within this lot
in the neighborhood and I
was curious about that.
So you addressed it with the trees and the parking.
Yes, ma'am.
I think that just looking at the site and again with the
setback requirements, it looks
to me like the building is going to be the furthest away
from the residential area to
the west and obviously closest to similar zoning to the
other three other sides of the
property.
So we should be in pretty good shape.
Councilmember Rodin?
I do want to just publicly thank you all for your outreach
to the neighborhood.
I know I met with a few occasions prior to then.
I even had lunch with the President of Sedna and Gary
Henderson as well prior to those
two meetings and they were well received.
It's not often when we have developers do that, let alone
one meeting, let alone two.
I mean, you guys just really did a lot of outreach and I
trust that you'll continue
to do that throughout this process and so thank you for
that.
We're very pleased with the design architects that we have
on board pending the rezoning
and we feel like that they've got good experience with
working with organizations and neighborhood
groups and we feel like that that's going to be a good
connection and they will help
us accommodate and facilitate a lot of that activity and
again keeping that neighborhood
involved.
Mayor Pro Tem?
I want to pass on my thanks also for the work that you've
done in reaching out to the neighborhood
and getting feedback from them and listening to them and
making adjustments accordingly.
I was just curious, there is one house that's on this
property that's there on Moore Street.
Do you happen to remember the address of that house?
I don't know, I really don't know.
1700 Block?
I do not know.
Okay, it's not important.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Councilman Roden, you got one more?
Yeah, I actually have a question for staff.
Okay, let's get to the public comment if you would.
Great.
Yeah, because we have a couple more cards.
Great.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We've got another card.
Greg Sacco, if you'll come state your name and address.
Your time will begin.
Thanks.
My name is Greg Sacco and I'm at 207 Wellington Oaks Place
here in Denton, Texas.
First off, I want to say thank you to P&Z and to city staff
.
It's been a real joyous, harmonious and real nice ability
for me to be able to say that
city staff has really come along and helped us to develop
and to figure out where and
how zoning should be for this particular piece of property.
As Lyle said, we have not acquired the property yet and it
is subject to zoning.
Number two, I wanted to thank the mayor and city council,
city manager and our city attorney
as well for your kind consideration for our project.
It is a project of commitment and our goal as United Way of
Denton County is to serve
lives in our community.
This will help us to facilitate serving more lives and
benefiting more people in our community.
Again, on behalf of the board of directors, on behalf of
myself as the chairperson and
our lifetime members for United Way, I just wanted to thank
you.
That's the only reason I came up and I'm happy to entertain
any questions that you may have.
Any questions?
Seeing none, thank you.
Those are all the cards that I have, but this is a public
hearing.
So anybody else wishing to speak, please come down, state
your name and address and your
time will begin.
My name is Willie Hertz with 11623 Newton.
I was at one of those meetings.
It wasn't like they indicated that happened at those
meetings.
Question still remains that the people ask and I wondered,
what are you going to do about
the traffic problem that it's going to create?
Can you put up the map that shows the area of, well, just
put up what I'm going to tell
you.
I think it was near the end.
Where is the street?
Where is Morris Street?
Let me see if I can get a bigger one up here.
There's Morris Street here.
That's Morris Street?
That street is very densely occupied, two times the size of
the street.
That's Morris Street, that street is very densely occupied,
two times of the day and
both times are going to be impacted by when that building
is going to be operating.
What we didn't want is for you to go ahead and pass this
before you determine what's
going to happen to not create more of a problem traffic
wise.
That's what we wanted and we talked about in that meeting.
We weren't upset, we just wondered.
Well, that still hadn't been answered and it doesn't seem
like it's going to be answered
tonight.
What you're doing now is you're passing the agreement or
making, you're going to accept
this situation without dealing with the traffic and then
you'll deal with the traffic.
I think that's backwards.
My son is on that planning and zoning.
Is he here?
Okay, he'll be banned from family luncheons for a while.
Pass that on to him.
7-0.
I'll deal with him later.
He's no longer a black person.
That's another section.
Okay.
Now put up where you sent out the notifications and I'm
going to show you my house and I didn't
get the notification map.
You have the notification map.
I'm going to show you where my house is.
This is one where I should have gotten a notification
letter and I want to hear that it was certified
so I can show that it wasn't.
Thank you.
What is this street right here?
Morris.
That's Morris.
I stand corrected.
I am not in the notification area.
I thought that was a rude deal.
All right.
I stand corrected on that one.
We were basically in agreement that it's a good thing that
United Way is, that building
is being put there.
It will be an improvement to the property.
It's just a traffic problem that we wish that you had dealt
with before.
We talked about the lighting, how bright those lights are
going to be on that building.
But the majority of the people said that's a good thing,
that it will be lit down there
and there will actually improve the area for transporting
and things like that.
So basically it was a pretty positive situation and we do.
I too thank the United Way and the Housing Authority for
coming to us first but they
didn't ask us what we want.
Well, they did but then they told us at the end what they
were going to do.
So that was a little bit backwards but still they came and
talked to us and I think for
the most part it's going to be a good improvement.
Thank you, Mr. Hesped.
This is a public hearing.
Anybody else wishing to speak?
Please come down and state your name and address and your
time will begin.
Anybody else wishing to speak?
One more time.
This is a public hearing.
Okay.
We will now close the public hearing.
Councilmember Rodin.
Thank you, Mayor.
A couple questions for Amy.
And Mr. Hutsmith, I was at both of those meetings and heard
that concern about traffic and that's
on my list of questions to ask about.
And I know we've discussed that particular intersection for
a while.
And I understand that traffic counts all play into what war
rants a signal or what doesn't.
Once this comes online and we do have that additional
traffic as a result of that, I'd
like to request that we have a new traffic study out there.
What's the proper procedure to be able to kind of get that
in motion now?
Well, actually the rezoning is the first step in the
process for the applicant.
And what we'll need to follow will be platting.
And at that point in time, the plat will require a traffic
impact analysis and will require
the demonstration of adequate mobility and mitigation for
the traffic that might be created.
Gotcha.
And I hear that and I understand that.
Anytime we're dealing with school areas, you get some kind
of anomalies to typical traffic
patterns, which this is one.
In fact, there's even Fred Moore up the road.
And so certain times a day, and I think that's a concern,
the time of day which workers will
be coming and going are also the same time of day people
are coming to Rivera picking
up, dropping off kids.
So in addition to that, I guess I'm just floating the
direction to staff that we perhaps get
some additional eyes on the ground once this kind of goes
up and traffic starts kind of
going in there in case those normal analysis are proved to
be perhaps off kilter a little
bit.
Absolutely.
OK, thanks.
The other question I had had to do with a slide you put up.
I think it was the second slide.
It's when you're talking about business innovation areas.
Is it this one?
Yes.
And my concern with that is this kind of ambiguous shading
that goes in there.
And in fact, I voted against the ECI that you talked about
that came before us about
a year ago because my concern was encroachment.
If ECI kept going, then what's to stop it from kind of pl
owing through those homes?
What I like about this particular development is that while
it's ECI, we know what we're
getting there and it's office use and it's a great buffer
in between light industrial
and single family homes.
And I think it'll be a great neighbor.
My concern though, and I just want to clarify because I don
't think this is the case, you
mentioned this area is for business innovation, but it's
overlapping some existing single
family homes, which to anyone watching could get concerned
about.
Can you clarify what that color scheme is supposed to tell
us?
Absolutely.
So with a future land use map, it is not intended to have
hard boundaries or be zoning boundaries.
It is intended to show general areas of intent for the
future.
And those transitions in shading that you see are intended
to be transitional points
from one use to another use or one area to another area.
In this particular case, business innovation can be
compatible with residential with the
appropriate transition points and with the appropriate uses
in the transition.
And staff agrees with that, that this particular use does
provide that transition.
And related to that transition, I also want to clarify more
specifically the questions
about trees and buffers.
In this case, we will require a type D buffer, which is our
most restrictive buffer that
we have available to us.
It's 30 feet and will require eight trees and 20 shrubs for
every 100 linear feet.
So it is an intensive buffer that will be provided.
Thanks for clarifying.
Council Member Briggs.
Most of my questions were answered about the traffic with
Councilman Roden, but is there
just going to be one way in and one way out?
Like one more straight?
I think that is one of the questions that will have to be
answered through the platting
and site planning process.
At this point, until the rezoning takes place, they haven't
entered into that level of site
design yet.
And it will depend on the requirements through the platting
and site planning.
But that will be looked at?
Absolutely.
Yes, ma'am.
Thanks.
Any other questions?
Seeing none, Council Member Johnson.
Thank you, Mayor.
Before I make this motion, I want to put some conditions on
the applicant.
Number one, Dr. Betty Myers has to be the public speaker
for United Way from now on
because she just makes everybody smile.
So I'd highly recommend that.
Gary needs his own office because he's the hardest working
servant in Denton County.
I do have one question, serious question for the applicant
though, and whether Lyle or
Gary can answer is how many full-time employees do you
expect will be at this facility all
day?
Two parts to that question.
Councilman, in terms of employees, we have 10 employees at
this point.
We'll run 10, 15, 20 interns from UNT, TWU over a given
semester.
But throughout the day, we'll have community members,
volunteers come in and out of the
building to provide services.
For example, this month we'll have 10 to 15 volunteers
preparing tax returns through our
VITA program during the day at a time that's convenient for
clients to access those services.
So it'll ebb and flow and there'll be more than just staff.
So in terms of your typical, because I share some of the
concerns about traffic, just given
there's not a signal there.
So at your 7.30 to 8.30 a.m., how many people typically?
I know you're there at like five.
I'm going to say I never get to work before 10.
So I'm just kidding.
It'll be 10 employees and five interns.
10 people.
We understand this is a long-term project.
This is a vision our board has for our organization that
will take us 10, 20 years into the future.
So we expect that to grow as the needs of Denton County
grow as well.
Okay.
Thank you.
So with that, what's that?
Yeah.
You're making the motion, right?
Was it okay to ask a question?
Oh, yeah.
No, I just thought you were going to sign off about making
a motion.
It's 8 o'clock.
It's 8.05.
The game was last night, Mayor.
So with that, I will gladly make the motion to approve item
6A.
I don't know about the condition of Gary having his own
office, but I guess I'll second.
We got a motion to second.
I just want to take just a moment and...
Clarification.
I said 6A.
I meant 6B.
6B.
Okay.
Second on 6B?
Yes.
Thank you.
Before we vote, I just want to just say just a couple of
words of thanks and gratitude
for United Way of Denton County and all the board members
who just serve selflessly.
And honestly, Gary, as I've gotten to know you being mayor,
I've thoroughly enjoyed that.
He is not at the office at 5 a.m.
He's at the gym at 530 a.m. because I see him there quite
often.
Well, he's probably there more often than I am.
But United Way has really worked as a good partner with the
City of Denton on a couple
of new initiatives that we're doing.
And I think it was vital that we have your help and your
cooperation because you really
know the lifeblood of this county and the nonprofits and
just your commitment to serving
the people of the City of Denton and the County of Denton.
So thank you all so much for that.
And what I really like about this, no more lease payments.
Yes, sir.
You're going to own your own building.
You're going to be there 15 or 20 years and after a while,
you're not going to have any,
but you're building something.
So thank you all so much for what you do for our city and
our county and especially partnering
with us and the initiatives that we have moving forward.
All right.
Let's go.
It's my pleasure to call for a vote on this item, Agenda 6B
.
Let's vote on the board, please.
Motion carries 7-0.
I do have one more comment, Madam City Attorney.
Is that okay?
I see Sherri McDade out in the audience, the Denton Housing
Authority.
Thank you so much also for what you do for the residents of
Denton County and for your
partnership with United Way.
So thank you very much.
Thank you for that.
Okay.
Agenda Item 6C.
I hold a public hearing.
Consider adoption of an ordinance regarding a specific use
permit to allow multifamily
dwellings, neighborhood residential mixed youth 12 NRMU-12.
Thank you, Mayor.
And I will ask Ms. Bissett if she will come present this
item as well.
Thank you, Mayor and council members.
What you're considering with this item is an application
for a specific use permit to
allow multifamily dwelling units on approximately .8 acres.
This is within a neighborhood residential mixed youth 12
zoning district.
More specifically, this is located on the southeast corner
of Talia Farrow Street and
North Elm Street.
You can see here on the exhibit the subject property.
The current zoning map shows that the properties right
along Elm Street here are zoned NRMU-12.
This particular zoning district does permit multifamily
dwellings, but it requires a specific
use permit.
The adjacent properties are also zoned NRMU-12.
The future land use map does indicate low density
residential in this area.
And the adjacent properties are residential as well.
The interesting thing about this particular property is
that the two streets that run
north and south on either side of it are couplet streets
that are utilized by citizens as regional
thoroughfares, meaning they're pretty heavily trafficked.
And in this particular case, the applicant is proposing
that the access to the multifamily
units would be off of Talia Farrow Street.
It is unlikely in this particular case that a single-family
residential development would
be compatible with these highly trafficked thoroughfares.
You would have a home with a driveway where somebody's
backing out of that driveway into
a very heavily trafficked area.
And so when staff looked at this and analyzed it, we felt
like this would be a compatible
use, considering those constraints with the thoroughfares
running north and south.
While this is a multifamily project, they're proposing two
story buildings and one single-story
building with a total of nine units.
So it's low density for multifamily and not adding a lot of
density in a specific area.
And this shows the site plan that does show the access
point.
You can see it on the north end here off of Talia Farrow.
Here are the elevations of the building and color render
ings.
The landscape plan has already been submitted as well,
along with the buffering to protect
the single-family residential nearby.
The considerations that we looked at as we analyzed this
case.
The NRMU-12 zoning was actually established in 2002,
anticipating multifamily development
in this area.
So the rezoning took place with the intent of facilitating
multifamily.
They are consistent in scale and density of the surrounding
properties.
With the arterial thoroughfares, we believe that that would
inhibit low density residential
patterns.
The project does comply with the screening methods between
single-family uses and complies
with the criteria for approval of an SUP in the DDC.
Public notifications were mailed on February 21st.
21 required notifications were sent to property owners
within 200 feet.
An additional 92 courtesy notices were sent.
To date, we have received no responses in opposition or in
favor.
Based on the considerations presented and the requirements
of the DDC, staff recommends
approval.
The proposed -- with the following condition, which is that
the proposed development shall
substantially comply with the site plan, building elev
ations and landscape plan.
The planning and zoning commission also recommends approval
by a vote of 7 to 0 at their meeting
on March 9th.
I believe that the applicant is here and could present
additional information or I'm happy
to answer any questions.
>> Failed to open the public hearing at the beginning, so I
will open the public hearing
now.
So the public hearing is now open.
Councilmember Briggs, you had a request to speak.
Did you withdraw that?
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
So this is a public hearing.
If the applicant is here, would like to speak, come on down
, state your name and address,
and your time will begin.
If you don't, that's okay.
>> Evening.
Mayor and council.
I'm Tim Beatty.
I reside at 2459 West Blackjack Road, Harvard, Texas.
Staff did a great job presenting this, but I am here.
If any of y'all have any questions, I'll try to clarify.
>> Sure.
Any questions for the applicant?
Are you trying to push your -- no, go ahead.
Yes.
Councilmember Briggs, yes.
>> So my original question is, so there's two story
buildings and then one single multifamily
building, nine units.
Does that mean nine individual doors?
Like how many -- >> There'd be nine individual front doors.
>> Front doors.
Okay.
>> There is back doors.
>> Right.
Yeah.
>> Nine units is all that's allowed in this particular area
.
>> Okay.
>> On this size lot.
>> Okay.
Thank you.
>> Yes.
>> Any other questions for the applicant?
Seeing none, Tim.
>> Okay.
>> All right.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> This is a public hearing.
Anybody else wishing to speak on this item?
Anybody else wishing to speak on this item?
This is a public hearing.
Seeing none, we will now close the public hearing.
Councilmember Johnson.
>> Thank you, Mayor.
I would like to move approval to item 6C.
>> Mayor Pro Tem.
>> Second.
>> We have a motion and a second.
Let's vote on the board, please, for item 6C.
Motion carries, 7-0.
Moving on to public hearing item 6D, hold a public hearing,
consider rezoning from a
neighborhood residential 2 in our 2 district to a
neighborhood residential mixed use in
our MU district.
And with that, I will open the public hearing.
>> Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
And I will ask Ms. Bissett if she will present this item as
well.
Thank you.
>> Thank you, Mayor and councilmembers.
This item is a rezoning request from a neighborhood
residential 2 zoning district to a neighborhood
residential mixed use district.
It's on approximately 6.2 acres.
It is located on the northwest corner of north Bonnie Bray
street and west Windsor drive.
There's a more specific site location, northwest corner of
Windsor and Bonnie Bray.
What is proposed on this particular site with this rezoning
request would be town homes.
The current zoning today is NR2 and the proposed zoning is
NRMU.
The future land use plan calls for neighborhood mixed use
which does allow for NRMU 12 and
NRMU districts.
So this particular rezoning request is consistent with the
future land use plan.
Considerations as we took a look at this is that the
proposed zoning is consistent with
the future land use designation of the property.
The location at the intersection of two secondary arterial
streets and the proximity to North
Lakes Park makes it an ideal location for neighborhood
retail service and employment
uses or moderate density as a transition to the single
family neighborhoods that are to
the west.
There are some interesting constraints to this particular
site that make it unlikely
that neighborhood residential development will occur as it
's currently zoned as NR2.
Specifically if you'll take a look at the exhibit, the site
is outlined in black here.
There is considerable encumbrance of floodplain on the
adjacent property as well as the site.
And if you will notice to the west of the site is a gas
well and production site.
The proposed use here is a protected use because it is a
dwelling unit and so the reverse setback
would apply here and they would have to maintain a 250 foot
reverse setback.
Because of that, while there's a considerable amount of
land there among those tracks, the
majority of it is undevelopable and so the NRMU is a good
transition with those town
homes into the neighborhoods to the west.
Public notifications were mailed out on February 17th.
Six required notices were sent by certified mail and six
additional courtesy notices were
sent by regular mail.
To date we've received one response in favor.
Staff and the Planning and Zoning Commission recommend
approval.
Planning and Zoning voted 7 to 0.
And I do believe that the applicant is here and I'm happy
to answer any questions.
Any questions for staff?
This is a public hearing.
Any questions for staff before public testimony?
Council Member Briggs?
Some of the development was in floodplain.
Is that?
There's the site.
Some of the site is in the floodplain that's being rezoned.
That is correct.
Okay.
So they would have to follow all of our requirements in
terms of not building in the floodplain
and the entire site.
They wouldn't be able to build on the entire site.
Okay.
Thanks.
Council Member Hawkins?
Yeah.
I had a couple of things written down.
The ESA is embedded or something.
Could you address that?
Am I on the right one?
I'm not sure.
Hold on.
I shouldn't have ran to the right screen.
If you'll give me a minute during the public hearing I'll
see if I can get some additional
details for you.
Okay.
Sorry.
Okay.
Yeah.
The Council Member Briggs?
Is the gas well, is that an active well?
It is.
It is an active site today.
That's correct.
Okay.
Seeing no more questions, we will go ahead and solicit
public testimony.
So this is a public hearing.
I don't think I have any cards for this one, but it is a
public hearing.
Everybody wishing to speak, please come down and state your
name, address, and your time
will begin.
My name is Greg Edwards.
Represent the applicant, Greg Edwards Engineering Services,
our address 1621 Amanda Court, Ponder,
Texas.
Basically, I'm just here primarily if you have any
questions.
The application, as I understand it, is based on the
current future land use plan and is
compatible.
Our client is looking forward to try to put approximately
40 single family town home residences
on this.
With the floodplain in its current situation, we have about
two acres out of the floodplain.
We understand we're going to have to do a floodplain
modification.
I've finally gotten the information from FEMA and gotten a
preliminary study to Earl and
to Chad and waiting on a meeting so we can talk about what
procedures we're going to
need to do to accomplish that.
We're looking forward and hopefully we can come to you with
some sketches and renderings
of a very attractive single family, pedestrian oriented
community in this location right
across from the park.
We think this is an exciting opportunity for our clients
and hope you agree.
Like the City Planning and Zoning Commission, I realize
that this is just the first step
and there's a lot of things that have to happen before we
can come to that final picture
and get us over this required step.
Thank you.
We have a question.
Council Member Wasney.
Would you repeat what you said about the two acres in the
floodplain?
Of the six acres, I think it was reported at Planning and Z
oning that approximately
2.1 acres was out of the floodplain.
I think that may be generous based on the FEMA mapping on
the property.
I do know that the FEMA mapping is based on a two lane road
for Bonnie Bray with a small
bridge.
It's now a four lane facility with multiple box culverts.
I do know that Windsor Drive was modeled as a two lane
facility with a very small bridge.
It is now a four lane facility with multiple box culverts.
And so we're very hopeful that we can get through the FEMA
processes approximately four
acres of this site out of the floodplain.
But the City of Danton also has requirements when it comes
to wetlands.
So it's not just FEMA.
If Amy could come up and address.
Thank you.
I think what Mr. Edwards is referring to is a process by
which we would evaluate the FEMA
map and determine whether it's accurate or there might be
some changes that would be
made to it.
And that is a process whereby they would work directly with
FEMA.
We do certainly have regulations as well.
And there is some environmentally sensitive area within
this property.
And if they were to encroach on that, we would require an
alternative development plan for
that ESA.
And that would come during the platting process as we began
to look further at the site and
how we were going to accommodate it.
But if we approve this tonight, does that platting process
also come to this council
for approval?
The plat goes to the planning and zoning commission for
approval.
But an alternative ESA would come to the City Council for
approval.
Would it make more sense to put all of this in writing
first?
That would be a considerable expense for the applicant to
make without knowing whether
they could ultimately develop the property.
The zoning is typically a requirement before they would
close on the property.
Got it.
Okay.
Thanks.
Mayor Pro Tem.
What we're talking about also is in the FEMA maps, you're
talking about the standard 100
year flood plain.
But you're also talking then about what the city goes
beyond that, which is the 100 year
flood plain of a fully developed watershed.
Is that correct?
You're getting a little bit outside of my wheelhouse and I
might ask Earl Escobar to
come down here and answer that question.
Okay.
Still sitting.
There he is.
Earl's with engineering and this is more in his purview.
Good evening, Mayor and members of the council.
To answer your question, the city's regulations regarding
floodplains are a little bit more
stringent than FEMA requirements.
We do account for fully developed conditions as opposed to
FEMA regulations, which is usually
current conditions.
But those maps are the fully developed flood plain
boundaries are information that comes
not developed by the city but by FEMA, correct?
That's correct.
Okay.
Thank you.
Councilmember Roeben.
I guess I just want to clarify what we're doing here, which
is just simply a zoning
change request.
So as I understand it, Amy, if the current owner wanted to
develop according to the current
zoning, which is NR2, they'd have to go through this whole
process and deal with floodplains
and ESAs and things like that to develop as it is now.
That is correct.
And so what's being requested is not a particular
development, it's not a particular project,
it's not a particular -- we're not approving any site plan
or anything.
We're just saying do we want the zoning to go up from NR2
to NRMU?
Right.
And is the zoning compatible?
Notwithstanding all that other stuff.
Right.
That's correct.
Just to be clear.
Thanks.
Okay.
I see no more questions.
Any other questions for the public hearing?
Do we have any questions for -- was his time -- is there
anything else you'd like to say?
I think you probably still have some time.
I'm just here for any questions.
Any questions for the applicant?
Councilmember Hawkins.
I just had one on the fire lane.
Can you kind of show where that would be or on the map?
The fire lane?
Yeah.
No, that'd be a site plan.
That'd be on the site plan too.
Okay.
I apologize.
It's all right.
Thank you.
Councilmember Briggs.
On the -- I guess this is for Amy.
Do you know the 250-foot minimum setback from the gas well,
is that from the property line
or would that have to be where a building would be located
within the property to reach
that?
It is the protected use itself, so it would be the building
.
And it would be to the edge of the drilling and production
site, to the edge of the building
would be a minimum of 250 feet.
Okay.
Okay.
Any other questions?
Councilmember Roden.
Again, I'm just trying to make sure we're all clear on the
same page or at least make
sure I'm understanding this right.
If someone were to develop this now, according to current
zoning, they'd also have to follow
the same setback requirements from the gas drilling.
So approving this change doesn't change any of that.
Okay.
Thanks.
Any other questions for the applicant?
Seeing none.
Thank you.
This is a public hearing.
Anybody wishing to speak?
Anybody wishing to speak?
This is a public hearing.
Seeing none, we will now close the public hearing.
Any discussion from my colleagues or questions for staff or
the chair would entertain a motion?
Mayor Pro Tem.
Thank you, Mayor.
I move approval of item 6D.
Councilmember Roden.
Second.
We have a motion and a second.
Let's vote on the board, please.
Motion carries 5 to 2.
Agenda item 6A.
I mean 6E, excuse me.
Hold the first of two public hearings for annexation of
approximately 23.24 acres, acre
property generally located on the west side of Griesling
Road, approximately 700 feet
south of East University Drive.
You open the public hearing.
I will now open the public hearing.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
And I'll ask Ms. Bissett if she would present this public
hearing.
Thank you, Amy.
Thank you, Mayor and Councilmembers.
This is the first of two public hearings to consider annex
ing this particular piece of
property.
The background on this is that this is a piece of property
that was identified as a part
of our 2010 annexation plan.
We have an existing non-annexation agreement with them
until 2020.
Part of that non-annexation agreement states that the
property must remain in ag or wildlife
use and that no development is permitted.
If development is undertaken at that point in time, then
annexation becomes necessary.
The owner has initiated this request for annexation with
the intent to develop an industrial park
and preliminary plat application triggers automatic annex
ation.
As I previously stated, this is the first of two public
hearings.
The second one will be next week, April 12th.
And then the first reading of the ordinance would be May 3
rd and the second reading and
the adoption of the annexation ordinance would be on June 7
th.
And I'm happy to answer any questions.
Councilmember Wasney.
Just to confirm that this is a voluntary annexation.
It is.
This is the intent of the property owner to develop.
That is correct.
Okay.
Any questions for staff?
This is a public hearing.
The council will take no action because this is the first
of two public hearings.
But this is a public hearing.
Anybody wishing to speak on this item, please feel free to
come down, state your name and
address and your time will begin.
Anyone wishing to speak?
One more time.
Anyone wishing to speak?
We will now close the public hearing and no action is
required on this item.
We will now move to agenda item 6F.
Hold the first of two public hearings to consider annexing
eight properties identified by the
following property identification numbers.
D.H. 2, D.H. 3, P.A.A. 1, P.A. 3, P.A. 4 and 202610 and 377
29.
Chair and council, this is the first of two public hearings
associated with those eight
listed properties.
However, all eight properties have in fact turned in non-
annexation agreements.
I do note that there is one blue card with regard to this
item.
So it would be appropriate to take those comments.
But I will advise the council that there is no need to take
any action at this time and
we would not be bringing forward annexation ordinances
because we have received these
non-annexation agreements.
So you will not be seeing ordinances with regard to these
properties and they will roll
around for consideration to the council after the
expiration of these agreements or just
before they expire in approximately four years.
Okay, this is a public hearing.
I have a card.
LaDonna Pokras, if you'll come down and state your name and
address, your time will begin.
Good evening, Mayor Watson, Council.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.
We are, I'm LaDonna Pokras, 9080 Wolf Run, Ponder, Texas.
I am part of PAA1 and we did sign our opt-out agreement.
I want to take the opportunity to thank you for the opt-out
.
We still are objecting to being even considered for annex
ation.
But you know, back in 2010 when we started all this, with
all the meetings and all everyone
coming together, you know, we asked for the 10-year opt-out
, but we were given five.
And then year four last came back and we got one more.
Now we're getting four.
So we're up to the 10 we asked for in the beginning.
So what I would ask the council to consider is the non-anne
xation to go on until such
time as the property owner sells or whatever.
When we came and signed our opt-out agreements, we asked
questions, but they were not properly
answered.
We have asked, but yet we have not gotten an answer as to
why some properties are totally
being ignored in the annexation.
And the city is losing a lot of money by not annexation,
but they still want to proceed
and annex those that will not bring in that much money.
You don't offer anything to us, but yet you want our
properties.
So I ask for a non-annexation permanently until such time
as the property owners sell
or whatever.
But for future consideration that we not be annexed,
because we're going to start this
mess all over again come 2020, because there's no one in P
AA1 that is going to sell to develop
or anything that is a nice, quiet area.
We intend to keep it that way.
We have restrictions that do not allow any move-ins, so we
don't have a lot of mobile
homes.
It is clean, it is neat, not like what is going in on Mosh
Branch and Jim Crystal.
There's a building, a move-in there, and I'm surprised the
city allowed that.
Why they didn't have them construct a building instead of
moving in a modular building.
Like I said, our area has restrictions against that, but
yet that's the kind of things we're
looking at we don't want.
So that puts another red flag up as to why we do not want
to be annexed by Denton.
The fact that Jim Crystal, last year when they redid Jim
Crystal, instead of doing it
properly, they did it halfway, now it's already buckling
and it's getting really rutted out
from all the trucks and all the traffic on it.
So in a few years you're going to have to go back and redo
it again.
So you're wasting city money.
So the whole point is why continue wasting money on trying
to annex properties that do
not want to be annexed, because obviously you're not going
to give us anything and we're
not going to get anything.
So I thank you for your time and for the four years we get
to stay as we are right now.
Thank you.
This is a public hearing.
Anybody else wishing to speak?
Anybody else wishing to speak?
We will now close the public hearing and it's my
understanding there's no action to be taken
on this agenda item, is that correct?
That's correct, Mr. Mayor.
No action is taken.
All right.
And we have withdrawn agenda item 6G.
So now we'll move on to agenda item 7 of our meeting, which
is I don't think we need to
review the procedure.
7B was received schedule citizen reports from members of
the public.
Mr. Willie Hudspeth, if you'll come downstate your name and
address, your time will begin.
My name is Willie Hudspeth.
I live in 623 Newton.
The reason that I've requested that my agenda item to speak
to the council is on here last
is because I'm protesting that it shouldn't be on here to
do citizens like that.
You put them on the end.
If they presented to you several times, you should be
encouraging that, that citizen's
input.
Second thing that I'm, reason that I'm here tonight is to
keep in the forefront the Ryan
High School area walking path, that something be done about
that.
I was at another location today.
It's at Windsor and 377.
There are no, well, there's a crossing path, but the
students who are crossing can't make
it all the way across the street before the light changes.
So every time I see one of these, I'm going to mention it
to you.
I know you'll look at me and think, "How many more minutes
do I have to go?"
And you'll be glad when I stop talking, "Fine.
Kid gets hurt, your attention will change, I'm pretty sure
."
So that's about that.
The last thing, ethics.
The question needs to be asked of the person who has got a
questionable ethics concern
from me and others is the Buckeyes issue.
This question needs to be asked and answered.
At the forum, the question was asked and the comment was, "
I'm not making any money on
that deal."
Question should have been asked, "Is your company making
money off the deal?"
That's all I'll say about that.
Secondly, falls under ethics, but it's really not you, but
I just want to make the comment.
The fire department has no business having a forum.
They're paid by the city of Denton.
I know it's not the fire department.
Let me clarify that.
The union, that's just like the workers telling the bosses
what they're going to do.
Then they pick candidates.
They always pick the incumbents, I notice, and they have no
business, my personal opinion,
picking who they're going to vote for.
That's like saying, "I'm only going to go put out your fire
at your house if you're
the one that I voted for."
They have no business doing that, my thought only.
Lastly, and the last issue is ... I'm trying to see how to
phrase this.
Well, there's no way to say it nicely.
Well, there is, but I don't want to do that.
Struggling with God here.
What happened tonight with me being corrected by some to
say, "Shame on you if you don't
make the meetings," was inappropriate.
Perhaps that should have been made to me personally, not in
front of everyone.
Well, that's ... Well, I'm going to tell you.
I'll deal with that later.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mayor Pro Tem.
Mr. Chesmuth, I have a question.
I apologize if I came across that way.
That was certainly not my intent.
I want to ask a question in a way that ... Regarding one of
the comments that you brought up about
East McKinney Street and the pathway for the students who
don't have other transportation.
I'm wanting to know, were you aware that there was an
article in the Denton Record Chronicle
today announcing an agreement that has been crafted between
the school district and DCTA
for bus service for students who would like to use the bus
in order to get from their
homes along that East McKinney corridor and the school.
That came out today, and that's a result of the
conversations that we had in a meeting,
a joint meeting between the school board and the city
council a couple of months ago.
They finally worked that out, and they're in a pilot
program that has started.
I think it started Monday.
They wanted to be careful not to start it on April Fool's
Day for people to think that
it was a joke or something.
Are you aware that there has been an attempt to address
that situation on a temporary basis,
realizing that we're going to be doing construction and
rebuilding that road and building sidewalks
in a fairly short period of time compared to the time that
it's been since the school
opened?
No, to answer your question, no, but I knew that those
discussions were being had.
I knew that you were talking about that possibility.
I wanted to bring that up in a way.
Again, I don't mean to say you're at any fault for not
knowing that.
There's a lot of information that comes out from the city
and that comes out from the
school district, and it's hard to keep up with it.
We did a volunteering up here, spent a lot of our energy
doing that.
I get to spend more of my time on that because I'm not gain
fully employed like you are.
I apologize for coming across that way.
That was not my intent.
I just wanted to make sure that it was clear that there was
a lot of details available
about what it is that we're discussing.
In fact, there's good news to share about the East McKinney
situation.
I wonder how I'm going to feel if someone else gets killed
because they didn't get
on that bus.
I guess what I would just say is, well, we're trying.
We tried.
I guess that's all we can do is try.
That's good.
That's a good, something is good that's happening, so I
have to say that.
Any other questions?
Seeing none, thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Oh, Dalton, you got, there's a, oh, okay, yeah, okay.
All right, we're going to go to concluding items.
Mayor Pro Tem.
Thank you, Mayor.
A couple of items.
First of all, for our city manager, based on what Dalton
Allen said, I would like for
you to do some exploration with the possibility of a
partnership between our police department
and the UNT forensic lab, and then just get back to us
probably in an informal staff report
or work session, whichever you think is best.
Also, I'd like to take a minute to reflect back.
A couple of months ago, we had a council meeting.
It was not a cold and blustery night because we haven't had
any of those this year, but
it was a fairly cool and uncomfortable night, and you may
recall there was a discussion
with the municipal electric about a substation off of
Spencer Road.
There was a gentleman here that wanted to speak to us on
that because he had a question.
He was representing the VFW, and he was concerned about the
possibility that that location for
the substation was going to somehow negatively impact their
building and where they conduct
business.
He got that answer satisfied and left, but he was using a
new lift for the motorized
scooter that he uses to get around.
Three city staff members stayed a long time after the
meeting was over trying to help
him get that thing to work, and they kind of rigged it in a
way that it would sort of
work, and then one of them followed him home to make sure
that the machine didn't fall
off.
So, I've sent notes to them and I've sent notes to their
bosses, but I want to publicly
recognize Brandon Hoban with the Denton Police Department.
He stands here every night and he protects us from Willie
and the rest.
So it's easy duty because Mr. Hatspeth is a lot of bark,
but he's a lot of love under
all of that.
Chuck Sears with Denton Municipal Electric and Aaron Frick
ie who is a contractor with
Denton Municipal Electric.
Those three guys took a lot of extra time, and I saw the
gentleman about two days later
in Kroger, and I said, "Well, I saw you at the council
meeting the other day."
He said, "You know what I'm here doing?"
I said, "No."
He said, "I'm buying gift cards for those three guys."
They went way above and beyond.
That's so unusual for city staff.
I said, "Actually, no.
That's not unusual at all.
That's par for the course for our city staff."
But it was great that he recognized him and I thought that
we ought to recognize him.
Thank you for keeping us safe every week, Brandon.
Council Member Wasney.
Yeah, I want to second Councilman Gregory with the request
of the city manager to talk
to our police chief on this strategic partnership with UNT
on the crime lab, but also to ask
the police chief about the addition of a crime scene tech
in our upcoming budget and what
his input is on that additional staff member and whether or
not we need that.
As we grow, it's certainly something that I think it sounds
like we have a hole to fill
and I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Council Member Briggs.
Okay.
I have a few.
I would like to ask for an update on the Mingo Road Bridge.
This has been out and closed for a while.
Also in regards to that, a public safety analysis regarding
its closure, like if they're having
any issues with it.
Also McKinney Street tonight, we on the consent agenda
approved a utility relocations design
project for Fort Worth Drive and I believe this is
something we have to do for McKinney
Street no matter if we own it or not, but I would also like
to have an update for council
on the progress of this expansion periodically just because
it's so important to the citizens
and also the conversations with TechStat if we have any
updates on that.
Also there's been some concern and talk on social media
about pensions.
So I would like to, this is clearly out of my element and I
don't really know much,
so a staff report or work session on pension obligations
and what impact the stock market's
return in 2015 and portfolio performances had on the city's
pension liability.
How we track it, that type of thing.
Let's see.
And last, also, like in a situation tonight where an item
is pulled but a neighborhood
had opposed that item over 20 percent, what happens, is it
true they have to do that each
time again because I'm not familiar with that.
So just kind of that process.
That's it.
Councilmember Rodin?
Leadership Denton is one of those great gatherings of folks
.
They essentially take some up and coming leaders in the
community, train them in the ins and
outs of everything relating to the city, to business, to
government, to kind of prepare
them for leadership in the next generation in Denton.
The last, at the end of their year they do a big
presentation on a project they've been
working on.
The last four years, some notable ones that I recall,
Welcome Center four years ago was
one that they proposed and we're now seeing that come
online.
Mentor Denton, they did a proposal on that and kind of how
to get businesses involved.
Downtown parking last year, which was well attended and a
number of those suggestions
we are now implementing as a result of the conversation
they started.
They're doing their final presentation for this year's
class this Thursday night at 5
30 at the Denton Public Safety Training Center.
It's on specifically on the topic of tech economic
development in Denton.
So it's an appropriate topic for us.
In the past several council members have attended so that
they could hear what those suggestions
are.
So I invite my colleagues and of course it's open to the
public so anyone please come.
Councilmember Hawkins?
Thank you Mayor.
I want to invite everybody this Sunday to come to Harvest
House at 2 p.m.
Scrap Denton is hosting a Rebel Craft Rumble and I'm going
to be MCing that with my friend
Jill Jester and you're encouraged to dress up like a
superhero and you're going to watch
three teams battle in some sort of scrap competition.
I've never seen this before and they're raising money for
Scrap Denton's education program.
So it should be a lot of fun.
So come on out.
Thank you.
I've got about 20.
Just kidding.
Just got a couple.
Kathleen.
Oh it looks good.
Kathleen.
A couple things.
I wanted to give a shout out to UNT.
They had a Make a Difference Day on Saturday.
I didn't know it was happening on Saturday but as I was
driving around town I saw a bunch
of UNT students picking up trash in different locations
throughout the community.
Stopped.
Just asked them what's going on.
They were doing.
I mean they were everywhere.
So really a shout out to them.
It's all the different social organizations of UNT.
They get together and have a big event where they go out
and do things in the community.
Wanted to give a shout out to DASF, Denton Animal Support
Foundation, in conjunction with
our Linda McNatt Animal Care and Adoption Center have
implemented what's called a Safe Haven
program and what that is is when you have unfortunate
situations where people are involved
in domestic violence and there's pets involved, most often
times those pets are given up to
the shelter for adoption.
And so these people lose their pets.
But the Adoption Center has entered into agreement with
them where they will take those pets,
foster them or keep them for a time until those owners are
so situated where they can
come back and reclaim those pets.
I just think that is a wonderful, creative and very
compassionate program.
So shout out to them and thanks so much for Woody who was a
big part of that and took
seven months to develop that program.
So I really want to thank them for that.
Let's see.
Bonnie Bray GIS, I think we're going to have an update on
that as far as GIS and AIS at
the corner of Bonnie Bray and Hickory Street.
Had a citizen ask me how can citizens buy bonds that the
city of Denton is issuing that
people wanted to invest in their own community?
So I didn't know the answer to that question.
I think that's a good, I think that's a worthy question to
be answered.
And how can they do that?
Is there a way to save the city some money and things such
as that?
The other one is I've had several conversations actually
about the event center down at the
on Hickory Street and I don't recall and we might have
talked about it but I like to get
a work session on this or something, preferably a work
session, really try to ferret this
out is how, if and how that event center will affect the
training center because I don't
know how many events they're holding on the weekends or
things such as that.
So just want to make sure that we have a full understanding
of how the events there will
impact the utilization of our training center in that
regard.
Girl Scouts of Denton is looking for a board member from
Denton.
They say that they have the largest group of Girl Scouts of
Denton County in Denton
but they do not have a board member that can serve and help
them with the Denton community.
So they wanted me to sort of just put that out there and if
anybody's interested they
drop me an email and I can get you in touch with the people
that need to be.
And last thing is we've talked about these escrow
agreements where developers can deposit
money in lieu of sidewalks, in lieu of streets or
infrastructure, not infrastructure, but
public improvements and of course there's the ordinance
that if you have, if it's over
ten years and that particular development does not get done
or that improvement does
not get done by the city, then the developer is entitled to
a refund of that.
But I've never known, is that at the developer's request or
should we as a city when we see
that and we have a report on that and if they're expired,
go ahead and take a proactive approach
to issue those refunds.
So not sure how that works, would like some kind of just
update or report on that.
Let me make sure I got them all.
That's pretty quick though.
Yes.
So that's it.
The others, they just kept adding up.
So if any other comments, if not, we will stand adjourned
at 854.