May 03, 2016 City Council on 2016-05-03 4:00 PM

All right, wanted to welcome everybody to this Tuesday afternoon, May 3rd, 2016, for a meeting of the Denton City Council. This is our work session and we are beginning at 4.02 p.m. Our first item on the agenda is citizen comment on consent agenda items. Do we have any cards for citizens comments? All right, seeing none. Move on to agenda item number two, request for clarification of agenda items based on the agenda for May 3rd, 2016. Councilmember Briggs? I have just a few. F ID 16 560 regarding the cameras. I'm sorry. Item F. F. Letter F. So just a little question. Out of the 961, each department pays for their own camera, but there's $100,000 for operation of the cameras and I'm just wondering if that comes from the tech budget or the general fund or how does that divide up? It's going to be dependent on what the project needs are. Sometimes we try to forecast as many projects as we're aware that departments are getting ready to build out. So those might be for discretionary, one-off projects that we might not be aware of. So it's more discretionary. Discretionary funds. Okay. All right. Thank you. And then the other is letter G regarding the contract for cleaning downtown. So my question is that it includes the courthouse and I've had questions about whose responsibility are the sidewalks. Oh, okay. What is your question, Ms. Briggs? Is it about the sidewalks? No, actually it's about the – will they be emptying the Big Belly containers? Are the contractors going to be recycling what they see? Are they responsible for doing what the city would normally do? This is Emerson Vorall just for the public to know because some of them don't know anything. Our parks director. Thank you, Emerson. Thank you. The emptying of the Big Belly trash cans down in the square will still be done with city staff. So any recycling that takes place now will continue to happen. This is to pick up surface litter to power wash sidewalks, all of those type jobs. So will they be emptying the smaller trash cans though that are off the square that fill up frequently? Any of the trash cans that are around the square, we will empty with city staff. Okay. All right. I have a follow-up question on that. I'm sorry. Is that okay? No. Yeah. When I was reading this, is this – so this award has been – is this a new award or is this something we've been doing for a while? We've been doing this for quite some time. And – well, I hate to say this because it's going to sound like a broken record. But this is primarily for the square area, correct? The square and Cedar Street and Hickory Street. Okay. Have we had a discussion of if this is something that we looked at, the TIF funding, the providing something – because this is specifically for the downtown areas, my understanding. That is correct. And this is funding that's coming out of your budget? Part of this funding comes from Hot Funds. Okay. How much of that? I think that number is about $12,000 or $13,000 a year. Okay. Well, and so this is about 70 – is it $75,000 a year? And bear in mind that those numbers are based on an hourly basis. So we had to put in a rather large number, that $250,000 that you see over a three-year period. That's kind of a worst-case scenario. What has it been historically? It's been more in the range of $20,000 to $25,000 a year. $20,000 to $25,000? Yes, sir. Okay. So you're saying it's been about $75,000 over a three-year period? Yes, sir. So why are we tripling this for worst-case? I mean, are we expecting – Well, first off, that's where the numbers came in. I mean, we put it out on the streets for bid. We got two bids for this. Okay. We also bid it differently. We did not bid it – in the past, it's been by a – not on an hourly basis, but on a cycle, per cycle. We've added additional – we added Hickory Street to it. So there are a number of factors there. Okay. All right. So how do your budget – about how much is coming out of parks budget? Well, we'll set aside probably $30,000 or $40,000 out of general fund park budget for that. Per year? Per year. Okay. So about $90,000 to $120,000. Okay. Because I remember we just got the – I think we just got the TIF reports for downtown, and it was like $900,000 in there. And I know that – and I'm not trying to rate it. I'm just saying I think part of the attraction is it's clean and it's kept up, and that's what's causing it to appreciate at the amount that it has. Yes, sir. Okay. Well, that's something we could come back and – we can still approve this, but if we found a different funding source, that's something we can do at a different time. Is that correct, Mr. City Manager? Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other follow-up questions for this particular one, Kevin? I seem to recall during the budget cycle that we added an F TE or we added a part-time or something relating to cleaning up downtown because Hickory Street came online. So I apologize. I should have asked this in advance, but I recall that during budget. So when I saw this, I thought, didn't we just hire someone to do that, but now we're going out to the private sector to do it as well. In the budget process, we added an FTE. Part of that was maintenance on Hickory Street. It's not just the litter, the trash. It's emptying the additional trash cans. It's maintenance of the planter beds. It's maintenance of the irrigation. And Hickory Street, if you'll recall, was one piece of that discussion or one portion of that individual's time. We also added other plantings all over town. We've added additional park space. We added Township 2, for instance. Right. I remember that discussion. So all of those segments of time add up to one FTE. I remember that. But it's not a dedicated FTE, just to downtown. Two other questions on this. One is the scope geographically of this service contract. Does it include Hickory going west of the square or is it only Hickory going east of downtown? A one block west, but otherwise Hickory on the way east, on the way down to the train station. Because I -- and one block just takes you to Cedar, I guess . As I think about this and I think about the trash with a lot of the new developing businesses going to the west, both on Oak and Hickory, sometimes I see that as being kind of the most trash intensive spot because there isn't a lot of attention. So just something to put as we're thinking about this moving forward, I think we'll probably need to think about including that as part of this. I think with this contract, with it being based on an hourly basis as opposed to a per cycle basis, it would be very easy for us to do that expansion. All right. So something to look into with that. And the other thing was, is pressure washing a new part of this contract? And I only say that because I don't believe I've ever seen anyone pressure washing the sidewalks. You are exactly correct. There has been very, very minimally done in the past. Okay. Which is why we added it. Okay. That's good. Thanks. So that's why it might be above, I mean, when you say you only spend $25,000. Yes, sir. All right. Okay. Any other questions on this particular agenda item? Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Council Member Wasney. Consent Agenda N, and I want to shine some light on the purchase of the building that is right next door to us so that it adds continuity to the property that this city owns. So it's City Hall Civic Center. And that building that was vacant and owned by the county that was in the middle is being purchased by the City of Denton. So I just want to shine some light on that because I think as we plan our space studies and decide what we do and move forward, it was important that the city acquire that piece of property. All right. Thank you. Council Member Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. Let me see. Consent Agenda Item B. I have a, it's probably Emerson again. It's on that six acre. I know it's going to be difficult to pull up, but can you just walk me through the map? Is it Emerson? Well, I think it may be, it depends on what your question is. It may be Williamson. I just wanted some explanation on Exhibit 2. What we're actually, there's upland habitat, there's remainder, and then there's parkland dedication area. Kind of what's the plan with all that? I just didn't understand the map. Let me see if we can get it up. Just a minute. Emerson, can you get that up on the computer? Not a real detail. You don't even have to pull it up. Do you know, just kind of off the top of your head? A bit of it. I didn't come prepared to do this one. I thought Paul would be here. We're purchasing the northeast corner. There's a rectangle in the northeast corner of that. The strip along the bottom of that property, the south boundary of that property is ESA. Yeah, that would be really helpful. I'm completely unprepared. Let's see. Yeah, Exhibit 2. I'm trying, y'all. Bear with me. Okay. We're purchasing the rectangle on the northeast corner of that property. It says remainder. Emerson, would it be possible to maybe put that to where we might get that on the screens too if you're not going to need to look at the... Sorry, Dalton. Okay, here we go. Cool. Thank you. We will purchase with park dedication funds this portion, the 2.8 acres. The upland habitat, I'm sorry, is the rectangle down the west side of that property. That will be preserved as upland habitat. And then the 1.2 acres in the bottom right of that, that's the land that the developer is dedicating to us to meet his parkland dedication. I got you. That makes sense. Okay. Cool. I'm good. All right. Any other questions on that one? Mayor, I just had one more, but if... No, no, go ahead. Yeah. You had the floor. On item K. Thank you, Emerson. Just so I understand, we're getting consulting services because under Texas local government code we have to on that one. Is that right? And we do that every year? Sorry, are you asking for K? Yes, on K. I think Scott Payne is here, but I think he could answer your question. Yeah, I had a question. I had a question about that as well. Also, I can tag team it. If it's about the contract, I can answer it. If that's why we're doing it the way we're doing it, maybe he can answer it. I think my question is, we do that every year, right? I just wanted to understand under this Texas local government code that we have to do that to hire this consultant. Texas government code allows us to hire a consultant. Okay. We procure it through the typical procurement process by going out for request for proposal. We don't have to have an insurance consultant. We chose to hire one to help us with our program. Okay. Does that answer the question? Yeah. It seemed like the way that it was worded, it was by law that we had to, but maybe I was reading it wrong. So that clears it up for me. I've got a question on that. I think I've -- We just referenced the law which allows the city to do that. I guess I was a little confused and I talked to Brian a little bit about it as far as -- and correct me if I'm wrong in my understanding of what's happening here. We already have a contractor with this firm regarding our insurance, self-funded insurance, medical insurance. Is that right? Correct. All right. So that's a separate one. That's a separate consulting agreement. And this one would be a separate -- Is there two? Right. We basically have two different agreements with McGriff, Se ables and Williams. I'm just going to call them McGriff for short. This one that went out for RFP and is before you today is for the benefits consulting piece of it. And we've had them under contract since about 2002, I believe. This is I think the third time they've gone out through RFP and we've retained them. So it's been an ongoing contract. It ran out. We had to go back out for RFP. Additionally, we have another contract with the same firm for property casualty, workers compensation consulting services, and that's the $24,000 one that was referenced in the write-up as well. So it's the same company but two separate components. And the reason we've been them out separately is because not every company does both and not every company has expertise in both. And so that allows us then to pick the benefits consulting that we think is the best for us and then also pick the property casualty consultant that might be the best for us as well too. And both of those are fee for service contracts where we pay them a flat dollar fee for consulting services. They're not getting commission off of whatever products they're placing for us. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions for that item? Thank you. Thank you, fellas. Councilmember Johnson. I have a question for Emerson. I'm just kidding, Emerson. I'm just kidding. My question is on item L, which I understand that that was a petition brought forth by some citizens that live on Bernard Street. The question is the condition that we have on Bernard Street right there is a condition that I think we see all around the university and pretty dangerous driving conditions around there when you have cars parked on both sides, which happens quite often. So the question isn't so much about this one because I appreciate the fact that some citizens took the initiative, you know, identified that segment of street, got the signatures, traffic safety reviewed it. So I'm very fine with that. What I would expect is that as a result of this one, we'll probably see more of this. And so I would like for us to consider proactively taking a look at the streets that are very similar, the narrow streets around the university where we have this kind of parking condition that you see every school day and consider, you know, we've talked about this in other sessions about some of the challenges or frustrations with the neighborhoods there with apartment projects that are getting built with parking variances and so on. Other cities, I've done a little bit of research on this, other cities have where the people who actually live there have a parking decal. In certain hours of the day, those decals are allowed to park on the street and people without a decal aren't. So I'm not saying I have the answer, but I would like for us to proactively take a look at how we solve that safety issue around the university where we've got students parking on the streets. And in many cases, you see these cars have decals where they could be parking in a parking lot, but those lower cost parking lots are filled. So I think this could be something that we could work closely with the university on. It's a problem they know exists, we know exists. I can just see more of these coming and instead of the citizen having to take the initiative and go start a petition and get signatures, that we would go out and look at doing something proactively on that. So not a question on this item, but a recommendation off of this item that we take that up and maybe that's something we send to traffic safety and say what would this group think would be the right way to go at it. That make sense? We can take a look at it and see what the magnitude of that issue and a course of action to take to investigate it. Would you go ahead and do that? Okay, thanks. And I guess I have a comment on that. Yeah, this is one that I struggle with only because of what Councilmember Johnson said and that is this is a small group, it's a small segment. So the hurdle or obstacles to get a petition together that meets the criteria, but we have streets like this everywhere. Not only just around the campus, but everywhere. There's unsafe conditions all around the campus, so I think we need to have some type of policy that addresses this more on a global scale because these people will just go park somewhere else and create the same unsafe situation that they have here. So I struggle with this one. Only because, not because I'm not sympathetic to the concerns and the interest, but we have this everywhere. I mean we have this on residential streets where if people are parked on both sides of the street you couldn't get really somebody through there. So if it's just a matter of whoever gets enough signatures to come and petition and get the Traffic Safety Commission to sign off, then that's what we 're going to do. Okay, I don't know if that's the best approach, especially around the university where we already have a big parking problem and we don't really have much going on in ways to try to resolve that. So I'm going to have to think about how I want to vote on this one. If it would be helpful, I could ask Mark Nelson if he could comment on any discussion that the Traffic Safety Commission had about this because obviously it goes to that advisory board for this very reason so that we can vet some of these issues and the pros and cons. I don't know whether there's anything you can add to this conversation for this specific project or if it's different than others might be or not. I don't mean to put you on the spot unexpectedly, but if you have anything you can contribute. Thank you, George. Mayor, members of council, there has been some level of discussion to take a look at a more comprehensive approach to that. There has in the past been a discussion of the use of the decal. However, as you may expect in those areas near to both universities, there's quite a bit of turnover with student housing and so how then do you regulate said decal? There's also been the discussion with the University of North Texas by which we have an agreement now with parking enforcement where they may or have requested to take on some additional streets in terms of enforcement, parking enforcement. In addition to that, there's also conversations with our fire protective services in terms of how we allow for that for apparatus to get down some of those streets. In fact, there's a movement around the McCormick Street Fire Station, Station 3 to restrict some parking in that area. But to your point, yes, I think that's something that we can work with the Traffic Safety Commission and/or the Mobility Committee to see how a more comprehensive approach to those particular situations might be addressed. Okay, thank you. Council Member Wasney, was that a question about, yes, okay , yeah. To your point, that was going to be my question because I spent half a day at the McCormick Fire Station and that was one of their big concerns was ing ress and egress from some of those residential streets and so I think it's a resource that we could tap to find out from our fire protection people what are the real problem streets in the city that they have trouble negotiating not just over by McCormick, but they are on the streets 24/7 and they know the streets that are giving us a problem in terms of getting the fire protection equipment in and out and we could go to them and say give us your problem areas and maybe start with that as a springboard. Understood and there's a real balance that we tried to work with the neighborhoods in terms of the convenience and the right to park on the street in front of your home as well as maintaining that public safety for access of those emergency services. So was there any discussion about, I mean it says 24 hour no parking just on that side which is where the houses are, was there any discussion about it? I mean it seems like some of the issues were late night issues. I mean one of them was DCTA traffic is impeded at the corner of Collins and McCormick. You got two people on both sides of the street. There's a bus there. You can't make a right turn from McCormick. I mean there's no room. I've experienced that several times. So was there any talk of mitigation as far as the, I'm sure there wasn't that many objections because this is a pretty small segment and most of the property owners there would probably be, most of the people parking would probably be the apartment people across the way. Students maybe in the Oaks apartments which are on the north side of the street. To answer your question, there was some discussion with respect to that but it's not only just the apartment folks that may be living or visiting those apartments but it's also the students that also park there for day use. Well sure and that's why I was saying so this, I mean 24 hour, 7 days a week is a pretty restrictive for that area. I mean that's the only way that they could address most of their interests here is for the 24/7. It's not the only approach but that's the approach that the Traffic Safety Commission chose to endorse which was the request from the property owner or the petitioner actually was requesting to petition both sides of said roadway segment and staff had recommended just the south side. Okay, alright. Council Member Johnson. Given the amount of discussion, I think it'd be prudent to pull this item for individual consideration so that we can have some discussion and determine what sort of action we want to take. Okay, so you're pulling it. Yep, okay, alright. So we'll pull it off of that. Okay, any other clarifications for consent agenda items? Okay, thank you. We'll move on now to our work session reports. 3A, receive report and hold discussion and give staff direction on a funding recommendation, well on a funding recommendation report from the Community Development Advisory Committee and the Human Services Advisory Committee. Thank you, Mayor, and I'm going to ask Barbara Ross if she would present this item and introduce it to the council. Thank you, Barbara. Thank you, Mayor and council members. We have with us this evening the Chair of the Community Development Advisory Committee, Larry Barnes, and the Chair of the Human Services Advisory Committee, Cheryl English, and they will be presenting to you the recommendations of their respective committees. These recommendations are included in the city's 2016-17 action plan for housing and community development which will eventually be submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The program year begins August 1st. So Chairman Barnes. Thank you, Barbara. The city doesn't realize how lucky we are to have Barbara as leader of this department because she does a superb job of helping direct this committee as we move forward. As Barbara said, I'm Larry Barnes. I've been honored to be elected as Chairman of the Community Development Advisory Committee. I think it's my third year so I must have yes or something tattooed on my forehead. Not sure what the reason is. But obviously I can't do it alone. We've had a really good committee this year and in past years for that matter. I have Randy Skinner here in the audience who is a member of the committee, but we had seven other individuals who put in an awful lot of work. Ellen Hasley, Barbara Galey, Sakura Chambers, Jody Vickers- Nance, Scott Rozelle and Val Morgan. Over time we had six different meetings that started back in September where we had a number of new members join our committee so we had kind of an introductory session so that indeed that they understood the scope of the issue as we decide where the HUD funds are going to be allocated through the block grants. We started on September 10th. We also wanted to be ahead of the curve as we got community input into the needs of various organizations where funding requests could come from. We would also be ahead of the curve so that we could help those organizations actually through the application process if indeed they hadn't done it before and there were some that had not. So again our role as a committee was not only to decide where the allocated funds would go but to encourage the community to actually apply and be informed as to how the process actually went. Our community outreach program included news letters and flyers sent out to a mailing list that was quite broad in the city, emails to neighborhood association representatives asking that they forward public hearing information to the members of their communities and they said again low to mid-income areas, emails to local service agencies and members of the Denton County Homeless Coalition posted on the city's website and various newspaper advertisements. One of the things this committee also as just a side note decided at our last final meeting where we came up with the recommendations I'll share with you now is that we are going to meet once again to form a marketing committee so that we can have an outreach whereby we're getting more applicants than we are getting today to find a way to give greater outreach to this program. That is a double edged sword because we don't have enough money to do what people are asking for now so therefore I have an assignment for the council and that's for you to go to your lawmakers and ask for more money for the city of Denton and I think that indeed we can do that, there are certainly wonderful projects that are out there. As it relates to our recommendations which you see on the screen in front of you, this year we had actually a little bit easier job than we have had in the past and that is because the request amount was closer to the amount of money that we actually had delivered to the city for these various grants. We had $1,124,000 worth of requests and we had total funding available for $968,492. Without going through a lot of detail on the discussion of the committee over the various meetings that we went to and what we have is we have each individual organization that is requesting money come in and make a presentation to the committee where they explain the program in greater detail and allow the committee to ask questions and so that indeed we can be informed as we allocate the monies that move forward. What you can see from the chart is that we fully funded almost everybody. To be fully funded as you see the unfunded balance where it is zero means that that organization got all of the dollars that they requested based upon the program that they presented to us and convincing us of the need for the low to moderate income communities in the city. Two things happened which have not happened before at least in my service over the last four years and that is where we gave more money than they requested. That was in the case of the DAHC affordable housing program and that $51,959 was more than the $40,000 that they required that they requested but we are required by law to actually fund the $51,979 through the set aside of 15% of the home allocation. So that was a legislative necessity to increase that particular line item. We also added additional monies to the minor repair program , the COD. The reason that we did that is because we did have money left over and the committee felt that indeed that had the biggest bang for the buck because as we set our objectives to understand where the best need was each of the committee members actually ranked every project from one to nine. And I think always it comes out that this particular program, the minor repair program meets the needs of the most people in the community and so it's one that's very well thought of at least by the committee as we continue to meet . The only line that you see on here that is less is for Hab itat for Humanity. They requested $575,000 for the purchase of I believe it was three plots of land as well as building three houses. The committee decided that indeed that we would like to participate with them because they were a new organization coming for and requesting funding. So we didn't want to dissuade new organizations coming forward and we allocated $90,000 which would allow them to buy one piece of property and one home. The reason we didn't go for all three was because we felt that this particular organization has the capacity to raise their own funds. They are extremely well organized in terms of their development process. They're an excellent community asset but again we felt that given the limited funds that we had that indeed we'd like to give them some but not all because of their unique ability to raise funds on their own. So what that then netted was that we spent all $968,942 if in your further deliberations you find more money you would like us to spend we'll be happy to make a recommendation. We also had a couple of other things that came forward to the committee that was kind of out of the normal cycle in that the CDAC was also asked to review the Denton Affordable Housing Corporation's unexpended funds from previous years. The amount of unspent home funds from 2013 through '15 totaled $253,258 and so we needed to reallocate that money or we would be in violation of HUD directives. The committee decided to reallocate almost $99,000 in home funds to the city's home improvement program to ensure the home 24 hour commitment deadline or 24 month I'm sorry deadline. We also recommended a change in the use of DAHC's 2015 home allocation to actually fund the 6 unit Boulevard Street project which was more immediate and we could be assured that the funds would be spent. The other two issues that we had were much more simple. One was to reallocate $10,500 in CDBG funds from Health Services North Texas Food Program because that program was canceled and so we needed to find a place for those funds. That $10,000 actually went to the minor repair program which as you can see by our chart was a favored program by the committee. And finally, we revised the project description for the 2015 Fred Moore Day Nursery School Improvement Project. They kind of changed around a little bit what the way that they were going to spend their money. I've come to this council before asking for funds for Fred Moore and we wanted to make sure that the funds were earmarked for what the committee originally recommended and council approved and that was for the recreation facilities as well as resurfacing of the room that indeed that the council approved building for their use. So again, our committee is not only looking proactively to the community, reacting to the specific requests and monitoring how those monies are spent and that they're spent properly over the course of the years that the allocations are being made. This will I guess come to council sometime around June 7th for a final vote. I know that there's a public hearing on this tonight. It'll be interesting to see if we have somebody coming to that or not. It's a pleasure serving on this committee. It's a pleasure presenting to the council and I would be open to any questions that anyone might have. I'm going to go with Mayor Pro Tem because I know you had signed up. You still have questions? Okay. All right. Good. Council Member Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. You were saying that through 2013 through 2015 there was about a quarter million of dollars that was not allocated and then you said 99 of them were allocated? They were allocated but they were not spent. They were not spent? And HUD requires that the expenditures take place during a mandated period of time. So we were in danger of losing those funds because they weren't spent. So our committee reallocated them. So you reallocated 99,000 and then there was about 154,000 left over. Where did that go? That basically went to the city's home improvement program. Okay. And again, what we're trying to do is we're trying to allocate those funds where it can make the most difference to the most number of people and have the greatest visual impact to the quality of life of the city. So in those situations when it's not spent, what happens there? I'm trying to understand this. Barbara might be able to answer that question better than I can. Okay. The home program was recently-- the regulations were recently revised to state that we had to commit the funds within 24-month period. And since what we were looking at was 2013 and 2014 funding , we knew if it was not allocated and set up in their IDIS system showing that the money has been committed, that they would likely take those funds back. So that's why we worked with Jet and Affordable to change. They had the 2015 funds that they received in October or we signed the contract in October. That was to be used for the single room occupancy units in the Hinkle area. Nothing had been done on that project and again, we saw that money sitting there and we began to be concerned. So we worked with them to reallocate these funds to the city's program-- excuse me, not HAP, it's the Home Improvement Program as well as changing it from the single room occupancy project to their Bolivar sixplex renovation. So will we try to revisit some of those projects that just they weren't able to use the money or how does that work? They can when the Jet and Affordable Housing Corporation is ready to request funds again for their single room occupancy project or any of their affordable housing opportunity projects which is their single family buy, renovate and sell program, then the committee can look at that and possibly recommend additional-- recommend funding for those programs. >> OK. >> Thank you. >> I might add to that too that oftentimes if indeed we're not able to fully fund a program, those programs will come back to us in year number two and re-request based upon the same need. But again, they need to make certain criteria and one of the things that we do look at is unspent funds, percentage of funds in the past, number of times they have actually requested funds from the program. >> OK. Thank you. >> Council Member Riggs. >> On the minor repair program, online after there's been a quite a bit of storms lately and online I've seen people say, "Well, is there a program for our seniors or anyone that can apply for a program that has storm damage that can't afford it?" Is that the kind of program for someone like that? >> No, this one is more and then I'll ask Barbara to fill in any blanks. This is more one of if all of a sudden your air conditioner goes out or all of a sudden your water heater goes down or something that is central to your quality of life in the house. I don't think it's specifically designed for storm repair. >> No. >> No, but it can be used for storm repair particularly if the household has no insurance or their insurance does not cover everything. It can be used for that but that's not the total intent of that program. >> OK. So if someone-- >> And that was not the need that was presented to the community. That's not to say that indeed we couldn't expand it. And again, looking at part of this marketing plan, if indeed we find that indeed that there is a huge need and I think there may be in that direction, we can make that recommendation through Barbara to you guys. But if we don't have the money, we don't have the money. >> And I also wanted to say that you mentioned that we could speak to Washington about the funding and we actually did that and that was one of the things that I was speaking on to the senator staff in DC about maintaining the funding . >> Terrific. >> Yes. And so it didn't-- it wasn't received very well. But it was really nice when they were mentioning, you know, that these funds have been abused to say, "Well, not in our town." And I really appreciate all your transparency and work like this for that. >> As council has seen and certainly Barbara shared with the committee that indeed that we have gotten very good commendations from HUD over the way that this program has been administered so. >> Well, thank you for all your work. >> Thank you for that. >> Yeah. And we won't quit. We won't give up. >> Good. >> Councilmember Rodin. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Your committee did a fantastic job this year as always. I appreciate all this and looking at it. And it's great just being able to drive around the city and see specific projects that we know were funded through these programs. It kind of made me think, Councilmember Briggs, you did a great job making that pitch to our legislative delegation there. And it seems to me it would be great to be able to show pictures next time and come in and say, "Here's a playground put in. Here's a sidewalk put in. Here's a restroom put in in an underutilized area." And so it seems with all the data things we have going on in town, some sort of heat map of these sorts of projects, here's where our federal dollars are being spent, would be tremendous. So I want to say thanks for that. And I guess my question is, where can I go and find -- is this on the website where it might be a question for Barbara or Danny? Can I go onto the website and see the federal allocation for CDBG and home funds historically over the years, how that has -- well, in our case, probably shrunk over the years? >> Decontinued. >> Yes, you can. >> I don't know if we probably even have that. >> Yes, actually, I don't think that it is on the website. This information, of course, is on the website. And people are able to comment on it. But we don't have the history on the website. But that's something we could certainly do. >> It would be fun to make a plaque that said, "Bring it to you by Congressman Burgess and Senator Cruz and Cornyn. Put it next to the playground or whatever and take a picture and send it to them." >> Somewhat joking. That's exactly what we're talking about of putting together a marketing plan. If we don't toot our own horn, nobody's going to do it for us. >> And theirs, to say thanks. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Thank you very much. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> Unless, of course, they were against the money for those playgrounds. Why give them credit for something that they were opposed to? A couple of questions about two of the programs, the Home Improvement Program and the Minor Repair Program. How are they different from one another? >> Well, the minor repair is for things like, as I say, if all of a sudden we get a call that my hot water heater came out, you know, I'm unemployed . I have four children. How are they going to take a bath? That's kind of minor repair. It is much more in terms of the magnitude of what is being requested. Home improvement actually has evolved over the years I've been involved. As the market has heated up, it's more difficult for them to actually purchase property and remodel and rehab a house. And so their scope of repair could go as far as a tear down and a rebuild, whereas a minor repair is truly just that, is a minor repair. >> Just to mention, the Minor Repair Program is a $5,000 cap and it's available to households that are at 50% and below of the area median income. The Home Improvement Program, as Larry said, is an entire renovation of the house to make it safe and that is for persons at 80% of the area median income and below. And of course we only do a few of those on an annual basis because of the cost. >> Well, it would be my guess that there would be some folks that might be most in need, might be the least likely to know that there were any funds like this available. Are they going to find this out if they're going to something, a non-profit agency like Hearts for Homes or something like that? How would they know, how would an individual know that there was this type of support available? >> Well, as a matter of fact, Hearts for Homes, we send people to them all the time and they know about our program. So they're, because we work with most of the agencies, the service agencies in the community, they are aware of our programs as well as when we go out and meet with neighborhood groups in low and moderate income areas and talk to them about our programs. >> So would this then go to, directly to Hearts for Homes that does repair or would it go directly to the individual who buys a hot water heater or probably wouldn't be a hot water heater because you have to have a professional licensed plumber to put that in. But would, do those non-profits benefit, does this allow them to go further in the kind of work that they're doing to help rehab homes? >> No, it actually, again, they may refer people to us and we will assist that household with the minor repair, pay the contractor. We work all the way through it. We don't give the money to anyone but it's the city's program so the most that happens is that they understand that it's available and tell their clients that it is available. >> Okay. Thank you. >> It's complimentary. I would just add, Council Member, that the Home Improvement Program, if you go as this councilman wrote and spoke, if you go around the city, it's where you see the biggest difference. It's where all of a sudden one house starts to really is polished and shine. It affects the neighborhood. Others around them start to try to fix up their house as well, maybe not through this program but maybe through their own money. So it kind of leverages itself. >> Council Member Riggs. >> Just on Mayor Pro Tem, on your point, I wanted to say that when I was writing along with Community Improvement Services, I was happy to hear that they also do the notification and outreach to those who can't afford to do the repairs necessary and so that's also something that we do, which is great. >> Got a couple questions. On the, I guess the Home Improvement Program, Home Buyers Assistant Program, and the Minor Repair Program, do we have typically more demand for those three or any of those three than what we're able to meet as far as through this funding ? Are we turning people away on some of those as far as funding goes? >> Basically each of the project leaders for each of those programs have come in and I don't recall, I could find for you the exact numbers in terms of what is actually done versus the applications. It is rare that indeed we're short of applications. I can tell you that. I don't know the exact numbers. >> Well we, Minor Repair, we usually have sufficient funds to continue that program. On the Home Buyer Assistance Program, we generally have sufficient funds to consider that, to continue that. It's most likely at times the Home Improvement Program because we do demolish and rebuild in some instances and that's a very high cost. We do have some people that we have to wait until the following year to serve them. >> Sure. And the only reason I say that and I see Emerson back there , he's probably going to pull his arrow out and shoot me. And this came up last year as well. Does that just get concerned when we allocate like the 152, 000 for the Quaker Town Park restroom replacement? I know that needs to be replaced. There's no question about that. I get that. >> No lights, no ventilation. >> No, no, no. I understand that. I'm not saying don't replace it. I'm saying sometimes, I mean we fund those typically out of parks, you know, capital improvement programs or bond programs or things such as that. When I look at what these other needs are and I have to be honest, I'll probably throw the Londonderry playground in with that as well because when I look at what this typically means, it's people who are, you know, have struggled with home repair, have struggled with just basically inadequate or dilapidated housing, trying to find affordable housing. So the city, I mean it was stated that the reason the funding for Habitat for Humanity was less. Number one, it's a new program and plus they have the ability to raise their own money. They typically do, well, the city can certainly get money up for, so this isn't a criticism on the committee. It's just I struggle with providing these kind of funds for something that the city typically would do anyway like for restroom and that's why I asked about the need in the community. Are we having a problem where we have tremendously more applications for minor repair or things such as that that we could meet that need with a little bit more funding? So it's not, don't take it as, I brought this up last year, so this isn't something that's new. It's just I struggle with using those funds to pay for things that typically a city would do. So Mr. Mayor, you may, one of the things that we consider, for example, in the Londonderry playground, there were, there are 1,700 people in our target in that general area. So we look at that as being a high need given the number of people who it will immediately affect. So we do give consideration to that. What we don't have is we don't have the ability to say, well, gee, we rely on Barbara and staff to do this. Well, gee, maybe we could fund that over here and get, you know, ease up some funds. No, no, I understand that. Yeah. This isn't a criticism, it's just something that I struggle with. I'll just point out on the home improvement program, which I mentioned was probably the only one where we see that happening, that additional 98, 000, 98,000 plus from the debt and affordable housing corporations will assist there. Okay. Yeah. Mayor Pro Tem. Well, you know, Mayor, in that regard, thank you for recognizing me. We do have another way that we can raise money to cover the Londonderry playground. So we could actually do that ourselves and then redirect them to use that money. Here he comes. I know he's not being serious. No, seriously. Okay. Because, I mean, I agree with what you're saying and we're doing this because they're making this recommendation, but we could simply say we want to pay for that out of our general fund and redirect that money for those other projects and I 'm sure it would go well. I don't know that I'm advocating for that because I've, as a principal, served a lot of students that use those playgrounds that need that opportunity for play because it's not available in their apartment or it's not available in their neighborhood and that's the close, you know, whether it's Londonderry or Owsley or the pocket park over there, Milam Park off of McKinney, no, Mockingbird. So those kinds of parks, you know, very, those neighborhoods very much benefit from that. But if we, we could certainly earmark that for future. Sure, I understand. I bet. Yeah. Councilmember Rhoads. I was going to say as well, I think that fortunately we don 't see this as much in our city. I think the larger cities see this, but I think other cities utilize these funds for these sorts of projects because sometimes there's not the political pressure coming out of these neighborhoods to fix things like there are out of the more wealthy neighborhoods who have a lower tolerance for decrepit playgrounds and sidewalks that aren't working and stuff like that. And so, and I live near some of these projects and I see that. They're just not out here kind of clamoring for those sorts of things. So it kind of helps kind of give those projects an edge where the citizens aren't necessarily coming here banging on our door for them. No, and again, this isn't a criticism on the committee's work. It's more just me philosophically that when I, the federal government funds that I've known for community development and for the home, the health and services, typically funds that we as a city would not be funding those kind of things . I mean, we do fund them to the tune of about 250,000 a year . We throw in some, but we wouldn't be doing that. It's not sort of in our normal scope of responsibilities. And so when I see sometimes a restroom and a playground, we can do that because we've done it in the past and we've just approved several of them to the tune of seven or $800,000. And $152,000 would just go a long way. And that's why I asked, if we don't have this backlog of people that are needing things that we're not putting off till the next year, I get that. But I just, I want to make sure that people who can't afford those kinds of things can't afford them. And that's to me what I see these funds used for. So it's just more of an observation. And this was the same thing that happened last year with the splash bar. Well, and the committee will pay particular attention to that as we move forward. If Councilman Gregory's suggestion for the city to pay it, we'll be happy to meet again and reallocate those funds. Oh, okay. Yes. I can see why you're the chairperson. You are very, very, very smooth and good. Very good. Yeah. Well, thank you. Any other questions? But thank you so much, number one, for your commitment to the community and y'all taking this very serious on how can you spend the money in the most wise way to benefit the most people. I really do appreciate that. Thank you. And again, it's not just me, it's the entire committee. So thanks to them. Thank y'all. You bet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm here to present the human services. As long as I can figure out how to do this. Oh, yes. I guess we need to do this. Well, that's too small. You might just have to scroll down a little bit as you're talking. That's okay. Sure. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Council. My name is Cheryl English and I am the chair of the Human Services Advisory Committee. My co-chair is Hannah Garcia and I don't believe we have any members here, but I want to just let you know who they were because this was a very good committee and we had a lot of hard decisions to make as it came to allocating funds to the programs that came to us. I have a few names in my name, Sam Barnes, Laura Malshagen, Yacenia Santian, Meredith Bowie, James McDade, Kristi Wood, Steven Coffey, Katie Porter, and Jane Upshaw. The Human Services Advisory Committee serves as an advisory capacity to encourage continuous evaluation of the human services delivery system and recommend actions and funding to the city council regarding human services in the city of Denton. The most vulnerable people in our community, families and individuals with low incomes, children, domestic violence, and sexual assault victims, homeless and seniors, and persons without access to basic health care continue to need help providing basic needs for themselves and their families. The number of citizens seeking assistance from community organizations continues to increase. As available funding sources are being dramatically reduced or eliminated altogether, our city's human services agencies are facing a greater number of citizens in need with fewer available resources. The priorities of service needs were obtained from the United Way of Denton County's Community Needs Assessment, results of public hearings and focus groups during the development of Denton's Consolidated Plan for Housing and Community Development 2015-2019. The community priorities were housing, shelters, assisted living, affordable utilities, education and child care, and health and mental care. In our recommendation process, we received 18 agencies submitted applications to fund 24 programs. 18 agencies in 23 of the programs are now being recommended for funding. $579,755 in total requests recommending $411,945 in funding . We have two new agencies, Monsignor King and Opening Doors International. 11 currently funded agencies received funding increases, received level funding, three received level funding, three received decreases, and three agencies added new programs that were funded. The types of programs that were presented that we felt free to fund, we had eight to serve the children and youth, we had one volunteer program, we had two senior programs, and four health care programs, one disability program, and seven homelessness programs. So the process for those submitting requests to Human Services Advisory Committees, the applications were submitted, were reviewed by staff for completeness and accuracy. The Human Services Advisory Committee members then individually reviewed each application. Each applicant made a brief presentation before the committee at one of four scheduled presentation hearings. At the request of the committee staff provided additional data, reports, and salary information collected from all applicants. After this comprehensive review process was completed, the committee met to finalize recommendations for funding based on the agency's ability to address identified needs in the community. Our funding recommendations in addition to priorities identified, funding considerations for committee included support of child care programs and health care services, evaluation of impact of programs versus dollars committed, the number of City of Denton residents served, and the rate of duplication of service. The committee holds itself accountable to generate reasonable recommendations that demonstrate responsible stewardship while assisting as many of Denton's most vulnerable to help them gain independence and success. Our funding recommendations are based on staff's recommendations for the city's general fund at $280,000 and 15% of the city's estimated 2016-17 CDBG fund allocation of $131,945 for a total of $411,945. There has been an annual consensus among the Human Services Advisory Committee members to recommend a path to restore human services to a funding level high of $280,295 in 2003 and 2004, which was more than a decade ago. We are happy to have a $30,000 increase in this current program year and $30,000 for the 2016 and 17 program year, but we could always use more. This current increase moves us from approximately $2.07 per capita to $2.28, getting us closer to the Human Services Advisory Committee annual goal of $2. 50 per capita. Any questions? Yes. Councilmember Rodin. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for your presentation and your hard work for this committee. I did have a question, and I was going to ask the policy by which we arrived at the general fund number, and then you kind of started talking about it when you were comparing it to, I think, what did you say, 2003 funding levels? Yes. Were at $280,000 out of general fund? Yes. We had a big decline. Yes, so can somebody on staff help me understand kind of that ebb and flow and from a policy perspective how that went down and what causes it to go back up? Well, basically the council in 2004, 2005, requested that the amount of general funds be reduced to, I believe it was $1 or $1.50 per capita, and at that time they reduced the amount significantly. And has it been building up gradually since then, or was it stagnant for a while? It was stagnant for a while, but in the last few years it's been increasing again. Danny may help the numbers if you'd like. Well, I guess to help me understand that too, at that time were we noticing a significant increase or greater amount of federal funding in CDBG? Was that accounting for some of that? It had increased prior to that, but I believe the peak in our federal funding was, I want to say '99 or 2000, so it had started going down a small amount by that time. I'm not certain of those numbers though. Danny Shaw, our numbers person. Over time from that period we were significantly reduced with general fund, and then we were seeing just a slight decline in community development block grant funds as well, which sort of corresponded with that decline. We have seen a little bit of a bump up for community development block grant funds, and over the last three years have seen an increase, significant increases that are bringing us back up, but we're still not at the funding level we were in 2003 and 2004. So my understanding that the $280,000 general fund allocation, that's assuming it gets approved through this budget cycle? That's correct. So that's the recommendation? Right. The staff is recommending that it moves up to $280,000 from where it was last year at $250,000. Okay. I don't know if we've had a robust conversation from a policy perspective on understanding kind of all of that. It would be helpful as we're kind of getting into budget cycle at some point just to kind of understand how we arrive at those figures, again, similar to what the mayor said with the last. I think Danny can correct me if I'm wrong, Councilman, but we've had, it's been a couple of years I think since we had a good discussion about how and the recommendations coming forward to increase that amount each year, and I think we had it scheduled over time, and the Council was very accommodating to an effort to do that, but I think we can bring that back to you and give you a better history and understanding of why it went down and what you've done as a council to bring it back up. Yeah, and I'm encouraged by that. But I guess my other question is, just as it relates to this, just out of curiosity, when you determine what gets funded out of CDBG versus general fund, is that based on kind of some of the requirements of CDBG, and obviously general fund probably has less of those requirements? Right. We actually treat all the agencies the same as far as the guidelines they have to meet, but CDBG requirements are much more stringent than general funds would be. They have to meet the income qualifications and documentation of those clients in a very significant way, in a very specific way, and that's part of the consideration as to what we think about when we're funding agencies, do they have the capacity to even meet those reporting requirements? Great. Thank you. Councilmember Johnson. Thank you, Mayor. Cheryl, thank you for your work and for all the committee's hard work on this. You mentioned a goal of $2.50 per capita. I'm curious where that number comes from. Are there national averages? Are there other cities that have similar demographic profiles to us that - because I would love to hear from staff, like, you know, here's Denton, compar atively speaking, to other cities that are similar demographically. Here's the kind of funds that they spend, or here's what we see, and that's where the recommendation comes from, sort of a how do we get to the goal? Do we want to meet what other cities do? Do we want to exceed it? That would be helpful. We can research that information. I don't have that specifically. The number was actually based on community need versus their funding requests versus what we're able to allocate. So it's not based on what other cities do, but we can certainly get that information. Yeah. I'd like to see that, just so - rather than working with an ambiguous number of, well, this is what we had and this is what's being requested, but kind of try to get out ahead of this, you know, and not just other cities our size. We see a lot of those sort of charts, but other cities similar demographically to us and what are their needs, what are they seeing, what are they spending? I think that would help us have a more - a little more robust conversation about it. Yeah, that's a great suggestion. We'll definitely do that. Okay. Thanks. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you. To comment on both of your comments, gentlemen, I got on this committee back in 2005, and at that time we were starting to see - yeah. So we were starting to see some decreases in the CDBG funding, the federal funding, and the needs were much greater than what we had the money for. And at that time we started talking about per capita because we weren't even - we weren't even spending a dollar per resident. And in 2005 the resident count was below 100,000. No, maybe it was. But anyhow, somewhere around there. So we weren't even paying a dollar a person. So we had recommended that simply because it seemed like such an achievable kind of a number. And it certainly wasn't anywhere near coming close enough to addressing the needs. So I think that's where the conversation got going, and especially because we had been enjoying a good bit of federal funding that was going away. And you're saying now that it - well, you know, on Tuesday nights I need to not let this time out so quickly. That's a chart we already have available if you'd like to see that as far as the funding history for both General Fund from all the way back to 1973 and then when CDBG funds started in '97 so we can show you the track of percentages and change. I have that already. That would be a good thing to see the longer range because - Yeah, I think Jim Engelberg brought it to you a couple years ago, but it's updated, so we'll make sure you get a copy of that. Councilmember Johnson. On that chart, can you add population? It does. For the last - back to 2012 it already has population showing the increase per capita. It also includes the annual funding requests all the way back. So you can see the decline in the number of requests and then now the increase in the number of requests over time. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, one question I have and somebody alluded to it I think, but if this is too long of an answer you can give it to me in a memo or it's council in a memo. Because we get the CDBG and the home funds, it all comes in and somehow we split it up between the community development funds and the health services funds. And so the CDBG portion of health services is 131 - or 127 and then there's 131,945. What determines that allocation? That's actually federally mandated. Only 15% of the funds can go to human services. Okay. So we're restricted to - we can't go high. Okay, that's what that little comment was down at the bottom of the other one. Probably. Okay, all right. Okay, all right. But - okay, all right. Any other questions? Cheryl, thank you so much for your work on this committee. Thank you. And I want to also thank Danny because we couldn't do it without her and Barbara. Well, thank all of you because it takes a team. It's a team effort. So I really do appreciate that. Thank you all for all your hard work. And hey, you - because it's a tough job. I mean, you know, a lot of people have a lot of needs. And so thank you all. All right, I see no other questions on this agenda item. So we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is agenda item 3B, receive, report, and hold discussion, give staff direction regarding organizational programs that aim to increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity of city of Denton operations. Thank you, Mayor. And I would remind you before we start that there is a public hearing on the programs that you just heard later on tonight, yes. Okay, all right. Thank you. As you're aware, the council and the staff have had a number of discussions about things we could do to expand exposure at a high level and broaden the breadth of understanding for the public and the council and the staff on budgetary issues. And we've been bringing a series of those discussions to the council. What Brian Langley is about to visit with you about are programs that you've - we've talked about before, but what I believe and we believe are very important to the work that we're doing as we're going into the budget process. They're the kinds of programs that to me are really the things that motivate us at all levels, not just the leadership team of the city and one of the city council, but our employees throughout the organization to be creative and improve our ability to deliver services in an effective, cost-effective way to the public. So Brian's going to go through those programs again and bring you up to date on where we are with those. And Mr. Langley is our assistant city manager. Thank you, Brian. All right. Thank you, Mr. Campbell. I want to spend just a little bit of time talking about three workforce improvement programs that we're very proud of here at the city. Each of these help us improve the productivity and efficiency of our operations, as George mentioned. Back in 2014, we did create these three separate programs, and I'll talk about each of these in a little bit of specifics, but the Lean Government Program, the Innovation Program, and the Leadership Excellence and Enhancement Program, just better known as LEAP, these programs collectively really seek to engage our employees and our workforce in continuous quality improvement, creative thinking, and as I mentioned, improving the efficiency and productivity of our operations. One of the things we talk about frequently is doing more with less, and one of the ways that we do that is to provide some of the tools to help our employees actually do that. It's one thing to say it, but we want to encourage people to have the tools to actually be able to do that effectively, and these are one of the ways that we try to do that in the city. So I'm first going to talk about Lean Government for just a few minutes. This is a program that originated in a manufacturing environment. You may have heard of Toyota Manufacturing and some of the things that they tried to do to eliminate process inefficiencies and waste, so this has been adapted to a governmental setting, and it's really a series of techniques that we use to identify and eliminate waste or inefficiencies in processing our procedures and activities that we have. A few of those examples, there's quite a few techniques, but just a few of those examples include data analysis, looking at data in a way that helps us analyze problems and issues with how we prepare different processes and procedures. Using process mapping, you'll see in the article that I attached to this agenda item, there were some photographs that we included, some process mapping in our downstairs conference room of things drawn all the way around the room, and staff could look at those and visually try to identify areas that we could try to improve and identify redundant processes or processes where we weren't really adding value. So the process mapping technique is really an important one that we've had a lot of success with. We've also used the five whys. These are questions that we use to get past the surface level issues and try to get down to the root cause of process inefficiencies or delays, and so that's been a technique that we've used. There are some videos on our website. I think last year when I showed this to the council, I showed a couple of those to you. I think they're very effective in kind of illustrating some of those techniques. And finally, swim lanes is something that we've used to document processes and identify issues, and those are ways just to put in processes into each one of those lanes, and you can see who's doing what, when it's happening, and is there any duplication of those efforts, and they've been very effective for us. So we initially engaged a consultant to help us facilitate this process and use a train-the-trainer concept. We conducted three what we call Kaizen events. These are week-long events where we take a team of employees that are involved in all these different activities and study those issues intently. We had the consultant then at the beginning of that, but we 've transitioned to a process where we have trainers now in the organization who are trained in these techniques and processes. Ten coaches were created, five teams of two each. Each team was assigned four different departments and divisions, and the coaching is in addition to all the normal job responsibilities. So these are things that they're doing above and beyond the normal jobs and normal things that they're doing in the organizations. We had trainers from various different departments that I 've listed here for you, solid waste, purchasing, environmental services, public communications, parks and recs, and so on. A lot of different areas that are represented. You get a good cross-section of staff. This does a lot of things for us. Number one, you get a lot of different perspectives to help solve problems, but you also develop a lot of different skill sets in the organization as you go through these processes and get more exposure for all these employees to different things that we're doing as an organization. To date, these lean techniques and all the operational reviews that we've completed, they've resulted in over $600,000 in savings to the organization and over 7,300 hours of staff time devoted to these projects. So again, we're very proud of these. They're very successful. - Council member, I mean Mayor Pro Tem, I'm sorry. - Yes, sir. - Well, that last bullet point there, you mean the 7,300 hours represents $613,000 in savings or that that's in addition to the actual dollars? - Some of it is the same. So some of the staff time results in dollars in savings, but also some of the dollar savings isn't related to staff time. It may have been a contract that we didn't have to use because we've been able to eliminate that out of a process. It can be staff time, but in some cases, they're completely different savings. They're both hard and soft costs that we've identified in savings for lean. Hard costs would be actual dollar savings that we no longer have to do this activity or have this contract or service. And soft costs would be we've reallocated existing staff and programs to do something else in the organization where we provide some more value. - All right, thank you. - I hope that helps. Would it be possible like an informal staff report sort of just give some basic, excuse me, some basic like a report on here's the 613,000, here's part of it here, here's here. And then on the staff saving time, just sort of a brief description of where these numbers come from so that we can see how some of the areas that we 've been able to save actual hard dollars and then also reallocate staff time because we 're being more efficient. - I'd be happy to send that to you. Yes, we have all that. - All right, thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, go ahead. - Okay, great. I'm gonna now talk to you a little bit about the Innovation Program. This is an online program that we created to engage and recognize employees for their ideas. We really wanted to have a forum where we could solicit creative ideas from employees and so we used an online forum to do that as at least an initial starting point. We asked employees to submit their ideas and then through that online program, employees were able to comment on those ideas and say, "This is an area that I think is important. We're making progress on this. No, that's not an idea I think we should pursue or here's how we can modify it to make it better." And so through that online forum, those ideas got stronger. We got more buy-in from the employees across the organization and eventually whittled that down to just a few ideas that we could actually implement. So during the inaugural program in 2014 over 2014-15, we had about 170 employees participate in that program which is very good participation but in an organization the size of Denton, we certainly wanted to be more. Over 46 ideas were submitted and we actually implemented five of those ideas. These are the ones that I mentioned to you last year at the time of this presentation. In 2015, most recently, we had over 235 employees submit more than 60 ideas. So that's a very good increase in participation. We've had about a 40% increase in growth in number of employees getting that program. I think we're showing that we're serious about this program , that if you have an idea that brings forward, that you bring forward to us, if it's got merit to it, we are going to take action and implement that and recognize employees. So we hope that as we continue with this program, we'll have even more employees participate and even more ideas be brought forward. So some of the concepts that we're looking at in the most recent program include developing a business coming soon map to Denton. I think the council may have had some discussion about that some time ago and the employees are looking at how we can bring that forward and make that a reality. How we recognize outstanding employees in a more meaningful way. We have the service awards luncheon that I know many of you go to and I think that's a very successful event. One of the comments that we've had is how do we make that to recognize some outstanding employees for their service, not so much their tenure, how can we actually incorporate that into that program. So we're looking at how we do that. And then finally, using a smartphone application for notifications to citizens and employees alike, how can we use some of that technology to get the word out to employees and citizens when we have issues that we need to get some information out quickly. So those are just a few examples of the things. There's over 60 ideas that we've looked at and we're making progress to bring forward some ones to implement. Okay, finally, I want to talk to you about the LEAP program . This again was created in 2014. I know we've had some more in-depth conversations with you on this so I'll just quickly go through it but this is a formal program to develop leadership and management competencies for our employees. About 104 hours of classroom training was provided to these employees from UNT covering over 13 different competencies that we identified and I've included all those in your agenda information sheet. And in addition to the training about developing our employees, we also focused on projects for each of these groups that have went through in the first class and the second class and really tried to look at real world issues in the city and our community and how do we solve that using our employees to come up with creative strategies for how we do that. So the first class in January of '14, they completed two projects and I think the council's heard about both of these and I think both of these are excellent projects. The first was how they improve our right of way maintenance program and we've, through the council's indulgence, we allocated some additional funding to the budget process over the last two budget cycles. We've made some real significant progress on that. I think that's been very successful. And we also had a project related to performance and succession management and one of the things that we did was look at our performance rating process, look at the software that we were using for the city throughout the city for performance ratings and we've made some improvements to that. We allocated some funding for that in the budget process. We're also looking at a mentorship program as well. So both of those have been very successful and we've had a lot of support from the organization to implement that, including the council. The second class began late 2015 and is working on a couple of different projects and one of these you received a staff report about this past Friday about a volunteer program for community organizations and they're looking at surve ying some of the community service organizations around town to see if the city actually supported an employee volunteer program, would that be something of interest to these community organizations and then how could we do that as an organization to make that happen and have some staff time available during the year that would be paid time for employees to go out and actually volunteer their time for these organizations. You'll find a lot of leading organizations around the country, Fortune 500 companies. This is a very common thing to do and something that we want to try to replicate here in the city of Denton. We're also looking at a centralized records archiving solution. This would be something for not only the public to use, we think that's very important, but also something that our employees could use too. We have lots of different departments, lots of records, how can we better organize that information and this team is going to look at how we can do that. So we're very encouraged by the initial work that this team has done on these two projects and we hope to bring forward some more information to you probably late fall, early spring about those particular projects and how to implement them. Councilmember Hawkins, run is done. Are you done? I have one final slide. Go ahead. Sorry. Almost there. So in summary, we've created these three workforce development programs and again, they're really encouraging employees to engage in this process of looking at how do we have creative thinking in our operations. We want to essentially have the tools and opportunities to be more productive and effective and that's what this is all about, is giving our folks and our employees the opportunities to do more with less. The lean program will continue to be used by staff to improve our operations. You'll see those savings that we've talked about and the efficiencies that we've developed, those will filter down into our operations, into our departmental budgets that we'll be bringing back to you. You'll see some of those changes and we'll talk about some of those. The innovation program will conclude this summer and we'll look to have another one of those programs every year to keep that process going, to keep more interest going in our employees, to keep that level of engagement. You may hear about some of those programs in this budget process and we want to make sure you're aware of it. As I mentioned to you, the second leap class will present their ideas in late fall or early spring. That likely won't have an impact for the budget this year but likely the next budget cycle is where we see some impact for those if we do have any impact at all. So that's my presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have. Mr. Hawkins, I know you have one. Thank you. I kind of wanted to brag on you first. I think that article in the TML magazine was great. Oh, thank you. And I love, I'm probably misquoting you, but you, as our population was growing, you've said, rather than adding layers of bureaucracy, you wanted us to become more efficient. And I love that. I think your knee-jerk reaction is as we continue to grow and have more projects, you've got to throw more people at it. But maybe we need to work on our process a little bit too. We're definitely going to need to add more people. But I know in my businesses, the best ideas definitely come from the people that are actually doing rather than us thinking these are great ideas. And I just love that we are implementing these three programs. It just, staff really, when they buy into something and they feel like they're a part of something, it becomes more than a job. And I know there's no question in there, but I just really wanted to applaud you for leading this. And we're very lucky to have you in the City of Denton. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Mayor Pro Tem. When we discovered the things like the dollar savings or the time efficiencies, is there a time of recognition, is there a time of celebration to go with those discoveries and the improvements that we're seeing? Yes. We have, there's small and large events. So some of the small events may be just a day or a half a day where we focus on a small activity with some of the lean trainers and they work on those issues. When we do a large event or what we call a Kaizen event that they take about a week to do or longer, they'll come in and present their findings. All of those employees who have worked on that particular project, they present their findings to the entire leadership team. So all of the assistant city managers, the city manager, all of the department heads will be there in that meeting and they present that to that group and recognize for that activity and we certainly encourage them to do that and try to figure out a way that we can make them successful. So we try to have that as part of that program. Yes, sir. Every year, I don't know why, but in March and April, most years, there's criticism about the city and about staff and a lot of it I think happens without people checking to see. I think there's just an assumption if it's a good idea, the city's not doing it. Do you have folks that come and that have these good ideas like programs for continuous improvement? Do they ever -- do citizens ever just come in and talk with the city manager or assistant city managers and ask have you done this or are you doing it? Have they ever made those kind of suggestions to you? I've not had any of those conversations. I think from time to time, we'll have citizens suggest different things that we look at that maybe they've seen in a different city and if we're aware of that, we'll take a look at that. Sometimes we already have programs like that in place, but I've never had those particular conversations, but I know that some others may have. Maybe the city manager has had a few of those. Comments? I think I hear more of that from citizens through perhaps some periodically we'll get an email, just a very short suggestion and we can respond to that and send it out and then follow up on it if we in fact get information about it . Obviously, it's not as frequent that we get suggestions for that as it is that we get criticized sometimes for failing to do things, but this is an opportunity clearly for us to do that and recognize those who come forward with the good ideas and promote more of it internally. So -- Well, it's just -- I wish that community-wide folks would not automatically assume that a good idea hasn't already been implemented by the city staff because my experience has been generally those good ideas sometimes have been in place for a long time and the fact that your report says the staff is not satisfied with the status quo, that you're always looking ways to improve service, to save money, to become more efficient, to bring a better quality product to the citizens of Denton and I appreciate you for it and I'm particularly thrilled that there's some celebrations internally and I would love to see something at the annual staff awards banquet so that for some of these kinds of programs to highlight those even more in addition to the fact that we need to recognize the tenure of folks that have dedicated lots of years of service to the city. Thank you. Member Rodin. I think this is great too and we were in New York visiting with a bunch of other innovative cities. A gentleman from the Denver Peak Performance Institute, part of the city of Denton came up to me and said, "You're from Denton? Oh, you guys are doing blah, blah, blah." And I don't know which one he was referring to. I think it was our LEAP program, I think, is what we were doing that he had recognized or something or he'd read an article, which I just think is fantastic. I mean, Denver, Colorado was paying attention to us down here in Denton. A challenge for one of your groups and maybe it's your innovation program, I'd be curious for the council to hear from a staff perspective, what do we do as council members that encourage innovation among city staff and what do we do that discour age innovation? It'd be an interesting candid conversation and feedback for us, I think, just as a professional development for us as policy makers and folks who have the bully pulpit from time to time and say things and announce things and put things online from time to time, just what is it that we can do to help inspire this? Because you guys think about that from a management perspective probably all the time, which is why you're doing this. But I don't know what would create a safe format for that sort of dialogue, but I'm just saying from my perspective, I think that would be incredibly useful. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Johnson. So that's really where I was going. So I was fortunate enough to participate in the Kaizen event recently on planning and development and when I asked them, "Who else are you having come in here from the outside?" and they went through the list of all of the different stakeholders. It was really a lot of their customers that they were having come in. And when you, it's kind of like when you go to your neighbor and you say, "Come over, tell me candidly what you think of how I take care of my yard." You may not really want to hear the honest feedback, right? Or do you like the color of the paint that I chose for my house or whatever it is. But in that room you had people from all the different departments, but you had people who work in that department day in and day out, who had to check their ego at the door and be open to all this candid feedback. And it had to be hard because I think from what I heard, the feedback was very candid because Sergeant Dewey did a great job of setting up, "Here 's the space that we're in. Here's what we're looking for. Don't sugarcoat it. Show us what you see, good and bad. And what are your ideas and what are your experiences and all that." And as I sat there giving my feedback, both as a customer sometimes and as a council member, I thought, "You know, we need the same thing because we bark out lots of things we need to go do, but those people all have full-time jobs already ." And what I thought about sitting there in the room was, " These people are doing this in addition to their normal job responsibilities. So while they're in here for a week working on this, they 've got to keep up with their other stuff at the same time. They can't let everything just go for a week." And so my thought was, "All right, we'll have another retreat. A council may not be this council, but a council will have another retreat. And we need that same kind of feedback. Are we consistent in the way we give direction? Are we clear? Are we empowering our staff or not?" So I would be open to that. I like feedback, good and bad. Get plenty of it these days. But I think that you guys are really to be commended for the way that you went at this because it wasn't a half-hearted, "Let's do a little something to make it feel like we're trying." I mean, these people are really getting after it. And it's hard to sit there and take candid feedback, especially if it's your particular department or your particular job, and you're having to sit there and listen to it, especially when you know it's true. But the attitude of the people was, the staff in the room was so proactive. We understand what our mission is. We're going to tackle this thing. And the amount of work that had gone on in that room before any of us ever got there was really pretty impressive. So I appreciate that. And I think because we're asking you to do that, I think it 's fair for you to ask us to do the same. Okay. I'll try to design something about that. Yeah. You're going to start right now, right? Right. Is it open mic? Yeah. Brian, we need to talk. Right. All right. Any other questions? Thank you, Brian. Thank you for your support. Appreciate it. And we've certainly seen the results of these particular programs that you guys are implementing. So thank you so much. And to all the employees that are coming. Absolutely. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? All right. Seeing none, that ends our work session. We will now convene the closed session at 537. We will consider the following items. Consultation with attorneys under text government code section 551.071 and deliberations regarding real property under text government code section 551.072. And I think we're down in the base. Good evening. Wanted to welcome everybody to this Denton City Council meeting. I'm getting a little reverb. Wonderful. Yeah. On May the 3rd, 2016, I had a 632. If you would stand as we honor the pledges leading to the flags, stand with me if you're able. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one indivisible. Now come down. We have about 30 proclamations. No, we got about six. The first one is Haley's Heroes Days. Hello. You want to come down here? Come on down. Who wants to come with you? Come on. Great. Got a whole crew down here. I'm going to ask you your name. What's your name? Matt. Matt? No, Max. Max. Zoya. Okay. Haley. Bruce. Zoya. Hey, how are y'all doing? And I've got a proclamation to read for you. Is that okay? Fantastic. All right. What a great crew. This is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, whereas Haley's Heroes was founded to inspire as many people as possible to register as bone marrow donors on the National Bone Marrow Registry. And whereas Haley's Heroes support research for a cure for diamond black fan anemia, DBA, and whereas the goal of Haley's Heroes include raising awareness of and funds for research for this very rare disease, partnering with Delete Blood Cancer and Community to sponsor and coordinate bone marrow drives and to emotionally support other DBA families. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, do hereby proclaim the week of May 8th, 2016 as Haley's Heroes Days in the city of Denton and urge all citizens to participate in this worthy cause. Let's give them a big hand. These are our future leaders. Thank you all. The next one is for Bike Month. Who's going to be ... Come on down, Julie. Not to be confused with bikers. It's Bike Month. Different helmets. Fantastic. Tell us a little bit about Bike Month. Bike Month is celebrated every May. This is our second year of doing events. We had a Bike to UNT day this morning. We're doing a speaker series every Wednesday at noon at the Civic Center. We're going to do Cycle with the City. It's a family-friendly bike ride on May 16th at 6 p.m. So we're just here to celebrate bikes and all of the cool bicyclists we have here in Denton. Fantastic. Thank you. Okay. This is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton. Whereas, for more than a century, the bicycle has been a utilitarian, economical, environmentally sound and effective means of personal transportation, recreation and fitness. And whereas the city of Denton in Texas encourages the use of bicycles as a means of transportation, and whereas the city of Denton recognizes bicyclists as a legitimate roadway user and therefore are entitled to legal and responsible use of all public roadway facilities in Denton, except highway constructed to interstate standards. And whereas the city of Denton, Texas encourages the increased use of the bicycle, benefiting all citizens of Denton by improving air quality, reducing traffic congestion and noise, and decreasing the use of and dependence upon finite energy sources and fostering exercise. And whereas the city of Denton, Texas recognizing the use of bicycles as a viable mode of transportation endeavors to promote safe and responsible bicycling, the education of bicyclists and motorists as to the proper and safe operation of bicycles is important to ensure the safety and comfort of all users. And whereas the League of American Bicyclists, Bike Texas, local bike shops and independent cyclists throughout our community are promoting greater public awareness of bicycle operation and safety education in an effort to reduce accidents, injuries and fatalities. Now, therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton , Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim the month of May 2016 as Bike Month here in the city of Denton and encourage all citizens to ride their bicycles to work, to the store, to the park, around their neighborhoods, and with friends and family to promote the personal and societal benefits achieved from bicycling. So thank you all very much for bringing this to our awareness and encouraging us to do that. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. Okay the next proclamation is Motorcycle Safety and Aware ness Month. Everyone want to come down and join me for that and we've got three copies here. How are y'all? Fantastic. Just a little, just a little. That's a good observation. How are y'all, now who's going to, who will be receiving this officially? Is it all of y'all got three copies? Who's going to be the spokesperson? Okay. All right. You want to be the spokesperson? Sure. Go ahead. So we appreciate you guys doing this. This is being done in counties all over Texas right now. Way too many bikers die every year because people are using their cell phones and not paying attention to what's going on around them. We've all lost friends and so we just ask you guys to look out for us. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. So this is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Dent on, Texas, whereas today's society is finding more citizens involved in motorcycling on the roads of our country. And whereas motorcyclists are roughly unprotected and therefore more prone to injury or even death in a crash than other vehicle drivers. And whereas campaigns have helped inform riders and motorcycles alike on motorcycle safety issues to reduce related risks, injuries, and most of all fatalities through a comprehensive approach to motorcycle safety. And where it is the responsibility of all who put themselves behind the wheel to become aware of motorcyclists, regarding them with the same respect as any other vehicle traveling the highways of this country. And it is the responsibility of riders and motorcycles alike to obey all traffic laws and safety rules. And whereas urging all citizens of our community to become aware of the inherent danger involved in operating a motorcycle and for riders and motorists alike to give each other the mutual respect they deserve. Now therefore I, Chris Watts, mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, do hereby proclaim the month of May 2016 as Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Month here in Denton and urge all residents to do their part to increase safety and awareness in our community. And thank you all very much for coming and joining us. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. [Applause] Thank you. We'll hear the rumblings here in a few moments. [Laughter] Thank you all. The next proclamation will be Children's Mental Health Awareness Day. Who will be receiving that? Fantastic. Come on up and introduce yourself and share with us Children's Mental Health Awareness Day. I'm Lisa Elliott. How are you? Thank you. Okay. First of all, we really appreciate the fact that you're helping to increase the awareness of children's mental health issues. It's very valuable. One in five children are diagnosed with a mental health issue. And we know that there are many, many more individuals in Denton County, particularly in our area and even our community that suffer with mental health issues. So we are very grateful and we feel that it's absolutely critical that United Way of Denton County, well I should say Denton County Behavioral Health Leadership Team led by United Way, Denton County MHMR and watch feel like it's critical to work together to improve children's mental health. So we want to thank you and we want to thank the City of Denton. Sure, thank you. Could you all introduce yourselves? I'm Teresa McKinney from the University of North Texas. I'm Pam Gutierrez. I'm the Executive Director of Denton County MHMR. I'm Elia. And I'm Gary Henderson, CEO of United Way of Denton County. Well, thank you guys for what you do also in the community. I mean, we want to bring as much awareness as we can to the problems, but it's teams like y'all's who really see it on the front lines and really help with that. So thank you all very much for what you do for our community. So this is a proclamation by the Mayor of the City of Dent on, whereas addressing the complex mental health needs of children, youth and families today is fundamental to the future of Denton County. I'm going to read that one more time. Whereas addressing the complex mental health needs of children, youth and family today is fundamental to the future of Denton County. And whereas the need for comprehensive coordinated mental health services for children, youth and families places upon our community a critical responsibility. And whereas it is appropriate that a day should be a set apart each year for the direction of our thoughts towards our children's mental health and well-being. And whereas the Denton County Behavioral Health Leadership Team, Denton County MHMR Center, United Way of Denton County, and the Wellness Alliance for Total Children's Health of Denton County led by Cook's Children through their prevention- based approaches to serving children and adolescents are effectively addressing the mental health needs of children, youth and families in our community. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim May 5th, 2016 as Children's Mental Health Aware ness Day here in the City of Denton and urge all citizens to be aware of the mental health of their children and to seek assistance when necessary. So thank you all very much. [applause] I do have one fun fact and y'all can correct me as far as the year goes. But the genesis of the Behavioral Health Leadership Team was due to a United Way needs assessment back in 2012 or somewhere around there. But at one point, I think it was a couple years ago, Denton County was the lowest funded mental health county in the state of Texas. Had the lowest funding for mental health services in the state of Texas. The state of Texas was the lowest in the nation. All right, but I will tell you through the help of these people and the organizations that they represent, that is changing and it is beginning to make a difference. So I appreciate y'all's commitment to that and bringing to us, especially at the policy making level, the challenge to make sure that we don't have that label again. So thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. You bet. [applause] Next one is Denton County MHMR Connections Day. Oh great, fantastic. Someone will want to tell us about Denton County Connect ions Day. Yes, thank you very much. Connections is our homeless program and it's very near and dear to our hearts. Homelessness is something that many of us, you know, by the grace of God, don't have to encounter on a daily basis. But if you ever do, it's something that is something that can bring you to your knees. And we see that on a daily basis at our center. And people live in tents in our community and it's devastating to our folks. And with this weather that we've had, the tents don't provide any shelter for our folks. So we have a program that serves 20 individuals in one family. Well, that's really not enough to help the individuals that need the services, but it's helping just a little bit at a time. And we're very proud of that program and Mayor has been wonderful to assist us. And for the first time, we're having a fundraiser during the month of May, May 28th, a bike rally. I don't think any of us will be on bikes because it's many, many miles, but we'll be out there cheerleading and we would love for you all to come out and join us. And so we're just very appreciative of this proclamation. And introduce yourself, please, once again. I'm Beth Diaz, Administrator of Mental Health Services at Denton County MHMR. And I'm Leslie Mosely, Connections Program Manager at Dent on County MHMR. Thank you. I should have done this in a different order so we'd have all the bicycles still in here. Proclamation by the Mayor of the City of Denton, whereas the citizens of Denton understand that chronic homelessness is an issue that impacts our country and is striving to put an end to homelessness, and whereas of the homeless in Denton County, 33% are self-reported as chronically homeless and 20.2% of those deemed homeless have a serious mental illness. And whereas the need for comprehensive coordinated mental health services for the individual and families placed upon our community is a critical responsibility, and whereas Denton County MHMR Center's Connections Program , through its unique approach to serving individuals deemed chronically homeless, is effectively caring for the mental health and housing needs of those in our local community. Whereas each citizen, local business, school, government agency, health care provider, and faith-based organization shares the burden of understanding the concerns of those deemed chronically homeless and has a responsibility to promote wellness, recovery, treatment, and support all community efforts to eradicate homelessness in Denton. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby proclaim the week of May 28th, 2016, as Denton County MHMR Connections Day in the City of Denton , and urge all citizens to recognize the important role we each play in responding to the needs of those individuals and families who are homeless in our community. Thank y'all for what you do. [applause] Thank y'all. Ah, Building Safety Month. Come on down. How you doing, Chris? Who's going to tell us about Building Safety Month? Okay. Then I want y'all to introduce yourselves once you get down . I'm going to let the team introduce themselves first, and then I'll tell a little bit about the month. I'm Rodney Patterson. I'm the building official for the City of Denton. And I'm Chris Lansy. I'm the chief building inspector for the City of Denton. And I'm Joseph Stapleton, plans examiner. I'm Amy Bissett, director of development services with the city, and it is my privilege to have the opportunity to work with all of these gentlemen and to introduce Building Safety Month to you today. This is a small representation of the building inspections department in the City of Denton. And this is a department that is often unnoticed by our citizens as a whole, because they quietly do their jobs to keep us all safe every day without us realizing the gravity and the importance of what they do. And every time you set foot in a building or every time you set foot in your home, you have trusted these men and women with your life, because they've made sure that your home or the building that you're in has been constructed in a manner that is safe and healthy for you to live in. Just to give you an idea of how important this job is in the City of Denton, I'm going to share a few small facts with you. We have about 25 employees in the building inspections division. Rodney, our building official, has been with the city for 27 years. All of our supervisors and managers in the division have been with the city for somewhere between 10 and 15 years or more. Of those 25 people, they have 143 certifications among them , including two certified building officials, one master code professional, which is the highest certification bestowed by the International Code Committee, among other numerous plumbing, electrical, mechanical building, accessibility, and energy code certifications. Some inspectors have up to 16 certifications each. And additional, these staff have over 20 state licenses and endorsements from a variety of state agencies. To give you an idea of the volume of the work that this small group does, in the last 12 months, we issued over 7,500 building permits, did over 9,000 plan reviews, conducted over 36,000 inspections, which is an average of 138 a day, with a staff of approximately 25 people. I would just like to take a moment to recognize the important work that this group does and say that it is my privilege to have the opportunity to work with them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys for the work that you do for our city. This is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton, whereas our city's continuing efforts to address the critical issues of safety, energy efficiency, water conservation, and resilience in the built environment that affects our citizens, both in everyday life and in times of natural disaster, gives us confidence that our structures are safe and sound. And our confidence is achieved through the devotion of vigilant guardians, building safety and fire prevention officials, architects, engineers, builders, tradespeople, laborers, and others in the construction industry, who work year- round to ensure the safe construction of buildings. And whereas these guardians, dedicated members of the International Code Council, use a governmental consensus process that brings together local, state, and federal officials with expertise in the built environment to create and implement the highest quality codes to protect Americans in the buildings where we live, learn, work, worship, and play. And whereas Building Safety Month is sponsored by the International Code Council to remind the public about the critical role of our community's largely unknown guardians of public safety, our local code officials, who assure of safe, efficient, and livable buildings. And whereas the International Code's the most widely adopted building safety, energy, and fire prevention codes in the nation, are used by most U.S. citizens, excuse me, U.S. cities, counties, and states. These modern building codes also include safeguards to protect the public from natural disasters such as hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildland fires, floods, and earthquakes. And whereas each year in observance of Building Safety Month, Americans are asked to consider projects to improve building safety and sustainability at home and in the community, and to acknowledge the essential service provided to all of us by local and state building departments, fire prevention bureaus, and federal agencies in protecting lives and property. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby proclaim May 2016 as Building Safety Month in the City of Denton, and encourage our citizens to join with their communities in participation in Building Safety Month activities. Thank you all very much. Thank you so much. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. You bet. Thank you all. Okay. All right. The next item on the agenda is a presentation from members of the public. We'll have a review of procedures for addressing the City Council. The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure, including a code of conduct, which applies to citizens as well as council members. 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. The first speaker for agenda item 3-1 will be David Zoltner , regarding the decorum and rules of procedure 2-29C3H. State your name and address and your time will begin. My name is David Zoltner. I live at 2501 Timber Trail in Denton. Now that the city council has wisely chosen to repeal that confidentiality or GAG ordinance last December, we have another troublesome local ordinance to consider tonight. I'm referring to that section of 2-29 under the rules that supposedly prohibit citizens from addressing individual council members to protect decorum, whatever that may mean. Case in point, during your February 23rd meeting on a DME issue, both our city secretary and mayor were adamant in their verbal warnings to speakers about not directing comments toward individual council members. Since that meeting, we've discussed this ordinance with the staff of the Freedom Foundation in Austin, and I share the following direct quote from attorney Joe L arson. This is the same Joe Larson that sent you the letter last summer challenging the original GAG ordinance, and I quote directly. A city council has every right to maintain meeting decorum and decide if they will or will not allow public speakers. But if they do allow speakers, they do not then have the right to limit the subject of that speech in any way or regulate who may be addressed, including individual council members, as long as it's not defamatory, ad hominem, or slanderous in any way toward a public official. Now, even if you reject Larson's constitutional arguments here, maybe the comical way in which this ordinance has been applied lately might matter to you. Earlier, during your February 2nd meeting, Pete Camp stood right here and was allowed to address remarks directly and personally to council member Hawkins by name in opposition to his recall petition. And for the record, Pete received no Section 229 warnings. This was not an isolated incident by any means. At any given meeting, citizens direct personal remarks to individual council members for any variety of reasons. In other words, if a citizen wishes to phone over a council member telling them how cool, awesome, or wonderful they are, chances are 229 will never come up. But if they dare stand here and call out that same council member for a bad vote, an obvious conflict of interest, or maybe harassing recall petitioners, there is being removed from this microphone or the entire room under this arbitrary rule of procedure. Any third grader can spot the obvious double standard here, even if they don't appreciate the free speech issues involved. So what's the bottom line, you ask? Simple. We have another arbitrary and unconstitutional local ordinance to repeal, an ordinance less about decorum than about censorship and insulating council members from criticism. While you're at it, that rule procedure video also needs some serious updating, since it advertises our total ignorance of this First Amendment issue every time you replay it at the meetings. Lastly, on the subject of public speakers in general, the Texas Open Meetings Act makes it very clear that open mic speakers and what we now call citizen reports are two completely different animals. I'm not sure who told you it's okay to ask loaded questions or interrogate friendly open mic speakers, but it's de facto deliberation and a violation. All you can do in response to an open mic comment is state fact or policy or put it on a future agenda, period. This Jeopardy-style questioning game you've been playing isn't fooling anyone. On the other hand, a properly posted citizen report is every bit as debatable and even actionable an item as any other consent or individual matter scheduled by staff. The sufficiency of the posting is all that matters, not who put it there or how it's labeled or where it happens to appear on the agenda. That means you're free to discuss or challenge anything I might say right now without violating open meetings and you 're even free to repeal an ordinance provision right now if you choose to do so. So I see my time is up, so now you can tell me where I'm wrong and we can do it legally if you choose. Okay, thank you. Any questions, comments? Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, David. Surprise. Surprise. Yes, thank you. We do have a card for agenda item three. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. We do have one more speaker that signed up. Isabel Cano. Sorry, I apologize for that. Isabel, are you here? Come on down. Apologize for that. State your name and address and your time will begin. Hello. Good evening. My name is Isabel Cano and I live at 1323 Broadway, Denton, Texas. Does this show? Okay. I attended a mobility committee meeting on February 9 th this year and where sidewalks were brought up and there was good discussion on the subject and Councilman Greg Johnson commented that it's all about children and I think priority should be given to bridging the gaps on the sidewalks around the elementary schools in Denton. Uninterrupted sidewalks, proper crossings at intersections and signage for protected bike riding should be present wherever there is a school. I'm going to illustrate the sidewalk gaps with streets leading to Newton Raiser and I'm showing here on the map. Okay, here's Newton Raiser and I'm going to show you these two streets. On these two streets, which are Westchester and Emory, on this side there are sidewalks on each side of the street. On this one, there is only one side of the street and they come to an abrupt stop right here and right here. So there is no more sidewalk leading all the way to Ector. The school is right here. And here are some pictures from Google Earth. This is West chester and it has the sidewalks on both sides. And here Westchester stops about right here and then there is no more sidewalk going this way. And here's Emory where the sidewalk just comes to a stop right there and nothing moving on from there. And I also wanted to, this is Newton Raiser and I wanted to talk to you now about Wendell and Lee and they're all together right there. And I have shown here an area of a quarter of a mile going from the school in all directions. And I think that would be a good way to focus, to bridge the gaps little by little and then open up the area. And I'm going to talk about these two streets, Lee Drive and Bull Run Street and they're right there between these two. And neither one of them has any sidewalks. Now this is on an older neighborhood or older and the newer ones around this school, these schools around here are really good. They all have sidewalks and every single one of them. But these that are older neighborhoods and you have inherited the problem of whenever they built those houses, then there is a problem. There is a problem because kids are walking on the streets and if they ride the bikes, they're not protected. We have a question. Thank you. Councilmember Rodin. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you once again for coming up and being our eyes and ears out there on a number of these issues relating to pedestrians and bus riders and whatnot. You've come up and been very helpful in the past. If you recall from that mobility meeting, we had a discussion of varying priorities and schools were one of those. So I want to ask you, could you get us a copy of that so that we can make sure if that's not on our current list of needs for sidewalk improvements that it gets on there. And a question I guess for staff is one thing when I think about these neighborhoods is whether or not we have a tool in our toolbox that allows neighborhoods petitioning for sidewalks to do some sort of, obviously we'd need to require right away unless we're redesigning the streets and perhaps a way to kind of leverage maybe donation of right away to the city for the sake of getting a public project in there. I don't know that we've ever looked into a tool like that if that's available if it's legal, something that might push along some of these programs if we have willing neighborhoods. So just something to look at as it relates to sidewalks. Thank you. Councilmember Johnson. My question is going to be for staff but thank you again for what you've done for coming to our meetings and for your proactive and positive approach. Thank you. One thing we learned in our work session with the school district, we were talking about, you know how we solve this Ryan road. Ryan high school issue was that there's no funding provided for bus service within two miles of a school. But I don't know if that applies to all schools or just high schools, elementary schools, all of them so clearly, I mean, I had no idea until that meeting that that was the case. So we have we have a serious problem in that school district can't provide doesn't provide buses within two miles of a school. Lots of kids walk into school. So I think I would like to for us to put a priority on this because especially these older neighborhoods, you know, the newer ones were requiring the home builders to build the sidewalks. But within there's a lot of kids that live within two miles of a school that walk and I had no idea there was no bus service available. So this is one where to me we got to figure this one out. We got to figure it out. I think sooner rather than later. So if that maybe come back to mobility or something so that we can reprioritize the sidewalk projects, I would I would think we'd want to make sure the first thing we did was those areas closer to the. To the schools. Thank you, Councilmember Hawkins. Add to that. I don't know if you're asking for an informal staff report or something, but a lot of the crosswalk areas too. I don't know if those could be manned more crosswalks or, you know, even at the high schools, they're finding that those crosswalks are dangerous too. So I don't know if you could include that in the report. All right. Any other questions, comments? Thank you. We do have a speaker for agenda item 3C, I believe. 3C. Mr. Ken Gold, if you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. Thank you, Mayor. Members of the Council, my name is Ken Gold. I live at 2512 Netsch's Trace here in town. I'm going to break from the mold and instead of coming down here to speak against something, I'm going to speak in favor of something. I'm here to support the city charter. It's an important document. I believe that the Council is obliged to follow its dict ates. Make sure I'm citing this right. Article 6, Section 604 reads, "The city auditor shall be appointed by the Council and shall serve at the pleasure of the Council and shall perform such auditing duties as may be assigned from time to time by the Council or by the city manager at the direction of the Council." I think that's important. It clearly says shall, the same standard for appointing a city manager, for appointing a city attorney, city judges, municipal judges. I think that's a clear mandate. It's important. It doesn't say you can substitute it with other types of audits. It doesn't say you can do a reasonable fact-assembly. It's clearly set forth as an obligation upon you. And since we're in the beginning of budget time, looks like you need to fund one more FTE. I call upon the Council to please follow the mandates the voters approved in the city charter and appoint a city auditor at the first possible time. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Seeing none, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gold. I do not have any more cards, people wishing to speak, on agenda item 3. So we'll move on to the consent agenda. Council Member Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of items A through N, but we're going to be pulling L and N for individual consideration. All right. Mayor Pro Tem Gregory. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second for consent agenda item approval. Save agenda items N and L, which will be considered for individual consideration. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries unanimously. We will take up agenda item L, individual consideration. I will read that. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, prohibiting parking on the south side of Highland Street from its intersection with Bernard Street to its intersection with I double left street, providing repeal or clause, etc. Mr. City Manager. Mr. Mayor, this item was pulled during the work session, and Mark Nelson is here and can either summarize what the issue is or respond to questions that Council may have. I understand it was pulled so that Council could discuss options and alternatives of how to address this item. Okay. And we'll take public comment after discussion. Any discussion any questions on item for L. Councilmember was this initiative came forward from citizen petition Is that correct. Yes, ma'am. So based on that, I would support it, because I respect a neighborhood who goes to that extent to put forth the effort to gather this signatures to make sure it's legal to bring that to the city, because they feel strongly, because they live there. It's their neighborhood. So I would support this measure. Mayor pro tem. And Mr. Nelson was this reviewed by the Traffic Safety Commission, what was their recommendation. Yes, sir, it was was reviewed by the Traffic Safety Commission last month and their recommendation for zero to approve the ordinance in front of you for consideration. Thank you. Councilmember Johnson. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I asked for this to be pulled because it seemed like there was quite a bit discussion going on in the work session. And I think what this what this highlights to me is a much bigger issue. And we talked about it in the work session that there's there are there are more sections of this individual street that have the same issue. There are a lot of streets around the campus that have this issue to the campus that have this issue. And I think what we've seen here is that a group citizens finally got to the point where they felt like there were serious safety concerns. And so my request during the work session and I'd like for staff to to determine what what is the area that's appropriate to go and research. But clearly, there are a lot of streets that are in the same condition and rather than have because I would expect now we're going to see we would see a rash of these coming because if you own a property apartment complex, you'd prefer people don't park in front of it. So I would expect a lot of property owners to be starting this same kind of an initiative. Unlike for us as a city to proactively go determine what are the streets because it could be a width issue. It could be a traffic flow issue, et cetera. But to come back to the council and say, here's the streets that we believe would fall under the same sort of a safety concern, make a recommendation to either mobility or traffic safety, probably, and the council. But also then to work with you and T and T W to talk about how do we mitigate this? Because my sense is most of these people parking on these streets are students during the during the daytime hours. Anecdotally, we believe the same. OK, thank you. Any other questions for staff before we take public comment ? All right, thank you. We do have a card. Someone machine speak Mr. Willie Husbeth if you'll come down state your oh, I'm sorry , Councilman Wasney. I'm sorry, Mr. And be sure and talk to the fire department because I know for a fact that they have a concern about certain streets that the fire trucks just cannot navigate if you have parking on both sides. So if we do a comprehensive overlook on problem streets, make sure that public safety and our fire department has their say because they definitely do have an opinion. Absolutely. Good them in the stakeholder group. I'm sorry. Any questions for staff? Thank you. Thank you, Mark. I'm positive this time unless somebody chimes in there. Council members on my name is Willie Husbeth. I live in 623 Newton. I heard and I've heard this several times. You members are concerned about something and you give the you talk about it some and then you end with. Staff do this and I think we need to do this and I never hear any more about it. It you just that's all you do. I think I'm not sure. Maybe you do something else. But let me just make a statement about these kids. We need to not politicize this issue of sidewalks and streets and how we're designing them. These are kids. They're people. They're little people that we need to as adults and people in authority like yourselves need to make sure that you are doing what needs to be done to keep them safe. I drove down Hickory Street, my big old green van. Oh, no, it's Hickory. Hickory. Going in you pass Jago, you cannot maneuver that street without being very close to cars twice. Now those students open the doors or they just walk out. You really and I go slow and they people just blow their horns at me and I I wave at them. I think they're just trying to be nice. I don't know what the devil they're doing. You got to slow down and there is no room. And then I go to Hickory Street further down and then I'm supposed to back into these parking places with that great big old truck of mine. Again, I get honked at. Maybe it's a good idea that we're backing up and I don't know. But the sidewalk issue that the lady brought up, you need to not just say staff look into that. Can you imagine someone coming from Newton Rayser and they are in the second grade, third grade and walking in the street? Just think about what we're allowing to have happen. And the other thing I was on the school board when they moved the distance to two miles. I thought that was crazy. But I didn't have the votes. I voted against it. But that's not a good idea. So someone needs to do something about it. I'm telling you about it. I'm also going to tell the school board about it again and again and again. So I'm a tenth. I'll be in front of them saying someone needs to do something about this. When some if someone gets hurt again, I'll be right in front of you and remember and remind you that on the third of May, I told you we should have done something about this . And every time someone is hurt, I'll be right back talking to you about this issue. So don't just say staff look into that and then forget it. Thank you. Any other any questions? Seeing none. All right. We have a council member. Thank you, Mayor. I move approval approval of this agenda item. Mayor Pro Tem. Second. And before I call for the vote, I was one that raised a question about this. I'm going to support this, but I really want to have a comprehensive review before something like this comes again , because if we had this sort of segmented throughout the community, I think it's going to create more problems than it solves. So we need to have a comprehensive approach to this to this particular problem, because I can tell you almost every street in this town that's over 25 or 30 years old. You park two cars on the side of the curb and you're going to barely be able to get emergency personnel through that street. So we just need to have a comprehensive approach to it. So we have a motion and a second. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 7-0. We have one more item of individual consideration has been pulled off the consent agenda item and it's item in which is considered option of an ordinance of the city of Texas authorizing the execution of a contract for sale of real estate between the city of Denton as buyer and Denton County. A seller mayor this item was pulled. Mr. Johnson has recused himself from this discussion. We didn't have a presentation planned. This is the purchase of the building next door to in Quaker Town Park. And if Council has any question, my understanding is and Paul can correct me if I'm wrong, assuming and if Council approves this contract that would start the 60 day due diligence period that we would have to consider other issues before we actually close down. The property and we would recommend approval. All right. Thank you. Any questions for staff before we take public comment? All right. Seeing none, we do have a card. Mr. Willie Hutz. But if you'll come down, state your name and address, your time will begin. Mayor and Council members, I'm Willie Hutz with a little bit 623 Newton. My concern is that this item was pulled from the consent agenda. And Mr. Johnson recused himself because you're now voting on it. I'm going to ask the question. I don't know whether you can answer it. It still needs to be asked. Was he in deliberations doing the work session on this piece of property? Madam City Attorney. Yes, ma'am. You sure can. No, sir. He was not. He has completely recused from deliberations and vote. Is this property the two story building right back here? Right over here or where is it? It's between the Civic Center and this building. It's the old county jail. Yeah, that's one of the two or three stories? Yes, sir. Okay. And who owns it now? The county? Denton County owns it and we're acquiring it. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Councilmember Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of item N. Councilmember Rodin. Second. We have a motion and a second for consent agenda item N, which was pulled for individual consideration. Please come to the board, please. Motion carries 6-0. We'll now move on to items for individual consideration. Agenda item 5A, considered option of ordinance approving a first amendment to attack a first amendment to a tax abatement agreement between the City of Denton and Peterbilt. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to ask Amy Bissell, our Director of Development Services, to present this item for your consideration. Thank you, Ms. Bissell. Thank you, Mayor and Councilmembers. I just would like to draw your attention while I'm pulling up the PowerPoint to an ordinance handout that was placed at your seats this afternoon. This is replacing the ordinance and the back-up that was, or the ordinance and the incentive amendment that was in your back-up that went out last week. There's one substantive change, which I'll highlight as I move through the presentation. What you're considering tonight is amending an existing tax abatement agreement between the City of Denton and Peterbilt Motors. It was approved in 2015. It was approved for a $21 million expansion project. They are now undertaking an additional expansion project and have requested an amendment to their abatement agreement to include that additional capital investment as being eligible for the abatement. As I stated previously, the due ordinance is in front of you. The substantive change is that the base year for the new phase went from 2017 to 2016, and I'll explain why as I walk through the details of the project. Just to give an overview for the public, Peterbilt Motors is a company that opened their first Denton plant in 1980 with 83 employees. They currently employ over 2,100 people. They're our largest private employer in Denton. They have consistently over the years invested in Denton by consolidating and expanding their operations here. They relocated their division office from California in 1993 and again made a relocation of their PACCAR financial office from Las Calinas to Denton in 2000. They've expanded their facility twice since 1980, not counting the expansion that's underway today, and they've made continual investment and upgrades. Their annual payroll is approximately $200 million a year. They've also been instrumental in helping us recruit additional companies and expand additional companies in Denton, displayed are a list of companies that they have been integral in recruiting or expanding in Denton. I'll point out a couple, specifically Quality Industries is one that has tripled their footprint in Denton this year. Rush Enterprises has recently closed on a tract of land in our industrial park, so they're going to go from leased space to building and owning and operating their own facility in Denton. And SEVA Logistics was a recent relocation from Alliance that was a significant project for us as well. The original project that has a tax abatement agreement today was and still is a $21 million capital investment. The City Council approved on February 17th of last year an eight-year, 70% property tax abatement. That expansion included a small footprint expansion, but more substantially was interior remodel and addition of equipment. The base year for that project, which means that the valuation of the property on January 1st, 2015, is the base for the incentive and it is the increment in value, so anything where the value raises after that time is what's eligible for the incentive. The base year for the project is 2015. Their CO was issued in March of this year, and therefore their first year of abatement will be 2017. The current project, the one that you're considering tonight, is an additional $26 million capital investment, so it's more than doubling their capital investment in this expansion. It is 102,000 square foot standalone building that would be constructed north of the existing plant. It is within the existing reinvestment zone that was established specifically for this tax abatement, and the purpose of this additional expansion is to house testing, alignment, touch-up paint operations, and office space. And more importantly, it allows freeing up space inside the main building to improve product flow and operational efficiencies to be able to continue to increase production. If approved, this abatement would be 70 percent for seven years, just on this new part of this project. The base year would be 2016, because we do anticipate issuing a CO in early 2017, meaning that if we tried to set the base year for 2017, which was what was in your backup last week, then the building would already be on the ground, and there would be no increment by which to abate. The first year of the abatement on this second phase would be 2018. And this is just a site plan that shows the existing building and the location of the new building so that you have a feel for where it will be situated on the property. Considerations, under Chapter 312 of the Texas Local Government Code, as we looked at amending a tax abatement, we did some research with our legal department and determined that we can amend it, and that it can be phased. So the way that your agreement is written in your backup, it is one agreement, but it contemplates multiple phases, and those phases can have differing terms. So the overall agreement, the one that you read, says eight years, but phase two would trigger a year later, so it would only contemplate seven years. To give you an idea of what we looked at as we analyzed this project with a total capital investment of $26.3 million, if you look at the left column of the spreadsheet displayed, this is the current valuation of the parcel in question today. So this does not incorporate all of Peterbilt's properties. In fact, their total valuation of all the properties that they own in Denton is $170 million. What's not included in that $162 million is their Woodbrook headquarters, which is about $8 million, just shy of $8 million, and then their additional 100 acres that's north of them that's still in ag use today, which is the ag use value is about $6,000. So the estimated increase in valuation with this investment would be an additional $26 million. That means that the tax revenue that the city would collect that would be eligible for an abatement would be approximately $181,000 a year. If we took $181,000 a year and gave them an abatement of 70 % of that over seven years, as you can see in the far right column, the city would benefit from $381,000 in new tax revenue, and Peterbilt would receive 890 over seven years. I do want to point out that I'm going back two slides, or let me find it here, going back a slide. Currently, with their $170 million in valuation in the city of Denton, they will pay the city in property tax revenue over the life of this abatement about $10 million. So this is a small portion of that to incentivize the expansion coming online. This takes a look at both phase two and phase one. The top column, I'm sorry, the top rows highlighted in yellow are the new phase that you're voting on tonight, which is the same as the slide previously where the total incentive over seven years would be $890,000, and the city would benefit from $ 381,000. Beneath that in the orange is the incentive that's already in place on phase one, which is very similar, obviously, because the capital investments are similar and the phasing is similar. Their total amount that they would receive would be $122, 000 or will receive since that abatement is in place. And the city would receive approximately $350,000 during that time. In terms of a recommendation, the Economic Development Partnership Board does recommend approval of this tax abatement amendment to include phase two at 70% for seven years. What they contemplated was looking at this as if it were one application for one abatement, and really the one thing that it changes is that it more than doubles their capital investment, which would mean that they would actually qualify for a higher percentage rebate or abatement than they received. And it would have been reviewed more favorably upfront, knowing that it was more than double their capital investment. It is an expansion project with primary employment in the city of Denton, which from an economic development standpoint is what we want to see more than anything in this community. It means that our businesses are successful and growing and continuing to invest in the city of Denton. And then of course Peterbilt has a long standing commitment to the community in terms of their participation in United Way and other volunteer and philanthropic activities. With that, I will be happy to answer any questions. Councilmember Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. Amy, why is phase two not at eight years? Again, I know that they would end at the same time now, but . Because we're amending their current abatement and it has to end at the same time as the original phase, so it just shortens it by a year. Gotcha. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? We do have a card for public comment. Any other questions for staff? Thank you. We do have a card wishing to speak. Mr. Willie Hussbuth, if you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. Mayor and councilmembers, my name is Willie Hussbuth. I live at 620 Holy Newton. I'm just, I have a question that it's, I don't expect you to answer it. It's just I'm asking the question aloud to make a point. What is the basis for given incentive offerings or agreements? What is the difference between Buc-E's and Peterbilt? I'm wondering. It seems like incentives are given for individuals or companies who have a lot of money. Is that the basis? Or the possibility of developing more jobs or creating something that normally you wouldn't have available to the city if you didn't do that. I'm just wondering. I don't know what it is because it varies. I can't remember the others that you've given. But I'm just wondering if there is an incentive for my little store on the corner of Bonnie Bray and Oak, for example. I need an incentive for my place of business. Well, I tell you one thing you could do is stop code enforcement from bugging me about things that are not important to me. In with the last few minutes of my tarried or information presentation, why for the life of the city do you force me to buy one of those, pay for one of those trash containers when I don't want the thing? Why do you make businesses do that? $75 is what I have to pay. Couldn't you give me an incentive to maybe for that $75? And I know I'm being facetious, but I just hear about Peter bilt and Buc-Ease and places like that. And I'm wondering, what do you ever do for small businesses other than harass them? Code enforcement is the main one. Changing the name from to community improvement services. It's enforcement, ladies and gentlemen. You can change the name, but when you have people that come out there and say, if you don't do it, we're going to give you a ticket, that 's enforcement. So I need an abatement. $75 would be a good thing for you to do for me. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hesbitt. Mayor Pro Tem. For staff. For Ms. Bizet. Could you talk a couple of minutes about the criteria that we have in our programs for when we consider and some of the different criteria that might be used as we consider applying a request for a tax incentive, a tax abatement, a 380 agreement? Absolutely. So for a tax abatement specifically, because it 's based on the valuation of property, the primary criteria that we look at is capital investment and therefore an increase in property valuation, which results in an increase in property tax revenue to the city. So it is measured in millions of dollars and that based on the level of capital investment, then the company qualifies for a certain percentage of an abatement over a certain amount of years. And then there are additional factors that are considered, including adding high wage jobs, participation in volunteering and community activities, green building practices, enhanced design of the structure and landscaping , things of that nature for a tax abatement. However, we also under our Chapter 380 incentive policy do have the ability to look at other factors as well, including companies that are startup companies or they lean a little more towards small business incentives. And in fact, we'll be having more of a conversation with you about small business incentive opportunities in the coming months. But some of the other activities for big businesses would be things like looking at the number of jobs, the type of pay that's coming. We might apply one of the criteria of being a percentage of jobs that would be hired within the city. Yes, and we do look at number of jobs created and specifically we look for those to be wages that are above the median wage here in Denton so that we see that we're providing new job opportunities for our citizens and we do and weigh heavily towards companies that will hire local didn't residents. Yes, sir. And then, for small businesses. Are we doing any economic incentive programs for startups for super small companies like at the rail yard. Yes, sir. We are currently in the process of launching an entrepreneur center, which would be a very low cost of entry opportunity to have an office space or a shared workspace and be provided some services such as developing business plans. And doing your taxes every year, how to hire and interview employees, providing various coaching opportunities and mentorship opportunities with businesses that are successful to help grow small businesses to be able to be successful and then and and hire employees themselves and then. Thank you. Yeah, customer Johnson. I was just going through some of the math and just on this expansion alone, the incremental tax revenue, just to kind of put in perspective because obviously 2100 jobs and all the other things that Peter bill does. The tax dollars will receive from them now. Just property taxes, but just on this expansion to put in perspective that the sale the property tax dollars will receive is the equivalent of 532 new homes valued at $200,000. So, that's a lot. It takes a long time to generate that kind of property taxes, and that's just on this expansion alone so for that reason alone. I mean the magnitude of what they contribute is significant. So the, if this additional phase is approved over the life of the eight year incentive, they'll receive approximately $1.7 million, the city will receive over $1 million a year during that same timeframe and revenue. Yes. Okay, and the questions for staff. Mayor pro tem. Thank you, Mayor, I would move approval of the item. Councilmember Johnson, second, have motion to second for this agenda item. Five a believe, let's vote on board please. Motion carries 70. So our public hearing portion of our agenda. Public hearing six a is hold a public hearing considered option of ordinance of the city of Denton Texas adopting standards of care for youth teen programs administered by students parks and recreation department, pursuant to hexes . Excuse me, pursuant to Texas Human Resources Code section 42.041 parentheses be princess 14. Thank you, Mary Kathy Schaefer is our youth teen services manager with parks department and I'll ask Kathy to please present this public hearing. Yeah. Our standards of care basically covers our children's programs are for after school program our summer camps are spring break camps basically our recreational care programs and some of the items to count the standards cover is staff qualifications and trainings requirements staff to student ratios discipline procedures transportation communication and fire and safety drills are a few things. And each year the state requires us to hold the public hearing in order have our standards of care approved the changes for this year we did make some changes. We now have the standards of care on the website instead of listing them and handing them out to each parent we just have it posted in our parent manual to go to the website. Also we added that employee or staff as a definition, and we also added all the program specialist qualifications and trainings for them. And we also added that staff use can use their own cell phone instead of a city required phone because we were finding that the staff were never using the cell phones that we gave them. They were always calling us on their own cell phones. And so that's another change that we could either give them a phone or they'll use their own phone. And then also that we added recreation centers as a location in the standards of care. So those were the, the changes that we made for this year. We do have some questions and I failed to open the public hearing. So I'll go ahead and do that now so we can have our discussion underneath public hearing umbrella. Council member bridge had a question. You mentioned cell phones is there a policy where if anybody is in the vehicle that they're not allowed to use their cell phones. I mean that they have to write because they have the radios that they communicate with if needed when they're driving. But yeah, it is that they have a no text policy. We don't the city doesn't have a no answer the phone but it is a no text policy. Council member Johnson, would we have hard copies of those standards available upon request if a if a parent asked for hard copy without. Yeah, we have a large stack that also we have at the front desk when they register. Okay, thank you. Any other questions for staff before we take public comment . Seeing none. All right, thank you. Thank you. This is a public hearing. I have no cards but this is a public hearing anybody wishing to speak please come down state your name and address and your time will begin. There and council members my name is Willie has with a little 623 Newton. The question I have again, I don't want you to enter it I'm just talking aloud. What is it about hiring African Americans in the upper departments of the parks department that they're not qualified for. What is it. Let me just say share something with you. In the history of this city. Back in the 1800s. There has never, ever been an African American this is just one of many of the departments here in the city. Upper echelon management. We have three or had, I don't know if they're still there not members that are in charge of centers rec centers. And that's it. There are no others in any department, even maintenance of grounds. Has there been an African American in charge of those departments so my question to you, which again, you don't have to answer. I'm just going to keep asking it until I find out what the problem is. Why is that, what is it that we are not qualified to do. I'll tell you one thing we could do. And I'm going to do this with a school district we're going to boycott. These games, I'm gonna take those African American students with all that talent. And we're not going to the games. We're not participating. We're not going to rec centers. That's what I would suggest we do. You know, without a wind up being with those kids and their parents talking about me talking about not being in those programs. It'll just be me standing out there with a side in my hand. I know it. I don't care. And with the kind of commissioners I asked similar questions and they say, why are you asking us the question, what did we do, we are just here and we're just trying to do our jobs. Well, the same thing you would say too. But I keep asking, is it because we're black? Is that why you don't want us in those positions? What is wrong with us that we, you'll take our money, but you won't give us those positions and I do not for the life of me understand why that is. What is wrong? Why don't you hire us in these upper areas of management? Just the two I know about that just sickens me. Part department, that maintenance department, I talked to a guy who really wants to be moved up, been here a long time and he doesn't understand it. I said, well, why don't they move you up? I don't know. So the question is asked to you. You ponder that and then come back, get back with me. Thanks, sir. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak, please come down, state your name and address and your time will begin. This is a public hearing. Seeing none, we will now close the public hearing. Councilmember Briggs. I move approval of 6A. Councilmember Hawkins. I second. We have a motion and a second for 6A. Let's vote, please. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to public hearing, number 6B, hold a public hearing and invite citizens to comment on the city of Dent on's 2016-17 action plan for housing and community development. And before staff makes presentation, I will go ahead and open the public hearing. Thank you, Mayor. Barbara Ross with our community development department. Barbara. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor and members of the council. Thank you for allowing me to come up here twice in one evening. But I also want to thank my chairperson, Larry Barnes, for hanging in there too. The requirements for the community development block grant and home programs are that we have a 30-day public comment period, which includes a public hearing. In the past and possibly, well, in the past we've not always had good attendance at the public hearings, but we do have a copy of the action plan on our website. And we often get comments through the website regarding the action plan, and we will provide those to you at the June 7 th meeting. And that's really all I have. Any questions for staff this time? And this is, oh, Greg, you got to, no. So this is a public hearing for what we heard in our work session, then we vote on that on June 7th. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Any other questions for staff? I do have one, it's not a question as to comment, but what I brought up in the work session about the allocation of the restroom at Quaker Town. If maybe Parks and you guys could get together and see if there's, I just want to see if there's any other options. And if not, that's okay. But I just, or if there's not that need in those other programs that we talked about for that money. I just want to have a little bit better understanding with that. So if maybe you could help us with that, I'd appreciate that. We can take a look at that. And even if you do approve the budgets as they are now on June 7th, we can always take a look and do amendments after that. Sure. Yeah, no, there's no desire to hold that up. Yeah. This is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak, please come down, state your name and address, and your time will begin. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? And we have, there's no action on this. Is that correct? That's right. I'll call one more time. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? All right. Thank you. We'll now close the public hearing and there's no action required on this item at this time. Let's see. That brings us to agenda item number seven, which is presentation by members of the public. We have seven one, which is Mr. Willie Husspitz regarding code enforcement, ethics ordinance and citizen reports at the end of the meeting. Mr. Husspitz, if you'd like to come state your name and address, your time will begin. Yes, Mayor and council members, my name is Willie Husspitz. I live at 623 Newton. I mentioned earlier about this code enforcement or the community improvement department or whatever it is. The words been changed, but the behavior is still the same. See, the manager came out today and we had a good conversation. He's usually pretty good at explaining to me the whys, and that's most of the time all I need. Just tell me why. But let me just say something here. Let me see if I'm going to. Yeah, I'm going to do this. This is a good thing that this person did for community improvement. Can I show his name and say anything good about somebody? Yes, I can. Here, there it is. Show that young man right there. What I got from his boss was we're in charge and by golly, you either do what we tell you or we're going to take you to court. Now, you know no one's ever going to talk to someone like me like that, but that's what I got. James, Justin, did it right. He did it right. Let me tell you what he did. First place, he's been in business like me. He called me. He said, I don't want to keep writing you up. Why don't we meet and let's see what's going on. Let me see what I can do. I thought, where did you come from? He came out there. He looked at what I'd done. He looked at what I was trying to do and he said, I think I've got it. Now, Mr. Hutswit, you got to do this. Can you do that? I'm thinking, what is wrong with you? You're talking to me like I'm a human and I'm not a Peterbilt. You're trying to help me. And he did. He helped me. Boy, his boss ain't worth a hoot. His boss is still code enforcement. I'm the big city guy and I'm going to shove you in the ground if you don't do what I tell you. That's what I get from his boss. I know I can't mention him now. Anyway, so that's code enforcement. The other thing I want to talk about is this ethics ordinance. Get the thing done. You're talking, you say things about, well, I won't get to vote and I won't get to do it. Hubwash. Who cares if you vote? You don't have to vote on everything. To avoid the appearance of doing something that you shouldn 't be doing, just recuse yourself. It's going to come back on you if you keep doing that. That 's my suggestion. Come up with the, Ms. Wasney has suggested something for you to do. But you know what happened as far as getting the ethics thing going? You know what happens? Same thing you did tonight. Staff, get back with us on that . You did that when she suggested it. Has staff gotten back with you? Have you discussed anything about what she asked you to do a long time ago? No. I noticed that some of you are getting, having that posture that yes, we have. No, you haven't. So I think you ought to do something about the ethics ordinance. And lastly, what's time? 23 seconds. Oh, me having to speak last. That's hogwash. You say you're inconvenient. I'm inconven iencing other people. Well, heck you inconvenience me. I come down here every night. I'd rather be home eating. But I'm down here speaking last because you say I spoke too much. So I need to speak last. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. We're on to our concluding items. Any councilmem bers have concluding items? Councilmember Wasney. There's a development that has gone through planning that has not come to council. It's on the corner of Fry Street, Oak and Hickory. And the developer EDR has revised their plan and they are hosting a neighborhood meeting at Vortman's bookstore on May 10th, 630. And it's a neighborhood meeting and I know there's a lot of interest in the neighborhood about this project. So I haven't seen their revised project, but I'll be there on May 10th after our council meeting to see what the plan is that citizens have come forward with some recommendations. So just letting the public know May 10th, 630 Vortman's bookstore. Okay, thank you. Councilmember Johnson. Thank you, Mayor. Seeing the presentation from Barbara earlier in our work session, Habitat for Humanity was in there. Some time ago, we had a discussion, I think, about Habitat for Humanity and the question was posed. Other cities do things with Habitat like waiving impact fees or public infrastructure that's required and so on. And we've talked about trying to find out what are those things that we could do to help that project get off the ground in South Denton. So I'm not sure if we're going to have another work session on that or an informal staff report, but I know those folks are trying to get that project off the ground. And before they get too far through their process, I think it'd be good for us to have a conversation about what are those things we're allowed to do and let council weigh in on a recommendation in terms of the sidewalk requirements and the impact fees and the drainage and those things. And there's some things that the city could do to help that project happen. So I'd like to, before they get too far down the road, if it's going to be an informal staff report, let's get that so we can comment or get that on a work session agenda. Councilmember Briggs. I wanted to say thank you to all those that were involved in Jazz Fest this past weekend. It was really nice. It was a great turnout and good weather. And I just wanted to thank the volunteers and the police officers for being there and I think the event went very well. And I also had a question. If we receive something for an in-kind donation, what is the process to request that? Like, for the, in our backup, like do I have to, do I make that here or do I turn that in? I'm just curious. For the Denton Area Running Club? What is the process? They're wanting an in-kind contribution? Right. Yeah, for the Turkey Trot. And so is that a, has that already, is that budget? I'm just curious. I'm just kind of, this is my process. How do I do that? Yeah, I'd like, if you could just show me what the request is, we can see if it's something that we can accommodate. Well, when we get a, with something like this in our packets, does somebody also, because we all got one, I think, in our Friday packets, do you also get that or is it up to us to bring that to your attention? I don't always get it, so I. Okay. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Any other items? Including items? I just have one and maybe it's a, that's a clarification as well. Because I know Councilmember Johnson, you brought up the Habitat for Humanity. So I guess I'd like to maybe ask staff from the standpoint of the Community Development Committee if that request from Habitat was associated with the larger subdivision they're looking at, if that was something different. I'm just curious as to, I see you shaking your head no, so it was something different. Okay. Well, never mind on that unless there's something, somebody finds out something different. Okay. Any other concluding items? All right. We'll stand adjourned.