May 24, 2016 City Council on 2016-05-24 3:00 PM

I wanted to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Dent City Council. We do have a quorum, barely, so nobody can get up. Leave the room as a council member or we'll have to suspend the meeting until you return. It's Tuesday, May 24th, 2016. It is, depending on which clock you look at, 3 o'clock or the one behind me, 3.03. Our first item is a work session item. It's the only work session item we have is work session item 1A, which is receive report, hold discussion, and then a staff direction regarding request on behalf of the Dent County Behavioral Health Leadership Team with backbone support from the United Way of Dent County. And whoever's going to be making the presentation, I'll let you do all the introductions. Yes. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Mulroy, come on up. Good afternoon. It's always good to be first because there's no yawns or distractions or sandwiches to get in the way. How do you like being on that side? That's a straight line between here and the door. It's not like you guys. Anyway, thank you very much for making time for us. My name is Joe Mulroy, and I'm here representing the Denton County Behavioral Health Leadership Team in Denton County United Way. And it's a collaborative effort. The city of Denton has three representatives on the team, that being Mayor Watts and Mr. Langley and Chief Howell. All attend. So the history or the background of the Behavioral Health Leadership Team is the collaborative group for Denton County to really try to fashion an effective mental health system to deliver services. So we've been meeting for about a year, and then we have an opportunity that has come in front of us. And I wanted to bring it to the city council, being that you're vacating City Hall West. The Veterans Association, as you know, they have a clinic on Colorado Boulevard. And at this time, they are getting ready for new RFPs to expand the clinic and to expand the mental health capabilities. Presently, they only have 400 square feet dedicated to mental health. And just recently, upon retirement of a nurse practitioner, they went ahead and upped the position to an FTE psychiatrist. So we now, for the first time, have on the ground in Denton , a psychiatrist for the veterans. And but what has been related to us, and I have Dr. Bender here from the VA, and I've warned him that this is being recorded, so he cannot retract the offer. So anyway, the veterans, they anticipate between two to three years for their RFP to get out, get awarded, and get constructed. And that's to increase the facility from 12,000 to roughly 18,000. In the meantime, they fully recognize the shortage of mental health services. So they have offered staffing of 27 people if we can find the space. So I'm going to turn this over to Gary Henderson and Lucret ia and Dr. Steve Bender to go through the details to let you know what's available. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Mulroy. So I'm going to be working from a page you have in your packet that's titled Goal, Expand Capacity of Veterans Behavioral Health Services in Denton County. And I'll touch on some highlights here, but I do want to read several of the specifics. The first bullet, there are currently 46,000 veterans in Denton County. Approximately 8,000 are Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans suffering from PTSD or depression, approximately 50% seeking help. And if we jump to that last sentence, we also know that an individual diagnosed with both PTSD and depression is 20 times more likely to commit suicide than a person not suffering from these conditions. The second bullet, and this is really our challenge in the community, the VA is committed to increasing capacity of mental health services for our community. Currently, if we can provide them 5,000 square feet in terms of facility space in the interim, pending their new facility, and Dr. Bender can speak to that. The current space at the CBOC, the community-based out patient clinic in Denton for mental health services is only 400 square feet, so that would be a substantial increase in square footage for mental health professionals to work in our community. The next bullet, the key, 3,000 persons in our community are forecasted to need mental health services. These are veterans needing mental health services but not receiving. The VA served 1,800 Denton County veterans in 2015, while their records indicate 4,800 veterans were in need of mental health services from the VA. And it really quite simply is a facilities issue for our community at this point. Jumping down to the opportunity, utilizing space within the city of Denton, would result in an opportunity for the city to engage with the VA and the Denton County Behavioral Health Leadership Team to provide immediate access to our citizens. And here's the punchline and the opportunity we on the Dent on County Behavioral Health Leadership Team really don't want to miss out on, the VA has today approximately 3.3 million available in professional services budget. They can move, I'll let Dr. Bender come speak to this specifically in a second. They can move those mental health professionals into the community if we can provide the facility for those individuals to work out of on an interim basis while the VA contracts issues and RFP contracts and builds a permanent facility that is substantially larger than the 400 square feet being provided over off of Colorado Boulevard. And the least of which is additional partnership opportunities for us with both UNT and TWU to engage university students as well as professors centered around internships, behavioral health internships with the VA and with the community. So to back up a little bit, this is coming from your Denton County Behavioral Health Leadership Team. It was work group efforts that rose up out of one of the five work groups, the veterans work group. Individuals from the Denton County Veterans Coalition heavily involved in working with the VA, Mr. Mulroy, as his leadership through the Denton County Veterans Coalition. So honestly, we are seeking from the community facility space in order to take advantage of this $3.3 million in operational funding that exists for our use today. So at this point, Dr. Bender, if you'll join me up here, correct my mistakes, fill in the missing pieces and then we'll entertain questions from the council. >> Let me just mention that my role at the VA is the chief of psychology. And in that role, I have oversight of the discipline of psychology for all of our psychologists. We have just under 100 psychologists in our system. And then I also have program or supervisor responsibilities for all of our outpatient mental health clinics that are outside of the Dallas hospital. So all of our community based outpatient clinics and of course that includes Denton. And we have just been overwhelmed as was mentioned. This was driven by this behavioral leadership team who approached us with really this need and wanting to see what they could do to help. Impressed with our services and knowing that they need more and more staff at our clinic. And we were honest that we struggled then with space and space is the issue. Not staffing, we can come up with staffing, but the space issue is a problem. And once we get into the RFP and contracting that takes us to other legislative rules and things that we can't overcome and puts us in a long time frame. And they said, well, what if we can help you with that? What if we can find a way to provide some space? We have been overwhelmed then just with the support of this community and with that group wanting to seek a way to overcome that. So that we can increase staff and provide a greater benefit to the veterans here in need. As was mentioned, we served in fiscal year '15 about 1,800 veterans. But our projections and some other data show that there are about 4,800 needing services. We know that by tracking some of those, they're going to others of our facilities, including Bonham and Dallas and Fort Worth and other places , even though they're located in Denton County primarily. And then we also know that there are others that aren't enrolled in our system that we believe, of course, if we had additional staff to provide the services here that they would come and we could meet those needs directly . So it was a way to partner. I'm the clinical side of things in terms of managing the clinic. We have a facilities planner that has also joined us or been a part of meetings and then an administrator for all of our clinics who's also joined us, have been a part of our meetings who aren't here today, but who have also can help answer some of our questions or provide additional data if needed. But I'm involved in sort of supervising the people on site, getting that set up and getting what we needed in the space . So we've been overwhelmed. I will say that the other thing that the committee did for us was to ask for the ideal. How much do you really need? What would be the best? So that number of 27 or so positions is really the ideal where we think we could meet the need overall. Even if there was less than that, if there was space that we could provide something on the order of four to six additional staff, we would find a way to make that staff available. They wanted us to give information on what would be the most ideal to meet the needs given the demand that we have. And that's where we came up with the numbers that were provided. But I really want to just extend my sincere thank you from the VA and to this community and for your willingness to entertain this and help us in this way. I think the way I would punctuate Dr. Bender's comments, picture one of our men or women veterans trying to access VA services in Dallas, PTSD services. So their step towards getting help is to get on 35, drive all the way down to Dallas, time away from work, time in a stressful traffic situation. So if there were a way for us to provide these services in their community, that would be profoundly beneficial for our citizens. >> Couple questions. Go ahead. >> Sure. >> Yeah, go ahead. >> Do you guys think that there's going to be any need for clinical type infrastructure in that building? I don't know another way to word that or anything, or is it just more office space that is needed or? >> Primarily office space. I know we would provide the electronics or equipment that we would need in that regard for them to be connected to our computer system and all those kinds of things we could provide. >> Okay. >> Primarily the space is what we need. >> Gotcha. >> There are parameters or guidelines that have to be met in order for us to be able to use that space. And we have all the specifics of those kinds of things. We have other areas where we've entered into a memorandum of agreement and been able to meet all those guidelines. >> Okay, thank you. >> Okay, yeah, because sometimes I'm, so just if I'm not looking over here, say hey. >> And these services would be free to the veterans? >> Not all of them are free. So it does depend on the circumstances. They would be subject to the same criteria, eligibility criteria. So there are circumstances or situations if they are service connected, if their mental health issues are directly related to something that happened to them while they were in the service, then all of those mental health services are free. There is no charge for that. We certainly do also provide services for mental health conditions that are not due to military related. And then there are eligibility criteria that may subject them to a co-pay for services. Certainly not the same kind of cost. They're not bearing the cost all on their own. There may be a co-pay that they're subject to. >> And do you treat any homeless veterans at either at the location? >> We do treat homeless veterans now. We have a whole number of other services and housing programs that they're eligible for. And what we do then is connect them or do what we call universal housing screening and then make sure to connect them to all the programs that are available to them. Sometimes that might mean then connecting them to another staff member at another site. They don't necessarily have to travel there, but who would connect with them to look at all the programs that are available. We certainly do work with quite a few homes. >> Thank you. >> Couple questions. Would the new facility be located in Denton? The one that you're talking about, the RFP, the 18,000s, would that be in Denton itself? >> Yes. >> Okay. And as far as, it just left me, the number of people. So we heard 27. So is that something that's immediate? In other words, if the space becomes available and whoever provides it, you're able to work it all out. You're ready to put in place that level of staffing. The budget's already there. There doesn't have to be additional approvals. Or is that something that, well, if you can get it, we'll have to go figure out how we can do this staffing level. Is that already, so that's ready to go if you find the space. >> Yes. I think the way for us to be most respond, we can shift all of that. Most likely what would happen in that circumstance would be not all 27 at once. So there would be a shifting of what we know right now in terms of the demand would be something on the order of six to nine, somewhere in that range. We think very quickly that that, we would make sure that that's happening and then keep moving more. So that would be a combination of what we have. But then there are circumstances where we monthly have a resource management committee that we go to to get approval . But regarding this issue of access, when we are demonstrating that we need additional FTE, that's going to help us in terms of access and demand is there. We've had no trouble getting those approved right away then to begin to hire a recruit for that position. So we have, I have a number of staff who live in the Denton area but who work in Fort Worth or Dallas. And who would love the opportunity to relocate and work in Denton as soon as we have the space available to do that. And then we don't believe we'd have any trouble getting more positions. >> Well, if I could add, Dr. Bender, also please explain what you guys did recently to replace one staff position with a psychiatrist position because that need was represented in the community. >> Sure, we just had quite a bit of feedback. We had a nurse practitioner. We have essentially three and a half in person FTE and one of them was a nurse practitioner. But we got a lot of feedback from the community and from the group speaking to us that they would strongly prefer a psychiatrist. And we had to go back to resource management committee. And sometimes that is difficult to get approved because it 's an increase in the budget to have a psychiatrist for a position where it's a nurse practitioner. But it was really the community feedback and the committee 's feedback that we were able to take. And with that, they made the change for us. We now have a psychiatrist in person at the clinic. And one of the things that we've heard quite a bit from the community is wanting just more in person staff. So we provide additional things by detail. Staff from Dallas that are, you know, serving and providing services at the clinic by detail. But we've also heard from this community in particular that they would like more in person staff. There's kind of a push nationwide that we do more detail where it's needed. And in some places we've had good results with that. But this community has said we want more in person staff. Our leadership has listened to that and we're committed to providing more and expanding that way rather than more by detail. So from the timing of this, I mean, it's not like you guys have some target date. You know, you got to be somewhere within 30 days. This is more of, hey, we've got this opportunity, if we can find the partnership and get it together, then you're able to move it at that particular time frame. So those are just some logistical questions. So we're not under a time constraint here from this perspective of what's available and what's not available. Is that understanding? Okay, great, great. And obviously there's a lot of logistical questions like utilities, payments, ADA compliance, office. You know, that if the council gives direction to continue this conversation and move forward, how do we look at this to make it a reality that those will all be sort of flushed out in the ensuing conversations? Yes, Mr. Mulroy. I'm always looking for a way to say no. No, I'm just joking. All right, okay. I used to hear that all the time when I was on the council. Let's see, there's four of us here. All it takes is one. All right, brother. No, when I was on council, that's what I heard all the time . What's your bag of no's? How deep in your reach can you do it? No, that's a good question, Mayor. And I wanted to recap this. And not to preclude any other questions for Dr. Bender or Gary, but you know, when the rubber meets the road, getting on the ground, there's a list of at least 100 questions. And can we overcome them? Probably yes. Is this on an interim basis? Yes. Well, whatever you do with that facility, some of those changes you'll want permanently anyway. From the VA side of the equation, you know, they have an inch thick book of their requirements. But for an interim facility, you know, we're going to move for as much flexibility as we can get. I would be remiss not to mention one of the most interested parties is Dr. Burgess, Congressman Burgess, his constituent assistant, Melanie Torres, is on the veterans work group and on the homeless work group. And she's been deeply involved in this. And so the congressman is hearing of our progress and, of course, would hear of any barriers. And so this looks like a situation that's really on an interim basis that could fulfill this need for the community and not just, you know, for the veterans first, you know, there's 46,000 in Denton County, which is proportionately high, but it's because the two universities really attract them here. And as people shake out from Iraq and Afghanistan, we're going to have more coming. The 3,000 gap service for mental health is just what we can project on existing numbers today. It's apt to grow rather than diminish because of the attraction of the universities. But anyway, there's an infinite amount of partnership possibilities. The main thing is the concept amenable to city government, the council, the VA on one hand can bring three million plus per year professional services for mental health to serve the veterans. And there's going to be spillover of a lot of ancillary needs that are going to come with that. And we just have this challenge of providing an interim space. And that's what we're asking for today. And so I thank you for your consideration and any other questions. >> Councilmember Hawkins. >> Yeah. And so when the veterans come back, you're saying they're attracted to the universities because they're probably going to go back to school in a lot of cases. Okay. And I want to fill in, I want to underscore one point, you know, right now they're limited on space. And the veterans have a choice of some quick time face to face meeting here in Colorado Boulevard, or telemed, which is the television, are traveling to South Dallas. And I promise you, they don't want to travel to South Dallas. So we're creating our own gap by not having the facility and telemed ranks very low on the desirable service. It's that face to face encounter that's really going to help them repair their lives, which is what it's all about from the committee's perspective. So any other questions? >> Yes. >> Councilmember Bugari. >> How important is, I have two questions. How important is public transportation in terms of the veterans being able to get to this facility, proposed facility? >> Very important. >> Okay. That was my guess. And then the other question I had is, have you approached any other agencies or groups about an intern facility? >> We did have conversation with University of North Texas. And they have nothing on the horizon at this time. But the transportation is one of the keys. And then it's a follow on, a sequitur to the question about homeless veterans. We have a homeless group and part of the consideration, and those are the folks that need to help most to repair their lives and get back into mainstream living. And so they're going to absolutely need public transportation. So that's all consideration for us. So we really, the downtown core of Denton is really, that location is really optimum. Any other questions? >> Yes, Councilmember Riggs. >> What do you do for outreach to let the veterans know that these programs are available? Do you have certain? >> You know, that has been a discussion in two meetings. And the veterans are, they have a marketing program, but they want to enhance it. And I don't know if it's fair to put Dr. Bender on the spot . But that is one of their to do list is to use like Denton Record Chronicle and give notices of their increased services. Do you have any specifics? >> No. I know there are ways. I mean, certainly we do partner with this, with the community organizations and others, local service officers, all kinds of other things we can do to get the word out about those programs. But I think that certainly my director, but even at the national level, would acknowledge that we don't do as good as we should in terms of marketing the programs that we offer. There are ways that are above me, but in our facility and partnering with local communities that we are looking at in terms of increasing marketing of these services and what we can do to make sure that people have access to them . >> But let me add to both of those answers. We announced at Commissioner's Court this morning that the Denton County Behavioral Health Leadership Team has been awarded a grant from the Texas Department of Health and Human Services for Texas veterans initiatives and their families. It will provide for us among other things to full time case workers that can proactively go out and reach veterans where they're at and connect them to services like this. Those case workers will be managed by a collaborative team consisting of representatives from MHMR of Denton County, the Denton County Veterans Coalition, Paul Bastich at Denton County Veterans Services in United Way of Denton County. They'll be office space south of the lake in Louisville, in Denton at the Horn Government Building, and United Way of Denton County. So if you think about that grant award, $175,000 matched with local support of $175,000, added to an increased facility for mental health services for veterans. It would put us in a position over the next two years to fundamentally increase the help we're giving veterans. >> Any other questions? >> Well, we appreciate your time and consideration. >> Sure. >> And I think we can work on any barriers that would be and keep this from happening. So thank you. >> Thank you. Well, and just to sort of give you a genesis of this, because I attended the meeting at the University of North Texas where the ask was made for, you know, if they had any additional space. And of course, it was tight and just they're constrained by state law as far as how they deal with, you know, private leasing in public space from the sense of the university perspective, not necessarily state. And, you know, we're really trying to brainstorm what to do here. I just realized, well, it's certainly worth a shot to bring it before council to say, hey, we're going to have this building. And it was a temporary use, which I think was the thing that was the most attractive to me was, I know it would have been a much different conversation if it had been a permanent situation, but this is a temporary. So I'm all for continuing the conversation to answer some of those hundred questions and that four inch thick binder book to see if that's something that's a possibility. Because there's a lot of things that still have to go and we got a memo this week from the city manager about some of the things that City Hall West and some of the costs and expenses just in general that we'd have to incur. So all those come into play. But as far as moving forward with the conversation and identifying some of the logistics, I'm certainly all for doing that. And we're sort of light here on council. But Mr. City Manager, I just want to make a comment that that memo was an attempt to figure out a way to say yes. Thank you, George. Anyway, I'm sorry. Yes, the creation. I was going to make one comment and that is Dennis Brink is the facilities planner for the Dallas VA. I actually have access to that document. I'd be more than willing to share that with you. I know that he would not probably mind that at all. And then once you guys have your questions, we probably could actually have someone if you guys had a point person of contact that you could connect directly with him. He is really good about turning around answers and giving you kind of quick synopsis versus kind of a long jargon. But we do have access to the document that I'd be willing to share if you just tell me who that needs to go to. Is there any is there any opposition to moving forward with the conversation on this at this point? OK, all right. And so as the city manager, whoever is going to be the point person on staff and whoever is going to be the point person from VA and United Way or however you all want to set that up, just make sure we have necessary contacts and things such as that. Certainly want to recognize the United Way is a major partner and player in the whole endeavor. And I would presume that part of those discussions would be are there other grant opportunities out there that we would be able to secure to help with maybe some of these things that we might come up to say, hey, we might need some. So I think it's a great opportunity to have a very comprehensive partnership between the federal government, the administration, United Way, nonprofit and the city of Denton. And it's certainly well worth exploring because of the very needs that it will meet. And I think that's something that we all really care about and certainly would increase that opportunity. So thank you very much for Dr. Bender for the VA's willingness that if you can partner with someone to really put some personnel on the ground to really take charge of that issue and to really provide some additional services that are more convenient, maybe from transportation in city and also keeping people from having to go outside the city. So thank you for that. Thank you, counsel. All right. Any other questions or comments? Just one last statement. I was just amazed the work that they've been able to do at a 400 square feet. That's just amazing to me. Anyway, I know it goes without saying. You're a fat on that. So thank you very much. Fantastic. Thank you all very much. Thank you. And I owe you one, Joe, for that little-- thank you all again. All right, we'll move on now to our closed session. I will convene the closed session at 333. I'm sorry. Yes. Just to be sure everybody remembers, the entire meeting today is in this room. OK, yes. We will not adjourn to the council members. OK. Good afternoon, wanted to call this special call meeting of the city of Denton City Council at 433 PM. And we are in the work session room at 215 East McKinney Street in Denton. Our first item on the agenda is pledge of allegiance to the US and Texas flags. So stand if you're able and join me in pledging the flags. 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, and just as for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one indivisible. Thank you. That's OK. Moving on to our second items, our agenda item number two, which is items for individual consideration, agenda item 2A is consider approval of a resolution by the city of Denton, Texas, approving a change in the rates of Atmos Energy Corporation . Mayor and council, this is a settlement, a proposed settlement, between Atmos and the Atmos Texas municipalities. It's a coalition of cities under the existing rate mechanism. And we have John Knight here with us today to discuss this. If there are any questions regarding the item, we'll be glad to answer them for you, Mr. Knight. Good afternoon, mayor, members of the council. Before we begin, I have a very brief discussion as to how we got where we are and what this actually is all about before the council today. If there are any questions initially, not hearing any. City has two gas providers, Cosserve and Atmos. Cosserve is the smaller one, serves primarily the southwestern part of the city, primarily ropes and ranch area. Everything else in the city is going to be by Atmos. So they are by and far the largest provider we have. Back on March 6-- excuse me, around March 1 of this year, Atmos filed a rate case with the Railroad Commission. And they asked for a rate increase of about $35.4 million, which would roughly be slightly over 6% increase in gas bills. A little background on how those rate cases are handled. Denton is probably the largest provider-- or excuse me, the largest customer for Atmos. And many of the other cities are much, much smaller. So in order to-- excuse me. In order to streamline and make the system and make it more efficient, there's a coalition of some 56 cities that's been created to deal with rate cases. And we've hired Freddie Herrera with an Austin law firm to represent us on this. Once the rate case was filed back on March 1, the ATM cities, this group of 56, asked Mr. Herrera to undertake negotiations on our behalf. His office retained a consulting company. And after they looked at it, they felt like instead of $35 million, an increase of about $10 million, about $10.8, was more in order. Atmos did not agree with that. And-- pardon me-- negotiations began in earnest. Thank you. Very kind. Negotiations began in earnest. Finally, concluded with a compromise offer, or agreement between the two cities, potential agreement, of about $29.9 million, which would roughly be a 5.3% increase. And that is what is brought to you this evening. The documentation-- there's a more detailed explanation. The tariffs are attached to the proposed resolution. And the AIS outlines a bit of the history of this. We recommend to the council that you adopt the offer as it's been received. Council Member Briggs. So it went from 6% to 5.3? Yes, ma'am. Council Member Roberts. Yeah, typically when Atmos does a rate increase, how does that work? I mean, that's just a private company, correct? Yeah, they will-- of course, the ultimate authority is with the Railroad Commission. There is a provision in our current rate-making structure, thing called a rate review mechanism, which does give the cities a role to play. We have what's referred to-- you might refer to as primary jurisdiction over rate cases. But that gives us the authority, basically, to buy ordinance, grant a request, deny a request, or come up with something else. The appeal from that decision is to the Railroad Commission , who has ultimate, amazing authority. Gotcha. And how often can they do this, or is there no regulation of that? We've been seeing rate cases about every year or so. They're not an uncommon thing at all. It's a little bit better now, under the system we're using of the RRM. There was an older system called GRIP, which essentially gave the cities no authority at all. And at that point in time, they could even increase their rates between rate cases. This time, under this system, which we think a far better system, they have to come to us and ask for a rate increase. And then we respond by, in this case, engaging Mr. Herrera's assistance. Thank you. Any other questions? All right, and this is an action item. Yes, sir. There's a resolution. If you desire to approve the settlement, in that instance, you would pass the resolution. All right. Council Member Hawkins. Mayor, I make a motion to approve item 2A with option 4. We have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All right, all in favor of the resolution, please signify by raising your right hand. Pass it unanimously, 4 to 0. We'll move on now to agenda item 2B. Consider request for an exception to the Norse ordinance for the purpose of the last of the Rubber Gloves live music event to be held outdoors in the fence yard of Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio, located at 409 East Sycamore Street. Is that still on the agenda? It is. We actually are not certain whether or not the event is going to proceed as was planned. But our recommendation is that you approve the exception of the noise ordinance as is outlined in the AIS in the event that they decide to proceed with it. They've indicated that they may withdraw some of the events , but we just don't have a formal request for that yet. So in order to accommodate it, this would normally be something that would be on your consent agenda, but we didn't have a consent agenda today. So Caroline is prepared to give you more detail or information if you want it. But otherwise, we'd recommend approval as is in the AIS. And then if it proceeds, we'd have the authority to do that . Is that correct, Caroline? Council Member Briggs. I would make-- what was I going to say? You'd make a motion? Approve. Oh, OK. Yeah, I'll go ahead to that. I'll make a motion to approve as outlined in the AIS. I was going to comment about rubber gloves, but I don't think this is the right time. So yeah, go ahead. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Is that on it? I'll second. You have a second? I do have a question. Is this increase in the decibel level from 70 to 75, that's within sort of what we do typically for people who are events that ask for a noise ordinance variance, is that correct? Yes, it is correct. Similar variances have been granted recently to 35 Denton, to the Utopia Festival, et cetera. So yes, it's within the typical variance request. All right, thank you. All right, so any other questions for staff? Have a motion and a second for agenda item 2B. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. We have four votes, and that's the number of council members present, so the vote passes unanimously. Our next item on the agenda is item number three, which is public hearings. Agenda item 3A, hold a public hearing, consider adoption of an ordinance of the city council of the city of Denton, Texas, ordaining the city's participation in the Texas Enterprise Zone program, pursuant to the Texas Enterprise Zone Act. This is a public hearing, so I will now open the public hearing. Thank you, Barrell. I'm going to ask Caroline Booth, our Assistant Director of Development Services, if she would present this public hearing. Thank you, Caroline. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Mayor and council members, I am going to give you a brief presentation about Wynco Foods Enterprise Zone Program nomination. A brief overview of the Wynco Foods Distribution Center project, which is what is being brought before you for consideration for nomination today. This project sits on a 77-acre site in the West Park Business Park. This lovely photograph is not from our community, as the project is not completed yet, but is a similar facility in a different state. I want to mention and remind some of you that this is the city of Denton's largest economic development project to date, both in terms of capital investment and square footage under roof. The company invested about $130 million in this project, or will, at its completion. And more than 850,000 square feet are going to be under roof with this project. The project will create 165 jobs with an estimated annual payroll of $7.2 million. Another interesting facet of this project is that Wynco assumed responsibility for completion of the West Park Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone Project Plan Phase 1, which included improvements to roadways, drainage, water, waste water infrastructure along Western Boulevard in the West Park Business Park and TURS. Some background for you on the Enterprise Zone program itself. It was established by the Texas legislature in 1993, and it's intended as a tool for local communities to partner with the state to promote job creation and capital investment in economically distressed areas. The first step in the nomination process or the application process is the local community nominates a company as an enterprise project. And the nominating community must also offer some form of local tax incentives to the project. Nominated projects are then eligible to apply to the program for state sales and use tax refunds on qualified expenditures. Applications are scored on criteria related to the distress of the area, state priority, and local and private effort. And these applications are taken on a quarterly basis by the state. So Wynco is aiming for a June 1st deadline with their application. Just so that you get an idea of where the project is inside of an enterprise zone, the orange area on the screen that you see is designated as an enterprise zone. And the white marker with the address of 300 Southwestern in Denton, Texas indicates where Wynco's property is. And enterprise zones are determined by census tract and block group zones. So that's how the designation is formed by the state or determined by the state. Since a local tax incentive is a prerequisite for a program or a company being nominated for the program, I wanted to reiterate what the council has voted on and adopted as Wynco's reimbursement and incentive. You'll see under the first bullet the reimbursement for public infrastructure costs. Those are the costs to implement phase one of the TERS project plan. And you can see that there are four different mechanisms there listed by which Wynco will be reimbursed. And I apologize for the wordiness of the slide. I'm just going to summarize those first four bullets by saying that the total reimbursement costs to Wynco for implementing phase one are $7.4 million estimated. And then once Wynco is fully reimbursed for those project costs, the economic development incentive under the second bullet will kick in. And that total incentive over four years is estimated to be about $1.7 million. Of course, there will be some benefits to Wynco Foods if this project is approved by the state. Wynco would be designated as an enterprise project for five years starting on June 1st of 2016. And they stand to receive a state sales and use tax refund of about $412,000. That's 165 new full-time jobs times $2,500 per job. There are some benefits to the city of Denton as well if Wynco participates in the program. 25% of the new jobs that are created by the project have to be filled by people who are either economically disadvantaged or are residents of an enterprise zone within the city's jurisdiction. So that would equate to about 42 full-time jobs that would be subject to these parameters of economically disadvantaged people or residents of an enterprise zone being hired. It's also a significant benefit to the city of Denton to enter into a partnership with the state on a significant economic development project like this. And a very important thing to remember is that nominating Wynco as an enterprise project has no fiscal impact to the city because the reimbursements that will be made to Wynco come from the state directly. So to conclude, nomination simply enables the project to be eligible to apply to the program and receive reimbursement from the state. And I'm glad to take any questions that anyone has. Councilmember Hawkins. By definition, what is economically disadvantaged? So what I can tell you is that some of the criteria listed in the program documents for what makes someone economically disadvantaged are people who have been unemployed for at least three months, people who are homeless, people who have a physical or mental disability, people who receive public assistance, or people whose total family income meets low or moderate income limits under section 8. Those are all people who are considered to be economically disadvantaged. OK. Have we nominated other companies for this program? We have. I understand that we entered into the process of nomination with Aldi Foods, but they requested to stop the nomination. And then we also did submit an application for Target's distribution center that was not accepted by the state into the program. That's been several years ago. Thank you. Yes, Councilmember Garey. Can you go back to the slide with economic development up in Sunland? Yes. At the Ablora. OK, so 60% of the difference between-- sorry, no, let me get it bigger. There you go. 60% of the difference between that in current city at the Ablora tax is between property and improvements. And those unloading and wanting to make the team for four years depends on the first year after WINCO's pooling reimburse ment for all project costs. Mm-hmm. OK. So who provides that reimbursement? So you're talking about this last bullet here? That's the city of Denton providing that reimbursement to WINCO. And that's based on-- And I'm sorry, I stated reimbursement. That's the actual incentive portion of it. So that's not a reimbursement cost. It is the incentive itself. So how does that play out in terms of-- I guess they just have a reduced tax amount. No, this is a 380 agreement. So WINCO will pay their taxes and then be refunded the appropriate portion after they've paid them to the city. And I don't have my backup with me. I thought when I was reading that, it did address the level of the wages for the jobs. Does the program not address that as a percentage of median or something like that? I thought I remember reading something like that. You mean the level of wages that the company is obligated to pay to its employees? In order to qualify for-- yes, yes. I don't believe-- and nothing that I read about the program lists that that I saw. But I will say that the jobs do have to be full-time jobs. They can't be part-time. So if that helps at all, I did see that. We also do have representatives from the applicant here who know a lot more about this program and might be able to further answer that question if they elect to take their time to speak during the public hearing. Sure. OK. And then the other-- if you could go back to the benefits, it's one where you says it comes from either economically disadvantaged or out there. So 25% of the new jobs must be filled by people who are, one, either economically disadvantaged or, two, residents of an enterprise zone within the city of Dennis jurisdiction. Yes. So if you go back to the map-- we can go back to the map. That's a pretty large swath of the city. So technically, all those jobs could be filled with quote unquote residents and whether they met the definition of economically disadvantaged, if they're a resident of that orange area, whether they're economically disadvantaged or not, they qualify. As I understand it, that is correct. All right. That's the only thing I have an issue with the standards or the-- because the whole point of this is to help either an economically disadvantaged or distressed area or to help economically disadvantaged individuals or families. And that's sort of a-- I don't want to say an out, depending on where-- I mean, I guess if your whole city would be classified as that, then that-- but based upon what I'm seeing, I don't know if I would go that far. OK. Any other questions before we take public comment? All right. This is a public hearing. We've got a couple of cards. But I wanted to give the applicant an opportunity to speak if they so desired. You've heard some of the discussion. And if you think you can add to it, if you want to speak. If you don't, that's OK, too. How much is your question regarding the job salaries? Statutorily-- and pardon me. My name is Reese McDonald. I work with Ryan LLC. We're a consultant on behalf of WINCO. OK. Statutorily, no. There's no threshold, but the intent of the program, the jobs that we're certifying and that they're going to receive benefit for must be above the county average wage. OK, that's probably-- and do we know what that number is? I don't know what that is, but, Sierra, do you know my chance? I don't know the county average, but I know that they exceed it. OK. No, you're good. That's fine. OK, so they exceed that number. Correct. If it's possible, just in an informal-- through an email, if you could just send out that number, what the county number is, and then what this-- because I know when I did the payroll, the 7.2 million divided by the 165 jobs, that's not really a scientific way to do it. But the average wage was about $43,000. So I'd be interested to know what the county threshold is. OK, thank you. I appreciate that. We can definitely get that information to you. You bet. Thank you. You bet. Any questions for the applicant? Yes, yes. [INAUDIBLE] Are you receiving any incentives or [INAUDIBLE] from the other taxing jurisdictions that are going to be-- your facility is going to be located in? No. And were those sought? I don't believe so. We came in on the back end of the negotiations. All the local incentives were negotiated with corporate headquarters for WENCO. We just now came in or helping them secure this enterprise zone designation. Sure. [INAUDIBLE] The county is participating in an incentive for WENCO. They're contributing their 40% of the TERS fund for the WENCO site for-- as part of the reimbursement part of the deal. And I believe that their total contribution to the reimbursement is going to be about $500,000 if I'm remembering that correctly. So not technically an incentive, but participation by another taxing entity. OK, we've got a couple of cards. If you'll come forward to the podium and state your name and address. And I guess the time will begin. We've got a timekeeper? All right, fantastic. Carol Soave? Hi. I'm Carol Soave at 1620 Victoria in Denton. I would like to share with you some ideas regarding other types of incentives that could be offered to businesses wishing to locate in Denton, such as WENCO Foods. There are many examples of how renewable energy incentives can be used to attract good paying jobs. For instance, DME could partner with companies that are large electric power companies. That are large electricity consumers. Facebook is opening a data center in Fort Worth and has partnered with Altera Energy to build a 202 megawatt wind farm to fully power the Fort Worth facility. Facebook will not own the wind farm, but it will buy the power for the data facility that will house computers and storage systems. Says Tom Furlong, vice president of infrastructure at Facebook, thanks to our continued focus on efficiency and our instruments-- or investments in renewables in recent years, the carbon impact of one person's use of Facebook for an entire year is the same as the carbon impact of a medium latte. Toyota's new headquarters at Legacy West in Plano, encompassing more than 2.1 million square feet, will have solar installations to produce clean energy during summer's peak time demand. In demonstrating its commitment to Plano, Toyota has donated a quarter million dollars to support urban outreach programs for Plano's youth and $2 million to the Plano school district, DART, and other organizations. To quote Plano's mayor, this is going to be a cutting edge facility that demonstrates the company's commitment and responsibility to the environment. In Plano, we are starting our spirit of innovation to improve the quality of life. So this is the ideal environment for Toyota. Denton can offer that same spirit of innovation, reaching out to environmentally conscious corporations and small businesses by offering a committed and responsible environmental stewardship that promotes a clean and healthful environment for living, raising family, and working. Thanks to DME's Green Sense program, the groundwork is in place to implement and to aggressively pursue a program of renewable energy for large scale consumers already in Denton, such as Peterbilt, Tetra Pak, and UNT, as part of a smaller business enterprises and startups. Such initiatives will promote Denton's own environmental awareness and attract more businesses, large and small, that share Denton's commitment to a healthful and economically robust future. Thank you. Next speaker will be Ed Sofe. State your name and address, and your time will begin. Good evening, almost. Ed Sofe, 1620 Victoria Drive in Denton. I just have some information that I want to share with you, which you may or may not know. And if I'm being redundant, excuse me. But I wanted to give you some idea of the extent of corporate involvement with solar installations. And many of these companies are now here in Denton. But for some reason, they're not utilizing solar here. Some of these companies-- the big one is Walmart. They have 348 installations totaling 142 megawatts of potential electricity that can be generated. And of course, we know a megawatt is 1 million watts. That's a lot of electricity. Walgreens has 245 installations. Kohl's has 158. Target has 149. Costco has 85. And Macy's has 49 installations. So there's a lot going on out there. And distribution centers, warehouses, and convention centers are all prime targets for this sort of thing if economic development is so inclined. And I think that's something that would be very valuable to do is to look into a company's background and see if a company that wants to come in to Denton is environmentally conscious and has done renewables at some of its other sites. If one goes to WNCO's website, they will find this. I'm reading this. It says, "think out of the box." This is under their green initiatives. It says, "think out of the box." For instance, when we set out to light our 1 million square foot distribution center in Woburn, Oregon, we took the green route. We chose a smart lighting system outfitted with motion sensors. These sensors work like helping hands, turning off individual lights where no activity is detected, both in warehouse and office areas. So we've got a company coming in that has an environmental record and is doing good things at some of its other installations . Now, the point here is that I don't know how it would be done, but I think that in the future that economic development should research these companies. [BEEPING] Fire alarm. [BEEPING] OK. We are resuming our council meeting on May the 24th at 5:17 after we've had a little break. So I think we were having public comments from Mr. Ed Sofe. I think he's got about five seconds left, so just enough to introduce himself. And I'm just kidding. I didn't mean-- Take a minute or two, Ed. Go ahead. I didn't mean to give such an incendiary speech. I'm very sorry. There you go. Thank you. No, all I'm going to say in closing is just a little recap of what we've been doing. A recap of looking into these companies' background and seeing what their commitment is already to energy conservation and renewable energy. And as most of you know, but I'll say anyway, in the city of Denton policy for tax abatement incentives, there is one section that says the city may consider granting an additional 5% abatement for each one of the following factors, one of which is renewable energy will be generated, stored, or utilized for the project on an ongoing basis. So keep that in mind. Maybe we'll get Mercedes Benz here. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ed. This is a public hearing. I see no more cards, but being a public hearing, anybody wishing to speak, please come down, state your name and address, and your time will begin. Kim Goll, 2512 Natchez Trace here in town. Mayor, members of the council, thank you for letting me speak. I really wasn't going to say anything until I saw the staff presentation. I have no position on this one way or the other, but I thought as far as lessons learned go, I think I heard something in the presentation that Aldi had withdrawn its request, and the target request was turned down. I don't know, is there anything from those two previous procedures that could be learned as far as this procedure is going or for future procedures? So it's really more of a question than a comment. OK. Thank you. You bet, thank you. Any other comments from the public? Seeing none, we will now close the public hearing. And this is an action item. Council Member Hawkins. Mayor, I'd like to make approval of item 3A, please. OK, that's a motion for approval of agenda item 3A. Do we have a second? Can I actually just have one item for discussion? Oh, no, sure. You bet, yes. Absolutely. I would just ask that-- well, I'm new here. So to the extent that the AIS is lacking-- and of course, Ms. Bissett isn't here to say anything about it, but I would like to see the same data that we have on the presentations and the AIS, because I would like some frame of reference as far as the dollar amounts that we're talking about. And then also in terms of the AIS, she stated that there's no fiscal impact. Again, if we can have the actual dollar value of what's going on, that'll help me put it in some type of context. So that was my comment and request. Like they had a PowerPoint or something up here, and so you'd like to see whatever's going to be presented here in-- It doesn't have to be the exact PowerPoint, but at the very least, if it says no fiscal impact, I want to see how much the ad valorem part is, how much the reimbursement part is, if there's a TERS part to it, just if that can be included in the AIS material. Sure, yeah. OK. Normally, we try to include any presentations in the backup , so you would have had that, and I'm not sure what happened here. OK. That ends on-- OK. We had a motion. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. We'll signify-- we'll vote. All those in support, signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries 4-0, and that's the number of council members we have, so it passes unanimously. That leads us to our concluding items, new business or concluding items, item number four. Any new business concluding items? Council member Briggs. So I have a question about-- for parks. There has been-- when I was running, people mentioned fruit trees. And then, again, in this election, stands of fruit trees for community use or public use. And I was just wondering if that had ever been looked into, or if somebody had thought about that, fruit trees in parks . So you want to request some information on-- discussions on when we're planting trees in parks or wherever, how can we maybe move towards planting fruit trees, or what's the impact of that? OK. I'll add on to that. KDV has their tree giveaway, and I've asked them prior if they could include fruit trees in their tree giveaway. So I'll just-- a little second reminder. OK, great. All right, fantastic. Anything else on concluding items? Mr. Hawkins, you look like you have something on your mind. No, I'm good. OK. I just look like that sometimes. All right, OK. All right, well, seeing none, we will now adjourn the meeting at 522. Thank you all.