Aug 23, 2016 City Council on 2016-08-23 1:00 PM

Good afternoon. Welcome to the meeting of the Dent City Council on Tuesday, August the 23rd, 2016. It is 1 p.m. We're going to move through our agenda. Our first item on the agenda is citizen comments on consent agenda items. Do we have any blue cards wishing to speak on consent agenda items, Mr. City Manager? All right, seeing none, request for clarification of agenda items on tonight's agenda or today's agenda. Any clarifications? Yes, Council Member Wasney. >> Under consent agenda A, I'd like to move it to an item for individual. Just because this was a topic that had a lot of public interest and it's been a long time from that point to this point. So that it's more of a public information opportunity than anything else. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mayor, staff has two items on the consent agenda. Item 2D, we're going to postpone that to the 13th. >> Okay. >> D as in boy. >> D as in dog. >> D as in dog. >> David. >> And then items for individual consideration 3A will also be postponed to the 13th. >> Okay. All right. I've got one, but one to get everybody else. Anybody else have any clarifications? One is we've got a closed session today on the Ryan Ranch development. And it's my understanding that there may be, I'll just tell you what my thought is. If we could get this wrapped up today, I'd like to do that, if possible. So there's some items that they want to bring forth in closed session, and we can give them direction in closed session. Where, depending on that direction, if we say, hey, can we tweak some things and get it ready for the meeting tonight? Would that be something, can we do that? So I say that because it's our first item on closed session . But we've got four work session items, it's probably going to be a couple hours at least. So I didn't know if there was any appetite to, number one, if there's a desire to try to see if we can't wrap that up. Move that forward, take that as the first agenda so we can give staff a little bit more time if that's the direction to do that. And if not, then we'll just leave it in its order, the order that it's in. So, Madam City Attorney. >> Mayor, I would add that we've posted that closed session item in case you've got any questions for the legal department. We also have on the regular agenda, it's your item 3C and your item 3E. 3C is actually the pre-annexation development agreement. We pasted item 3E as a contingency. It's an extension of the existing non-annexation agreement in the event we were not able to get the development agreement consummated. And so we've got two items, again, E posted as a conting ency. I think the staff has some information that they do want to provide to the council with regard to this item and item 3C . So the council will know where we are on this. And I hear the mayor saying he'd like to move forward if we could. So that may mean we need a little more time. >> Yeah, and I guess our closed meeting posting is for- >> Those two items as well. >> Well, it's attorney. >> Correct. >> It's legal advice. >> Yes. >> If there were some tweaking of it that certain departments wanted that was not legal advice, we could not address it in that closed session. So we would have to move that agenda item into an open session as well. Is that correct? And number one, can we do that? >> Well, you would take your legal advice in closed meeting . But if there are items that don't relate to legal, then if you desire to, you could ask us questions concerning that clarification of the agenda items at this point in time. And we can tell you what we know about that item thus far. >> Okay. Comments? I mean, I've had conversations with the attorney and the developer. There's some time deadlines that are pretty critical as far as moving this thing forward. Just on parts of that development that I don't think we've had issue with, and that is the Good Samaritan and the ESA. So I'd really like to be able to give it some time if we're able to and see if we can't work this out. And I guess what I heard you say is anything we'd want to talk about in open session needs to be done now as a clarification of an agenda item. Instead of it being an actual open work session, is that correct? >> Correct, that's how we're supposed to at this point in time. >> And I'm going to, any comments so far? If not, I'm going to take some liberty on this closed session, on this open clarification. Is that okay? All right. It's my understanding that, and so clarify, if you will, someone, that we had a presentation on this a couple weeks ago that the council had an opportunity to accept it as it was and we asked for some information and come back and so forth and so on. But it's come to my attention that there's some tweaking of the development agreement that engineering would like to do on some things that have developed after the fact. And so I'd like to get some clarification on what those are and if we could. So that if there's an opportunity for us to do something different, we can. That's one. We want to take these in. You're looking at me like. >> Okay. All right. Yes, okay. For those of staff who've come in, we're looking at clarification of agenda item 3C, which is the development agreement with Ryan Road. And part of it is some issues have come up to see if we can 't get some direction on this to move forward on the development as a whole tonight. Or if we're going to need more time. The concern is there's a time deadline for the Good Samar itan portion of that development agreement. So it's my understanding that engineering has asked for some minor tweaks, even subsequent to our meeting two weeks ago in the development agreement, which may cause some delays. So part of my desire is if we are able to get some direction on that, then we give direction to put that in the agreement. So to clarify what I understand the situation to be, there was some questions asked to bring back some things to council. And that is the size of the lot, so forth and so on. I think staff and the developer have come to some meeting of the minds as far as what the residential component would look like. As a clarification of the agenda item, I'm okay with as it was proposed if we just change the percentage of homes that are over 2,400 square feet. From I think it's 25% to either 45 or 50%. I didn't get any objection to that. So as far as the density, the 137 lots which I seem to object to, I don't have an objection if we can get an increase in the number of homes that are 2,400 square feet or above. And that the amenity centers stay in place. And that basically the whole thing stays as it was. Say for that requirement. I've not heard any objections to that. That doesn't mean that there wouldn't be, but I haven't heard that from the developer. So if we're able to come to some agreement on that portion, then I'd like to move this thing forward if we can get it done. If we can't, that's okay. I just wanted to give my colleagues an opportunity to either express their desire to do that as well or no, we need to do something different. So we're still under clarification, yes. >> Okay. >> I guess I'm okay then. >> Well, you can clarify. >> I didn't know if you're looking for direction. Are you looking for direction or clarification still? >> Well, Madam City Attorney. >> Madam. >> Well, okay, let me come back to that. Let me think through that. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> I've got a clarifying question that I guess would involve staff. And that is the agreement at a point given the suggestions by the mayor. That if those things were tweaked, that staff's in agreement that we can go ahead and move forward with this. Are there other lingering issues we need to know about prior to tonight's public hearing? >> Let me take the first crack and I'll let our city manager close here. First, we looked at this development agreement with an eye toward trying to separate out the development piece from the ESA and the GoodSAM piece. And as we looked at it, we did a really good job, I think, initially when we drafted it, tying those things together. So as we looked at the possibility of trying to separate them out so that there would be no problem with the GoodSAM piece, we determined that it was really too tedious and we just didn't have ample time in the week that we had to do that. So as we move to look at it, we thought perhaps we should just get an extension on it and go ahead and act on all of the pieces together. Now we do have a working draft, I think, with regard to taking action on the whole piece. The developer, however, has not seen the red line that we have done on it to date and we'd really like for them to look at it and tell us that they are in agreement with the changes that we have made concerning the engineering piece and somebody in the engineering department's going to have to explain those, I can't do that. But we do have a working draft, although they've not seen some of the changes that we have made and certainly we would desire that they look at it and be agree able and accept it before we ask the council to act on it. >> So has there been an attempt to provide that to them today or prior to today so that we can perhaps get some feedback prior to tonight's agenda item? >> I think I'll ask Manal and Jennifer, has that been forwarded to the developer, the changes in the agreement? Manal? >> Answer that question at the mic, please. >> The developer at this point has not had an opportunity to review the red line document that we are working with, which is referenced to the minor tweaks as it relates to the infrastructure component. The Ryan Roadway component and the water line installation aspect of the agreement. In terms of the original draft, that language was in there, but the revisions or the review of which relates to the red lines have not been disseminated to the developer or the applicant at this point. But they're aware of the changes that are occurring as it relates to Ryan Road and the costs associated. >> Two questions. So the question that the mayor has regarding time, is that that Good Samaritan for their expansion wants an answer? Is that kind of the crunch? >> It's my understanding that that's, yes, that's the majority of it because there's potential deadlines that it could expire and that may not be renewed. It's my understanding. >> So that's question one. Question two, we really need to hear from the developer up or down before this council takes any action. >> Okay. All right, council member Gregory. >> Thank you. Well, since this is posted as clarification, I need some clarification. I noticed in the AIS that there were a couple of changes in this iteration that's in our backup from the original. One of which I felt very comfortable with, the other one I had a question about. The one that I felt comfortable with was the minimum of 25% of the dwellings are not now at 2,400 square feet, 2,800 square feet. That sounds fine to me. But the other item was that the open space, the minimum open space shall be 22% instead of 30%. Could you explain that? >> Yes. In your backup, if you notice in the spreadsheet that was provided, there's three proposals that show in red that reflect a change. The first change was, based on previous discussion, to increase the minimum dwelling unit size where no less than 25% of the dwelling units shall be 2,400 square feet. The applicant increased that to 2,800 square feet. That was the original when the backup went out. Second to that, there was a change that they had proposed, the applicant had proposed, whereby they would increase the length of the lots at the southern property line where the tree line is. Approximately 13 lots, if I am not mistaken. They elongate the lots to have a percentage of lots that would be 10,000 square feet. If that were to occur, that would eat into the open space requirement which dropped the percentage. That's the deviation you see of 8% from 30% to 22% because they would be acquired in. After which, there was additional discussion and the discussion was to perhaps look at or evaluate the opportunity to increase, leave the lot sizes as are at the minimum of 7,200 square feet, retain the existing configuration, and increase, have a minimum of 45% approximately of the dwelling unit sizes to be 2,800 square feet or more. That's not in your backup. This is, the discussion is evolving. >> And have you heard a reaction from the developer on that ? >> I heard a positive reaction. >> Okay. >> 28, the new one. >> So as clarification, oh, did you have, anybody else? On this engineering clarification, I guess my thought is that I think we've had this under advisement for months. This, we're trying to figure out what we're going to do here. To the point that we're now running up against the expiration of the non-annexation agreement. So I would like to have some explanation of why all of a sudden there's an engineering change. I mean, if we had approved it two or three weeks ago as is, this change that is being requested, it's not going in. So first of all, so as clarification, are we still working on exactly what it is engineering is asking for in this change or have we been able to identify with clarity and specificity? >> We have identified with clarity and specificity as to how the language needs the terminology of the content as it relates to infrastructure. We have had regular workshops with the applicant as we've gone forward and amended the pre-annexation agreement language as it relates to the infrastructure. However, after our last work session meeting, we put pause on that because we were going to try and disseminate the property area and try and do it piecemeal. And as a result, we didn't finalize, we were going to use last week to finalize that pre-annexation agreement and formalize the language in that. That was the intent to use that time and that's where the lag time occurred and we didn't finalize the agreement. >> Okay, then I'm going to answer my own question about timing. Because we do have this on an open session. I mean, this is an item. So I would advise staff to contact the developer. If the developer wants to have an opportunity to resolve this today, they need to get up here, they need to work with staff, they need to figure out these things and then when we're in the open session at the regular council meeting, we can talk about all these different provisions that we're batting around here. We don't need to, those aren't items of clarification, that 's more policy deliberation. And in our closed session, we'll only be able to address legal matters. So if that's not important to them, well then we'll just move on and have our discussion as we normally would. And because I want this to have an opportunity, especially if we started changing things that we thought we had in place. Way before we even had to start having this conversation. So that's sort of how I'd like to move forward. Is that okay with everybody? Okay, fantastic. All right, thank you, appreciate that. >> I think that's probably the longest clarification we've ever had. >> Okay, moving on to the next agenda item. Any other clarifications on the agenda? Seeing none, all right, we'll move on to the work session reports. Work session 3A, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction. Give direction to staff. And Waters and Company on the city manager recruitment process. >> Thank you, Mayor. Carla Romine-Hagmark, our director of human resources, will kick this item off for us. >> Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the city council. As you know, we contracted with Waters and Company to do our search for our city manager. Chuck Moore and Miguel Azuna have been assigned to assist us with our search. We were on site on August 10th and the 11th to interview you, as well as other stakeholders identified by the council. A couple of you weren't available, so Miguel followed up on the 18th to get your input. We also published a survey that Waters created for us on our website. It was posted August 12th through the 19th. We sent out a press release to get feedback or input from citizens. We also sent it out to the organization to get input from our employees. And with the feedback received from the stakeholder interviews and the survey, they developed a profile of what we're looking for in a city manager. And this profile was used to develop a brochure, as well as make recommendations to the city manager job description. Both of those were provided in your backup. But just as a quick note, the brochure was given to you in a Word document just for you to review the language. They gave you a more finalized copy. I presented it at your seat. I do know that Miguel does have a recommendation to change out the front picture, though, on the front page, which I'll talk to you about in a minute . But Miguel will come up and talk to you about the process that they utilize in a search like this. Talk about the timeline or an estimated timeline. Obviously, with direction we get from the council, it may change that timeline. Through the process, though, of his presentation, we will be seeking your approval on this final brochure, as well as the city manager job description. And then we'll be seeking your direction on what process you'd like to use for the interview here specific to Denton. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Miguel. >> Thank you, Carla. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council. First of all, I wanna thank you for the opportunity to partner with the city of Denton to in this endeavor to get the city's next city manager. My name is Miguel Ozuna, I am one of the associates that will be working with you directly in this process. Chuck Roar also is the other associate that will be working with me on this endeavor. And he couldn't be with us today, but certainly he's very much involved. I believe you either met with him or myself or spoke on the phone as well to develop the brochure. Certainly, we're excited about this opportunity. As mentioned earlier by Carla, we're briefly discussing the process that we'll be using from beginning to end. We'll also talk about the timeline and how long it's gonna take or what we're proposing it takes to get the process done. And then some tasks associated with the interview process. Some of the things that we recommend or suggest to do, obviously that is something that we can discuss a little bit further as we go through the presentation. But certainly that's what I'll be talking about today. Task one, which is the recruitment brochure development and advertising. That's what we've been doing for the past two weeks or so. We've met with stakeholders, we've met with you individually, put that information together, which is now what we have before you. We first just worked on the text, obviously, as Carla mentioned. And we got that to a point where we felt comfortable that reflected the comments of not just the council, but the stakeholders. And also the preliminary results of the survey that was done. That closed at the end of business day on Friday. We're still trying to get the final results, but prelimin arily what we looked at, the comments and where the most important things came up within the survey are also included. Even, you know, we had the test done already. We looked at the results and all the things that came up as extremely important and very important. Technically they're already incorporated in the brochure itself. Some of the things that are not are things that can be v etted through the interview, the screening process. Certainly it is aligned, the survey, the preliminary results is aligned with what is in the brochure itself. What you have in front of you is a brochure that we would like to use. The text is what really, we got feedback from you all as well. The pictures were inserted in there over the weekend through our printing company. I am suggesting that the first picture there can be changed . I think it's a great picture. I think it's involved with an event here in town, but certainly I don't think it reflects the weather and dentin year round. Certainly there is a picture that is on the third page in the bottom left-hand corner. I think that's the one that I recommend to use. It looks small there. It's a little distorted because it's small, but certainly once it's placed up there it looks a lot better. And that's what I am suggesting to the only change on that brochure. So before I continue on the next task, any questions on that brochure or comments on the text or anything like that ? Our brochure is typically four pages long. Is ours just, is this normal? It is normal. It's going to be in a booklet, sorry, you know, it's not just going to be four sheets, but it's a brochure and it's a booklet front and back. And that's how it's presented. Okay, thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Had we, when you arrived at the compensation range, was that based on the conversations you had with the council members individually and then came to some consensus after hearing from four of us or five or six or seven of us? Yes, I think that's, that I think was touched upon a little bit more by Chuck, but what we put in here is what we gather from those meetings. Specifically for that particular item is what we get from council. Did we ever get, and maybe we didn't, I'm missing it. Did we ever get a comparison chart of comparable cities regionally as to what they're paying city managers? Can somebody remind me on how this particular range fits in with that? I don't actually have the survey with me. I had attached it when I was sending an email out to the group about what the process was going to look like. I do remember off the top of my head though, it did seem like it was fitting within the salary range, but I couldn't give you specifics by city, but I can definitely rescind that if you'd like. I'll look it up too while I'm sitting here and if I have further questions I'll ask. Thank you. Yeah, and if you're going to address this later, sometimes I do that, seems like every week, but how do the candidates get this in their hands or how is this released? It's part of the presentation that- Gotcha, that's fine. I'm sorry. No, I'll wait. Yeah, it's part of the presentation and I'll talk about that as how we get this out to the outreach component of it . Okay. Yes. Question for legal about the terms of compensation. So there's an employee retirement match number in here. Is that a starting point? Are we bound to that? I mean, it changes every year as I understand it based on the budget. Right, that match number is consistent for all employees across the board. So it's the employee or the officer puts in 7% of their salary matched by 14% approximately. So it's consistent across the board for all employees. Is that number changeable by the council or is it a TMRS? It's a TMRS, but the city sets the match essentially, yes. Okay, the reason I'm asking is because if the council were to change the matching number, would we be bound to this advertisement in terms of what the match is? Well, it may be not legally bound, but certainly there is perhaps a policy or I might say ethical question with regard to putting that specific language in, yes. Okay, thank you. Let me call on Brian Langley for some comments, please. I just wanted to clarify the comment about TMRS is the benefit structure for the employees. It's a requirement to be in TMRS if you're not in the fire pension. All other employees were part of the TMRS pension system and it's a two to one benefit. So it's a 7% employee contribution and then double that benefit for the city's contribution into the plans of 14%. But that's how that system works, you really can't decide, it's going to be, we're going to put 20% into the pension or 12%. It's a formula driven approach. If you want to do something different outside the bounds of TMRS, then the council I think would have any discretion that you wanted to do there. But in the plan, it's a very specific formula of how it works. I hope that helps. >> I do have a question on just the front page. It sounds like a silly question, but I've thought about it and I'm going to ask it. The first line is the city of Denton, Texas seeking a highly experienced ethical and visionary leader to serve as it's, and it goes on. Do the descriptions or those kind of things usually, I mean , I would think that we would be looking for someone ethical in general. So is that because that was something that came up through the survey, that word came up through the survey and conversations, is that why? I'm not saying we shouldn't include, it just sort of leaped out at me like, well, I mean, it almost sounds like that. Anyway, it's just sort of, is that typical or? >> Those titles there, we have several that we use. And it's one of those that we've used others and we changed the words on there and ethical. But certainly, I can understand, I can see your point. Certainly we can scratch that out, certainly. >> No, but that helps, so let me ask. So this line came from sort of a bank of introductory sentences that you might have as a company or? >> Yes, we do that. We do have a bank, but we try to put it together and align with what we've heard. But certainly, I don't think we used the word ethical because of what we got here. That was just something that was part of it. >> The visionary is something that I did hear with what we have. I know that was in there, but certainly that's ethical, probably is one of those that kind of just stayed in there. >> I'm not going to ask for it to be removed. I just needed to just share my thoughts that it just seemed a little, I mean, that was the first thing that sort of jumped out of the page when I read it. And it wasn't necessarily a feel good positive kind of feeling that it elicited from me just reading the brochure. But that's just me, so I'm not saying we got to do anything with it. I just wanted to be authentic and share my thoughts. >> Sure. >> Yep. Okay, yes, Council Member Rood. >> I did have the opportunity to review the salary ranges that were sent in your previous email. I appreciate that. My only thought with that, and I'm generally comfortable with that range. As I look at the range in the comparable cities, there's really nothing I would say that's really in the low 200s. Everything's in kind of the mid to upper mid to toward closer to 300,000 or closer to 250, so my only thought is, I mean, I don't know who we end up kind of attracting to this position. But say it's a current city manager in one of those spots, and they're sitting at about 225 and they see that that's kind of our cap. Is this incentivizing them to look at a change to move to a better city that's better than all of these other sorts of cities? And do we need to at least on the front end have the flexibility to say, we got someone in of a caliber that we were willing to pay 292? Not saying that that's what we're, would we rather just make sure we have our net cast wide enough to be able to bring in quality candidates? Or are we leaving some folks out with restraining it to 250 , which is what it seems to imply. So that's really a question for the council and what we're comfortable with based on looking at these salary ranges. >> So you're asking, is there a way to maybe modify that language to send a little bit more general information, not pigeonhole-assimilation? >> At the end of the day, we have the ability to negotiate that contract to what we want. We might at the end of the day come back and say, what's appropriate for the candidates that we got is 180,000. Perhaps, based on that language, because it says up to low to mid 200s. I'm just saying, would it be worth extending that to upper 200s as a way to just make sure our net is sufficiently cast so that somebody's looking at that. As I look at all these folks, I'm not sure that would attract a seasoned city manager from the region to even look at this as a possibility based on how we've printed that. Just to make sure our options are open, at the end of the day, we have full decision making authority as to who we want to pick and what we want to pay him. I just don't want to leave out qualified candidates because we've put it too low. >> Thank you, yes. >> Salary is always negotiable. As people apply, salaries are always negotiable. If you're uncomfortable with that specific wording, then keep it really general and just say in the 200s so that that takes ambiguity out in terms of a cap and keeps it really general. But we're going to find ourselves negotiating on salary as well as some other major items with this or the candidates, plural. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Begay? >> I would actually like some input from you, Mr. Ozuna. In terms of a starting point for negotiation, when you have a wide margin in terms of how much a salary is available, does that have, in your experience, any psychological effect on the candidates? For instance, if the range is 201 to 299, do you find that offers in the 215 range are spurned because of that 299 number floating out there in the world? >> It is, and as any applicant for any position, they're going to try to obviously get as much as they can, especially if there is a big, broad range. Certainly, there are different ways that we've done this in the past. Some have just, we've spelled out depending on qualifications, commensurate with qualifications. For obviously, a city as big as Denton, and I think that people that apply that are good quality applicants, they'll have that information as to how much cities of similar size are paying. If it's a strong candidate, they'll know the numbers even before they apply. Once they get here, they'll start the negotiations and it 'll wind up within that realm. It usually doesn't go above what normally is the average around the area for that similar size city. I think this is kind of what we talked about throughout our interviews with the stakeholders, but certainly that can change and specify that it could be commensurate with the experience and qualifications as well. That leaves it open a little bit more, but certainly gives us the flexibility that we may need to kind of go a little bit higher. But that's my input on that. >> So from my perspective, hearing that and kind of hearing the conversation, I would rather under promise and over deliver than have anybody feel disappointed in the offer that they're receiving. So I'm comfortable with the stated amount. >> Any comments on that? Yes. >> I guess, and I get that, that's from a person who's applied, who's trying to negotiate a salary. What I'm saying is, if you put a cap at 250, do you have somebody who's currently got a 230 salary looking at that saying, it looks pretty clear to me that they put a cap at 250 and given where I'm at and the experience I have and possibly in my job that extra 20,000 is not worth me taking this another look. So I guess my question is, does that happen? Does an applicant look at this and say, I think I'm about a 260, 270 guy or gal. And it's just not worth me applying given what's written here. Or do they think, it says 250, but I know they're all negotiable and I'm going to jump in anyways and try and push it up. >> I've seen it both ways. >> Okay. >> I've seen it both ways. >> Okay, gotcha. >> Yes. >> I am okay taking out the low to mid part of the 200s and also okay with just putting experience in and taking the 200s out totally. So either way. >> I think keeping it as general as possible is the best route and just saying 200s. I want us to get as many applications as we possibly can and then negotiate after that. >> Are you okay with that? I think in the end, it's people are going to apply or not apply based upon what they need in their lives. >> Okay, all right. Any questions on that issue? All right, fantastic. >> All right. The task- >> I'm sorry, yes. >> So do we have direction on that? >> It seemed like I saw some head nods. Do we have direction on that? To change it just to the 200s? Is that? >> Two, three, four. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> As soon as those changes are done to the brochure, then we get into the recruitment strategy and candidate outreach . At that point is when we do our outreach with the candidates that we know are out there looking, that have experience aligned with what we're advertising in the brochure. Obviously, we use our proprietary applicant tracking system that we use. Every search that we do has to go through that process. So if we have 100 processes in two, three years, obviously one person is hired for each process. There's a lot of people in that bank that we already have that are good qualified candidates, but certainly their expertise didn't fit what a city was particularly looking for. So we go back and look at those that have already applied, that are looking, that are qualified for a position such as this. We also have a subscription to a process where we can get information of those individuals that currently are city managers, or assistant city managers, or directors for that matter, around the nation for cities of particular size. We can do it in general, or just in geographical areas, or particular size of cities as well. So we can look into that software. We grab those names and we solicit applicants using those. Usually for a city like Denton, we should have possibly more than 2,500 people that we will send this email out along with this brochure, and any information and contact us if you have any questions about the position, or if they're interested and want to talk a little bit more , they can talk to us as well. So that's what we do. Certainly, we also have other individuals that we know personally that may be interested, that haven't really gone out there and solicited employment elsewhere. We will touch base with them as well and see if they're interested. But that's how we do the outreach. Screening of the applicants in task three. Once we finalize this, and I believe that we have a date of September 26, is when we will be closing that position. And that's when we start doing the first round of review of those applicants. Chuck and I look at each individual, each applicant that has applied, and we ensure that the people are qualified, that meet all the qualifications specified here, not only in the brochure, but the job description as well. And the strong ones, we make sure we put them together. There's going to be people that are very well qualified, that may have more experience than what's necessary, but certainly they are there. You have ones that just meet the minimal qualifications and those that don't. Obviously, we put aside and then we start working with the other two, see which ones would be more beneficial for the city of Denton and bring those to you as a semi-finalist. At that point, we also let or have them complete a candidate questionnaire. This candidate questionnaire is a set of questions, about 22 questions, 23 questions that we put in this candidate questionnaire. Some of those questions are just regular questions that we ask of everyone. You know, why are you interested, things of that nature, why do you want to come here, what do you know of the city? And then the big majority of those questions in there are tailored to some of the issues that are or high priority challenges or leadership opportunities that we identify within the brochure. See what type of experience they have and have them give us their expertise or any experiences they may have or just their qualifications to take upon these challenges, whether they 're long term or short term. Once we get that questionnaire done by them, completed by them, we present that to you as well, obviously in a packet, what we call the semi-finalist packet. It is at that time that we have a deliberation amongst all of us here or the council themselves and then try to narrow it down to a lesser number within that pool. I will say something that I think we spoke to the committee when we first came on board. We have a tool, a management style analysis tool that we also recommend for city managers when we're doing a search for city manager. This management style analysis tool looks at 23 dimensions of competencies that a city manager needs in order to be successful within a city. Those have been established by big surveys that are done, but certainly they've narrowed it down to 23. And the first thing that you've got to do in that analysis tool is establish a benchmark. And that benchmark is established by the subject matter experts. In this case, the city council. The city council takes this tool, answers questions within that tool. It takes about 45 minutes, but establishes the benchmark for these dimensions. What's more important for this person to have? Is it communication? Is it leadership? Is it just building relationships, things of that nature? Once those are rated by the subject matter experts, that establishes a benchmark. So once we get to the semi-finalists, or even at this point the finalists, we have them do the same tool. It's a little bit different than what you all take, but certainly they do it as well. And they measure their style, those dimensions based on what their thoughts are and how they do business as a city manager. And then we compare those. Once we have those two together, we create what is called a gap analysis. It tells us what the benchmark is. It tells us where they rate at themselves, because it's a self-assessment. And it tells us whether they're within the norm, they're closer to what you guys are expecting, or they're not. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are certainly dis qualified from the process, but it tells us if we hire an individual that, for instance, is pretty well developed in communication, but we want someone that's on the higher end of the spectrum. Then we can obviously put some measures there to help them get to that place if we need to, because he has some other strong points as well. But that's a tool that we have that we can also do. It is no additional cost or anything. It is part of the process. And we can certainly do that as well when we get there. And it helps to screen the applicants and kind of let us know how they will be performing within those three dimensions. Once we get to the screening of the applicants and past that and the recommendation of semi-finalists, we start getting to the background checks and the reference checks as well. But to get to that point, we also have another tool that I 'll talk about as one of the recommended processes as well. It's called HireVue. Sometimes we have, let's say we have 15 people that are semi-finalists. We want to recommend five to go to as finalists or to interview five face to face. So how do we get down to that number? Obviously, we can all discuss what's on paper, those candidate questionnaires. But certainly we want to hear from them a little bit more. We have something called HireVue, and that is a system where the employee answers questions in a recorded format. So we give them three questions that he does not know until he opens that software. He opens that software, there's three questions that he has to answer them. Right there, and then he's got three minutes to answer each question. And he tells us a couple of things. First, he tells us how he reacts to questions that he may not know, that he might have trouble with, and how is he reacting. Certainly, we also look at kind of what the answer is and what his response is to that question. Those questions are, again, tied to what the brochure talks about, talks about those leadership opportunities or current issues within the community, and see how he's going to respond to that. And gives us a good idea as to how he responds, kind of in an impromptu manner, to hard questions that could be out there as well. That can help us also bring down the number of applicants, the semi-finalists down to finalists. So that's just another tool there that we can utilize. So that leads us to the background checks and reference checks. Obviously, we do everything from a criminal background check, not just locally, but statewide, nationwide as well. We do reference checks with individuals that they obviously give us their name. Each applicant that makes it to this level gives us the references, we check on those. If there are some comments made by the references that we may want to look into, we do that as well. This is a point that we want to make sure that we get all the information we can to present to the city council. The more information we have, the better decision we can make as we're selecting the individual. It is at this point also that we do, for instance, our social media check. What is out there? If we Google somebody's name, what is out there? Is there going to be something that may be negative, that can be negative to a prospective employer? In this case, city of Denton. Do we want to know what that is? And necessarily, it's not necessarily negative, but if something does come up, the first thing we do is we talk to the individual, what is going on here? Obviously, we'll see a lot of things in the media, and certainly, we want to just take what's on there. But if we do see a name come up with some negativity on there or something that gives that perception, certainly, we will touch base with the candidate and say, hey, can you explain what happened here when we see this? We also ask that question in the questionnaire. So by the time we're doing it ourselves, whatever they've placed on that question, we should be able to find as well. And if there's something that's pretty significant that is not in that questionnaire, then that to us is almost an upright flag. But certainly, we discuss that with them as well. Part of that is also a credit check that we do for them, obviously, because of the responsibilities that they have as a city manager. Finally, we go into the final interview process. And obviously, that's when we bring them in and talk to them about what is the expectations of the city, what they offer, what they bring to the table as well, what type of qualifications and education. We talk in depth about that. And that's an overview of the project itself, the entire process, task one to task four. Looking at, or any questions on that so far? >> Any questions? >> These are the key deliverables at the end of the engagement, or throughout the process, but also at the end. The recruitment profile, which is what we have already, we 're gonna make some changes and start utilizing that for the outreach. The benchmark management style analysis, that is something that I talked about earlier. If we want to do that, we also provide a deliverable on that. The recorded interviews is the higher view process that we use, that we can have them record themselves through our system and answer some questions there. And it can also help us to determine how they perform under pressure. Yes, ma'am. >> So with regards to those recorded interviews, because I 'm familiar with those, can council have some input in terms of questions that they would like answered? >> Certainly. >> At that point? >> Certainly. >> Coming directly from individual council members? >> Typically, the same three, or not typically, we do need to have the same three questions of each individual. When we formulate those questions, we do get direction from council if this is okay. When I add something, sometimes councils allow us to just, whatever you think is best, based on what the brochure talks about, what the current issues are, the type of individual that we're looking for. But certainly, we can always come up with some questions, bring it to council, and have those get direction from council on that. >> Because I think council would like to be involved in some of those questions, so that we can drill down on some issues that are really important to us. So thank you. >> Sure. >> Ben Crotet. >> I think to clarify, I think you're saying this is a pretty brief interview process and it's just three questions. >> Three questions, three minutes apiece. >> So it's a further way of screening some folks towards the final phase of the project. >> And there's a reason why we keep it to three, with three minutes apiece. Certainly, we want to be able to rate those. The system allows us to have each individual council member go in there and rate between scale one and five, one being needs improvement, two being extremely good, something of that nature, but it allows you to do that. But that's the reason why when you have three. But if you start listening to three questions at three minutes apiece, there's a time frame there. But if you have ten questions at five minutes apiece, or even three minutes apiece, it starts getting pretty tedious . >> And it- >> [INAUDIBLE] >> [LAUGH] >> So certainly, we recommend that three is the right number of questions with three minutes as well. >> Thanks. >> After that, we provide the semi-finals books with our master applicant list. We do provide our semi-finalist and the document associated with those semi-finalists. However, we also provide a master applicant list. If there's a name in there that you see that you know of or you've heard of and you say, hey, why isn't this person a semi-finalist or anything, we 'll have answers to that. And even at that point, if the council still wishes to look at an individual, certainly, we can always go back and get their candidate question naires and so on. But you will have an applicant, the master list for all the applicants that applied, whether they're semi-finalists or not, that will be made available. Yes, sir. >> Yes, go ahead. >> On that point, I want to ask a couple questions about employment legalities and then some shared council values as it relates to that. So I don't know if Carla's maybe part of this, maybe attorney as well. Say we get that list and we see a large group of folks and Dalton's retired and has a lot of time on his hands and decides he wants to do a lot of research on all those folks. By searching online or whatever, which is completely appropriate. Say Dalton says, this person lives out in Aubrey, I'm going to go pay him a visit and do a personal Dalton Gregory interview or I'm going to make some phone calls to their employers and ask them some questions about it. A, is that legal? B, is that advisable? C, do we want to come up with some council expectations of how we kind of as a group vet out that list to avoid the Dalton Gregory problems that I'm suggesting? >> And D, is it appropriate to single out one council member if there's a problem? >> [LAUGH] From a legal standpoint, obviously I'm not an attorney. Certainly what I recommend is that allow us to do that. Allow the consultant to do that. And if there's going to be meetings, obviously we'd like to be consistent with all the applicants. I think that's what's expected of any applicant process or recruitment process that's out there, that we treat each individual the same as much as possible. I know there's sometimes that there's going to be questions or follow up questions that may not pertain to an individual just because of what they're doing in their current position or previous position. But certainly when we start doing different process for different individuals, if we go out and do a search such as how you mentioned to one individual but not the other one, well why not? And I think that's where legalities can pop up. And I'll defer over to the attorney to talk a little bit about that. >> Well, along those lines, so to keep crazy council members like me in line, it would probably be good at some point to post a closed session for legal advice from our attorney, not that we always follow your advice, but that you can at least give us advice regarding the legal limitations of our behaviors and our questions. We know that when I would conduct interviews and had a team of teachers to help, we would always review before we started what not to ask, what's inappropriate, what's illegal. So I would think at some point that before we start meeting with folks and before we get into any of that, that we get advice from our attorney in closed session as to where we need to bind our P's and Q's. Maybe you could even discuss with our attorney some areas where other clients of yours have stepped over the line so that, because if they did, we might be tempted to do likewise. >> I'll be glad to post a closed session and we can talk through some do's and don'ts of interviewing and also talk about some various ways that problems arise during the interview process and during the selection process. I'll be glad to do that. Speaking however very generally with regard to the issue that was raised, I think that Mr. Oten's advice to you is excellent, both on a practical side and also, although I'll go into more detail on the legal side, also good legal practice to be consistent and generally allow them certainly to handle the initial screening of the candidates. And then we can talk about individual interview questions a little later. >> Sure. Upon those in that documentation, we also provide the final ist books. >> I'm sorry. >> I'm sorry. >> Ms. Gaffney, sorry. >> Quick question on the writing sample. That is an example of a question that's been given to a candidate and they have typed up their answer. This isn't a handwriting analysis. This is an actual composition to see how they compose and how they thought process in terms of answering a question. >> Correct. >> Thank you. >> Correct. And those documents are also as a type and they come over electronically to us, they stay as is. We do not reformat or punctuate for them. You will see their actual work product. And that obviously gives an indication as to how they communicate in a written format as well. >> I wouldn't get hurt. >> The finalist books includes the same things that we included in the semi-finalist books, along with the writing samples, suggested interview questions, candidate assessment form as well. And that's all obviously a deliverable that we do right before we do the final interviews. We also help you with suggested performance management approaches in case that needs to happen. Obviously we're here through the whole process. As you're asking questions of the individual in the interview or interviews, we also take down notes. And if there's something that you all may need help with in developing a certain dimension or a certain competency of a certain individual, we can help with that as well as to how we can format that. And then if requested, we also help with the negotiating of the employment contract. So those are the deliverables that we provide to the city council and obviously the right person for the position as well. So talking about timeline, this is kind of where we're at at the moment on August 23rd. We've had the meetings with the stakeholders. We've had the online survey posted on the city's website. That is complete. That closed at the end of business day this past Friday. We will be providing you a little bit a formal document on that in the next few days as well. Right now we are August 23rd, obviously trying to finalize the brochure, which I believe we've done, and then discuss the recruitment processes. As soon as this is done, then we get into the outreach component, and that's going to end September 26th. By October 26th, we should complete the applicant screening and assessment and make recommendations to the city council as well for the semi-finalist. At that point, we move on to task four, which is the week of seven and the 14th. Between those dates, when we have the finalist interviews, obviously we do the background check. We do the reference checks, all those things that we need to tie the ends on before we do come to the finalist stage. And that's task four. >> Councilmember Hawkins, I think had a question. >> So the deadline to apply is September 26th on the candidate outreach or? >> Yes, we normally don't close it per se. But we did tell the individual that the first round of review for the applicant is that day and we work out of that. Obviously we don't close it because if we can't find anything or anybody, certainly we want to continue with the process. But I think we've been pretty successful with that process. >> Thank you. Yes, Councilmember Martin. >> So with the on-site interviews with finalists, either the week of November 7th or the week of November 14th. Once that is finalized, if you could get that to council as soon as possible so that council members will know to not schedule out of town trips and be gone. So that we can make this a priority and be in town. because I think it's critical to meet that goal at the end, either the week of November 14th or December 5th. But wise we're starting to move into the Christmas holidays and we've lost another six weeks. So as soon as you know, week of November 7th or the 14th, please let us know and we'll do our best and make sure we 're in town. >> Certainly, and I will work with Carla on that as well and make sure that we have those dates as soon as we can. Yes, ma'am. >> And moving on to task five, which is the employment offer accepted. Hopefully we normally try to do that as soon as possible after the final interview. Preferably the following week, get that together. And obviously there's going to be to their contract, depending on how that is worked out at the end. That may need to be approved by council as well. So that may need a required council meeting to do that as well. So that takes us, we try to target, those are the days that we are targeting for these interviews. Certainly we remain flexibility just because of things may happen. But certainly we try to stick with these dates as much as possible so that way we can get an individual here that is fully qualified and best fit for the city to work with the city. Any questions on the timeline? This last slide talks about interview options. I talked a little bit about the higher view, the video responses, the recorded interviews. That's something that we can do. Certainly as we go through the process and we have the amount of people, we can bring that back to you and say we are going to have the recorded interviews to help us eliminate some of these individuals if need be. I know that we can also have committee interviews. I think there's a committee that we initially met with. They can hold interviews at the beginning. Council interviews as a whole obviously is the other option . Presentation showcase, what that is is when they're going to come in and do their interviews, we can also have them present on some certain issue that they've either dealt with before or how they would handle when they come to the city and allow 10 to 15 minutes of their interview to talk about that. That's an option and that tells us a little bit about, or gives us an indication as to how they present to council or present to a forum and see if they're successful, they're comfortable with it and look at their style as to how they deliver that message. We can have two interviews. Obviously the first set of interviews with either five people and we want to bring it down to two more, just to two individuals and we can have a second interview with those two. So that's also an option that we have. Community receptions, I think for the position of city manager specifically or really because of how demographics and the size of Denton, a lot of cities do a community reception. Have stakeholders or even community members come in and meet the finalist, either the sole finalist or maybe two finalists. We've seen where they even bring all the finalists. There's five finalists, cities bring all five finalists and see how they interact with people, see if we get any comments back from the community. But that's certainly something that can be done as well. Organizational reception, the community is for the community, obviously anybody can come. But then also have one for the organization within the city of Denton and its organization. Have the employees of the workforce or those people, the key players within the organization to come in and meet the individuals and talk to them. Obviously provide a city tour for the individuals as well. So these are just options that I'd like to kind of leave with you to kind of ponder, see what process we can do. I can work with the committee, I can work with Carla and set up one. But I didn't want to just come up with one process today and then give you the option to do other things that you may have in mind. And so those are the options. As far as suggested actions, I do recommend that we keep the interviews to an hour and a half. I think that it'll give or take 15 minutes or so. Once we start getting over the two hour mark, we start losing people. And it all starts going everywhere and we may not get to maximize that interview. >> We had a question, Councilmember Watz. >> Yes, I'm sorry. >> Two questions. First one, interview options. Is this like an a la carte menu where we add these things in addition to the price that we paid? >> No. >> Or this is included in the price that we paid and it's up to us to try to decide what to pick. >> No, this is all inclusive. This is included in the process. What I wanted to do is provide you some of the options that we've used, that we've seen other cities do. Some just do council interviews and that's it. Some do committee interviews, council interviews and presentation showcase and use all of them. And it all just depends on how we want to structure that. But I wanted to provide the options, have you all think about what we can do, come back to you maybe a later date and say, hey, how do we want to proceed with the finalist interviews? Do we want to have all of them? Do we just want to have a couple? Just a community reception but not the organizational reception or organizational reception and not the other. So I'm just bringing up the options. These are all included with what we do and the price that's included. >> Second question. With the committee interviews, I know that the committee was instrumental in helping to select you as the headhunter company. But I'm hesitant to say that committee will be the first point of contact for any of these applicants. The first point of contact for these applicants should be this city council. So I just want to go on the record with that recommendation that I respect the work that the committee has done and I thank them. However, I would hate to lose an applicant because the committee didn't like them. And I really believe that choice should be up to the seven elected officials who sit at this table. >> Sure, sure. >> Yes. Just continue with the suggested actions. Obviously, one and a half hour interviews, a max of three interviews per day. We can squeeze in four, but again, once we have that amount of time, squeezing into one day with four individuals, it does get difficult towards the end. And then just really have a comfortable setting when we're doing the interviews. That concludes my presentation. Again, I'll take any questions as to how we move forward on any of the items that we presented. >> That's my word. >> I want to thank you. I talked to you briefly before the council meeting. I pretended to know nothing about Danton when I read this brochure. And it gives a really great outline of the city, the nature, our personality here. So you've captured that, and I just want to say thank you for working hard on this. And I'm happy to hear you're going to move that picture because it snows rarely. And it's not indicative of our winters, but good job. Thank you. Appreciate your hard work. >> Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Yes, Council Member. >> Miguel, the only bad thing about moving this picture, there's this really cool coffee shop in this picture. Anyway, great job on the brochure. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? All right, thank you. Appreciate it. >> All right. >> All right, we'll move on to our next agenda work session report. 3B, which is receive report and hold discussion. Give staff direction regarding the agreement between the city of Denton and the Denton Chamber of Commerce, providing for a program to promote economic development through joint efforts. >> Thank you, Mayor. Amy Bissett, our Director of Development Services, will be providing this staff presentation. >> Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. I have a brief presentation today that's simply an overview of the history and current contract with the Chamber of Commerce as it relates to our joint economic development efforts. With the Economic Development Partnership Board. And this work session was requested, I think, as a result of a couple of discussions that we've had over the previous month or so. Specifically, we brought forward a report from a consultant related to some potential changes in roles between the city and the chamber. And then we've had some budget discussions as well that have precipitated a request for this work session. I have a brief presentation where I will simply provide an overview of the contract as it exists today. And some discussions that we are undertaking with the chamber currently regarding potential changes based on the results of the consulting report recommendations. So I will review the current contract and review the proposed budget and we can discuss potential changes. As background, the Economic Development Partnership Board was created in 1986, as you know. The contract that you have in your backup today is renewed annually on October 1st. It's in conjunction with the adoption of the city's fiscal year operating budget. The chamber economic development duties are outlined in that contract and they include the preparation of proposals in response to RF Ps. Prospect and ally relationships and all marketing activities associated with economic development efforts. I'm going to essentially go through and summarize the contract duties that you have in your backup that are detailed more in length. But I just want to walk through them one by one so you understand the way that the contract is written today. It is the responsibility of the Chamber of Commerce today to develop and maintain positive relationships with key economic development allies. And to maintain membership and involvement in economic development organizations, including the International Economic Development Council and other affiliate economic development groups. And work in cooperation with the city to implement the economic development partnership board's strategic action agenda. As a reminder, this strategic action agenda is the EDP's strategic plan that is a two to three year long plan that we're in the middle of implementing today. It is comprised of multiple action teams that are made up of a myriad of economic development stakeholders that develop an annual action plan each year and then implement that action plan. Additional responsibility of the chamber is to work in cooperation with the city to evaluate the existing marketing efforts, establish a marketing plan and produce branding and marketing materials to promote Denton. Present that marketing plan to the economic development partnership board annually for approval. And work in cooperation with the city as a part of the recruitment team established by the strategic action agenda . Additional responsibilities include recruiting prospective businesses through attendance at target market trade shows, consultants forums, targeted business conventions and other special events. And currently the way the contract is written is that they will serve as the principal point of contact for prospect communications, the production and submittal of site proposals, prospect visitation itineraries and prospect follow up. Additional responsibilities detailed in the contract include working with the city to implement a business retention and expansion program. And to work with the city to develop programs and policies to enhance economic development, specifically incentive related policies. And to carry out objectives for the year that are stated under the strategic plan including the development of shovel ready sites, workforce development and other action items associated with the plan. And to prepare an annual work plan and budget for approval by EDP. The key potential changes that we're currently in conversation with the chamber about today. Item G under the list of responsibilities that's in the chamber contract today states that they serve as this principle point of contact for prospect communications and the production and submittal of site proposals. As you'll recall, one of the recommendations of the agile economic development report was in order to streamline and be more effective and accurate in the information that we 're providing. That the city would take primary responsibility for the compilation of those proposals because the majority of the information that's being provided is coming from departments within the city. That would make us more efficient as well as make sure that we have all of the associated context necessary to provide accurate information. And then the second recommendation of the report that would be have an effect on the chamber contract would be the implementation of the Denton marketing scorecard to measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts. You may recall that part of the contract with the consultant was to actually develop a scorecard mechanism that appropriately scored prospects for their dollar value of the marketing investment that's made. Over time as they move through the site selection process. I will tell you that there has been some considerable conversation with the chamber about the very first phrase that you see here which is serve as principle point of contact. And how we will delineate those duties specifically. When we came to you and began to talk about taking over the primary role of compiling the proposals themselves. We were speaking largely about a certain subset of leads and those would be leads that come directly from the governor's office or the Dallas regional chamber. Those leads tend to come as a result of our affiliation with those two organizations. And as a result of where we're located in the region and what the state of Texas is doing in terms of marketing economic development efforts. There's a lot of ambiguity or gray area that we're still working through. Specifically, if we expect as we do the chamber to go out and market Denton and produce leads, then would they continue to be the primary point of contact. With those brokers or site selectors that come directly to the chamber as a result of those marketing efforts. And in that case, we do believe that it would be appropriate for the chamber to remain the primary contact on the leads that they specifically generated. Additionally, along with that, there are quite a few inqu iries that come in on a daily basis that are smaller in nature that don't require the creation of a full proposal such as I'm looking for a building for 20,000 square feet of warehouse space. What do you have available that the chamber currently handles those inquiries where a report is generated that shows what available properties we have currently in Denton. And we're not proposing changes to their responsibilities in those regards. I think what we're really talking about is response to RFPs that come from the governor's office and come from the regional chamber of commerce that would ordin arily come to us because of our affiliation with those two organizations regardless of any external marketing efforts that take place. >> Question. So on this first one where it shows the responsibilities of the cities, you've sort of clarified that serve as principle point of contact for prospect communications. That if they come from the state or they come from the Dallas regional or whatever the regional chamber of commerce is. They come directly to us and we will maintain that point of contact. But it, go ahead. >> I want to clarify. I think what we're looking for from you today is clarity on that. I think that we did hear from you in the last work session that you would like for us to be the primary point of contact in those cases, that we were looking for some clarity there. And also wanted to help point out that there are a lot of different types of prospects and needs that come through both the chamber side and the city side that wouldn't necessarily fall into this category because they don't require the compilation of a full proposal in a competitive environment with other cities. >> Okay, so again, we've got that sort of side of lead generation, which comes directly to us. And then you talked about the other side of lead generation , which comes through the marketing efforts of the chamber through various conferences or what do they call them, conventions or whatever they are. I can be okay with that. I guess my question is when we talk of principle point of contact, then you have a comma followed by a couple of other sort of operations. Which is the production and submittal of site proposals, prospect visitation itineraries, and prospect follow up. So are those other kind of operational components deline ated in that same fashion as far as if they're from us, if they're from the state or from the regional, we do all that. Because the production of submittal of site proposals, as my understanding, I think this has been corrected. But in the past, we never even saw them before they went out. Now I think we're seeing them. And I think those are very important. Those proposals going out, I mean, personally I don't have an issue of principle point of contact, but I don't really know what that means. In other words, does that mean just picking up the phone and talking to somebody, but then these other things are behind the scenes that let's say the city's handling? Or does principle point of contact mean you're doing all the work and we're just sort of the city is out here advising and providing information, but you're doing the compiling, the collating, putting the proposals together, so. >> I think I can perhaps shed some light on that phrase principle point of contact. Specifically with the governor's office and the Dallas regional chamber, in an effort to protect the confidentiality of liens, they will only allow one email address per community. And so today, that email address, it goes to the chamber of commerce. And then if we choose to, at that point in time, we as a community choose who sees what components of that lead in order to compile a proposal. And so if we choose to share it with 100 people, then it's on us if some form of confidentiality is breached. So it's a protection mechanism that they have in place at the state level and the regional level. So there is one person that can receive the lead and then it gets disseminated from there within the community. But that's on, that responsibility is ours as a community, how that's disseminated. And so in reality, many of us who work in economic development communicate with the governor's office and communicate with the Dallas regional chamber at various points in time and we all have working relationships with them. But when a lead goes out that is a blind lead, in other words, it's got a project name and nobody knows who it really is. And it's disseminated based on a set of key criteria that the company that's looking for a site determines whether that's 30 miles from an international airport or has rail sites or whatever it may be, certain workforce profile. So it goes only to one point of contact in those qualified communities. >> Okay, so then let's look at the next line, production and submittal site proposals. So we've received, so right now the way it's operating is that one blind email address for let's say the governor's office is the chamber of commerce or an email within the chamber of commerce. They get an email. And so they disseminate all this information is what we're looking for is what we need now. So in that example, the production and submittal site proposals, in this new contract, who are you saying? Well first of all, is staff recommending that the primary point of contact be from the governor's office and regional chambers be switched from a chamber address to a city address? >> We believe that it hinders the efficiency that we're attempting to accomplish if we don't take that step. Because essentially what we're trying to do is make sure that the source of the information is the entity that's providing the information so that it can be checked for completeness and accuracy. And that all the context is provided. And it is possible that we could compile a proposal in its entirety and hand it back to the chamber and then they submit it. When follow up questions come back through, it's still going to have to come back to the city. >> It's how we're doing it now. >> It is how we're doing it now except that we're providing pieces of information and they're compiling the proposal itself. >> Okay. >> That's correct. >> All right. Yes, Councilmember Walsh and then Councilmember Begay. >> Well it sounds like the proposal that's coming forward actually shares the responsibility. And we're all trying to get to the same place. The question is how do we get to that place efficiently, effectively, timely manner. Because we're in competition with other North Texas cities. >> That's correct. >> So I would support the staff recommendation. We just need to clean up the language so that it's abund antly clear. Because when you are describing two different organizations and what they are specifically responsible for, it helps to come back to the document. To really explain in detail who is responsible for what. But I also believe the chamber, again, it's the division of labor. So that there are a lot of leads that the chamber will still pursue. Now with those other leads that they pursue, do you see very many of the site proposals associated with any of those leads? >> We typically see the proposals that are associated with the governor's office and regional chamber and not others. >> Okay, so that makes it clean, makes it easy. And I do believe it will add to the efficiency and effectiveness of making Denton a more competitive city. In terms of these leads that are coming from governor's office, the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, and anything that already comes into our economic development. >> To be fair, I would like to articulate some of the conversation that we've had with the chamber and some- >> Yeah, before you do. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Gaye, did you have sort of a question? Yeah, I just wanted before you went on to something else, see if she had. >> So I've been reviewing the no basis report, the consultant's report from June 28th, the June 28th presentation. I'm trying to reconcile what staff is suggesting here in terms of being the point, the contact person, the initial primary contact point in two instances, which is the Dallas Chamber and the governor's office. But not in instances where there's site selection, conferences, etc. And it's, in my opinion, it's conflicting with critical factor number four, which says ensuring constant and robust communication among all parties involved in the economic development process. And this really stood out to me. It said, the most often cited complaint, leveled by prospects, developers, and contractors. And the economic development process was the disconnect, whether real or perceived, between the entities involved from start to finish. To me, parsing the point of contact issue doesn't address this most often complained item. So I'm wondering what staff's take is on reconciling those two points. >> Well, I think that one of the strongest selling points that we have as a city, and when it comes to economic development, is the strength of our partnership. It sends a huge signal to a prospect when they hear that the partnership is made up of the city and the chamber both . I think that they feel like their interests are going to be represented from the private side with the Chamber of Commerce, and that carries some value with it. And that in instances where the partnership is functioning in the most effective way, it would be a seamless one team partnership. And what we're attempting to do is to realign some responsibilities in a way that would help it be more seamless. I think that in the ideal partnership, we would all have a role in responding to all proposals, and that is what we are suggesting as well. We're not suggesting that the city on its own compile proposals. What we're suggesting is that we still compile proposals as a team, but that because the majority of the information on those types of leads that are coming specifically from the governor's office and the regional chamber, the majority of the information that's asked for is coming from the city. And so we feel like there's some efficiency to be gained there. You're looking at me like I didn't quite answer your question. >> Let's focus a little bit better. So really what I'm asking is how do we say we have to have a streamlined communication with prospects because this is our number one complaint that we receive. Yet we're not going to be the point of contact for a large swath of times where we're communicating. >> I think at this point it might be appropriate for me to share some of the conversations that we've had with the chamber as it relates to this and what their chief objectives are and their chief concerns as we move forward. Because I think it does speak specifically to that. Part of their responsibility in this contract is to recruit private investment as well. And they believe that the value that they provide to private investors is their direct interaction with prospects. And that if we were to take that entirely that that would decrease the value that they provide to the private investment side. And hamper their ability to accomplish their charge within the contract, which includes raising private investors. >> I'm not really quite sure what that means. When you say private investors, because I think I remember there's a part of the chamber that's called the investor group. Something where people give extra money and they're, is this what you're talking about? >> There are economic development investors that are partners in the Chamber of Commerce. That they do, it's essentially like a sponsorship of the economic development efforts where they become an economic development partner with the chamber. And provide additional private investment into the chamber 's marketing efforts for economic development. >> And so what you're saying is, so this is the same group you're talking about that it might hamper their ability to attract these investors because these investors get additional private meetings, get more access to potential economic development to companies that are looking at coming to Denton. I'm not understanding where the- >> I'm going to attempt to articulate what I think I heard from the chamber on two fronts. But I do also want to let you know that we have chamber board members and Adam from the economic development office with the chamber here who may be able to better answer those questions. And what I've heard them say is that in order to be able to raise private investment, the private investors expect them to be the primary point of contact for prospect communications. And that expectation stems from two things from my understanding. The first one is the belief that the chamber's participation in economic development is a big selling point for prospects. And secondly, the belief that the chamber's interaction with those prospects creates a networking of opportunities in the future if those prospects come to Denton. >> Okay, all right. Do we have a question? I'm sorry, Kevin, I stayed on this side. I'll go over here. Councilmember Hawkins. >> Okay, just so, I'm just trying to simplify this. It seems like the one, the major change is any time that there is a prospect communication coming from the regional chamber or the governor's office that only is allowed one email on that, the city would like to receive those to try to make this whole process a little bit more efficient. And sometimes there's something that's just lost there. >> That's correct. >> But all other prospect communications would still go to the chamber. Am I understanding that correctly? >> I would say yes. There might be one point of clarification there. There are times when a lead is generated out of the city's economic development office for a variety of reasons. And if that happens and they contact the city, we typically remain the primary point of contact. But for the same reason, we would expect that if the chamber generated the lead, that they would remain the primary point of contact. >> Okay. >> And so it's just a matter of you develop relationships when you go out and network and people go to the person that they know and want to interact with that person. >> Well, not just bring that up, I think that the chamber is, I know that we can always get better. I mean, everybody here can. But I want to give them an opportunity to do that and to try to work on some inefficiencies before you just kind of take everything away. So I just want to make sure if there's just kind of a technical thing that we're trying to work on. >> Great, I believe that it is a technical thing. And I think that the implementation of the marketing score card is a huge opportunity for the chamber to demonstrate their value as well as measure their effectiveness in an objective way. That then they can fine tune their efforts based on the outcome of those scores. So if they were to attend an aviation manufacturing conference and generate X number of leads from that, we would be able to score those leads over time or they would score those leads over time. And be able to quantify the effectiveness of that specific trip versus other trips or other activities that they had undertaken in that year. And so we see this shift as an opportunity for us to be more efficient and for them to demonstrate that value and to be able to show, here's what's working and what's working well and here's where we're improving based on the scoring. >> And I'm sure Adam will address this, but what has the chamber thought about the scorecard? >> They are embracing it and ready to implement it. >> Great. >> They're welcoming that change to the contract and definitely would like to implement the scorecard. >> Thanks, Amy. >> Mayor Portem, before we go to you, I interrupted Council Member Gary in her line of questions. So I apologize if you want to pick that back up, I apologize. >> I'm sorry to keep kind of going back to the same point. I really need to reconcile those recommendations with the consultant because they don't feel like we're there. If I'm missing something, please point it out to me. But I don't see how this helps our point of contact issue overall. >> I think that our understanding of what you're reading in the report is that, where that disconnect is primarily taking place is when there is a need for information from the city, which is most often related to the leads that we're looking at becoming the primary point of contact. Where the majority of the time if there's a disconnect, it is somewhere between an RFP that needs to know whether or not we can meet their water demand of gallons per day that they need to consume. And our water department, and there's a huge gap between those two things. But those are primarily instances where we have a true RFP that's competitive in nature and is a blind RFP where we can be more efficient and eliminate some of that disconnect. I'm not saying that it takes care of everything entirely. I think that's going to be part of the challenge of a partnership always is being one voice and one unit when we aren't. But we strive to be and we feel like this is a way to get us one step closer. >> Also just wanted to clarify what the mayor asked about the investors. So as I understand it, the chamber contract requires the chamber to match 20% of what the entire fund is by chamber investors. And that chamber investment group, that's the fund that we 're talking about, they're 20% matching. Or is it something different? >> I am not recalling off the top of my head a 20% match. I'm sorry if I missed something or if I'm just, my brain's backfiring on me. But in the contract every year, there's an amount that is delineated specifically that is the chamber's target goal for private investment. >> So is that the investment group that we're talking about then? So it's the matching for this particular program. And the chamber's position, which I'm sure they'll clarify, is that they don't believe that the investment is, I'm sorry, I was kind of a good jam, just got distracted. They don't believe their investment is worth it if they don 't have the primary point of contact, is that what I gathered? >> I believe that it's one of the main areas of value that they bring to their private investors is to be that primary point of contact. And that their ability to raise private investment hinges partially on that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Is that all it takes is a good jam to distract you? I'm going to remember that. Let's all load up our phone. >> Exactly. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> I think just to piggyback on a couple of your points. One is, I think what I heard you read the section out of the consultant's report. I don't think it was specifically pointing to disconnect between the chamber and the city. It was just talking about different people that they need to get information from, which could be internal to the city. It could be, we're waiting on DME. They're not connecting with what the engineering department 's saying, as we saw earlier today with an issue. So that could be, even if we were the one point of contact, that could be the struggle that we're seeing. So is that accurate? >> I think you're absolutely correct because there are so many different sources of information that are necessary in order to make a good site selection decision. That part of the report and the recommendations is the creation of a team. That's their primary responsibility is to be that point of communication. And I think you all even took it one step further and said, we'd like to see a champion who's primarily responsible for that in the future. Where you have one point of contact with a prospect moving forward and they go out and gather the information from the other departments. We've been already based on your direction in June, working towards that and specifically identifying the appropriate person in each department whose role becomes, at least partially, helping us compile proposals. So that they know that when it's a priority, that it is a priority and they understand the context associated with it and expect it to be a part of what they do on a daily basis. >> I think this is a very invaluable partnership. I think particularly as it relates to drawing in private business into the city. I went to a family reunion on my wife's side with her uncle , Big Roy, who's in business. And I walked in, there's a cousin of hers that's in business as well, and they knew I was on city council. And they're like, hey John, come over here. Here's the reason why we have all the problems we have when we're trying to do business in cities. It's cut. In other words, cities don't have the best reputation, whether that's deserved or not, as it relates to attracting, retaining, fostering, encouraging business. Whether that's deserved or not, that happens. Having the chamber as part of that equation, I think, soft ens that. And I think as people see that relationship, because that's a trusted name nationally, the Chamber of Commerce. And so I think that partnership becomes crucial. So however this gets shaken out to be able to find the best mix or how that works or what our investment is or how we figure that out, we need that partnership together. So I just want to iterate, make that clear as we move forward in this conversation. To the point of the Denton marketing scorecard, when you look on the ordinance, which I think is from last year, so this isn't the updated suggested ordinance. >> No, this is the existing contract that's expiring at the end of next month. >> Will the, there's a point on here, and sorry, I lost it for a second. But is there a point on here that relates to a quarterly report to the EDBP of marketing efforts, metrics and what not? Does the marketing scorecard replace that or augment that? >> I believe without going back to the reference in the contract that the quarterly report is primarily related to the expenditures of city funds associated with the contract and what activities those have been spent on. But we would absolutely include the implementation and the reporting of the marketing scorecard results, whether it be quarterly or monthly to the Economic Development Partnership Board within the changes of the contract that we bring forward. >> So you feel it gives us more detailed metrics of the effectiveness of- >> We do, and we believe that it puts us on par with other organizations in the country who have best practices for how they're measuring effectiveness. >> And then my last question relates, I guess, back to this whole conversation of private development. And here, in this ordinance, it actually calls out a number , $62,000 or something like that, of matching funds. But as I look at the chamber budget, the budget just seems to be reflective of the city investment on that. Do we have any document that demonstrates for us how that private investment is added to this mix or whether it's augmenting efforts or what that's used for in terms of- >> I don't currently have a document that I could provide for you. My understanding is that it's used as additional external marketing funds. In other words, the activities of participation in the trade shows and other activities that actually are intended to generate leads. However, Adam Gavarecki from the chamber is here and could probably go into more detail about that. >> Thank you. >> Council Member Riggs. >> So I'm curious if we have an idea of the percentage of leads that the chamber would handle. If we become the point of contact for the governor and then the regional chamber and also our economic development in the city, what part is left over there? Do we have an idea of that or is that what the scorecard would be for? Or does this seems pretty heavy over here on this side, about this point for the point of contact? So- >> I don't know off the top of my head. Adam or somebody with the chamber might be able to tell you more specifically. However, I think the intent here is that if the city takes those sources of leads and the chamber implements the marketing scorecard, what we should see is an increase in number of leads that are generated from those marketing efforts. That they're then responsible for, which would in balance replace what we have taken. And so the ultimate goal of the marketing scorecard is to increase the number of leads and to increase the number of leads that convert into prospects and then convert into future businesses and then. And so the idea is that we're shifting some responsibility off of them, but we're giving them some additional responsibility to hone their marketing efforts. Based on the results of the scorecards so that we would see an increase in leads. Now, having said that, there are a lot of activities that we might count as leads that the chamber handles on a daily basis that we don't necessarily quantify as apples to apples with what we're talking about here. And those are your daily inquiries for office space or warehouse space or interest in leasing or buying some property in Denton to locate a business. So that's not a very direct answer to your question and Adam may be able to tell you the exact percentage. But I would say you're probably right right now that that would be more than half of what they're responding to or those. But I could be entirely wrong. Okay. At this point, I'm finished with my presentation and I'm happy to take any further direction, but I would also encourage you to invite Adam up if you have additional questions for the chamber. Council? Questions for the chamber? Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Hi, Adam. Thanks for coming out. Just to follow up on the question I asked her relating to the private investment and how you guys determine how that gets funded and how that corresponds to the budget that you use from the money that the city funds. Sure. Those are, actually I brought a sheet here that goes over those. That's typically for extra marketing dollars than what the city already pays for. Also sponsorships, which we have about $5,000 budgeted for sponsorships and also memberships in IAMC, the Dallas Fort Worth marketing team, TDC and IEDC and SCDC . We also pay our rent out of that fund, $18,000 a year. And then also extra marketing trips as well. Thanks. Thank you. Yes, Council Member Begarry. So two things to clarify. Regarding the rent, if I remember from our meeting, the Chamber of Commerce actually comps rent for NCTC's business group, is that right? We actually cover their, the EDP covers their cost as well, which is about $10,000 a year. Okay. And our rent for myself and one other staff person is a total of $18,500. Right, so that really stuck out with me from our conversation was that on the one hand, we have the Chamber donating rent and then on our end of things, we actually, well, we don't pay for it, but you take that out of the privately raised funds to pay for rent. Is that right? The, yes, the rent is paid out of private funds. And then the other thing, just, I don't have it off the top of my head, I'm sorry. How many conferences and different site selection kind of events do you or the Chamber attend every year? Actually, I have an exact number, I would say 22 to 25, somewhere in that range. It's probably like two or so a month. Give or take, yeah. But some of them go back to back, so I might not have any for a month and a half, and then all of a sudden I have three in a row there, just on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then a Thursday and Friday for another one. And some of those were also local, some of those were Dallas and Fort Worth. All right, thank you. Sure. Council Member Hawkins. Go ahead, Dalton. No, he didn't have a question. Oh, okay. All right, thanks for showing up today, Adam. Kind of putting you on the spot here. How does the Chamber feel if the point of contact did change for the regional Chamber and the Governor's office? Well, I mean, honestly, we feel that we should maintain the prospect activity part. But given it is turned over, we're still confident that we can keep all of our economic development partnership people happy and implement the marketing score card as well. Okay, thanks. So, Adam, thank you for coming out. Sure. Amy had mentioned that the score card would increase leads and those kind of things. So maybe I'm not understanding exactly what the, I thought I understood what the marketing score card was. To me it's where you go back and look at the activity that has occurred as far as marketing. Conventions attended, leads at booths, things, whatever those are entailed. And then what happens with those at some date in the future , whatever time interval is decided. Is that my understanding of the marketing score card? You sort of take a look back to see how has what's come in, what's happened with it, and how are we doing? Like if you get 100 leads, let's say, from two of these seminars, how many of those, and leads being just some inquiry or something, I don't know what y'all define as that. What happens with those? Where do they go? Where do they not go? Is that my understanding of what that is? >> I think I understand what you're trying to ask. So the marketing score card, the way we would implement it would be to measure effectiveness. >> Right. >> Out of those 22 to 25 conferences that we do per year, also for the extra marketing dollars that we spend on advertising or sponsorships. Whatever those marketing dollars go to, we would measure the effectiveness of each one. So I might be unclear as to what she had mentioned by increasing the amount of leads. It would measure the effectiveness of the leads that are brought in. So I think we would keep the same marketing method that we have going now, but it would measure each individual item moving forward to proceed for the year after and months after that. Now, on the amount of leads that she asked about, one conference might generate zero leads, but it might generate eight new contacts from consultants or international consulting agencies and things like that, which in turn would lead to a prospect over time. Another conference that we're doing here just in two weeks is called Netcar, North Texas Commercial Real Estate Conference in Dallas. That one's going to probably give us 200 new contacts, which might result in three or four leads, maybe a size ten leads. So it all just depends, but does that answer your question? >> It does. And finally, and then I'll go on to some of my colleagues, let's say for instance these proposed changes move forward that are proposed in the new contract. Does this affect any staffing level or does it affect any budget for the chamber? I mean, you're going to have to cut anybody or- >> At this time I think we could maintain doing exactly what we're doing for the amount of budget that we have. >> Okay, good. Councilmember Briggs, did you have a question over here? >> No. >> No, okay. Anybody over here for Adam? All right, good. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. I do have one question for staff. I guess I'd pose to staff the same question I pose to the chamber. Do these changes require any budget changes or increases in the economic development budget for the city based upon these changes? >> And we do not at this point in time propose any changes to our budget or to the chamber's budget. We believe that we can absorb the activities in house and with the efficiencies that are realized by becoming a point of contact with the other departments. We'll have to measure the amount of staff time that may increase, but at this point in time we believe we can take it on. >> Okay. >> With what we have. >> Yes, Councilmember Gary. >> I would just like to put out for discussion achieving some type of equity between the relationship the city has with the chamber and NCTC has with the chamber . Given that the chamber essentially comps their rent, I'd like to see something similar to that. And the way that I think that would play out is that the chamber could then increase their contribution to this pie by $18,000 and we could reduce our general fund contribution by $18,000 if that were to happen. So that's what I'd like to put out there as a suggestion. >> Yeah, I really didn't quite follow that line of discussion. So it's my understanding that the money raised by the investors, that one of those uses is to pay the rent for NCTC and NCTC is, is that not right? So yeah, I didn't follow that. So what was, Councilmember Gary, if you would summarize what? >> My, what I understood is that NCTC is given rent free. They do not pay rent to the Chamber of Commerce. The EDP does pay rent to the Chamber of Commerce in the amount of $18,000. And that comes from the privately raised funds of the investors that we discussed prior. >> Okay. >> Which was $63,000 last year. So what I'm suggesting is that we achieve some type of equity between the way that NCTC is treated and the way the city is treated, that the rent is comped for both entities. And that we then reduce the city's contribution by $18,000. >> Okay, all right. And it helped me understand, because I wasn't, NCTC occup ies space in which building? >> I'm going to ask Adam or someone from the Chamber to come up and clarify that. But I do want to point out that in our, in the Chamber's budget that's funded by the city is a line item for NCTC support for their small business development center in the amount of $10,000 or $11,000. I don't know whether that's, is that us paying for their rent? Is that correct? >> $11,000. >> $11,000. So the city currently is funding NCTC's rent payment. Correct me if I'm wrong. >> Okay. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> The total cost on it. >> Okay, come on up. Yeah, no, you're good. Come on up. So we can, so everybody can hear you, because this is being televised, so, and recorded. Couldn't hear you if you weren't at the microphone. >> Sorry for the confusion. >> Sure. So we have budgeted $11,000 that the small business development center for their rent is paid for out of the city's budget, the public budget. Myself and one other staff person, our rent is paid through the private investment, which is another $18,500 total. >> Okay. >> So $11,000 for SBDC, 18.5 from ours. Ours comes from private, the $11,000 comes from the public. >> And refresh my memory, Adam, if you know, and if not, Amy, if you could. What is the amount of the contribution that the city pays to the budget, to this, the EDP portion of the chamber budget, and where do those funds come from? As far as either general fund, utilities, or do we, I mean, I know that's probably in the back up, but I've got to revisit it. >> I think, right, as of this year, it's $242,000. And I believe $107,000 comes from, >> Part of it comes from the general fund, the other part comes from the utility fund. >> Okay. >> All right. >> This current year, 176,000 came from the utility fund and 66,000 came from the general fund. >> And then 60 something thousand comes from the private investors. >> That's correct. >> That's added to the city contributions to form the chamber, the economic development arm of the chamber. >> That's correct. >> To fund it. Okay. >> Yes. >> All right. Yes, Councilmember Rubin. >> The only thing I have last, and again, this isn't anything I feel like needs to be addressed this year, but I guess just a thinking in the future. The mechanics of this partnership date back to when it was kind of formed. And even the approach I think we're taking to some degree represents probably the traditional form of city economic development. You're going to conferences, you're going to trade shows, you're trying to generate those leads, come back, turn those leads into contacts that you can eventually. We all know that the American economy is drastically shifting and with manufacturing not as robust as it is. I mean, it's just not working probably the way it worked 20 years ago when we thought about this. So my concern, just thinking ahead in the future, as we are internally in the city, shifting some things. And so we're looking at investment in high tech and what can we do with that to better align our jobs with what's coming out of the universities. We see a lot of innovative things coming out of the University of North Texas with what they're doing now under the President's direction, TWU and what they're trying to do and get into this space as well with having the Women's Center for Entrepreneurship there. I just want to make sure that our partnership isn't kind of being bogged down into kind of a traditional approach because this is the way we do things and let's keep on doing this year after year when the rest of the world is changing. So at some point, I'd like to hear how are we adjusting to those changing factors on the ground. What needs to be changed as a result of this so that more of our money can go into where the real true reality of economic development in cities is happening. And even if we ever were able to get down to the data of saying let's take a three year snapshot of economic development in the city of Denton. Where did that come from? What sort of sectors and how did that reflect our investment? We invested this much in going after this traditional type of companies moving into town. In reality, we saw more jobs grow in these sorts of sectors that we're spending no money on. Just to make sure we're doing it right. So again, nothing that I think needs to be changed as part of this one, but perhaps some future conversation. >> Okay, so sounds like you're needing direction from council. So are there any objections to the direction as it's been presented from staff, which is primarily changing the point of contact and those other items from the governor's office, regional chambers to these two things here. These are the major changes. >> That's correct. >> Any objections to those? Councilmember Wasign? >> Just to my point to really have the language crystal clear so that everybody is 100% on board and clear on what their responsibilities are. Because people will come back to that document for clarification over and over and over. So appreciate that, thank you. >> Yeah. >> Is this, I don't believe this is an action item tonight. >> No, it is not. >> Okay. Direction, I see heads moving. Can't tell. >> Well. >> Okay, yes. >> And just to emphasize that, just to make sure that the regional chamber and the governor's office email, that's kind of, there's a, technically we are changing that for a reason. I just want to make sure that everything else kind of remains the same there. >> That's correct. >> You know, if the city has a lead, that is their lead, but if the chamber has their lead, that still is their lead . >> And ideally, we would be the economic development partnerships lead and we'd work together on it regardless of who was the principal point of contact. >> Great. >> So that's the goal. >> Okay. >> Question of clarification. Again, I go back to the comma in these different descriptions. So chamber gets a lead from a convention. They're the primary quote unquote point of contact. Who's responsible for the production, submittal of site proposals, prospect visitation of tenor areas, and prospect follow up? >> I think that some of that is still in discussion, but what we are all in agreement on, I believe, and Adam correct me if I'm wrong, is that the city will be responsible for the compilation of proposals. And we will jointly be doing prospect visitations and prospect follow up, depending on who needs to do what. >> Okay, so the production, submittal of site proposals in this contract that you're asking for direction on. It is that the city will be responsible for all of those, no matter what the source is. Is that my understanding? >> If it is a response to an RFP, if it is just a general inquiry for do you have any land available, then the chamber would continue to handle those. >> Okay, fantastic. Yes, Councilmember McGarry. >> Is there going to be another time to discuss the budget items, or are we just clear that this is the budget and we want to move forward with that? >> Is this, I mean, do you have some questions on the budget items? So was your intention that this would be the last meeting, depending on your direction, before it comes forward as an action item, or was there going to be another question on the budget? >> This was intended to be your opportunity if you wanted to discuss specifics related to the budget. >> Okay. >> Definitely. We have the budget as it's in your backup has been recommended by the EDP and is currently within the economic development division's proposed budget. So certainly any changes now would be the opportunity to discuss that. >> Council McGarry? >> Okay, so I'd like to clarify my prior point, which is I didn't realize that the city was actually paying for NCTC's rent. I'd like to strike that line item and reduce the general fund contribution by 11,000. That's my new suggestion. >> Okay. Okay. All right, yes. Councilmember Gregory. >> In your direction, I'm in agreement with the direction that's been proposed by staff with the more specificity suggested by Ms. Wiseman. >> All right, any other comments? We had one proposed change. It sounds like if you're accepting the staff presentation, then that would leave that rent in the budget being paid by the city. So I want to make sure that we at least get that question addressed. Yes, Councilmember Briggs. >> Is there, why do we do that, pay the rent? What is that for? >> I honestly don't know the answer to that question. >> Hello. >> Okay. >> Because that group there helps small business startups. When people come and they have an idea for a business and they're trying to figure out what to do, one of the places that they naturally go to is the chamber office. Right there are people that can help folks develop business plans. They also have conducted regular breakfast seminars to help folks network and further. It's an effort on the part of the city to support small businesses. We get criticized from time to time because we do 380 agreements to help big industry come to town. And people say, but what are you doing for the little guy? This is one of the things we're doing for the little guy. We're making it easier for those folks to get advice and get direction. And a lot of them need that. One of my daughters used a very similar operation when she was living in Portland, Oregon, when she was trying to start up a small business. And it was crucial to them being successful in getting that going. So that's the kind of thing that we're supporting by paying that rent. >> Do we have a return on investment for that? Or do we keep up with how many small businesses that come out of that area? I mean, is there a- >> The city doesn't, but the chamber may track. The activity associated with SBDC. >> Hi. >> I honestly don't have a number on that, but they could provide a number if you want me to get that for you. I can. >> Sure, I understand. >> The con operate is a standalone operation. While they're in under our building, they are a standalone operation, from what I see. And it's just been a partnership for 30 years now, before my time obviously, so. I'd just be curious to see what comes out of that, and if it's benefiting the students and small businesses. >> I can give you a small example of a return on investment . In 2005, I personally went through the small business development program with Pam, and she's just retiring. And I was unemployed. I had been self-employed up to that point. And it is now 2016, I have three restaurants and 50 employees. So I don't know, excuse me, I've been paying sales tax all along the way. So got involved with festivals, made roots in a town. I mean, it goes on and on. So I have kids in schools now. So I know that's just the person sitting next to you, but I personally went through the program, so. >> Put that guy on a poster. >> The guy on the poster? >> Yeah. >> I should be, anyway. >> All right. Thank you, Adam. >> Can I make one? >> Yes. >> Is that okay? >> Yes. >> Okay. Now in changing things from email addresses or what not, the Dallas Fort Worth marketing team in particular, you're allowed to have more than just one email address. I do a lot of marketing with them. So I'll take a trip with the Dallas Fort Worth marketing team and we'll take five communities at a time or however many communities at a time, but I would like to request that I can stay on that email chain as well. So I can still do those marketing trips with them while the leads would be converted to the city, if that's the direction that you guys take. >> Not sure how that fits into the conversation, but I don 't have an issue with that. >> That's probably something we can work out. >> Yeah. >> Internally. >> Okay. >> Well, and I'll just say in closing that this conversation emanated from a discussion where people were asking in the community and I think some council members were asking, we're paying, we have an economic development department here in the city and then we also are funding to about $200 plus $1,000 to the chamber for an economic development department. And the questions were, are we duplicating services? Are we duplicating services? And I think part of what we're trying to do here is to answer that question, saying no, there's things that we're both doing that the other one is not. And so I think this has been a good discussion. Any other questions on this? All right, thank you Adam. >> Thank you. >> Thank you Amy. Let's go ahead and take about a five or ten minute break and then we'll come back. Okay, want to welcome you back to the Dent City Council meeting, August the 23rd, 2016. We are now moving on to our agenda item 3C, which is work session reports. 3C is receive report, hold discussion, provide staff with direction concerning audit activities and the city auditor position. >> Mayor Brian Langley, our assistant city manager, will be handling this item. >> Okay, good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I want to spend a few minutes today talking to you about some of the audit activities that we do in the city, both external audits and internal audits. And as you know, in the budget process, we've talked a lot about the city auditor position. And so the purpose of this item will be to get some direction from the council on that issue of how you really want to proceed with that item. I have a very short presentation, just for the record, only four slides. So it should go very quickly. >> Five minutes. >> Okay, great. In terms of external audit functions, as I mentioned, we do have an external audit that's done for the city every year. There's a couple of reasons for that. Number one, it's just good business to do that. And we also have some statutes which require us to do that. The Texas Local Government Code requires an annual audit for cities. It is not required to be an external audit, but it is an annual audit that's required to be done. The city charter also requires a CPA to make an independent audit of an account, so an external audit on an annual basis. So in recognition of that, we've used an auditor every year to do those external audits. We've rented as previously conducted the audits for us for the last several years from 2008 to 2015. Prior to that, we had KPMG. And as you may recall, recently the council hired Petillo Brown and Hill to come in and be the new external auditor. And that was approved on August 2nd. That was a three year term with two one year renewals. So the purpose of the external audit is to, there's some of the key responsibilities of the external audit. It express an opinion on the financial statements. It provides an opinion on the reasonableness of the financial statements and some of the numbers that are included there. Evaluate the appropriateness of accounting policies and evaluate the reasonableness of estimates made by management for a variety of different items. And the external auditor also does provide a limited review of internal controls, but those are only related to the financial statements. So they're providing a test of internal controls in terms of how those controls are used to generate some of the numbers and the accounting that goes into producing the financial statements. So we don't have a city auditor position as you know, but that does not alleviate our responsibility for monitoring internal controls and the effectiveness of our operations. So to that end, we've engaged outside accounting and consulting firms over the past several years to satisfy this mission. There's been a number of those projects in your backup. I've listed many of them, but just a few of them that are here. We've conducted entity wide risk assessments and data analysis assessments on a couple of different occasions over the past few years. We've conducted sales, tax, and hotel tax audits. We've conducted a payroll and timekeeping audit, process audit. We've actually, in coordination with implementation of the Kronos timekeeping system, we've used an outside firm to help us set up internal controls for that software system. We've also conducted audits related to overtime, cash handling procedures, procurement card, etc. A variety of different initiatives. And most recently, we've used some funds from our internal audit budget to help us with the lean government initiative , which I know we've talked about at length, some of the things that we're trying to do to generate efficiencies in our operations. In the current year budget, 2015-16, $75,000 is included for internal audit activities. And these are the funds that we've used, as well as some other funds from around the city, to do these types of audit engagements that I've talked to you about. So in the general fund, $75,000 has been included for that purpose. So, I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tem. >> On the list of audits that you hit there, but also much more extensively in the backup in the memo to Carla there. What precipitates those audits? What is it internally that says we need to be audited for this? Are some of these kind of on a timeline where you're like every three years we're going to do this? Or explain how that tends to work. >> The way we've approached it is to start out with what we call a risk assessment. And so this is a process where we have got engagement from all of our different managers and supervisors in the organization and our leadership team. And we've tried to identify high risk areas across the city , areas that are susceptible to misstatements of financials or have high cash handling responsibilities, and we try to rank what those areas are in terms of risk. And then we would design an audit program to go out and actually perform audits on each of those areas. And so over time, we've been able to go through that individual list. Some of the items have come up based on, or project specific. So as I mentioned to you, the Cronos system, the software that we're putting in for timekeeping software. We knew that was a major project was going to impact our payroll and how we accounted for all of our salary dollars across the city. And so we hired a firm to come in and help us implement that to make sure we put in the controls on that properly. And then we had an external kind of look on that. So some of it's just project based and some of it is based on that risk assessment that I mentioned to you. >> When you decide to go out to get somebody to do these particular audits that are listed here, do you always go to the same firm? >> No sir. >> What determines, do you go to a different kind of firm or a different experience of auditor and how does that work ? >> It depends on their expertise in those areas. So for sales tax audit as an example, we've used a firm that specializes in that type of work. Hotel tax audits, for those of you who've been on the hotel tax committee, we've used a firm that specializes in that type of work. That's pretty much all that they do. The firm that we've used for the timekeeping work, they do a lot of different work in the internal audit space , but we primarily use them just for that type of program. So we've used a lot of different firms and we've tried to tailor the project to their particular skill sets or what we've seen them do in the past. >> So your experience with seeing internal city auditors in other cities, maybe that you worked in, or just your knowledge of kind of that line of work. Do they themselves, I mean a singular person in a city our size, my guess would be at some point they reached the limit of their expertise. Or workload capacity or something like that that would require them as well to go out and contract for services on specialized things or are these folks such grand generalists that from DME to sales tax to cash handling standards, they'd be the experts in all those sorts of things. >> I think you're still going to have in a city our size, the number of operations that we have, you're going to have to have some specialists doing some work. As an example, we're going through a NERC compliance audit right now with our electric utility. That's a very specialized type of audit and that's an external audit where they come in and the NERC folks come in and look at that for us. If we wanted to do any kind of compliance work with that, we need to have someone who was very specialized to help us with that. It doesn't mean that a city auditor couldn't assist with that process, but you might have to have someone who was there to augment that. Likewise with the hotel tax audits, I think you'd want to have someone who was really specialized on that, but you might have the city auditor as an example oversee that process. As an example, you can do that. >> Thanks. >> So we've been doing some discussing a point of contact today. My question is, is it staff or council responsible for contact with these external firms that you're talking about ? And who is responsible for handing over the information to them? >> Right now it's been staff and maybe just as a preference , if I could go through that last slide, I think I do have some information which may address that question and perhaps others that you have. But right now it's been staff that's been providing that information. All the audits have come back to staff for our implementation. >> Do you want to? >> Okay. >> Thank you. Final slide. So in the 2016-17 proposed budget, in addition to the $75, 000 that we already have in the budget for audit services, internal audit services, we have recommended an additional $100,000 for internal audit activity. So it's $175,000 total is what's proposed for you in the general fund for internal audit work. The funds can be spent for additional contract work, as we 've mentioned, just kind of basically what we've been doing. Or at council direction, the funds could be combined with those existing resources, the 75,000 plus the 100 to hire a city auditor position. Just by way of background, the cost of the previous auditor position with benefits and all of the associated benefits that they had was about $194 ,000. That didn't include some of the additional personnel that we had at one time working for the auditor's office. But that included the salary, I'm sorry. >> No, she had a question, I'm sorry. >> Yeah, I find it interesting that when we come to the internal auditor position, we look at salary and benefits and then throw that number out at 194,000. When I go through all of my budget new hire paperwork, all we see is the salary. We don't have all of the benefits wrapped in. So I did ask our human resources head, what was the salary? It was 122,000 that the auditor, is that correct? >> Yes, it was approximately 100. >> Salary. >> It was a little over 120,000, although I don 't remember the exact figure. But in addition to that, there was a deferred compensation match that was given to that employee as well as a car allowance and some other costs that were there. And in the supplemental package listing, I think if I understand council member Wausen that you're looking at, we may just list that as salary cost or personnel cost. That's an all inclusive number that includes the salary benefits. It's an all in cost number so that we are looking hopefully apples to apples of how we present that information. So that's here just as a matter of just reference for you of what's included in the budget and what we had last time. >> I just want to come back to the salary was 122,000 because we look at a lot of different positions and when we talk about salary amount, we don't always wrap in the benefits. >> Okay. >> Okay, we had a couple questions. I'm sorry, go to the rest of the slide, I'm sorry. >> Sure. So if the additional contract work was proposed, we would recommend a new entity wide risk assessment be developed and then an audit plan be created for that. I think perhaps to council member Briggs comments, the outside auditors could report directly to the audit finance committee and or council if you're choosing. Or we could simply hide the position at the council's direction. So again, the purpose of this discussion is to try to get some discussion from the council on what you're looking for in terms of the city auditor position. Or how you'd want to do additional contract work and how we 'd want to proceed in that. So that concludes my very short presentation. >> Council member- >> Fourth slide, way to go. >> Thank you, Mr. Langley. >> Thank you, sir. >> Because we never give you credit for what it's doing. >> [LAUGH] >> The second indented bullet point says cost previous auditor position with benefits, not including additional personnel. Could you explain that? >> At the time in 2010 when we had an auditor, we also had an intern that worked for an auditor position as well as a senior auditor position also. So there was an intern, a senior auditor, and a city auditor position at the time. >> Was there clerical staff assigned to them? >> No clerical staff was specifically assigned, although I believe some of the clerical work was handled in part with legal and finance. >> And during that time when we, at the pleasure of the council, we employed a city auditor. Did we also continue to do outside audits beyond the large audit that's required by charter? >> Yes, we did. There were some of those that were done as well. >> And was that because the auditor didn't have the special ization or didn't have the time? >> I would imagine it was for the specialization, although I'd have to go back and see at that time what those particular audits were. I don't remember those off the top of my head. >> And so after the auditor was no longer employed, we continued to do audits of a variety of nature. >> Yes, sir. >> Audits to make sure that when you're talking about Kron os, basically what you're talking about is we did an audit to make sure that our staff was honest about timing in and timing out. So that the city was not losing money because people said they were working and they really weren't. Is that really part of what that's about? >> We did two things related to that. >> I know that's kind of crude, but that's really- >> Just want to clarify, there were two things that we did related to our timekeeping process. So the first part was we did an audit of our payroll and timekeeping processes across the city and where there were areas that needed to be strengthened. And then from that, it led us to a discussion to implement a software solution to help us improve that. And then we used an outside firm, that same firm that did the payroll process review for us, to come in and set up the internal controls to make sure that we didn't have any issues or irregularities that you 're talking about. >> So what you're talking about is things like procedures so that when a person no longer works for the city, they're still not getting paid by the city. >> Correct. >> Okay, that's saving money. Or that a person says that they're clocked in and they're working and they're really out fishing or something like that. We did an audit to put procedures into place to minimize that risk to the city. Is that correct? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. We also did audits on things such as inventory control. Can you talk a little bit about that? >> On- >> Asset management. >> Sure, well we looked at how we managed all of our assets and we implemented a module in JD Edwards to control our fixed asset inventory. And in combination with that, we had a firm come in to validate and assure that when we converted all the amounts and inventory from our manual systems into the financial system that we purchased, that it was done properly, that appreciation was calculated correctly, and that we had a good strong accounting for all those documents there. So that's the inventory piece that we did. >> Okay. >> Let's see. Going and then go to- >> Well, following some of the audits that Dalton mentioned , if we had an internal auditor, do you think any of the costs associated or salary associated with that, were there any cost savings internally that could possibly happen to help pay for part of that position? Just in your opinion or not necessarily? >> Well, I'm not aware of a contract that would go away necessarily, but there might be some savings in a process that would be achieved by that position. Could be the same thing as well for a contract. If you had a contract to look at a certain process and you identified savings through there, I think you could do the same kind of thing there potentially. It just might depend on what the issue was that you're looking at. >> If we had an internal auditor, would they get on it quicker than us having to go hire one necessarily? >> Well, potentially if you had someone on staff, they might be able to be more responsive to you if they were here and they could respond very quickly. I think part of the discussion that I'm seeing is we need to have some clarity about what are the issues that council wants to explore. And if there are particular issues that you have, then we could certainly look at contracts for that or we could have an employee do that. I think either one could probably be effective if you had a plan that you were pursuing and an approach that you wanted to put into place. If it's truly ad hoc, I think an employee here is probably going to be more responsive. But most likely you're going to want to have some kind of audit plan over time that you're going to want to try to work through. And a plan of work that you would give either an employee or a contractor that you'd want to have happen. >> So we don't have an audit plan in place right now? >> We do have a risk assessment and an audit plan that we 've had in place. It's a little bit dated. That audit plan was put in place in 2011 or 2012. So it's time to do another one of those. And that would be a recommendation that we'd have either for a contract or with a city auditor. We'd certainly want to do that. >> But in order to get an updated audit plan, we need to know if we have an internal auditor or not, because that'll definitely change that plan. >> Good, yes. >> And that person would certainly have some input into how they'd want to approach things. >> Okay. >> I have a question. >> I like your orientation that you would need direction from us as to what problems we're trying to solve. The request for this came about in a political season, to be clear. I've never had anyone ask me as a city council member in my time prior to that, that they wanted a city auditor. I think the questions that an auditor would be asking or addressing, I think need to be clarified because as it came out during that political season, I think there was some confusion. So I just have some questions based on some things I heard during that election cycle. So one statement was made, without a city auditor, the city 's budget has ballooned to $1 billion. Is that something that you'd put on the presence or absence of a city auditor in terms of what the revenues and expenditures are of a city? >> No, I wouldn't characterize it that way, no. >> Can I say something to that? >> Yeah. >> I'm sorry, I couldn't help. So, as I'm meeting with you. The only way a city budget gets approved is when the members that sit at this table approve it. So whether it's a city manager, city attorney, city auditor , it doesn't matter. It only gets approved if we approve it. I know we all know that. I just wanted to say that. >> No, I appreciate it. And I think there was some confusion. And again, that's why I've just got a couple more statements to read because as I was hearing people ask for an auditor, I was generally along the lines of thinking that this person has some ability to direct policy, set budgets, and what not, which my understanding of what an auditor does is not that. So here's another statement I heard. If we had a city auditor in place, the city would never have recommended this expensive renewable dent in plan. Is that something, would an auditor have gotten into the mix of the policy questions relating to renewable dent in plan? As you understand the- >> I would not have thought so unless the council had directed some kind of review of something. >> Okay. Spending is out of control in Denton. We need a city auditor to rein this in. Is a city auditor in any way relating to, again, I guess this goes back to the council was the one that's determining expenditures. At the end of the day through what we're doing now, the approval of the budget. >> That's correct. These are programs that we put in place at council direction. Unless there was some particular review that the council tasked the auditor with looking at, I wouldn't really know how to respond to that. >> So I think as we, and I'm certainly open to all suggestions on this and certainly for identifying problems. I think what sounds like the helpful path or perhaps a way forward is since we need an updated risk assessment. That just like it did back in 2011, I guess when we did it the first time, helped you map out what audits needed to be done. And I think if council were to contract for that externally , almost as a road map for us to even have that data in place to say, holy cow, this represents five years of somebody's work. It makes sense to get someone in house to do this and spend their time doing this and we know they're going to have things to do and whatnot. Based on the data we're seeing from that risk assessment. But it could come back, the risk assessment, I have no idea . Saying, man, based on the work that you guys did since the last risk assessment, these general equation of things is looking good and healthy. We have these things we want to look at and we might look at that as a council and say that might be a waste of our money to invest in a full-timer. That's now going to be a part of our team for the next decade or so when we don't have a real clear sense of what they're going to be working on. So I'd be curious to hear the rest of you as to what problems you're seeing that this would solve that would justify not only the expenditure of the 194,000. But as I hear you say this, they're going to also have to expend part of that $75,000 in additional contracts themselves. So I just want to make sure that we're solving problems with this and not just responding to, I think, some misper ceptions as to what an auditor does. >> Yes, Councilmember Wasney. >> It's the big picture. We're a $1 billion city. Millions and millions of dollars of contracts going out the door. And we don't have an internal auditor. Cities and counties across the country have internal aud itors. Across the state of Texas, they have internal auditors. So I went around, the state went around the country just to pull up internal auditors, their job descriptions, things that they 're tasked to do. And so I'll just kind of run through a few of these. Because it's a policy decision of this council. As a $1 billion city, are we confident enough in whatever we have up here on the screen that it's adequate? I'm not comfortable with adequate. I want the best. And if the best means having an internal auditor, then that 's what this council should decide to do. City of College Station has a whole page, and this is just in three years of all of the different audit reports that their internal auditor came forward with. It's everything under the sun. So this has been a busy person down there. City auditors are responsible for conducting audits of all departments. And I think that's a big difference in what we see up here and what an internal auditor can bring to the city. While an external auditor comes in once a year and looks at the books, checks the math, we're required by law to have that, and I understand that, and that would continue because we still have to have the external audit. But what an internal auditor brings to the table is the ability to drill down into every department. They're looking for indications of fraud, abuse, or illegal acts. They're making sure that there are adequate internal controls to safeguard the city assets, because we deal with a lot of money. City resources and public funds are utilized economically, efficiently, and effectively. Financial and other reports are provided that disclose fair , accurate, and all information that is required. And they're an independent organization basically within this city. So when you pull up the auditor association and it's called the Institute of Internal Auditors, and you pull up their standards. They're very clear, they're very concise, and it really establishes that they are independent. So when they come to city council and make a report, and by the way, because City of College Station puts all of these audit reports on the web for citizens to read. So it's not just a report to city council, it's a report to our city, it's a report to our citizens. So Austin talks about accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement in city operations and service delivery. So they're looking at everything. They conduct performance audits, special projects, and investigate reports of fraud, waste, and abuse. There are those words coming up again. City of Boise, Idaho, they're the ones who drill down on the Institute of Internal Auditors. And the standards that they have to have to hold that position at the city. They recommend improvements in controls. They evaluate the adequacy of the system of internal controls. They verify the existence of assets and recommend proper safeguards for their protection. They assess compliance with state and federal laws and review contract obligations. And I brought up the review of contracts the other day and we asked legal, do you review contracts? And the answer is yes. But an auditor is a whole different line of education and performance. So the city of Dallas just had an internal auditor who picked up on irregularities in contracts with Fair Park. And that threw the contracts back to the city where they had to solve whatever was wrong. So if we're looking for, well, what's wrong? Fundamentally, I think it's if a city truly wants to be transparent and be a good steward of the funds of the taxpayers, then an internal auditor is the way to get there. And because we have a billion dollar budget and all of those contracts, if I had to say number one reason to have an internal auditor, it would be precisely that all of these contracts that get approved and come and go from this city, then an auditor is there to review those contracts to drill down on, and to use the words fraud, waste, and abuse. So our job as elected officials is to be accountable to the people who put us here. I've wanted an auditor for a long time because I strongly believe it's the responsibility of the city to be transparent, to be as effective as they can. And an auditor is going to help us get there. And you say, well, how does it help us be transparent? I come back to the city of College Station and gosh, how many audits are on here? Probably 20 or 25. It's everything you can think of in this city that's been audited and put up on the web on a regular basis. So it's something we need to do. The money is there. It will help us be better as a city. And I would ask this council to place in the budget for September 20th approval salary for an internal auditor in the city of Denton. >> Yes, Council Member Grafini. >> Just for clarification, are you talking about using either the 75,000 or the 100,000 or in addition to that 175,000 salary? You're talking about salary plus some ancillary staff to assist the person? >> I think we use an external audit because, correct me if I'm wrong, we still need an external audit, is that correct ? >> You're required to have that, that's correct. >> Yes, so that's a given. And we hire an internal auditor and until that person is hired and comes on board and takes a look at what we have and what we need, then all of this, with the exception of, and I will say congratulations to Brian for the lean program and the leap program. Because those are both here to stay. They're both extremely effective and I know you were instrumental in bringing those on board. They are saving money and they are an asset for this city. When I say, I don't want a nickel and diamond in terms of piece mailing together a patchwork quilt of how to audit. I'm not an auditor, you're not an auditor. Bring in an internal auditor, keep the external auditor, and let's see what we need after that. So I come back to City of College Station and their whole lineup of all the different areas that they're internal aud its. And if we get what they have, a lot of this, I call it shotgun approach to audit with a little bit here, and a little bit here, and a little bit here, and a little bit here. I think that will probably go away, except on an as need basis that our internal auditor comes to us and recommends. I believe we need this and we use his or her expertise to follow that lead. >> I'm not meaning to be argumentative. >> Clarification, yeah. >> The staff is presented in the budget currently $175,000. So the discussion today is to start the process of hiring an internal auditor. We're going to have to set a salary. So for the budgetary talks, are we talking about in addition to the $175,000, an amount to cover the auditor's salary, or are you talking about using that money to cover? I just need to know what you're talking about. >> Yes, using that money. >> Using that money. >> Yes. >> How much does the required external audit that we're required to do cost? >> It's a little more than 100,000 and that's in addition to these dollars. >> So it's already in there. >> We already have those budgeted. >> Got it. >> This is just what we had reserved for internal audit work, the 75,000, and then we put in 100,000 there for either contract or the position. And I want to clarify something too, if I might. The 175 that we have, that's what we have in this year's budget. We mentioned this 194 number, which is an all-inclusive figure. That's really kind of contemplating that the position wouldn't be hired right at October 1. If you did decide that you wanted to hire a position that it would cover a little bit later in the fiscal year. And so the 175 would be enough funds for the whole year. That's how we thought about it at least. But it could be done differently if you wanted to try to do that October 1. >> Yeah, one last thing that Waters consulting group also said that they would entertain a slight discount in their headhunter fee. If we saw that brochure on how great Denton is, they could just take that how great Denton is brochure and drop in the auditor language and then start a search. Just a thought. >> Yes. >> I am in favor of internal auditor. >> Can you hear me? >> Yeah, might get a little closer. >> Okay. >> It'll pull forward too. >> So I'm in favor of hiring an internal auditor. Just want to start out with that. But I also want to kind of direct my comment to Mayor Pro Tem. Just because this issue came up during a political season doesn't make it any less valid. It's not any less important a political season. It draws attention to an issue and it means the public is interested and the position is desired. So I just want to say that. >> Yes. >> No, I appreciate that. Certainly any election season brings up important issues and sometimes unimportant issues that become good election talking points. We all know that. So I'm just trying to fair it out to make sure we understand what we're getting with this based on that conversation. I guess my question for Council Member Wasney is, did you see the backup in terms of the long list of internal or external audits that we do beyond the annual one that they have in our backup? And I think it mirrors what you were kind of describing out of College Station. Again, I'm interested in, and I think one thing you pointed out was contracts wanting to see, and I think that's something to look at and something to ask what we have in place or what we could have in place. I just really want to, if we're going to be hiring someone like we were a city manager and we have a real clear job description in place, we're going to have to sit and interview them on the basis of what the problems we ascertain are in the city as it relates to our financial situation. Where we understand there's risks and we're going to put them in charge of doing this. I don't know that I have that data in place as to what I would be asking them to do on day one and moving forward. So that's why it seems like perhaps a first step that I think we could probably all get on board it with is saying, let's get that risk assessment out the door, get an external auditor to do that for us to give us a list of what the problem areas are looking forward in the next few years that need to be addressed. Just to ascertain whether or not that's worthy of a full time job. And whether or not that full time job will also have to contract out to hit many of those because of how specialized those issues are. So I'm not opposed to this, I just want to make sure we're getting our money's worth and we're tackling specific problems. Not just giving a perceived level of comfort, which I get, that this position has. But I think if we're trying to solve problems, seems like the internal auditor is a tool, external auditors are a tool. I just want to make sure we're solving the problems with the best tool available. >> And then council member again. >> Yeah, do you have a follow up to that? >> Yeah, I'm addressing. I can guarantee you that an internal auditor will hit the ground running when he or she gets here because they are professionals and they have been in audit responsible jobs their entire career. There is, like I said, if you will look up internal auditor and their associations and all of their. I come back to, and I'm just going to say it, I think it's irresponsible that we don't have an internal auditor. It's boots on the ground, and yes, I read the backup. It's boots on the ground that someone is here, eight to five, Monday through Friday, drilling down on all of the different financial. This is a $1 billion enterprise here. And to not have someone here in this building going through all of our day to day, because that's one of the descriptions is department review , the contracts, everything that comes through. Every week, our consent agenda is full of millions and millions of dollars of contracts. And to not have an internal auditor reviewing those contracts, I will come back to say I think it's irresponsible on the city's part not to have that. While I appreciate that we've had a lot of things done in terms of cross checks, you hire an internal auditor and they're probably going to find even more things that need to be drilled into. But a lot of those are going to be able to be handled in house by the internal auditor. >> Council Member Gary. >> I wanted to touch on Mayor Pro Tem's point about having a scope for the auditor before we actually make the decision to hire an internal auditor. And I've given that argument some thought for the past six weeks after Mr. Langley first proposed it to me. And I think that we can do that scope work after the decision is made to hire an internal auditor. As you saw from today's presentation, it takes about six months for us to get to the point where we're actually interviewing and delineating specific things that we want for our candidates. So I think that we have plenty of time to do that, perhaps not in exactly the way that you and Mr. Langley suggested. But we can do it in our way, in our direction. So for me, that's a non-issue at this point in terms of voting up or down on an auditor. The other thing I just wanted to point out, since we are having a bit of a political discussion, is that I think people are clear that, and if they aren't, let's clarify it. I think people are clear that the auditor doesn't direct policy. What the auditor does is provide information, and as a policy making body, we need information to direct policy. So to the extent that the idea that, anyway, I think it's a specious idea that somehow the auditor directs policy, and that seemed to be what I was hearing. So I wanted to clarify that point. >> Yes, Councilmember Gregory. >> The only thing I'd weigh in on as far as doing the risk assessment ahead of time is, as you go through the process of hiring someone, I mean, Ms. Wasney gave a great comprehensive list of all the kinds of audits that can be done and that need to be done. And we know that you're not going to find a single individual that has that kind of a resume that could do all of those. And it would seem to me that it would be very beneficial if we decide to hire an internal auditor to do the risk assessment, the needs assessment, prior to the selection process. Because we may discover that we don't need a person that has this particular skill set because the lean program and the Kaizen activities are handling that. But we need a person with this set of expertise because this is where the risk assessment shows that we have our most concern. But it would seem to me that it would help the council in order to select a person and to find a person that's the best fit for addressing our needs, if we had a more clear picture of specifically what the needs were. >> When you read through all of these different cities' internal auditors, one of the top job responsibilities is risk assessment. So it seems putting the cart before the horse, let's do a risk assessment, hire an internal auditor and see what he or she has to say. No, I come back to hire the internal auditor. He or she is a professional. As part of their job description, it is risk assessment. >> I'm not really quite sure. We're spending a lot of time on a question that's pretty simple. Yes or no? >> Well, not only that, what I'm hearing is that the budget has within it the amount of dollars that would cover the hiring of an internal auditor. Let's say we made the decision today. It's still going to be five or six months down the road, probably before we have somebody that we select as a final ist. And what I'm hearing you say is that the money in the budget is sufficient to help cover that portion of the year , should we make that decision because it's going to take a while. So the money is quote unquote already in the budget for at least that. Now if you do with a risk assessment, which is a certain amount of money, then those are the things that we have to talk about. Look, I mean, whether it's political, whether there's a need for it, I have to say I disagree that it's been irresponsible because I think we've had the opportunities and we've done the audits, probably as many audits as what this is, but that's just the difference of opinion you and I have. I don't have a problem with an internal auditor. I mean, if we need to hire an internal auditor and put some of those functions, bring them in house, I remember when we did have an internal auditor, I think that was the first time we had an internal auditor. And so I think the city was still trying to figure out how do you use an internal auditor? What exactly do you need to do that? So I don't have a problem with that. I know that a scope of what we need to do, I mean, we made a decision to hire a new city manager. Well, we're just now defining sort of what the scope is and how we want to do that, and it's going to take six months. So the real question for this council is, do we move forward, number one, from a budgetary perspective of allocating these funds, earmarking them for an internal auditor position, and then if we need additional funds, which we may when they come on board for support personnel. And so I guess my question then from a budget perspective is, what is the shortfall? If a decision is made to hire an internal auditor, I've heard you say our external, is it the one that's required by law that- >> Right, external auditor. >> That's all been taken care of. >> That's the exit. >> That's all been taken care of. >> Take this into account. >> A needs assessment. That would be something in additional, is that correct? That's what this money would have been used for? And what do those run? >> You know, it would depend on the process that we wanted to have. If we wanted to run it through the audit finance committee, the council, how you wanted to do that. I'd struggle to venture a guess on what that might be, but it's going to be some money to do that, and I can come back with some quotes for you, but I don't know exactly what that is. >> And as far as that goes, I mean, if we're going to hire an internal auditor, depending on the time frame, our last needs assessment was in 2011, is that correct? So if we waited to have a new needs assessment when an internal auditor came on board, which is let's say six months to seven months, I don't think that time difference is going to be too detrimental to the organization. In other words, I think it could be something that they could be a part of that decision making process. But really the question becomes today is, from my understanding, and so correct me if I'm wrong, staff, you're needing direction on whether these funds in this budget will be earmarked for an internal auditor position. Is that really what the basic question is, that we tell you to move forward with the selection process of an internal auditor? >> We're trying to find out where does the council want to, how do you want to proceed on this issue? We did earmark some funds for the internal audit function, and it could be used for contract work or the position. And so we're trying to see, from the council's perspective, how do you want to proceed on that? >> Okay, well we could spend all day talking about this. So I'm just going to, it's time to give some direction. And to me the direction, the question on the direction, I'm going to pose it like this, so I want you to answer based upon this question. If you have some varieties, we'll talk about that. But the question really is, are we giving staff direction, city manager direction, to begin the process for selecting a city auditor based upon the numbers that we see here. But all these can be worked out as far as salaries and all that. Those are all up in the air. But that's really, to me, that's how I see the question. Are we giving direction to move forward in selecting an internal auditor for the city of Denton? >> I am. >> Okay. >> Hiring an internal auditor gives me no heartburn. I just wish that there was a risk assessment in place right now. But I'm no way against it, so move forward. >> Okay. >> Okay. Okay. >> I think it's odd to hire a position without knowing what you're wanting that position to do. We would give that sort of scrutiny to any department in this city. Yet, I don't think we've declared that ourselves. So, from a budgetary question along your lines, do we have capacity, if we wanted to, to find some middle pathway to get us through. If we wanted to say, go ahead and budget in for the city auditor, so that we have that option in this budget year. Also budget for a risk assessment so that we could do a risk assessment. And then at a later point, post risk assessment with data, understanding what sort of things we're going to ask. We're going to be in an interview process with someone, they're going to say, where are the problem areas? We don't have any data to help out in making that decision. So, or even what sort of angles of expertise we'd want this person to have without that risk assessment. To me, it just makes sense. That's the putting the horse before the cart, so to speak. So, do we have, from a budgetary perspective, are you saying this is an either or? At this point, or would we need to make adjustments if we wanted to say, let's go ahead and budget it in. So we have that option, but also fund prior to that a risk assessment. >> I think if the council proceeds with a $175,000 budget, you can use that however you choose. So if you want to have a position on board for only three months of the fiscal year and use contract work, or you want to have 100% for the position, any combination of that is your direction on that issue. >> I come back to an internal auditor is going to do that risk assessment. So why spend the money, why spend the money when that person comes on board as a professional? That's one of the first things they're going to do, because that's going to outline truly where they need to go first. >> And what if they come back and say, I'm sure they wouldn 't because they want job security at that point. But what if they came back and said, Brian and his team have done a great job of directing this up to this point. There's not a lot to do. I'm just saying let's get that data on the front end. Anyone who's hiring an employee would have a clear sense of what they want them to do on the front end before hiring them. That's all I'm saying is that seems to make more fiscal sense for us. Instead of getting ourselves into a position that's going to be nearly impossible to retract, even if we realize that they're just not needed in the coming years. And we're able to do that in a more fiscally responsible way with less money. That's my suggestion. >> Let me go to Council Member Gary real quick. >> I think the scope of our posting is to really do an up or down on the auditor. I would be open to having a second discussion about exactly what it is that we want the auditor to do. Several discussions as a matter of fact, but I didn't come here looking at this posting with the idea that I was going to have a list of items that I wanted the auditor to do. That's just not how I read the posting at all. >> And to come back to point to the mayor's question, was this direction to the city manager and staff to begin the process of hiring an internal city auditor? And to that question, I say yes. >> Okay. All right. I think I know your thoughts, Mayor Pro Tem. You'd like to see- >> I'd say budget it into the budget. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> And let's do a risk assessment ahead of time to make sure that's the direction we want to go. >> All right. Council Member Gary. >> Let's hire an auditor. Right now. >> Yes, Council Member Gregory. >> Go a little bit deeper instead of just what he said. What I would be concerned about in terms of which is in front, the cart or the horse, is it would be frustrating if we hired an auditor first. That person did a risk assessment and they found that the biggest risk was in the whole area. That person didn't have very much expertise and was going to have to outsource an awful lot of audits in order to cover those areas of risk. If we knew what those areas were ahead of time, we could pinpoint the selection of an auditor that had a particular skill set to address those needs that need to be addressed. It just seems to me that when you're hiring somebody to do a job, it's best to have a really clear, specific picture of the job that they're going to be doing, where they need to be spending their time, so that we hire somebody with that skill set. >> Yes. >> Well, to that point, we spent $11 million last year on consultants. Now, we have a lot of excellent people on staff here at the City of Denton. Engineering, where it's not a shortfall that they're not able to do the job. It's because they need some additional help in that area. If this internal auditor comes back to this council and says, here's what I'm doing and here's what I would recommend the council do in addition to, and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I still say it's premature. We need an internal auditor, and that's what this discussion is about today. And to the mayor's question, I'm answering that question and it's yes, the money is in the budget and I want that money budgeted for an internal auditor. >> So it sounds like from the comments I've heard that the council's giving direction with some dissenting sort of tangential issues such as the needs assessment, which we can come back and address that. We can come back and address, do we not have a job description for internal auditor in our city charter? Or in our city- >> I'm sure we have one from 2010 that we could go back. >> Yeah, so we've got a job description of this job, at least as a starting point. So to wrap it up, I think there's direction to begin that process with the funds that we have budgeted and taking into consideration those funds and then if there's something else that's needed financially on down the road, then we'll have to address that, whether it be a needs assessment, whether it be additional personnel and the like . So is that the direction? I know some of you are going to disagree with it on principle, but it seems like that's the direction that is being given. >> And you want to use a search firm for that process? So you're asking staff to go ahead and initiate that process with a search firm, bring something back to the council to consider as a job description similar to what you had today for the city manager? >> Yeah, and it's my understanding from the proposals on the city manager that if Waters did it, I don't recall there being, if there was a discount, it's very small, it wasn't- >> Very small discount. >> Okay, it wasn't really, it's sort of the minimum. >> It's about 20,000 or so. >> Yeah. >> 21,500 to do that search. >> Okay, well we'll have to come back and make a selection. >> Sure. >> I guess the CAEPR committee will then- >> We'll start that and we'll bring it back to you. >> Again to address this as well as far as the selection firm and so forth. Okay, all right, any other questions on this issue? >> Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, you bet. All right, we will now move on. I do have something on, I have something for the manager's proposal as well. Not necessarily, I mean you may answer, I don't know if you can. I know we talked about in the utilities funds and I don't think, DME is the only one that's competitive matters, correct? If it's water or wastewater, that's not. That doesn't fall under that exception to the Texas Open Meetings Act. Okay, all right. So, correct me if I'm wrong in my understanding, but we had the refunding of the revenue bonds which created these additional funds from the reserve fund. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Am I, what? >> Yeah, so it's the work. >> I thought I was- >> What were you talking about? >> Internal audit, right. We were talking about the budget so much. Sorry. >> My apologies. >> My apologies. Any other questions on item C? >> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm confused, as always. Agenda item D, receive report and hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the FY 2016-17 city manager's proposed budget. So, everything I just said, I'll stand by. >> Chuck Springer, our director of finance. >> [LAUGH] >> So, that additional month, remember we're refunding those bonds, those revenue bonds. So the reserve fund- >> Release of the restricted reserve fund. >> And that some of that money was going to be used to replenish the wastewater and water economic development funds, which is $250,000 a year for, I think it was four years? Four years. And that's per current policy. I believe that's per current policy. I would make a proposal because of this is something outside, I mean this revenue was something outside of just our normal operations. I would like to see that we would bump that to 500. In other words, just a total of 500, put in an extra year. Because I think in four years, it's going to take a while to replenish that fund. And these are reserve funds that we have acquired because we're refinancing revenue bonds. It really is not funds, revenue that's been, or cash that's been in the normal course of operations. So I know the policy is 250,000 a year. But given the source of these funds, I just would like to replenish that faster than four years. And that's just me. And if the council doesn't want to do that, I'm real okay with that. But I wanted to put it out there. And I knew that you probably would have more to say about, because do you do utility? I guess you do utility stuff. Yeah, okay, all right. If you don't mind, you've clearly been thinking about this, but I need to maybe take a couple of steps back. Sure. And remind us, put your suggestion in the context. Oh, sure. And you'd like me to do that? Or somebody. Somebody's going to have to. Yes. To take a step back, we have a planned refunding we're scheduled to sell at the end of this month. That will take out the existing revenue bonds of the city in association with that refunding. There's some restricted funds that are restricted under those bond covenants that will be released. So they're funds that the city has currently, but they're restricted. And those will go from restricted to unrestricted in the utilities. The plan for those funds is to use it to rebuild one quarter of the development plan lines that were used for the WENCO development is to rebuild the one quarter of those. And the remainder of the funds are going to go into fund balance. But the majority is going to go into cash funding capital projects in the utilities in order to reduce the amount of debt they're issuing. And to try to move up toward their goals of cash funding, the water and wastewater utility kind of haven't met their full goals of what they would like to have cash fund, but this would help them move up. I think what the mayor's talking about is instead of just rebuilding a quarter of those funds over four years, he would like to change and I think there's an ordinance that will have to change on that to rebuild that 500,000. So take, rebuild it in two years or maybe three, but rebuild it quicker with those funds. >> Two questions. What is the amount of the actual dollars for each the wastewater and that would be released? And then number two, you said you think an ordinance has to be changed. Does the ordinance have to be changed if we decided to do that one time? >> You know, we all have to look at it. I was thinking that was a resolution. [INAUDIBLE] >> Okay. >> If it is an ordinance. >> It is a resolution. >> Okay, okay. Nevermind. >> I would say it's a 9-1-08, but I think it would still take council action to change that resolution. >> No, that's why I bring it up to my colleagues. Yes, this is a budget issue. >> And just a clarification on that. The way it was proposed was 250 in water, only 200 in wastewater. Because we didn't use all of the funds in wastewater. We didn't, we built that up over the same time, but it was 200 in wastewater. >> It would just be the 200. Yeah, it wouldn't be 250 for each one. It would just be the, whatever you used, two years of that, not just one. >> And in terms of the dollars, the electric fund would free up about $5.9 million. The water fund about 7.5 and the wastewater 4.4 million. In terms of the use of those funds, we designated that out in one of the memorandums. I can actually open it up if you'd like me to. >> You want a specific designation? >> I'll need to go back and just- >> Okay. >> Yeah, it's- >> When that decision doesn't have to be made today, I just bring it up for discussion later on if you all need some information. But I would like to get some direction at some point before we approve the budget of a yes or a no. In terms of other budget discussion, I have no slides for you. I'm sure you'll be disappointed in that, but I wanted to kind of summarize based on how quickly my slides went last time. I did want to kind of summarize what I've heard from the council in terms of changes from the proposed budget to date. And then open it up for additional discussion like we had on that. In terms of changes to date, what I've heard in terms of majority of the council for the Parks Foundation contract that was budgeted or recommended budget at 35,000. I think the majority of the council wanted to increase that to 77,000 in the upcoming budget. In terms of kind of some one time funding from the balance of the general fund in 15, 16. We've talked about the 200,000 to replace the emergency services grant. 45,000 for breathing air compressor for fire. 90,000 for parking lot fencing at the police facility. And 152,000 for park cemetery assessment. So those are the four additions, or really four additions and one change in terms of the direction I've gotten so far. >> I do mention we kind of had an additional question and answer memorandum that was included in there. And a couple of those the TIF board is going to meet, so we 'll see what kind of recommendation comes out of that. So I'm available to answer any kind of questions you have. >> Councilmember Wison. >> And I have something new to talk about with the council and with staff. Last week I had a three hour meeting with our historic preservation officer, Roman McGowan, and with the chair of our historic landmark commission, Peggy Riddle. And we spent a great deal of time talking about the rewrite on housekeeping with the code for our historic districts, which will be coming forward from Mr. McGowan probably in the next 30 days. But then we brainstormed and tried to look at the big picture of historic preservation in this city of Denton. And I know that we're all on board with that because it's such an important part of our city. So I asked these two experts, what's the next step? This was a big step to get the codes rewritten for the historic districts. Without hesitating, they both said a new preservation plan. So it's an expense that I would like us to consider for this budget. Both of these professionals have come to our meeting today so that they can briefly take the microphone at the mayor's pleasure. To give a short overview of number one, some possible grant money. Who could help augment this, but also to educate we laymen about what is a preservation plan. And why is this the timing that we need? Because if we don't pass the monies in this budget, then we will wait an entire year before we come to this cycle again . And I think according to these two professionals that I value their opinion, background, and education. And they are saying that we need this. So with that, I'll let the mayor call one of them up to the microphone with your permission. >> Well, before we do that, what kind of money are we talking about? because this is a budget discussion, do you know? >> Between 60,000 and 100,000 with some possible grant money. And assistant manager, city manager John Fortune said there might possibly be some funds in planning that could be allocated as well. So it could be that we're actually in kind of a piecemeal to get the monies that we need. But we've got to at least put the foundation of it in the budget and let it go from there, so. >> Council members, you all want to hear from? >> Sure. >> Okay, good. Just want to make, because this is a budget item, and so I want to make sure that we're okay with at least listening to that. So who wants to, we'll hear from our preservation officer. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Or both of you, it doesn't matter. And just introduce yourself and- >> I'm going to set the stage. >> Okay, all right. >> Peggy Riddle, I'm chairman of the Historic Landmark Commission. Every great city has a preservation plan. That's going to be my new motto. Robin and I returned from a great historic preservation conference that was in Mobile, Alabama. And I just was totally inspired that this is the one thing that Denton is lacking. We need a preservation plan. This will provide the vision and the policy direction for historic preservation in our city. And it's going to be through the goals and policies and initiatives that we can put into this plan. We learned about cities that have wonderful grant facade programs, where to help not only downtown merchants, but low income residents with repairs. These are things that I think we could get the whole community behind. We are going to be asking for a matching grant from the certified local government program. And those are usually $30,000, where we put in a match with which we would use Roman's time and my time and other volunteers. It's no cash. And then we're also missing out on other grants and incentives that we really need to promote within our city, like our state historic tax credit, which we have so many properties that could qualify for that. And the investment is as little as $5,000 for people to see that benefit. I'm going to be working with the county on revising our historic abatement that the county has and the city of Denton has a great abat ement program. But there's also the Texas Preservation Trust Fund that we need to look at getting that word out to all of our residents that could apply. And the city can apply for City Hall West. So East, City Hall West, I'm sorry. Come on up, I'm not going to talk anymore. >> What was the, I missed it. What was the sort of range of total costs excluding the grant? I mean, the total cost 60 to 100,000? >> I would go closer to the 100,000, but I think we could find other funds to help us. >> Okay, good. >> We don't want to see you to bear all the burden. There are grants out there available for this project. >> Fantastic, thank you. >> Roman. >> Thank you, and thank you for inviting me here today. This is a topic near and dear to my heart. So I'm going to stay though on point, so I don't take a lot of time from you. So give me a second and we'll get this set up. All righty. So this is the preservation plan from 1986. And here on page 18, it had some recommendations for the city, okay? And I can hand this out if you want to look at it. We've done about three or four of the things that were recommended in here, and you'll see those in this presentation. But again, this is the old plan. Here it is easy to read, two pages of recommendations. And I'll get to these in just a second. So let's jump right in. Since this time, preservation plans have evolved a lot. And hence that big number. That sounds like a lot of money to me, $100,000 for preservation plans. That's impressive. And so you wonder how that happens, and we'll get to that. But they've been evolving. The profession of preservation, intermingling with sustainability has really evolved. So I've put together a series of simple images here that may help us orient ourselves to where we are today. And we're really mostly talking about today is the city's historic core. Or we'll get to more of this area. >> And I don't mean to interrupt you, but is this a long presentation or okay? >> No, hold tight. >> Okay, fine. >> Because I didn't anticipate. >> Three minutes. >> Okay, gotcha. >> Three minutes, right here. >> But I think you all need, I needed to be oriented in this way, okay? So in 56, we talked about demoing the courthouse. We didn't do that. In 66, the Preservation Act was passed. And in 85, this document was made. And it mostly was covering that little area you see there. In 89, we created the Oak History Historic District you see there. And also in 89, the Main Street Program, which encompassed that area. And we also designated the little square and had a survey done. Just bear with me a little bit and you'll see- >> No, you can- >> We won't get to this point. So then in 95 and 96, that large area, we surveyed the whole city. All the buildings built before 1945, there were 1,238 structures identified. Why 45? Because at that time, those buildings were 50 years or older and eligible for listing on the National Register 50 year being the mark. Bell Avenue, that slight upper right hand corner, there was a district created in 2008. In 2008, the, I'm sorry, so Bell Avenue was 05, 08 was West Oak District. And in 2012, we surveyed a large area here. Here's what a survey looks like. This is where we go out and see what historic resources we have and what we might do with them. And then in 15, we had the Idiots Hill survey that was just last year completed. And these surveys were all funded with CLG grants. Just a couple notes that our campuses are there, which make up a large part of our inner city. So if we had a 2030 plan, if we look at the Denton 2030 plan, element four of that plan talks about community character and urban design. The large area here that I'm going to indicate is a rough area I've just sort of invented that talks about kind of this historic real main core of our city. And then I've had community meetings now with four community meetings, three in the districts, and the communities told me they want to preserve more of our resources. And I've met at the university with people and the different universities and throughout the city. So really, this is the primary, what needs to be integrated in that area? So we have a mobility plan. How does that mobility plan interact with these elements that we already have identified? And I think so, the idea of the 2030 plan is that, let me just jump to these key points, is that, well first of all, so again, I've mentioned that the plans evolve. So if we were to put out an RFP for a plan, we really can broaden what a plan can do. And you go back to having a professional in a position. I will say that I would be quite demanding of somebody, especially if I have a little money to spend, more than I thought. I had thought to do this plan on my own. As soon as this preservation ordinance got passed, these revisions, these housekeeping revisions were to be passed, then I wanted to begin to create a new preservation plan or amend the existing plan. And I was planning to ask for a CLG grant for that. So I'm here today just because we have now, if there's potential to make that plan more robust, because there's a little bit of money to spend and share that responsibility, then my knowledge combined with the team of experts could change the way we approach that with more community education and involvement. So like Peggy was saying, does everybody know that you can get 45% of your money back for the rehabilitation of a building? That's what you can do with the state historic tax credit and the federal credit. Do they know how our tax incentives work locally and how they can take advantage of those? If we have a really more robust plan, we can vent with the general public what kind of incentives they want. What incentives for commercial buildings, what do they look like, facades, or in what areas do we need those? So I'm quickly finishing these last four. We can update our current surveys. What happened to those 1,200 buildings since '96? We've probably lost a few. In fact, I know we have. We've actually also lost designated historic landmarks that have been, at least one I know of, has been demolished near the Texas Women's University. So with a little help, it's nice to be able to reach out to the universities for me to be able to interact a little bit more to build those relationships and to help to protect them. Place making, way finding, and gateways are a key part of our Denton 2030 plan. But as far as I know, and I checked with Ron in planning before I left, we don't have anybody looking for really addressing our place making. Although we do it obviously through the different entities, the chamber and entities like that. But the gateways, we really do need gateways, but a really robust preservation plan can help to identify where those gateways should be. And then identify what are the best areas for new development. I say here we can plan for the best new urbanism style development we can, the most complimentary development, and the best development that Denton can get. Finally, a plan like this could inform how to link all these places together. We're going to have 30,000 more students here in the next 10 to 15 years or so according to the universities. Where are they going to live? How are they going to move? All that can be a part of a really robust preservation plan if we hire a nice team of experts to help. So in this regard, I'm in favor of that, but I'll answer any questions. And I'm sorry if I took about six minutes there. >> So you were, you're saying the difference between, so let's say if you applied for the grant for $30,000 and you got it, you'd have one plan. But if you had additional funding, you're saying the plan would be more, I think, to use your term robust. >> Right, so as I was planning going forward, as soon as these orders got through, I was going to begin to do, and I thank you for allowing me to make that exercise because that was the beginning of a sketch of what a plan might need to address. >> Right. >> And so that, I don't know that I could address that on my own so well. The community education and the community involvement would be not as strong. But if we have a little bit of money allocated, then my expertise goes farther. So I have other, so if there was a cash and cash, and that pays for some level of planning, it just seems that when these people come in and do preservation plans, there's two, three people, four people involved, and they're organizing in a strong way. I've only been the beneficiary of reading the plans and implementing the plans. >> Okay. >> So in that regard- >> No, I appreciate that. Yeah, you bet. Yes, Kathleen, Kathleen Walshney. >> So in a nutshell, the preservation plan we have right now dates back to 1986. And your map at the beginning was impactful because it showed all of the different areas. And correct me if I'm wrong, but a preservation plan is going to tie all of this together. And it's what we don't have right now. >> That's right. >> And a preservation plan, and if we don't pass some additional funds right now, then we'll wait a year until we can address this again to look at what the next step is. And for me, the first step was to get historic preservation officer on board. We have that. The next step was to rewrite the district codes. We are just about finished with that. And for me, the next step, and I believe you concur, is the creation of a new preservation plan for our city. >> That's right. >> Okay, thank you. Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. >> This is great. I tend to think you have a lot of expertise that by virtue of this presentation itself and the way you're thinking about this comprehensively, that could probably take us a long way. Because we haven't had someone like you in this position in a long time. And I'm very grateful for that, for what you're doing in our community. I guess from a process question, was this put forward as a supplemental package through the normal budgetary process that departments go through? Because I know, was it last year? It seems like this was talked about in previous years and I just don't know where it went. >> It was put forward as a supplemental package in the proposed budget for 15-16. It wasn't recommended in the city manager's budget. But there was some discussion about it and the need for updating the plan. At the time, we were estimating or requesting $195,000. And that was based on some quotes that we had received. But that was also based on the assumption that we were in the midst of an existing CLG grant. And so for a historic resources survey, so we would be funding the entire plan. And at this point, now that we've concluded that CLG grant, we have the opportunity for a new one. And we've advanced this effort further along since that time. >> And so if you go back to your set of slides on the last slide, thank you for that historical perspective. Right now, sorry, no pun intended. Obviously, I didn't realize it. What stood out to me here is when you get to the last three points on that board, it would be a bit of a stretch to say that falls into the wheelhouse of historic preservation. Especially that second to the last clearly identifies the areas that are best for new urbanism style development, which is new development, complementary development, the best development. I understand the connection to that, especially when you're talking in the core of how are you connecting the dots. But the only reason why I point that out is because we just got through a 2030 plan, which was thinking through these things in much broader strokes. And even as a whole section on historic preservation put through. Certainly talking about new urbanism style development, where do we want more density in our urban core, how do we get that. I'm certainly comfortable, and I think the time is right to invest in this. I just want to make sure all of our internal, we spent a lot of money on that, the 2030 plan. And we've got somebody who's kind of helping do that. I want to make sure we've got all our ducks in a row before we go out and just start doubling up things we've already kind of accomplished in previous plans. But the other thing I'll just say is that, this is my thought with plans a lot of the times. They're great, and then they sit on shelves a lot. With that plan, and I've read it in depth, I was chair of historic landmark commission. That was done internally with city folks. And a lot of citizens getting together and coming up with a great vision. So I would just want to make sure we're exploring the existing assets we have, which are plentiful in the city of Denton in terms of people that are passionate. We've talked about taking our historic landmark commission and make sure they're not just jurisdictional and approving paint colors, but we're able to give them some substantial things to work on. I'd love to see them come into play in a significant way with this. So I'm comfortable putting some money into the budget on this. I just want to make sure before we pull the trigger, this seems to be a quick conversation, which is great and it's timely. That we're just connecting all the dots and making sure we 've got existing resources accounted for before we spend money for outside stuff. >> Yes, yes, go ahead. >> I think there's an opportunity for some synergy between, we're trying to do some small area plans in the planning department. And I only say try, not because we don't know how to do them, it's staffing. It's very short-term people addressing a lot of things. And just the idea, there would be overlap. This plan, a good preservation plan, would inform the small area plans or small area studies that we have underway. So it's without, maybe we're not adding two or three employees, which you probably, I'm just going to offer up, we might could use some help. But I think that if we have, but I think that if we do, again, and I call it robust on purpose because if you demand a lot in your RFP, then you get people you need. >> So I guess to sort of, what is the request? >> Let me just, because I agree, we need to save money. We don't need to go for the Mercedes Benz. But if we had direction from you for our Landmark Commission to make this our goal for the next year is to put together a preservation plan, we have no goals. Our Landmark Commission has no goals. We have no strategic planning. And this is something I've been talking about forever. I feel like now we can do that. We can have community meetings to do the visioning and bring all the ideas that Roman and I and others have experienced in other cities. If we could have, from your direction, that that's what you want our Landmark Commission to do. >> Well, this- >> We'll start working on it now. >> This is a budget posting, so right now we're talking about what kind of budget is being requested. >> I would say 60,000 and we will try to find as much as we can. >> I appreciate that. Councilmember Riggs? I thought I saw your hand up. >> It's just, I have something else. >> Okay, so the request is direction of to ask the city manager to provide $60,000 of additional funding in the next year's budget, it's upcoming budget for the historic preservation plan. And then we can come back and talk about in a work session the direction of the historic Landmark Commission, those things later. But so what's the consensus on that? Or what are the thoughts? >> I'll go. >> Okay, all right. >> No, I think this is important. And I think having a plan in place, I definitely like when you all have addressed the citizen engagement aspect of this. And that's the most important part of this. So I'd be forward with moving forward with this. >> Okay. Anybody else have any discussion? >> I just want to answer the question with Mayor Pro Tem Roden. Yeah, it came up in about the last three days. So it didn't follow any normal path. But it's budget time and I know that it's an opportunity. Now or never, we wait another year and planning did bring this forward last year. I remember it distinctly and so I'm just happy to light another fire under it because I come back to Ms. Riddle's quote, great preservation plans go with great cities and Denton is a great city. So I vote resoundingly yes. >> Okay, all right. Mayor Pro Tem. >> Are there any budgetary consequences to this decision that we need to be aware of in terms of? >> Yeah. >> Well, I think if the direction is $60,000, I think we can accommodate that. >> Turn over the seats and find some change. >> Absolutely, sir. >> Okay. >> Chuck may kill me for saying that, but that's all right. >> In just distress, it sounds like a one time funding. So that's a little bit less impact on us than a recurring funding. >> Good clarification. >> Council Member Gregory. >> I love the irony that our historical plan is no longer adequate. That we have to have a new and improved historical plan. But yeah, that's fine with me. >> Okay, anybody else, any comments? What's that, three? I haven't heard from- >> Three and a half. >> No, no, yeah, four, okay, yeah, we're good. Okay, so the direction is 60,000 and that's the extent of it. So any grant money, it'd be nice if we could find enough grant money to cover all that. But whatever you need above and beyond that is what you're going to seek out. We're budgeting 60,000 for the plan. Is that okay? Is that good? We can work with that? >> [INAUDIBLE] >> No, I understand. Yeah. Well, but it just means if you don't get the grant, you got 60,000, at least from what we budgeted. All right, that it on that, on this particular topic? Okay, thank you. Council Member Briggs. >> So I wanted to bring up, some of you may have known or know already that I have serious reservations with the increased water park entrance fee. There's been some stuff going on, social media put out some things and the feedback wasn't so popular. I would like council to consider not increasing the entrance fees to the proposed $17 adult and 13 child. And I realize we do need an increase, but I was thinking or would hope to see it at 14 adult and 10 for child. I think that's more feasible for our families, just to throw that out something to consider. >> Has staff done an analysis on that, those proposals to see how that would affect? because I know in the budget supplemental package, there was an additional $610,000 or $20,000 for parks primarily associated with the wave pool and the concession stand. But that that would be offset by increased revenue. So if we go to the reduction, what does that change those numbers to? If anything. >> So instead of the- >> I'm sorry, go ahead. >> I have, I believe we all, you guys were all emailed the same information that I had. And it's 153,920, but you divide that in half because DISD would pay for some of that. So it's an estimated $76,000, $77,000. >> Can we put something on the screen? >> Yeah. >> But there's not, yeah, okay. >> And I think this is in dollar increments. So this is the fully funded plan with the $17. So every dollar you go down, so your proposal was down to the- >> 14 and 10, I mean as compared to the 17 and 13, which is - >> And if I can have the park staff come up and help me with this. >> This is Lee Covey. She's our assistant director of park and recreation. >> So on the proposal, that would mean that we would have a deficit of $153,920. And again, we would have council, I guess, to direct us. Do you want, there were a couple of different things we talked about when we met with Councilwoman Briggs. Would that be covered in the deficit that we already have with Dallas? I'm sorry, the Denton Independent School District, which last year, just so that you have that information, our deficit was to the tune of about $800,000. And so that would be in addition to. >> Just to clarify, that's not the water park, that's the natatorium. The water park, from what I learned in our discussions, is not at a loss. It covers it. The natatorium is where the deficit occurs, and that's where DISD- >> But- >> Halfs that- >> But we pay half of that as well. So help me understand of this 153, so Chuck or whoever, because I understand we've got this paradigm with the school district about what we split. So this difference, this variance, that factors into the sort of aggregate of what there is. So technically, they cover half of that, just because that's the way it works out, because it's adding to the quote unquote deficit, is that correct? >> Correct. So the whole complex out there includes the nat atorium as well as the water park. The water park has historically been covering all of their costs. And DISD is responsible for half of any deficit, and the deficit is coming from the natatorium. So the additional 153,000, if you all went with that proposal, would be added to the deficit, and I think council was given the backup on the deficit for- >> No, I get that. >> So historically, if you broke these out individually, the water park would be in the black, historically. >> Correct. >> And then the natatorium is what would be in the red, and then the city and the school district's agreement is we split the red. >> That is correct. >> And so our black, our profit, those applies to that deficit first. >> Correct. >> And then we split half of that as far as the operations. Yes, and then I'll go to Council Member Gregory. >> Okay, historically, the whole arrangement for the water park, the original business plan was that the water park was going to generate enough revenue, not only to cover all of its cost, but to help offset the cost of operating the natatorium. That was the business plan. I know I was on the parks board at the time when we did it. The idea was that the natatorium would be shared between the city and the school district. That land was originally school district land. I don't know if it still is or now. I don't know who owns the title to it. So our original agreement with the school district was, we'll do this partnership on the natatorium. And rather than the school district building their own nat atorium and the city building one, and then having duplicated services and duplicated cost, we 'll build it together. And we'll offset some of the cost by operating the water park. Now what I'm hearing the proposal is, is that we're being asked to make a decision that the water park that's always operated either covering all of its cost or taking a profit that offsets the cost of the natatorium. That we're now being asked to authorize the water park to operate in the red. It's an enterprise fund. >> No, it is no longer an enterprise fund. >> Well, I thought it was in the parks. >> It was originally set up that way. >> But it didn't have much of an enterprise to it. I'm sorry. >> These revenue and expenses are in the general fund from both the natatorium and the water park and part of that is so we can capture all those costs to know what the profit and loss is. But an enterprise fund would require it to be self supporting, including paying its debt. I should mention that the debt for the water park and the debt is paid by the city. This is just the operational cost. >> I couldn't agree to make a decision on these prices that actually created debt. Because the school districts shouldn't be expected to cover any of that debt. That's a decision we're making. So that's a hundred, if we're going to. >> So I guess my question is if the school districts are involved in a decision that increases the expenses of the natatorium. In other words, either more classes or things such as that, which we pay half of. I don't necessarily have a problem with, to me the issue at least has been presented is the fee increase. Now the fee increase is to cover what you just said, the profit. >> But if we go in 153, almost $154,000 a debt, if I can read that correctly. School districts are not going to cover any part of that, that's not part of our agreement. That's all on us. >> Actually, just to clarify, the agreement we have with them is when you take the profit or loss of the natatorium lumped in with the profit or loss of the water park. You get that total number and that's what the agreement says will be split between the city and the school district . So for example, in 2014-15, the loss from the natatorium was about $967,000. The actual revenues though that were made by the water park that same year was 140,000. So you take the offset of the two and then you divide in half. The school district ended up cutting the check to the city of Denton for the 424,000, which was their half. So if we implement less than cost recovery for our wave pool at the water park, staff is estimating we're going to come in at a deficit of about 154,000. On top of the deficit we already know we're going to have, because we've been operating in a deficit mode from the very beginning, because the natatorium loses more money than the water park 's able to make. So we will lump this 154,000 on the, in this case if we had another loss like 967,000, so you're looking at a little over a million dollars that is now going to have to be split between the city and the school district. And historically we have heard some pushback from the school board members that they make some decisions on the operationals of either the natatorium or the water park that they end up having to pay for half of it without having to have any say in it. I think that's the point you were trying to make, Council Member. >> I think the understanding, I think it becomes confusing when you talk about the loss of the natatorium. It's not a loss, it's that we, I mean, if you're going to say that, then every one of our recreation centers operates at a loss . And that's not, and every park operates at a loss, because we don't recover our cost. What you're calling loss is the difference between our cost recovery and our cost of operation. And none of our recreation centers in the natatorium is a recreation center for the city. They all operate at a loss, or they all operate where the fees that they charge do not cover the cost of operating those recreation centers . But we've always had a business plan where the water park will operate it in a matter, that's why we do our own concess ions. Because we get more money back from doing our own concess ions than from consigning them out to someone and just getting a portion of the profit. And so now what we're talking about, I just feel very uncomfortable about making a decision that ends up adding extra cost, not only to the taxpayers to operate this, but that adds extra cost to the school district to operate it. >> Yes. >> The feedback was several residents and families will not be able to afford to go to the water park anymore. And so I'm not so sure that that profit that we're seeing, that 1,000, is going to be that way anyway. If you don't count the people who aren't going to be able to afford it, that pay taxes and aren't going to be able to afford a facility that they subsidize. So that's my serious, my concern. And I wanted to bring that to council, but thanks. >> Councilmember Hawkins? >> I've also heard that, Keely. I don't want to price anybody out of going there, but I'm trying to figure this. Has parks had any discussion about naming rights of the wave pool or anything that's kind of creative? Just something? >> No, I don't, specifically the wave pool, no sir, I don't think we've had any conversations about that. >> I don't even know if I'm on topic or not, but barely? >> Well, it would, obviously, if there was some sort of an agreement, I would imagine it would be a monetary arrangement which would then go back into the overall fund for the water park which would then help with the deficit. >> Okay. >> Yes, somebody over here. >> I think the holiday wave pool. >> You good? >> Yeah, that's a big check that I got right. >> On this point, had you guys done any sort of market research or in arriving at this fear, were you just simply trying to get yourself at a balanced budget, regardless of that, or had you done some sort of research to see whether or not this was too painful for folks? >> We did benchmark what our amenities are compared to other water parks in the area. But we've been given the direction since the water park inception to cost recover. Because actually the original business model not only wanted, the plan was for the money to offset the auditorium. But any additional funds would also be going towards amenities, new amenities, because that's what you do in this industry is you should be constantly updating and adding new amenities. And we haven't been able to do so. >> And so my other question has to do with the membership passes, which I'm looking at kind of the distinction between how many folks are accessing via that. Is there a recommended increase in the memberships as well? >> We were doing away with the family pass. The family pass was only allowing people in your immediate family to be on that pass. And we were implementing for 2017 proposing individual passes. And we still would have preseason sales where people can still get those at a discounted rate. So for example, a preseason pass currently for a family pass up to six would cost you $200. The average water park is seeing a family of five or four. And so that if they buy their individual passes preseason, it would cost them $220. >> Because of the cost of that family of five you're saying ? >> That was four. >> Four. >> Because that's the average family size at the water park. >> And so to me this is the solution, right? I mean my family's got a family pass and we're probably, I was just trying to calculate between the Civic Center Pool. And the natatorium which we have access to with that pass and also the water park. I bet you we were there 50 times this year. And what did I pay, probably 300 bucks for that family pass ? >> $200. >> 200? So less than five bucks for my family of five to go to any of those facilities. So I think there's some marketing issue. And if we're really looking at trying to figure out how to solve that problem, which I agree, if I'm having to fork over that much money per my kid at that level, that's going to get expensive. Start doing that a couple times. But that's such a deal for a family who can get a family of five in for less than five bucks every time you go if you're going on a regular basis. That it seems to me the path forward is to say let's push those plans. I don't know if those memberships went way up, what that does to your pro forma here, because of that discount in terms of your cost recovery. But I think that's the path for families who struggle with that sticker shock is get yourself a membership. >> Well, those are also going up. >> We had Council Member Wasney and then Council Member Burke. >> And how long has it been since prices have been increased? >> 2004? >> When we made the change? >> Well, you'll need to come to the microphone, yes. And introduce yourself, please. Thank you. >> I'm the Aquatics Program Area Manager. And I do prepare and submit this budget, so hopefully I can answer most of your questions. The last time we had a fee increase, and I hesitate, it was more like a fee adjustment, was when we shifted from the age. We used to have three different age categories, and we shifted to just two height categories. And basically went up $1 there by adjusting from three to two in terms of compressing fees. Before that, I believe it was the second year that we were open, 2004, 5, that we had a, I believe a $3 fee increase was around 2004, 2005. We've hesitated to continue to add fee increases because we have not added any additional amenities. So at this point, we're looking at doing the fee increase, number one, because of adding the amenities. But also, the operating costs have gone up considerably, especially for personnel. >> Yes, is that a follow up to that? >> So that's a long stretch of time in terms of price increase, but we all know that costs to do anything have gone up. And you've added the wave pool, and even at 13 and 17, it's still substantially below competing water parks across North Texas, is that correct? >> As far as the set fees? >> Yes. >> The admission fees? >> It's just straight, if you get up and say, without a pass, just get up and say, let's go to the water park today . It's still cheaper to go to our water park here in Denton than in other water parks across North Texas. >> That is true, but there's a lot of different amenities and different parks that cause them to set lower or higher fees. It's difficult to compare our park to other parks, to be honest with you, because we're a relatively small park compared to say, Hawaiian Falls or North Richland Hills in our H20. >> Yes, their passes are substantially more expensive, even after we proposed the fee increase. Because of the fact that we're looking at providing for a group discount on passes, you can get a pass for $55 pre- season. And so, for instance, you could pay $55 for the entire season if you buy it pre-season as a group of four or more. And you recover that cost for the 48 inches and taller in five visits. You recover that cost if they're under 48 inches in just four visits. So we are trying to maintain a lower rate, especially for the pass holders, encouraging them to go that direction to get the discounts. >> So the key for people who live in Denton is to get that season pass early and it will knock the cost down considerably. >> Yes, ma'am, and we're planning on a pre-season sale that will go up through the middle of May. We'll have a large marketing campaign that we'll be putting out to the public later this fall. Before Christmas time, so that if anybody wants to buy somebody a Christmas gift, hit hand, that would be a wonderful gift. Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. >> Councilmember Briggs. >> So you're saying the pre-season is 55 and the after season is 75? >> It would go to if you buy a group of four, and I have to admit I don't have my glasses in front of me. But for instance, if you wanted to buy instead of a family pass, it's now a group discount for a family of four. It is only $55 per person for four, five, six, doesn't matter. Up until the end of the pre-season and then after it opens, I believe it's 65. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Councilmember Briggs? >> $65 is the discount once we open the water park. That's, in other words, pre-season it's 55 if you purchase four or more. It goes up to 65 after, I believe, May 14th. So it's $65 for a group of four or more after that time. >> But 75 for an individual, say if somebody has a family of three. >> That's correct. That is correct. >> That's a lot to remember. >> Now that's also a pre-season, that will be a pre-season discount of 65. For an individual, you could get a pre-season individual for 65. >> I have a question and I certainly understand the conversation about the different fees and increases and potential hardships. But I'm looking at your attendance forecast and the attendance forecast is about a 25% increase. From 72,000 to 90,000. Help me understand that because that's pretty large unless historically have we had that kind of increase? >> Actually, the preceding year, our admissions attendance was over 83,000. So that's 72. 72,000 is a relatively average of preceding three, four, five years. But last year it spiked up considerably to over 83,000. And this year, as of today, which includes the last weekend of very bad weather, we're currently at 70,500. >> Okay. >> And we've still got five more operating days to go. So realistically, that 72 is an average from the preceding, like three or four years. >> Okay. >> But if you look at the white paper, you'll see the spike in admissions attendance. >> Well, and that sort of goes to my point, and that is, if you don't hit the 90, let's just say you hit 80, which is still apparently a good year. 80 is still a good year. You're 10,000 short of visits, and then you have to monet ize that with the amount of each one of those visits, what that fee would be. You're still going to show a deficit. I mean, this is based upon 90,000 visits at the higher price. So if you don't hit that, every visit that you don't hit just comes off that $1,924. Is that my understanding of that? >> I believe so. >> Okay, all right. Okay. This is just for me, and you can send it to the rest of the council. I'd really like to see this chart at 80 to 85,000 attendance, just so that we can have an understanding. because if all of a sudden there's a $150,000 deficit because of an attendance, prices could still be the same, but the attendance forecast could be off. We're still going to have to deal with that. And so I'd just be curious on that. >> Thank you. One thing I need to also point out too, the reason we went up to 90,000 is because the new amenity, the capacity for the wave pool and the surrounding deck space is an additional 900 people. >> Okay, good. >> So realistically, if we can't attract about at least 300 more, we'd be shocked. It's a very popular thing in the metro place. >> That's easily tracked, I guess too, as far as on a daily basis. >> Yep, okay, great. Any other questions about this? So Council Member Briggs, you're asking, are you requesting anything from the council? Are you bringing up a point, help me understand. >> Well, I was requesting that we look at lowering that increase, but it seems that that's not a consensus, so. >> Okay, is she reading that correctly, that right now there's not a consensus to lower that fee? >> Well, I'm torn on this, people that use the water park should kind of in a weird way pay for the water park. And so if there's a bigger deficit, it feels like it falls on people who don't use the water park. But I don't want to price anybody out too, so I don't know, when do we set the prices for this water park? I mean, are we doing that right now? >> It's the budget, yeah. >> September 20th. >> Yep. >> Wow. >> Yep. >> Well, I don't know then. >> There'll be a separate- >> How about that? >> There'll be a separate ordinance for those fees, just like water and waste water, all of that on the 20th. >> Okay. >> Yes, Council Member Gregory. >> The one thing that might be helpful down the road is to get our city attorney to look at our contract with the school district. Because what I would not want to do is continue to operate in a way that pushes their prices up, that causes them to look at how much they're paying per year and saying , well, for that amount of money, we could build our own pool . And I'm not saying that they would do this, but they may say we could build our own pool. We could control all of the hours. We don't have to coordinate with the city in those hours. And then we're left in a year or two with the full price of operating the natatorium and returning the debt on the nat atorium. >> Right. >> I think that would just be prudent for us to look at down the road to see if we're running into jeopardy. >> Sure. >> Of doing that. And I think that us making these kinds of decisions could do that. I'm not saying they would, I'm just saying they could. >> Yeah, all right. >> I would like to do that, Mayor. >> Yeah, and I'll ask for an item in concluding our conclusions tonight about this as well. Okay, any other questions on the budget aspect of this? Yes, Council Member Rhoad. >> Yeah, I appreciate you bringing this up because as someone with a young family as well, I mean, you do sense this. And again, I think if we all do our diligence to get out and market the memberships, I think that's the best deal in town to get and that will offset that considerably and give your family things to do outside in 100 degree weather all summer long. So that's my suggestion. But I think there's a lot of hypotheses at play here. If we remember this and capture this discussion, of course, I won't be here next year at this time. But to be able to say, if we come back and say, how did we reach 90,000, did we? Did our people not go because of the increase in price? I mean, there's all sorts of hypotheses that we're going to be able to test to realign this next year. Did the wave pool do it for us? Did it not? That's going to be a learning opportunity. So the only other thing I'll put out, and this is probably crazily controversial from a revenue point of view. But I'd just be interested at some point if anyone had a study on city owned water parks like this that utilize alcohol sales as a revenue generator. I know there's private ones, Herkine Harbor, I think sells alcohol. People are used to that and other sorts of private entertainment venues like this. And frankly, I hear parents not from my family, but from other families saying, man, this would be great if only I had a market. >> Yeah. >> I want to watch my kids. >> We need to factor in our liability insurance increase in that as well. >> Absolutely, that's why I'm just asking if there's any examples. You can just get that to me in an email or something. >> He's not running again for reelection. >> Yeah. >> Let's drink at the water park. >> Okay, any other questions on this item on the budget posting? I'm sorry, council member here. >> The parks issue or the tax rate? >> This issue, the water park issue, yeah. Yes. >> Just to clarify the information that we get for you, Mayor, do you want to see it at 80 and 85? >> Yeah, just curious. Yeah, just something real quick. I mean, it shouldn't take that long. Don't spend a whole lot of time on it. It may be disseminated to the rest of the council and informal staff report or something. >> Okay, thank you. >> We'll put it as a question and answer memorandum so we can attach it. >> Yeah, sometimes I, okay. I miss those sometimes. Okay, so we're still on the budget posting? Council member Gary. First, I wanted to thank you for adding the attachment to the backup regarding the growth of the budget and then the growth of the population. If you haven't had a chance to look at it, it is an incredibly helpful historical, that's like our word of the day today. It's a historical view of the budget and population growth in the city. Since we are posted for a tax rate discussion, I'd like to just kind of put out there the possibility of reducing the tax rate further than what it is already proposed to be reduced at right now. Which I believe is a half cent. So just putting out there the possibility of a one cent reduction in the tax rate. >> Chuck, do we know, because I'm looking at this historic growth comparison, and for the 16, 17 budget, it shows a percent change is the 5.4 %. And so I want to make sure I'm thinking about this in consistent terms. So when we hear certain segments of our state that talk about a 4% revenue cap, is this the number that they would be talking about? It is not. >> No, it's strictly related to the property tax calculation for the rollback rate. And right now the rollback rate is an 8% rollback rate. What they would be talking about is lowering the rollback rate. So you remember our rollback rate was about 72 cents. So it would be a lowering of that rollback rate. But not a limitation on the total growth of the budget, because you've got other revenue sources. >> Right, because what I'm thinking of, because I guess what I'm trying to do is translate our current budget proposal outside of maybe a one cent, or maybe get it with a half cent, one cent. But how does that stack up to that when they say, well, you had a 4%, sort of like a document I had when I went down there to testify that the city had a certain amount of growth each year. And it averaged like 3.8% as far as its tax valuations. So I'm trying to associate what we're talking about in the budget with what they're talking about there and what number in our budget represents that. So you don't have to give that to me right now. I would like to see what that would look like for the one cent as well. But Council Member Gary brought up a question about the half cent to maybe a one cent. So I'll put that out on the floor. Yes, Council Member. >> I would be in favor of the one cent reduction if that's all we can get. >> Okay. >> I mean, we have to find some relief somewhere. >> Okay. All right, yes, Council Member Pro Tem. What's the recommendations from those recommending an additional half cent of what gets cut out of what's been recommended thus far in order to account for that additional half cent? >> Council Member Geary. >> Just from a policy standpoint, I would be in favor of cutting recurring expenses rather than one time expenses, because I think that's a better way of accounting for the half cent. So I would want to go as a group and look through the recurring expenses. >> Well, I appreciate that. I guess if we've kind of all been kind of workshopping this thing to the point of kind of giving our consent to various items that have been put before us. We see the base budget, we've been looking at it for several weeks. If you're asking for my comfort in going down another half cent, I need to know the ramifications of that. I don't want to make that decision, say, yeah, let's do it, now let's go forward and cut. You probably have some suggestions on what you would want to cut. You might as well, and that's what I'd like to hear to know , because we're going to have to get consensus on that at some point as well. So to me, I would need some more details before I'd be able to answer that question. >> Yes, Council Member Hawkins. >> Yeah, I agree. Today we've had conversations about adding an auditor, getting a preservation plan. And there are a couple other things, and now we're ending it with cutting, is it like $400,000 with another half cent? I don't understand, I just need to see the math. So I've been going off of this year's budget off of a half cent. So I just need to see what are we cutting then too. >> Yes, Council Member Gary. >> I wasn't real clear that we had already decided what we were going to spend the money on to begin with. So I don't know that cutting is necessarily the right word for what we're talking about, because I don't believe as a body we've determined what it is we're going to spend a tax increase on or that additional revenue on. I could be wrong, I'm sorry. >> No, Mayor. I think last week we've kind of gone around and just as a consensus trying to give some direction. I know that we have not voted yet, but because you said things that we're discussing right now, it might not even apply to this budget if we don't vote a budget in. And so we all went around and so that's where I was working . >> Sure, and in no way was that a vote on that particular- >> I agree. >> It was just to get some input or some discussion from staff. And I don't believe Council Member Gary was here at that time, so obviously she's making her input now. You weren't here last time, right? >> I wasn't. >> But did you raise this at the half cent? >> I don't remember. >> I wasn't here. >> You weren't here. Okay, I'm sorry. Yes, you were, I'm sorry. >> I thought I was effective right last time. >> Yeah, that's right. I'm sorry, you're absolutely correct. >> No, you're right. Nobody's voted. >> Yeah. Well, I think it's a good question on what is the impact. And I think like anything else when we've had something that affects the budget, we've asked staff to come back with a sort of a scenario of okay, if it were one cent, what would it look like? That would be information that would be helpful. We don't have to make that decision, but I think we can't make that decision without that analysis. I mean, I can't, and what I've heard from a couple council members is they can't make that either. And then if it winds up that we're all going to take a vote on this somewhere down the line in a few weeks. And we want the best information. Yes, Council Member. >> I understand we haven't passed a budget, but what we've received is a proposal for revenue and a proposal for expenditures. And if we're going to, if there's a discussion to reduce our revenue, well, that's not going to match the proposal for the expenditures. >> Correct. >> So there's going to have to be a reduction in expenditures. You don't have to, we could call that something other than a cut, but it's a reduction. And I would certainly want to know what the proposed reductions are so that we're matching our revenue and our expenditures. Because I don't think that you're recommending that our expenditures exceed our revenue. I'm pretty sure that's not your recommendation. So with that, we would need to know where we're cutting, where we're reducing, and we don't want to use the word cut , in order to account for the difference in the revenues. So I'd be curious to hear. >> Mayor, where you're asking, the impact's about $460,000. And was your question, would you want a staff recommendation if they were to reduce the tax rate another half cent? What on this list? Would we not recommend as a supplemental, is that what you were going towards? >> If that's what you're confining your list to, I'm simply saying, if all of a sudden you got direction from this council, and there was a consensus. I'm not saying there is. But okay, you know what, we want to take it. Even when we first having this discussion, we were looking at a two cent reduction based upon your 10%. And then when it came in at eight and a quarter, which we were all wrong. And I'm paying a lot anyway. But yes, what would it be if that were the situation, whether it's from here or somewhere else in the base budget . Because we got that base budget increase. I'm just saying what would be the city manager's recommendation if that were the case. And so we could, yes. >> I don't think that's fair. I mean, if someone on this body wants to reduce the revenue by another half cent to say, let's put that on them to come back with the recommendations on what would get cut, we're the ones making the decision here. I'm just saying, if that's my recommendation, I would tell you specifically, here's where I'm going to find that extra $450,000 in recurring expenses, and that's what I'm willing to take out of the budget. I think that's fair for us to do at this point in the game, given how far we've come in making these decisions. We're not over the goal line yet. I just think that to ask the staff to come back with those recommendations, I just think at this point in the game, it 's not fair. >> You know, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you on that. >> That's fine. >> We pay our professionals a salary to develop the budget. And this body sets the policy. And if this body decided, just because there's not a consent, if there was a consensus, we wouldn't be going around the table saying what do you want to cut? The consensus would be just like there was when it came back to from the two cents or whatever we had sort of talked about to the half cent, here 's what we think. So I understand the spirit of what you're saying, but I sort of reject that argument because we have a staff that that's their job. That's their main job is preparing the budget. I don't think there, are you guys offended if you had to go back and do that? Is that a bad, you have to make these decisions all the time. >> I'm not saying anyone's offended, Mayor. What I'm saying is we have, as Joey pointed out, the last couple meetings added to this budget. By people getting in our ear saying here's the things we want and we're contributing to it by putting more things into that and we're finding spots for that each time. If we decide after going this trajectory, and I think we had consensus when you pulled us last time. I think we had one person at the table who said they weren 't comfortable with the half cent. So I think the consensus was there. All I'm saying, I don't think anyone's going to be offended by it. I just think we need to make those decisions. Because we're making tough calls in here. And so if somebody has a suggestion to cut something. >> Did we make all these decisions? These decisions were brought to us from staff. >> Yeah, and to the extent that up to this point we've given consent on that. Then we've said yes. >> We've given direction, but I mean Mayor Pro Tem, we're going to have to, I don't want to use an old colleague's description. >> Violently? >> I finally disagree. But I mean, because this- >> I think you said, "Violently agree." >> Yeah, maybe, "Violently disagree." So that's fine, but we still have to get the information. If you're saying, are you asking staff not to bring that back? >> I'm not saying that, I'm saying it's easy to ask for revenue cuts. And not be able to give specifics on what you'd cut. >> Yes, Council Member Gary, I'm sorry. >> So I think I apologize for starting that a little bit. I was really unclear to the point that you both really brought up. I didn't think that we ever voted on all of these or that we had a specific discussion about every single one of these items. So to see that there was consensus on $2.7 million plus $60 ,000 from today of expenditures is news to me. I just wasn't following along in terms of, we had all discussed that we want $750,000 of police training equipment or police personnel additions. I just didn't, I wasn't tracking with you as far as we went there. So to the extent that you're wanting specific items, again, I would go back to things that I think are recurring expenses and that maybe we don't need all of those expended this particular budget cycle. So that would include, for instance, rather than having, I believe that's nine additional police officers, perhaps having five additional police officers, rather than having two fire training captains having one fire training captain. That's $500,000 right there. So hopefully that clarifies some things for you. >> Okay, all right. Good. Any other questions for, okay, go ahead, Council Member. >> Regarding this, it seems to me that this process that's been going on all along, we've been having these meetings for a long time and we do a lot of nodding. We've seen these lists, but that's not the only list that we've seen. We've seen lists with more items. We've nodded our heads. We've done all kinds of little signs and made things go away and left things in. So yeah, we've been building a consensus for several meetings to get to the point where we are. So to say that we haven't agreed to all of this, it seems like, yeah, we sort of have. And we've agreed to some assumptions. We agreed to some assumptions early on. Now, not all of us, but we agreed to some assumptions about how much money that we thought was coming in. We agreed to some assumptions on additions for the cost of health insurance. We agreed to assumptions that there was going to be a 3% merit raise, not across the board raise, but a 3% merit raise available to staff. So those are all assumptions that we've agreed to. So that we built consensus on. Now, that doesn't mean that everybody agreed to them, but we're now near the end of August, and we just have a few more weeks before it's time to vote on the budget. So I'm concerned that we feel like that we haven't even really agreed on all of these things, because I don't know what we've been doing all this time if we haven't been building consensus towards that goal. And that's why I feel like that since we have been building consensus and been building agreement towards this, then it would be up to us, if we decide that we're going to reduce our revenues, that it's up to us to decide which spending items we're going to reduce. And I appreciate Ms. McGarry offering some up. >> Well, and I understand that, but I guess, and this is a philosophical discussion, but when we asked to increase the expenses, nobody said where are we going to get the revenue. We've asked staff, in fact the $60,000, we looked at you and said, council gives direction consensus, okay. Because revenue is sort of more predictable. You're going to have to come up with something. Whereas if we said we want to spend an additional $300,000 on something else, well guess what? You're going to have to go back and go, well, do we have that money in the budget? So I just disagree with the premise that if we get to a certain point that where somebody's saying, well, I'm not so sure I agree with all this, or with the tax rate that somehow becomes the council person's duty. To come up with those specific suggestions. That's just a philosophical difference I have because I believe we're paying quite a bit of money to professional staff to help us do that. And there's been a lot of times where we've asked them to make right turns down the middle of a straight away. So this isn't anything about staff. It's more of, if someone's, and if a colleague brings something to the table and asks for it, I think it's up to us to entertain that and to see exactly how that impacts that. It's not saying that, I can tell you what would happen. Staff would bring back a recommendation. The council would look at it and say, no, we're going back to the other one. But it still honors the request unless the request is withdrawn. And so it would be an interesting thing to look at. But I just reject wholly the notion that if council asks for a cut in something at past what point, past the point where we decide it's this week or it was last week. I brought up the discussion on the half cent, primarily for the purpose of continuing to give staff at least some idea of what's going on. So that we don't have some of these big, big kind of swings . And so if someone comes in and asks for an additional half cent, and council asks, hey, what would that look like? I don't consider that, that's if it shows up the night of or the week before. But I agree, we've been talking about this and my concept is, this is what I'm in concept having a consensus with, that's this right here. But that doesn't mean that I couldn't look at that and go, you know, well, wait a minute. Is there some other fact or circumstances that comes before the council that would change that? So I just totally reject the notion that if council member asked for a reduction in revenue that it's their duty to come up with where it quote unquote gets cut. That's just me and I understand there's a difference of opinion. Yes, Council Member Hawkins. >> I definitely want to honor any council member's request. Feel like they're able to get information, but it is confusing. Last week, we really did all go around and we have not voted yet. But there are so many times in this room where council gives somebody direction up there. I mean, it happens week after week. And that's the direction, that's the path that we start on. So that's all I'm saying, we don't meet for two Tuesdays after this. And then do we vote on the next one or is it one after that ? That's what's tough about all this because we really are talking about spending more money today. That's all we've talked about. And you're right, we asked Howard just to come up with 60 grand out of the couch, which is a weird fund. >> Yeah. >> But it is- >> Well, but that- >> I'm saying what you said, you are right. >> Yes. >> I want everybody to feel respected in here. But week after week, this council does not vote on things, but we do give direction. And we have been giving direction on that. >> Absolutely. >> Wherever that came from, that keeps coming up and we keep moving forward with that. Even Kathleen said, I would like a bigger increase, I don't think I have the decrease, I don't think I have the votes. So there's been lots of times. And last week we all went around and what I think I remembered is that's the direction we're going. So I want Sarah to feel like she gets the information that she needs. I'm not saying that. But I do feel like staff has, council has been saying we're moving towards this way, towards the budget. >> I don't disagree with that. >> Okay. >> I don't disagree with that. I don't think anything I've said is disagreeing with that. >> Okay, cool. >> Councilmember Briggs. >> I would like to see the one cent decrease as well. And I wasn't here last week and I would have said that last week if I was here. >> And I want you to see that. I'm just saying if there was a confusion about direction or how all that works. Anyway, I just wanted to say what I said. >> Yes. >> So I just want to say about the supplemental package. It's going to be hard for me to remove anything to do with the police or fire department. I just want to go on the record with that, that we've really discussed at length things to do with the police and fire department. And I'm just, I'm not going to go there for any of these reductions in cost. Having said that, we've got a billion dollars right here. It's not just two million or three million on this sheet up here. So if we have council members who want to see the one cent reduction, then let's dig deep. And I think it comes back to Councilwoman Baguerre's suggestion to go back to some of the recurring expenses that we have. In this deep $1 billion package here and come up, and my challenge to you is to be creative. Let's see if we can find $400,000 in here. It doesn't chip away at our police department and our fire department. >> Councilmember McGarry. >> I just want to bring up one point. Police and fire is not my first choice, but for instance, I did suggest last week that we not increase the parks director funding by 35,000 and that was rejected. So a lot of these items, if I'm reading it right, have already been rejected as a cut. That's why I went to the recurring kind of expense because that's really all that's left that hasn't been rejected by this council. In terms of going into line items, I also tried to do that today. You may recall it was a year ago, I mean a couple hours ago , and that was rejected as well, $11,000. So there's definitely $450,000 somewhere in there, but if every suggestion is rejected, then there's not $400,000 somewhere at all, ever. >> Okay. Is that helpful? >> Can I ask a question? >> Sure can, yes sir. >> Do you want us to bring back a recommendation to cut 460 ,000 out of the general fund? Do you want the city managers or interim city managers recommendation? And if you do, are we going to put certain limitations on that recommendation? In other words, if you said bring it back but no cuts to police and fire, or are you just going to say bring it back as to what the city manager would recommend another half cent reduction to a one cent reduction? >> Yeah, that's a good question. >> I thought last week that we had five votes for the tax rate lowering it just by half a cent. It sounds like maybe we don't have that this week. >> Well, guys, I'm really confused about, I mean, first of all, we haven't taken a vote. I haven't said whether it's a half cent or a cent. I mean, I haven't changed my perspective. I'm just simply saying someone asked what would it look like, and the city manager's requested budget for a penny decrease. And what is the problem with letting her see that? >> There's no problem with it. >> Here's what I'm trying to say, Mayor, is I heard you ask last week, granted, we had a council member out, but I heard you ask, we need to get some direction on the tax rate so that we know where we're going. And as we went around the table, I thought I counted five people. >> So you're interpreting my request as that locked us in to that? >> No, no, it didn't. >> Okay, all right. >> No, it didn't. >> I want to make sure I understand. >> I think that's where we were last week. All I was saying, sir, is that it appears this week that we 're not there anymore. >> I have to say, I don't agree with your assumption. >> Okay, then I miscounted last week. >> No, Dalton, I'm saying I don't agree with your assumption based upon this meeting. You're saying, well, now we don't have five votes for a half cent decrease. Because I simply asked, could we see that? You're assuming that I'm not for the half cent decrease. >> No. >> Well, then where are these quote unquote five consensus votes, or these four now? You're saying that we see one and one, that's two. >> What I thought I heard just now was that there were three members that are wanting- >> Who's the third member? >> I think Mrs. Wasney, I don't know. >> I don't know if Council Member Wasney said that. >> I don't know either, that's why I'm bringing up the question. >> Out of respect for Councilwoman Begarry's request of the 460,000, my point was that I sure didn't want to budge off police and fire on that supplemental. But that's three million out of one billion that's in here. So my challenge to staff was to dig deep, let's see if possibly there is 460. If you had to bring back a recommendation, then find it. But if it's in here, let them find it. But we haven't voted on this yet. >> To answer your question, I don't necessarily, if you could put that in either informal, if you're saying in the next week or so, because we don't meet for a couple weeks. >> We can put it in the memorandum and bring it back and I 'll have a presentation. >> Here's what it is, give it to us. I mean, so I just don't understand, to me this conversation has not indicated anything different than the last conversation we had last week when I brought that up. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. So, Council Member Briggs. >> So we have a proposed water, electric, waste, all those fees are proposed to be increased. I've had some emails recently that I didn't have before in these discussions, asking for some help, some relief, and so that is why I have brought this up. Because that's what I would also like to see, what a one cent decrease would look like. So. >> Okay. >> So our direction is to come back with the city manager recommended one cent. >> Okay. I'm gonna change the word. You're saying city, and maybe I'm getting stuck on the recommended, because I don't think you're gonna be recommending a one cent tax decrease. I'm saying if that was. >> Well, we'd be recommending a certain series of cuts to get us there. >> Yes, I agree with that. >> Now, let me ask another question while we're talking about this. Are we gonna need another, we don't have any council until the 13th. Are we gonna need to have a budget discussion on September 6th, which is we have no meeting for? Do we need to schedule a budget? >> Specifically for the budget on September 6th to discuss this. >> When do we vote on the budget? >> The 20th. >> The 20th. >> And so we have the 13th and the 20th. >> That's correct. >> I'm sorry? >> No. >> Is it the 13th when we vote on the tax rate? >> No, it's the 20th. We have a public hearing tonight on the tax rate. A second public hearing on the tax rate on the 13th and the public hearing on the budget on the 13th and we vote on the tax rate and the budget on the 20th. I think why Howard is asking that question is once we finish the 13th, we've just got a couple of days to put everything together to bring it back to council on the 20th, so we'll need direction by the 13th as to what to bring back to the council on the 20th, so I think he's asking, do you want to add another meeting on the 6th so that we can comfortably have direction by the 13th to bring you back to the proposed budget because there's a lot of documents and numbers that have to come together by the 20th. We have to put that in your packet, so the reality is it has to be done by about the 15th to bring it back to you. >> Yes. >> General Manager Martin, I would say we can do it on the 13th as long as there's not like 35 items on the agenda. Because if it's a really busy agenda on the 13th, we will not be able to have the discussion. But if it's a light agenda, I think we can have the budget discussion we need to have and finalize it on the 13th. >> The way it's scheduled currently, the 13th's going to be a pretty busy agenda. >> Okay, yes, go ahead. >> I'd like the original idea of getting something in our packet showing what a cent decrease was going to do, and I know it's a huge budget and they're supposed to find something. But I go back to what Dalton said, we've been at this a while now. This is not the 11th hour and I know we have not voted, but we have been at this a while. So I do not want to meet on the 6th. I feel like we've moved, if there's a report in our backup or packet that shows some of that. Or if somebody has some specific things that, cut is the only word I know because we've been staring at this. So whatever the other word is, I'll learn that word later. But just give some ideas, the things you'd like to cut. I'll gladly be creative. I'll go home and I'll look through there. You're right, it's a billion dollar budget. But this is the direction we've been going. And just because two council members are saying that they want to see what it looks like at a one cent decrease does not mean that we need to have another meeting. We've been plotting this route. I can read that at home and see what staff would recommend in that way. >> Okay, yes, all right. >> I guess to dig into what you guys need to do by the 15th with this. I mean, if we had this discussion on the 13th and we nailed down on some direction one way or the other. What needs to happen in those two days in order to get what you need done to prepare for the 20th? We kind of put together the budget where we're at now and then we'll make changes to it based on the council direction on the 13th. So without significant changes, it shouldn't be a problem. But if there's going to be significant changes, we would appreciate knowing that a little bit before the 13th. >> I mean, I hate the fact of having to come in the day after Labor Day, isn't it? But this is huge, right? I mean, and I don't want to rehash what we've already talked about. But I think giving some consistent direction along the way is helpful for everyone, ourselves included, as we're trying to build consensus to get ourselves to the 20th. And I'd hate to get us to the 13th. I don't know where that discussion's going to go if that's the first time we're discussing going between half cent and one cent based on the recommendations by the city staff and we're batting that back and forth and then the very next week we got to vote on something, including the effective tax rate. We could get ourselves into some difficult waters on the 20 th without having the proper time to ferret that out and find out what we need to do. So I think if this is the direction we want to go, that we want to continue to explore flexibility in the tax rate. Beyond what I think we had consensus and I think we have disagreement on what happened last week when we asked that question. I think we just need to bite the bullet and meet on the 6th and have that discussion so we give the time it takes to work those things out. >> I guess I would want to see what the recommendation is before I agree to a September the 6th meeting. Now if that can't be done in time, I get that. >> We can send it out as an informal report. Because I know that there's been decisions that the staff has made. And that if there were any objections, then the council would have the opportunity to do that. Because we're certainly not going to run afoul of any open meetings laws or anything like that. But I just would like to see what that looks like. And because I don't know, when you say the disagreement on what happened last week, I 'm not so sure that I have. I don't think we're saying anything different. I really don't. And I don't think, quite frankly, it's any different this week than it was last week. It's just simply there was a request made to see, and let's make sure we're clear about the budget. We're only talking about the general fund here. When we say we've got a billion dollar budget, that includes a lot of things. But what we're talking about today is only with the general fund, which is exactly what we've been talking about. But I, for one, as mayor, when a council member now too, have asked to see something as it impacts the budget, I'm not going to sit here and tell them you can't have it. And I don't think anybody here at this table is asking that either. The big question is, how do we process it? How do we move through in the most efficient manner for staff in preparing the budget? And I think I would like to see it before I go to schedule a meeting, because as Council Member Begari said, it may be a non-starter. We might get to the, even if it's the 13th, if five of us are saying, well, no, we're just going to go back to what we did. That discussion's over. So that's how I would handle it. I don't know if we need to schedule one today, say let's schedule it today. But we have to know that answer by the, and we're on agenda committee. When's the next agenda committee meeting? Okay. Well, we might, if there's any special call meeting, it could be the agenda committee to discuss this instead of having council come up with that. So that's, is that direction, I know it's not agreeable to everybody, but can everybody live with that? >> Violently. >> Violently? Okay. All right. >> I'm glad I didn't have any slides this week. >> All right, that, I believe that concludes our work session. We will now convene in closed session at 653, which we're probably going to be coming, what, 5? 553. We will consider the following items. Consultation with attorneys under text government code section 551.071. Deliberations regarding real property under text government code section 551.072. Deliberations regarding certain public power utilities competitive matters under text government code section 551. 086. And we've got dinner ready, so. All right, I wanted to welcome everyone this evening to the meeting of the Denton City Council on August 23rd, 2016. It's about 7/16. Apologize for our being late here. We just had a couple things we need to wrap up, so please accept our apologies on that. If you would stand with me as we pledge allegiance to the United States and Texas flag. >> 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 it to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible. All right, we'll move on to our next agenda item, which is the consent agenda. Councilmember Hawkins. >> Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of items B and C with the alternative packet that was given to us about six hours ago. D is going to be moved until the 13th, and A is being pulled for an item on individual consideration. >> Councilmember Gregory. >> Second. >> So we have a motion and a second for approval of the consent agenda items B and agenda item C with the substit uted packet. Agenda item A has been pulled for individual consideration, and agenda item D has been pulled to next week. So let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries seven, zero. We'll now take up agenda item two, A, which was pulled for individual consideration. Mr. City Manager, do we have a presentation or just any- >> Well, we do. Galen Gillum's here, our executive manager of administrative services for DME. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, City Council. The item before you tonight was on the consent agenda. It was pulled to talk about individually. It's a resolution choosing a substation site for a project that's known as the Eagle Substation. The problem that DME's tasked with addressing is growth, and growth in the area creates higher demand on our electrical system, and in replacing aging infrastructure. A lot of the electrical system was built in the 60s and 70s and needs to be replaced. It's nearing the end of its useful lifetime. DME is the department that has a responsibility to respond. We've gone through a public involvement process, considered the practical options, and we get to the end of that, and City Council chooses the best site. You notice I have best site in quotation marks, because that's a difficult choice, and it's a judgment choice. Here's a map that shows electrically where this substation will be in the system. You see it's very near the middle of the system. That kind of light green inner loop is the 69,000 volt loop that we're upgrading to 138,000 volts. The outer loops around Denton are the higher voltage right now loops, 138 loops, partially owned by TMPA and partially owned by the city. But there's where the substation fits into the system electrically. More importantly, where is it geographically? And here's our starting point. So we're siding the Hickory substation over to the west. The Locust substation is over to the east. And we want to place a substation approximately halfway between those two. The substation tends to serve the area around the subst ation, but also importantly, it serves as a backup to the other substations, the next one down the line. And if you'll look at where the Locust substation is compared to, say, the square where the white arrow is, and the site that we're choosing for the new Eagle subst ation, you'll see they're about equal distance from downtown . So not only is it important to serve the growth in the area , but also it's an important backup power supply to the important loads in those areas of the city. We evaluated a lot of different options before we came to this conclusion. In fact, this is not even all of them. This is most of them. And this is 14 options. So over a dozen different options were evaluated in trying to choose a substation site, ruled out for various reasons. This site's not as good as that. We apply our criteria to the sites, et cetera. We kind of homed in on this area right here. The site with the red X was the neighborhood homes, which was chosen not to be the site. And then we kind of homed in on more commercial sites to the east of there that included either apartment complexes or commercial businesses. And that orange outline is the site that's actually chosen in the resolution. A little bit about the process. We go through opportunities for the public to weigh in on where the substation should be. We do the same thing with where transmission lines should be. So we've had open houses back in 2015. We've had public hearings at the Public Utility Board and before City Council where folks can come in and weigh in on where the substation should be. We were directed by council to pursue the orange and green sites. We've had meetings with UNT over a prolonged period of time . And then in closed session, the Public Utility Board selected the orange site with the gas insulated station option, which is an important factor to remember. It's a very small site and the footprint doesn't allow our normal air insulated substation. So this newer technology, this technology that has some better reliability issues with it is going to be used on that site because it's what fits on that site. And it's kind of a trend you can see in a lot of urban areas where they need to site a substation in various areas around the country. It just has a smaller footprint than an air insulated station and it will fit on that site using that newer technology. And then to remind you, you chose the orange option with that gas insulated substation type of substation back in late July. So this is the resolution that's before you this evening. Assuming it's resolved and passed, we'll begin the property acquisition process, which includes steps like you see here , surveys and appraisals, permission to make offers, etc. down through negotiations and relocations. All right, we have a request for question that Councilman Wasney. I just want to thank DME and thank this council for picking this site. It's the smallest of all the sites, but also picking the technology and the GIS technology is cutting edge. It will be the first of its kind in the city of Denton. It will not look like an electric substation. Of all the substations that you see when you drive around town, you won't even know quite frankly that it's a subst ation. It'll have a building on it, not a bunch of electric towers . So again, thanks to this council and thanks to DME. I know the neighborhood is appreciative and I think it'll be the best for that part of the city. So again, thank you. Thank you. And we do have any more questions for staff? Seeing none, thank you. Thank you. We do have some public speakers. So before I acknowledge the movement and second round, go ahead and call for the public testimony. Mr. Willie Hutsmith, if you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. Mayor and council members, my name is Willie Hutsmith. I live at 623 Newton. A couple of things about this whole process. I was in on the discussions of this station and the choices that were made are in the choice making process. So I want to say something about that. The presenters of these particular choices should consider presenting the information differently. Make it such that you inform the public and then truly let them-- help them feel like they do have a say in what the choices are. What happens in these kinds of situations is we were given the three options and it made it appear as though we had some say in what the choice that was chosen that we had a say in that really. When in fact it turns out that we didn't. The powers that be had already decided they want to do this , do whatever they wanted to do. And you might ask, well, how do I know that? Well, they had what they call community meetings and all and two of them I know I went to and I think they had three. But all that was presented was a large list of facts that we didn't understand. Oh, well, I didn't understand. And then the decision was made. It's like what I've experienced with sometimes you all. In my neighborhood, it is one of the few dump sites, not dumps, recyclable places to bring trash. It's right there near my neighborhood. It's always messed up. Mondays is the worst. I've shown you pictures of that. So here I am. I think I have a choice in it. And I came to you and told you about it. Just like choosing which one of these sites I thought was best. And it was like I didn't say a thing. Like I said to you, today is still a mess over there. But when code enforcing comes to tell me what I have to do, I tell them that people come and dump stuff on my site that says it's not our problem. You're there. You need to clean it up. Just like pretending like I have a say in this, I want you to have a say in doing what you tell me to do, you need to do it. It's not my fault that they dump on that site every day. Every day. Anytime you want to go to the corner of Duncan and Fort Worth Drive, just go over there and you'll see. Nothing but trash. But you go in the other places and it's not that way. It's the same situation here. If we're going to have a say, then we need to have a say in this. Thank you. Deborah Armentar, please come down and state your name and address. Deborah Armentar, 2003 Mistywood Lane. On my card, I didn't check support or opposed. I just kind of had some questions and concerns. So obviously, I missed a number of the opportunities that were apparently there for me to speak about this substation. And for whatever reason, this is the time when I'm speaking about it. I would just like to hear more as a member of the public and also as a layperson who really doesn't know much about why we need a substation, why we need this many substations and opposed to that many. I would like to hear more than simply that it's "important to serve the growth" because we're talking about something that is right near apartments . These are largely minority apartments. They used to be primarily student apartments. And I don't know what the ratio is now, how many are students and how many are families. But I know that there are families who are living in these places now. And so if we're going to be building a substation, no matter how small it is, how nice it looks, how near where folks live, I'd just like to know more than it's "important to serve the growth." Have there been major outages in or around this area that this is servicing? Have there been studies done saying that the current infrastructure is not going to be able to hold such-and-such as Builder once we reach such- and-such a year? So again, I didn't check opposed. I just have questions that I would like explained to me and to everyone else as a lay person, as lay people. And apologies if these questions were already answered at these various forums that I had not attended. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Having no other cards, Councilmember Gregory? Thank you, Mayor. I would move approval of item -- well, consent agenda 2A or ID number 16-957. Councilmember Hawkins? I second. We have a motion to second. Let's vote on the board, please. Carries unanimously. We'll now move on to our agenda item 3 section, which is items for individual consideration. I've had a request from the city manager to move agenda item D, as in David, to the front just so that we can call item C and E together, which are related projects or related action items. So if there's not any objection, I'll go ahead and call agenda item D. Seeing none and hearing none, I'll go ahead and call the item. And item 3D, consider approval of a resolution of the City of Denton, Texas Municipal Home Rule Corporation, city, approving and authorizing the sale of certain assets by the Texas Municipal Power Agency. Thank you, Mayor. Phil Williams, our general manager of DMA, will be presenting this item. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Mayor, City Council, tonight on your agenda, is this item related to Texas Municipal Power Agency? Just a reminder, Denton is a member of Texas Municipal Power Agency. It's a joint power agency that was formed in the 1980s to build a jointly owned power plant because of the economy of scale. A building that big of a plant was bigger than what any one city needed. We're in that plant jointly with Garland, Bryan, and Green ville. As a member city, TMPA has to gain our approval to take major actions. We issued a request for proposal for sale of assets at TMPA . This resolution authorizes the agency to proceed with consideration of those proposals and continue the negotiations. Those negotiations are still ongoing, so they're not final ized at this time, but this authorizes the agency to proceed on with those negotiations. It authorizes the sale of the assets and the refunding of related financing related to those assets. Also, in this resolution is the amendments to the various TMPA related documents we have, the power sales contract, the joint operating agreement, and the global settlement agreement that have been agreed to before by this council. So with that, I stand ready for any questions. Any questions? From staff? All right. Phil, was that the completion of your presentation? Okay. All right. This is an item from the city council. I do have a question of clarification. I just received two cards. This is -- and so it says -- Okay. Well, no, this is item 3D. These cards are for 2D. Yeah. So -- Yes, that's right. Okay. All right. I just wanted -- I'm sorry. I just wanted to get that clarification cleared up before we move forward, so I didn't make a mistake in that regard. Councilmember McGarry. And we do have a card to speak on this as well. Okay. I'm moving for approval. Yeah. Okay. Before I recognize the second, I'm going to recognize the public speaker, Mr. Willie Husbeth, to come down and speak on this item, sort of try to keep it consistent with the last item. Thank you, Mr. Husbeth. Yes. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Mayor and councilmembers, my name is Willie Husbeth. I live at 623 Newton. This item really needed, I think, discussion in the open session, much like you did in the closed session. I don't think that you're operating the closed sessions the way they should be, only talking about things that would skew the decision-making in a way that's not favorable for the city. But if you have -- and I think I understand that closed session ruling from the state pretty well from being on the school board myself. If you have a closed session, there is nothing in the act that allows you to have everybody in there other than the public, or many people in there, and having a public discussion that should have been held in the public, but you're doing it in closed doors, behind closed doors. Here's my concern. There's a little blurb on here about what the issue is that just highlights that funds would be moved around, that the situation is such that it's just a very small mention of why the need is. But you were in that room for almost an hour talking about this little blurb that you've given us, the public. I think that should have been discussed in the open, but I don't know. You will definitely be looking at this because you have so many closed sessions and you talk about so much in there, and you have all the people that really don't have anything to do as far as clarification or legal issues, but you have them all in the room meeting with you, and the only people that's missing is the public. I think something's wrong with that. So yes, I have lots of questions about this, but in three minutes, there's not enough time for me to get it figured out, and you discussed it and got it all figured out, and now you're going to vote on it after you've gotten all the information , but you didn't share that with the public. - Council Member Gary, did you have a question? - Yeah, for Madam City Attorney. Regarding the closed session item, can you explain why this particular discussion was had in closed session to the extent that you can? - Right. We posted this, I think, under two separate provisions of the Open Meetings Act. We posted it as an attorney item, and we also posted it as a competitive matter. And so as such, it's the entitlement of the City Council to have discussion with regard to the item. We did have some discussion this evening. Of course, I'm not at liberty to discuss that because it is a closed session item, but they were properly posted under those two items, and in my opinion, and I've given this to you in writing, I think it was an appropriate discussion. - What constitutes a competitive matter when we talk about DME or TMPA? - Right. There is a whole provision in law that relates to what constitutes a competitive matter. Under a DME posting, there's approximately 15 or 17 items that are listed, but it can include anything relating to budget items, contract items, such things as that. And so we believe that this particular item as posted was within the statutory provision. - And just last thing, and this is by virtue of DME, TMPA engaging in commercial activities, correct? - Correct, yes. - Okay, thank you. - Councilmember Gregory. - And when we have those closed sessions, there are some staff that show up in the room, but you and the manager and the mayor, as I recollect, check the room to make sure that only those staff members that need to be there, that might be able to answer questions if we have questions are there. What about the other staff members? - The closed session room is cleared of all staff, but for those who might have information relating to this item. - And that's why if somebody was standing out in the hallway, they would see as we change items, they wouldn't know that we're changing items, but some staff members leave and other staff members come in based on the item that we're doing? - Correct. - Okay. - That's been our practice, yes. - All right. Okay, we have another card. Deborah Armantar, if you'll come down and state your name and address and your time will begin. - Deborah Armantar, 2003 Mistywood Lane. Again, this is another item where I didn't check support or oppose. I just had some questions and wanted some clarification that weren't answered for me in the staff presentation. And I've got my phone here because I'm reading from the TM PA agenda for tomorrow. It looks like, so when I read this item about the TMPA on the city council agenda, I was pleased to hear that we're taking action on selling the coal plants swiftly and that's wonderful. And at least that's what it sounds like we're doing. I don't know what the timeline is on that. I would love to know more about the timeline. Anyway, I went to the TMPA website and saw that they're having a board meeting in Garland tomorrow and their agenda calls for, and I'm reading this, a resolution, quote, "Recommending that the member cities approve the sale of the Gibbons Creek steam electric station." And I looked that up just to verify that's the coal plant as I understand it. The steam electric station. And certain transmission facilities and resolving matters incidental and related there too. And then there's another resolution also on the TMPA agenda for tomorrow providing for the defeasance, which of course is voiding of contracts and can mean a number of things, but generally voiding of contracts of TMPA's outstanding refunding revenue bonds series 1993 authorizing the use of the reserve fund for such bonds to accomplish such defeasance, authorizing the execution and delivery of an escrow agreement and approving other matters relating there too, et cetera, et cetera. So my lay person's reading of this, I'm thinking, this sounds good. It sounds like the other cities are all moving out of this at the same time. I'm trying to figure out for myself what's going on here. And I was hoping that the staff presentation would shed some light on that. Anyway, I don't know if you all know about this, but I'm certainly curious to know the other cities all selling too at the same time and what's this defeasance agreement. Anyway, I mean, it sounds good to me, I hope. But I just like to know more about what's going on. Thanks. Thank you. Council Member Briggs. Can legal tell us what a defeat, what did you say? A defeasance agreement is? Right. It would be defeasing the bonds means that we would move to another kind of financing arrangement. It could be issuing alternative bonds or it could be defe asing them, paying off debt. So that would be the nature of it. So the original agreement is put aside and a new agreement is drawn up? The original bonds are being defeased and some other type of indebtedness would likely take its place or they could be a payoff of debt associated with the defeasing of the bonds. Yeah. Any other questions? Seeing none. Thank you. Council Member Gary, you had already made a motion to approve, is that correct? That's correct. All right. Mayor Pro Tem. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second on agenda item 3D. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 7-0. And I failed to mention agenda item 3A is not being considered at this time. It will be coming forth on the 16th, I believe. So we move on then to agenda item 3C. Mr. City Manager, would you like for me to call these together? Oh, B. I'm sorry. B. Yeah. I'm sorry. We've got 3B. 3B, which is considered nominations appointments to the city's economic development partnership board. I would like Carolyn Booth to present this item. She's our Assistant Director of Economic Development. Thank you, Mr. Martin, Mayor, and Council Members. I'm going to be giving you a brief presentation on the Economic Development Partnership Board appointments. By way of background, the EDP board is appointed by Council and serves as a recommending body on items related to economic development. The members fall into specific categories. The City Council has two members on the board. The Chamber of Commerce does also, as well as the top 20 taxpayers within the City of Denton. The University of North Texas has one representative. Typically it is the President of UNT or his or her designee . One member is nominated by the Denton Black Chamber of Commerce. One is nominated by the Denton Hispanic Chamber of Commerce . One member represents general aviation. One member is an at-large rep. And then on the consent agenda this evening, you amended the EDP board ordinance to add a seat for the President and Chancellor of Texas Women's University. The terms for almost all of the members are two years, and they can serve up to three of those two-year terms. The only exception there is for the UNT President and now the Texas Women's University President and Chancellor. They are not limited in the number of terms that they can serve, but they do have to be renominated every two years. The nominating process consists of appointing a nominating committee that has two Council members on it. This year it was Dalton Gregory and Joey Hawkins. And one representative from the Chamber of Commerce's Board of Directors, that was Larry Parker this year. The nominating committee gets together, talks about the candidates, contacts each of the eligible candidates to confirm their willingness to serve, and then compiles the slate of nominees, which is presented to the Council for a vote. So the slate of nominees that the committee is presenting to you this year consists of Kareen Faiten, the President and Chancellor of TWU; John Gilmer of Flowers Baking as one of the top 20 taxpayer representatives; Joey Hawkins of the Council; Jimmy Mejia, representative of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Some of you know Diane Costa, who was the Hispanic Chamber 's nominee last year. Since it was a new seat, she drew the short straw and only served a one-year term, but she is retiring and therefore isn't going to be eligible to serve on the board again, so Mr. Mejia is going to be replacing her. And he and his family own the La Azteca grocery stores as well as La Sabrosita restaurant here in Denton. Marty Rivers is going to be returning as a representative from the Chamber. Carol Ann Simmons is returning as the at-large rep, and Neil Smatresk, the President of UNT, is re-nominated as UNT's representative. So this is the end of my presentation. I'm glad to answer any questions you have. >> Council Member Begari. >> Well, I don't have any questions for Ms. Booth, so I'll just, I'll seat it until we have a discussion. >> Okay, great. Any other questions for staff? And we do have a, thank you. >> You're welcome. >> We do have a card wishing to speak, so we'll go ahead and call for the public testimony. Mr. Willie Hudspeth, you'll come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. >> Just a point of clarification, Mayor and Council Members , my name is Willie Hudspeth. Can you put those nominations, don't start my time yet, because I want to make sure I'm right. >> Please stand back up. >> Yes, please. And I want to show me who's the black Chamber of Commerce recommended person. >> Okay, so the, John Baines is the representative from the black Chamber and his term is not up this year. So he'll be renominated next year if he chooses to serve again. >> He's on there right now. >> Yes, sir. >> All right, thank you. Just for clarification. I think other than everybody who has a lot of money and that's why you picked them, that's a good bunch right there. You've got a good mixture of people that I think would help with the economic development situation here. One thing that I want to make perfectly clear, what I'd like for the city to do is to follow the same rules that you make us follow. This is one, this is a good rule and you're following it. But nowhere in the closed session act does it say just in case you might have a question for someone who knows a little bit about this issue, they can be in the room. I served for six years going through this process and just as a thought, what we had to do was if we had a question for even the attorney, the attorney came in, answered the question and then left. We didn't just have everybody in the room just in case who had some limited knowledge of what is being discussed in there and talking about it. That's not how that works. The purpose of the closed session act, where is it? Can you put the time back up there so I can keep up? The closed session meeting act is so that boards and commissions and councils can't have public meeting in closed session. The public needs to be where they can hear what you're saying to keep everything orderly. You can label it as attorney client discussions or situations where there is a sale that would hinder the sale or make it more costly for the city if it's talked about. But if you're not talking, the council, about the issue at hand and that you need someone who has some expertise in that area, they are not supposed to be in that room. You're only supposed to talk about that issue that is, that you're discussing. I'm pretty clear that's the way it's supposed to be. So that excuse about they had something to do with it and we had them in and move them in and out, that's not the way it's supposed to work. They only come in, answer the question. That person individually, not everybody on staff that might have some interest in what is being said. Thank you. Council Member Gary. For this particular agenda item B, I just wanted to state that I'm very happy that President Faiton has been added to the roster. I think it's really past time that TWA had a seat at the table there. I will, however, be voting no for this item because, again, I brought this up at a different time and I brought it up during our work session. I have misgivings about appointing, the way that our ordinance is currently drafted allows potentially for two non-City Council members to have those seats that are reserved for elected officials. And I think that is contrary to the purpose and spirit of what this commission is supposed to be doing. So for that reason only and not for any of the nomination reasons, I'll be voting no. All right. Thank you. Council Member Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. I would move approval of item 3B with the nominations as presented by staff. Mayor Pro Tem. Second. We have a motion to second. Let's vote on the board, please, for agenda item 3B. Motion carries, 6 to 1. Now we'll go on to agenda item 3C. Would you like, Madam City Attorney, should I call these both together or, I mean, do we just proceed them one by one? I think item 3C and then if we don't act on 3C then we may pull 3B. All right. Will do. Thank you. We'll call agenda item 3C, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton approving a pre-annexation development agreement between the City of Denton and Ryan Capital Partners for the Creekside development. Thank you, Mayor. Mnall Moledad, our Deputy Director of Development Services, will be presenting this item. Thank you, Mr. Morton. Mayor, members of the council. A request before you tonight, bear with me one second, please, is to consider the adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton approving a pre-annex ation development agreement between the City of Denton and Ryan Capital Partners limited for the Creekside/Ryan Ranch development. I will go through some touch points associated with the development just for the benefit of our audience and again for yourselves, the location of the property. And the fact that the subject property is approximately 80, 81 acres in area and comprises of three tracts, 1A, 1B and 1C. 1A would be for the expansion of the Good Samaritan facility. 1B would be limited to three single family lots for single family development. And 1C would be a single family residential subdivision with approximately 137 lots. That being said, I just want to hit on some of the touch points associated with each tract. We'll work backwards with tract 1C, approximately 47 acres in area. I mentioned the number of lots, which was 137 units. The minimum lot size would be 7,200 square feet. The minimum dwelling unit size would be 1,800 square feet with the caveat that a minimum of 45% of the dwelling unit sizes would be 2,400 square feet or greater. As part of this development agreement, there are some enhancements that are reflected in the pre-annexation agreement before you, which is to increase the tree preservation component or aspect associated with the development, which is approximately 60%. For tract 1A, it would be 65%. The single family subdivision would have a trail system, an amenity center, entry monument features, landscaping. There would be a linear park. There would be active open space and passive open space, f encing and screening mechanisms that would accommodate the topography of the site and again , a variety in housing stock. Before your purview, we have provided a comparison of what would be proposed within the tract 1C residential subdivision and I have hit on a majority of those with the exception of the minimum masonry requirement at 90% for the front facade and 75% for the side and rear facades. Ryan Road would be improved in terms of funding being provided to the city in the lump sum associated with each tract and development and those are reflected for your reference and they are also reflected in the agreement. That being said, I also wanted to add that there are some minor revisions that have occurred in terms of language that with the agreement before you, you have a black line and they refer to just typographical errors that have been modified. One would be in section 4.3 of the agreement for tract 1C, which would specify a detail plan is provided opposed to site plan and the reason why I 'm going through this just for the benefit of the record. Section 5.0, which is the general provision 5.1, the tree preservation for tract 1A, it was accidentally omitted. It is at 60% tree preservation for tract 1A. That is a good soundtrack. The infrastructure obligations, there was a typo in that as well for tract 1C. It is at $4,300. I believe it was referenced at $3,800. The site plan approval as referenced in 5.7 for tract 1C basically states that this detail plan that is attached to the development agreement, the pre -annexation agreement, is what binds the document and that the site plan approval through the administrative process would be required to ensure compliance with this. As I mentioned, the minimum dwelling unit size is 1,800 square feet with the condition that a minimum of 45% of the dwelling unit sizes would be 2 ,400 square feet or greater. With that, I'd be happy to address any questions that you may have. Any questions? I guess I have one for the city attorney. These conditions that were presented are part of the development agreement. If for some reason some of them are not completed or they 're different, what remedy is there? I'm just curious. Well, this is a development agreement, so the two parties would need to agree. We do understand that the developer has agreed in concept with the things we're speaking to tonight. I assume he's going to come forward and indicate that he does agree with it. But as an agreement, if both parties are willing, these issues, of course, can be modified upon subsequent agreement through a contract amendment. So it could be changed in the future. These conditions are reflected in the red line. They just haven't been reflected in the black line or vice versa. And we have discussed these touch points with the applicant and they are amenable to them. They are present as well tonight, should you have any questions of them as well. Any questions for staff? We do have a card wishing to speak on this. This is an item for individual consideration. So if the applicant does wish to speak, if you wouldn't mind filling out a blue card, that would be great if you're intending to do that. Because I don't have one on you. All right. Our blue card is Mr. Hutzpeth on agenda item 3C. If you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. Mayor and councilmembers, my name is Willie Hutzpeth. I live at 623 Newton. I just have one clarification question. We can get the overhead back up. Not overhead, but the -- yes, show me -- Where you had the big border there, what's the street to the left there? What is that? Is there a street there at the very left part of that? Hold on. Are you referring to the street where the cursor is now? Yes. That would be developed as part of this development. Okay. What about further to the left, identifying street? I don't remember the street. Andrew Avenue right here. I don't know what it is. And what is the top? That's Ryan. This is Ryan. And below here, it's off screen, it's Creekdale. It's what? Creekdale. Okay. Which way is -- where is Lillian Miller? Is that farther to the right? It's further off the screen. Yeah, we need to get -- yeah, because I want you to have your full time. So I want to make sure you get a good -- so do you have your sort of bearings on that? Yeah, that's all. That's all I wanted to know. Oh, you just wanted a clarification of the properties. Because I couldn't tell where it was. That was it. Okay. Great. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. We do have another card wishing to speak. Mr. Bob Shelton, if you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. Oh, we have another time. Oh, okay. Bob Shelton, 2308 Ranch House Drive, Denton. I'm just here to answer questions, which is one to make sure that I was recognized to be here to answer any questions you might have. Sure. I have nothing further to say on it. Any questions for the applicant? Okay. Any questions? Yes, Council Member Gregory. Mr. Shelton, you've had a chance to at least understand the general concept of the conditions. Yes, sir. Are you good with those conditions? Yes, we are. All right. Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shelton. Appreciate it. Any other questions for staff? Council Member Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of Item 3C with the conditions presented by Menal. Thank you. Council Member Gregory. I second. So we have a motion and a second for approval of Agenda Item 3C with recommendations presented by staff. I believe that's correct. All right. Seeing no more questions or comments, let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 7-0. Therefore, with the passage of Agenda Item 3C, Agenda Item 3E is no longer needed. It's no longer applicable. So we'll move on to our public hearings, which is Agenda Item 4A. Hold a public hearing on a proposal to adopt a tax rate of .684750 with a maximum allowable rate of .689750. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to call on Chuck Springer, our Director of Finance , to present this item to Council. You'll give me a moment, Mayor, to move my presentation. Oh, I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing. Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. After this afternoon, I thought I would just hide. Yes, I'm sorry. You may proceed. Thank you, Mayor. I want to give a brief presentation on the tax rate. This is the first of two public hearings required by state law. The proposed tax rate in the City Manager's budget this year for maintenance and operations and debt service is a total of 68.475 cents. That's a half-cent decrease from the '15-'16 tax rate. There's also a couple of additional tax rates that state law requires us to calculate and advertise. One is the effective tax rate, which is .663366, and the second is the rollback tax rate, which this year is .72079. The certified taxable value is about 9.117 billion. The increase for this year was 8.23%. In terms of the budgetary priorities, I won't go over all of these, but these are the priorities that were set forth in the proposed budget from the City Manager, and you can see a lot of these have emphasis on infrastructure. In terms of the general fund, the majority of the city's property taxes fund, the city's general fund, you can see about 38% of the general fund revenues is ad valorem taxes, number two is sales tax, and number three is service fees and transfers. In terms of the general fund expenditures, by category, the biggest portion is personnel services, about 72% of the general fund. And in terms of by function, what individuals are used to seeing are police and animal services and fire department make up about half of the general fund. The next largest is parks and recreation and then library. In terms of the total proposed budget for all funds of the city, 1.185 billion. You can see a large majority of that is the capital projects, the CIP, about 577 million. And I will state that those are the funds that are being added to the capital budget this year as well as any funds remaining from past years. We re-budget those funds if they have not been spent. And you can see the second largest is our electric fund at about 173 million and the top in the dark blue is the general fund at 114.5 million. With that, the next steps, again, we hold a second public hearing on the tax rate on September 13th. We also have a public hearing on the budget that's required by state law on the 13th and then we'll bring back the budget for consideration by the council on the 20th. With that, I'm available to answer any questions you may have and then open it up for the public. >> Councilmember Begheri? >> If we were to keep the rate that we have right now, which is .689, how much additional revenue would that bring in in terms of taxes paid for the general fund? >> About 400 and a little under 460,000. Because that would be a half cent above what's proposed. >> I'm sorry. If we kept our tax rate exactly as it was last year? >> Correct. >> How much additional revenue would be brought into the general fund year over year? >> Are you talking about compared to the effective rate? >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Compared to last year. >> In terms of total taxes that it would raise above last year, and this is really on the debt service side and the general fund side, the total tax rates, about 4.432 million. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? I have opened the public hearing, and this is a public hearing. I have no cards indicating anyone wishing to speak, but this is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak, please come down, state your name and address, and your time will begin. Mayor and city council, my name is Willie Huxpeh. I live in 623 Newton. I was trying to find the language of the historical presentation that took place today. And let's see. Talking about the creating a historical. Are you talking about the preservation plan? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> The comment I want to make about that is I thought, I think you should go ahead and fund the program for what they asked for in the first place , $100,000. They were right. We've never had a program. I thought the presentation was good enough that we could see, I could see, and I'm not a historical buff type person. I could see that it would be good for us. I think you should consider funding the whole $100,000 instead of $60,000. It's my thought. And secondly, I want to say publicly so that everyone knows , and I would suggest that they look at the tape. Those of you who said the kids and their parents should pay more to go swimming, especially after it was explained to you by one of your council members that all the programs in the park area here are losing. If you define winning or making a profit or not making a profit is does the amount of money that you take in cover the cost of the operation? None of them do that. Sometimes you just need to provide a service. Now if the budget would allow it, now what I thought you communicated, which I don't believe, the budget doesn't allow it. Like I said, for the record, I want all of you who hear me and have the availability of looking at the meeting, the work session, and see who said what, dealing with that swimming pool issue that Councilwoman Briggs brought up, that some of those parents can't afford that $17 or whatever it was to take their kids swimming. I think you made a big mistake on that one. I think you just need some of these services. You just need to provide. If that swimming pool was closer to my neighborhood that I live in, more of us would go to it. We can't even get to the thing. So you might have to think about providing transportation so that some of the kids in the lower socioeconomic areas can get to the swimming pool. Again, the main reason for being here is so that to tell people to look at who said what in discussion of why you wanted to go ahead and raise the rate of how much they have to pay to go swimming. Thank you. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak, please come down and state your name and address, and your time will begin. Deborah Armantar, 2003, Misty Wood Lane. I wasn't at the work session today, and obviously the video is still going on, so we'll see the video. I don't know exactly what was discussed, but I'll just follow up on what Willie was saying. This is not an agenda item about the water park, but just since he mentioned it, and if that is, this is an appropriate subject for this. I just wanted to go on record to say, just as a mom, for my family of four, I have two young kids. My daughter's about to turn nine next week. My son will be 12 in December. They're not unusually tall for their age, but they're over the ... I forget exactly what the ... If you're over this height, it's $17, but it would cost them as much as it would for me and my husband. $17 for each of us. $68 for four of us to go to the water park. That would rule it out for us. We just wouldn't go. I think that I would imagine that would be the case with many middle-class families, working families. I work and my husband works. We would rather go to the Civic Center Park for much, much cheaper. It's been fixed up really nicely. I participated in a discussion on this, I think it was the Denton Moms list, where all these moms were ... It was pretty amazing to see people who are so busy, who might not have the time to follow politics and all this stuff about substations and gas plants, but when it comes to money that they're spending in the summer to keep their kids cool, that was a really big deal. I could really relate to that. Anyway, I just think not only as a service to those families, but just as good economic sense, I don't see how the swimming pool is going to make money if the only families who can afford that are ones who would go to a country club anyway. Something fancier. Anyway, I just wanted to put in my two cents for that. About the budget, I hope that as you all deliberate on the budget and taxes, that you really are paying close attention to whether the money that was spent this past year on a certain issue or a certain department is justified this year as well, rather than just adding on. I realize it's a little late in the process for that, but I would ask that you consider that next time around. Anyway, that's about that. Any questions? Seeing none, thank you. Okay, thanks. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak on the budget? Anybody else ... We have a tax rate, sorry. A tax rate, speak on the tax rate, which could be part of the budget, I guess. We close this public hearing and then we have the other one , then we open it, correct? Correct. You close this public hearing, no action. Okay. So one more time. Anybody else wishing to speak on this agenda item regarding the tax rate? Seeing none, we will now close the public hearing. That brings us to our agenda item five, which is concluding items. Council Member Briggs. So last night there was a music town hall and it went really well. Mayor Pro Tem Roden was there and I was there. The idea of a Denton Music Council emerged from the discussion and I believe they said there was one in Austin and they communicate to council and staff too. And I would like to see what that might look like if we were to explore something like that here in Denton, a music council. And also I would like to bring up again a review of the economic development ordinance regarding the council seats that Councilwoman Baguerre brought up earlier in the meeting. I'd like to review that. Okay. Councilmember Wozni. I'd like us to take a look at a type of housing called SRO, single room occupancy. And our development code and standards right now kind of t ucks them into apartments and they're really not apartments. They're a separate type of housing primarily for students. And we have had some of these come down the pipeline and others are, you know, being talked about but I think it's a hole in our development code that we need to look at. And so planning could come forward with an informative work session and so that we can learn about SROs and what would it take for us to have development standards only for SROs and what the ramifications would be. I think that would be helpful. Thank you. Councilmember Baguerre. I just wanted to mention to everybody that I have the third of I think it will be four tax and budget town halls scheduled for Saturday morning. We'll be in this room from 10 a.m. I have it reserved from 10 a.m. till 12 and I'll make sure if it's 10 or 1030. I just wanted to note that it's not a posted meeting so don 't wake up early and show up. Oh, you're trying to ask? Yeah. Councilmember Gregory. Disembodied. So how late can I sleep? However long you need to sleep. You said don't wake up early. To piggyback on what Councilmember Riggs said, if staff brings a report back to us or an informal staff report regarding a music council, I would like for that report to also explore the possibility of using the services of the Greater Denton Arts Council that we already support in many ways as maybe being the vehicle through which a music council could be supported. Anyone else? First I wanted to just send out thoughts and prayers to the people of Baton Rouge. They've experienced a tremendous amount of flooding. In fact it's been reported that 60,000 homes have been affected. That's probably almost the entire housing stock of single family homes in the City of Denton. So they're really suffering and as I watched the governor on TV he was saying that because it wasn't a hurricane, because it wasn't a tornado, because it was simply rain, that in some ways it might be, that the magnitude of it may be escaping the country. So I want to do my share in just letting people know that there's ways that they can help and that if they feel so inclined to do that because there 's a tremendous amount of devastation down there. And I attended the dedication of the Betty Meyers Butterfly Garden at TWU and it was quite informative about that we are right smack dab in the middle of the monarch migration from the northern United States and Canada down to Mexico. So I just would like to see if Parks Department, as we do different parks and as we do different things, how we can maybe create some space and cultivate some garden areas that might be beneficial to the monarch migration as well. Working with TWU and because they certainly have invented the wheel. I mean they've gone through a lot to look at the garden and how that helps and I think that would be a great opportunity if we're doing something anyway in a park to provide some opportunities for that and then also you'll see that in those spaces in that park at TWU is a tremendous amount of just pedestrian space, space for just sitting around and taking it easy. It was an interesting presentation, but it's a good presentation actually. So just putting that out there that if there's an opportunity to do that and not saying we got to necessarily have more budget money but to look at ways that we can facilitate that and working with one of our other college partners and that is TWU. Number two or three is we'd had a mention in the discussion this evening and work session about the water park and the contract with the school district and I would like to get some more clarification on that. It seems like that's coming and if it even could be a topic , I'm not sure when our next joint meeting with the independent school district is, but also if that's something that they would like to talk about to get their thoughts on that, just where we are and what we see moving forward and the like. I think it'd be good to revisit that in the sense of just what is that contract, what are its terms so we can have a common understanding of that . Let's see, I have something on here about economic development but I have no idea what that means. I guess that's all I have. Any others? Mayor Pro Tem. I think the only other thing I would say is piggybacking on this discussion of the music town hall from last night and one of the issues that I think precipitated that discussion was the recent closing of certain venues in town and a lot of what are the narratives as to why that's the case and what that does overall to the music scene in town which this city is known for. I know we still have looming this discussion of what we're doing with that downtown incentive grant and we put that back on the staff to continue to workshop that, to come back and bring that to us at a later date and we batted around some different options and ways to do that but perhaps if we're thinking about continuing some downtown focus of that and one of my suggestions at the time was do we focus what we 're investing in even to the point of if we're looking for a certain type of mix of businesses, what not, to better get smart about what we're trying to do downtown. It occurs to me that with this interest in music venues and whether or not we have sufficient numbers of them to continue to create the culture we want, if that isn't a possibility for possible incentives relating to that. So just to throw that into the mix with our staff who's continuing to look at that if there isn't an opening for that sort of addition. And I guess as another final concluding item, I know it was asked to get some more information on creation of this music council but if either one of Mayor Pro Tem or Council Member Riggs, if you guys attended that, if there was just some way to get some synopsis of what the discussion was because I mean there's obviously a lot that happened and was talked about but I have no idea what that is so if there's any way to maybe try to memorialize some of that, that would be helpful. If not, that's okay too. I just want to maybe just be an informal meeting we could have. I'll write a white paper. Thank you. Okay, any others? All right, we'll stand adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.