Sep 27, 2016 City Council on 2016-09-27 2:00 PM

Good afternoon. I wanted to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Denton City Council, Tuesday, September 27th , 2016. I'll now call the meeting to order. Our first agenda item for today is citizen comments on a consent agenda item, and we do have one for consent agenda item 3B of Mr. Joel McDaniel. Joel, if you're here, come on up to the podium, and when you state your name and address, your time will begin. Is it three minutes, Jennifer? Yes. It's three minutes, okay. Yeah, just give her a chance to sort of get settled. Sure. Sorry, Jennifer. 3B. Is it working? No, the consent agenda. I'm sorry, 1B. That's 1B on the consent agenda. Whenever. You ready? Okay. All right. My name is Joel. Which one are you talking on? 3B, the proposed edits of the ethics resolution. Yeah, this is a work session. These cards are for consent agenda items. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. I thought somebody told me you were talking about the consent agenda item. No, I'm sorry. So I apologize. Yeah. Okay. Right now, we're just going to have a council discussion. I apologize for that, Mr. McDaniel. Please forgive me for that. Okay, well, that's a good one right out of the box to make a mistake like that. All right. Any? I see no other blue cards for the consent agenda. So we'll move on to request for clarification on agenda items listed on the agenda for September 27th, 2016. Any clarifications on this big long agenda? All right. We'll go on to agenda item 3A, which is a receive report on use of innovative technology for operation and maintenance of the wastewater collection system. Mayor, members of the council, I'd like to ask PS Aurora, the newly named general manager for wastewater services to make this presentation. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. I have to change my glasses. Okay, reading glasses. Mr. Acting city manager acting for the interim. Will he get enough of a raise that he could afford bifocals ? I tried them. I can't. I can't hack them. I had to get a redone. So what are we going to talk about is two pieces of equipment that we are using. And you see them in front of you, so we'll come back later on and show you how we use it. We actually have videos that show how they're using the field. And it's all innovative technology in the sense that that equipment over there, which is for point repairs, we were the first ones in Texas and generally in the southwest to use that. And the president of the company was so excited that somebody in the south was going to use this equipment, he personally came and trained our guys. So that's very productive for us. This right here is a camera that we use with the flushing trucks. And we have been the only successful city right now to use it as much as we have used. And it really has changed our paradigm on how we go about doing CCTV, close-circuit TV, inspection of the sewer lines . The sewer lines, the only way you know what's wrong with them is when you put a camera into it. And then you actually see what's wrong with the sewer line. So these are the two pieces of equipment that we'll talk about. But first a little bit about the Den sewer system for some of our new members. So we have Den here, about 522 miles of sewer line, and roughly about $400 million worth of asset in the ground. It's a very old system, you know, part of it, around the courthouse square since the 1910s. So we have those lines still in operation. So we have a project in place for Elm and Lucas Street that pending the discussions with TexDOT, whenever they get turned over to the city, then we'll go in and replace all those lines out there. The first major interceptor, which carries a lot of the flow of the city from downtown, was built in 1925. 522 miles of sewer line, 27 pumping stations within the city. And we have two treatment plants, one at Robson Ranch and one on Mehild Road, the Pecan Creek plant, which is the major plant. And if we add the private lateral sewer lines, which is the sewer line connection from home up to the main, in the street, or in the backside, or from a business, it's over 800 miles of sewer in the system right now. We use a lot of software for managing our collection system . The Esri GIS, a lot of you might be familiar with this. That creates all of the database and geographic representation of the pipes. The computerized maintenance management system, we use it from City Works. The Water Environment Research Foundation model that we use for priority ranking of sewer lines. The InfoWorks sewer model we use for capacity so that we can look 20 years out and see what size pipe we will need based on growth in the city. Then the last one is the InfoMaster that we purchased at the very end. This is a complete asset management program that we use for all of the collection system now. So when we run all of these, this is the decision matrix that we developed. We got one from the model, the InfoMaster model, but we made a lot of changes to it. So this is our decision matrix. When it goes through this decision matrix in the model, it comes out with a decision for each pipe, which we can see by color coding what each pipe needs to have done. It may be nothing because the pipe is good, or it may have to be replaced. The red lines show that it needs to be replaced. We have point repairs to be done based on the CCTV data. We know that a section of the pipe is bad, so we have point repairs there noted here. And also, which lines based on priority ranking or based on its performance history needs to be CCTV. And even the CCTV, we have a priority ranking on that from P1 to P5. P1, P2, P3 being higher ranking for CCTV and P4, P5 the lower ranking. So there is a plan for every line in the system. Very unusual for any city to have really gotten there. So we had actually done a webinar. The vendor asked us to do it, and almost 375 entities signed up to hear that webinar. We got a lot of good comments on it. We did that back in July. You know, we are trying to meet EPA requirements. And one of the EPA requirements was CCTV of all the clay pipe by the end of 2015. And we had not done all of the clay pipe CCTV by that time. And we had a few months to do it. There was no way, you know, the normal CCTV is done. We have a trailer which got the CCTV equipment. And then we have a pickup truck that pulls it along and our guys go. And based on the priority ranking, they will CCTV a line. It is a very laborious process. It takes a lot more time. If we had to do all of those lines in the 2015 window, we would have to go outside from a contractor. It is a very expensive thing to do. So we looked around and we found these cameras that you see , that green one there, that is the camera. And these can be mounted. You know the flushing trucks go out. You see those flushing trucks around the town sometimes. And what they do is they have water in the flushing truck. And they put the nozzle in the manhole. And with the nozzle, under high pressure, they spray the water in the pipe. That cleans the pipe. So these cameras are mounted on the nozzle. This way, when we are flushing, at the same time we are able to camera the line. We have done hundreds of thousands of feed of CCTV with this, saving us lots and lots of money. What it is doing for us is really a multi-fold. We are able to CCTV a line very quickly. Of course we did complete this EPA requirement by end of 2015. And we sent them the report in January, which was our requirement. We are able to CCTV lots of silver line very quickly. And then the guys can see the result right there. They can take the chip out of it and put that into their computer. And they can see right there if the line was clean or not. So immediately they know the line is good. Then they can take that back to one of our guys in the office who reviews these tapes. And if the pipe is good, there is nothing wrong with it, then we go into our asset management program and we tag it as a good line. So then our guys who really have to do the CCTV full, they don't have to do it. It saves a lot of time. So we do it cheaper, we do it faster, and we save time for our regular CCTV work. So with that I am going to turn this over to Drew Huffman. Drew is running a very successful program for us. He is over the flushing truck operation. He manages all of the flushing operations in the city. And we have a goal each year that we set up. And last fiscal year as well as this fiscal year, they beat that goal hands down. Not only they beat that goal, the EPA would think that if you do your silver line cleaning in a seven-year cycle, based on what they are doing, it's more like a four-year cycle right now. So good cleaning of lines means no overflows. So they are doing their part in keeping the environment clean and green. So kudos to the guys that work in that area. I am going to turn that over to Drew on that. All right, thank you, P.S. So to carry on what P.S. was saying, so our flushing trucks clean our sewer lines. And so with cleaning our sewer lines, as you know, all our sewer lines are underground. In the past, it's been difficult for those guys to really know if they successfully cleaned the line and whether there was any other kind of defects with the line or problems with the line. So was there roots in the line, grease that's going to cause a stoppage in the future? Is there mud? Is the pipe separated? Is there even a crossbore? When I talk about a crossbore, we'll see that in a second, is I'm saying is did the gas company come through and then they bore a line through our sewer line? Unlike water, you're not going to know right away. You're not going to know until all of a sudden your sewer stops working. We have an overflow or something like that. So now we can see what's going on with our pipes, and it gives our employees, our guys running our flushing trucks, a better idea of exactly what tool to use on the flushing truck, what nozzle to use, and they get their cleaning confirmation that they did a great job of cleaning the pipe . So and like P.S. was saying, we get a pass or fail assessment that quickly identifies any offsets, collapses, infiltrations. I was talking crossbores, and when I say crossbores, I mean the communication lines could come through, the cable company could bore through our line, and with sewer you won't know it right away. So this lets us know what's going on with our lines. And like P.S. was saying, I'll step over here and get the camera. So this camera is kind of what everyone knows is a GoPro. It's just been designed for the sewer system. So it's like the GoPro, it's waterproof, shockproof, dust proof, military grade. So it's a great asset. It's a great tool for us. And we like to say this is what cameras are, lines. So as you can tell, I have two skids in front of me that the camera mounts into. The one on the on your on the my left, your right is for six inch and eight inch lines. And then on the one on my right, your left is for eight inch and eight to 12 inch lines. And we have adapters to go on that that skid that's triangle shaped to go 15 and larger. So we can we can camera all the lines that we have in the city of Denton with this camera here. So with cost savings, the CCTV crew, the CCTV crew, they have to go out, they have to set up. Everything's done with a flushing truck. As you probably see around town, they have that big hose in the front of it. And on the back of this nozzle, I step away and grab it. So the back of the skid that the camera fits into, the camera fits in inside of here. So it's all bolted down. So it doesn't go anywhere. It's fully secure. On the back of here, the hose hooks to here and then the water pressure comes out of the back. So it cleans and and propels itself down the line. So we go from the downstream manhole, we run upstream, we run against the flow and then we bring it back. So we bring everything back to us. And then on our way back, we get a really good picture of exactly what's going on with our pipe. So you run it down first without cleaning and then as you 're pulling it back, the nozzle spraying and the camera is taking the picture as it's cleaning both ways, sir. Yes, sir. So it's cleaning both ways. But the major part of the cleaning is whenever you're bringing it back. That way you have that wave of water and that pressure, that pressure wash kind of effect on the pipe to bring everything back to you. And those trucks have vacuums on them. So if there's any debris or anything in the line, they turn the vacuum on immediately remove it. So it doesn't go downstream. So with our camera, we can save a lot of money. We don't have and this can be done. We can run a line segment in approximately 15 to 30 minutes. 30 minutes being the maximum in which it takes a little longer for a CCTV crew to set up and completely camera the line. And so like I was saying, we can get a good tool selection. So these trucks have different kind of nozzles. So these nozzles are shaped differently. Some of them are root cutters or millers. They cut things out of the line. So if there's roots in there, we can immediately. So if they clean their line and they can run the camera down their line and they can immediately see what's in there. So if it's an older clay tile pop and maybe it has some trees and stuff growing over it and there's some roots in there, they can pull their root cutter nozzle off their truck. They can root cut the line, camera it again and show the effectiveness of the nozzle and their cleaning so they know that that was completely clean and the defects were taken care of right away. So also, like we were talking about a great safety factor. So we can confirm the absence of presence across wars. As you know, didn't growing tremendously right now and we have a lot of utilities being relocated. And so with a gas company and communication companies putting in new lines, now we can see immediately if they affected of affected of affected us in any way. And we wouldn't want to run a root color or a Miller nozzle down that line if it was in there. Yes, ma'am. It I won't say it happens often, but it does happen. Yes, ma'am. So. So here's a picture of the camera and all three skid selections. So on your far right is the six inch mounted with a camera mounted in it, the eight to twelve. And also there's the wheel adapters that I was talking about a picture of that. So the next picture here is another picture of the nozzle or the cameras inside the skids and on either side you can see those are standard cleaning nozzles and we use those to clean the pipe. So we can rely on, of course, P.S. talked about all the assets management we have. Well, we have city works that tracks all our work orders and then it has all the line segments inside so we can attach the video to each line segment. And with this, after they turn the camera on and start filming, then they have the date, time or they have the date, the address, manhole numbers so that it correlates to the line segment and the work order number. So we can track each work. We can track each video and attach it to each line segment so we know what's going on with each line segment in the city. Then from manhole to manhole. Here's an example of the camera being inserted in the man hole into the upstream invert of the pipe. And so the majority of our blockages during dry weather overflows are caused by old clay tile. Our total estimate of clay tile here in the city is 674,000 feet. We set a goal and we completed 100% of the clay tile pipe in that time. I'm going to show you a video here. It's like we said we can spot these lines and whether it's a good video, whether it's a good pipe or bad pipe. This is an example of a good pipe. Here's the board here. Like I said, it has the time, the work order number and all the manhole numbers. So this is a picture of a good pipe here. And so here they are inserting the camera. They've already turned it on, filmed the board. They're entering into the manhole now and they're going to insert this camera and turn the water pressure on, which sends the camera down the line. So we sped this video up just for time's sake. But as you can tell with it going in the line, since we're going against the flow, it's going to splash up on the lens . And so you don't get the greatest picture then because you have what they call the Star Wars effect. You have the water splashing by the camera. So here in a minute you'll see that he reaches his objective, which is the upstream manhole. We want to make sure we get the whole line segment. And so as you can tell, this is a clay tile pipe. And you can see what you're seeing there are the joints in the clay tile pipe where they connect together. And he's coming up on the upstream manhole. So there's the upstream manhole. We make sure he reaches that. And then he retracts. He starts to retract his hose. And like we were talking about, the jets on here are still pulling the water back and cleaning the pipe. And as you can tell, we don't have any roots. We don't have any grease. You don't see any cracks or fractures. There aren't any problems with the line. It's not defective in any way that we see. So now we don't have to waste the time of the CCTV crew, which is what takes longer, to come out and inspect a pipe that doesn't need to be fully inspected with the CCTV camera. So next we'll see a video of a line that has problems. And of course, after these problems are annotated in the system whenever we review the videos, then we can send a work order like we were talking about to the CCTV crew. He can come out, pinpoint exactly where the defect is, and we can get it repaired. So they're entering the manhole again. And they're going to put it just like they did before. They're going to put it in the line. And they're going to run the line. So here they are going upstream. And as you can tell in the upstream, you can see some of the defects. You saw some fractures and some cracks. But you can really -- and the HD quality of this video is very good. So you can really see what's going on with this video on the way back. So -- So it has lights, too. Yes, sir. It has two lights right here on either side that are built into the camera. So there he is. He meets his objective of the upstream man hole. And he will retract his hose and bring the camera back and get a good picture of exactly what's going on with this pipe. So we did speed it up in certain sections just for time's sake. But here in a second, I'll point out the defects. So there's a defect there. And then here are the defects here. You see the fractures. And you can see it's -- the pipe's starting to change shape. And as you can tell, that's the only area -- these few joints are the only area of this pipe segment, this whole segment from manhole to manhole that have problems. So then we can go in there and repair just that section that needs to be repaired and then call this a good pipe. Yes. So -- We've got a question. I'm sorry. Yes. So this -- they'll bring the camera all the way back. And like I was saying, they can watch this. It's not a real time -- We have one question. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. So I'm just curious from the defect, the camera, and then you find the defect and then the work order to repair. What is the timeframe of that? Usually it's pretty quick, ma'am, within -- Pretty quick. Sometimes within a few days. A few days. Okay. Good. Yes, ma'am. And when you find a defect in a clay pipe, you go in there and replace that segment that's been cracked. Do you replace it with clay or do you replace it with plastic? Well, we don't replace it with clay, sir, but we're going to show you in a second our new -- New slide to show us what we do. Yes, sir, a new extension. Sometimes we do replace it with plastic, but we have a new product called a Quick Lock that we replace it with also. And another question. Do you have any idea how much I'm practicing restraint to not make any colonoscopy jokes? Well, you just did, so -- One question. So I guess as you're either pulling -- pushing it forward or pulling it back, it's keeping some kind of footage reading, some kind of distance reading -- Yes. -- so that you'll know exactly where to go to fix that. Exactly. Okay. In fact, with the other CCTV camera that we go, we know exact footage where the problem is. So that's where then when we do open cut, our guys will go and mark that on the spot on the top of the road or wherever the line is, and they will cut it in that area and then fix that line. Okay. And that's where this thing comes in handy. Okay. So what you saw was, you know, a unique application. It's been very successful. We had calls from different states to learn about how we are going about it and which equipment we are using and what kind of hoses we are using. So people want to know about it. The regular CCTV operation that we do costs about $1.33 a foot, which is a lot cheaper than if we were to do it outside from an outside contractor. This quick cam video, when we depreciate all the assets that we have that we use for it, is running at about 19 cents a foot. So for about 284,000 feet of CCTV done, we saved about $323 ,000. It's not only cash that we saved. We saved a lot of time. We saved a lot of time for David's group to not have to go and CCTV every line out there. Thank you. What is the lifespan of one of those cameras? Oh, they last a long time, you know, 10, 15 years. We had to repair them because they work in a harsh environment. But they continue. They are pretty sturdy. So that's a good saving for our ratepayers and a very efficient way to do things. Moving on. We have a question. I'm sorry. So if utility punches through one of our sewer lines, who has to pay for that repair? Is it the cable company or the telephone company or whoever ? I see some hands nodding. So whoever has basically invaded our space has to pay for the repair. That's right. Okay. Thank you. When Verizon was doing this wholesale fiber optic in the city, a lot of lines they went through. They're contractors. And we would find them later on because somebody can't flush. We didn't have the system in place at that time. So that was one way to tell. Now they have changed their system. Atmos has changed their system. When they put a sewer line, they do any gas line, they have crews out there that are running cameras also. Not only in the main line but also on the service line to check that they didn't go through any of our sewer or water lines. Water line everybody will know very quickly. That's the difference. So talk about the next equipment here. What you see here, to answer your question, here's a clay tile pipe right here. So if you imagine there is on top you've got a road surface . So you have to bring this heavy equipment, cut all the way down, take out the bad section of pipe, put PVC pipe here and put those boots on either side so it will hold the pipe there. And now the pipe is good. There's a lot of traffic that, you know, for the whole day we had to bypass the traffic from that area. Traffic management, a lot of cost in there that goes into doing it this way. You can see some of the photos of an open cut or what I call an open heart surgery. You're taking that further along your description there. So it's open heart surgery. That's what's going on. And now the road looks like this after that. So we still have to fix the road. All right. So I challenge my, our collection system manager, Justin Du veney, and I think he's watching it back there in the office , to look at a method which will reduce this downtime on the traffic here and all the hassle that people have to go through. And look for a trenchless way to do this fixing the pipe there in between there. So there are several methods. The one we picked is a quick lock method. And this is, you know, like a noninvasive procedure where if you have, you know, a small cut to make, we already have a cut which is the manhole. And that's how we go into the line. And through that line, you get up to using the camera, you can get to the defect where the exact defect is. And you can see the defect there. And that sleeve there, that steel sleeve, with the camera, we can set it right in the center of that defect and through air pressure, et cetera, and how the gears operate, we'll show you all that in a video pretty soon. That sleeve expands and fits into the pipe, and it takes care of the problem. And we can do that in 30 minutes or less sometimes. We have a question. So instead of the whole day, they're in and out, they don't have to stop the traffic for the whole day? Yes, ma'am. Yes, go ahead. So you're showing your heart surgery analogy, so that silver sleeve right there is a stent, basically? Yes, absolutely. Okay. So with that, I'm going to turn this over to Dr. David Brown to go over and explain your procedure. My name is David Brown. I'm an engineering technician with Water and Wastewater Engineering. And I'm glad that PS has given us the latitude to come find this and look outside the box. So let me move some stuff and I'll explain some stuff. Basically, you can see that with a trenchless no-dig, it's a spot repair. We don't have to dig, so we don't have to call in locates. Locates meaning we have to call in for AT&T, we have to call in for electric, have to call in for water. That usually takes two to three days. So you don't have to wait. Basically, we're trying to evolve to where we camera with a small camera, I'll show you, camera. And if there's a small repair that we can fix, we fix it right there and we're done. We're out of the way. We're done with what we needed to do for that line. It's complete. When it runs through InfoMaster, what PS talked about, the asset management, it runs through the asset management, runs through InfoMaster. It's complete. It's good. So we may not have to come back to it for another five years or ten years. It's permanent. It's reliable, and it's instant fix. Like I said, it is stainless steel, as you can see. This is for a six-inch called Quick Lock made by the Rausch Company from Germany. And Rudy actually came, like PS said, came and he was excited and came and trained us, the president of the company. He actually has retired now. So anyway, it can be installed with the flow present. We don't have to do a plug, meaning plug an upstream to slow the flow down. It flows through that plug right there. The actual packer is flowed through. There's no resins or cure time. There's another system that uses a resin, and you have to get it in the line in 15 minutes, 20 minutes. With this, we can take as long as we want and make sure we get the repair done. You can add multiple sleeves to get an area that's in a hard place to dig. You could put three or four sleeves and not have to dig up. And I'll show you an example. As you see, the cost savings, it's average of $800 per point repair versus open cut. There's other savings as far as safety, traffic, digging in a resident's yard, replacing the yard, replacing the landscape. In a street, you're replacing the street. You have a spot there that's dug up. And so especially useful on a new street, if we have an issue where they've had a completely overdone a street, a new construction street, we can repair it without digging up or having any issues. We've completed 124 repairs so far, almost $100,000 saved. So let's see here. Like I said, this right here is actually inside the sleeve. Let's see, right here. This is what I call a zipper gear. And basically it's two cog-like gears and a lock. So when it expands through air pressure, it expands and fills the inside of the pipe to its diameter. It locks in place. So it's a permanent repair. There's no way it's going to come out if Drew comes over there flushing truck and flushes it. It's not going to come out. It doesn't impede the flow. The only way this sleeve can come out is by actually mill ing it and cutting it and then it retracts and you can pull it out. Also, as you can see, this is 16, nearly 16 inches long. So here's the packer. It's a rolling packer, which basically is a plug on wheels. And I'll show you that. Make sure this doesn't roll. This is basically what I call a rolling plug. When we use plugs in an upstream manhole, it looks like this, but it's not on wheels. You plug the line and it still flows through so you can do any kind of work. There's a laser pointer in there right now. Basically, this is the packer that actually the sleeve actually you remove the wheels. The sleeve goes on top, put the wheels back, insert it into the line and you push it with our little camera. This is just a steel rod that connects it and it uses air pressure. Air actually flows through there and airs up this packer, as you can see. This is a system that's hooked up the combination of the packer. This is a six to eight inch packer, so this is a six to eight inch. We also have a packer that will go from eight inch all the way to 15. It's adjustable so we can do 15 inch clay lines or PVC lines if we have an issue. As you can see here, this is the packer with the sleeve and it's set up. This is your rod that pushes and also has the air. And this is our camera. This is a system we used before and we adapted to a new system that we have. So this is ready to go. This is basically just a couple of basic tools. It's not a big investment on tools as far as what we're needed to do the repair. Just a hose line, 500 feet. Just a simple compressor. And this guy operating, basically he is operating inside the trailer and you can see here that he has two monitors. Basically he's looking at what the repairs, where it should be and where he's going with it. This is a control panel. All it controls is basically the air pressure coming through, air hose connected to the camera, connected to the packer with a sleeve on it. So all he's going to do is control the air pressure, make sure he airs it up and inserts it where it needs to be repaired. This is the camera actually inside the manhole. As you can see, there's an airline there and it's connected to the camera through our air rod to the packer to the sleeve. So basically we're going to put a stent in as you can see. And in that photo, how much bigger is the diameter of the pipe than the... The top there is inside of a six inch line, it's usually five and three quarters around that. And then you're... And actually, I'm glad you brought that up. The president company came down and we talked to him about reducing the size of the sleeve and that's what he did. We basically got some in about two weeks ago that they reduced the size of the diameter so we can effectively do more repairs. That was one of the things when he came to us, we told him kind of what we thought would work better and they did it. So it's enabled us to do, along with buying this smaller camera and I'll show you this one. This is what we call the mighty mini and it's enabled us to do so many repairs from just buying this. It's basically paid for itself because its height is around four and a half. So we can get in those small places and do six inch clay lines are the worst lines that we have issues with. And with this, we've been able to do it with ease. So with help from Rausch, they have helped us out by giving us some smaller diameter sleeves. Here's Victor. Yes, sir. A six inch line is probably is that coming from a residence out to the main? No, normally that's four inch but they're in the older part of towns. There's six inch main lines. Yes, sir. And we're trying to get rid of those. That's a kind of that's a main headache is six inch clay lines. So we're going through that with CIPs and get rid of you know, PS talked about Locust and Elm. That's six inch clay lines and their their problems. So we're we're getting rid of them. This is Victor, one of our techs. And basically we have to enter the manhole. So we have a confined space. So here you see Victor. He's ready to go. He's got his tie Kim suit on. There's an air blower that we used to put air in the man hole. Here's the tripod which set up right here. We have our air hose ready to go. Victor's getting everything hooked up. This is Victor actually in the manhole inserting the sleeve into the line. As you can see here, the line's going that way. He's going to insert it to go down downstream. This is one of the instances that we first used the sleeve and it worked out great. As you can see, and we get this information from Drew's use of quick cam. They review it, see a broken spot. They send it to our group. Look on it. Hey, we can repair it. Let's go over there and repair it. Or it's a previous from where we used our conventional CCTV and have made a work order to repair it. So we go over there. As you can see, this is over here at Northridge and Magn olia. The line is actually through an easement. You can see a fence line I noted there. Two repairs. And they're both underneath the fence line in residence area. You know, it's an easement for us. But as you can see here, here's the manhole we actually go in. This is the Verizon box. You have grass. You have a driveway. You have a drag Jaguar. You have a fence. So you see the Jaguar, the fence concrete here. The line's actually through here. So to get a mini in there, dig it up to, you know, obstruct the residents coming in and out. Move a car, move a fence. You can also see there's more pictures here. Trees, deal with trees and landscape. So that's a nightmare. It's not terrible, but it's going to give some inconven ience to the residents. And this line didn't have any taps on it. It's just a transmission line from Northridge down to Magn olia and on. So here we go. This is the actual crack fracture. Basically, it's a fracture. As you can see here, inflow is coming here, inflow groundwater coming in the pipe. The more inflow you have, that's not good. That's water that we're not making any revenue off of rec lamation. It's, you know, so we want to do away with that. So what we did, two quick locks were done. We put the rubber membrane. This is a rubber membrane. And in some instances, you actually put the rubber membrane on the outside of it. You don't put it on the inside. You actually sleeve it. So it makes it waterproof. It has two little O-rings that see that press up against the pipe and make it waterproof. So water basically has to find another way. This is after the first repair. Now, here's the second repair that I kind of, it really proved itself here. As you can see, it winds her and dunes and you can see the trees. And actually this line is between the curb and the sidewalk . Ten inch clay line. Here's the manhole that we went in. You're looking south going downstream. There's two trees, a mailbox, sidewalk. It's between the curb and the sidewalk. Here's another picture. You can faintly see where we marked it before, where they were going to have to come over and dig it up. So we're dealing with a tree. We're dealing with sidewalk. We're dealing with curb and gutter. We're going to have to replace those. We don't like to lose a tree. That's another issue. You can see there's another repair over here by this tree. Now, this is what it looked like. It's actually collapsing. If we can get a sleeve in there, we can fix it. That's our only hindrance. You get the sleeve in there, we can fix it. So there you go. >> You can prevent the collapse? >> Yes. So we get the sleeve in and this is what it looks. It actually restored what the pipe looked like before. It actually gave it some integrity. It helped it out. So and it doesn't intrude with the flow of the line. Very small. It's real thin, as you can see. It's not giving any problems with the flow of the line. This is after the repair, which I like that one. This is a video of actually repair being done. As you can see, here's our -- let's see if I can get this -- you can see here's our bladder, flow through bladder. Victor here is equalizing the pressure from the camera van to our bladder packer. As you can see, our sleeve here. We're going to go inside. And this is what's great is you can actually see where the repair is needed. So the operator control it. Once Victor puts it in, it's all in the operator's hands. You can see here's our crack and fracture right here. Okay, the operator is going to pull back, put it about halfway, about eight inches. We'll pull back about eight inches. We'll apply the air to the packer. We're airing up the packer. So now it's minimum pressure. You can see it going up right here. It's zipping out. Of course, we have a little vermin here, a friend, too. But you can see here it's airing up, and it's going to match to the size of the clay line. So once that's done, we'll look at it, make sure -- we kind of can tell how many gears have been moved. There's a pressure we kind of like to use. With a six-inch line, we use about four bar. That's just -- and we have to be kind of careful because that packer will -- it's got a lot of pressure on it, and it will break a pipe. So we have to -- it's finite. But a lot of times if you put the sleeve in, air it up, you 'll hear the pipe break. But what it is, it's moving it back in place. So it's kind of scary, but we know that it's doing its job. We'll air down, and then we'll look at it with a camera. You can see it physically being done. You said you could hear something. Is there audio being captured there? No, not audio. This guy, you know, it's down in the manhole. You know, it's all -- it kind of carries through the pipe. Gotcha. So we'll drive through, look at it, make sure it's expanded out there. There's not any problems on the flow line. And we'll pull it back, and it's done. Now, on our normal -- we have a CCTV log, and what we'll do , we'll take a picture of it, record that it's done, and then it will run through Infom aster like P.S. talked about, and we're complete on this line. We can walk away. Yes. How long have these been in operation, I guess, in Germany and other countries that they have been using them? They've been using them for about 10 years, I think. There's another company in Houston that's copy-pasted, so I don't know how they're doing it, but Rausch is the one that developed this style with the zipper gears. So -- You know, all I was thinking, first of all, it's fascinating, but I thought, these guys just have bigger toys. I mean, instead of playing with, you know, Hot Wheels and all that, we got things with cameras and videos, and that's phenomenal. It takes young guys to maneuver those controls. Absolutely. Absolutely phenomenal. But they do a great job. Yeah. No, good grief. They command them for a fantastic job, and all of this is coming because we started on that program on asset management, and as people are seeing how things are happening, everybody has their thinking cap on. Sure. And I'm not the one who's originating all the ideas. Justin comes out with the ideas. All these guys in the field, when they're out working, they find different ways to capture the data. Yeah. And then improve the system every day. I think we had a question. Councilmember Riggs? This is really good. This is great. I recognize some of those pictures in my neighborhood, and I appreciate that the trees didn't have to come down. That's right. And so when did you start implementing this? We're getting closer to two years now, right? Two years. Awesome. And they have gone and done segments which would have been impossible to do on an open-cut basis. Yeah. This one was probably a simpler one. They have done much more complex ones beside this one. Councilmember Gregory? Well, I see that it's saving money for the city, for the budget. Have we had to add staff, or have we simply realigned some functions of staff? David's group does the CCTV, so they have this with them. One day in the week, they would go, and then that day they would go and take care of all the point repairs that they need to do. So they have a flashing truck that is assigned to them. They have the cameras. They have the sleeves. So they go and do it. So we haven't added any new personnel to do this work. One of the things we added was the new construction crew. I'm happy to report that even though they started out after we hired people in December and had the equipment come in, they did their whole year's quota by the end of this month. They will be done with it. So they are moving along really well. Yes. We did this presentation in EPA-sponsored CMOM conference last year. It was a big hit. I bet it was. They were mobbed. These guys were mobbed after the presentation. Councilmember Wasney? Well, congratulations on being cutting edge with all of this. The city of Denton has a lot of unsung heroes who see a better way to do something, and your whole staff certainly falls into the category of wow. So this was fascinating. For any of the citizens who are watching this, you know, there's so much that goes on behind the scenes that we never see. But I just want to put a personal thank you to everybody who's been involved in coming up with the technology, making it work, and again, just a standard of excellence that I applaud. So thank you. Thank you. Well, and I echo those sentiments. I remember when we had an issue with the EPA, and we fought hard. We gave them all the data. And we came out very well, in fact, as an example of how to do it, and this is just another example of that. So hats off to you. Appreciate your ingenuity and creativity to take care of these problems. Thank you. Thank you, guys. It still looks like it's probably -- it's a little fun out there, you know, trying to figure all this stuff out. Any other questions or comments for this agenda item? Thank you all very much. I appreciate that. Very, very good presentation. All right. We'll move on to agenda item 3B, which is receive a report, hold discussion, provide direction regarding potential rev isions to the density chart, including the non-limited provisions relating to ethics. Mayor, we're going to call on our city attorney, Anita Burg ess, for this presentation. Anita? Anita, before you get started, you guys -- are you all staying for -- I mean, I just didn't want you to think you had to stay. Yeah, go ahead and grab your -- yeah, I just wanted to give them an opportunity to take care of that. This next thing could be worse than a colonoscopy. Mayor and council, while they are packing up, let me just take a little liberty here and add my thanks to P.S. and his crew. I had an opportunity to work with P.S. as we worked through some EPA issues. It was quite challenging. They did a fine job, and they do so every day. So thanks, guys. Appreciate you very much. Thank you. Also, one other comment -- Appreciate that. -- that concerns P.S. and his group. I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you to the city council, because it is the city's council's funding of these projects associated with our wastewater program that allows us to stay in compliance with our environmental responsibilities. So as you look at these issues and you consider all of the projects that are coming forward, it's very important to understand that staying in compliance environmentally is because you all agree to fund a lot of the things that P.S. is asking of you. So thank you to the city council for all of that. I really want to -- you brought up this, and that's a very good point. We're doing this to stay in compliance and to reduce, as we almost have to -- almost zero, our sanitary sewer overflows, which the EPA really monitors stringently. So I really do appreciate that, because you're right. It's an environmental issue that we are working real hard creatively with technology to resolve. So thank you, Madam City Attorney, for bringing that up. Thank you. Yes, sir. Okay, well, good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to advance our discussion with regard to ethics matters in the city of Denton. I share one more thing with P.S. I, too, wear glasses. I do have trifocals, and I also, like P.S., can't see either with them or without them. So you'll bear with me as I move in and out of my glasses with regard to this presentation. Today I'd like to focus a little bit more than we have in the past on our Denton city charter as we think about ethics issues in the city of Denton. Of course, we know that there are various ethics laws that control the conduct of city officials and employees. We've talked previously about state law. We've talked previously about federal laws. We've brushed over our charter issues and want to get into those here in just a moment, reminding us all, however, that currently we are governed by predominantly two resolutions in addition to our charter provisions that would be the resolutions that you see there in your backup. It's resolution number R2006-003, and that's the policy statement in the city of Denton as it concerns ethics. And then additionally, resolution number R2009-015, which sets forth the policies and procedures by which our ethics committee, currently headed by Madam Chair Kathleen Wozni, operates in the city of Denton. So it's quite a complex landscape. But I would ask that we bear in mind as we look at this issue and consider our own charter that our local charter acts essentially as a local constitution, much as our -- we have a constitution in Texas. We have a federal constitution. But here locally, we have our charter. Ours is a home rule charter. And it is really the highest law governing our conduct in the city of Denton because it is enacted by the people in the city of Denton. And so as such, being a representative form of government, our ordinances must comport with and comply with our charter provisions. And they cannot be inconsistent with our constitution, i.e ., our local home rule charter. So delving a little bit more deeply, as you all know, our charter was enacted in 1959, February 24, 1959. And we have really two primary provisions set forth in our charter relating to ethics. But these are very important provisions. Section 14.04 relates to personal interest. It is essentially the conflict provision that's in our Dent on City Charter. As such, it mirrors state law. As you know, state law does not have a zero tolerance standard. Rather, state law and our charter set forth a provision that does not create a conflict situation unless there is a substantial interest as defined by state law. What that means is one must have a 10% interest in a matter as far as a salary or 10% stock options in a company that's before the council or an interest in real estate amounting to $2,500 on a matter before the council. That applies in state law. That would apply in our charter. So as we examine this and think about it, we understand that our ordinances cannot conflict with this highest law in the state of Denton. Additionally, we have a provision set forth in section 14. 05 in our charter. It's our nepotism provision. It imposes limitations on the appointment and the employment of individuals related to council members. It is virtually identical to state law as well. So once again, we would not want to create an ordinance provision that would conflict with this the highest law in the state, in the city of Denton. Because once again, our charter has been enacted by the citizens. Our ordinances are enacted by our legislative body, the city council. So we would want to be in compliance with what our citizens have told us they want our standard to be. Again, emphasizing our charter, as we look at these ethics issues, should set the foundation. It should be the basis on which any ethics ordinance is builder based. It should not be in conflict. It should not be a problem in our ordinance as far as not comporting with what our charter requires of us. Why would that be? That is because an ordinance that's inconsistent with our charter is subject to nullification. So we want to build our foundation through our charter and then we want to build upon that foundation with our ordin ances, right? Madam City Attorney, I've got a question on that. And if you're going to, if you can answer this question as you move through the presentation, just let me know. Because as it is today, because we have that provision in our charter on the conflict of interest mirroring state law , it really limits the right word, but there's certain things we can and can't do from an ordinance perspective. It has to be consistent with that. So if you didn't, if your charter didn't address it at all, as you know, didn't lay quote unquote this foundation, in other words, you left those ethics provisions up to being based in ordinance. Is that, is there some inherent danger in that? Because what I'm hearing you say is we put something in the charter that's a foundational kind of platform and everything else builds on it. But we have to make sure that whatever we put on it is not inconsistent with the charter. If it's not in the charter, then therefore you're able to, so help me understand the advantage or disadvantages. And if you got it, if you're going to address that later on , that'd be great. If not, I'd like to hear that. Well, what we want to acknowledge is that our citizens, the electorate, have established the provisions in our charter. Once again, that becomes the highest law in the city because it comes directly from our citizens. And so we would not want them to see our legislative body come in and counteract or change what our electorate has indicated that they want in our charter. Okay, so if, let's say for instance, there's a charter committee or there's something that, and there's a charter election to add or do something with the charter. If part of that recommendation was to remove that ethics provision from the charter and not have anything, you're just saying that because the citizens have voted on it, that's why. But if the citizens wanted to do it via ordinance, then that would be half to something that the citizens change by saying we're taking this out of the charter altogether. Is that sort of what I'm hearing? What I am saying is as you look at constructing ethics provisions, to me. Okay. In your charter, you would again do what I'm calling put the foundation down. And I'll talk about that here in just a minute and then circle back with an ordinance. Sure. And set your standards. What we have done here in the city of Denton is a little bit interesting. We have actually set a standard in our charter. We have adopted the 171 provisions of state law. And so that becomes our local standard. It makes it a little bit awkward because if the council decided you wanted a different standard in Denton, you still have that charter provision to deal with. I understand the nuance. I think we had a question. Yes, Councilmember. We'll go to Gregory and then Councilmember Briggs and then we'll sort of go to the horn. So going with your comparison. Just like a city ordinance cannot or should not be in conflict with the city charter, a state law cannot be in conflict with the state constitution. Yes, sir. Correct. Now in the state level, that's decided through the judicial system up to the state Supreme Court. Correct. At the national level, national laws and even state laws and even local laws cannot be in conflict with the U.S. federal constitution. Yes, sir. Correct. And that could be decided at almost any level of the judicial process, but it could be appealed all the way up to including the Supreme Court. Correct. Yes, sir. How do we make determinations if there is an official determination that a city ordinance would be in conflict with the city charter? Because I could anticipate a situation where a majority of council would feel like that a change in an ordinance would not be in conflict with the charter. But other people on council or other people in the community might feel that it was. How would that be challenged? How does that happen? Right. I think still ultimately we would fall back on the judicial system to review both the ordinance and the charter and make a determination if there was a conflict. Would that be at the municipal court level or would that be at the district court level? It would depend on how the issue came forward through the judicial system and how your ordinance was cast. If there was a penal provision set forth in an ordinance, it could potentially come through the municipal court. If on the other hand, there was only a civil penalty assessed and there were no criminal penalty assessed in your ordinance, then it could possibly come through the district court system through some sort of challenge by an employee or an officer of the city who indicated that the charter sets the standard. And the ordinance is in conflict. And so therefore the employee or officer could argue that the standard set forth in our charter, which is essentially a 171 substantial interest. If the ordinance, for example, and hypothetically tried to set a zero percent interest type of standard, then arguably they are in conflict and they would need to be reconciled through some process. And this is one of academic curiosity than anything else. But it would seem that if you had a situation where a majority of the council put into place an ordinance that seemed to any number of people, even a minority of the council to be in conflict with the charter, to ask the municipal judge who is an employee of the city council would be a pretty awkward position. In a case like that, wouldn't it be better for that to be decided at some other judicial level just for the protection of that person who has other responsibilities and duties that could be considered a conflict of interest? Even with our municipal court system, we still divide ourselves into the various branches of government. We have our legislative branch, we have our judicial branch with our municipal court, our municipal court judge, our municipal prosecutors, and it is a separate branch of government with its own rights, responsibilities, and authorities. So the different branches of government are set forth wisely by our forefathers for some checks and balances in government, so even our municipal court system is designed to be able to be a check and balance. Now, could there be some somewhere else? Yes, potentially, certainly. And I suppose at some other point we're going to talk about how we change the charter. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay, so back up for me for just a little bit. So I guess I'm confused because I thought that we could have an ordinance or an ethics ordinance that would comply without a charter amendment as long as it complied to the 171 and just added to it went a little further. And you're saying that we need a charter amendment to do just that? Not quite. I'm not quite saying that. Okay. We have the two provisions in our charter that we're going to look at as being enacted by our citizens. So we're going to acknowledge those two provisions as being the highest law in the city of Denton. Now, the council could work with those provisions and add some different provisions relating to some other things and add to it, and then we would read those provisions together . So that would be one way to approach this. The other way, which I'm going to discuss a little bit this afternoon, would be the possibility of looking at our charter and going in this direction that I have suggested, which would be to create some tools in the charter and allow the council to circle back with an ethics ordinance. So there are several ways to address this. No one way is the answer. But there may be some wisdom in looking at, for example, what the model city charter from the National Civic League does. And so I've brought that forward so that we can at least think about that together as we consider which direction we need to go. So there is a way that we can have an ordinance that would sync with our charter, right, without amending it at- There is a way we can do that, yes. That's still a possibility. But once again, we don't want to trample on what our citizens have told us they want in our charter, right? Gotcha. We can address some other things, but we need to acknowledge those provisions that they have put in our charter. We've got Councilmember Wasney, then Hawkins, and then Be garry. Yes, ma'am. So to carry that further, and again, this is a question on procedure. So just case in point, if we used an example of the charter 14.04, conflict of interest. If this council chose to amend the wording in that section, the council could do that without a charter election, is that correct? I would say to you that I think amending- the council cannot amend the charter. The charter can only be amended by the people. So if the charter is to be amended, there would be a charter review committee, and consideration would be given to how the charter should read. And then the citizens would have an opportunity to vote on the recommendations of the charter review committee and the council's direction and put something different in place through the charter. I think the question becomes, can we change that standard in the charter by an ordinance? And I would be highly wary of that. Again, I think we can address some different things in response to Keely's question. I think we can talk about some different provisions. But when we talk about the provisions resident in the charter, those are essentially deemed sacrosanct because they have been enacted by the people. Our ordinance, again, a representative form of government, a legislation, a legislative act, we would not want to infringe upon our local constitution, i.e. our charter. And I'm going to get through the first round of questions, but if possible, because we could stay- I'd like for you to finish your presentation. I think I have a couple more slides after we get through, Councilmember Hawkins and McGarry. Because I think some of these are going to be answered maybe as you move forward, but I just don't want to get bog ged down until we get through the whole presentation. So go ahead, Councilmember Watson. Yes. Just to wrap that up. So you mentioned adding different provisions. Would- if you could explain that, would it fall under the 1404 conflict of interest? Or when you say different provisions, it would be an entirely different something? So I'm confused because you say only the citizens can change the charter. Correct. But then you also say Council has the power to add additional provisions to the charter. No, ma'am. Okay. Not to the charter. The Council as a legislative body can enact ordinances. And so you can pass an ordinance not in conflict with the charter. The Council cannot amend the charter, but you can pass ordinances to supplement the charter or address things that are not addressed in the charter. So there could be an ethics ordinance that supplements the charter. Correct, yes. Thank you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Let's move on. So months ago we were given examples of what San Antonio's ethics ordinance looked like. I'm only bringing that up because we just saw it. So in theory, San Antonio's ethics ordinance is not acting in conflict with their charter. Which was voted on by the people. Right. I actually went back and looked at their charter as well as their ordinance. And I did not see that there is a conflict. Gotcha. The citizens in San Antonio enacted some provisions and then their Council built upon those provisions. Okay. And I just bring that up because it was an example that was given to us. Thank you. And here's another one if I can move into this model city charter provision. And so... Yeah, I'm sorry. You okay? Okay. Can I paraphrase one thing to make sure that I'm understanding it? Sure. And this is based on what all three of you have been saying . I think this is a different way of saying what Ms. Wozni is saying. So there are some changes that would be possible for us to make to ordinances or to change from a resolution to an ordinance or to change the resolution or to change the ordinance. And we wouldn't have to change the charter. Correct. But there might be some changes that a majority on the Council want to make that really wouldn't be possible unless we did change the charter. Yes, sir. That's right. So we're just talking about the procedures that would be necessary based on what we decided we want to do. Correct, absolutely. Okay. And this is just yet another option for you to consider as you look at these issues and move forward to think about where you would like to go with the city and its ethics issues. Okay. So the National Civic League was actually founded by The odore Roosevelt and Louis Brandis in the late 19th century. And the League was instrumental in efforts to make local governments more open, accountable, and effective. And now today, the National Civic League is made up of a number of cities are actually involved with the League. It's been in effect for 120 years. It's nonpartisan. It's a nonprofit. Currently based in Denver, Colorado. Its mission is to foster good practices of local government and public engagement. And its core values are set forth as being public participation and civic action, diversity and inclusiveness, greater democracy and higher performing governments, hope in the nurturing of successful communities. And so this nonprofit does a number of things, one of which is they have created this model city charter. And I actually gave you an excerpt in your backup of some provisions out of the model charter, but it's actually quite large as you can see here. And it addresses any number of different matters in the model charter, including ethics issues. You'll see in your backup that I only included those that were pertinent to this discussion, and that is the ethics provisions. This model charter has been noted multiple times in yet another document that some of us are familiar with that's written by Terrell Bloggett called Texas Home Rule Charters, edited by our own Scott Houston with the Texas Municipal League. So it has been repeatedly endorsed by the Texas Municipal League as being a possible model for cities to look at as these charters are either enacted or amended. So pertinent to our discussion today are those provisions in the model charter relating to ethics. And the model charter I think does a very good job as far as doing what I'm suggesting, and that is have your charter set a foundation and then circle back with your ethics ordinance. And what the model charter does is it requires the city council to enact an ordinance establishing conflict standards. And it could include any number of different things, official capacity standards, acceptance of gifts, use of confidential information, appearances on behalf of private interests, public disclosure of finances, hiring of relatives, accepting employment, with an employer with whom the official acted in an official capacity. The model charter could require the city council to establish by ordinance an independence ethics board and to set the qualifications, the jurisdiction, and the duties of the board. The model charter provides that there could be a requiring by ordinance that the city council set aside necessary funds, or they could do that actually in the charter itself. So I think the model charter is something we could look to as an example, one example. I'm certain there are others out there. There are other cities out there. But this is one that we could consider as far as building our foundation in the charter so that we can circle back with an ethics ordinance addressing some of these things. Again, to me, to have your standards set in your charter is probably and possibly, in my opinion, not the very best way to go. The charter should indicate that you will have an ethics committee, you will set standards, and you will set funds aside in order to support these efforts. Then you would come back later after you get your charter provisions in place and enact your ordinance and set your standards in that ordinance. That way, the council as a legislative body can set those standards. And as our city changes and throughout the years and the decades, the council may desire to change those standards. If they're set in your charter, they've got to go back to election. And so I present this to you as a possibility and to think a little bit as to whether or not this might be a direction that the city of Denson would desire to go in the future. And if we did, then we would need to look at the possibility of amending our charter. To me, those provisions probably would need to come out of our charter, and we would need to look at this with fresh eyes and think again about what needs to go in our charter. So it looks like there are a couple of questions out here. Yeah, it just sounds like a good break. And we'll probably take a break in about 15 minutes, so Council Member Gary. I have a couple of comments and questions, first of all. I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation. I think if I understand everything that you've stated, basically the scope of our ordinances are going to be bound to the charter provisions. For instance, one, just to give you an example, one of the things that has always struck me about the Texas Local Government Code provisions on conflict of interest is that 10% rule. Correct. So the more money somebody makes, the less likely they are to be in conflict of interest. Right. For some sensibilities, like mine, it would be kind of offensive. So if we were to enact some type of ordinance in the city of Denson, we actually couldn't put anything in place that put a hard financial limit because we were bound to that type of local government code definition. Is that, am I understanding it correctly? Well, I think the larger problem currently in the city of D enson is that our electorate has spoken as to what they think the standard is going to be. I think with regard to the state law provision, I think that we can address that. But I think the larger issue is that our electorate has said this is what we want our standard to be. Now, if we didn't have that provision and we wanted to go to, for example, a different standard, let's say, let's say , you know, $1. I was just looking through some of the information concerning what other cities have done. And I thought you might be interested. Seventy eight percent of the cities in Texas have set standards where there any personal or financial interest in any contract is a conflict. And so other cities have set a stronger standard over state law. But then that's such a situation where we don't they're not grappling with the same charter provision that we've got. Now, one thing we could do is the electorate could say we want no 10 percent rule. We want a zero percent rule in our charter. They could do that. Or thinking about my suggestion is have your charter create that foundation and come back in your ordinance and set that standard or some other standard. The other thing I want to mention was reading through the model the model charter provisions. It looked like there was some financing campaign financing terms and I would just request that because I don't think that those would be effective. And then the third thing I'd like to say is just a comment, which is I don't know if anybody's really familiar with their David Roosevelt history, but he started his career really fighting corruption and graft through a political machine that was in existence in New York. It was called Tammany Hall. You know, he was 25, 24 years old, was elected, and he fought very hard against what he called spoilsmanship. And that was the process of awarded favors and contracts and things of that nature based on ties that people had to the political organization. So, I'm very hard to know that the National Civic League was one of his and his friends brainchild because they truly worked very hard against this. Okay, yes. Sorry. That's all I have to say now my mic is on . Repeat all that place. Tammany Hall, Teddy Roosevelt. Let's see, Councilmember. You know he was also Teddy Roosevelt was the first or the youngest police commissioner for the city of New York. I think he was 25, 26. We got that. The, the charter provisions. If we were to consider those if it was to go to the to the electorate. I can see the possibility because we only do this once by charter we can only do it once every so often. Once every two years. Once every two years, and it's been maybe four or five years. Seven and nine, right. I've heard you have a couple of things listed I've heard of a couple of other things so if we did charter amendments. Would they be. Would it be likely that they would go to the voters as a change in the residency in a different boat on regarding if, if we even suggested that the salary that the council gets salary, and each one of those would be a different type of a voting provision. If we were to look at our ethics provision let's just say hypothetically our ethics provision, and this residency issue and a salary issue for city council. Those would all go in separate ballot propositions, and they could be voted up or down on each proposition so some might pass, some might fail. That's how would we handle it. Would that occur in May. Well, that would be up to the council, and that would be dependent on when the council desired to put that in front of the electorate. Of course, as we look at this we would need to give a committee charter review committee, an opportunity I believe to consider provisions and make some recommendations to counsel, that's hard work. It takes a lot of bearing down and reviewing it 's a lot of staff work it's a lot of committee work, and so we would want them to have a full and fair opportunity to make sure they get this right. Of course, depending on the issues that the council would ask the committee to look at the committee could break out in the subcommittees and look at these separately and then come back in and vote on them as a committee and then make recommendations to the council that will take some time. I might add, please keep in mind, any election on the charter still must be called at least 78 days prior to the election date. So if we're looking at May, that's approximately sometime in February mid February . Yeah, you just touched on that I was wondering if council was making all the recommendations for charter amendments or if that in the charter doesn't say that needs to go to committee. And is that appointed by council of course, yes, yeah, historically that's absolutely what we've done we've appointed a charter review committee by the council council decides how many and who. And then the committee begins studying the charter provisions and then makes a recommendation back to the council. So using a specific example and the 1404 in our charter will be the example that I drilled down on, which is a conflict of interest and it's the 10% rule that coincides with the state law. And I've had an issue with the 10% law. Since I arrived in Denton 10 years ago, because it's my very strong opinion that it should be zero interest in any type of issue that comes before council, whether you're discussing it in council or you're voting on it. There is any indication and I included fiduciary interest in our last discussion as well. So if we go back to 1404 conflict of interest and let's say that was an area that I felt really needed to be changed. Just to clarify, we can't change that 10% to a 0% unless we change the charter. Right, because you would enact an ordinance that would be in conflict with your charter and I would say to you, you don't want to go there. You do not want to try to pass a law that trumps what your citizens have indicated they want in their charter. You would have a conflict there and you would essentially put your ordinance at risk. And so there would be two ways to do that. One, it could be voted in in the charter to set a different standard or you can go in the direction that I'm suggesting and that is lay your foundation in your charter and circle back with your ordinance with that standard. My concern with trying to water down the charter understanding and appreciating your argument that it would allow to build upon it. But it would water down quite frankly what we have in place right now. With that said, it's still state law. So you could change the charter to make it fairly benign so that it can be built upon with an ethics ordinance understanding that an ethics ordinance could also change over the years and be much easier to change than to have to come back in once again and change the charter. Right. Understood. I think that if the majority wants to move to a zero level for conflict of interest for that definition, it's not necessary. It doesn't require us to water down the charter. It requires us to simply change the charter. And I wouldn't think that it would necessarily mean that we water it down. We just make an adjustment in the charter to accomplish what it is that that that we feel is appropriate without being in conflict with the charter. So to clarify, would that have to go to a charter vote in May, or could this council have the ability to change that to zero and amend the charter council cannot change the chart. Only the citizens of Denton can change the charter. It has to go to election. Sure. So just a couple of more procedural questions about about changing the charter. The last time that we did that 2009, it had it had to do with a question about definitions of term limits, changing seats and things like that. There were some interpretations that were being challenged. So there was a council I think appointed each council member appointed but three. I think that's right I think there were 21 people on the committee. At the time, I think it was three each and in the charge for them was to go look at the rules about term limits and and and write them as clearly as possible. Yes, sir. That's right. And that was about the extent of the direction. And then, and then the committee went. They came up with a recommendation, it came back to counsel . Council have the ability to make any kind of modifications if they think well, they were 99% there needs to change that one word for clarification, or do they have to accept it as it is, before it goes to an election. Right, the committee is only a recommending body. Okay, the council retains. As usual authority. And so you could adjust it a little bit you could accept some recommendations and not others. And then put the issues to election. And then once if it's decided that that these rules are going to these recommendations are going to go to the to the voters in an election in the required amount of time ahead of time. At that particular point, the city's response, the city's limited as an organization is only is limited to only providing factual information about about what what is in the changes. Maybe the meaning of those changes, but it's up to those who have a political position one side or the other to make those arguments outside of any funding any effort on the part of the city is official. Yes sir that's right once the ordinance calling the election is read and passed. At that point in time the limitations are upon the city council and the city staff to not engage in election hearing. So at that point in time, all officers of the city all employees of the city will be limited with regard to what they can say. Now they may engage in a dialogue is a concern strictly facts, but they cannot engage in election hearing at that point. So you can have the committee for good government that says , well we we endorse changes, one, two and three, but not for in the committee for fine government, saying we recommend the same changes for two, three and four but not one. Yes sir. Okay, that's exactly right. That's how it would go down. Got a question. How long did the committee meet in 2009. I know customer wasn't I think you were on there and I think you had, you know, because you were the city term, was it is like, four or five months three four months five months or something like that or was it shorter than that I don't recall. Yes sir I'm trying trying to remember I just trying to get an idea of, because if we're going to have several potential charter changes or recommendations to have the committee look at and come up with some recommendations. If I think you'd be working real hard to get it on May ballot but that doesn't mean you couldn't do it. I think I can give you a rough time frame not exact but we can we can go back and reconstruct that. But the charter committee looked at these issues in the fall of 2008. And the matter went to election in 2000 in May of 2009. Okay. Okay. Well, and something to think of also in terms of time involved with the charter committee. The way to get things done is to break that into subcommittees, and then give one topic for each subcommittee to tackle. So that if, if council brings forth to the charter committee for different items or three different items and you have subcommittees look at that and some are going to require more time than others the ethics portion would require a great deal more time than say salaries for city council. Because that is a no brainer. Yeah, well, So it I just, the ethics issue is is long and deep, and a lot. So, you could actually give two topics to a subcommittee and say, you know, look at them and bring it forth. And that way, you're and quite honestly I can't remember the time frame and you know nine with the term limit committee. It went on for a while, but I don't think it was any extraordinary length of time. I want to give the committee itself the latitude to sort of figure out their own structure because some of those that might be appropriate for a subcommittee but something like ethics may be something that the whole committee because you'd had to hate to do all that work with however many people in that subcommittee, and then come back and have a real issue. So, I certainly would want to give them the latitude to figure out how to structure that kind of analysis and deliberation but okay, I think, do you, you've got some other slides other comments I mean I'm sure we have some other questions or we've got to give direction or. No sir I don't have any more slides, but I'm interested in your discussion and if you have any direction with regard to it this is a direction you would like to go. And if so, are there other topics that you would like to consider, and then I stand ready to assist you in implementing whatever you desire Councilmember Gregory, thanks. You put that slide back up there the last. But before I make my suggestion for others. Would you talk about clarification for residency please. Yes, sir, an issue arose fairly recently with regard to the residency provisions and the charter. And the question that came forward was whether an individual who desired to run in a place was required to meet the one year requirement of residency in the city, and a one year require residency also in the district from which elected are in which you would run. And you're saying that there's some ambiguity in the way it 's written it could be read either way. You know, to me I think I understand what the provision means and, but it could be, it could be a little clearer. The couple of things. First of all, I think it's time to, to form a charter revision committee. Probably with at least three persons per council member. I think probably both of the items listed on your charter there. I would, I would have a couple of others that I would want them to at least talk about. One of them is to review and possibly recommend changes to the rules that are currently in place that trigger a recall election. I think that we found that the bar, given, given what the vote was that the bar was probably too low. And then we might need to change that. Another item that came up in the last election cycle that I think. And this is a significant. This is a really significant question. It's a big change in our charter is the possibility of reconsidering our four three council arrangement, a four single member districts and three at large positions to a six one arrangement of six single member districts and one at large being the mayor. And by the way, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I could, I could probably argue either side and still be not sure where I would come down. But I think, I think it's time for us to have that, maybe have that conversation. There may not be enough interest on the part of the council members to do that. I think the charge, we all have to agree on that. The other thing is when we're talking about city council itself. I've heard several people talk about maybe instead of look at term terms again, and maybe instead of two year terms, instead of three, two year terms of having to three year terms. Again, I don't know if that's a good idea or not, but it's an idea that that has come up. Yeah, okay. Okay, Council Member Gary. Okay, so I would be in agreement with Council Member Gregory, and so far as I think a charge to have the committee discuss the composition of the council would be a good opportunity for our citizens to get involved in a structured way about how what we are comprised of. I'm okay with them discussing terms as well. I'm agnostic on the recall, but if everybody feels that that should be revisited, I'm okay with the council revisiting that issue as well. I would like to also include a discussion about whether the internal auditor is a required position. So whether that's a shall or a must, whatever we need to do to clean that language up. And I would be in favor of discussing a salary or stipend for the city council as well. And I have no issue about clarification of residency. I think that's pretty much everything. And of course, well, obviously our ethics discussion is the overarching. This is just ancillary was my understanding. If I could have a magic wand, I'd pass an ethics ordinance today, but I don't have a magic wand. And I'm only one of seven people. I brought this to council nine months ago. My only comment is I wish we would have had a real deep discussion like this nine months ago, where it was no, the charter really would be in opposition to an ethics ordinance. Because had we had this discussion nine months ago, we could have something at the ballot box in November. But water under the bridge, it is nine months since that time and now we're here. So ethics is just number one for me with this charter committee. We can take a look at salary, take a look at other cities. I know I'm working 50 hours a week. I think a lot of other council people are too. It may open this position to people who have to make a hard choice. Do I run for council or do I work? So, you know, I think it's something for our charter review committee to really look at residency. I don't have a lot of heartburn recall. I don't have a lot of heartburn. My heartburn is that we do not have an ethics ordinance and I think everybody in this room understands that. So I'm all for putting together charter review committee. I like the idea of three nominees per council member. It worked well with the term limit back in 08-09. Thank you. After all, kind of putting our input in here, definitely moving forward with the ethics as a charge for the community, for the committee. I definitely think it's time for council members to start making some sort of wage. And even if that's after I'm off council or whatever, I want to see a diverse council moving forward. And I think that's a way where we can get people who didn't think they could afford to run or had the time to run to run. And I want their input and I think that the vision of that person's, the vision for that city that that person has is very important. Residency is not a big one for me. Of course, the recall one is a big one for me because that's very personal. I think that bar is way too low. And anything that we can do to try to get voter turnout higher, I don't know if that's going to the single member district thing. I would, I don't know if that's what the actual outcome is of that, but I would definitely be willing to look into that. So a 6-1. So did you? Oh, and to add the internal auditor, that's not a big one for me. Well, I'll just tack on to that then. I would be okay with a discussion about the date for election as opposed to having the municipal date of May, moving the date to the general election date. I don't know if that's something that could be in the charter, but I think it's a discussion worth having because I agree with you. We need to make it easier for people to vote. I think that's a good idea. In terms of voter turnout, something that I've seen, and it may not even be a charter committee, but it may be something that this council can just kind of act on sooner than later. And that's that our city is growing and we are still on election day. We have one election place in each district and so some people are driving 30, 35 minutes to get to the polling location. In the last election, I talked to our Denton County elections administrator and I said, how do we add some different polling locations? And he basically put the ball back in our court as city. And so I'll bring that up under new business because I think it's something that we can take a look at, like I said, sooner than later. So that with our May city election, my thought would be two voting locations per district. So that maybe that will help voter turnout if they're not having to travel 30 minutes one way and 30 minutes back. >> Sure. >> I'll just echo the sentiments that everybody said I don 't have any issue with what's been stated as far as a charge . But also, I mean, this charter is how old is this charter? 60, 50 something years. >> 1959. >> Yeah, so. >> It's been amended throughout the years. >> It's almost 60 years old. So we've changed a lot as a city in 60 years. We're going to change a lot as a city in the next 20 years. So I'm real okay with these specific charges, but also we 're going to have a group of our citizens convening together . That I think if they're looking at other things that may be helpful to look at the charter and if there's some other suggestions and recommendations that they have, bring them forward. We can always sort of, and in the end, as you said, each one of these gets an up or down vote from the public. So I'm not too afraid of some of the things that might come forward because in the end our citizens will decide on what their constitution will look like moving forward from this place. So I think it is time for what I perceive as a potential comprehensive modification to our ordinance. And the six member districts, single member districts, you know there's a lot of data regarding representation. And of course then you have to decide how you draw those up if that's the way it goes. So there's some good things. There's some good discussion material in this regard. So I'm forwarded. I'm all in favor of moving forward with as it's planned. Three members is fine. I think I would want to let the charter committee itself decide how they want to deliberate on these particular matters because this is a basket full. And it's quite a commitment of time and energy and research . So Council Member Briggs. So I'm okay with the committee. But I also know that there are citizens out there that have wonderful ideas and concerns as you mentioned. And so would it be acceptable or okay to have a town hall and welcome our citizens to come in and share these before we start these committees or? Well, personally, I think that that's something that the committee itself could do is reach out because I think they 're going to want to involve public discussion and deliber ation. So whatever fits for them in that regard, I think that's certainly something we could encourage them to do to to find a way to really garner that public input. Yes, just point of clarification. When we're talking about the ethics ordinance, we're talking about elected officials and employees as well as a rail on the same page with that. Are we talking? Okay, just making sure. And I would assume that at some point in the process, if in this menu of items, the legal department saw that item B and item E were somehow connected and that you couldn't pass one without passing the other that they would become one proposition. Yes, we will. We will be working hand in glove with the committee and helping them assisting them along the way. And so we'll be looking at all of those provisions to make sure that they read well together because those do. It may be that one change dominoes another. And so we might need to be wary of that. We start talking to people that we want to nominate to see if they're interested in serving. I don't know, Kathleen, did when you were asked to be honest, did they give you a notion as to how frequently you would be meeting and for how many months you would be meeting? Do you recall? You know, you're either all in or you're not when you volunteer for something that's important. So I do know it was important that we met in the evening so that people who worked could also be included and come. I believe the meeting started at 630 so that, you know, people who got off at 5 or 530 could be there by 630. So I don't remember knowing in advance because I don't think there are any crystal balls to tell people. I think we set ourselves up if we say, hey, this will be 60 or 90 days. Because then if we go longer, you know, somebody may say, well, you know, I'm done. So people just have to know if they are on there, they're all in because it's that important. Thanks. Madam City Attorney, do you I'm sure you were taking notes about some of the specific items that so do you have a you think you have a comprehensive list? I think I do. I did have one question. Is the council desir ous of looking at an election possibly in May? I'll be honest. I think it just almost be impossible given this given these items. If we're going to be basically doing a comprehensive rewrite of the charter, I think it would be very difficult to put that kind of time frame on because then people may not sign up if they think they're going to have to be meeting that long. I don't I don't personally have that feeling. I don't have that desire for that need. I know it seems like it's stretching it out. But if we're wanting more people to have the opportunity to become involved and to really do this correctly, if we were dealing with one issue or two issues, okay, but we've got what seven or eight at least. So that's only my thought. Let's not have ourselves in. Let's get it's going to take time to get the committee together. The committee then is going to have to come up with a meeting schedule. And if I remember correctly, it was two or three nights a month, almost once a week. And so it's just been a while and I've had my finger in a lot of pots. So I can't remember the question here. But you have come in. I'm okay with having it open ended. But I would like the committee to understand that if they 're finished by a certain time that we can potentially have it on the May ballot. So I think having served on some of these ad hoc committees before, it's nice to have a finite date when it's over. I understand that. Councilmember. Another question. When we did our last bond committee, I think we selected five people each. Plus, we recommended two people to co-chair the committee. So it seems like we're kind of agreeing to three people each. Would we want to let the committee select a chair or would we do we think it might be good for us to appoint some co- chairs to operate it? I think it's good to let the committee appoint their own. Is that what you guys did? Yes, own chair and co-chair. I'm in favor of that. Councilmember Wasner. Yes, Councilmember Harper. And the final product needs to be turned in by around March 1st. You said 70 days before the election. It's 78 days. 78 days. By state law, we have to call the election prior to the date of the election. And I don't have that calendar in front of me, but it's approximately mid-February, as I recall. Jennifer, is that about right? She's giving me a head nod. So sometime in February, we would need to call that election. Mid-February is four and a half months. Yeah, so possibly. For a May election, correct? Right, for a May election. Okay, so yes, Councilmember Wasner. So I'd like to agree on a date that council members will have names in so that this doesn't just hang. Can we look at the calendar and come up with a date that council members should have their three nominations in by so we can kind of get this ball rolling? I would propose that the legal department craft a resolution and frame these issues for the council so that you can look at what we've done. We may need one more work session so that you can look at how we frame these and adjust the issues as you please. And then if you're satisfied with that resolution, then we can put that on the council agenda for enactment. And we can put an appointment section on the agenda as well so you can make your appointments at that time. I do think maybe one more work session would be good, though. I would like for you to look at the language and the issues and make sure you're satisfied with the way we frame it. October 4th, there's no meeting. So, you know, we just keep kind of dragging this on. Instead of a work session, could you craft a resolution, put it on an agenda so that we could discuss the resolution in front of us? Is that what you're suggesting? Right. I can do that. I can just put a resolution on the agenda and you can look at enacting it that night or we can do another work session and then bring the resolution back at the following meeting . However you desire to do it. I would sure like to get on with it and have a resolution from legal and put it on the agenda. And then people can study it once it comes out on the backup. And that gives us three or four days to study it, ask questions, and then correct me if I'm wrong, we could make modifications that day. So it becomes a work session but also an action item that evening. I can do both a work session and an action item on the same agenda if that's your desire. That saves another week or two. So thanks. I saw some hands up over here. Council Member Bliggs. So I have a question. I'm looking at the Dallas Code of Ethics and it's 54 pages long. And I see that there's 1404 and 1405 that we have labeled here in our city charter that's conflicting. There an ethics ordinance is made up of a whole bunch of things. So do we have to have these two, our charter amended, were these two 1404 and 1405 before we can work on anything in the ethics or is there something we can do together like in sync at the same time? So that's really going to depend on what the charter committee recommends to the council as far as how to structure this because, again, there's no just number one and only one way to do this. There are several possibilities. But as we look at making sure that we're not sort of tri pping over one another, to me it would be prudent to let the charter review committee take a look at it and they could say and come back and recommend to the council that they're fine with the standard as written and leave the charter alone and recommend then the council could look at the possibility of an ordinance and just leave the charter alone. And then the council could look at the possibility of an ordinance and just leave the charter provision as written. That's a possibility. I don't know where the committee might go. On the other hand, they might go in the direction that I am recommending, and that is create that foundation in the charter and then circle back with your ordinance much the way as was done in this model charter provision. And then you could repeal everything out of the charter and just have an ordinance, all of those things are possibilities. If I could recommend something that I think would get to Ms . Wasney's concern about wanting to get on with this thing, make some changes. You know, when you're -- if we can use a metaphor of a house and the foundation and the charter being the foundation and it limits what you can do with the house. But if you know for sure that you want a particular something or another in the house, then you construct the foundation to accommodate that. So it might -- I think it would be possible for us to concurrently -- what you're saying is we could start working on at least the main ideas of what we would like to see in an ethics ordinance. And hopefully we're doing this at the same time that the charter committee is doing their job and hopefully we're done with our work by the time they're done with their work . And then we could compare what we are -- what we think that we could get at least a majority of the council to agree on as far as a new ethics ordinance. And then look at the charter provisions that are being recommended by the committee and make sure that the foundation and that special bonus room match one another. Special bonus room is a terrible part of the analogy. Take that out. Put something else in. So that there's a match between where we would like to go with the ethics ordinance and the -- because it would be awful if we ended up with a charter amendment that really didn't help us accomplish what the majority of the council is trying to accomplish with an ethics ordinance. So I think maybe working simultaneously might facilitate matters. There's one other possibility and I hate to keep throwing curve balls, but this is a complex area and there are a lot of possibilities. But the committee could come back and say we want all the standards in the charter so it can never be changed. Only over the vote of the people. So the standard could actually be set by the people in the city of Denton. And so it really would essentially maybe not completely ob viate but mostly obviate the need for an ordinance. So that 's also a possibility. So however we go forward, we're certainly delighted to assist howsoever the council desires to move forward. Again, to me, it would make sense to let the charter review committee do their work and then circle back with your ordinance. But that's me. >> Thank you. I would like to work on this simultaneously so that we're all working towards a date. And it allows us to kind of hash out as a council what's important, what is an important things that we have consensus on in terms of moving forward in an ethics ordinance. And so I would strongly encourage us to do that and as chair of the ethics committee, I'll sit down with you and we can kind of map this out as it were to try to optimize council time as we go through the next few months. >> I guess the only thing that I would caution on this is that we're saying we want to hire or we want to appoint a committee of our citizens to look at the chart on a lot of different issues. And one of them being an ethics ordinance or a foundation or however we want to couch it. I want to make sure that they operate as an independent body. And if council is deliberating on what they want in an ethics ordinance, I just hope that they feel comfortable enough that if they don't necessarily feel the same way that they bring their recommendations to. I just don't want the tail wagging the dog so to speak. So I don't have any problem with doing it contemporaneously with the meeting of that committee. But we're going to go to we're going to ask people to spend a lot of time and use a lot of their energy and their emotional energy to really think through how we want to craft the city charter for the probably a very long time. Major comprehensive rewrite. So whatever we can do to facilitate the efficiency of that, I think is great as long as it doesn't cross over into well , this just is a committee of form and not substance. So and I know that's not what you're talking about, but I just I just needed to say that. Councilmember Riggs and then councilmember Gregory. When I was speaking of the ordinance, my question was, is there a lot of other things in that ordinance that we could talk about that aren't involved in the 1404 and 1405, which are the conflict to which the foundation that this committee is working on? Well, I think we're given the charge to the committee is it 's an open. We're not saying, hey, just figure out these two items. Do we remove those? Do we at least that's my understanding. So that's my I don't have a problem with that. I just don't want to all of a sudden create a conflict with a potential committee. But in this discussion about the ethics ordinance, these are the the ones about the ordinance that we're talking about. The other things are just extra. They're not no, no, understand what you're what you're saying is, can we can we work on things that have nothing to do with those two charter provisions in the charter? And I'm saying that's fine. But we don't know what the Charter Committee is going to recommend what we do with either those two or do we put in that little model you put up about there's either zero or if having an ethics board, they may want to put those in the charter. I just don't know because we haven't we haven't formed. So I don't have a problem with it. I just want us to be aware of that potential kind of conflict or influence on the committee. So my understanding in the larger discussion is that we would not limit the committee in their look at the charter. They would have some free ranging authority to not only consider those those two provisions, but any they might think were appropriate. And they could accept any of the discussions that we've had that is building the foundation or putting everything in the charter if that's what they chose. Sure. Councilmember Gregory, and then if we don't have any other questions, we're going to at least take a break and come back to this agenda item because we've been going for two hours. Just one other thing about time. I think that maybe as we're talking as the staff when they meet with the committee say, you know, it might be that you could finish your work by mid February in time for the May election. But if not, we would definitely like to see you finish your work by whatever timeframe would need to be done in order to hit the November of 2017 election. Because you shouldn't have to go past that. And the November 17 election is not a presidential election . So there's not going to be quite as much noise for that election in terms of people being able to pay attention to the charter. Any other comments, questions, observations? Yes, Mr. City Manager. Mayor, I would just like to clarify. I thought I heard Councilmember Wasley say that we wanted to have a meeting on October 4th. And I just I don't think that's going to be possible. I said we're not having a meeting on the 4th. So when our city attorney said, well, let's do a work session and then resolution. And I was pointing out that we don't have a meeting. So I just don't want this to drag on another month. Okay. I just want to make sure I understood correctly. Thank you. So my plan would be then to have a work session and a resolution and an item on the agenda on the 11th of October to move this forward. And then if the council is dissatisfied with the framing of the issues, we can either correct it on that day or if we just can't do that, then we can adjust accordingly. Are you saying we have to have our appointees or nominees ready by that time? Because I'm going to be out of town for 10 days, so I won't . Not necessarily. Okay, have an item on and then we can circle back and know you. Circle back and pick you up. That was my question. If we were to come on the 11th with those names. Yeah, well, I think you can. I mean, I heard you say you want to set a hard date for that. But I mean, and I don't mind doing that. It's just I'm not going to have any time to process that between now and then. So our city secretary is well accustomed to picking up the stragglers. Thanks. Appreciate that. Because I still got one straggler out there for the airport board. Okay, any other comments, questions, direction? Madam City Attorney, you feel like you have sufficient direction? Thank you. All right. Okay, thank you. We will. I guess I'll go ahead and call the closed session. I'm going to find my cheat sheet. We will now convene the closed session at 4 07 p.m. on September the 27th, 2016. We will consider the following items consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code Section 551.071. Deliberations regarding real property under Texas Government Code Section 551.072. And we will stand recess for five minutes. All right. We are back in session in our open session. We have a special call meeting in the Dent City Council at 5 08 on September the 27th, 2016. Our only agenda items are consent agenda and our concluding items. And it's my understanding, Mr. City Manager, that the consent agenda item C is being pulled off the consent agenda and will not be considered at this time. That's correct. Okay. All right. Council Member Gregory, we have a motion and a second by Council Member Gary. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand or do we do it? Right hand. All opposed by like sign, but it passes unanimously. All right. Concluding items. Anybody have any concluding? Yes, Council Member Washington. I'd like to take a look at the policy and procedure to potentially add one additional voting location in each of the four districts on Election Day on May 6, 2017. And hear from staff on how that would proceed, what the deadlines are, and how we would find an additional location in each and what the cost would be. So that, because I know that's a concern as well. Yes, Council Member Gary. Lexington, Kentucky has a program called Food for Fines where you can pay municipal fines with canned food items, things of that nature. I'm wondering if we could look into that. All right. And I wanted to, again, I did it on Sunday with Council Member Briggs and Council Member Gary, but I wanted to wish Mrs. Dorothy Bertine a happy birthday tomorrow. She will be, I believe it's 100. So I just wanted to say that. Tell her happy birthday. And I appreciate you all being there. I think that was a very, is a good celebration. Yes, Council Member Gregory. Thank you, ma'am. I don't think that we have another council meeting before October 9, which is a Sunday. And I believe at 2 o'clock there is a prayer service of community unity and interfaith service at 2 o'clock. It's going to be hosted at First United Methodist Church on the 200 block of North Locust, South Locust Street. And it's a, I think police officers will be there, but it's about community unity and involving all faiths. And I have one other. I really want to thank staff for, you know, we had a couple of tragic accidents out on 380 a couple of weeks ago. And I really want to thank staff for their diligence and, you know, trying to find a solution to that. And hopefully we're getting a little closer than what we have been. But I really do appreciate staff's expedient work in that regard. And so I just wanted to pass that along because I think that will mean a lot to the community. And I think it will provide a lot of safety as we hopefully move forward with a possible solution out there. So thank you. Anything else? We've got about an hour to kill. So what do we do? Just kidding. All right. We'll stay in the journey.