Oct 18, 2016 City Council on 2016-10-18 12:00 PM

Good afternoon, good noon, actually it's good noon. It's 12 o'clock, welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. Tuesday October the 18th, 2016, we do have a quorum. We'll move on through our agenda. Agenda item number one is citizen comments on consent agenda items. Do we have any cards for citizen comments? Seeing none. Oh. Okay. All right. Okay, Mr. Willie Hutsbeth, if you'll come and state your name and address, your time will begin and as clarified last time, it's three minutes for any of the consent agenda items. Yes sir. The 12 o'clock meeting is for people who don't work. There are not very many citizens who don't work. This is ridiculous for you to have this meeting at 12 o' clock. That's the consent agenda item. The consent agenda items, you have too many. Why don't you pull some of those off so that we can talk to them? I don't have enough time in three minutes to talk about all the agenda items that I want to talk about. So for the next year, I'm going to be talking about you making these sit on the floor. What is wrong with you? And to have these meetings at 12 o'clock, sit on the floor. I hope somebody takes my picture on the floor as I pretend to fall out. Thank you, sir. All right. We'll move on to agenda item two for request for clarification of agenda items listed on agenda item. Yes, Council Member Briggs. I would like to request to pull item F, please, for a presentation in the regular session. Is that on consent? Yes. Okay. In regards to the 90 million in bonds. Okay. Okay. Any other clarifications on any agenda items? Yes, Mayor, staff would like to pull closed meeting item 1B . Okay. And the individual consideration item 5A. All right. 1B and 5A. Okay. Any others? Yes, Council Member Hawkins. Thank you, Mayor. It's on the last consent agenda item. It's on R. It has to do with the airport. I don't know if this is Quinton or Chuck, but I was just kind of reading the backup and, you know, I'm not alarmed or anything, but it had said that 99% of the work had been completed and we still were probably trying to get out of the construction agreement that we have. And, you know, maybe just at a high level just kind of speak on that a little bit, please. Well, I can either get Quinton or Eldon. And I believe Eldon Brock, our purchasing manager, can answer those questions. All right. Just at a high level. Yeah. Ninety-five percent of the work has been completed. There were some issues with whether our warranty was going to be able to be extended for the amount of time once we terminate the contract. So in a way to effectuate the bonding company, we had to terminate. So the bond would actually - the bonding company would actually take care of the city's two-year warranty under the bond. Okay. That's all I needed to know. It's pretty much complete. We still have about $55,000 in their funds that we'll be able to finish up the project with. Okay. Thanks. Yes, Councilmember Wasney. A point of courtesy. If we could have any staff in the seating behind me to give up a seat so that citizens can have a seat, please. Sure. Well, I think we're all fixing - most of them are fixing. Yeah, y'all can do that. Any other clarifications on agendas? No more clarifications? Oh, yes. Plus, there's an empty chair right over there as well that 's been empty since it started. He actually moved it over there. Agenda item B - or consent agenda item B. Okay. Yes. I'd like to pull it. Okay. Consent agenda item B. Yes, please. All right. Fantastic. You want a presentation on that then? Just very briefly. I intend to vote for it. I just wanted the public to be aware. Okay. You bet. All right. Any other clarifications? Fantastic. We'll move on to agenda item three, work session reports. We'll give staff a chance to clear out if it's going to clear out. Okay. We'll go on to agenda item 3A, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the establishment of periphery development annexation criteria in the Denton Development Code. Thank you, Mayor. I'll pass it over to the Chair of the Board of Trustees, Dr . Gata, our long-range planning administrator will be doing this particular item. Thank you, Howard. Mayor, members of the Council, this item is brought forward to you as a request to look at some of our annexation criteria moving forward. I know several of the Council members have expressed some concerns about how or why we're annexing property that are not developing while there are some properties that are being developed in our ETJ and what our policies are with those particular projects. So this is an attempt to give you all some information on what we currently have and what we propose on doing as part of a code amendment moving forward in the near future. So there are projects that are being proposed in our ETJ just outside our city limits, some that are large, some of them are not as big. We've got multifamily in the areas south, close to Geyer. I don't know if you all remember that particular project. I don't think it came to you all, but that's a project that was about a year, a year and a half ago. We've got projects to the north. North of Long Road, there was an application for a project there where they were proposing single family. Again, all in the ETJ and also to the east and west, developments that are occurring just outside our city limits in the form of single family, multifamily, as well as non-residential commercial retail developments as well. Now the question is, do those fit in with the area? Do they fit in within the character of the area? Is the land use appropriate? Does it meet the comprehensive plan, future land use plan? What is the intensity? I know some of the areas around the city are lower intense uses, rural development. We are seeing higher intense uses such as multifamily being proposed adjacent to these developments. And other considerations, infrastructure, as well as public services that we are required to provide if they are able to connect to our services. So all of this is something that we need to consider moving forward and what we can put together as some criteria in how we address these proposed developments. One big component of public services is our CCN, our certificate of convenience and necessity. We've got three areas or three subject services that we provide. One is our water. And I apologize if this is hard to see, the area in blue is where our city CCN lies within not just the city but within our ETJ outside our city. Also wastewater covers a little bit further north in more area. Again, this area is within the city as well as the areas outside the city. And lastly electric, this area here is made up of not just DME but there are dual and triple certified services provided by Encore and CoastServe . So we extend services outside the city limits and that's again one of the considerations we need to address. Question? Yeah. Just real quick, how are the boundaries of the CCN established? That's a good question. And I'm going to turn it over to Howard. The water and wastewater CCN were established a number of years ago through the state organization. Okay. It's changed names several times but it's primarily through the TCEQ. Okay, thanks. Yes Councilman Waffley. If you could go back please to, we have two maps, water sewer. So let's start with wastewater because it's the first one that came up. And you stated that we have service extended out to all these areas. Does that mean that these areas are totally served or that there are some wastewater lines that extend out into those areas? We don't extend service, let me rephrase that. We don't extend the infrastructure but if the developer were to extend their lines to where we have current means, we are able to provide them services in those areas. We don't extend anything out to the development but rather if they extend their lines to where we have existing lines, we are able to provide them in those areas and we are the only ones that are able to provide them water and wastewater. That's what these maps represent. I think that's important for both these maps, wastewater and water, for everyone to understand that these services are not just blanket and available, that lines are out there but it's very sporadic in these outline areas and that the developer still has to provide and come and hook up to wherever we happen to be and that can often be a great distance. Thank you. So just a quick background. We have annexation criteria, however, just really quickly, prior to 2002, our municipal code ordinances had sections 34, 35, 36 and 37 that spoke to annexation policies, procedures and fees. However, in 2002, when our code was updated and we created the Denton Development Code, those sections were repealed. In doing so, there was a section in section 35, 16 in the development code that talks about where we follow our annexation requirements and that refers to our Texas local government code. So in essence, we had policies regarding annexation procedures prior to 2002 that since 2002 with the creation of the DDC had been repealed. So we really don't have any in the books currently. Further, in 1999, our Den plan at the time stressed that we should annex property to identify some areas where we're going to see growth and pursue annexation, not just within the same that had, you know, donut holes, but areas outside the city. As part of that, then plan 2030, in 2009, our staff prepared a strategic annexation report or plan. That was the beginning of what we started as far as annex ing property in the city. As you all know, in 2010, we started annexing properties in several areas within the city as well as donut holes in the city. And that is still continuing. We've annexed some properties. However, we also have non annexation agreements with some properties. The annexation agreements that we still have on the books will expire in 2020. And in 2020, August 1st, to be exact, we will be revisiting these areas again for further consideration for annexation. This all leads up to where we are today. What is our direction? Our Den plan 2030 plan states that we are large enough, we have enough land area in the city that we don't need to annex any more property outside of already what we've already contemplated with the 2010 and 2015 annexation. So with all those proposed annexation and what we currently have in the city, our projected growth can accommodate the growth of the city with the areas that we currently have. That being said, we know that we have areas in our ETJ that are going to impact our city. In the form of utilities, drainage, traffic and other impacts that could potentially impose onto the city. So that being said, we and the Council per Council direction, we put together some criteria to address how we want to address those situations where developments are encroaching in our ETJ, our city limits. Staff is recommending that we expressly repeal the sections that I mentioned and create a new section in the Denzen Development Code that streamlines but also clears up the annexation criteria that we need as well as establish the procedures that we will use towards moving forward with annexating properties that we feel requires annexation. The following are areas that we feel that should be considered for annexation. These are developments that require connections to public utilities. We know that areas in the ETJ, if they are to develop, they 're going to need water, they're going to need sewer, they're going to need electric. If they're required to connect to our utilities, then we're going to consider annexing those properties. Of course, they have to also be within our CCN. Also within our city that have property boundaries that are both in the city and in the ETJ. We have several of those examples where we have large parc els that half of it is in the city and half of it is in the ETJ. If a development were to be proposed on said parcel, that's something we should consider because half of it is already in our city limits. We want to make sure we consider those. Lastly, this is almost a catch-all. Any significant impact to the city, any development that we feel that would generate a significant impact, again, traffic, drainage, and any safety or health hazard would be another consideration for future annexation. How and when does the annexation begin? Well, we in the planning division, through our current planning, receive applications, pre-development meetings, plan applications, any other applications that we see in our ETJ because our Texas ... I'm sorry. Our interlocal agreement with the county is we review plans in the county as part of our interlocal agreement. We see these applications come in. This gives us an opportunity to assess each application. At the time of comments, we can inform the applicant that the city is contemplating or considering annexing said property because of the following . If we have this established criteria, it would help us make those comments to the applicants. If and when we make a determination to annex said property, we will let the applicant know or the property you know through notification that we are going to be annexing. We encourage them to submit an application or petition to be annexed into the city. However, if that does not happen within a set time, we've listed 10 business days. Council? Finish. Go ahead. 10 business days. Then we should consider an involuntary annexation for that subject property. Of course, we will follow all Texas local government code requirements with regards to public hearing process as well as continued use provisions that's in our local code, Texas local government code. Yes, Councilman Hawley. This is the only part that I was struggling with. Is there any benefit to the property owner to voluntarily annex him or herself, I guess, or just let the city do it? Because if you're -- we're going to give you an opportunity to do this, but if you don't, we're doing it. That's how I read it. So I was just -- There's some timing that we can -- and some notices that we can avoid if they came in voluntarily. Otherwise, if it's involuntary, there's certain requirements and timing that we have to follow per the Texas local government code. Is there any cost benefit? If we do involuntary, then obviously they would not be required to pay notification, but it doesn't -- it won't be a lot to be nominal. Okay. Another question, Councilmember Wasney. And how does this impact Council's involvement with the annexation process that we now have? It will not. Any involuntary annexing, we will come to the Council to let you know that we will be starting some -- the two required public hearings, and that is approved by Council through an ordinance. Okay. So does -- do you all have any questions regarding the criteria of when we should consider annexing? If not, we will be bringing forward a code amendment, again , to add a section in our dental development code that addresses the stuff that I presented to you this afternoon. We just went through an annexation exercise here at Council , and there were multiple properties and property owners who very strongly did not want to be annexed. And those non-annexation agreements went out. Does any of this impact any of those non-annexation agreements that were signed? No, they are good until August 1, 2020. Thank you. So Councilmember Hawkins, I don't know if this addresses your question. So I'm actually understanding the process. So somebody voluntarily annexes -- it's just almost a -- not contractual agreement, but it's -- you're saying we're going to -- yeah, it's simplified. But if we want to involuntarily annex, by law, we have to -- if they are ag-exempt, we have to offer them a non-annexation agreement. Is that correct by state law? Correct. State law requires on the ag-exempt properties for us to make an offer of non-annexation. And the process by which we would move forward on an annex ation is dependent on a number of different things, including the number of residences on the proposed piece of property to be annexed. There is a simplified version even under the involuntary provisions if there's a certain limited number of households within that particular area. Otherwise, we have to go with a more complicated process involving putting together a service plan and having it on the shelf for approximately three years. So Madam City Attorney, on -- let's say if someone -- you 've got two options -- to voluntarily be annexed or to go through this process depending on the criteria of number of residents, ag-exempt, and so forth. Are there -- if someone is going to be -- desires to be voluntarily annexed, is the city -- I just forgot how to phrase this. Are they able to negotiate in, for better lack of word, contract for things that they may -- that the parties can agree to for the voluntary annexation that is above and beyond what we would be required to provide if it was an involunt ary annexation? Mayor, I hesitate to answer that question because there could be a wide variety of particular issues we might consider, and it may depend on the particular issue on the table. Even these voluntary annexations come to the City Council, and there are public hearings involved and whatnot, so there are a number of different opportunities to look at various issues, but certainly the property owners do have rights associated with these annexations, even in a voluntary annexation. Thank you. Council Member Briggs. So this is coming to us now because you mentioned the development applications that you have received. So that's part of the property is in the city, and it's ad joining in the county. So this ordinance, will that take care of that issue? We would address that one particular, but that's just one of several instances. And just to clarify, there was a question by the council, a council member, regarding why are we annexing property that's not being developed, and why are we not annexing property that are being developed, and this is to address that question. Okay, thanks. Well, and I know that we've talked about that sometimes a developer who is not in the city that's outside the city limits, just adjacent to it, may want to enter into a pre-annexation development agreement. This has nothing to do with that conversation. This is just one picture. Correct, correct. This is just straight annexation. Yes, all right. Any other questions for Mr. Megide? So I'm just looking for direction just to move forward with the code. Are we okay with moving forward with these code changes? Okay. Great, thank you. Thank you. Agenda item 3B is receive a report and hold a discussion on the review of the housing programs and other activities carried out by the Denton Housing Authority. I believe Barbara Ross, our community development manager, will be doing some introductions here and making comments. Thank you. Well, before you -- I think everybody knows there was a box lunch in there, so okay. Just wanted -- I forgot to make that announcement. I'm sorry, Barbara. Go ahead. Mayor and members of the council, I just wanted to very quickly mention that the city of Denton has had a very close relationship with the Denton Housing Authority. During my tenure, when the city began -- and I won't say how long that is, but during my tenure, when the city began receiving community development block grant funds, some of our early projects like renovation of apartments at the Phoenix Apartments, which was a Denton Housing Authority property, as well as a renovation of Heritage Oaks Senior Housing carried out with community development block grant funds. During the mid-90s, when we -- the city began to receive the Home Investment Partnership Program funding, we provided and worked with the Denton Housing Authority to renovate the old Southern Hotel, which is now Pecan Place Senior Housing . Along with that, support for tax credit applications, the Renaissance Courts, where the Phoenix used to be, but the Renaissance Courts is there now, and of course the project that is ongoing now on McKinney Street. So we've had this strong relationship, and I think it's been very helpful in producing affordable housing for residents of our community. So at this time, I am going to introduce the chair of the Denton Housing Authority Board of Directors, Dr. Catherine Strean. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council Members. I appreciate very much the opportunity to discuss with you and give information to you about an issue confronting our city for quite some time, but now surfacing as more relative to more and more citizens, and that is low-income housing. Our board is small, but works very hard. Dr. Bill Geese is past chair of our board. Cheryl English, who is here, is vice chair of our board. And Salty Rochelle, also present with us, is the head of all of our construction projects for the board. We thank you so much for the opportunity to present this. I'm going to ask Sherry McDade, our executive director, to come and also say thank you to Christian English, her assistant, who is not only Sherry's right hand, but we all turn to her. Sherry will introduce the consultants that we have with her . We look forward to their presentation. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. I'm Sherry McDade. I'm the CEO for the Housing Authority. I wanted to come to you this afternoon to give you a little bit of information about the Housing Authority and give you an update on where we are on some projects and some programs that we're working on. I do have my development consultant here with Rimmel Consulting, and he'll do a little bit of the presentation with me also. So I'll just get started first talking about the Housing Authority and our programs. The purpose of - oops, that's me. I need to click on it. The purpose of the presentation is to provide the City Council with an update on the Housing Authority and information regarding our community development housing needs, information about the low income housing tax credit program. We'll give you a little bit of background on that too, and the strategy to address the needs for more workforce housing and affordable housing here in the city. Sorry, y'all. The Housing Authority was created in 1970 by the City Council. The state laws that govern the Housing Authority programs is the Local Government Code Chapter 392. As Dr. Stream mentioned, the board for the Housing Authority are five commissioners that are appointed by the mayor only. So the mayor appoints all the members for our board, and that is a list of our board members. And one position on our five member board is a resident commissioner, and so that person is a participant of our Section 8 voucher program, and right now it's empty. The Housing Authority, the main program that we operate is the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program. We currently have 1,526 of those vouchers, and we also recently just received 10 HUD VASH vouchers, which are for veterans. And we work that program in cooperation and participation with the VA, so the VA refers those families to us, but we can also make referrals to them. And right now we have nine of those vouchers out, and we only have one more to issue, and four of them have already leased up. The veterans have already leased up. Sheri, on that particular program, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that with those VASH vouchers, there's also a sort of wra paround service component, or additional service component to that. I mean, I know you all provide the housing, but there is a requirement that some other social agencies, or some provide some type of other services. Is that correct? Yes. The VA comes into town, and they meet with those families on a regular basis, and they're required to participate in case management services, which are provided by the VA. Okay. Thank you. The waiting list for the Housing Choice Voucher Program is pretty long. Right now we have about 3,200 families on that waiting list now. And with that being said, our waiting list is closed because it is so long. One thing that we, the board has implemented as part of our policy is that we have preferences for particular populations. Mainly our number one preference are City of Denton residents. That would be our number one preference. And then also the other preference is for homeless. But like I said, the waiting list is closed now, so nobody 's able to apply because it's so long. Council Member Briggs. And how long has that been closed? It was opened up in 2015, June 2015. And we only opened it for one week, and we got over 5,000 applications. So then it closed right after that? Yes. After one week? Yeah. Thank you. The Housing Choice Voucher Program works because the landlords that are in the community that are willing to participate with the housing authority and to accept our families. One problem that we have is that we just don't have enough units for our families here in town. And so mainly because a lot of it is that we are competing with the college student population. And of course, other people that don't even have a section named voucher, they're looking for affordable housing also. One other problem may be the fact that the fair market rent s, the landlords are restricted by the fair markets rents, which those are set by HUD. And so that kind of, that slows us down a little bit too. But I'll just say a little bit about the issue with the landlords. We get new landlords every day, but it's a unit here and there. But our main issue and our main problems is affordable housing. And so that's one reason why the housing authority is working so hard to try to expand our housing stock so that even the section eight families would be able to move into those units, but also people that don't have a section named voucher, they would also be able to move into those units too. Quick question. On the 1,526 housing choice vouchers, are those vouchers available to be used in the workforce housing, like the units that you're building on McKinney Street? Simplify my question. How many of those are those needs met by landlord sponsored units or are all those units from a landlord who's on the program that's providing a unit or are some of those used in some apartment complexes that the housing authority administers? Some of the units we have about 113 voucher holders and DHA -owned units. So we own Heritage Oaks and Parkown Place and Renaissance Core. So other 15, 26, about 113 of them right now are being used by section eight voucher holders in our department. Yes. So the rest, almost 1,400 or so, are scattered through private landlords participating in the program. Correct. Correct. And also outside of the City of Dane, we do allow our families to move outside into Dane County. Yes, Councilmember Hawkins. When a private landlord turns over a unit for the program, who manages that property? The landlord maintains. The landlord still does. Yes. Yes. We don't do any management of the private units. One other item that comes up, I know we're talking about homeless and we've been working with United Way with the Homeless Task Force. The housing authority has the preference for the homeless, but the waiting list is closed. And so we're looking right now at opening up the waiting list and specifically targeting allowing homeless people to be able to apply. One area, we're also trying to train and teach our families who have a voucher to give them some education, some training, and some more knowledge so that when they're going out looking for a unit, they can maybe look a little better and present themselves a little bit better. We have a program called Ready to Rent, and as new people come onto the program and they get a voucher, we'll take them through that program and train them and teach them on how to look for a unit and how to be better renters. And we're thinking, we're hoping that that program will help us maintain the landlords we have and possibly bring some new landlords on the program. So we'll be educating our families that are the voucher holders, but we'll also be educating landlords too so they can look out for those families who 've been through that specific program. And we'll be coordinating with the agency and the city to do that program. As I said, the fair market renters are set by HUD, so we're limited on that. And then the housing assistance payments are the payments that we pay to the landlord for the subsidy for the families that live in the units. We have a question, Councilmember. Go ahead, Councilmember. Well, that just kind of answered my question in more detail about the voucher. So the families that are using the vouchers, does that make up for the full rent or do they also have to pay on top of that? The families pay about 30% of their adjusted income toward the renting utilities, and then the housing assistance payment would pay the rest of it. We'll fill that in. Yes. As the Housing Authority leases a unit each month, we earn what we call an administrative fee from HUD, and that's the funds that we use to operate the Section 8 voucher program. We also - the Housing Authority also earns income from the rental income from the properties that we own, and we use that to operate also. We also have management fees that we're able to charge to some of those programs. Our income comes in that way. And then a big source of income, the Housing Authority, which is recently, is developer fees. And so when we build an - we partner with the developer to build an affordable housing development, we earn developer fees. And so with those developer fees, we're able to put that money into our operations, expand our operations, but also to create other programs that will help homeless populations and other programs for our clients that we serve. And also along with that, we would earn bond fees too. Chair, on that - so then on the HUD voucher program, so you 're getting money from - in addition to those revenue sources that you just listed, but - so you're getting federal funds to pay for the voucher program that you're administer ing? To operate that program. And that's a way to supplement and to diversify your funding, because if we totally depended on HUD or the government for our programs and for our operation, we would be in a lot of trouble. So a way for us to diversify that is to have the rental income, own property, and do more development for properties. As I mentioned, the Housing Authority does own Pecan Place Apartments, and it's 24 units. It's a renovated hotel downtown Denton, and that is a tax credit property. We also own Heritage Oaks that's on North Bell, and that's 114 units that are up and operating on that site. And it is senior housing, it's considered market rate, and some of the families that live there do have a Section 8 voucher. And I'll go back and mention that at Pecan Place, which is seniors, there's a voucher attached to each of the families that live there, or the seniors that are there. And then we also have Renaissance Courts, which is 150 units of multifamily housing, and that's a tax credit property, and that's the property that we built to replace the old Phoenix Apartments that was there. One item that we're looking at right now, the Board is, and we're working through, is that we have some proposals in to redevelop the Heritage O aks site. That's one of our oldest properties that we still have, and we do. We know that there's a lot of work that needs to be done there, so that is a priority for our Board. We're looking at proposals now. We're meeting with developers on redeveloping that site there. I'll go ahead, I'm sorry. Oh, no, I know probably on Renaissance Court you have debt obligations on that, or the developer does. Yes, still. On Heritage and Pecan Place, what about those two? No debt on any of those. We own them outright. So we're looking at proposals now to redevelop Heritage O aks. Ramon? And I'll let my developer come up and talk to you a little bit about some of our development, and then also talk to you about the tax rates. And I'll be here to answer any questions, too. Okay. Mayor, members of the City Council, City Manager, good afternoon. My name is Ramon Guajardo, and I am a consultant to the Denton Housing Authority in their program. I want to share some information. Obviously I won't get too deep in details, but answering the questions that you may have. Recently the Denton Housing Authority partnered with a private developer to have a groundbreaking of the RONDA, which is a 322-unit residential development. It is a workforce development that's available for households that make 60% or less of their median income adjusted for family size, and I'll share what that means in a little bit. This project was financed primarily with a tax credit equity contribution, the issuance of tax-exempt bonds, and private financing. The RONDA is expected to be ready for occupancy in about 12 months. At this development, various residential services will provide it. These are mandated by the state, and also supported and provided in conjunction with the Housing Authority. We talked about the area of median income. I'm going to use that term quite a bit. For Denton, the median income is $71,700, but we've adjusted to 60% of median income and adjusted for family size. If you look at the second row there, for a family of four, $43,012 is the median income at 60% adjusted for family size. We use 60% because that is what the upper limit of a household income to occupy a tax credit unit. Anyone that lives at the RONDA will have to have an income at this level or less. The reason why it's discounted is because, as I mentioned, the project receives a tax credit equity into the project. I'll talk a little bit more about tax credits later. Ramon, real quick question. You said that the 60% is at the upper limit. You're saying that there's other programs that may, or different parts of a program that may limit the number of units to be leased at someone at 40% or 30% or 20%. That's correct. On a 9% tax credit, and I'll go into the differential in a little bit, but on a 9% tax credit, many times the state will require that 30% of the units be set aside for those that make it. 30% of AMI are less, so the rents are adjusted lower for those. 4% is usually 60% across the board. But if a person decides to move, say, into the RONDA and has a voucher, with a voucher program, the resident is required only to pay 30% of their income, and the difference between what they're paying and the rent is covered by the voucher. So someone moving into the RONDA that has, does not have a voucher, they're going to have to pay that rent that's set by the state, and their income cannot be any larger than that 60% of AMI adjusted for family size. One other question, and so correct me if I'm wrong, but it 's my understanding that, as you mentioned, workforce housing, is that the term that is sort of being, I mean, when somebody says affordable housing and workforce housing, are those two different terms, or they sort of represent the same approach? It represents the same, obviously, because your tax credit developments are not subsidized, say, like a voucher. The rents are set, and the individual household that moves there has to pay that rent. There's no other subsidy unless they have a voucher. So they're going to have to be working to be able to pay that rent. And it's really trying to address those in the workforce that are at that income. And I took just a quick survey of two of the public employers in your community, the Independent School District and the City of Denton. Here are just a sampling of positions that these two employers have and their salaries. Obviously, these salaries would fall into that 60% of immediate income. That's only the public sector. If you're looking into the service area of private employers, many of those workers fall into that salary category, and that's their income. So they're needing to have affordable housing, workforce housing, for them to be able to live somewhere. A few months ago, a market study was done by apartment market data about the housing needs here in Denton. And you concluded that currently, the rental market in Dent on is 98.9% occupied. That's extremely high. Usually in the low 90s is what you see across. But here in Denton is 98% or nearly 99% occupied. That same study showed that the growth in this community is going to need about 4,000 more new rental units over the next five years based on a 5 % annual growth estimate. And it's pretty conservative. So in the next five years, this community is going to need about 4,000 more rental units. >> Question. Council Member Briggs. >> What percentage, 98.9, is that over the year or was that just for one month that you focused in on? >> That is at the point that the survey was taken. It was earlier part of this year. So it was at the time they took the survey, it was at 98.9 %. >> Probably both schools were in session. >> It was in spring. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Schools were in session and, you know, obviously during the school year, there's a higher occupancy rate. >> Right, max, yeah. Thank you. >> Question. On the -- when you talked about the area median income, 71, 000, there's all different kinds of values. So is that the -- like the census -- I know that the city of Denton median's income is lower than that. So do these programs -- are they required to take -- I'm assuming that's the county median income or what is that area? Is it always the county? >> I believe it is the county and is taken straight from the census data, the most current, and it's established by the state and HUD as the recognized level that we would be working on. >> Okay. >> And again, Sherry spoke earlier about their waiting list of over 3,000 households that they have on the waiting list. So everything combined shows that there is a big demand for this affordable workforce housing in your community. Some ways of financing the development of these types of units. The most used is the low income housing tax credit program. It's divided into two different categories. One, the 9% tax credit, which is highly competitive. It has a annual cycle of awarding those tax credits. In the Dallas Fort Worth and Denton region, only eight awards were given in 2016. One were awarded in Denton County. The 4% tax credits are a lot more readily available. They're pretty much there for the asking. This is the tax credit program that was used to build Renaissance Court and also the veranda that's under construction. This program is administered by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, and the good thing is that the application for tax credit requires city council action in every community. You're the gatekeeper of the tax credit program in your community. Anyone that wants to apply must come to you. >> Good question, yes. >> And is that just through resolution or is it an ordinance? >> They require that the city council pass a resolution of non-opposition. >> Okay. >> And I think you had one when the housing authority and N RP, the developer, came to construct the veranda. There's another one they're working on, but you're the gate keeper. You can decide. Other sources of funding for this program is the tax exam program, which was utilizing the veranda. The housing authority has the authority and capability to issue those bonds, and they do. Of course, there's private financing that's usually involved also, and possibly locally administered federal funds that could be utilized. >> Yes, Councilmember Freist. >> So it's my understanding I may be wrong, but when a developer or someone uses the low income housing tax credits, those units actually have to be inspected like every three years, right, and to comply and make sure that everything is. >> They may be inspected every year. >> Every year. >> The state can come in. I don't know the city of Denton has a code requirement of inspecting multifamily units, but yes, they must be kept up to code. >> Up to code, yeah. >> Yes. >> That's pretty important. >> Just talk briefly about low income housing tax credits program. It is a program really that comes through the internal revenue code. It's not a HUD program. It is a means by which the federal government has attempted to direct private capital into the creation of affordable housing. Tax credits are a dollar for dollar reduction for a 10 year period for the tax credit investor. So instead of paying income tax, they can invest in a low income housing tax credit program and they will get credit for that amount they invest in that property against their liability of their income tax, dollar for dollar. The tax credit are awarded to the owners of the project who then in turn sells this credit to someone that needs or wants to invest in this versus paying income tax. Right now those tax credits are being sold anywhere from about a dollar two to a dollar eight, which is extremely good. I can recall as early as five years ago the tax credit were selling for about 85 cents on the dollar and now they're between a dollar two to a dollar eight. On a 9% tax credit, usually your tax credit investment equ ates to about 70% of the total cost of the development of the project. On a 4% it's about 30% of the total cost that you get in equity. So you can see why the 9% is very competitive. Everyone tries to go after that, but with a 4% it's still workable. You can make it work. Let me make sure I understand what that statement is saying . So let's say you've got to make it easy on the math. Million dollar project. You're all in, it's a million dollars. Construction, development costs, everything. And you're on the 9% program, then you will receive 70% of that $1,700,000 in some form of tax credit. In essence, almost have the entire project, more than half of it funded. And then you finance the other $300,000. Right. On a 4% you'll get $300,000 of that million and you finance or get other equity investors for the $700,000. I can see why it's competitive. In exchange for that though, your rents are restricted. Sure. You can only charge a specific level of rent equated to that 60% of area of median income. Is that, well, that's too much in the weeds. I was going to say how do they calculate that rental amount , but we'll talk about that later. Yes, I'm sorry. And on that 9% tax credit transaction, is that in an area that's almost in an emergency type situation where they need, I mean, when is that approved? It is on an annual cycle. Those applications are, the pre-applications are due to the state in January. The final applications are due the 1st of March and those awards are made in August of each year. There is a specific scoring process. The state will issue a qualified allocation plan, the QAP, that's the Bible of the 9% program and there it explains point by point, you know, you get points for the area that you're in. Okay. Normally, right now. Geographically. Geographically, they're pushing these developments to go into high opportunity areas. The schools are also considered, whatever rating the school is, the higher rating the school has, the more points you're going to get. And various criteria that's used. Very competitive, one or two points can knock you out. Okay. The 4%, you know, I like to put them out there for the asking. The housing tax credit carries a minimum of 30-year afford ability commitment. These restricted rents must stay in place for a period of 30 years. It's a 15-year compliance period that the tax credit investor says that they will make sure that it's operating under the rules and then after that there's an extended 15 years, an additional 15 years period that you're going to have those rents restricted. This agreement is binding on the project owner and his successors. It is filed with the deed and the property then has that mandate for a period of 30 years. Again, this is in exchange for that tax credit equity that was invested into the property. So help me understand, and if this is way outside the scope , I mean, I'm not trying to extend this conversation, but that really doesn't make sense to me. There's something that happens at the end of the 15-year period and it may be this last sentence that says it's a real property record and can be enforced by the tenants. Because if they're required to extend it another 15 years, why does the "compliance period" end after 15 years? So -- The compliance period really refers to the possibility of recapturing the tax credits if something is not done in compliance with the regulations and requirements of the tax credits. The federal government can recall and make that tax credit investor repay those tax credits. So they only have 15 years to comply with that. But beyond that, it's an additional 15 years that the current owner has to maintain those rents. Or because of what I'm hearing you say, at the end of 15 years, they can claw back the tax credits after the first initial 15 years when you're in this extended period. What's the remedy to whomever if they don't comply? The tenant can come in and take action against the owner and the Texas Department of Community Affairs will back them up to ensure that rent is not higher than that affordability level. Okay. We'll talk about that. And that's why we said, you know, the tenant can step in. Sure. The tax credit investor is out of it. They don't have any more liability. But that property owner does have the commitment to maintain those affordable rents. Thank you. Yeah, there's a limited use restriction agreement, the Lora , that's filed with the deed. And it is a requirement that they have to meet it. And they can be, the owner can be taken to court on it. Okay. All right. Thank you. These are some of the uses that the tenant hasn't authority had used LIHTC before. Sherry talked about this, but this is just a list of some of the things that they've done in the past. Again, we talked about the needs in your community for workforce affordable housing. We talked about the waiting list. We talked about the projected need for new rental properties. The tax credit program is the program that has produced more affordable housing across the country than any other funding source. So I think that's a tool that has to be considered in your community to meet this need. You know, the housing authority has experience in doing this. They have the knowledge and have been successful with Renaissance and now with the Veranda. And they're currently negotiating with another developer to do a senior and family development that will be probably coming to you in short time. Again, when you look at local control, I mentioned that you 're the gatekeeper of the tax credit award because they got to have that resolution from you. But also the housing authority can and does play an integral part in that selection because as they look at the projects they've done in the future, one of the main things they look at is the market demand. You know, they got to make sure there's the demand for something they want to consider. They're going to look at the site characteristics, the location, the neighborhood amenities. They're going to look at the proposed financing, the experience of the developer and the management of the development. One thing is constructing a project. The other thing is making sure that for the next 20 or 30 years that it's managed properly. That's what local control can provide for you and that's what the Denton Housing Authority has done and prepared to do in the future. Again, why do we want the housing authority involved? Because a developer could come to you independently, ask for a resolution and then go and develop a project on their own. Get the tax credit and do it on their own. Some of the things that I see that's an advantage of having an entity like the housing authority be involved because now you have local control of the site selection. You have control of the design. You have oversight and quality control of the construction. Make sure it has been constructed as was designed, as you 're expecting it. And then most important, the management of the development after it's built. With the housing authority involved, there's local and long -term ownership of the development. The way we structured this partnership with the developer, the housing authority is the general partner of the partnership. They share in the developer fee. They share in the cash flow. And then they also have the right of first refusal to buy the property for debt only after the 15-year compliance period. So you're going to have local control from the beginning through construction. You're going to share in the resources that this development will create. And then you're going to have long-term ownership. The housing authority is controlled by the board of commissioners that are appointed by your mayor. What more local control do you want? And so this is why I believe it's very, very important to have this partnership. Most developers in the tax credit world are outside of Dent on. They come in. They do it alone. You're going to pocket 100% of the developer fee and 100% of the cash flow. When you have a partnership with an entity like the housing authority, part of that revenue stays in your community to develop more programs. I covered a lot of stuff. You probably have a lot of questions, and we may follow up. But is there any immediate questions that you may have? >> Any questions? Council? Okay. >> Thank you for your time, and I'm sure we'll be back with future projects for your consideration. >> I do have one question. What is typically the development fee? Is it a percentage of the project? >> It is a percentage, 15% of certain development costs. >> Did you say 50 or 15? >> 15. >> Okay. In a 9% project that's about 150 units, I would estimate that the developer fee is going to be about $2 million. The larger the project, the larger the developer fee. >> I'm sorry. I should have asked his question. The veranda. How much was the development fee on that? The total fee? >> About $4 million. And the housing authority negotiated to get 35% of that and 50% of the cash flow. >> Okay. Thank you. If I had been involved, that developer would have taken all of that out of it. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you, Sherry. Any questions? All right. Thanks. All right. We'll go on to our next work session item. Agenda item 3C, receive report and hold discussion regarding a six-month progress report of the jointly funded homeless coordinator position, including local efforts to provide assistance to the homeless and those at risk of becoming homeless. Thank you, Mayor. Barbara Ross will also handle this item. >> I will introduce Ms. Courtney Cross, who is the community impact coordinator for homeless initiatives with the United Way. Courtney. >> Well, I'm sitting here not knowing how to do this. Okay. I need some help. You know how to do it better. >> Thank you, Mayor. >> Here we go. >> That's it. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good afternoon. >> Good afternoon. >> Mayor Watts, council members. Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here. When I asked my boss, Gary Henderson, on the way over if he 'd rather, I channeled my inner Leslie Knoper, CJ Craig. He preferred CJ Craig. So we're going com cool collected today. >> Are you like that? >> Huh? >> Are you like that? >> As Barbara said, I am the community impact coordinator for homelessness initiatives. Usually I just say homelessness or homeless coordinator. Rolls off the tongue a bit easier. As you know, I was hired as a result of the mayor's housing the homeless task force, which was -- which took place last year. And my -- the purpose of my role is to really support and further local initiatives surrounding homelessness using our collective impact model that we utilize at the United Way. Just very briefly, a recent Harvard business review article stated that collective impact is based on the idea that social problems arise -- arise from and persist because of a complex combination of actions and omissions by all players in all sectors. And what's really needed is nothing less than coordinating the efforts of various players, businesses, government agencies, charities, and members of affected populations to really change how systems function. So I'm really excited to be here today and share with you the ways in which the United Way of Denton County and the City of Denton have partnered together along with many other community partners over the last, I should say, eight months rather than six to tackle this very complex issue and to be able to measure the outputs and incomes that are listed in our joint memorandum of understanding. I joined the United Way of Denton County team February 8th of this year. I spent the first few months familiarizing myself with the needs of adult and youth homelessness, homeless populations, the resources and barriers, some service gaps and successful interventions by individual organizations. During that time, I also began to establish relationships with key stakeholders from various homeless and housing service agencies across Denton County. And I began -- Gary and I began recruiting for our county wide collective impact initiative to address homelessness. And I just want to take a moment to personally thank Dani Shaw, the Human Services Coordinator with the City of Denton because she's been absolutely instrumental with the very rapid start and early success of this initiative. So thank you for that, Dani. May 5th, we launched our Denton County Homelessness Leadership Team. And Mayor Watts, you'll be glad to know that's the only acronym I'm giving you today. So this is a 21-member appointed body tasked to convene as a policymaking team to provide the planning, coordination, oversight and implementation required to create systems change for housing and homelessness initiatives in Denton County. The intention of launching this group is to really continue the work of the Mayor's Housing and Homeless Task Force, to expand it to a county level and to develop strategies and solutions that will close the gap that exists -- that we're , you know, starting to see as Denton County continues to grow. All of us at the United Way of Denton County really want to commend you as the City Council, the Denton City Council for really championing this initiative and serving as a catalyst to engage community leaders in this conversation on a county-wide level. On this slide, you'll see the structure for the Denton County Homelessness Leadership Team, which was developed in partnership with city staff. The leadership team consists of appointees from the City of Denton -- two of them in this room today -- the City of Lewisville, the City of S anger, Denton County Commissioner's Court, board members of homelessness and housing service agencies, health care providers, including hospitals and local clinics, and representation from higher education, workforce development, and United Way of Denton County Board of Directors. This collective impact structure mirrors the one that the United Way of Denton County has implemented through our behavioral health leadership team, which was recommended by the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, and it has demonstrated to be very successful over the past 18 months in its efforts to facilitate the data-driven development and delivery of coordinated continuum of behavioral health services for every person in Denton County. The Denton County Homelessness Leadership Team -- I'm going to say that as many times as I can today -- operates as a quasi-governmental, strategic, policy-making body, and appointees bring very specific skill sets and backgrounds to this complex countywide systems issue. The leadership team is informed by work groups, which are composed of direct service providers, so those are the two experts, the folks on the front line, in their areas, who volunteer countless hours to research, vet, and ultimately recommend solutions and strategies which we believe will help us to achieve our mission of making homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring in Denton County. And the United Way of Denton County is very proud to work with these community leaders who recognize the shared vision to address this complex issue. In June of this year, the leadership team approved their by laws, their charter. They elected their inaugural 2016 and 2017 officers, and they established their vision and mission statements. And the vision is obviously a long-term goal that every person in Denton County has a place to call home that is safe, affordable, accessible, and supported by community resources. And the mission is where we really get to the meat of what we've set out to do, which is that the Denton County homelessness leadership team f osters an effective and coordinated system of homelessness prevention and intervention, resulting in homelessness that is rare, brief, and non-recurring through community awareness and connection, through data-driven evidence-based fiscally responsible recommendations, through innovative solutions around affordable housing and access to primary and behavioral health care services, adequate incomes and coordinated services, and by mobilizing, advocating, and empowering public-private community-wide collaboration. I made it through that one. So just wanted to say thank you to these individuals for really stepping up and leading the Denton County homelessness leadership team as officers. The United Way of Denton County, he's not here today, but we'd really like to thank Councilman TJ Gilmour of the City of Louisville for kind of stepping up, you know, and really showing, paying some much-needed attention to these type of needs south of the lake. This has been, we've seen a lot of success with this effort thus far in kind of pulling in partners from around the county, and the City of Louis ville has been very key in that. We're on the home stretch here. The housing work group is composed of direct service providers and other community leaders. It focuses on researching and developing low barriers, supportive housing solutions intended to house and provide intensive case management for individuals who are experiencing chronic homelessness and who are affected by co-occurring behavioral health disorders. Additionally, the work group is currently seeking to expand its roster to complement the very, you know, the wealth of service provider perspective that we have in the room. We'd like to pull in some more real estate professionals. As you heard today, there is a need for increased affordable housing, a very pressing need, and so we want to start pulling in some, you know, more diverse and experienced skill sets to really complement the folks that are already in the room . One of our greatest challenges is that it's difficult to quantify in meaningful ways the current projected homeless, current or projected homeless populations, and we need that in order to build effective solutions. Before we start recommending solutions, we really want to have our data and our numbers sufficiently established. And so the data work group is working to establish baseline measurements of individuals and families throughout Denton County who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Additionally, they are working to -- excuse me -- to look into the number of current available units so that we can from there identify some gaps and really determine some data-driven recommendations for housing solutions. And I can't emphasize enough the need for a consumer work group. Our other work groups meet at set times in the middle of the day, and it's folks that time out of their schedule, whether it be their work or what have you, to be there. But the consumer work group we found, you've got to meet people where they're at because very key to this entire initiative is the insight and input of those who are -- who have previously experienced or are currently experiencing homelessness. And the leadership team is partnering with the behavioral health leadership team to conduct some community conversations to gain feedback regarding experiences and concerns that people have related to housing and mental and behavioral health care services throughout the county. To highlight a few of the accomplishments of this collective impact initiative, in June the chamber requested an appointment to the leadership team because they are very interested in connecting local businesses with agencies that are working with those experiencing homelessness to really develop the workforce. And as our county learned that we would not be receiving $ 600,000 worth of crucial emergency solutions grant or ESG funding, which helps up to 1,500 individuals annually in the form of homelessness prevention and intervention, the Ditton County homelessness leadership team played a pivotal role in securing $199,500 in addition to the $200,000 that the Ditton City Council has put in and that additional funding came from the city of Louisville and Ditton County Commissioner's Court. The Ditton County homelessness leadership team has approved a comprehensive definition for homelessness and this is really key because a core ten et of this collective impact model is to get everyone around a common agenda and to establish shared measurements. And so to be able to determine the actual numbers of homelessness that you have, you have to be able to clearly define it. And so the leadership team approved a comprehensive definition and that is HUD's definition according to the McKinney-Vento Homelessness Assistance Act and includes criteria for both chronic and at-risk homeless individuals and it also includes provisions for homeless children and youth and individuals or families fleeing from domestic violence. In September, the team approved an ex officio seat for the Ditton County Homeless Coalition and this is really just an effort to establish an open line of communication between the two entities and really ensure that the efforts of both groups are as supportive and collaborative as possible. Additionally, I work closely with the coalition to support the ongoing development and implementation of our coordinated entry system. We won't get into it too much but it's essentially an effort to establish a centralized intake system through an electronic database. Thank you very much. In order to really accurately capture the true need for housing and to also prioritize and connect clients with the best possible housing intervention. It's very client centered and really kind of tries to include the client and also kind of objectively prioritize needs. Coming up for the leadership team, we will begin developing a strategic plan very soon to provide increased clarity of purpose and objectives. We will launch our supportive housing pilot that we've been planning. Additionally, we hope to establish a county-wide inventory of housing options similar to the Denton Housing System map which came out of the mayor's task force last year. I want to expand that to a county level. Currently, the top priority for the leadership team is to support efforts to increase resources available throughout the county and ultimately increase the real bricks and sticks, affordable and accessible housing options. And in an effort to engage even more elected officials, leaders, real estate professionals, agencies, faith-based organizations and community members from throughout the county, the Denton County homelessness leadership team is hosting a county- wide homelessness summit on November 12th. This event is intended to educate and engage as many community stakeholders as possible as to what's going on currently, current initiatives and to increase the number of valuable partnerships which will lead to necessary solutions to truly meet the needs of individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Again, the United Way of Denton County would really like to commend the Denton City Council for being at the forefront of this initiative and recognizing the need to engage stakeholders at a truly regional level in order to achieve meaningful and lasting systems change. My boss tried to convince me to have you all recite our phrase, "We're brief and non-recurring" with me over and over again here. Not going to make you do that, so you're welcome. We do have a question. Go ahead. So, back on the homelessness summit, that is open for anyone in the community that wants to come. Absolutely. Yeah. We're inviting folks from all over. Yeah. First off, thank you very much. You were speaking on prevention and intervention. I know some of the issues in the past, there's been a lot of different efforts that go on in our city and trying to figure out how to get them all available to somebody, whether it's transportation or something like that. What's that been like for you to try to help coordinate that since you got on the job here since February? It's definitely those wraparound services, those contributors or symptoms, I guess you could say, that really contribute to someone being homeless or experiencing homelessness, like transportation, child care. Those are definitely huge barriers. The priority with a lot of what we are implementing is really securing housing, getting people ... Because the cure for homelessness is what? Housing. Yeah. But there are those contributing factors. It's a lot of coordination. You'll hear a lot of people say that agencies are siloed or not working together. A lot of the funding they receive and just the traditional programs that they have don't always lend themselves to collaboration. Things are shifting along with the loss of ESG and some other federal programs and just in lots of different forms of funding. We now have the luxury of being able to track specific data outcome measurements. That's all contributing to traditional delivery models shifting a bit as well. The tides are changing a little bit, but we are fortunate to have a lot of people at the table who are ready and willing to tackle some of that. Thanks for what you're doing. I know our community really appreciates it too. Glad to be here. Yeah. Any other questions? Well, I want to thank you Courtney and Danny and Gary and United Way and Barbara because we've really, I think, made a lot of headway in a very short amount of time. I can tell you that the leadership team is getting really excited about we're going to continue to meet, but we want to also make sure we have some concrete action that we're taking so that supportive housing pilot is well on its way. Thank you so much for all the policy direction and documentation that you all prepared for that. Now we're just looking for the partner for the actual bricks and sticks of the housing. Thank you all so much for that. I think we're doing very well in addressing this. So thank you for what you guys are doing. Thank you guys. It was a little Leslie nope, you know. Just a little. I can't help it. I don't even know who you're talking about. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. We'll move on to our next agenda item, which is agenda item 3D. Give report and hold discussion give direction to staff and waters and company on the city manager interview process. Yes, sir. Carla Romine, egg mark, our director of human resources will kind of lead this discussion for us. Good afternoon, Mayor members of the City Council. Last week, check forward waters and company was here to seek your direction on the city manager interview process. In that discussion, you gave us direction to include some sort of tour, some sort of interaction with department heads and a social activity such as a reception in addition to the council panel interviews. Based on that discussion, staff developed a two day interview process. And as a reminder, we were looking at Monday, November 14th and Tuesday, November 15th contingent upon council being able to select the finalist at the November 1st council meeting. So what we'd like to do is this information was presented as part of your backup as well. But what we'd like to do is start the day off with a welcome and orientation with the city council or as many of you that can be here, this will be very quick. Just again, just kind of kick it off and welcome them to the city. Then we would move into a meeting with the interim city manager and the assistant city managers. And I'm going to emphasize this as a meeting, not an interview. And so this would be about 30 minutes that the candidates had time with the executive staff to learn more about the organization or get any questions that they may have answered prior to going on to a city tour. But when they're not meeting with the interim city manager and assistant city managers, we would have the department heads here in this council work session room kind of a meet and greet. Again, another opportunity for the candidates to meet the leadership team and learn more about the organization, ask any questions they may have, and then the leadership team has a chance to interact with them. And if you'd like, provide some feedback to the council. Before sending them on a tour, we'd have lunch with them. The tour would be about four and a half hours. And then once they got back, we were looking at a reception with council and community leaders. The location would really be dependent upon the direction from council. Right now, if you notice, we have community leaders. Depending on the number of community leaders that the council would want to invite, it could be a more intimate group, maybe in this work session room or maybe even over at Stoke, we were thinking. But if the council would like to expand that and include all citizens, then we would need a much larger place, maybe like the Center for Visual Arts. I have confirmed that both Stoke and the Center for Visual Arts are available on the 14th in the evening. On day two, that's when the council panel interviews would actually happen. So we're looking at about an hour and a half with each council, again, in this room. So today I'm seeking your approval on this agenda, and specifically some feedback for you on what type of reception and how inclusive you'd like that to be. Council question of Councilmember Begari. I'd like to see it opened up to the entire community at GD AC, please. Yes, Councilmember Briggs. So is there a reason why the only question I had between day one and day two, the interviews don't take place ahead of all the community? Is that just the way it normally is? It's the way we've traditionally done it. It gives them a chance to learn a little bit more about the community and maybe gives them some opportunities to think about some questions they may have for the council, too. But I mean, it can definitely be switched if that's the council's desire. I'm just curious about that. And I do know that that week is National League of Cities, so I just wanted to make sure that there's not any conflicts. I think that's it. On the 16th? Okay. So, okay. Yes, Councilmember Wasney. For the 16th, the reception with the city, do we know if the Civic Center is available that evening? It is not. They have an indoor soccer league, I believe, because I called to check to see if we could use at least the front community room. And I know that parking, if you have to pick between the rail yard or the art building, it's just easier to park at the art building. Just an observation. But I'd like to see our citizens to just put up a fence and say this is for city council and community leader. Well, who's a community leader? So I think that's kind of hard to define. And if this is going to be the city manager paid with city tax dollars, then open it up to the taxpayers. Thank you. Yes, Councilmember Rueb. Yes, I would like it to be opened as well. Any other comments, questions? Yeah, that's fine. I mean, GDAC building, that's good. We'll set something up and we'll publish it. So all the citizens know they're invited. All right, fantastic. Okay, no more further questions? Any more further questions? Okay. All right. No, no, I was just making sure if you had a question, you had an opportunity to ask it. All right, thank you. Moving on to agenda item 3E. Yeah, receive report and hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the amendment chapter 18, use of wireless communication devices while driving. Thank you, Mayor. Our police chief, Lee Howell, will be addressing this issue . You're up, chief. Thank you. Well, good afternoon. I am back again to start the discussion here about a proposed ban for a complete ban on wireless devices by drivers of motor vehicles. And just to bring you back up to speed on where this has been, of course, we adopted an ordinance several years ago banning texting while driving. That's been in effect for about three years. The idea came back up, was presented to traffic safety commission, which recommended going forward with a complete ban of all wireless devices by drivers. That vote passed 5-0. And then came on to council. We've had this discussion set, I think about three times since then in work session at the request of council member Wasney, it was pulled off the main agenda the last time it was scheduled and it's been reset again today to see if you would like to give direction on any action or to table it again or where to go with it. I've got -- So just a little background. This was on the consent agenda, I believe, originally. That's correct. And I believe Mayor Pro Tem Roden asked that it be brought back to a work session and I shared his same thought was I didn't recall that council gave specific direction on whether to adopt the complete ban or just keep it the way it is for now. So I think that's really what this meeting is about is to try to finalize that direction now. Mayor Pro Tem Roden is not here at this time. He got stuck on a plane somewhere. So I would just -- I have to say and I think I said it last time, I probably lean towards not at this time extending it to all cell phone usage, but that's just me and I don't know where everybody else is, but that's where I am on that . Yes, council member Hawkins. I've definitely been on the fence on this one. I think originally when we had this conversation it felt like we were infringing on a person's rights, but in my own life I'm using hand free now and it's not perfect. You still have some distraction, but it's not as much of a nuisance as I thought it would be either. And I've seen -- there's a lot of videos online and social media and I have to be honest, I finally saw one where I decided that I am for this now. And they were interviewing a bunch of teenager kids who were kind of laughing about, yeah, we still text on our phone and that sort of thing. And then this daughter came in and her parents had been killed by a teenager who had been on their phone just even for a second. And she had been disabled. And it was amazing once that was in front of them how that happened. I know that you can say whatever you want about some online video and it's sappy or whatever like that, but it was the realest thing that I had ever seen. So after that I just really started making sure that I wasn 't using it on my phone and it wasn't as big of a deal as I thought. And I think I just want to make sure that I don't do things to infringe on people's rights, but we share the road with others. And that's when I just -- this is different. This is a public safety issue. I feel like technology has advanced enough where even if you have a car that's not compatible with a hands-free, you can make it that way now. And if we were going to go down this road, I'd like us just to set a date farther like maybe January 1st of 2018 even so everybody knows that it's coming. And it's a tough decision. I get it. But I think that I'm ready to vote on it. And I appreciate Councilwoman Wasney on this one because I think when she first brought it up, my internal reaction was to be against it. And I've really given this one a ton of thought. It's probably not going to be the most popular thing, but I really do believe it's a public safety issue now. So thank you. Yes? Yes. Government is behind across the board when it comes to technology. It's why you're seeing cities, counties, and whole states approving hands-free. Instead of using the phrase "cell phone ban," we should instead be using the phrase "hands free." I remember when seat belts were introduced, a lot of people said, "Oh no, that takes away some personal liberty." So it's a governmental responsibility to protect lives. I lost a brother in a car accident years ago. It had nothing to do with cell phones. But what it brings to the forefront is what a wreckage that brings to an entire family. A lot of people killed by distracted driving aren't in the car with a distracted driver, but they are killed. They are maimed for life. If you are a parent who loses a child, if you are a child who loses a parent, this has to be a decision made by responsible government. And I know the council asked for some statistics, and I think one of the biggest ones comes out of the state of California because they actually passed hands-free in 2008. They have had a 47 percent reduction in deaths attributed to cell phones. And if you travel to California, you're watching and people after eight years are very cognizant of having the gadgets that you need for hands-free. But I'm going to repeat that statistic, a 47 percent reduction in cell phone related deaths on the highways. Here's another one. Everybody wants to talk about the young people in their cell phones, but it's not just young people. Two-thirds of people injured or killed in a crash involving a teen driver are people other than the teen. But adults set a bad example. According to AAA, 77 percent of drivers age 35 to 55 reported talking on cell phones while driving compared to only 66 percent of teenagers. So it's everybody. And we talked about this the first time around, that it's a tool that our police department, our police chief, our boots on the ground are asking for. Yes, we have a text ban, but it's very hard to enforce because you can't tell when you're driving a patrol car and somebody has a phone, you can't tell what they're doing. We have a recent phenomena with some new games on cell phones. They're popular and they're fun, but they also involve cell phones and they also involve cell phones in driving. So that's where I come back to the technology is in front of us. It's developing and people love their games, they love their gadgets, but if you absolutely have to talk on a cell phone or you need it for navigation, your phone will talk to you. It'll tell you where to go. You don't have to look at it. And I come back to the innocent people who either have died or will die, have been injured or will be injured because this council didn't have what it takes to implement a hands-free law in the city of Denton. And I understand, oh, it takes away individual rights. Well, gosh, it takes away the rights of whoever gets killed . It takes away the rights of whoever gets pulled out of a wrecked vehicle and they're maimed and damaged for life. This is happening across the country, cities, counties, whole states. I would encourage this city council to do the right thing, to be in front of technology and not catch up. What's it going to take for city council to pass this? How many fatalities in the city of Denton and in our surrounding area? You get the emails from our police department that describes these horrific accidents. And I'm asking for support on this issue. And I want to thank Councilman Hawkins for stepping up and encouraging this hands-free. Thank you. Anybody else? We've got to give direction. Yes. Well, I think last time we were here, what I had requested was an inquiry into the role of education and publicly informing, well, informing the public that it is already illegal to cause injury because of use of cell phones in the car. So I didn't see anything in our backup about that. Is there anything to add on that note? We engaged in a number of different fronts of an educational campaign. We started off with bumper stickers that we passed out to a lot of places. We had some posters that we distributed to some businesses. Many of our squad cars have those "don't text and drive" bumper stickers. The City's TV channel, DTV, runs a number of PSAs that are related to the national campaign that's called Stop the Tex, Stop the Rex. So it's just about specifically about texting to follow up on our ordinance. They do DTV news breaks with some feature stories on it. And also, most of those videos are available on YouTube. So we've done all of those things we've done. And that's available on a number of channels, as you know. And also there's some links from our website, from the City website. I do appreciate those efforts by the police department to get the word out there. I would say that there's probably more that we can do that would actually reach this target of 18 to 24-year-olds and inform them that, in fact, the government says it's illegal for you to cause somebody harm and injury using your automobile while you're texting and driving. So I don't really see this as a lapse on the part of the government's part. We actually, it's illegal. It's very illegal and you could go to jail for the rest of your life if you harm somebody in your car. Regarding specifically the idea that this is an issue of individual rights, I really actually don't see it that way. I see this as another layer of government and it's actually duplicative as well because it's already illegal to do this. I would just encourage us instead of going to the most restrictive means of regulation, trying to get somewhere where you don't have to enforce boots on the ground, if you will. Every single law that exists in terms of public safety is a reason to pull somebody over. You name it, it's a reason to pull somebody over. And the fact of it is, without even bringing Denton Police Department into it, there are groups of people that are more readily pulled over than others. This is a really good way to pull just about anybody over. I'm not saying that it's going to be used nefariously. I'm just saying that it's one more tool to pull anybody over and it's a duplicative one at that. I'll just finish by saying this. I travel outside of the country a lot. I'm familiar with other cultures. One thing that's always struck me, I'll get there, okay? One thing that's always struck me is the medical system in America versus the medical system in other countries. In other countries, it's very preventative. What is it that's causing your problem? Let's try to analyze and see what we're doing. In the United States, we are surgery first. That is the first course of action here. When I see things like a cell phone ban or a fill in the blank ban, it's surgery first again. That's how we're approaching things here instead of saying, what is it that we can do creatively to educate our people, to make them more responsible? It's a benefit to our public if we can actually reach them in a way that they, where they're at, not necessarily a bumper sticker, but where they're at mentally, emotionally. That to me is the role of government, not necessarily enacting laws that are punitive and can lead to jail time eventually. I'm against this, still against it. If I might add, I've left one thing out and you reminded me that we're, and I didn't mention it because we're not quite there yet, but we're engaging in some conversations with a student group at Ryan High School to develop a program that we can present in the high schools also. Okay. Any questions? Probably what I'd say, we'll just put it on as a vote. Next available council agenda, as far as put the ban in the resolution or hands-free requirement in the resolution, and then we'll just take a vote on it, see where it falls out. Because we have two members that are absent and I'm not sure where they stand on that, but we're going to have to vote on it eventually sometime. Yes. Can I ask one more follow-up question on that in a proposal for the ordinance? That the current texting ordinance prohibition exempts the interstate from enforcement or effectiveness of the ordinance. So would you like to see that removed in a proposed ordinance for the hands-free allowance? Why is it removed in the original ordinance? I mean, we've got the jurisdiction. Why was it not included in I-35? The previous council discussed it and it was suggested that people traveling through the city shouldn't be stopped and written tickets unknown to them and other than the signage that would be on the interstate. We haven't ever posted signs on the interstate, obviously for a number of reasons, wouldn't in effect. And also we couldn't do it yet effectively because of the construction project. But it was basically exempted thinking that because there are different laws in effect and some jurisdictions, some municipalities have codes in effect and some do not, that the interstate would be exempt. I would remind you that we have had one of the three fat alities that we've had in the last two years that occurred on the interstate from wireless device use. I think if we implement this, it needs to be hands-free as well. That's the equivalent of saying, well, we're going to change the speed limit, but it's not your fault if you don't know that it's been changed. If you're a responsible driver and you're driving, you need to read. So we have signs up where it says entering Denton County hands-free, hands-free zone. And I remember that accident. It was a five-year-old girl that was killed on Interstate 35W. So my call would be to include the whole city. On the traffic safety recommendation, did they address that ? I believe they did, and they suggested it should apply to all streets and highways in the city. I would probably say just put that in the ordinance, and if , depending on how the discussion goes, if it gets taken out based on a majority of the council, then so be it. If not, then we'll go with that. Is that OK with, I mean, we've got to put something down. Sure. Can I ask the-- Sure. Chief, in some of our neighboring cities, when they have a highway that runs through it, how do they do it? In my research, I've never seen an exemption like that. OK. So it includes all the streets and highways in the city limits. OK. Good. All right. That it? Any more questions? All right. Thank you. All right. Well, that ends our open session. We will now convene-- is that right? Yes. Yeah. Now convene the closed session at 1.45. We will consider the following items-- consultation with attorneys under text of government code section 551.071. Deliberations regarding real property under text of government code section 551.072. Deliberations regarding personnel matters under text of government code section 551.074. And deliberations regarding economic development negotiations under text of government code section 551.087. [AUDIO OUT] [MUSIC PLAYING] Good evening. I wanted to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, October the 18th, 2016. We do have a quorum. And if you would, stand with me if you're able to pledge allegiance to the US and the Texas flag. [INAUDIBLE] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one nation. [AUDIO OUT] OK. I've got a proclamation. Fire Prevention Week. Come on down. Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Fire Prevention Week. I'm Megan Shuth. I'm the community service officer with the Denton Fire Department. We celebrate Fire Prevention Week. And this year, we're focusing on smoke alarms, making sure that residents know to check the manufacturer's date on your smoke alarm every 10 years, in addition to testing it every month and changing the battery twice a year. Thank you. And I didn't know about the 10 years on the manufacturer's date. So yeah, great. Thank you. All right. Well, I've got a proclamation. And that is critically important. For the person who's had a structure fire-- fortunately, it was a vacant unit, so nobody was hurt. It's quite an extensive ordeal and the cleanup and so forth . So thank you so much for that, because prevention is certainly the way to go. So this is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Dent on. Whereas Denton is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all those living in and visiting our city. And whereas fire is a serious public safety concern, both locally and nationally, and homes are the locations where people are at a greatest risk from fire. And whereas US fire departments respond to 369,500 home fires in 2014--370,000 home fires in 2014. That's a lot. According to the National Fire Protection Association. And whereas US home fires resulted in 2,745 civilian deaths in 2014, representing the majority--84%--of all US fire deaths. And whereas 1/5 of all homes with smoke alarms--the smoke alarms are not working. And whereas 3 out of 5 home fire deaths result from fires and properties without smoke alarms--and that's 38%--or with no working smoke alarms--and that's 21 %. And whereas working smoke alarms cut the risk of dying and reported home fires in half. And whereas all smoke alarms should be replaced at least once every 10 years. And whereas Denton's first responders are dedicating to reducing the occurrence of home fires and home fire injuries through prevention and protection education. And whereas the 2016 Fire Prevention Week theme, "Don't Wait, Check the Date," replaced smoke alarms every 10 years, effectively serves to educate the public about the vital importance of replacing the smoke alarms in their homes at least every 10 years and to determine the age of their smoke alarms by checking the date of the manufacturer on the back of the alarms. Now, therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton , Texas, do hereby proclaim the week of October 9th through the 15th, 2016, as Fire Prevention Week and urge all the citizens of Denton to find out how old the smoke alarms are in their homes and to replace them if they're more than 10 years old and to participate in the many public safety activities and efforts of Denton's fire and emergency services during Fire Prevention Week. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention and what the first responders do for our community. Thank you. >> Thank you. [Applause.] >> Thank you so much. >> You bet. Thank you. [Applause.] >> We could go ahead and have the citizens report. >> The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure, including a code of conduct, which applies to citizens as well as council members. These rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum. Here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizens' reports. Citizens will have four minutes to give a report. There will be an electronic beep when time has expired. If the remarks are not concluded by that time, the citizen will be asked to stop speaking. If the citizen does not cease and a second request is made, the mayor will request to have the citizen removed from the council chambers. Citizens are asked to not approach the dais. If a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to the council, please let the city secretary know, and she will have a staff member distribute the materials to the council. The attorney general has ruled that council members may listen to citizens speak and may ask questions of citizens for clarification of the issue. Council members will not engage citizens in discussion of a topic because to do so could potentially be a violation of the Open Meetings Act. When speaking to the council, citizens are to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member. Please refrain from making abusive, personal, impertinent, profane or slanderous remarks. Anyone who violates this rule will immediately be removed from the council chambers. Citizens' adherence to these rules will help make an effective presentation and will preserve the order and decorum of our proceedings. Copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary. For agenda item 3B1 is Mr. Willie Hutzpeth regarding the city charter and closed sessions. If you'll state your name and number, your time will begin. Before the time starts, I have an administrative thing I need to take care of. If you wear red, there are three things that apply. You have a big head, you're soon to be bred at three, you 've been well fed. So just thought I'd throw that out. Okay, now. Thank you. You bet. I thought you needed that. Okay, concerning the closed sessions, as I stated before. I'm sorry, Mr. Hutzpeth. You could give us your name and address. No, I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Willie Hutzpeth, 623 Newton. Thank you. Closed session. Those sessions, from what I understand, my time on the school board and talking to the people who administer that and who supervise that, you have a session that there are things you need to talk about that you don't, it's not, it wouldn 't be advisable to talk about someone's personal business, for example. And if you're trying to negotiate land and things like that , and you state them before you've made the purchase, items that you just really want to be able to handle in a way where it doesn't affect someone negatively and it doesn't affect what the city's trying to do. Also what we were told is you only bring in staff when they 're needed. Staff is not to be sitting in there while you're doing all the discussion. We didn't even, we weren't even, we were told we didn't have to have, the attorney shouldn't be in there unless you have a legal question that was pert inent to the issue. And I just think what's happening in your closed sessions is you're having a public meeting under the guise of a closed session. We were doing that in the school district when I first got on the board and I was told by my advisors that's something you shouldn't do. So I told them that I was going to leave that session and tell in open session what they talked about. And it would be pretty obvious that it was a open session discussion. They quickly told me you're going to be arrested if you do. I said, okay, bring on Brian because I'm going to say it. And sure enough, they stopped having those kind of meetings . They started having closed sessions with closed session discussions instead of having open session meetings in closed session. And with the rest of my time, I want to talk about these, whatever, you call them work sessions. That's another way of saying, it appears to me, we don't want just any ordinary citizen coming to hear what we're talking about. We are talking about things that we would be, some of you, think that you'd be better able to discuss them if no one knew what you were talking about. That's how I view them. If you want this council to be, and the way we view you, we , me, view you as open and honest and forthcoming with information that you deliberate and then make decisions on, I think you need to change some of the things that you do. For example, and the other thing that's happening with these work sessions like today, I had to sit on the floor because the thing was so closed, was so crowded. On the floor. I'm 71 years old. I don't know how in the world I got up off of that floor three times. And there was nowhere to sit. So that's one issue. Nowhere to sit. Nowhere to go in that little closed room. Secondly, why do you have so many closed sessions? Why don't you have that discussion here, right now? What are you doing in there? Well, I sit in through them. There's nothing you do in there that you couldn't do here. And get it better organized and you won't take so much time . That's my view. Thank you. That's all the speakers we have as far as for that agenda item 3B. We do have some cards that have been filled out for agenda items 3C, which is under additional citizen reports. And as a reminder to council, because of the nature of these, we're unable to have any dialogue with them. So I'll call the cards now. Mr. Paul Meltzer, if you'll come state your name and address and your time will begin. I'm Paul Meltzer. I live at 1914 West Oak Street. I have a seemingly minor suggestion for managerial oversight related to the homeless coordinator. I was pleased to hear that report in the working session earlier today, the six month progress report. And I would just simply say that if in fact, as it seems, this is something we really want to resolve, that is the homelessness for the existing homeless population in Denton. And not just an activity that makes us feel virtuous to work on, that we would ask two questions of the coordinator to come back from the alliance with. One would be target timing for quantification of the problem. And the second would be target timing for presentation of actionable proposals. Like I said, it's seemingly minor, but I think it would add a muscularity to the approach. And you would then be weighing, are there plans that sens ibly could meet that timing? You'll have a little more bias for action. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Next speaker will be Mr. Chris Martin. If you'll come down, state your name and address, your time will begin. Hi, my name is Chris Martin. I live at 313 Oregon Trail in Argyle. And I'm a retired Army colonel and president of the Denton County Veterans Coalition and mayor, council members, thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today about the Denton County Veterans Coalition and our second annual homeless stand down that's happening this Thursday at the Civic Center next door. Denton County Veterans Coalition works every day with veterans. This year alone, we've helped over 80 veterans with probably about $30,000 in emergency financial assistance, most of which came from a grant, but a lot from just donations from the public at large. Every day we work to resolve veterans issues because we believe that veterans issues are community issues and we do this by trying to expand collaboration amongst other veterans organizations and agencies that work with veterans every day. One of our best team players, and we believe that everything we do is a team effort because again, these are community things that require us to work as a team to resolve them. One of our best teammates by far is the United Way. We have a great relationship with them and through our efforts on the veterans work group of the Denton County Behavioral Health Leadership Team and through some of the things that you have done, the United Way was able to secure a grant that allowed hiring two veteran community navigators and they're also going to produce a veterans resource guide for the county here very soon. Another great teammate, and again, this is where I'll talk in a second about some of the things that you have done, has been the VA themselves. In conjunction with the VA, we're sponsoring our second annual stand down on Thursday. Last year we emphasized making homeless veterans more comfortable on the street. Again, due to your efforts, this year we have the opportunity to hopefully find ways to get veterans off of the streets once and for all. I get the opportunity to talk to a lot of organizations about veterans issues and I always start in and I've been doing this now for about three months where I start and end my talk with it's great to be a veteran in Denton County. Much of that excitement is due to your efforts again and the efforts of the county and trying to make things, trying to, like I said, tackle these as community issues. I want to thank you all for your ongoing efforts to expand the VA behavioral health care, the mental health facility that we're trying to establish. As you know, this clinic here sees over 13,000 vets in a year, probably a minimum of 4,000 need help with post-traumatic stress treatment with one practitioner at the VA clinic on Colorado Drive. Your efforts to get an expanded clinic will help us out tremendously. Again, Mayor, thank you all also for your efforts on helping to secure HUD VASH vouchers and we got 10 of them several months ago. Seven were issued on the first day. Since then, several more have been issued. And thank you again for your support to our stand down this Thursday. Last year, the point in time survey indicated that we had 23 chronically homeless vets in the county. At the homeless stand down, our first ever, we had about 60 homeless vets actually sign in, the majority of whom were from Denton. This year, the point in time indicated there were 31 homeless vets, chronically homeless vets in the county. We have a better marketing campaign this year and a little more emphasis on trying to get Louisville veterans involved. So we're not sure what number we're going to get on Thursday, but we think it's going to be substantially larger. We're expecting, we expect we'll have about 100, hopefully not, but that's kind of what we're expecting. If you have the opportunity on Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p. m., please stop by the Civic Center to see some of these homeless vets, maybe talk to them and to thank the various agents that are there in support and are trying to help us resolve this issue and to help us attack this again as a community issue. So thanks again for your time, your support, and as I tell people all the time, it is great to be a veteran in Denton. So thank you. - Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to our consent agenda. Council Member Hawkins. - Thank you, Mayor. I'll move approval of consent agenda items A through R, but we're going to be pulling items B and F for individual consideration. - Okay, Council Member Wasney. - I second the motion. - Okay, so we have a motion to approve the consent agenda items A through R, save items B and F, which are being removed for individual consideration. Is that correct? - Yes. - Okay. - Yes. - All right. So let's vote on the board, please. - Motion carried, six, zero. Okay, now we will take up agenda items four B and four F as items for individual consideration, and we do have a card for each one of those from the public wishing to speak. So we'll take agenda item four B, which is considered option of ordinance, accepting competitive bids and awarding a public works contract for the construction of the Northwest Denton Park Loop Trail. - Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to call on Jim Mays, our Superintendent of Park Planning. - Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this with you today . Let me pull this up. I'm very excited that this has had the opportunity to go to bid, and we've had an successful bidder. Again, this is Northwest Denton Loop Trail. A little bit of background about the project. In all, it's 15,143 linear feet, or 2.68 miles. It has two 70-foot pedestrian bridges that are AASHTO compliant. It includes one signalized intersection at the intersection of Highway 77 and Nicosia. The grant was awarded July 26th of 2013. It's a federal matching grant with a maximum funding imbalance of $1,298,958. Again, it's an 80/20 split match. The city funds for the match are $324,739 plus engineering and easement data. Here's an aerial view that shows the trail overview. We show a schematic on the next slide. This one is essentially just for orientation. Here we have Evers Park, Evers Elementary. We're going to be supplying a very much needed pedestrian bridge to link the McCamey-Evers subdivision to Evers Elementary. The trail goes along the regional detention pond up through North Point. At the fall meadow, there's a bridge. Goes along North Point Park. Extends down Hercules to Nicosia. Here's our fully signalized intersection. Has a leg that goes up to Discovery Park. Offices over at the signalized intersection to the end of V ellis Athletics Complex. Extends down. In this original component, I want to show you a few augmentations that we had. Let me advance onto that. Here's the schematic view again. It's Evers Park, Evers Elementary. Again, these are the locations that we discussed. Additionally, there's where it connects North Lakes Park. It also connects to the Windsor, the existing Windsor Bicy cle Trails and the Hinkle Bicycle Trail. Essentially, this trail segment can link to other components throughout the community and get you all the way to Windsor at Old North. This amendment here, I apologize for the, this should read the future McNatt, the dog partner had McNatt instead of animal control. My apologies for that. But essentially, instead of taking the original trail that would have gone down Riney, what we've done is incorporated the trail segment into various other components that we're developing in North Lakes anyway. This trail component segues through where we'll have an additional dog park here at North Lakes Park adjacent to Linda McNatt. This is where we'll have our parking that we've already have engineered and ready to work on. The trail also extends to the existing Wildflower Trail. Additionally, it connects to trails that we are in the middle of building right now. We've already cut some trails that go throughout the new nature trails that are north of Windsor Pond. This is really, in addition to a very good mobility component, it links a number of projects that we'll have. The trail will terminate where we will move the tennis center to and where it connects to Windsor and both Hinkle trails. The successful bidder was North Rock Construction. They're a local Denton company located there off the loop. They have four years experience building similar trails. They built trails of nearly the same size and width and length and similar amenities for the city of Plano, the city of Grand Prairie, and the city of Irving. They're the lowest out of six bidders for IFB 1631 in the amount of $1,723,855.91. They came well under the engineers estimate of probable cost and we project that this project will take them 270 days. All right, any questions for staff? Will we hear public comment? Yes, Councilmember McGarry. Well, thank you so much for bringing this forward and I have a question about that future dog park. Yes. Is that scheduled to be open at the same time as the project is completed or will that be after the project is completed? There are some other projects that have taken some preced ence in order for us to facilitate that project and we're actively scheduling those. We're similar to other developers in the fact that if there are infrastructure, missing infrastructure needs to be incorporated, we have to supply that. Currently there's a water connection that we're having that we're through the contractors there at Denton Water Utilities. They are installing that missing water component and that has to take place before we can begin our project. So we're getting the necessary utilities and infrastructure in place and then we'll be able to give a much more effective timeline. Mayor Pro Tem. There was at one time, this was six, five, five years ago or something, around the Discovery Park area that there was a trail at some point that folks that worked out there were taking biking on and whatnot. Are you familiar with that and does this tie into that at all given that it's going over in that direction? I've not had any work with the UNT staff on that. I'd be more than willing to look into that. The confines of what we have text on, financially obligated . Again, it's more of a thing of just taking advantage of something that might exist. I'll see what I can find out too in the past month. I would consider that an additional. Yeah. Thank you. Great project. Great. Any other questions for staff? All right. Thank you. We do have a card wishing to speak on this agenda item. Mr. Willie Hutspeth, if you'll come up, state your name and address. Your time will begin. Yes, sir. Willie Hutspeth, I live at 623 Newton. What's the other one before that? That one? Okay. Now, where's Riney Road? Riney North South or Riney East West? North South. Okay. The Riney North South would be this one right here. That's where the old YMCA is right there. When Riney East West is right up here. One of them connects to Bonney Bray. Yes, and that's the Riney East West. Okay. You find the cursor. Here it is. This right there. All right. That's it. Okay. Now, where's the dog park from there? Let me show you on the graphic. Right along 77. Excuse me. My eyes focus. Right here. The dog park is there. Now, where's Riney? Riney is- On Bonney Bray East West. Right here. Okay. So that's where we are. All right. What is the surface made of? Did you say they're building a trail? What is it? What's the surface? It is, it's concrete trail. It's concrete. Okay. And how wide? It's this section here. The majority of the trail is 12 foot and this section here is eight. Which is four foot? No, not four. No, it's- Mr. Espin? Yes. Do you want to- Yeah, let the time go. This is all I want to know. Okay. So, you're saying go ahead and start the time? Is that what you're saying? Yes, because I just- just questions about this is all I want to know. Okay, okay. Sure. You bet. No discussion. I'm sorry? Okay. Okay. No problem. Okay. What's with? Did you say- Did you say it- I'm sorry. Excuse me just a moment. Did you say it has started or it has started? Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. One minute, ten seconds. One minute, ten seconds. Okay. Yes, sir. Let me blow this right up. I'll show you. The orange is 12 foot and all the red is- 12 foot feet wide? Yes, sir. 12 foot wide. And then what's the other- what? Sir? 40 seconds. Okay, good. Thank you. The area along- the only thing that is narrower is this area along Hercules and right there adjacent to Heaver's Elementary School. What's the width there? It's eight foot. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Briggs. Approval of item 4B. Mayor Pro Tem. Second. We have a motion and a second for agenda item 4B. Please vote on the board, please. Motion carries 6-0. We'll now take agenda item 4F, which is consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas to declare the intent to reimburse capital program expenditures of the electric utility, solid waste, and general government with tax preferred obligations. Thank you, Mayor. Tony Fuentes, our Assistant Director of Planning, will be handling this item. Mayor, city council, good evening today. I don't have a formal presentation for you, so I'm just going to go briefly through a little bit of explanation on this item. You do have in your backup as part of the ordinance a detailed description of the projects for both electric, solid waste, and also general government . The purpose of this item is to meet federal and state requirements in order for the city to be able to expend funds before the actual bonds are issued. We are planning to issue those bonds in the spring of 2017. These projects are projects that generally have long lead times, especially when it comes to vehicles. Other projects, contracts may be ready to come to the council and funds may need to be encumbered, and so there's an expediency need for this approval. This only reflects a portion of the total CIP that the council approved as part of the 2016-17 CIP budget. And a breakdown, a real quick breakdown for you of this item, we are planning to utilize $65 million in certificates of obligation for electric related projects, the majority of those being transmission related projects, about 70% of that total amount is related to transmission. $23.5 million in certificates of obligation for solid waste projects, most of those tend to be vehicles and other improvements to our solid waste facility. $10.2 million in CEOs for general government, and $2.1 million in GOs for general government, and the latter related to the 2014 bond election projects. For the CEOs, I just want to quickly remind you that $10 million included $5 million in public safety related projects, primarily radio upgrades, as you know, we're upgrading our radios to digital formats, and also $3 million related to our CAD system replacement. So that concludes my presentation. I'll stand for any questions that you may have. >> Councilmember Briggs. >> So I asked to have this pulled for discussion, because when I saw the full amount for like $100 million to be passed in the Kitson agenda, I was kind of shocked. And then I looked in the backup, and there were some things that I remember discussing, and then there's some that I don't remember discussing. And I wanted to ask a few questions. I would prefer the general obligation bonds to be a separate vote than the CEOs, personally. And then my other question is, how come the $65 million of utility debt, why is it utility debt, why is it not utility debt instead of city debt? Or is it? >> Well, a couple of things. The first thing, Councilmember, this is simply just to document our intent to eventually reimburse ourselves with the issuance of bonds. That ordinance to issue the bonds will come back to you probably in the March, April timeframe, at which time you'll have the opportunity to specifically vote on that particular issuance. >> Okay. So, if voting yes tonight doesn't mean necessarily that I'm voting for these specific things that I will have an option later on? >> That's correct. This is simply to document the city's intent to eventually reimburse itself. Under federal law, we're required to do that. But at the same time, it also gives us the authority to move forward with the list of these projects to begin to expend funds, unencumbered funds that the city has, that we will eventually reimburse ourselves once the bonds are issued in whatever form those bonds come. >> So, like the Denton Energy Center substation is on here, so voting for this is voting for like that project? Is that what you're saying? >> The RDP plan is not part of this reimbursement ordinance . >> Okay. >> It's part of the CIP, but it's not part of this notice of this intention to reimburse ourselves. >> Okay. So, if it's on the list, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're approving that item? >> Yeah, that's correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Councilmember Begheeri. >> I don't know if I understood you, Mr. Puente. Is this a city debt that's being incurred or is it a utility site debt that's being incurred? Which balance sheet is it going to be on? >> The debt that's issued, the debt that would eventually be issued for electric will be paid out of the electric system revenue. So, that will be on the electric balance sheet. Same thing for solid waste. >> Okay. So, these are coming out of each of the enterprise funds then? >> That's correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> There's also a note on here that says each of these projects were included in the fiscal year 2016-2017 adopted CIP budget, correct? >> That's correct. >> So, at the point of adopting our budget and voting on that, we gave our consent that these were projects that we were willing to fund? >> That's correct. And this is just simply, again, to document our intent to reimburse ourselves in the future once those bonds are actually issued. >> Great. Thanks. >> Any other questions for staff? Okay. Thank you. We do have a public card for public comment. Mr. Willie Hussbett, if you'll come down and state your name. Okay. All right. The Chair would entertain a motion. Action on this item. Mayor Pro Tem. >> Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of Agenda Item 4F. >> Councilmember Hawkins? >> I'll second. >> We have a motion and a second for Agenda Item 4F. Let's vote on the board, please. >> Motion carries 6-0. We have pulled Agenda Item 5A, so we will not be considering that item at this time. So therefore, we will move to Agenda Item 6A, which is consider appointments to a charter review committee. >> Yes, sir. Mayor, our City Secretary, Jennifer Walter, stands ready to take any appointments that the Council may have for the charter review committee. >> Okay. Councilmember Begheri? I mean, I'm sorry, Briggs. Sorry. >> I would like to nominate Erin Clegg. Erin Clegg, C-L-E-G-G. And Annetta Ramsey. >> Okay. Was that all for this time? >> For now, yes. >> All right. Councilmember Begheri? >> And I'm nominating David Zultner and Kyle Eaton right now. >> Okay. Councilmember Wasney? >> I have three names nominations. Patrice Lyke, L-Y-K-E, Michael Upshaw, and Steve Sullivan. >> Okay. Was that, Councilmember Hawkins? >> Yeah. Last week, I nominated Phil Gallivan and Cheryl English, and I'd like to add Billy Cheek this week. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to appoint Jim Alexander, Collette Johnson, and Stu Moorhead. >> Okay. I have a couple. Monica Glenn and Joe Mulroy. And so we have, who's got outstanding nominations still? I do. Dalton, Councilmember Briggs, and Councilmember Begheri. Okay. All right. Just wanted to double check. Did you, Madam City Secretary, did you want to repeat those names, or do you think you've got them? >> No, I have the mayor. I would just ask if any of the council members have addresses, phone numbers, et cetera, if they could email me with those so we can get a list of all that started. >> Will do. All right. Thank you. Mr. Husband, comment. State your name and address. Your time will begin. >> My name is Willie Husband. I live at 623 Newton. This is a very important step in our history to get the charter some additions and some clarifications of what's on that charter committee or that 's in the charter. One of the things that happened at that meeting that I attended when you decided how the people will be chosen is part of why people like me who come down here and has been working with the city trying to get it to be fair with everybody that lives in the city, all ethnic groups, all socioeconomic groups, one of the things that troubled me is what you did at that meeting. As I understand it, it was an attorney driven decision, meaning the attorney came up with changing the way the city council members select committee members for this group. All of the other committees are chosen by the city council personnel all throughout the city, whoever they wanted to put on the agenda, on the committee. The argument was the reason why you changed it attorney driven, meaning the attorney came up with this, to only being able to choose people in your area, in the area where you ran for office was so that here's some of the discussion. This is what troubles people like me who come to these meetings all the time. Supposedly you wanted to get a mixture of people in the whole city. The argument was it would taint who would be on the committee. It would be just if you, some of you said you looked at who you would select and it turns out you would have just, I don't remember how you said it but it meant, it said, it seems like geographically the person couldn't vote for the concerns for the whole city. I just wondered aloud to myself, how does that make any sense that just because you live on one street or the other, your vote would be different. It wouldn't reflect the rest of the city. I know some of those people that were nominated. In the past, what they've done didn't reflect the group that I'm most concerned with, which is Southeast Denton. I don't see very much representation of the represent for Southeast Denton or the Hispanic community and I'll just come back. Thank you. All right, so I don't believe we have any further action on that agenda item. So we'll move on to agenda item 7A, which are public hearings. Hold a public hearing. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding a rezoning from downtown residential DR1 to a downtown residential DR2 and I will now open the public hearing. Thank you, Mayor. Haley Zagurski, our assistant planner, will be addressing this item for us. Good evening. So this is case Z1617, which is for St. John Paul II University Pastoral Center. The request is to consider adoption of an ordinance to the city of Denton regarding a rezoning from downtown residential 1 district to downtown residential 2 district on approximately .87 acres of land, which is generally located on the east side of McCormick Street, about 100 feet south of Eagle Drive. So you can see here the property is located, like I said, just on the east side of McCormick Street. It's comprised of three individual lots that are all under the same ownership and it is less than 150 feet from the UNT campus. So this provides a little more recent look. The three homes that were on those lots have recently been demolished and the area around it is a mix of single family, multi family, and other UNT services. So currently the three lots are all zoned DR1. The proposal is to take them to DR2. You can see from the zoning map the entire area surrounding this is kind of a mix of all the downtown residential and commercial districts there . And looking at our comprehensive plan, this area is designated as a neighborhood university compatibility area. So it's desired or intended to be a mix of residential and commercial areas that are adjacent to the two universities that are affected by that proximity. The intent would be to create compatible form and land uses for these areas that surround the universities to accommodate the existing neighborhoods as well as the acknowledged growth of those universities and the need for more student housing and student resources near the campuses. So the considerations for this case, rezoning to DR2 is a fairly logical extension. The property just north of them was rezoned just a few months ago from DR1 to DR2, in that case to allow for apartments. In this case the applicant's intent is to put a pastoral center there for use by the students. DR2 is consistent with that future land use designation. This would be providing a service to the students on campus that is easily accessible to them by walking or biking. And like I said before, the location is less than 150 feet from the campus, so it seemed a logical location for a student service center such as this. And I'd also like to point out that any of the other uses allowed in DR2 versus DR1, which are outlined in your backup, which would include multifamily and other small business type things, would all be a good utility for the students in that area. It is a highly renter population area, mostly students. So any of those other allowed uses would also be logical for the area should this ever redevelop as something else. The applicant's primary intent with this rezoning is to reduce or increase the lot coverage and thereby reduce the landscaping area that's required with their development of these three lots. So I've outlined here on this table a comparison of the standards for DR1 versus DR2. So you can see the lot coverage would increase from 60% to 75%. The landscaping area would be reduced from a required 40% to 25%. In most other ways, they are fairly comparable. The density is slightly higher because DR2 does allow for small multifamily development, whereas DR1 does not. And the building height would slightly increase. But overall, the scale of the development between the two districts would be comparable. Notification was sent out about this. We received two responses in favor that were included in your backup. And the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of this request 6-0. And staff also recommends approval of the request because of its compatibility with surrounding properties and land uses, as well as its consistency with the comprehensive plan. And I'll stand for any questions. Yes, Councilmember Briggs. Did you say what this was supposed to be, what it was going to be? Yes, ma'am. It's the St. John Paul University Pastoral Center. Okay, so there's not going to be anyone living there? No, ma'am. That's not the intent. Any other questions for staff at this time? Seeing none, thank you. We don't have any cards that have been filled out wishing to speak, but this is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak, please come down and state your name and address, and your time will begin. My name is Willie Hutzpeth. I live at 623 Newton. This project seems like a worthwhile project that's being considered. But just like the selection process of which you decided to come up with restrictions as to who could be on this charter committee, it's just hard to believe that you're being honest and forthcoming in situations such as this housing project. One of the things that troubles me about that whole process again is you misled us. You were saying in this selection process and why four of you decided to vote for this, that you couldn't make a choice that would be representative of the city unless each one of you voted in a specific area. The other thing that troubles me and why I have difficulty in believing that even in this situation you're telling me the truth is when the charter election was changed or the charter was changed eight years ago or so, many years, the rules were each council person could pick someone on that, a certain number of people to be on that committee, irregardless of where they lived. That's how all committees are chosen. Then this one, this charter committee formulation was the same. You could pick from anywhere in the city. Why the attorney decided to come up with this different approach escapes me. I noticed that the-- >> Mr. Hesped, are you still speaking to this posted agenda item? >> Yes, I am. >> Okay, because I know you're sort of back on the last one . >> Because-- >> If you could, yeah. >> Okay. >> Sort of-- >> All right. >> Help me funnel it so I can-- >> I'm going to speak to what I want to speak to. Tell me the procedure for when Brian leaves his seat and comes over here and tell me I have to leave. Tell me what I have to do to make that happen. >> If you could just-- >> And I'm going to do it. >> Okay, if you could just go ahead and wrap up, sir. >> I'm going to say what I want to say. >> You've got a minute, 32 seconds left. >> And you've taken some of my time. You go ahead and tell me what I have to do to be removed from this chamber because I'm speaking what I want to speak and I'm going to do that. Can you have him come take me out of here or you let me speak? >> Please continue, Mr. Hesbeth. >> The second part of that process was what was given to us and let me just say so that when I am arrested and I sure hope I am so I can make my point, I'm tying this into trust and reliability up to you of the city council in all areas and including this one. And that's how I'm tying it together. >> Okay. >> Do I have any more time? Okay, so would you stop interrupting me, please? Eight years ago this process took place and you didn't have these changes. So I asked myself, why did you change this time? You know what I figured out? One of the council members had decided that I was going to be on that committee. And when you switched, you knew that my representative in no way would choose me to be on that committee. It's fine with me. It's still will be I think it's still going to be a good process. But what upsets me is how it was done and the underhanded way that it was done, just like I think this housing proposal is done today. >> Thank you, sir. All right. Anybody else wishing to speak? This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak on this agenda item? Saying none, we'll close the public hearing. Mayor Pro Tem. >> Thank you, mayor. I move approval of agenda item 7A. >> Council member Wasney? >> I second. >> We have a motion and a second on agenda item 7A. Let's vote on the board, please. Most somebody hadn't voted. >> It didn't. >> Could we re-vote, please? >> It didn't. >> Thank you. >> Sorry. It was a yes. Can you just write? >> There you go. >> God, you have to push hard today. >> Is her vote not registering? >> I did it. >> I'm witnessing her. >> No, it's okay. We'll take a vote by hand. I'm sorry? You have it? Okay. Motion carries 6-0. Moving on to agenda item 7B. Hold a public hearing. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas regarding a rezoning request to provide initial zoning district designation of regional center commercial neighborhood district to an approximate .375 acre property generally located on the north side of Crawford Road. I will now open the public hearing. >> Thank you, mayor. Julie Wyatt, our senior planner, will handle this last item tonight. >> Good evening. I'm Julie Wyatt. The item before you is E1624, ranch view specialty hospital initial zoning. The request before you is to consider an initial zoning for an approximately .375 acre parcel to RCCN. The subject property is located north of Crawford Road. It may look familiar to you. If it does, it's because it just went through the annex ation process. So the annexation was approved in -- the voluntary annex ation was approved on September 20th of this year. When a property is annexed in the City of Denton, it receives a temporary zoning designation of RD5X. The reason for the annexation was the intent for this property is to develop it with a specialty hospital. And so in order to provide consistent guidelines and requirements throughout the property, that annexation -- we worked with the applicant and determined it would be best to go forth with that annexation in order to have some consistency throughout it. This property may also look familiar to you as well because a recent zoning was approved on this property right here to extend that RCCN to the north. So all of the adjacent properties within the City of Denton have that RCCN zoning designation. The future land use of the subject property is low-density residential. Low-density residential is intended to have one to four dwelling units per acre in a suburban type development. When staff looked at this property and in this request, we really determined that probably suburban type development is not appropriate along the highway and at the corner of a highway and an arterial. So we had to take a little deeper dive into the request. And we looked at an additional map within the comprehensive plan, Denton Plan 2030, and we looked at the pervert growth concept. This map is actually the basis for the future land use map, and it was created with public input during that public input put phase of the Denton Plan 2030. Within that, the citizens determined where they want the growth and development, the commercial type development to go within the city. And as you can see down here, this is Crawford Road right here, and this is I-35. This is schematic, so it's not quite on the subject property. But in this general area, the intent is to have a nearby moderate density. And this moderate density is supposed to have higher dens ities, employment uses, commercial uses, and that makes sense for this area because of the access and the visibility on I-35. So we felt like this was a better metric to review and analyze this case for, analyze the case instead of the future land use map. So the considerations we looked at, the future residential development out in this area for Robeson Ranch, Hunter Ranch, the country lakes, is going to induce more demand for retail and services. RCCN is a logical extension of that existing zoning pattern . And although the RCCN doesn't conform to the future land use map, it is consistent with that future growth concept for that growth to be centered at I-35 and Crawford. And it's also appropriate for the location, given the visibility and access to I-35W. We also felt that commercial and office development should be clustered in areas of greater access, like this subject property, and in distinct centers. Public notification was sent out. We received no responses. So based upon the considerations and the dent plan, staff does recommend approval of this request. And the Planning and Zoning Commission also recommend approval. And I'll stand for any questions. Any questions for staff? Any questions? Seeing none. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody that hasn't filled out a card, if you want to come speak, please do so. State your name and address, and your time will begin. >> My name is Willie Hatsworth. I live at 623 Newton. Again, this is something that is taking place that you're asking the citizens to trust your decision in this area. I can't do that at this point because of the way that you chose the charter committee members. It was, again, the attorney came up with this for this change to take place. The board members had no idea, the commission, some, well, they acted like they didn't know that this was going to take place. Now you have a charter committee that is made up of people that supposedly represents the thinking and the well-being of this city. But you restricted certain council members who would like to have picked people that they wanted to be on this committee by saying that they have to be, that they have to live in their particular area. And what really troubles me is you said to us, those of us who were at that meeting, that you were doing it so that you could have a fair representation and you felt like it would balance it. And I wondered to myself, who do you think is going to buy that conversation about geography is going to make a better decision for this community? So it troubles me that you did that. The committee was, as I said, chosen not by the city council. It was chosen by the attorney. Disagreement was voiced at that planning meeting, not, yeah , that, yeah, whatever you call it, work session. And the majority ruled and you voted for that to take place . I think that this charter, being as important as it is, should have been left up to the people that we're going to vote for the particular items that are going to be in that charter, wherever they live. Let them vote. We're going to vote on the whole thing. We're not going to vote on just your district. We're going to vote on the whole thing. So I think that the whole thing should have been that. Now what I want to see in the future is that you do the same thing. When council people select people to be on committees and represent boards, it should be in your own district. This or you should stop fooling around with that and changing it when you have some ulterior motive. And you ask yourself, I ask myself, what was the motive for saying you have to get someone from your district? It certainly didn't have anything to do with being fair and making the process go well. That had nothing to do with it. So I believe you have some ulterior motive. I don't know that to be a fact. I just wondered aloud, what in the world could be your motivation for doing that? So if you continue doing these kinds of things, it's going to be very hard for citizens to believe that you have their best interests at heart. Any other persons wishing to speak on this item? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. Councilmember Wasney? I move approval of item 7B. Councilmember Begheri? Second. We have a motion and a second for 7B. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 6-0. We will now go to concluding items. Councilmember concluding items. Councilmember Briggs? So bear with me. I have a few here. First, I would like to request a work session on the City Council Appointee Performance Review Committee, also known as the CAPER Committee. It recently came to my attention through questions to staff and committee members that the contract of our city attorney automatically renewed at the beginning of October. And I did not recall any council discussion on this matter or review of the recommendations of the renewal coming out of this assigned committee. And looking at the committee, I saw the duties were to make recommendations regarding employment agreements, including renewals of council appointee positions. So my request for the work session discussion to include a review of the scope of the council appointee performance review committee, determine how we can improve the committee process, and ensure that the entire council can get a voice in renewal of appointee contracts, and to determine if a committee reassignment is necessary. And this request should in no way be interpreted as my opinion one way or the other regarding a city attorney. It's just a matter specific to the process of council responsibility and accountability. I would also like to ask for a staff report updating on the community market, the event center. It's been a while since we've heard anything on that. And also, we have had complaints in our neighborhood about drones flying around. And I remember the mayor bringing that up a while ago, but I don't remember anything on that specifically. So just kind of bringing that back around if we have any policy or ordinances regarding that. Also to add my list to the name of council members that asked for a review of the severance package policy and guidelines. And two more, to thank Julie Anderson and the Bike Walk Denton team for putting on cycle with the city historic ride yesterday evening. My son and I went on it, and it was a lovely ride six miles through the heart of the city. And I wanted to thank our historic preservation officer, Roman McAllen, for guiding us through. And then finally, I would like to thank staff and acknowledge the work of the striping project on Nottingham Drive between University and Windsor. It's very great, and lots of people have already used it. So thank you. Councilmember Wasney. I want to circle back to my call for a moratorium on SROs, single resident occupancy buildings. They're not apartments. They're SROs. And I know that staff is working on preparing a presentation on SROs. But until we have that discussion, I would like council, sooner than later, to just have a discussion and consider a moratorium on SROs until and at which time the council can either modify the development code for SROs, leave it the same, or to come forward with a whole new classification, because right now they're being built under apartments. And so I appreciate that soon. Thank you. Councilmember McGarry. Earlier today in our closed session, I mentioned some of the problems that exist when we have policies that are not necessarily clear. And so what I'd like to do is bring up the discussion of the resolution that enacted our ethics policy and have a discussion about clarification of that particular resolution as we are allowed to do within the confines of the charter, clarification regarding procedures, as well as the scope of the actual application of that resolution. Okay. Councilmember Hawkins. Yeah, I know National Night Out was a little bit ago, but I did want to thank the organizers in my neighborhood, Southridge. They threw a great event, and we had a big turnout. And it was a lot of fun. I got a chance to talk to many neighbors about many of the issues that are facing Denton. And I walked away with a few great ideas that, you know, sometimes people don't have enough time to come to the meetings on Tuesday night. Or I don't know, maybe they should email. But it was great just to have that one-on-one FaceTime with people. And I just want to thank my neighbor at Southridge. So thank you. Anybody else? I just have one. The striping at Hickory and Carroll, the bike lane. I was not aware of that, and going down Hickory heading, I guess, east to Carroll, it seemed very awkward. So if I could just get a – if Council could get a staff report on how that came about and is that a safe configuration, I don't know if you've driven it, but it's very interesting. So if we could just get an idea on that. And also one more. I have a gentleman who had brought up – I think it's Wood land that's off of Bell that is sort of a – doesn't really go too many places. There's a really bad speed problem down that street, apparently. And if we could look at what are some traffic calming ways to slow that down. This individual had suggested a cul-de-sac, but I can't recall the configuration right off the top of my head, so I'm not sure if that's possible. But apparently there's a – I think it's Woodland. Woodland that tees into Bell Avenue, just north of Bell and 380. Any others? Okay. We'll stand adjourned. Thank you. [ Silence ]