Nov 08, 2016 City Council on 2016-11-08 12:00 PM

Welcome everyone to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday November the 8th 2016. We do have a quorum, special day in our country is election day. Hope everybody is either voted or going out to vote and that brings me to my next encouragement and that is I would like to move these proceedings along as expeditiously as possible not leaving anyone out or any pertinent discussion out but I would like to make sure that we have all the agenda items in the work session covered by our 630 meeting and those that we don't we'll just come back and look at those and then in our 630 meeting we'll try to move along so we can ensure that we are able to enjoy the election results. So having said that we'll move on to our first item on the agenda which is citizen comments on consent agenda items. Okay okay all right yeah he's gonna fill out a blue card so instead of waiting for that we'll just yeah we'll let him fill it out after the fact so Mr. Husband if you'd like to state your name and address your time will begin for the three minutes. Mayor and council my name is Willie Hatchbiff I live at 623 Newton. Start to say my name is 623 Newton Russian K L 1 A B C D E F G H J K L. It's 13 consent agenda items I have three minutes to say something about the 13 consent agenda items. One thing I'd like to say is I think it's a disservice to the citizen to the electorate for you to have this many consent agenda items and all what what that means is there are things that you talked about somewhere else you got backup for somewhere else for it you know all of the information there and of the 13 consent agenda items which basically means we don't get to know much about them as a citizenry you have all the backup and I have three minutes to talk about them so with the last 30 seconds let me say this I think they're too many I think that this is a again the disservice to the citizen tree if you want government where the people have something to say and would like to be part of it then you having too many of these and the discussion needs to be are there a the discussion needs to be at a time when we can interact with what's going on now with the one items that I'd like to well I don't have time I think all these items need to be in a position where we can talk about thank you thank you next agenda item is a request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda for November the 8th 2016 yes I would like to pull items a G and M please for individual consideration and I have a question on P about the the rental of the vans on which item I'm sorry on P he is okay so it says that competitive bids are not required since there's only one source and I'm I'm curious about how you know there's only one source I had someone reach out to me wondering about how they were how come they weren't able to make a bid so I'm just curious of that process Elton Brock our purchasing manager to respond to that mayor council members the city didn't put out an RFP for that service actually and we had no one respond and the reason we had no one responds because city employees drivers that are less than 25 years old so they don't want to take on that liability was the reason when we followed up with the companies that we know should have responded and so as a result we weren't able to get the company you have under contract and they were able to take on that liability of those less than 25 year olds so that was really the reason we followed up with the folks that we know normally respond to those okay thank you and I'm sorry when when does that RFP go out that RFP actually went out last year last year so we'll we'll try to send that out again in another year or so if you like that out sooner we can try to do that again this next year it just we felt like that the when we this response is when we followed up with the folks that we normally had contracted with in the past and they told us that they you know as long as we were employing drivers that are less than 25 years old they're not going to contract with the city okay thank you councilmember race was that you wanted to pull a G and is it in as a Nancy or M as in Mary Mary Mary okay I'm sorry I thought it was in all right okay any other clarifications for this agenda okay seeing none we'll move forward into item number three our work session reports 3a is receive a report and hold a discussion and give stack staff direction regarding single room occupancy developments thank you mayor Ron Magida our long range planning administrator will be handling this particular item thank you Howard mayor ma'am's of council this item is being brought to you all for discussion at a request of the council regarding single room occupancy for the viewing public and for the council single room occupancies apply not just to multifamily but also single-family residential units they're also referred to as collegiate housing where the units are leased to individual students by the bedroom we have several in the city that are considered collegiate housing by our definition I show to here but there are more in the city and there will be a map that illustrates where those are located but for reference to existing that are well known is the youth center at Frye Street as well as 33 degrees north which is located on Eagle in addition we have proposals for these type of developments single room occup ancies and they are being considered as we speak by the development review the one part seven Denton is located on scripture and normal on the southeast corner we also have one that's actually scheduled or has been considered by the planning zone and Commission and that's the EDR project and hopefully we can bring this project forward for your consideration on the December 6th meeting so collegiate housing how is that reviewed by the city and how is it categorized per the development code so chapter 35 five that is zoning districts there is not a specific lane used that calls out collegiate housing in fact we consider it as multi-family again the difference obviously collegiate housing as we see it is that is leased out to college students and designs specifically for college students and each bedroom is le ased out individually whereby multi-family a little bit more general definition is a structure that contains three or more dwelling units and any accelerate sorry uses when a development comes in a collegiate housing type we look at it as multifamily because there is no different different shape differentiation between the two now they are permitted multifamily again as as it is currently also collegiate housing is permitted in various zoning districts by a specific use permit also with limitations as as well so those locations or zoning districts are part of your backup they're permitted in the RC in the NRM you 12 NRM you the DC downtown University core area as well as the regional center commercial uses as well Ron real quick what in our experience when we've had developers come in to build I'm gonna use your term colleg iate housing are they making an election or do they report at that time of sort of the the first initial meetings whether their leasing paradigm is going to be by the bedroom or by the unit yes they we actually asked that question okay and they will let us know okay how their marketing is how they're going to lease them and all that information is provided up front great thank you yes mayor pro tem is this unique to this sort of development project that we would ask somebody their their leasing policies I mean if there's a commercial building do we say unveiled to us your leasing policies as part of the process is that normal no the reason why we do ask that is in situations where they they come in it's usually with this because they're requesting a specific use permit or a zoning change and it's part of our review we we want to make sure that we provide a project narrative of what they're actually proposing as we presented to say the Planned Zoning Commission and City Council but just to be clear in terms of what they're building just from a physical perspective it seems like there's no other distinguishing factor between somebody who has three bedroom apartments that's leasing them by the apartment and somebody who has three but is there any other difference other than just simply their their their business plan other than le asing I've seen certain difference in the the floor plan of each unit some of them have bathrooms for each bedroom maybe that's one distinguish difference between a say a typical multifamily where the bathroom isn't part of each but so there is probably two bathrooms per three bedrooms where in a colleg iate housing you're seeing more a bathroom for in each of the bedrooms that are that are being proposed so more bathrooms so that's other than other than that that's probably the other difference between the two but hypoth etically and I'm asking these in preparation because I know you're gonna get to a recommendation on the zoning change but hypothetically some somebody any business can come in and say I've got this intended purpose right now in terms of my lease structure it's just it's just part of a business plan and what the market it seems to me but in a month could decide that it's not working out so I 'm gonna change my leasing structure right right but yet we're wanting to lock that into zoning so anyways it's more of a comment I guess we'll ask this some more that's fair comment and we can discuss that at a later time but we've we've had several discussions regarding that in the office great good afternoon as it relates to an application that comes in for development we don't review their lease application or their leasing strategy what we do try and understand is what it what is it that you're developing on the site so if it's a multifamily development and we notice that it's near the University District we ask you know so what are you doing and typically you'll notice with those types of developments such as collegiate housing the parking ratio requirements are typically different and that's what would then require a variance for example or an alternative development plan or an amendment to an overlay district to modify your parking their parking requirements and that's when that comes to line as it to the specificity of the project but in no no we do not monitor the lease or discern what the lease arrangements are now when it when we talk about collegiate housing the differences isn't Ron so eloquently mentioned related to sharing a bathroom for example one bathroom for two units or one bathroom per unit in those units are individually locked as well the bedrooms have their own locks as well but from a land use perspective we typically roll it into multifamily development let's say it comes member Hawkins then Councilman Gregory well mine's on a similar note I'm trying to figure out is there a difference in the parking requirement if it's a collegiate housing there I think that's where I'm getting right there there currently is not a different their multifamily and there are maybe like for the the fight overlay I'm sorry fries malaria plan there is a difference but that's specific just for that particular area but part of then development code the two type of uses is not differentiated so it would just fall under multifamily Councilmember Gregory the question I have has to do with your comment that you're asking folks how are you going to be operating this this multifamily this apartment complex well if we had more stringent zoning requirements for collegiate housing could they just say oh well we're just going to rent this like any other multifamily and then they get the permits and all like that and then they decide later no we 're going to rent by the bedroom what what would prohibit them I mean if I wanted to have maximum flexibility and not have to go through an SUP process that might lengthen the time in order to get my permits I might just say well at this time I'm planning to just lease it as an apartment so what what recourse would we have if they said that and then came back later and they were using it in a way other than what they had indicated I know that's sort of related to Council member rodents comment and like I said earlier we did have some discussion and obviously enforcement is going to be a big part of this we actually will be looking at a management company that will hopefully operate and manage these complexes and using them as our I want to say control and you know actually they're they're gonna have to provide us with some information moving forward if you say there is a change in from multifamily to a collegiate housing the conversion is going to be something that we would like to to know so that we can follow the process if we do decide to go forward with a different type of use but you're right Councilmember Gray there is no enforcement that's going to be able to identify those folks that are doing it between you know after they've been approved from multifamily come in later and then change their leasing requirements we won't be able to do it unless it's brought to our attention either by a neighbor or some some other way of communication and that's and I think Councilmember rodents scenario was somewhat different but I think the concern and part of the reason that this has come up is because there's concerns of whichever scenario it happens where a structure is built for collegiate housing and placed appropriately and suddenly it changes and no longer it's it's it's no longer college students it's factory workers some other kind of group of people that are not college students that are still renting by the room so whichever whichever direction it goes I think that there are concerns about about as we talk about this and we're talking about some kind of regulation on this how we would monitor how we would enforce so I suppose you're going to get to that yes yes we'll have some limitations that we can discuss yeah and and of course I'll admit I threw out the first question let's see if we can get through how many slides do you have nine nine let's get through the slides and I think we can then hold the questions for the end that's not too many so yeah you bet thank you all for your indulgence so as we looked at how we proceed with pose a recommended recommendations from staff we looked at the dent plan 2030 and as you all know the dent plan 2030 is our guiding document that guides us on how we proceed with future plans code amendments and the like per the dent plan 2030 housing dense dens ifying the urban core providing an array of different types of housing is a goal but also with that we want to make sure that our neighborhoods are established neighborhoods have stability and are also livable with that in mind the staff and the council when y'all approve the future land use map we identified areas around the surrounding the the universities as well as the downtown and we refer to them as the downtown compatibility area as well as the downtown I'm sorry the neighborhood university compatibility area and these areas are specific again to proximity to the university into the downtown looking at them individually or these areas there are specific standards or guidelines that we follow that we want to make sure we implement as we look at the things that we 're looking at today specifically I wanted to focus on the neighborhood university compatibility area because again a lot of the discussion that we'll be having or are have been discussed is related to the areas around the UNT campus as well as TW and the areas around the these two universities are again are referred to as the neighborhood university compatibility area and what this area is identified as is a residential and commercial areas again adjacent to the universities they are characterized by university uses abut ting single-family neighborhoods and the area between those areas are what we would like to help provide compatibility in the form and land uses with this area is not only for the universities but also for the the neighborhoods as well this map here illustrates where what we termed collegiate housing again housing or I'm sorry complexes that lease by the bedrooms specifically to college or students and these areas in black as you can see the majority of them are around the university area what we're looking at here in the light blue is the area that I refer to as the neighborhood university compatibility area so you see that the majority of them are in this area here now there are also some in the area here which is our commercial mixed use area but again our focus and when we looked at the den development sort of den plan 2030 was to identify areas where we can focus our attention and again that area is shown here in blue and there is one here as well a fairly new development that just open not too long ago looking further on to what the zoning is for these areas and you see that the zoning where these developments are located in are primarily in the downtown University core area which is the DCG the DCN and the dr2 zoning districts there are a few that are on the outskirts that are NRME 12 as well as in our three I want to say as another one further south which is zone RCR residential so you can see the majority of these collegiate housing are located in the zoning districts that are zone DCN DCG and dr2 so what does that mean and how do we address you know looking at this well we the staff the planning division is proposing or recommending that we differentiate the use of collegiate housing creating its own lane use in sub chapter 5 so that we can review it independently to do that we need to amend or add a definition of that definition in your backup also to further clarify the different the difference between collegiate housing and multifamily we're adding or amending the definition for multifamily and dwelling unit the last recommendation here is to as we review collegiate housing and we're proposing them specifically in three zoning districts the dr2 DCN and DCG with a specific use permit so that there will be further public involvement public hearings to further the discussion on what can be done to address these type of housing or this type of development as you know a specific use permit requires a recommendation from the planning zoning Commission and then ultimately a public hearing consideration by the City Council we also recommend that there will be additional limitations now the difference between limitations and what conditions that we can see a specific use permit the limitations are applicable to all the zoning districts whereby if we have a discussion with the council with PNC and you all want to add additional conditions that's something that the council can add as in addition to the limitations that we would like to establish so what are some of the standards and limitations that we can look into not only as you know limitations that apply to all properties but what we can also add as part of conditions when we look at them individually parking was the biggest thing that we felt that we needed to address as we discussed earlier multifamily has its own parking requirements collegiate housing we would have to come up with one either more stringent or less stringent depending on how the council would like to move forward but also looking at the the different types of units because each bed each unit can be a one-bedroom it could be two bedrooms three four and those can those can be identified specifically by a specific parking ratio building materials landscape and hardscape building from all of these that are listed here are referred to because they help create that compatibility that we're trying to achieve in these areas that we're we're trying to address we also are looking at potentially a maximum per bedroom I know that the idea is to have one student per bedroom we want to make sure that that's the case we don't want to you know see more because that will obviously increase the not only traffic but also the number of students within a unit potentially we might want to look at a minimum floor area so that they're not small that they're actually big enough to accommodate the the students that are there establish a minimum lease days ensure that there's management on the property that will manage the development adhere to any requirements related to ADA access is important lighting and then conversions we we want to identify how we address the enforcement question that Councilman Greg you mentioned how do we address the conversion from multifamily to collegiate housing when that when that occurs who initiates that and how do we you know move forward to getting them to comply with the requirements of the development code if that was the council's direction we mentioned this already specific use permits these these would be permitted or would be required for these collegiate type housing and again the intent there is to make sure that they are able to come to the city we can review them individually mixed-use development we see that there are mixed-use developments that could come in we're going to look at the collegiate housing as a separate use and that will require specific use permit not just because you're a mixed-use development that you can just go ahead and develop as such if you have a colleg iate housing use as part of that mixed-use development you're still going to have to comply and obtain a specific use permit and all the other conditions that we have identified and lastly code requirements that are in our current code and our code of ordinances and billing code will all have to comply with with such development that concludes my presentation and I'll be happy to answer any questions Councilmember Hawkins on the minimum lease days what why are you bringing that up just you don't want too much turnover right the transient you know where people come in and they stay for maybe 30 days or so we it should be it should be longer that's again that's a discussion that we had internally in 30 days was a minimum that we felt was sufficient okay and then I don't know if this has to do with it at all but is there any zoning difference when you have an extended stay hotel motel then regular hotel motel or do you know no I think they're they're either motel or hotels and and there really isn't a difference between if they're extended or they're by the day okay yeah if you go back one slide sure I think it's interesting you're talking about maximum number of people per bedroom and that you have a minimum floor area I'm wondering if we need to consider in the recommendations oh that's continued from the previous page do we have listed on the previous page a maximum recommendations a maximum number of per bed a maximum number of bedrooms per unit that should be a maximum person per bedroom okay but do we have anything that's that in the limitations that say a maximum number of bedrooms per apartment unit right we well part of you back up there's there is a maximum persons per unit already so using that as a base we in the city of den have a requirement that only four unrelated persons per unit can occupy a specific unit so most likely these units or these units will be limited to just four bedrooms is there a possibility of adding for the entire complex either a maximum number of bedrooms or a maximum number of units or scale that somehow to the total square foot of the piece of property yeah I guess the first part to that councilman Gregory is the maximum bedrooms we can certainly put four to clarify that the maximum per unit would be four because of the four unrelated persons as far as the number of units that would have to go back to the zoning district there is a requirement in our development code they each zoning I will I think the dr2 is I want to say 30 units don't quote me on that one but I know DCG allows you to have 150 dwelling units per acre so that's where you control but now if you would like to add that as a limitation for these collegiate housing we can add that as a limitation or if that's something that is something that you don't want that you want to add as part of a specific use permit you can add that as a condition as we review these on a case by case I think it it would it would go to density and talking about a way for us to to control you know why we want our plan our long-range plan calls for more density in the urban core I think we also have learned from other cities that there's probably a maximum in terms of density that we want sure so that we may want to consider target for limiting the density right and that goes back to the zoning districts in how we move forward with that a pro tem and then a protein because remember the Gary and then council member a couple questions one is what from your perspective I guess it sounds like the planning department has thought through this what problem are we trying to solve by suggesting this zoning change well we've heard from numerous public meetings and have seen is parking in areas that are adjacent to these type of developments we've seen and heard that there's not enough parking for collegiate housing because now it's only designed for four students but we've again seen or heard that there are more than four people living there and each of these individuals drive a vehicle not all of them can park within the complex and therefore that's been a strain on the adjacent neighborhoods and is there any example of a specific complex that a is have creating parking problems itself that we can point to there I don't have the the name of departments but in general the the parking issue around the fry Street area has been a rate has been raised as a concern there are students parking throughout the neighborhoods and the people that live and also that own businesses in that area have stated that those apartments are in close proximity have those issues that we just stated earlier well there's thirty six thousand students around you and that go to UNT every day so there's there's parking problems associated with that that perhaps people are abstracting to these other issues I mean if you drive down the fry Street area on a Saturday morning Sunday morning there's no parking issues and if the apartments were to blame for parking issues there would be parking issues all the time so I think I'd like to see some data on that versus just anecdote okay secondly what is our what is our plan say in terms of our 2030 plan in terms of where we want to encourage student housing to be located and and does this does making it more difficult for student housing to go in is that counterproductive to what we're trying to encourage the didn't plan 20 30 doesn't specifically call out where they should be located they do identify student housing as a need and that they they should be identified in specific areas but it does not say specifically where obviously the closer to the university the down the university the neighborhood compatibility area would be a prime location for these type of development I think that if there was a location identified in a more identifiable use it would probably help not just the community but I think would help the development community and identifying and how to approach developing these type of housing it seems like making it with an SUP is going to make it more attractive for these sorts of projects to go in where we don't want and where students have to get in their car and drive like along Fort Worth Drive like a long brinker drive like along in the loop area where they're forced to get into a car versus being in a place where they can walk so I think there's some competing values there's no doubt that if we layer SUP on this the encouragement is going to push these further away from the two universities I don't know that that's our goal ultimately but that I think adding more stringent regulations to them where you've got neighborhoods that are going to come in and take issue probably with anything whether it's SRO or multifamily I think in some of these cases I think our SRO is perhaps being used as a scapegoat with some of these projects so and I think we can have that conversation but specific so and I want to hear from my colleagues too as to what they think is the problem with SROs that we're trying to solve through additional regulation so I'll leave it there I'm sure we have more conversation to come. Councilmember McGarry. I have a couple questions and clarification okay and our backup it says that dormitories are exempt from the four unrelated persons requirement and our zoning code so if I'm a student real estate developer what's to stop me from saying I'm not building an SRO I'm building a dormit ory it's private dormitory. There's a definition for dormitory and it specifically calls that one unit or one building structure it has a minimum of number of students that are house of the definition of dormitory is a little bit different from the collegiate housing that we're considering. Okay well I'll just say that I think we need to spend some time talking about what a private dormitory is and what SROs will be and I'm saying this from experience because I lived in a private dormitory when I was in college and I think it would now be considered an SRO but you know it could be that you can do an end run around whatever zoning changes we make by just differently naming your project in my view so maybe just a little deeper look at that. The other two things I wanted to mention if the idea is that we want to limit the scale of these projects and I don't know if that is the problem that we're talking about it kind of seems that way to me that we have these very large projects going into neighborhood areas I think that maximum per bedroom of one will actually create it will exacerbate it because you're going to have instead of having two people in a two-bedroom unit you're going to have to have a four-bedroom unit which demands more space and it demands more runoff and more sewage etc etc so I think we need to look closely at that maximum per bedroom to see if it's really achieving what it is that we 're setting out to achieve. Third kind of issue is that SROs as you mentioned in the backup can occur in single-family dwelling units. This particular provision gives me the most pause because I think as a policymaking body it should be our goal to treat like as like and not create different rules for different categories of people that are substantially the same unit. If we end up only regulating these high rises as SROs but we don't end up regulating the single families as SROs I think my guess if I look in the crystal ball what's going to happen is there's going to be more of the single-family units that are then turned into SROs or into the book by the room. I don't think that 's what we want. I think our goal here is to have more single-family people families living in single-family so I would just caution us that as we move forward the things that we're doing are actually achieving the goal that we want to achieve rather than perhaps it could end up that we end up in a different direction that we don't want to go in but we're trying to do the right thing. Right and just to address that those comments real quick regarding the single-family that is something that we we know is going to be further research and there are other communities or cities that we've spoken to and they are dealing with that as well and so when we bring something like this forward we're certainly going to have to follow up with how we deal with the single-family SROs as well. I think the most important thing to remember is that SROs are not apartments. I'll say that again. Single-resident occupancy buildings are not apartments. Apartments can hold a variety of people, families. You can have a single person in an apartment. You can have a family in an apartment but an SRO is strictly student housing. So two of the SROs that are under discussion are in district three and I have met with people for the last year and a half. You've met with these neighborhoods for the last year and a half and dozens and dozens and dozens of people are coming out from these neighborhoods with their concerns. If I have to categorize the concerns, they really are specific to two different things. One is building height so that the SROs we're talking about are five stories high. The developers were asked, "Could you just build three-story?" In these meetings that Planning hosted, that I hosted, we were told, "No, if we build three stories it's not economically feasible for me as a developer to build three stories." But when I talk to the neighborhoods and the people, it's the neighborhood incompatibility with the five -story unit coming into a neighborhood. So that creates, again, a category of huge objection from the neighborhood. Parking, and you talked about, you know, so talk to some of the neighborhoods in West Oak and Oak Hickory and ask those people about student parking on their streets. It's a huge issue and so if you bring in a five-story SRO, you're bringing in tremendous density. So I guess the root of the problem ultimately comes down to density. And with the vast number of students that are in that five-story building, I think as a recommendation that needs to be part of all of this is a mandatory TIA traffic impact analysis so that if an SRO is coming into an area that it's mandatory, that they do a TIA because that is going to really highlight do we have the traffic infrastructure to support the density that's going into this building so that it's not optional, that it's mandatory. I do like the special use permit idea because it brings our citizens in more. So it's the neighborhoods who are impacted by a five-story building coming in. So again it's a concern of neighborhood compatibility. The other question I have in terms of, because you didn't give us the total number but I know it's in backup, it's a big number. Can you give me that number again? Sure. The survey that we did online just looking or going through various number of websites we identified 26 SROs or collegiate housing. Again when we asked the question do you exclusively just lease to students? Yes. Are they leased by the bedrooms? Yes and those were the 26 and the number I don't have the exact number but I believe it's in the 9,800 range of bedrooms that are being leased to students currently in Den. And the other question and this was in the backup too the percentage of rental property in Denton was that 42%? Those that's multifamily versus single-family. Yeah. So rental we yes. So coming back to just the dilemma that we already have 26 SROs up I think we're late in coming to this discussion. I think we're late coming as trying to plan because I come back they're not apartments. So if we fast forward 20 years an apartment is still an apartment. It may be an older apartment we've all lived in those but they can be maintained. They can be a nice place to live after 20 or 30 years but it's still an apartment. But an SRO is a single bedroom rental. So what's gonna what's our landscape gonna look like in 20 or 30 years and what are these all of these myriads of housing units going to look like and who's going to be there? Nobody knows because the landscape of higher education is continually changing. Are we still in 20 years gonna be a campus where people drive there and actually sleep there? Maybe but maybe not and so long term my concern for the city of Denton is to have this vast amount of SROs that we're not quite sure after 20 years what that housing is going to look like in terms because it's not going to be a family there. It's not gonna be a family and if you're young professional working you're gonna kind of want your own kitchen. You're gonna kind of want your own space and not share it you know this is for students. I think it comes down to a real basic question too. I understand University of North Texas has grown tremendously but this isn't a TWU problem. This is really kind of a UNT issue and the majority of the SROs that are up the majority of SROs that are proposed are our closest to UNT. So it comes down to is it the city of Denton's responsibility to continue to feel that we have to build student housing for UNT? My take on that is we don't because we don't. I grew up in a college town. University of Nebraska had tens of thousands of students. The majority of dormitories were on campus on campus run by the university. So I come back to just putting a little bit more responsibility on the university and if they don't have room then maybe they have to cap out enrollment but to compromise our neighborhoods to say well the university needs housing. When I look at a citizen in the eye it's not it's not an argument that is is gonna fly with these neighborhoods. Well the university needs housing. No neighborhoods need houses and so it's it's a concern because for my entire tenure on council that has been an overwhelming conversation with my constituents and that 's that we are concerned about these five-story SROs and the fact that the city of Denton does not have a specific development category for an SRO. So I think it's important for the future of our city to take a long hard look at this and if we need to gather more facts and information I applaud that because that helps us make a good decision but I applaud planning for bringing this forward. Thank you and I would ask that council give it long pause because I think it's an important topic. Thank you. Thank you for this presentation and I am also in agreement these are not apartments or multi-family specifically family units and I would like to see us also adopting new distinct definition and set of rules by which these can be regulated through our development code. So I'm in agreement with the recommendations. Okay I'm trying to contain myself because I I see a lot of inconsistencies here and I do believe SROs are apartments simply because if the only thing that makes the difference between an SRO and an apartment building is not the structure it's the management paradigm that is employed. So if an SRO is vacant if the what is it the what's one of them? North the one on Eagle Drive that I voted against. Three North. Put that out there again. If it goes vacant and somebody bought that property and wanted to lease those as three bedroom and four bedroom units not SROs they could do it. They're separately metered they have k itchens I'm building duplexes that have three bedroom and three bath each that I will lease to students. I do not lease by single room occupancy. It's all or nothing on the lease. So if you'll go back to the recommendations because what I've heard is that there's an issue with parking I mean I could almost go down every one of these. Every one of these can be addressed in a multi- family in the multi-family development code. Five stories. So somebody could come in and build a five-story I'm gonna say apartment building but an SRO is a multi-family structure. It's defined as an SRO by its le asing paradigm. Somebody could come in build a five-story multi-family apartment. Lease it as a as just a regular apartment. In other words you got four students who want to live in there. They're all on the lease. They're all jointly and several really liable for that lease. Parking on multi-family it's one parking spot per bedroom. Currently one bedrooms. For one bedrooms is 1.5. 1.5 and what is it for two bedrooms? 1.75. Folks there's the problem. What is it for three bedroom? Two. What is it for four bedroom? One per bedroom. Okay so even in our multi-family code if parking is the issue then you can correct that in the multi-family code. And I don't have a problem. I mean if we want to do something like this that's fine. I'm just trying to make sense of the argument for it. You say it's parking. You say it's building height. Traffic. But that those are all things that are present in a what we would I'm gonna say now term it as a standard or typical multi-family development. So if we're gonna apply whatever whatever we apply to if we apply anything to these things we call SROs people are just gonna start building multi-family and calling it multi-family and they 'll figure out a way to do it. They'll figure out a way to make it where it 's not leased by the bedroom. So when I when I look at this I see that most of the most of the concerns can be addressed in our multi-family code. I mean I wrote so many notes I can't even I can't even see it see it all. We've had two of these projects that have come. One was recommended for denial by PNZ it's my understanding. Is that that's the one that was at Hickory? It hasn't come to council yet. It's not sure and I'm not making a ruling on that I'm just saying that's what the history of this is. So when you go down through all of these things maximum per bedroom we already have four unrelated people per unit is the restriction. So they really can't have five bedrooms you can't put one in each bedroom. That's correct. ADA requirements we already had those. The minimum lease days somebody could lease my apartment and break the lease in 30 days and I've got to go in and release it to somebody else. So I want to be sympathetic to the plight of what these kind of structures are creating in neighborhoods. I don't think it has anything to do with that they're rented by the bedroom. Now if they're rented primarily to students whether they're on one lease or on their on four different leases your problems are still the same. You still have parking which now I hear is four spots for a four bedroom, two spots for a three bedroom, is that right? One and a half spots for a two bedroom but 1.5 for a one bedroom. So if you have a 200 unit apartment building that's rented conventionally or via SRO the parking requirements still the same you got an issue. It's the same it's the same regulation. So I just want to make sure I don't want to be adding regulation on something that we can address with maybe some modifications of our current regulation and as far as what's discouraging student housing around North Texas it doesn't matter whether you call it an SRO, a single-family home, a multifamily unit you're gonna have student housing. So I just don't want to address have a sort of a micromanage a problem when it's really a business plan issue because if somebody moves out you could lease it to a family of four or five. If somebody moved out now they may not choose to do that because that's not their business plan but if we had the parking that applied to all multifamily if we had height restrictions in certain areas then you can address that. I think it's really to me this is almost an overreach by government to try to regulate the market and I don't have a problem in looking at that but based upon what I've heard so far I particularly don't see that there's that this is the only solution. I think we could do it with some other means but I'm certainly open to more discussion about that because as I just look as I look through all of these requirements they're not anything that we can't address. We don't have any multifamily apartment units over five stories except for the new ones that have been developed and the 9600 units go back to that map if you would. There's 26 I think quote-unquote complexes on here. Correct. I will guarantee you and I've looked at it on its cursory level probably only about well if you looked at the list anything with over probably 150 or 200 units is probably something that's been built in the last five or six years. Let me tell you what's happening. Most of these the majority if not 75% of them are older units that have been purchased that are two-bedroom one-bedroom what y 'all would call sort of traditional apartments have been bought and the management has converted them through the management paradigm to an SRO. If you just look down you have that list on a slide of the I don't I don't have it yeah but it's in the backup but if you go down through in fact identified one in particular that is a management company that is listed as has intent having ten of these type of apartment units that's exactly what they did. They took they bought a series of older buildings they remodeled and put new windows in and all those kinds of things and then they instead of leasing them on a traditional lease they split them up. So that's another issue is people who are buying older buildings you can't stop them from doing that because they're probably grandfathered in is what is what my my hunch would be with that zoning classification. So I'm real okay with exploring really what are we trying to solve and is this the only way to solve it but I'm not convinced that it is because when I look up there at all those things I other than specific use permits even though we do require specific use permits for some apartment buildings in some zoning in some zoning zoning categories. So it's the funny thing is honestly I don't know why they're so popular because kids live them live in them one year or a year and a half and then they get out because you do are living with someone that you have no control over who is put in that room next to you and it 's almost become a conduit if you will a supply chain for people who don't rent like that so they'll go out and find their own roommates and you go out and you rent an apartment based upon a traditional leasing model. So I wouldn't personally do it this way and I don't do it that way and would never do it that way. I just want to be careful how much we're trying to regulate an actual business plan instead of some type of land use. So parking I think we can take care of. Height requirements I think we take care of. If in 20 years something happens and the students are all doing it offline we got a lot bigger problem than just these things popping up. We got 16,000 or you know units before that that have had an issue. So again I'm open to moving forward and if there's a way if there's a need that we cannot address in some other way within our current code let's do it. But everything I've heard so far can be addressed in our current code as far as modified in our current code. So those are my two cents. Councilmember Gregory and then you know this has been a very interesting discussion right now. One of the questions that has occurred to me during discussion is just a side question about the legality. I don't think that it's legal in Texas or in the United States to define who you rent to by race. Can you exclude somebody from renting an apartment or a house on their race? We're gonna have federal fair housing issues and even perhaps some state issues. Could you limit your rentals based on a person's religion? That's gonna be a problem as well. Can you then limit who you rent to on the basis of their age? Probably not. So how do they pull that off? How do they say we're only gonna rent to college students? I can tell you how. How? Because they're not saying that we only rent to college students. Oh. It's by the very nature of the lease structure. In other words we're leasing only by the bedroom. So let's say for instance in some of these it's $800 a bedroom. Now that may be all bills paid, furnished and so forth. Well if you have a family of two they're gonna either have to rent one of those bedrooms and they're not gonna want their family to be living with someone else. I believe somebody brought that up. Yes, absolutely. Or if you have to rent the whole thing it 's gonna be cost prohibitive. So it's not a direct, it's just the business model really only lends itself to that kind of structure either because of the cost or because people aren't gonna want to live with two or three different strangers. Right. Most students will because that's what they do. I mean in essence I mean I don't mean that in a disparaging way but that's you know that's how a lot of people get through school is in the cost. So it's not, I don't think you're gonna see on any advertisement that we do not lease to people with families. It's just the way that they do the arrangement that makes it. Because one of them. I'm not saying they're discriminating I'm just saying that might that might be the impact. Sure. One of the concerns that I have about whatever we do in terms of limiting or regulating is that I want to be very careful about the consequences. Because right now a lot of us live in single-family homes that are in neighborhoods where there may be only one rental house in the block, one rental house every three blocks, or they may be five rental houses out of every ten homes. And I've had on the other side across the alley for me some of the houses are for rent and they are rented sometimes by university students or university aged students who have parties. And I would much rather them live in one of those units over right by the campus because when you're when you're buying it you know a home right next to the campus you're expecting to have university students around you when you're buying way off from the campus you're not necessarily expecting that. And so I have a feeling that if we somehow regulated in a way that really limited the number of students that could live close to campus or live in more dense housing that what we're going to be doing is pushing more and more of those students into the need of renting single-family units in neighborhoods where now there's a two-car garage and a short driveway and there's four cars there and they have to have cars because they can't bike to campus because they're a long way off. So now there's more cars in that neighborhood there's more students in that neighborhood there's more noise and in what's typically a quieter family residential neighborhood. So I want to be really careful about the impact that we would have of making a regulation that would push more of those students away from the campus. I think I think them being closer to campus or closer to to main routes to get to the campus is probably better for the city. Councilmember Briggs and then Councilmember Hawkins and Mayor Pro Tem and just on that comment that is already happening in our neighborhoods . My in-laws are I have a directly across behind and beside the parents are buying homes for their kids to live in. Yeah so that's already a current issue. Councilmember Hawkins. Mayor maybe you know this since you're in the business. So in the advertising or the signs on some of the existing SROs does it advertise single room occupancies or does it say student housing? I have no idea. You have no idea? I've seen one of the leases and I think the lease is referred to either SRO or they make it clear you're only renting a bedroom and the rest of the the rest of the common area is accessible by anyone who leases that common unit like if it's a four-bedroom that common unit. Okay well I've been kind of on the fence on this one but I think if we were able to modify our current code right now to really look at parking height the traffic some of those things I mean that's the complaint that you're hearing from the neighborhoods is just this is a very transient type if you the way I was understanding it it was about student housing they come and they go very fast they there's not a family type feeling to that building so I'm just trying to wrap my mind around if this is just student housing or if it's by the room housing you know if it's if I'm just saying the same thing but if in our current code right now we can try to look at some of the parking issues the height of the structures the reason why sometimes an SUP is good you do engage the neighborhood you know and usually they're gonna come out with the torches and say no but you do engage them and I do like the idea of the TIA there to Councilman Wasney so kind of on the fence on this one but I would like us to at least walk away from here modifying our current code moving forward. Mayor Perkins. And I think we have to have an honest conversation about where we want to put apartments we're gonna have them the populations growing even even tendencies of families tendencies of young professionals are starting to change nationwide in terms of homeownership and rental which means you're gonna have more rental properties probably for the foreseeable future so so we can't be opposed to apartments as it relates to traffic and where we put these apartments I live right next door to that university right there right across the street traffic is no issue on nights and weekends so traffic is the result of people who live far enough away that they have to drive to campus either to work or to go to school and so to the extent that we're making smart decisions about where we're putting density in relation to where people go to school where people work that reduces traffic it's just it's a it's a it's a fact if I live right next door to university and I go to school there I'm not gonna be driving in the morning in the times when it's high traffic areas people coming going from school I may be driving on the weekends or whatnot when I want to go to the store the grocery store or something like that but my traffic footprint is gonna go way down so traffic it just makes sense you get more density around these urban areas you know the history of SROs is actually to increase lower income options in cities in fact City of Chicago has an SRO preservation initiative that would bog gle your mind if you're on council there but the idea is that it's too difficult for lower income people to live in the cities and historically they were for workers for factory workers who needed lower income we're just seeing that that that model flip for a different type of an audience and in some cases it's actually more expensive than whatnot but it's it's interesting so I think that traffic is you I that's why I think we need to have a comprehensive philosophic discussion of this because if we keep on beating our head against the wall over we don't like apartments we don't like density we don't like the question really has to be where does density make sense and I submit to you when you look at 19 620 or whatever that one five those apartments all on that kind of southern edge of I 35 there that doesn't make any sense to put density along those places at least in terms of we're talking about worries with traffic so perhaps again if we're trying to tackle what we feel are the problems form is a huge issue which has nothing to do with SRO or regular apartment so form is a huge issue I think form form design okay height things like that I mean there's a reason why you walk through San Francisco neighborhoods of three and four-story row houses and it feels amazing right because they've really taken some real intentionality into how they build out that structure in that form and what's its distance from the street and how do these things line up to one another and so perhaps that's the way we need to be thinking around the fry Street area or that's a way we need to be thinking around TWU or certainly downtown we've talked about form-based zoning but to me I think there's other issues that will alleviate these concerns but if we keep saying no to more density around the university the other thing I'll say is for those of us who live in university neighborhoods there's the greatest stress on those neighborhoods is a lack of student housing elsewhere because people are going to rent out their houses as you mentioned and the cost of those houses are tremendous because they're doing it by the room too and so no no families paying 1800 bucks for a single-family neighborhood but they can put six students in there and get that and so if we have an issue with low-income issues around town that's an issue too if we're seeing an interest in revitalizing our university neighborhoods the answer in my opinion is more density where it makes sense so you relieve the pressure and the market need for people to set up shop and single-family home so I agree with councilmember Gregory that there's a lot of unintended consequences if we start regulating these things too and I guarantee you this is where they're gonna go down south and away from the university sorry I'll get off my soapbox well it was mentioned that you didn't identify too many SROs around Texas Woman's University that 's because Texas Woman's University goes out and leases entire complexes and rents it to their students by the bedroom so there's not really a there's not really a mechanism whereby you could do that research but I'm sure it's probably in the hundred to two hundred units at least in fact the new one that's coming up across from the old TWU golf course well it's still there but the golf course is I believe TWU I don't know what's happening there but they may have that as that kind of situation so TWU is leasing apartments all around the university and leasing it by the bedroom to their students through their housing department well I think I think that unit number 25 is on Roodale which is to the east of the campus I think that's the first SRO in in the TWU vicinity if I can seek some clarification and perhaps have a conversation with yourselves regarding multifamily development standards and then honing in or doing a deeper dive into understanding the proximity to our universities number one and then the associated historic districts that we have potential future historic districts that we have and perhaps then looking at those categories and redefining or fine-tuning and I'm posing these questions because I think they will come up through conversation is how do we address then the integrity of our historic districts or establish really well-established neighborhoods to prevent a domino effect in the future without looking at a definition of collegiate housing we can fine-tune those standards but I wanted to bring that into the forefront as well so that we can assess and analyze through then do we still look at for instance the dr2s and the DCG districts as we have which are surrounding these areas and perhaps using the specific use parameter in that essence or in that sense without specifying or creating an independent definition then so that we can analyze through the SUP not just the form in what you're speaking because architecturally we can do wonders with the development but the envelope looking at the parcels in the area and ensuring that it indeed works so that applicants do not come forward we have less variances or requests for deviation from the parking requirements through ADPs and actually have a semblance of a full compliance with the ordinance completely so I just wanted to pose that question as well to see if that would be an opportunity that we could bring forward as we start analyzing the research associated with this. Councilmember Briggs. Would a separate definition help help in planning in codes for you? So what the planning division is charged with is land use and so when we look at the multifamily definition as we did the research and benchmarking in most communities it's comprehensive it is inclusive of collegiate housing. Enforcement is key and in order to be able you know anybody can come in and say I am going to do a collegiate housing program and the intent of the standards that we've proposed again this is just a framework they're not that we don't have specificity to the standards that we presented then the question is how do you enforce how would we as a city enforce single room occupancy. The intent was through collegiate housing and the SUP and adopting or approving a floor plan for example with that you would have that restriction there. Could someone then turn around and say I don't want to do this anymore and so I'm going to go back and rem odify or retrofit my complex? Absolutely. Yet could someone do that without a permit? Again it becomes an enforcement issue so if there is collegiate housing if we do have that definition we cannot or you we wouldn't be able to enforce that but we would be able to enforce are the siding the massing the hardscape the landscape and if we don't use that definition what we can do is use the multifamily definition but insert the SUP and this is purely just a recommendation or a thought process as we're talking is to insert the specific use requirement because the specific use permit enables you to do a more intensive look or analysis of that envelope that is being proposed for development and its compatibility with the surrounding built-out environment especially in your core areas such as that we've identified that follow under the DCG or the DR2 districts so it would just be a subset off but not completely defined as collegiate housing. Now do other communities do it? Yes but to specify how we 've defined it how we've recommended it as a definition that is an option too it's definitely a feasible opportunity but then fine-tuning the multifamily development standards and creating that subset for specific use permits could enable that however we also have to then think about and I'm sorry I'm taking up so much time but we also have to think about the zoning pattern the existing zoning pattern within the city in and around the university areas as well because if we do permit them by right such as an existing development an existing proposal or application then there's nothing that can occur through that it would just be a development that's permitted by right yet if there was an SUP attached that additional down use analysis could occur as part of that program. Councilmember Gary. I think I was gonna put in a different way exactly what Manal had just mentioned which is that an SUP is only as strong as the underlying code that it's required to comply with so talking about SUP now I think would be putting the cart a little bit head of the horse just in my mind because we really do need to get into the code part of it. Specifically I had one question regarding massing is there a requirement now in our code that for instance if you are abutted next to a one-family unit that you cannot build for extra stories I'm assuming that exists already. Correct . So we do have some type of differentiation between what the scale is. Correct. Okay. Yes. Abutting property so abutting the property there's a slow proximity that has to be set back so it doesn't overburden say the single family but as Manal was mentioning. We had a quick follow-up Council member Gregory did you? Right so I suppose the staff is providing a lot of great information but I'm not sure that we're gonna they're gonna know what to do next unless we've identified a problem that we want to have solved. So what you're saying is what direction are we needing to give staff? You know what's what and it comes back to Councilmember Roden's question of what problem are we going to solve and and if it's if it's height and parking I mean are those really the problems or are is the problem that you're wanting to? Okay. May if I can chime in just real quick I want to just clarify a few things in the DCG DCN and DR2 zoning district a specific use permit is not required for multi-family so just so you can clarify that and also again as we mentioned earlier parking as it is reviewed for multi-family we would do the same thing for these type of developments it would follow that same unless we differentiate the different two types of developments moving forward. Yeah so I guess we need to begin to try to coalesce a direction from this conversation to staff. I think we I think what I'm hearing from everyone is we want to continue the discussion to delve deeper into what are the distinctions and are there some issues that we cannot resolve with modifying the current code that we do need a separate code for it because if it's traffic if it's a TIA requirement if it's if it's a height we already got some height standards in there right and we've already talked about the parking obviously parking I mean sometimes city code doesn't allow enough parking for it or you go into pervious pavers or per vious which anyway so I I'm okay with what I'd like to do is to see not the ones that have been converted okay not the ones that but the ones that have come online that we've had to vote for this council either this council or council prior years in the last three or four years which ones which ones have come online what was required for them to be able to get their permit in other words did they have a zoning request did they have a variance did they do an AD P because I want to see what process do they really have to go through because if it gets pretty onerous in general I mean if they're if everybody's wanting a variance from the parking requirement that has to go to PNC and I believe that has to come to council as well is that is that correct or is that only in an ADP just ADP goes to PNC okay and then you know something we may look at that to say well is that something depending on the parameters so I'd like to identify and and if we need to focus on these in your district that's great because those two have been the ones I think that have really precipitated the ones on Fry Street I mean on Hickory and then the one currently on the scripture that big which yeah and I guess I also trust the people on PNC whether they're the ones there now or the ones in the future and the people on council that as neighborhoods come and protest and provide their input because I think that's what happened with the one on Hickory Street as PNC denied that I believe and I believe it was a six to one or five to one vote or something like that I'm sorry council member Bosney go ahead and can we also include the historic preservation districts that are either existing or soon to be soon to be identified because I understand that there's one that is coming soon because that would also be something in the language that could protect neighborhoods so do you have direction then any more clarification I want to thank you for an excellent presentation and it makes us think and sharpen our pencils and work harder so appreciate that and look forward to you bringing back another discussion one fault yes council member Reid's did you mention there are other cities that have the specific definitions or separation of this there are a few communities or cities that do have a specific definition some have it as collegiate housing especially those that have universities around their area however we have to then in my humble opinion be very careful what this definition is because you one enforcement is key how do you enforce and two you have to make sure there's no discriminatory aspect associated with the definition as well any other questions so you feel like I tell you what repeat what you believe the direction is of the council real quickly I just want to make sure so when when we all leave that we're not yes infused no we are gonna look at finding those key difference between multifamily and collegiate housing and see if we can address them separately if we can't then obviously a proposed recommendation is not warranted but if we identify say a parking issue or a height issue or a you know building you know compatibility those are the things that we're going to be focusing on in addition to that look at some additional data that backs some of the reasons why we're addressing parking such as any you know parking counts or other you know related issues that we can find data to support our recommendations and then this and that historic yeah preservation neighborhoods existing and on their way right thank you yes councilman I think on that point I don't want us to get confused I mean the two historic districts the area we're talking about is not contained in either one of them both of them had the unique opportunity of drawing boundaries and putting regulations that no other neighborhood has so I think we need to be clear when we define this as part of those neighborhoods it's neither by jurors not neither by the law neither by the boundaries that they drew or even arguably by character in terms of this unique fresh I used to live there I lived on Fry Street I was not part of the historic neighborhoods they didn't consider me part of it so I think we got to be careful of surely I think any either of those have the ability to draw re attempt to redraw their lines if they want to include this area as a part of their historic district and they can go through the process but I don't know that they have any jurisdiction as it relates to the regulations they have on their district in the Fry Street area it has its own overlay there's a new historic district that is being proposed that would encompass scripture and normal in that area so when we talk about a historic district that may be coming soon but I think it needs to be part of this conversation sure and just one last comment as we move forward just want to inform the council that we have a small area plan that we're working on for this area that may provide some input as we move forward that that can address some of the concerns that was raised in this specific area I'm really happy to hear that I'm a proponent of the small area plans in our city so thank you okay any other questions and the the the analysis of the historic district that's not just for collegiate but that would be multifamily in general okay just want to make sure because I think that's important yes okay all right thank you we're gonna move with Council's indulgence we're gonna move item agenda item 3d as our next agenda item to accommodate some time constraints so we will call agenda I do y'all want to take a break or you want to keep moving let's take keep moving all right yeah we took a little bit longer on that one as important discussion though all right so agenda item 3d receive report and hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the development of the city's website thank you mayor Allison Rammar administrative services manager will be addressing this item thank you I am excited to present to the council this afternoon progress that we've made on the development of the city's new website and to show you some of the design templates that we've been working on we presented this information to the council committee on citizen engagement last week and based on their feedback and direction are here to share the same with you today you may recall that the council allocated funding last budget year last October for a new city website and in April of this year we awarded a contract to imagine UID which is a digital marketing firm out of Dallas and I would like to take a moment to introduce Tim Langford and Catherine Demartini our team from imagine UID and they can answer any questions you have today about the creative direction for the site so before we get to the fun stuff I wanted to go through a little bit of the background on how we got here when we were allocated the funding for a new website the public communications department started to do some research and analysis on what we wanted in a new website and so we did both internal and external surveys really focused on usability and what our users both our staff and departments and our citizens thought were strengths of the new site or strengths of the existing site weaknesses and opportunities to address those in a new site we met individually with all of our heaviest apartment users to talk about what their goals were for the new site and how we could help them in their workflow and help them communicate to their specific audiences and in those interviews we did a SWOT analysis so we looked at strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats in not just their website but sort of their online presence as a whole then we also looked at analytics so we looked at where users were coming from and what pages they were going to how people were using the site and ways that we could approve based on sort of the larger the larger audience and then when imagine duty came on board they did their own set of research so they did also an external survey and they did man on the street interviews and they were looking at both those usability issues and the functionality of the site but then also for some citizen input on the creative direction and the findings that we identified out of all that research or one that information on the current site as you probably will know is sometimes difficult to find that's because it is abundant there's a lot of information and so sometimes that 's overwhelming for the layperson the way it's organized can sometimes be confusing and then sometimes because we have so many departments updating information there can be redundancies on the site so you might find for example information on water conservation coming from water utilities and sustainability overall our users and our staff rated that as a poor mobile experience and the current site does have what's called responsive design so if you take the desktop view it does scale down to a mobile device but the navigation becomes pretty tricky and you lose some content particularly photos and video and things like that and the design as it is doesn't represent the identity of the community we identified missed opportunities to tell Denton story and engage our residents and then both internally and externally there is demand for different technology to improve workflow and provide better service so we based on that research and analysis determine two primary goals for the website one was to serve as the primary source for city of Denton information as a centralized user-friendly online communications hub and to us what that meant is it would be a 24/7 online platform that's full service so even if we're not providing the transactions on the site if we're using a third-party application those are easy to access from the hub which is the city's website we want to share stories engaging conversations through the integration of engaging and interactive content we want to achieve a more intuitive site navigation and architecture and ensure accessibility and consistency of experience for all users and platforms and on the accessibility we're talking about two things one is accessibility for different users and so that means meeting ADA requirements that means the content that we post is read by you know able to read by a screen reader but it also means the mobile experience is accessible is accessible on different devices we'll talk about that more later and then our second goal was to reinforce the values of the organization and the vibrancy of the Dent on community and in the committee on citizen engagement last year when we first started talking about a website we talked about we're talking about a branding initiative and we talked about the difference between branding the community and branding the organization and we talked about this is an opportunity to have the design reflect where those where those values of inner inner overlap so when to talk a little bit about the navigation and site map and this is where really where we address those weaknesses in finding information and information being confusing so the current site you think of it the way that you navigate through is primarily by department and so it's helpful to get to the information you're looking for if you have a general understanding of the way that the organization is set up we have on the new site moved away from that and moved towards a user-oriented navigation scheme and so we have taken all of the content and we have organized it by primary audience and so you don't have to know that mosquito surveillance and control is done by water utilities you just need to know kind of who is the audience for that you should be able to find it we have done a lot of work in the content and reducing the page count the current site has a little under 1,400 pages which is a lot of pages to maintain and we have that down to I think we're still less than 200 pages overall and the way that we did that wasn't by removing content that's important we did a lot of work in combining content eliminating redundant or outdated content and what that allowed us to do is reduce the layers of navigation so if you think about this site now if that left bar navigation that you have to click through sometimes a lot to get to what you're looking for and so sometimes we have as many as eight sometimes nine or ten clicks to get to where you're going on the new site you should get to any information in less than four clicks could you explain why that's important people want to get what they're looking for as fast as they can and so the less that they're having to click here read through and figure out where to click next the faster they get to where they are looking for that was one of the primary complaints of the old side is it's hard to it's hard to get to where I'm trying to get to some of the functionality that we have been working on to have with the news with the new site I mentioned the mobile experience it's really important to us because right now about 30% of our users are accessing the website from a mobile device for that's a phone or a tablet there are a large portion of the community that only has a mobile device so I look and stuff on my phone and if I can't find it I'll go to my desk and look it up some people the only thing they have is their phone or a tablet and so it's important that we get everything that needs to be out there on the mobile device and that it's consistent with what you get on the desktop and social media integration this means compiling of the city's social media feeds but also making content on the website shareable so we're moving from a kind of separate distinct platforms to more of an online presence where we put videos on the website you can share them directly from there a central newsroom and a multimedia library that helps us with the telling our own story part of things it's a place where we can tell important messages but also kind of those good news stories that we want to share and also to be able to highlight the work of DTV our in-house video production team electronic reporting is something that the committee on citizen engagement has been reviewing for quite a while now we had been looking at you may recall a centralized CRM or customer relationship management program and that's program where has both the front end as a citizen I can click in and make a request but also it's some back-end routing so if I as a citizen make a request for a pothole that comes back to the city and we kind of route it and track it electronically and we do not at this time have funding for that full system but we will have on the new website a centralized reporting place so it's easy for a user to figure out how to report an issue they don't have to know which department it is or who specifically to contact they can report that we will have on our end some tracking in place so that we know what types of issues are being reported and what is our response times and we are planning to kind of review that and come back and we may make a request in a future budget cycle to purchase a larger system but that will help us kind of make our business case for that program I'll have a dynamic calendar where we can post events and folks can add those to their own calendar we've been working a lot on search engine optimization one of the things that we looked at when we looked at you know where folks are coming from a lot of people are not going to go into the city's website and search within the site most people come from a search engine themselves so to use the water conservation example I don't go into the website I just Google didn't water conservation and so imagine UD has been helping us with dedicated folks who really understand that and helping us tag content so that it's easily found within or outside of the website maps integration will have a a little bit more design friendly user interface for maps right now we use only the Esri interface with our current site and sometimes that 's a little clunky so we'll have a little bit better option for that then on the back end for staff a content management system that is easy to use but gives them the tools that they want to have this engaging content and help them keep it up to date so one of the things that imagine UD has done with the research that they gathered is put together a creative brief and this really drives the creative direction for the site and the brief was included in whole and your backup but I put a couple of the a couple of paragraphs from there on the screen so that I think that really drives home the message of the brief didn't is a vibrant and growing community with many opportunities no matter what your interest or passion you're free to be whoever you are in a friendly atmosphere with a small-town vibe that's just a short drive away from the big city and this second paragraph is about the way the website conveys that the website should reflect through its online presence the city aims to empower residents by providing accurate and timely information engaging in conversations for creative and forward-thinking solutions and fostering a sense of ownership so residents are compelled to make a difference towards the greater good of Denton that's taken almost you know directly from the city's communications plan and applied to the website which is you know our major communications platform all right so I'm going to show you the homepage design templates but I have some disclaimers before I do one is that they're just conceptual design templates so I won't be able to click through and show the functionality and the second is that based on some feedback from the committee on citizen engagement we made some some modification so I'll kind of talk through those as we go but this is what the new homepage would look like I'm going to talk through some of where some of the features are this yellow banner or this red banner here it is for emergency notification so on a normal day that red banner wouldn't be there but in the event there was an emergency or Denton or we had facility closings or we needed to aggregate information for people an emergency that's available to us to pop up this purple line here is auxiliary navigation and that is all will always be there these are the items that were based on analytics the most frequented pages or the ones that are the most important to the organization so you have pay my bill for utility bill customers apply for jobs with the city report an issue and that's that electronic reporting and stay updated where folks can sign up for e-news notifications departments so while we've organized the content by the primary audience some folks like you all know generally which department you're looking for and so you'd still be able to navigate through by department this opens up a listing of departments with their contact information and it also links off to their content so you can still navigate through the site by departments languages which is where you go for translation and then the search bar here now when we show this to the committee on citizen engagement this bar was a different color it was a yellow color and that the feedback was that it was a little difficult to read and so this is what that looked like first and this is this part right here is the navigation drop-down menu but you can see the white on the yellow is a little harder to read and so we asked for another option which was this purple so this section here is the primary navigation and this is where the bulk of the content is it 's divided into about Denton which is just general information about them residents business government and then a news and events section so you can see this is what the navigation would look like you have it by sections and then as you click through you can see where these sub pages are this area here is the primary spot where we can do our storytelling and engage residents this section is information that will change as things that are seasonal happen or we have different messages that we want to share so for instance when it's we 're really pushing planting trees because of the tree initiative we can share that there this is a place for those images and graphics that we mentioned in the creative brief and I just wanted to touch a bit on the photography we have contracted with the photographer who took your portraits today and the arrangement is that we have some initial photography for the website launch but that he is a Denton photographer and he goes around and takes photos and so we 're able to purchase those as they come so when we have content that we want to fill here we can reach out to him at a set rate and get some photography that's in the style in the creative direction there's a section for featured news and events and these are generated most of the time at the department level but aggregated here you can see that you can scroll through those there is a section to feature video and in this news and event section up here there is a separate page just for DTV so right now all of their video is found basically only on YouTube they'll all be available here to view and share and we have these line drawings here which are another way to highlight those important areas and you'll see that throughout the site as another way to navigate through and then finally this is that social media integration so I talked a little bit about councilman Briggs has a question oh yeah okay all right all right sorry I'm gonna get my scroll back over here talked a little bit about the mobile experience so I wanted to show you what this would look like on a phone but we also have a tablet page view so it's really important that we want to tell our stories and we know some folks are only accessing it for mobile that it's the same experience and so you'll notice that the photographs stay the photographs stay I'm having trouble with this scrolling that all the links stay that you're still able to access everything in a normal size so it's not tiny little links that you have trouble with the news and events features will still scroll through so that you can still see all of those so that's what it will look like in a mobile device I have another slide but you go ahead those are the design templates the next steps well talked about what we've done so far the creative and the technical requirements we have included the site map in your backup and we are in the process of finalizing the content loading the content and so the next steps would be implementation and quality assurance and right now our estimated launch date is December 6th so I just wanted to say I asked for this to come back to full council I we saw this in community when the engagement citizens sorry yes that one and I'm really happy with the data and the content and all that's fantastic I just I had an issue with the coloring I wasn't sure when I saw it if I could relate it back to the city of Denton there's the red white blue the flags it's on our cars it's on our cards it's on our clothes I didn't necessarily see that on here so I just wanted to bring that to the attention and see I mean if we're going to go through a rebranding I did read in the creative brief that it's an opportunity for the city to redevelop their presence and establish their brand online so I'm just kind of wondering where we're going to go from here some of the colors seem really trendy and popular but not necessarily relatable so that's just kind of where I where I wanted to well this is my first time discussing this the plan so if we've already talked about this I apologize for kind of we have okay Councilman what I'm kidding go ahead so funny joking aside I have two content questions or suggestions however I want to phrase it one has to do with the content that's available and for the City Council members so specifically I want to know if we'll be able to upload information about our our campaign finance reports our conflict of interest reports etc I know a lot of cities as soon as you click on that person all it all comes up and you can just look into all of it the second question was regarding which will have a discussion about this later the message boards if that is something that the City Council wants to do how well could it be integrated given that we 're gonna have a December 6th launch date sure both of those are great questions in this government section on the on the content for City Council we absolutely can can load that there's a couple different places you'll have a City Council section where you have your information about you but then also you know agendas and minutes and how to find information that has to do with the City Council and so that could be included there we'll also have an open government section under this government section and that includes financial transparency open data open records requests that also could be included there and the the second question was about oh the message board I think also in that City Council area so I guess my question is well does it just require us to direct you to place that information on there or is it some what's the process we can include that in the content that were just for me asking it can't be right I think in all of that information is public record and so we can figure out a way to post that yes so I think it all needs to be really consistent and this is the old school teacher coming out we're at the top pay my bill apply for jobs report an issue if you could put up what is shown with the mobile the first two are pay my bill report an issue so whatever we have across the top let's see scroll down a little bit whatever was the okay there's our there's our first page then scroll down or open whatever the first thing that people see when they click on the on the mobile device your navigation will be over here in the right hand and so you have both the primary navigation but then you'll also have that auxiliary navigation here and the pay my bill apply for jobs report an issue stay updated departments and languages that was put in order because of the count of clicks that came in and you decided what was what people were coming to the site primarily for yeah that would be my only recommendation to make sure that the mobile is totally compatible and the same as as the other one thank you I definitely like how you can navigate through things I mean I have the our current website up right now and it is very busy there's a lot going on maybe I'm just used to it now but the only thing I'm struggling with and I think Keely kind of touched on it is if we are going to go through a rebranding maybe this is what our new rebranding is going to look like but I the colors don't really feel doesn't feel like Denton or maybe I'm maybe it's just different and I this the first time seeing it for me I think that's the only thing I'm struggling with some of those colors and the font that sort of thing I wondered if there could be a little bit of the old-school blended in with the new but I don't know where we are on rebranding or I don't know go ahead Kevin maybe you can tell me yeah yeah well but I love I love it how it looks and how easy it is to use I think that that would be a small thing just to touch on the branding question because I think that's a really it's a really good and important question it's something that we have kind of been wrestling with for the past few years we have a citywide communications plan and one of the action steps in that is to go through a branding initiative because as it stands right now the city doesn't have brand standards or brand guideline or anything other than we have a logo and we have probably 20 or so mark program markers department markers underneath that and there isn't any consistency when you think about the library's marker or parks and recreation the colors the font the feel of those is really all across the board and so every time that we have a big project like this it's something that we struggle with and we feel like every time we're sort of having to having to reinvent reinvent the wheel and figure out what that look is we did request the past two years funding for a branding initiative to develop that brand identity and guidelines just because of the priorities at the time those weren't recommended for funding so we did include that's why we included an imaginative these con contracts the provisions for the Reese the research to kind of start that process of developing a brand identity Tim could you come and talk about the kind of how you got here to these colors so we did a lot of man on the street interviews and what we found it very quickly and Alison touched on earlier is didn't is a very vibrant energetic city and the residents the business owners the employees are very much that same way so we felt we had a good opportunity to kind of get away from the red wine blue we know they're going to go through a rebrand at some point and we felt it was a good opportunity from a visual standpoint that we could better reflect the city through more saturated colors there's some of the textures and patterns that you see behind some of these colors in addition this website even though we have pared it down from 1400 pages about 200 pages that is still a big website and one good way to help navigation is through visual cues and one of those is color so if you can imagine a 200 page website primarily red white and blue it's easier to get a little bit lost you know we do have navigation we do have bread crumbs that makes it easier but if some sections are color- coded towards either their topic or their sections itself it becomes a little bit easier to navigate the site so kind of those two things we thought just visually better reflected the vibrancy of Denton and then also from a usability standpoint it just it makes it a little bit easier to navigate what is your name Tim Tim Lankford good to have you and you were the guy who helped out with you're with the imaginary imaginary right yeah I'm the executive pre-director so I run the team but I will say the main art director his name is Daniel Murphy and he's on North Texas grad so we're happy to have him on board for this project well thanks a couple of general comments this was a initiative that council asked the staff to take about two years ago or a year and a half ago is that correct and and and our charge to you was was to come up with a new web page that was easier to navigate and that was more user-friendly for iPads and smartphones is that correct looks like you did it thank you I think it's it's successful maybe it's because of my age or maybe it's because of my gender but I have I don't understand all the things about color I'm a little bit nervous about trying to get to cutting edge with color because I remember when harvest gold and avocado green coming back we 're all the rage and and it and it quickly got dated and what I would hate to do is get some type of a color scheme that's so cool like like in the 80s when it was more than pewter you don't even remember those that's out so change your ties so I don't I don't want to get a color scheme that's so cutting edge that it becomes dated very quickly I mean I was looking at those and thinking I thought that was blue I didn't even know that was purple but but but red purple and black being those three top colors that's our didn't high school Ryan high school and Geier high school so I'm cool with it but but I think that you guys have done a great job and I would not want this the rollout of this new web page to be delayed while we think about branding a question about branding when we talk about branding are we simply mainly talking about changing the logo or are we talking about something else we're talking about something else we're talking about the logos included in that but the logo is just a visual representation of what didn't brand is and so we're talking about really distilling what didn't brand identity is and the standards and the guidelines behind that and some unification of that within the organization but then also there's opportunities within the community to do that as well to sort of speak with one voice one tone one visual voice also one voice you're gonna have to explain that please yeah so you know branding is more than visual it is it's basically creating a consistent mission statement that everyone can get behind that this is Denton right now this is Denton 20 years from now this is Denton 30 years from now so everybody is in alignment as much as can possibly be about about the city what the city represents what the city stands for and then along with that you know visually consistency as well now getting back to verbal as well as possibly a new tagline and tagline can is a great very concise way to sum up the spirit of a city or the division of a city so that's kind of all those things there's a lot of tangible and intangible that make up a brand but the obviously the most noticeable and people think okay the logo so logo tagline those are the most kind of tangible but there's a lot of intangibles as well so tagline would be something like we're not that bad but we're gonna try to get better I think that was probably already taken I think the branding question is a good discussion in fact I had it on my budget recommendations at least one year in the last couple years and it came up for me in the context of both when we're talking about website the first time we talked about it and two when we were talking about our wayf inding signs for around town which I thought man if we're gonna rebrand now 's a good time to do it especially if it involves a logo because you're gonna post all these things around town and I think the example I gave although it's bad to give this example in Denton is Frisco you go through Frisco and everything's got their logo it's got this unique identity and stuff like that and it exudes a certain feel that you have when you're in that city so I too don't want to get caught up on design or color scheme because I I know a little bit about web design but changing a color isn't that big of a deal it's not that big so so the thought the big hurdle we've crossed isn't getting a much more user -friendly citizen-focused experience to be able to find information they need it's agnostic to colors it's agnostic to really design I mean if in two years we bit the bullet and council said let's invest in that I'm sure we can go back and say I'm sure with another contract let's overlay now with our new branding on top of this but still preserve what's the guts of this so I'm no expert on design I don't maybe some of you guys are I certainly don't want the council to design a website by committee I think something like I can't read it that's good feedback or it blinds my eyes when it comes up Dalton that's good feedback but I think I don't like this color that color change this I think let's launch this thing it's gonna be great for our citizens and if we need to kind of tweak things over a lot I think they're hearing the feedback my suggestion is that stuff can be iterated upon post launch so if I can get just a really quick example we rebuilt the city of Arlington website a couple years ago and they're actually going through a rebranding process in parallel to the website so we launched the website actually prior to the rebrand and knowing that ahead of time we built in the same way we built this website that the colors could change the typeface if it needs to can change and when they rerolled or rolled the new brand out literally in the matter of a day we were able to switch the colors switch the typeface it's all built in some content measurements so it's really easy to do so I don't want you to look at this and say you know what we're stuck with blue for you know how long it's yeah it's built to to be editable really easily yeah I think job well done the key was our website was hard to use was hard to navigate and you've solved that just eliminating the number of pages and to get from a to be so much easier so congratulations with that then to convert it so that it was easily usable on mobile devices that was key because we all live with that all the time and and often exclusively so job well done I have worked with graphic artists in the ad business so you know you guys are experts in your field so I'm never gonna argue with you on color and design I may argue with you on content but you have made the content easy to find easy to use and that's key to our citizens so thank you thank you councilmember Hawkins no it is a job well done I hope it doesn't sound like I'm being negative no just when if you like I think I always think about like my parents how they would react to this so one day they have this website and then the next day they have that one that's her I was just concerned that they might think some something they went to the wrong website or something so that that's the only reason why that transition of just color and I don't I am NOT a design artist either but I was just saying how I how it makes you feel your initial you're used to this and this sir this is too busy there's too much that's rocks it's easy and all that but I'm just saying that that transition from day to day right when somebody isn't as computer savvy maybe as somebody else right they might not think they're at the right website or something that's all I was saying yeah that's not being super critical so totally understandable you know one things we wanted to do was you know city of Denton large in the navigation area now what we've done with other cities in the past we've done a lot of city websites is it always is a kind of a big leap right so you have to take the plunge at some point and you can't just do like a gradual change it has to basically turn the click and that 's that so what we've done in the past with these large hero areas we call them heroes is for the first week or so you know welcome to the new city of Denton website and just do a really quick two or three phrase this is what to expect this is why we did it so you can kind of set it up so you can build in such a way that if they come and it could be for 30 days that's really not up for us to say but it's up in for an amount of time that when folks visit the website they see this is a brand new city went you know didn't website you're in the right place question so that red banner isn't always going to be there that's correct only so when we go to the website we just see purple and turquoise and brown and and that's fine and I'm not getting into the colors again I'm just talking about branding consistency it's really important to be consistent with our and our logo isn't up here that the red that we have the blue that we have is not anywhere on here and it we're not going to go and change or rebrand for another couple of years right and so I'm just trying to get a little bit of the old with the new not necessarily all brand new or all old like I love this but I'm just trying to get something that's consistent with where we are right now yeah that's absolutely that's that's the only reason I brought this up and it seems like everyone else's is okay with it that's fine but I just wanted to let you know where I was coming from yeah but I appreciate all of this and all the work any other questions I'm just got I'm pulling I'm I hear what you're saying I'm glad we're getting a new website if it doesn't it if it's totally different than the other one so be it because first of all I can't get around on it half the time but I don't know enough to do that and I think this is a little softer I mean I'm pulled ours up right now so I think people are gonna be if they think they've gone to the wrong website I think they'll figure it out pretty quick and I guess I don't know enough about design branding and all those kind of things I just want something that'll work that is pleasing to the eye and when I see the city of Denton sitting right there I realize I met the city of Denton website so what I'm hearing is the consensus is we've had some input about you know maybe some things to fine-t une but it's to move forward with this without a whole lot of major modifications to what you've presented is that what I'm hearing okay any other presentation or questions or comments all right thank you fantastic thank you all very much thank you you bet for all your work absolutely okay we're gonna go on now go back to our normal order of agenda item B which is well I'm gonna call it and then we're going to talk about it just for say receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the procurement of substation construction services that has been pulled which is going to be a presentation in the council chamber so I don't want to have the same presentation in here that we're gonna have out in the council chambers so if we're gonna have a presentation to the public we can have it out there I don't want to spend a whole lot of time in work session going over something that we're just gonna go over out in the in the in the public meeting as well what what are you saying it's pulled tonight yes what's been pulled for an item of individual consideration yes I agree so I mean I think we can get through it is council okay with that just moving that discussion to the to the pulled consent agenda item okay yes councilman yes okay sure when I don't mind doing that it's just what what level of presentation are you gonna want out in the 630 meeting that's that's the question okay well this was item a correct yes well I pulled it because it's a 17 million dollars 17.6 million dollar expense and I didn 't think it should be on the consent agenda and I wanted it to be in the public I don't know how I'm gonna vote on it I didn't even realize that there was a work session item on that item when I pulled it okay so so any other comments I mean council what council may protein well I think the reason it's on the work session item was because an understanding that it was a significant expenditure to church so that we would be able to have the time to discuss it to vet it to beyond just being a consent agenda item so I thought that was the intent of having his work session so it really is a matter of what you're hoping to do out there tonight in terms of is it okay to have the presentation now or would you rather have it tonight do you want the full presentation out in the 630 meeting instead of here I can always vote no tonight if if on the consent agenda if I don't agree with it well no we're pulling no we're unless you withdraw you're pulling it off the consent agenda it will be an item for individual consideration unless you withdraw that so we're going to be considering it individually so do you you want us to go ahead and go through this work session or go ahead and present all the information we'd hear here right now out in the public I'm indifferent yes councilmember Gary I like it out at the regular meeting I mean I think that's the better way to do it but that's just my take on things okay because if it's already pulled off consent agenda then we'll get it anyway all right let's do that and we'll just you know staff knows that efficiency and the communication of salient facts is very important tonight all right so then we're gonna we're gonna move past agenda item 3b and that presentation will occur out in at the 630 regular council meeting somebody be sure and remind me of that I'll probably forget agenda item C receive report and hold discussion regarding the city of Denton code of ordin ances section 263 relating to board and Commission members thank you mayor our city attorney Anita Burgess will be handling this particular item it's it's I think it's blue but it looks a little purple up there doesn't it so good afternoon mayor and council members and mr. interim city manager thank you for the opportunity to visit with you for just a few minutes this afternoon with regard to an issue that a council member asked we brief concerning our boards and commissions and that issue inquired about relates to section 2 - 63 of the city of Denton code of ordinances having to do with when a board our commission member may be removed and you can see that this particular provision came into our code of ordinances in 1966 so it has been residents in our code for quite some time and what it says is that should a board or commission member cease to meet the qualifications prescribed in an earlier section that is that the person has to be a qualified voter of the city or yet another section 2 - 62 relating to a conflict of interest or should a person be convicted of a felony during his or her term of office then those three instances may be a matter for cause for removal of that board member or commission member so again if the person is no longer a qualified voter they fail to recuse upon a conflict of interest or they're convicted of a felony that's what is written into our code as far as cause for removal of a board or commission member yes go ahead so attendance isn't one of those in some instances there is a different provision this is what is in our code of ordin ances I think there is a different provision and our resolution but as far as removal this is what's written into our code thank you would you have some attendance yes and this applies to the two-year term that they would be appointed sometime in that two-year term that would be correct we have our boards and commissioners commission members predominantly serve up to three two-year terms so this would relate to removal during a term of office during that two- year term madam city attorney yes sir it's my understanding and I understand I read the back of the presentation but I thought the genesis of this conversation or this presentation was we had a conversation in council that when a new council member is seated that they for better lack of a word inherit the appointments made by the the preceding council member to the boards and commissions and so the discussion was is there an appetite on council to say if a good council member comes in that they can have the opportunity to appoint new members to the board to the boards and commissions but we don't have a mechanism whereby that can occur and and these are the only reasons that I think that's what you're describing is that correct correct there 's different lines of legal thought with regard to when a listing of reasons is made in an ordinance most municipal lawyers I think will look at that as being the exclusive reasons a person could be removed and some other reason would not be applicable and so as we look at this the the circumstance that you describe mayor would be one that we could address with a very minor tweak right in our ordinances if you desire to do that yeah you're saying we couldn't do it based upon the current ordinance correct it would require us to have some discussion as we're having today to see if there's a if there's some there's an appetite for the council to to move in that direction yes sir that would be my take on this council member I would like to move in that direction okay because mayor protein you know these aren't political bodies these are folks who a lot of us sometimes have a hard time finding people willing to serve for a couple years on them it's library boards it's park boards it's doing kind of the great work of citizen volunteers really in the shadows and and just volunteering to come once a month in most cases I mean I would encourage my councilman it'd be one thing if these folks were just guiding policy down and and and we're worried that somebody's kind of taking the city in the wrong direction or something like that and we've got this new direction in there they're gonna help us drive that as if we're a president appointing our cabinet or something like that which but it really is we're bringing volunteers to the table and my fear is just because of a change of election somebody's been drawn into the process might not have even been a great supporter of that particular person in a lot of cases it's we're looking through applications we're attempting to find who fits the qualifications in some cases it's a gal who hits me up in between this meeting and the next I had an opening she hit me up and I gave her a quick little interview and just her persistence paid off I didn't know her she wasn't any contributor of mine or anything and for somebody who takes my spot when I leave council or if I got voted off council that that person now becomes collateral damage I think creates this very political nature on our boards and Commission something we would probably do best to keep away from so my suggestion is unless there 's a problem that we're trying to solve I just assume keep it the way it is out of respect for the folks who have raised her hand now when their term comes up and they might not be done with their full three terms or something like that entirely appropriate and we've saw that happen this time it happens in other times I'm for that sort of a move as necessary but to do it midterm I think just sends the wrong message to volunteers okay anybody else yes customer Hawkins when I first got on the council mayor burrows you know I was asking him how do you appoint somebody to get rid of try to get rid of all your boards and commissions appointees and that sort of thing and he said even if you have maybe you don't align with all their views if they attend meetings well and they come to the meetings prepared and they're not disruptive there's this kind of unwritten law or ordinance or something that you leave them on there they're serving our community well they're they're attending the meetings they 're coming they're prepared and I've really tried to live that through when I 've been on council so I would like to just leave it as is if attendance is an issue I would possibly be okay with writing that in there I don't know at what level you put that in but I would be real careful about that one too if if somebody's been doing a good job of possibly just got sick or something like that it just makes me a little hesitant we have had a few instances since I have been the city attorney where a board or commission member was absent on numerous occasions in the past we have really always handled that informally with a conversation with the person and then typically the person will see that their attendance is needed and required and we'll go ahead and resign and then that person will be another appointment will be made by the council so in the past we have never had to take any action because of attendance it 's always been a voluntary workout. Councilmember McGarry then Councilmember Wasney. I like the idea of the board nominations being at the same time as the council member is sworn in just for uniformity I agree with mayor for a time that we don't want to politicize this I don't really see that as a political move I just see it as having some type of you know you get on council these are all of your appointments done with that as opposed to keeping up every year and changing it if you need to I think that at will provision would take care of that because then council members who don't want to change don't have to change their their appointments and then people who do have the option so that's that's my I mean I'm not getting heartburn about it either way but that's my approach. Councilmember Wasney. I like adding a provision about attendance I think that's important because you either are there or you're not and you're not going to be effective and impactful I think the at will of each independent council members so if you are happy with whoever the appointment is in that seat you can keep it if you do want to change it when you get elected you have that opportunity the voters have spoken when they elect a councilperson and so let me also point out and add this to your thinking with regard to our boards and commissions we use an individual nomination process but these appointments are made by the entire council. Contrarily with the council committees those appointments as we've looked at in recent days and weeks are really the mayor's appointments that are affirmed by the council so there's a fundamental difference in that process so if we add an at will of the council certainly whoever's nomination that is can nominate but it would still be up to the council to make that change on that particular board or commission. Sure. Anybody else? Yeah I you know attendance I don't have a problem with either one of those I think attendance though you'll need to build in some kind of provisions that provide for extenuating circumstances you just don't want sort of a strict liability approach that says if you 're gone 20% of the time you're off because there's obviously circumstances and the at will of the council I don't I don't think it politicizes it too much but this is a political this is politics I mean it is politics we get elected we run we run on platforms we run on on visions for the city and sometimes those may be in contradiction to you know important people who sit on important boards and commission seats so if it's a most of the time like you said it's sometimes difficult to get people to step up and so a council member if they are doing a good job I'm not gonna want to change them simply because then we've got to go out and try to find people who will serve in that capacity so I don't I don't have it either way I would rather err on the side of more flexibility lying with the council member the new council member who comes in because you just never know what kind of circumstance or a series of appointments they're going to come in on and again it is with the approval of the entire council so that that would make it different I mean you don't see that happen very often in fact I think I haven't seen it personally happen any but I understand it has so I I could go either way but if I had to say I would lean more towards the ability at least the flexibility to do that yes mayor Pro Tem can I make a suggestion get take it or leave it you know as we think through the the different boards and commissions again I think a library board is an example I mean I can't imagine somebody coming in and being like no this person expresses my desire on library issues and I've got to get them into that seat I mean again that would be odd perhaps somebody's running on that sort of a platform and it's that sort of minutiae but what if we were to restrict this to certain types of I mean obviously P&Z is one in which we all probably feel like it's an important enough board they're voting on things it's jurisdictional in nature in some cases they're the final jurisdiction that that would make sense I might want to have someone with more in the line to my philosophy than some of the others now if other people think there's another board that raises to that level that they're concerned about but again I think I think we do better as a community to the extent that we build in some history and some folks with time to serve on these sorts of things and if they're getting yanked out because we're we're spread out all over the place in terms of us and we're pulling people in and out based on what we think's our alignment to that I just think we're not gonna be served well as a city that way so just my just a thought about compromising it a bit yeah and I think that's a I think that's a good suggestion because what you 're saying is there are boards and commissions and Madam City Attorney helped me understand help me with the language that are legislative in nature that they tip they do have legislative powers and then there's some that are it don't we have a distinction between those we we can consider in closed session appointments and those that we can't there are some of our boards and commissions that have officer of the city status and that would include our planning and zoning Commission our zoning Board of Adjustment our historic Land mark Commission and a couple of others I'm NCBA public utility board is that yes that would be one as well okay all right and and I might could I might would like to maybe use that as an interval step instead of you know because I think those are the many of those that were listed are the ones that I think people would have an interest because of their policy recommending recommendation nature but so whatever yes customer Gary well I've served on two three different boards I served on human Human Services Advisory Committee the smoking ad hoc committee zoning Board of Adjustment I would just say that to the extent we can get people on those boards and I do appreciate the historical nature but it's really helpful to introduce people to how the city government works and so I'm I mean I'm not really compelled by the idea that somebody should be on a board for four or six years just because they want to I like the idea of new people learning about how our government works and getting engaged that way so let's just let's I'll just leave that there any other maybe Councilman pro tem has but it seems like we've had some some discussion about the attendance which I haven't heard a whole lot of objections to that trying to work through an ordinance that the council can agree to but as far as mayor pro tem suggestion of are there certain boards and commissions that we may want to try and implement the at will because of their sort of legislative nature I'm okay with that Councilman was he seems to be okay with that anybody else mayor put him are you okay with that because you made the suggestion okay all right so just for clarification for us at will so and if it's for a legislative board my nominee on planning and zoning votes in a way that I disapprove of on an issue then it would be by our rules I don't need to wait until the next round of nominations come I can come to the next meeting and say I want to nominate a new person for for my position to planning and zoning is that what you're saying there is that that's not that's not I don't think that's what we're saying what what we're talking about because I don't know and that's a good point that you brought up so you get elected and you want to make a change on one of these boards or commissions one of the things that we'd have to include would be because you get elected and then the boards and commissions kind of follow suit within what six seven weeks of being elected it's kind of one and then the other so I think the time constraint is right there I don't think we're talking about making a switch up in November or January or or something it would be after your election and the next the next board or commission appointment season that's when you would have the choice to either keep whoever was in your appointed seat or make a change at that time mid-year okay that that helps except we're not appointing remember we're just nominating right right but it's not it's not it's not just kind of a willy-nilly pull out of the calendar hey I'm going to change my appointment it's it's election and then we kind of go into that appointment season and that's the time should we put that in the ordinance so that it's very specific I think we should I think we we don't want to leave this to chance I think what I am hearing thus far then is that we would retain the cause provisions we have at an attendance item as a cause provision and then we would add a provision that would allow council members to make a change on the officer of the city status boards and commissions during the regular appointment process and I think that would be annually yes yeah we previously talked about having these terms just being a year long anyway I mean am I confusing that we know we did but I really don 't have a I don't have a desire to make them a year long because then you're I mean okay yeah because I think the practice will be most people will not exercise that right it's just it I think I don't think it's gonna be something that everybody's just gonna say everybody that was on before you're out sort of like a new administration coming in you're all gone putting in new people I mean that may happen but that's just me I don't know what my colleagues think about that yet something to consider with the attendance would also have some kind of legal description so it could come back to council kind of as an at will because that may solve the problem because if somebody's spouse is seriously ill or they get sick or in a car accident or one of a hundred different reasons we can't list all of those things in an ordinance but we could have as an at will with council then it could be a discussion among the council members of well attendance has been marginal but here are the circumstances surrounding that absence issue and so that way we're not having to have a whole checklist of criteria regarding absence would that be a user-friendly way so it's good for our volunteers certainly we can we can look at that typically we look at absences as either excused or unexcused unexcused absences being the person just doesn't show up excused absences being some sort of medical condition of the person or their family or whatnot attending a funeral or even some kind of urgent business so typically that's how we look at those absences and deem them excused and usually it has to be some sort of notification prior to the absence in addition so on that the absences in attendance are covered in our affirmation of qualifications so that's already covered in right in something so I don't necessarily think we have to put it in here in this specific or not because there is an option or something for us to look at and because we I've had to do that with some of mine okay so so Councilmember Greggie was that as far as the explanation on that so then it sounds like we've moved from we don't need something on admins because it seems like it's somewhere else right correct I'm gonna pull that back up and look at that provision for you and then we'll bring something and then as far as the what we discussed in council members elected they can look at their appointments for this specific group of boards and commissions in midterm if they're newly elected yes well that's that's something else we're talking about newly elected council members but can the council members who appointed them in mid-year do the same thing okay all right well we put that in there if we change it when it comes up for both and we can change it yes customer breaks well I was just looking for clarification so it is newly member newly council members is what we were talking about so the the nomination follows the council person basically so if yes for the two years that's kind of how I should be yes okay yes customer here how does sorry how does this work with PV because that's a four year nomination I mean how will this work the public utilities board is a special provision it's controlled by a special provision in the actually embedded in the Denton City Charter and so it's it's it's a little bit different they do have some budgetary authority but as I look at the charter that appears to me to be the the piece of their responsibilities and duties that carries this officer of the city status the other things that the PV does probably not right well and again it on your charter the council is not going to be able by ordinance to change the charter so we need to look at that as a standalone provision I think so I don't have it in front of me I believe that's right yes yeah I think I do thank you thank you mayor Brian Langley our ACM will be handling this item for us okay good afternoon last but certainly not least online message boards maybe I do want to spend a few minutes with you talking about online message boards and I have a very short presentation for you just a few slides to give you some background on this and then we'll be looking for some direction from the council of do you want more information are you looking to proceed with this technology so just in terms of background the City Council has requested a briefing on online message boards and these are available for communication regarding public purposes as part of the Texas Open Meet ings Act and in 2013 the Open Meetings Act was amended and it was done to do a couple things first create an informal means of electronic communication which had never been done before and two to allow communication regarding public business or public policy and that's very important not just any subject but around public policy and public business I'm going to read through with you just a couple of sections of the code and forgive me as I do this it's a it 's a little bit detailed but I think it's important that you understand what the statute allows and what this can do and what it can't do in terms of communicating with yourselves and with the public so this is in section five five one dot zero zero six of the Texas government code and I've included that entire section in your backup as an exhibit but specifically that section allows a communication or exchange of information between members of a governmental body about public business or public policy over which the governmental body has supervision or control and it does not constitute a meeting meeting or deliberations for person purposes of this chapter if the communication is in writing the writing is posted to an online message board the communication is displayed in real time and displayed on the online message board for no less than 30 days and the governmental body has to keep that posting for a period of six years further it states the online message board may only be used by members of the governmental body or staff members of the governmental body who have received specific authorization so in other words it's primarily a council communication tool but if you wanted to authorize the city manager or the city attorney or whomever to then post to that it'd have to be a specific resolution where you authorize that to be allowed but primarily it's a council tool the governmental body may not vote or take any action on this board it's simply a communications tool it's no final action will be taken there and it's not construed to be an action of the governmental body again this is all stuff right out of the statute so there are a few examples of this around the state these are the ones that we found there may be others that you're aware of I haven't found many of them there's there's just a few that we've been able to find the city of Austin is the largest one by far that we found the other cities that we found are mineral wells Castroville shore acres and Valente I think those are general law cities that are that are out there so a little bit different than the city of Austin the communication again is only between elected officials and select staff if again if specifically authorized by the council so this is not something where citizens can participate in the conversation however citizens or any member of the public they can view that conversation and see that online but it's not a it's not an exchange of information or ideas between lots of different folks it's not Facebook it's a message boards a little bit different it's a restricted message board in terms of who can who can actually access it so just a few things to think about in terms of implementation if this is something that you're looking to do again message boards do not involve any kind of citizen collaboration it may be something that is problematic to you for citizens that don 't have internet or computer access I know we do have the libraries here that provide free internet access and free computer access but that's something to think about in terms of the audience you're trying to reach or what you're trying to do with this tool I put new technology it's new technology in terms of the open meetings act is certainly message boards have been around for years and years but it's new in terms of the open meetings act and in terms of legally kind of what that means that the legal department of my conversations with the city attorney they're analyzing whether something called legislative immunity applies with message boards so as a council member when you're at the da is deliberating issues you have protections because of that legislative function that you're performing in terms of what you can say and what can be held against you potentially legally it's unclear if that's can would translate into a message board but I'll certainly defer the city attorney on that some other questions I put down here for you to consider is will an online message board assist with city council communications again this is primarily about the city council communicating is this something that would be helpful for you to do and is it something that you would find valuable is something you would have to check we could probably have a way where we would send you an email when there was a new posting something you would have to go out and look at is that something that would be helpful for you or not would this augment overall communications with citizens is this something that you think as a body would be helpful in that regard is a question as you look at this technology would there be any restrictions on the types of messages that you would want to have on a board like this as a council would you have any rules that you'd want to have and if so how would you enforce those rules as a body how would that work I know many of you have blogs and social media accounts and so forth are those better avenues to communicate with citizens than a message board or with this augment that that process in some way is maybe a question for you to consider as you think through this or in general are there other communication strategies in context with the message board or other things that we're doing that you would like us to think about and bring back some options for you so that's my presentation I'll be happy to stand for any questions or provide if you can remember it sounds like that according to what's allowed by the state law that father would not be a vote that could take place that in this course of conversation it could be construed to be council members deliberating on an issue that's going to be voted upon am I am I reading this correctly no I believe that's correct you could have positions that are being stated on on the particular matter that's before the council of what a council member believes about that issue or their thoughts about it does our legislature require then that that these deliberations are posted like our regular meetings are posted this sounds like an electronic meeting that's being held well I 'm looking at the city attorney make sure I don't stray too far from this but this is a message board all this would be publicly available information so that the public could see it but it's not construed to be a meeting if they if they know to look or if I as a council member if my colleagues are having a discussion about an issue I may not know that that discussions going on unless I I remember to tune in and to turn it on and to check in otherwise this could be here am I using the wrong terminology okay I don't think I was saying anymore I think I'm straight somewhere where I shouldn't straight I have some concerns because it appears to be that there that this is the opportunity for a meeting to be happening without public notification in fact without even all the council members being notified so you're saying you would you would pass on this I these are concerns that I okay I'm not saying I would pass on it okay I don't know enough about it okay I'm gonna go here and then I'm gonna come over there that's Mary Gary since yeah so I at our newly elected officials class that TML put on this was brought up as a part of the Open Meetings Act training and suggested to us as something that could improve transparency so that's kind of where where this came from in my mind was TML they recommended it because of the ability for for instance if we get a citizen inquiry on a dog catcher for instance rather than us emailing and then going through this whole process we could potentially post something and then be able to share that information kind of like a frequently asked question section I mean you can have a lot more information available you can see what people are asking and as far as the deliberations aspect of it it is an exception of the Open Meetings Act so yes you can be kind of gauging where where the council is at on certain issues I'll say I think that that's better and I actually think it would shorten the length of our work sessions in particular because a lot of the issues that we might want to bring up during work session we could have already had questions answered on the online message board and you can kind of read it really quickly as opposed to sitting here for four or five hours and working through particular issues you can just have it online and as finding it it should be on the city web page I believe in the other instances it's it's supposed to be by law on city web pages so you can find it very easily and then last thing as far as the citizen communication well two things I think it might help with FOIA requests as well because I know we get a lot of FOIA requests here and if we're putting things on the message board it could potentially circumvent or at the very least curtail some of those requests that are being made and really last thing I don't view this necessarily as a way to engage with citizens I view it as a way to give them information if they're so inclined to learn it so there's definitely better tools for actually engaging citizens this is really more to educate about what our process is and kind of pull the curtain back. -Councilmember Hawkins. -I think if this is mainly used to give information I'd be okay with it but if we're deliberating issues and like you said I'm not tuning in at the right time and it already happened or the city managers are being interviewed something like that and I'm out of the country you know I was thinking about missing some important conversations but this is more informative in nature I think I'd be okay with it. -Oh wait, Councilmember Wiley, sorry. I have a concern about walking quorum and having a discussion not in this room or having a discussion not in council chambers government takes place in here government takes place in council chambers this isn't a method to talk to our citizens this is a method for me to talk to one of you and so I have real concerns I think it could be an absolute legal bombshell and I know our meetings are long I know our meetings are long but when things are discussed in open session here or in the council chambers it's televised and they hear everything they don't just get a few snippets of conversation in a message board so I'm not comfortable with this legally I think it really could set us up for some just legal issues again that walking quorum just like we can't talk about issues in a group and not be in here to have a conversation on a message board in my book and I know they've passed this trying to kind of allow for something but it's not a message board where citizens can interact with us it's just a message board that if I want to talk to Joey Hawkins or Dalton Gregory I'm on the message board I could also just pick up the phone so and have a conversation yeah I just and even then with phone conversations you've got to be real careful with the walking quorum so again I come back to government discussions take place in here they take place in council chambers and I think that's where the discussion needs to stay well I just wanted to clarify that this is actually legal so as I understand it it's a law that allows us to not have to do the walking quorum issues we don't have to have the postings I mean the legislature said this is legal so I just want to be really clear that there's it's not unlawful to do this they're saying we want you to do this so that you can improve government transparency and so that government isn't just in a boardroom so that people can get on their phone and look at what's happening with their government so just I mean Madame City Attorney can clarify the legal aspect of it but this is as I understand it a very legal mechanism for us right the legislature created this particular provision really is an exception to an open meetings act violation so it's actually allowed under the law it's a new provision and we have in the city attorney's office even batted around these walking quorum issues although the legislature and allowing this would appear to be saying that council members can speak to one another you can all speak to one another at the same time as long as you meet the criteria of the provision ie it's got to be posted lifetime so citizens can see it and you would be allowed to talk about city business you can do anything but vote so some cities have been doing this but I will say I'm not seeing a headlong rush into implementing these are the handful of cities that have done it Austin and the other communities smaller communities that have done this so it's it's a it's allowable I think the council just needs to consider whether this is something you want to do or something you want to wait for a while and see how any pause this was passed in 2013 from the legislature so it's 2013 yeah years now I think it's a productive communication tool and I'm all for it and we can also ask staff questions right on the message board it's an interesting provision in this law what it provides is that it's set up for just council but if the council desires to allow selected staff to also participate you would have to specifically authorize those staff members to participate in your message board which means you would have to either pass a resolution or an ordinance allowing the staff members to do that I don't think anything short of that would be acceptable under the law I'd certainly want to see that okay thank you very it's very interesting kind of playing around with the city of Austin's one and seeing how they're used it first of all that seems like the vast majority of them are posted by their staff members the council members staff members so is there yeah I was gonna say so it's a different and there's a productivity aspect to it first blush I'll give you an example councilmember pools Grove amendments and it says here's amendments this council member is gonna provide at the council meeting wants to give everyone the benefit of doubt to read them ahead of time first blush it's like this is kind of odd you're kind of expressing that everyone in the public here's what we're doing which can feel like you're kind of trying to stack the deck ahead of the meeting another hand you could say provides the council members with some additional time to review something instead of being surprised at a council meeting and to be able to really reflect upon that so I will say when I got on council I'll give you a couple of examples I was trying to get word out to council members on a couple things one was a website that I just wanted everyone to see because I thought it was interesting and I remember asking how do I do how do I get this to the council they're like well you can't you can't send an email to everyone okay I'm not trying to deliberate on any topic just trying to get this well maybe we can find a way if you email it to Jennifer and Jennifer can then email it out to everyone it 's very okay that's great and another case was there is a recent uproar in the neighborhood around TWU where the TWU at the time was tearing down a bunch of houses I'd held a neighborhood meeting got a bunch of people together on this and developed a little report that I just wanted as a matter of report get to the council couldn't find its way onto a council agenda and had no other platform upon which to provide that publicly and I ended up having to just kind of put it on my own website firstly go check this out which I thought was kind of a hangup because we were good government I think sometimes is hind ered by the folks down in Austin who don't have to abide by any of these sorts of things right and and and so there is a sort of strange irony to what they throw us as a bone and what they do not abide by it themselves or any other level of government for that matter having said that I think there is some strange there could be some strange cultural things if we go down this path of saying well let's get staff members on board now it becomes the culturally expected way to pose questions to staff members so now we start creating rules of well if it's not on the message board and staff members don't want to answer it in person there's a lot of unintended consequences to thinking through what what is expected of me as a council member number one to even participate in this if I decide I've got plenty of messaging avenues and I'm deplugging from this one because I can't I don't have the capacity I don't want the staff to do it and what becomes those rules of engagement so it's kind of wonky I mean if you read through what this is I'm not it's not very helpful in terms of finding information from a citizen's perspective I'm interested in just kind of watching to see where this goes there might be some benefits I'm not yet convinced yet but anyways well just because the legislature says it's legal doesn't mean it's a good idea the people in Austin have passed a lot of laws that are not good ideas you know regarding questions if we have a question on an agenda item we generally send it to the ACM who is in charge of that report of the city manager of the city attorney we get an answer and they generally then answer everybody else on council and if one of us thinks that that answer needs to be discussed in an open session then we bring it up in the work session even though we've already heard it and it lengthens the the meeting a little bit but we're doing it on the grounds of transparency so that everybody has a chance to benefit from that I'm still concerned about the notion that this could lead to a legal way for the council to deliberate granted in the public but without without notice to the community that the deliberation is taking place and and and I think that that's a bad idea and maybe there's a way to to send out some notice on the web page there is a discussion going on regarding on the message board about single residency occupancy single room occupancy of apartments so that so that people could monitor that but that means that you're gonna you know people know that we have these regular meetings they know where to go look to see if there's a meeting coming up and so I still have pause okay okay can we give it a trial run could we try it out and see like is that an option like for a month or something to see if we have time for it if somebody wants to do it if the discussion takes a turn I mean I just don't yeah I mean I have an option sure I haven't I mean I don't have any need for this Lord I don't even have Facebook or Twitter so I think that there's enough avenues I think this is a this is a situation where you could get into some really murky water if you if I don't think trying it out and then unplugging it that would be almost impossible I mean quite honestly I mean I think you'd have you know the community like what are you doing it could be perceived as a lot of different ways my biggest concern is if you don't use it you know which I don't and I wouldn't if I if I need to contact staff or send them a question I'll send them a question I think that given some examples I've read and some of the it also could be a place where people could inadvertently I think share some comments or concerns that could get people in trouble but that's each council member's own decision so I'm hard-pressed to say no because if some council members want to use it that's fine I'm not going to I don't have a need to I think it's I think it's quick sand quite honestly I think we have enough opportunities to do that communicate and also enough opportunities to get in quicks and so I don't say I'm indifferent if it were left up to me I'd say ah let's wait and see how things pan out and these some of it some of these other communities but that's that's about all the heartburn I have I think it just could create more problems than what it solves but that's just me so I'm hearing yeah council member Riggs yes there's a lot of information that other council members know that I don't know and so for me to go on to this board and ask that would be allowed right just a general question about something and then everyone could respond that's kind of how it works correct there's nothing that prohibits you from asking a council member question anyway okay well there's not an outlet right now where I can put something out there and then everyone can give me right there feedback on on that so I'm just looking for a reason that this would be used so well in regards to that is she allowed to call ever each of us individually and ask us or is that a walking quorum right there no excuse me you know we we have an overabundance of caution from our council member from our legal authority but you know we've been chided you're talking about when you first get on the council we we've been cautioned you can't send an email out to everybody about about figuring out when you're going to meet that's not a deliberation that my reading is that's not even covered under the open meetings law because we're not deliberating we're figuring out when we're going to meet so I think that there are some things that that she she is extremely cautious or that that other that other council members have have been overly cautious about simply because we don't want to violate the the spirit of the law or the letter of the law but but there are times when you know simply raising a question I mean you could raise it at the end of a meeting or you could ask somebody who's been on the council a while or step anywhere and they could say I don't know but so-and-so would know you know the answer to that madam city attorney would you like to respond to that well I think it 's it's accurate sir certainly if the discussion has to do with the timing of perhaps an event or the desire to place a meeting on an upcoming agenda something such as that that that does not constitute deliberation about a particular seat piece of business on the other hand if there is a telephone call from one member to another to another to another and you discuss the matter and this is how I am going to vote how are you going to vote then you 've engaged in what is deemed daisy chain polling and that is improper under the Texas Open Meetings Act the interesting thing is with this new message board legislation it creates a forum and an environment where again you can't vote but you can discuss an item so is that deliberation regarding an item it would appear to be a little bit inconsistent at least to my legal mind and a departure from the law that we have all worked under for a multitude of years and so but it is a lightning of the requirements as it concerns open meetings and this is something that's specifically allowed if you meet the criteria I might also add that as you create these limited public forums it always creates the issue of should you have rules of engagement should you have rules of decorum what should they be how do you enforce such things and that kind of thing so I think if you create this as a limited public forum even among yourselves you might consider the possibility of you know no profanity that kind of thing those kinds of rules so we need to get direction so I'll summarize what I think I've heard and y'all can correct me if I'm wrong Councilmember Briggs you 're okay with moving forward with this we're not voting on it we're just getting consensus councilmember Gary you would be okay in moving forward with this okay I don't know where you are I don't think at this time I am I think if it's for in putting information only like would Kevin it's fake you know found a website or report I wish that there was an avenue for that to be on there but I don't know how this is gonna be regulated or like you said I mean let's I you don't have the bandwidth for it for a couple weeks and then you miss a conversation or I don't it makes me uneasy at this point so that's where I am okay so that's a maybe hold off for now it sounds like that's what the direction is okay we'll hold up all right thank you okay that concludes our open session we will now convene in closed session at wow three o'clock on the dot p .m. on November the 8th 2016 we will consider the following items deliberations regarding certain public power utility competitive matters under Texas government code section 551 point 086 deliberations regarding real property under Texas government code section 551 point 072 and consultation with attorneys under Texas government code section 551 point 071 and let's take a five to ten minute break and we'll reconvene in closed session all right we were back in open session didn't City Council Tuesday November 8 2016 it is 422 just one check in see if there's any other deliberations or discussions council mayor pro tem mayor I was just I was going to inquire about whether or not with the absence of councilmember breaks whether it's temporary or permanent tonight since we have some sessions she's asked to push back to regular session I've since learned that she is coming back to regular session so I think we can stay on track with the plan as previously okay all right any other questions yeah and again I will give the same encouragement tonight that we get through these meetings so we get out all right no more further discussion will adjourn till 630 I wanted to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Dent City Council on November the 8th 2016 it is 630 if you would stand with me if you're able to pledge allegiance to the US and Texas flag all right we'll move on to our next agenda item which is the consent agenda councilmember Hawkins thank you mayor I move approval of consent agenda items a through P but we are going to be pulling items a G and M for individual consideration okay councilmember Gregory second all right we have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda items save agenda items a G and M let's vote on the agent M will be considered as items for individual consideration let's vote on the board please motion carries 7-0 we'll now take up the consent agenda items that have been pulled for items for individual consideration we'll go to agenda item consent agenda item 2a which is now for individual consideration consider adoption of an ordinance accepting competitive proposals and awarding a public works contract for electric substation construction services providing for the expenditures of funds thereof thank you mayor Chris Lutrik our DME project manager will be making the presentation tonight good evening and thank you for your time I have a quick presentation it's only ten slides so we'll try to we'll try to get through it that'll complement the the backup information you have for RFP 6085 this this RFP is for substation construction services this RFP will replace number 5142 that has been running for the last three and a half years so this evening I'll quickly talk about an overview of the substation construction what was in what the RFP encompasses the CIP projects most likely to be constructed under this contract the summary of the proposals that were received projects constructed by can for construction under RFP 5142 and then answer any questions that you may have substation construction services it's a unit price contract and if you reference exhibit 2 in your backup you will see the full list of all the items that comprise this this contract the substation construction services consist of installing the foundations the contractor supplies all material including concrete for the foundations the below grade items the owner being DME supplies the conduit and the ground grid which is basically the copper conductor that's buried the supplies the access the ground bases for the substation the owner supplied steel equipment bus supports and the conductive equipment and protective devices which is the bus the switches and the circuit breakers and on this nice sunny day you'll see a picture inside Arco substation recently constructed basically if we were to give you a tour of a new DME substation you walked in the gate would be everything that you see is installed during this contract as well as the miles of conduit and in ground grid that's below ground so this contract the most recent CIP has identified 10 substation projects two of those stations have been will be constructed using GIS technology that is not part of this contract the the winner of this contract will have some function in those stations it would basically be the distribution portion outside of the GIS that leaves eight remaining stations the six that are shown on this exhibit are the six most likely constructed within the next three years can point here Mosh branch the side has already been procured and site work has has begun down here we have the new Jim Crystal substation that is a substation that's adjacent to the to the new power plant and that will be the connection point from the power plant to the to the electric grid and then some future projects sites still be to be determined that it has come before the council is a future underwood the future long road the future brinker and the Mayhill substation which will be located on the the DME landfill or the city of Denton landfill right adjacent to Mayhill Road we also have two major upgrades to existing stations that will be a Denton North and Spencer interchange and those two projects will increase the capacity of Spencer interchange by increasing the bus size and Dent on North will be adding the new transmission line terminal we received seven proposals for this RFP three of the proposals are not shown on this list they were deemed not competitive they averaged about twenty three point five million dollars so they weren't considered so what you have here in the top four proposals in order of how of an order of price on the top would be camphor construction with their best and final offer they came in at seventeen point six one eight million dollars followed by integrated power company about five thousand dollars more followed by Chapman construction and great Southwest construction just just a brief overview of the proposal evaluation as you can tell by the points that are rewarded the indicators of probable performance they were very for very strong companies they've been doing this for a long time and provided us that that documentation that where you'll start to see the differences are the compliance with specs so we were very particular in our specification to ask for document documentation to provide experience with 138 KV substation construction that's our system voltage that's what we're constructing and as you can tell by the the respondent or the the points are rewarded to each company camphor construction had had the most experience and and it noted in that they didn't even use us for their experience they've been our contractor for the previous three years but they provided documentation for experience outside of DME integrated power company they they their company from Nebraska they just do not provide documentation in their proposal where they had gone out and had extensive experience constructing 138 both substations Chapman construction another quality contractor there are transmission line contractor they have a substation group and great Southwest and another reputable company but their prices were just a little high Greenfield substations now these are projects that can't perhaps has completed for DME under the existing contract the 5142 we the contract was awarded by Council in February 2013 so you can see the first year is when we got this thing going we completed Cooper Creek substation and that's a station kind of near and dear to me and I'll get back to that momentarily but follow this is a list of projects of that have been completed that are in service for the citizens of Denton North Lake substation has just been completed as far as substation construction services are concerned it's not yet energized and we've just started locust substation in their spare time we 've had them working on other projects kind of maintaining our system system upgrades at these additional substation sites so over the course of the last three three and a half years campers pretty much had a hand in all of our substations so project continuity so I put the word in continuity because it was a term coined by the city of didn't purchasing manager so when I said back and I had a conversation with him about scoring these proposals where we have we're renewing a contract and we've already had experience with the vendor so continuity is if you look in this picture bus support so we have a multi-year contract that's come before the council for bus supports for the for the insulators for the bus for the connectors they're all the same so we've worked very hard to standardize our approach to constructing the sub stations and also you'll notice here you have this this camper employee well they're the same too so what we've got is go back to that one project that Cooper Creek that was near and dear to me it's because I spent every day for a year there and foam and rain come out hey take a look at this how do you interpret this drawing what's going on here it's a learning curve for both the contractor and for DME so what we did is we progress and we 've taken the same set of plans and the same techniques and the same parts and the contractors it's the same contractor working on it so they gain they gain knowledge this employee here he's adjusting this southern state switch he 's probably done it a hundred times in the first one I'm out there with them and we're looking at the instructions how do you perform this task well they're now they're very comfortable with it so that being based on the project continuity that the contractor has with DME along with the the campers proposed baffle pricing being the lowest cost option staff and DME recommends awarding the three-year unit contract construction contract to cam for utility construction this proposal was our this presentation was presented to the PUB yesterday and they unanimously recommended approving the contract we do have a couple questions Councilmember Gregory thank you here so this is part of an overall expansion project for our infrastructure for DME is that correct yes sir overall we're we're thinking that the price tag is going to be about how much overall for the for the whole program of new transmission lines upgraded transmission lines and the new substations I do not have that value I do not have that total here I just have the value for this this okay I just I just want to put this particular request in in context so our five-year budget is about four million dollars for transmission distribution and this project is part of that that continues to evolve every five years for what projects we forecast coming up out of there but to answer your question as far as how much is this project is relationship to our total transmission distribution budget we're looking about four million dollars okay and we have completed six new substations yes sir and we have one that 's still under construction yes sir and so this particular contract for 17 .6 million is for how many more substations six six more yes and how does this cost compare to the cost of the first six how does it on a on a unit price so in your in your backup there the way we do the this contract is structured you have a unit price right so those items I talked about there are fixed price so even though we don't have those six substations designed yet in estimating that the total not to exceed quantity we can say hey we know this station is going to be similar to McKinney or similar to Cooper Creek so we have that that that shopping list we go back to that project and say hey it's going to be the same amount of units and so we carried that forward and in determining how many units we need to put in into this so as a non- technical person what I'm gathering from your answer is that each one of these substations has to be done a little differently yes sir the configuration so you 'd have your ideal configuration would be a nice square ring bus you had lots of room like a Cooper Creek but that's not going to be feasible to every site so what we do is we take the site that's given to us and we have to make some modifications to the to the layout and but once we do that that we go to that pricing list and we know we have eight breakers it's eight times that price we have 30 switches it's 30 times that price so the prices vary a little bit depending on the size of that of the station and the complexity of the station and is it is it a transmission switchyard or distribution so but overall as you look at the pricing and compare it to the pricing of our other contract for the first three years are the prices similar have they jumped a little bit up have they gone a little bit down where are we sir actually on the it was good to see we did a comparison of the contract so being we didn't make a lot of changes from the previous contract it worked it worked very well over those over those previous stations to these stations we made some minor changes we added put a little more the concrete concrete is a big issue so we kind of changed how we handled the concrete that DME was applying some of that but we went just apples to apples hey a breaker is still a breaker and we saw a price reduction in can and can for so take we can only compare camphors previous bid to their new bid right so we did see that the prices prices had gone down a little bit so the big thing would be a big cost these contractors is fuel is diesel so they're burning a lot of diesel and of course diesel prices have come down over the last three and a half years and that then that reduction was evident in the pricing thank you for your presentation you're welcome just member race hi yes so I think you already answered one of my first original questions was that the contract previous was the one that we're we're renewing it's the same company okay and and it's a three- year contract and we expect the the last and this is the last of the substations right besides the GIS that we have in our whole upgrade project no ma'am we had actually there in the current CIP there's eight air insulated substations that that are in the current CIP that this will cover the six most likely to be constructed in the next three year period okay so those ones that are out there that there are more future we didn't include them in this because they're not going to be constructed in the time frame that the contract is okay all right so and is this part of the is it the T cos T cos reimbursement is that yes ma'am it sure is so so the the substations are mainly transmission so in looking back they vary a little bit just like mr. Gregory's question a little bit you know is it is there is it more of a distribution station or transmission station but on average we're right in that 65 to 70 percent of the cost of this contract will be eligible for the T cost program or reimbursement through the T cos program okay thank you you're welcome okay any other questions for staff seeing none thank you we do have a blue card mr. Husb eth if you'll come down and take you state your name and address your time will begin Marin City Council my name is Willie Husbeth I live at 623 Newton there are no leadership positions in DME of people for people of color guess what in the history of the organization and this city there has never been an African American or any other color in a leadership position in that organization before I left home my wife told me and she's always telling me let it go I don't know I coached middle school football for 16 years in a middle-class city I never got to leave the middle school never got to go to high school and in the middle school there's an a team a B team and a C team the eight teams are the best athletes the B team are the ones who can soon move into the a team position the C team shouldn't even be out there they gave me a C team in football C team in basketball because we move with the seasons C team track I got the position that no one wanted to coach pole vaulting because that's crazy you have to be crazy to do pole vault ing you're on a real small stick and you're 15 feet in the air I never got to be the head of anything in that school system I know what it feels like to not get a job of any substance to not be in a leadership position I'm sick and tired of you shaking your heads and and rolling your eyes and groaning and moaning and hiccuping and whatever you're doing up there let me just say again I'm gonna get my signs out to I'm gonna march I'm gonna start March because I'm sick of this unit the electric department and parks department those are two I know about I bet there are many more many more they have never in the history do you know how long Denton has been a city ever been anybody of color at DME and a leadership position and you sit there and you 're waiting for my seconds to end so you can forget that I've said anything and you watch me over the next year - that's all you're gonna hear I gotta give us some jobs give us some positions and quit giving us lip service councilman Broden thank you mayor move approval of agenda item 2a councilmember Hawkins I second we have a motion to second for agenda item 2a let's vote on the board please motion carries 7-0 we'll move on to agenda item 2g which is considered option of an ordinance accepting competitive bids and award ing public works contract for the construction of the Denton Water Works wave pool thank you mayor staff does not have a presentation we are available for questions if you have any okay let's see councilmember R iggs you pulled this I believe any questions no no I just I wanted to let everyone know that I I support our Parks Department and I enjoy the water park but I will be voting against this because it was no secret that I was against the fee increase for the water park and this wave pool is the reason why the fees were increased so all right let's see we have a card wishing to speak mr. H ussbuss if you'll come down state your name and address your time will begin mayor and city council my name is with a hospital visit center to Newton what you're seeing now is one individual saying enough's enough what you are doing is not what we're going to accept and I have to use the rules that you give me to operate you give me four minutes three minutes and I have to try to get this points out and I don't know and and I know that you don't hear me well let me define here consider what I'm saying put yourself in my position then decide and try to see if what you're doing maybe is not fair you don't do that what you do do is count the seconds and so do I when I was laying on that hospital bed get my hand worked on I thought about dying because you could I could die and I thought of what do I want my legacy to be living in this city of course the water part are you kidding me the Parks Department that's the one I just got to telling you about there are no leaders in that position and they have never been how long mr. Hudson have you been talking about this issue since 1985 1985 how long of you considering soon you'll be no longer with us and in bearded st. John cemetery to slave cemetery and pilot point are you going to talk about this and the water park until death do us part that's how long or heavens say forsake heaven forgive us maybe you will start looking at the employment positions that you are feeling that there are no African Americans hired why are we not capable of doing the work hogwash yes we are capable of doing the work it's just you you're comfortable in your positions and your lifestyle how many of you have ever been to an African Americans home and sit down and eat dinner with them how many of you done that I didn't ask for show of hands but now you've embarrassed me well good for you good for you I'll come back in my next yes sir thank you I'm not sure where I am now to the tree councilmember Hawkins oh I do have a question I just want to make sure was the the wave pool addition was that part of the bond program okay I see so shaking of the heads in the affirmative so all right all right thank you councilmember Hawkins thank you mayor I move approval of item 2g councilmember Gregory so good we have a motion and a second for 2g let's vote on the board please motion carries five to two I will move on to agenda item 2m which is considered option of an ordinance of the city didn't author ize the city manager is designated to execute a real estate sales contract between the city of Denton Texas as purchaser and Toronto Realty Inc but as sorry thank you man read the whole thing our general manager of DMA will make this presentation council evening council this is the item for a breaker substation site just to show the location of it in southeast Denton this is just north of the Spencer Power plant south of Sadiox this shows more location of the subst ation site this is the property we're talking about Shady Oaks comes through to loop 28 this is the current industrial substation this substation site will be an air change between several transmission lines and will be a very rather large air change we inquiring this whole site would leave some trees in the front of it to protect the front of it as far as shielding it from sight from the Shady Oaks also includes easements along Shady Oaks for the transmission lines coming out and for also transmission lines on the south side of the property and in other easements also bless you this just describes the easements coming in now we made an initial offer based on the appraised value we've since had a counteroffer we've had many offers in between that we've discussed in closed session this is the latest counteroffer for coming back based on the owners perceived value this is based on our price value based on his appraisals staff stands ready for any questions it comes from Briggs you have your mic on can you go back to the map where the trees are so the the top corner you said they're gonna save but all the other ones are those all gonna go so the interlocked in approximately I believe probably about 30 acres within there will be cleared out for the substation site we would save the ones around the outer edges we could in this corner here and does DME do you do you pay into the tree fund for that are you exempt from we don't contribute directly into the tree mitigation fund I mean tree fund but what we do do is provide funding for keep it beautiful for the redbud planning and for trees for the past ten years so we have funded probably more than what would be required in treatment education fund to those funds that's not very big you're we received a revision to the real estate sales contract yes did you speak to that yet no I haven't very college sir to come down speak to that good evening Larry Collister W city attorney the changes that were made to the contract from the original was moving the closing date up from mid January to the end of the year and some modifications on the easements and that was the only change in the change of the date and and both of those changes were those initiated by us or by the seller they're initiated by the seller so they were requested by this correct and and you as legal counsel recommend them correct they're not going to impact are you the city's use of the property thank you any other questions for staff thank you we do have a card wishing to speak mr. husband if you come down state your name and address your time will begin mayor council my name is really has to be found at 623 Newton like to say to my wife I'm sorry dear but this one same thing DME stands for the organization leadership of no color another issue we just accepted an award I know we accepted this award for being tree-friendly I don't know what that thing was but you have people up here except in the ward that we are we take care of trees you know what that actually means when they don't get in our way of making profit then we take care of trees I got involved in the City Council and standing here in 1992 coming every day after somewhere around there because of what the City Council did to my trees I still have the tape to tape of the final stand for my trees seven 100 year old countries 34 50 year old trees of other other trees and our sort of trees along the creek break bed that the jaws of death came in there and tore out in one day after I pleaded with the City Council not to remove the trees they said we need this this area for a drainage and we can't help but do what we're doing I had civil engineers volunteering their times it cost $10,000 to save those trees to do what they needed to do move ten feet to the north toward the jail and created an embankment it was a good plan but it wasn't a straight line and your engineers were wanting a straight line I'm gonna bring that tape with the jaws of life death with my trees being tore out and now here you are I'm gonna go out to that area and I'm just for the fun of it I'm gonna count every one of those trees and measure the size of that's unbelievable she's gonna take out all of those trees unbelievable don't you say you're a tree friendly anything after this and the many many things you do Buc-ee's is another place you're not tree friendly only if it if it if it's okay with what you're trying to do so you know this City Council right here this group and I should leave out my friends on there because they do seem this care but Councilmember McGregory oh we have a question Councilmember Briggs I don't necessarily have a question I just wanted to say that I pulled this off of consent because it is a six point two million dollar real estate transaction and I will not be voting for it because I believe it's too much for the property and I just realized tonight we're gonna be clear cutting 30 acres of trees so okay all right thank you Councilmember Gregory thank you mayor I move approval of agenda item ID 16 - 1439 with the revised contract okay Councilmember Wasney second we have a motion and a second with the revised contract let's vote on the board please motion carries five to two we'll now move on to agenda items three which are items for individual consideration consideration of the use of eminent domain to condemn real property interests thank you mayor Smith day our compliance manager will handle not only this particular item well no the next three okay all right but we're gonna do one at a time we're gonna do one at a time answer yep good evening mr. mayor members of the council the items we have today the first of three will be introduction into well an imminent domain procedure requirement and the first of them is this item 3a it's regarding the North Lakes to Denton North transmission line now you can see all that did this particular tract here involves this area of town where the clouded area is now that is at the intersection of highway 77 and Reiny Road that's a general part of town where this particular line is I've got a zoom in here and the actual easement portion of this track regards the bottom row here and that would be the I'm gonna say blue and red for first some of us might have differences of the colors but these two here and there there already is an existing utility easement in the blue and what we're talking about tonight is expansion and the expansion regards into the red area so mayor city council members before you tonight is an ordinance making findings of public use and necessity and also instructing staff to acquire the necessary land rights via imminent domain regarding a parcel of land affected by the transmission project here North Lakes Denton North upon favorable motion I will proceed to display the affected tracts of land on the overhead screens oh I'm sorry Councilman mayor pro tem do we have a card for this that we want to hear first before taking a motion sure sure yes we do yes mr. willy h udspeth you'll come down state your name and address your time will begin my name is Willie Huston 116 we need where's Bonnie Bray on that map you know it's it's way over to the other side my body Bray would be would be more in this area town here yeah right where's the track and we're looking right here where the cloud is okay all right go back down to the other and that's 77 and writing right my property is there but I I can't tell from this map to the other where this is but then that's nearly here and there you decided to do this how much time do I have can you put the time yeah we get the time I think we'll need to pull off this there you go thank you good you all decided that you're getting ready you're you already decided this in closed session there were and I think on my picture I've shown it shows it there are seven to eight additional people in that room to talk about that one tract of land I assume I don't know what you talk about in there I just wanted the public to know that from the world according to me and that's what I get for three minutes talk about the world according to me sorry dear I know you told me not to do it but too bad all of you shouldn't be in there to decide whether or not you're going to do this this eminent domain thank God for America I love America now I didn't love it when I had to go through the back doors and couldn't eat in the restaurants and things like that but I love America now I don't know that that I'd make it home tonight but I hope I do but I love America now we're having a meeting on the 16th to talk about this very thing about the closed session in the meetings this group has said come to this meeting and I'll tell you I'll show you do where it's written down what you can do and the next time we meet those pictures that I'm taking of you with nine people in there to talk about this one thing to keep the information from the public which is a public meeting will then be exposed shouldn't be nine people in there to talk about this or anything that's taking place in there and I still believe if you take notes I have the rights to see those notes if you have someone in it you're paying to take the notes then it's it's open session okay I'm air pro-tem thank you mayor I moved that the city of Denton after having made the offers required by state law use of the power of evident domain if needed to acquire easement interest to a 1.253 acre tract of land which is located in the JS collard survey abstract number 297 city and county of Denton Texas and described and depicted in exhibits a and B now being displayed on the overhead screen and in the ordinance under consideration which is for a valid public use necessary to provide for the expansion construction maintenance operation and improvement of electrics transmission lines facilities and structures to serve the public and citizens of the city mayor hawk mayor Hawkins that's kind of scary councilmember Hawkins I like during that second okay we have a motion to second and the legal description has been displayed on the screen madam yes mr. mayor I'm displaying the description and the surveys okay there's several detail sheets on these this is the consolidated all the sheets with the survey with the survey or stamp councilmember Gregory the exhibits describing the property were they provided to where citizens able to read that in the backup available yes they are there these sheets are consolidated they're all on one so they're small but in the backup they're the full size and they were available since Friday yes that 's right thank you they're part of your back and I believe we've had sufficient display of the legal description in the survey so we have a motion in a second for agenda item 3a let's vote on the board please motion carries 7-0 we've got agenda item 3b consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton finding that a public use and necessity exists to acquire fee simple interest of 1.8 5 1 acre track of land and easement interest to 0.8 5 1 acre track of land etc and the abstract number 186 city of Denton thank you mr. mayor members of the council this is item 3b also regarding the North Lakes and in North transmission line this parcel it's not too far from the the one you just voted on before it's a little bit further north into the east and the the intersection the main intersection here is at Locust and Hercules and this is where the clouded area is with that line is it's a similar situation I have a blow up here the the easement we're exactly talking about is the the green plus the red and this is North Locust and this is where Hercules dead in dead ends to North Locust so mayor city council members before you tonight is an ordinance making findings of public use and necessity and also instructing staff to acquire the necessary land rights via eminent domain regarding parcels land affected by the North Lakes the Dent North transmission line upon favorable motion I will proceed to display the affected tracks of land on the overhead screens councilmember Hawkins thank you mayor I moved that the city of Denton after I'm good after having made the offers required by the state law use of the power of eminent domain if needed to acquire fee interest to a 1.8 5 1 acre tract of land and easement interests in a point zero eight five one acre tract of land in a point zero eight six acre tract of land which are located in the BBB NC RR survey abstract number 186 city and County of Denton Texas and described and depicted in exhibits a through F now being displayed on the overhead screen and in the ordinance under consideration which is for a valid public use necessary to provide for the expansion construction maintenance operation and improvement of electric transmission lines facilities and structures including access and drainage to serve the public and citizens of the city it before recognize any second if there is one mr. husband you have filled out a card would you like to speak on that mayor and council my name is Willie has with you see when you make me follow the rules and you've embarrassed me three times one one of you council members said you should have been in the closed session at the closed session but the work session we talked about that in the work session and so you have no right to talk about it now and I told that council member it'll never happen again you notice work sessions I'm there other times you have cut me off and told me that you can't do this and that and what you need to realize is I've been on the school board for two terms I know the rules a motion you know what having a motion made and then I get to talk after the motion is made then you're saying I don't care and I know this is true anyway I don't care what you say you're not going to change my mind we have already made our motion we've read it and we scroll up the pages and we've shown that because the rules say you have to do that and but you can't have it both ways you can't make me live with the rules saying my name every time I come here by golly I just need to have something in my hand and just show it why do I have to say my name every time in my address it's a rule the rule is for you that motion cannot be made until after I've spoken that is the rule and make them I have to learn how to live with them so you're out of order councilmember Gregory second the motion thank you displaying overhead is a legal description of the subject acre tracks followed by the survey drawings and again this is on several different pages the details and I've got a consolidation of all of them at the very end here's consolidation of all the pages thank you madam city attorney been sufficient notice all right we have a motion in the second let's vote on the board please motion carries 7-0 moving on to agenda item 3c considered option of an ordinance of the city of Denton finding that a public use of necessity exists to acquire even interest in a 2.168 acre track of land situated in the Gideon Walker survey thank you mr. mayor members of the council this item is item 3c this is the Spencer-Dupocra's transmission line easement I'll locate it generally on the general map here it's this clouded area in the lower southeast part of town this would be north of Edwards Road and to the east of Mayhill I 've got a little bit zoomed in blow up of that again this particular area is the red shaded area to the western side of this this tract mayor city council members before you tonight is an ordinance making finance of public use and necessity and also instructing staff to acquire the necessary land rights via eminent domain regarding a parcel of land affected by the Spencer-Dupocra 's transmission line subject upon favorable motion I will proceed to display the affected tracts of land on the overhead screens we have a card mr. Will Hed gesbeth speak right councilman Wasney I'm going to make the motion yes I move that the city of Denton after having made the offers required by state law use of the power of eminent domain if needed to acquire easement interests to a 2.168 acre tract of land which is located in the Gideon Walker survey abstract number 1330 city and county of Denton Texas and described and depicted in exhibits a and B now being displayed on the overhead screen and in the ordinance under consideration which is for a valid public use necessary to provide for the expansion construction maintenance operation and improvement of electric transmission lines facilities and structures to serve the public and citizens of the city mayor pro tem second thank you displaying on the overhead screens is the legal description of the subject tr acts followed by the drawings survey drawings with the stamp of the surveyor again there's several detail sheets and I have a consolidation at the end and here's your consolidation thank you probably there's been sufficient time of display so we have a motion and a second for agenda item 3c let's vote on the board please motion carries 7-0 agenda item 3d consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton terming the public use need and necessity for the acquisition of various permanent easements and temporary construction easements generally located along farm to market road highway 2181 thank you mayor Paul Williamson real estate manager will address this particular item good evening mayor council members tonight before you is an ordinance for your consideration authorizing the use of eminent domain on the FM 2181 utility relocation project upon a favorable motion I will display the tracks that are subject to the acquisitions for the easements we have a blue card mr. Pusworth would you like to speak thank you councilmember Gregory thank you mayor on the council agenda item ID 16 - 1450 I moved that the city of Denton after having made the offer required by state law use the power of eminent domain if needed to acquire the necessary easements is defined as the property interest in the ordinance now under consideration consisting of various tracks along FM highway 2181 the limits of which being bounded to the north by Lillian Miller Parkway and to the south by the drive entrance to Hickory Creek mobile home park city of Denton Denton County Texas and being more particularly described on exhibit a to the ordinance now under consideration and on the overhead screens now being displayed to the audience all of which are for a valid public use necessary to provide for the construction operation and maintenance of both the municipal water system improvements municipal sanitary sewer system improvements and municipal electric improvements necessary for the FM highway 2181 utility relocation project customer was me I second the motion so you're displaying all the okay Councilmember you have a question while we're displaying the well again as he's displaying those these items all of those descriptions of property were in the council backup that was available to the public as a Friday on our website is that correct that is correct and these utility improvements movements are to accommodate text out widening of 2181 is that correct that is correct the the utilities that are in conflict with their planned improvements need to be relocated to areas outside of the road project and then the tracks that are considered tonight are tracks that the city has yet to get understandings with property owners on and it is our goal to have all these land rights acquired by May of 2017 thank you do we have any music in the back that we can pipe in I hear the jeopardy tune all right we've had the legal descriptions and surveys displayed we have a motion and a second let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero thank you Paul moving into our agenda item four which is items for individual consideration we have agenda item 4 a is consider appointments to the tax increment reinvestment zone number two board of directors did you say want me to call them both you can either way and then we're gonna call both of these because they're sort of similar as far as appointings agenda item 4b consider appointing a nominating committee to recommend an appointee to fill an unexpired term of the economic development partnership board thank you mayor Carolyn booth our director of economic development will handle both items for a and B good evening mayor and council members on December 17th of 2012 the council adopted an ordinance designating and describing the boundaries of tax increment reinvestment zone number two to provide the public infrastructure necessary to encourage development in the largest industrially zoned area of the city at the same time a board of directors was established for the zone that board of directors incorporates the current economic development partnership board as well as a representative named by Denton County and a representative named by the developer in the TERS since the last appointments to the T ERS number two board the economic development partnership board composition has changed in that a seat has been added for the Texas women's University president and Chancellor TERS board members serve two-year terms and may serve as many as three terms the twelve members appointed by the City Council serve terms concurrent with the economic development partnership board and then the representatives from the other two bodies have the same term limits with the exception of the members from UNT and TWU who may serve unlimited terms but do have to be reappointed every two years so tonight what's before you is considering the appointment of the three new economic development partnership board members to the TERS to board those economic development partnership board members are Joey Hawkins, Kareen Faiton and Jimmy Mej ia that's all I have to present to you and I'm glad to answer any questions if you have them any questions and we do have a card wishing to speak so before we go on to agenda item 4B we'll go ahead and take that any questions for staff at this time all right we have a card wishing to speak mr. Willie Husbeth if you'd like to come down speak all right thank you councilmember Gregory we have a question councilmember Briggs I have a question I guess about the the board of directors it just there was an issue not necessarily an issue but as a council member it's supposed to be on the board serving and say for some reason that councilmember doesn't go off is this the same board where there'll be two council former council members serving on the same board and there 's not a current one serving is that no this or is that a different the economic development partnership board does have a former council member on the board who's serving as the council representative and because the TERS to board contains all of the members of the economic development partnership board plus two more the county representative and the developer representative that same person who's on the EDP board is also on the TERS to board but what we're doing is mayor Watts was on the economic development partnership board and therefore on the TERS to board as well but he has stepped off of that and and councilmember Hawkins is coming into that role okay I just didn't know if it was all from the same ordinance or not the rules for no there's one ordinance that governs the economic development partnership board and a separate one that governs the TERS board competent composition competition okay but they are the same in that one contains the entire economic development partnership board okay thank you you're welcome councilmember Gregory I moved to prove okay I saw you had requested this paper councilmember Gary second we have motion the second on agenda item 4a let's vote on the board please motion carries 7-0 and I've called agenda item 4b so you're free to come on up and do your presentation due to the passing of economic development partnership board member John Gilmer in October of this year it's necessary to appoint a nominating committee to recommend an appointee to fill mr. Gilmer's an expired term he filled one of the two seats on the economic development partnership board that is held by representatives of top 20 taxpayers within the city of Denton as specified in the economic development partnership board ordinance the new appointee must also be a representative of a city of Denton top 20 taxpayer the economic development partnership board ordinance requires that the City Council appoint three people to serve as a nominating committee including two City Council members and one person who is a member of the Chamber of Commerce's board of directors the chamber has named Marty Rivers as its representative on the nominating committee and so what we're asking you all to do tonight is to select your two councilmember representatives to serve on that committee chair would entertain discussion who served on the for the council representative on the nominating committee for the nominations for the economic development partnership board just recently councilmember Hawkins and councilmember Gregory okay any objection gentlemen to extending those duties to this all right is that okay with so we will need to make a motion and approval of that okay chair would entertain that motion mayor pro tem thank you mayor I move approval of the nomination of councilmember Gregory and Hawkins to that board committee yeah we also have a card wishing to speak to so oh yeah and Marty Rivers yeah sorry mr. Hussbett would you like to would you like to speak okay councilmember Gary second all right we have a motion to second to nominate councilmember Hawkins councilmember Gregory and Marty Rivers to the nominating committee to fill this vacancy let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero agenda item 4c consider appointments to a charter review committee and before we do that we do have a blue card mr. Hussbett listen to speak would you like to speak on agenda item 4c what I think it's just a it's just a name the council is going to name two members so you can wait until if there's any you can wait until we name any nominees if you like yeah there any nominees putting forward appointments for the charter review committee yeah prudence Sanchez Herbert hole how do you spell that last name H O L L okay okay mr. Hussbett would you like to okay councilmember Riggs you've got a request to speak a request to tell you my name okay I'm sorry okay we have those two I don't guess we take any action on that is that correct all right okay thank you we'll move on now to our public hearings public hearing 5a hold a public hearing and consider request I'm sorry councilmember Wasney does that complete the charter review committee appointments so that we're now we're now finished full we can move forward yes good thank you and I'm sure staff will be sending council at least a copy of a list of all the completed names because I think I 've got them somewhere all fragmented but okay I appreciate that agenda item 5a public hearing hold a public hearing consider request to rezone approximately 2.33 acres from a neighborhood residential 3 in our 3 district to neighborhood residential mixed use 12 thank you mayor no molla dad our director of development services will be handling this item thank you mayor members of the council the request before you tonight is to hold a public hearing and consider an associated ordinance to rezone approximately 2.06 acres from the nr3 neighborhood residential district to an nrm u12 district as part of this request the applicant is also requesting a mixed-use residential protection overlay district to restrict use of the property to community services only and those uses permitted in it in the nr3 district looking at the property it is located off of Sherman and Kings Row as you can see it's a triangular shaped property right there on your screen as I've mentioned the zoning request is for nr3 the surrounding zoning is also nr3 neighborhood residential district with a request for an nrm u12 district and the associate overlay that I just discussed which would incorporate all the uses that are permitted in the nr neighborhood residential district as well as community services as part of the restriction that I just referenced the future land use plan the future land use map does recommend low density residential development for the subject property which is up to four dwelling units per acre however when we look at the proposed use it is a community service and when we look at the request they are requesting an overlay district with the nrm u12 district so that only those uses permitted in addition would be just the community service and the residential uses or associated nr3 district uses and would limit the overall uses as referenced in the schedule for the nrm u12 district public notification as referenced on your screen was sent to within 200 foot radius and a 500 foot radius of the request one letter was received in opposition and one in favor and I will be happy to answer any questions that you may have just to add on the Planning and Zoning Commission did recommend approval of this request and staff recommends the same any questions for staff before I open the public hearing councilmember Briggs was there a comment on the opposition to my knowledge it was just thank you any other questions for staff saying none we will now open the public hearing we have no blue cards but this is a public hearing anybody wishing to speak please come down and state your name and address and your time will begin this is a public hearing anybody wishing to speak set your name and address please Paul Meltzer 1914 West Oak Street I'm just curious what the community use is that's being proposed let's let's let's address that once we close the public hearing just yeah yeah you bet any other body wishing to speak for this public hearing by us wishing to speak okay we will now close the public hearing yeah what are those community services that community service is a fire station fire station number four it will be a new fire station construction on that side I apologize for the oversight on that and would be you know there is a fire station across the street as well that would be repurposed for storage uses currently but it is projected for development of a new fire station okay so this is for yeah fire station for all right council member Begarry move for approval councilmember Riggs I will second we have a motion to second let's vote on the board please motion carries 7-0 we'll move on to our public hearing agenda item 5b hold a public hearing consider request for an alternative environmentally sensitive area plan for the Ryan Meadows addition director of development services will handle this and followed by Deborah Viera I believe our environmental compliance coordinator thank you my members of the council the request before you tonight is to consider an alternative environmentally sensitive area for the second phase of Ryan Meadows phase 2 and as Howard mentioned Deborah will be here to address any technical requirements associated with the request you can see that the subject property and my cursor is following it this is phase 2 of the request the overall development encompasses phase 1 and then this phase 2 in the nr3 zoning district for the Ryan Meadows subdivision and a blow-up of the development map on your right reflects the subdivision pattern associated with how the lots would lay out and again you can see the extension of a right of way along here which is the Creekdale right of way the area under consideration is highlighted in this yellow boundary with implications associated in this environmentally sensitive area there is an ESA map here that reflects an undeveloped floodplain the riparian buffer and the water related ESA as I mentioned to you earlier there was a right of way extension along here that is reflected in this black solid dotted line along here which is the Creekdale Drive which is reflected on the city's mobility plan and it bisects the property and as a result it also to some extent bifurcates this alternative environmentally sensitive area just to give you a better visual of where we're speaking of as I mentioned earlier in this red box and along here is the subject property and again this is a better visual aid that will reflect the floodplain which is approximately 0.36 acre the water related component which is 0.07 acre and the riparian buffer which is 0.39 acre as an offset to impact on this area right here that's just been mentioned which is the floodplain the water related than the riparian buffer the applicant is proposing mitigating with 25 trees that are reflected in this circled area right here so they would plant these 25 trees here in here notices were sent within 200 foot and 500 foot of the subject property and no responses were received the Planning and Z oning Commission recommended approval of this request and staff recommends approval in addition subject to the following conditions that the total total disturbed area does not exceed 0.45 acres and the areas to be disturbed shall be consistent with the alternative environmentally sensitive area plan that you've just seen 25 trees that I showed you on that plan right there three inches in diameter at the time of planting to be planted to mitigate the removal of the ESA's and that all disturbed areas shall be re vegetated using native plants and with that I invite Deborah if you have any technical questions associated with this request we do have a question before the public hearing is open to councilmember Gary regarding those 25 trees that are repl anted is there some requirement for irrigation or something that goes along with this to ensure that they are viable city council at this point there is no requirement for irrigation however that condition could be added as a part of the approval process as a part of this particular approval correct okay you know so determined for how long that irrigation could be up to the time of the trees being planted or for three years or whatever time you need sorry my I mean looking at this it appears that the trees will be replanted in an area that's separate from the development which makes me think that there's not going to be water lines going there will there be water well it could be a temporary irrigation process until the time that those trees are established any other questions for staff for the public hearing seeing then we will now open the public hearing this is a public hearing anybody wish to speak we do have a card from the applicant I believe is a Thomas Fletcher he'll come down state your name and address and your time will be did you have a question for staff before okay okay all right good evening Thomas Fletcher 5750 Genesis Court Frisco Texas and the applicant for the developer DR Horton Homes just wanted to kind of go through and go through the process when we went through the design of the subdivision we went through and did an ESA assessment so that we identified all the ESA we also did a drainage study on the tributary there to determine the the existing hundred-year floodplain elevations and then we went through and did a model for the proposed roadway modeling the culverts so that we didn't create any impacts on the upstream or downstream properties that flood study we did a clomer conditional letter of map revision which was sent to and approved by FEMA as part of the process also the proposed roadway meets the requirements of a US Army Corps of Engineers nationwide 14 permit for linear transportation projects answering your question council woman there are water lines located in the adjacent residential streets the developer commonly irrigates his open spaces especially when there's tree plantings and landscaping so I would anticipate that irrigation when we did our when we went through the process of doing the cost estimation for the development irrigation meters were included within that so we do anticipating providing an irrigation system which would provide bubblers to the trees and with that I would be glad to answer any additional questions that you might have in customer you is this for the applicant or no questions for the applicant we'll call it after the public here any questions for the applicant seeing none thank you this is a public hearing anybody else wishing to speak please come down state your name and address and your time will begin anybody else wishing to speak we will now close the public hearing a council member Gary well I wasn't sure if I needed to wait for a councilmember Gregory to make his motion to adopt but I would like to make a motion to amend to require irrigation my out of turn I'm sorry wait till you're done well you've got your you certainly let your desires be known that's for sure councilmember Gregory I'll save you the trouble I move approval of the item as with the conditions placed forth by the planning and zoning committee and adding an additional condition of irrigation of the the supplemental trees for and I need some guidance from staff would we say irrigation for three years or until viability three years what is what is the recommended wording for that we have a three-year minimum cap but if the applicant has already factored in the water lines the metering and the irrigation program and the lot would the lot two lots would be maintained by the HOA that they establish it could be permanent but it is let's let's let's include the three- year minimum irrigation requirement that's my motion yes sir councilmember Hawkins second we have a motion in a second with the addition of the additional condition as stated in the motion I see no one wishing to speak so let's vote on the board please can we reset the vote please councilmember Briggs doesn't have her vote option okay we just gonna use going to what's that it still didn't so I'll just okay do we still want to register it on the board and we'll just take hers by by verbal vote or just take a verbal vote all together yes yes okay all right so councilmember Briggs votes yes to approve agenda item 5b and then we'll have the other so the motion carries 7-0 all right we 'll move on to our last agenda item it's concluding items any council members have concluding items mayor pro tem may god bless America I do councilmember Briggs I just want to say congratulations to my son Riley he was nominated the president of his middle school today so I'm pretty excited about that I'm elected sorry he was elected by his student body fantastic all right well seeing no oh I'm sorry mayor pro tem are you just want another one councilmember was me Friday is Veterans Day I just wanted to salute and honor to all of our veterans and please take time this week to thank a vet thank you thank you seeing no councilmember Briggs is our is there a program on the square at 11 on Veterans Day I think it's 10 45 okay yes I think he starts at 1045 anyone else all right we will stand adjourned