Jan 03, 2017 City Council on 2017-01-03 10:00 AM

All right, wanted to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Denton City Council, the first one of the new year, Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017. I trust everybody had a good and profitable and relaxing break. I know I sure did. It's a 10.03. We've only got two items. For individual consideration, we do have a quorum. We do have a couple of absences, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Member Hawkins. First item on the agenda is received certification of a petition regarding a tax freeze for seniors and the disabled in the City of Denton from the City Secretary and give staff direction. I do have a couple of cards who wanted to speak on that. We'll have those speak after I guess the City Secretary is going to come up. Okay. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Today I will be certifying a petition that was turned in regarding a tax freeze for people 65 and older and the disabled. But I wanted to give you a little bit of background information on the petition and the procedure for all of you here and my vast viewing audience at home. Just so that you kind of have an idea, I think in the past couple times that we had to do this, I wasn't available. So now I want to just give you a little bit of background on what it all involves. On November 30th, a petition was submitted with a committee of petitioners. And the committee of electors included Shirley Johnson, Shirley Martin, Bruce Reber, Terry Mathers, and Larry Wilson. Those were the committee of electors who were responsible for the petition. The petition consisted of 513 pages. And there were certain elements on the petition that the charter requires that need to be certified. Those include the committee of petitioners had to be on each page of the petition. The full version of the proposed ordinance needed to be on the petition. It was on the back side of each of the pages. The name, address, date of birth, or voter registration number of the person signing the petition and that person's signature. No signatures could be older than 180 days. And an affidavit of circulator. The affidavit of circulator had very specific requirements also. It needed to say that the person circulating the petition, that only that person had done that page. That the person signing the petition was who the circulator believed to be that person. And that there was a blank number of signatures on that page. And then it had to be notarized. And I said there were 513 pages submitted. I needed to certify 5% of the registered voters as of the day the petition was submitted. That's per the tax code. That required me to certify 3,862 names. Still gets me all choked up. Only 183 pages of the 513 pages that were submitted were set aside in my initial review due to irregularities with the affidavit of circulator. There are also some pages that did not have any dates listed for the date that the person signed the petition. There were incorrect number of signatures noted on the aff idavit. And the affidavits were, many of them were incorrectly not arized. So those 183 pages were set aside temporarily to see the remaining pages if I could meet the requirements to get that magic number. Certifying the signatures involves looking up the names on the Denton County elections website which is a godsave. I would put in the first name, last name, and date of birth . Or you could put in the voter registration number, but in this case the petition had date of birth. So I would put in that and then check for if the person pulled up. If I found that person, then I would go the extra step to go to the next screen to make sure that they were registered in the city of Denton. Because the first time you look, they could say, well, yes, this person is a registered voter. But there were some people who were registered in Corinth, the colony, Highland Village. So some of the people who signed the petition weren't necessarily, they were registered voters all right, but just not in the city of Denton. Certifying the names at times was challenging. You're supposed to print your name. Sometimes the printing was difficult to read at least, but nevertheless I persevered, got through it, and on December 20th, letters, both regular mail and certified mail, were sent to the committee of electors. I also called one of the committee persons and asked that she pass on to the other people that the petition had met all the requirements of the charter. In keeping with the charter requirements, a public hearing is going to be held on, unless it's changed. Now, I've been gone, but the last I heard it would be January 10th. There is no council action needed at this meeting. And the state tax code states that following a petition that's submitted by 5% of the voters, the governing body shall call the election. So while we'll be having a public hearing, it's more or less a courtesy, so to speak, public hearing. The council really has no option on whether or not to call the election. And on the January 10th meeting, there will also be an item , as far as I understand, for consideration to call the election at that time. So if you have any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them. >> Madam Member Gregory. >> Thank you. How do you ensure that you're not counting the same name twice? >> I'm so glad you asked me that, because I missed that part on my sheet. I found about 26 duplicate names. There, let me qualify that, 26 duplicate names that I certified. After a while, you start looking at them, so I swear I've seen that name before. But to ensure that, I had my staff develop a database, a spreadsheet. And we just listed by page the person's name, first name, last name, and what page they were on. And then we sorted that by last name. And then if I found duplicate names, I would check on the pages to see, did they have the same date of birth, and were they at the same address? Now some people might have the same name, Bill Smith, might be senior, junior, or whatever. And so that's how we, I'm 99.59% sure that there were no other duplicates. >> Yes. >> I want to thank you for working so hard. This was time consuming. And you have a lot of other responsibilities as our city secretary, so I know this was a huge time commitment on your part. Democracy is hard work. >> Yes. >> And I just appreciate you, and thank you, Jennifer. >> Thank you. This is probably the hardest petition I had to certify, the most amount of names in 20 days. So yes, it was, but we got it done. So with that, I will tell you that I am certifying that petition, and it met all the requirements of the charter, and we'll be proceeding from there. >> Thank you. Any other questions? We do have a couple of cards. Thank you, Jennifer. Appreciate that. The first one to speak is Deb Armator. If you'll come state your name and address, your time will begin as soon as Jennifer can get there to set the timer. If you'll just give her a couple seconds there, Ms. Armator . >> Hi. I just wanted to take this opportunity to speak against the proposed tax- >> Name and address. >> I'm sorry. Deb Armator. 2003, Mistywood Lane, here in Denton. I wanted to take this opportunity to speak against the proposed tax freeze, although I do support the process by which it has appeared on the ballot, and I thank Jennifer for all her hard work in certifying those signatures, and I think, although respectfully disagree with my fellow citizens who signed the petition. I believe that the proposed tax freeze would only give relief to seniors who happen to be homeowners, while passing an additional tax burden onto their children, grandchildren, and other working families and Denton taxpayers of all ages and income levels. I also wanted to add that my own parents, who are in their 70s, their names are Wanda and Alan Needleman, and they own a home in Denton, they are against this as well, this tax freeze, because they don't want to pass the burden onto me and my children and others in the community. So again, while I strongly support the democratic process by which it has appeared on the ballot, I equally strongly am against this proposed tax freeze, and I would encourage my fellow citizens to vote against it, because I believe that's the f iscally responsible thing to do. That's all. Thank you. One more speaker on this agenda item, Mr. Willie Hutspeth. If you'll come state your name and address, your time will begin. Mayor and Council, my name is Willie Hutspeth, I live at 6 23 Newton. I want to talk about this tax freeze as well, but first I want to talk about Ms. Walters. She welcomed me to the New Year, Mayor, by hitting me in the head with a little old notebook and said, "I want to begin where we ended, Netso." And then Brandon, who's armed and has handcuffs, instead of taking her in custody and escorting her out, he just laughed and sat down. So I just want to make that note. Anyway, I'm trying to get them in trouble real quick. How big was the notebook? Anyway, I would benefit from this tax freeze, I'm 71, so it would be good for me. I always want to save money. But there are some problems, and this is what I'm finding with being in office. Now, you have to make this decision, one that has good and bad in it. And there are good things in this for both sides. But you got to make a decision. And it's going to not be good for the person that you decide, it's not you that's doing it. The voters decide one way or the other. So I just want to make a comment about that. Now, my children will have to take, will shoulder more of the burden. I think Ms. Armator said also, what about the seniors, and there are a lot of them in the neighborhood that I know who don't own their homes. So now, instead of reducing their tax burden, now you've got, you've put in play something that's going to cost them a lot more. And there's going to be a lot of them. In my situation, I can afford to pay the taxes. I don't want to pay the taxes, but I do have enough income that I could pay them and still be able to live like I'm accustomed to living. But I could name you street by street by street in Southeast Denton, where there are elderly people who can't even pay the taxes that they have now. They do not own their homes. So now that burden is going to be very, very difficult to overcome. So that just needs to be considered and put into play as one of the options that voters have in deciding what they're going to do in this situation . Thank you. >> Thank you. Seeing no more cards. Any questions or comments from staff on this, I mean, from counsel on this issue? Seeing none. All right. We'll move on to our second item, agenda item 1B, which is reconsider the adoption of an ordinance accepting competitive proposals and award ing a public works contract for the construction of Fire Station 4 to be located at the corner of Sherman Drive and Kings Road. >> Thank you, Mayor. We have staff here available to answer questions, but we really have not prepared a presentation for this particular item. >> Sure. I'm the one that asked for this to be put on the agenda. And part of the reason was, well, the primary reason was when we had the meeting originally on the consent agenda and the cost was communicated to us, I approved that. But then I had a meeting with the staff out at Fire Station 2, which is supposed to be identical to Fire Station 4, Save 1, Fire Station Bay. And as I listened to the construction design elements, the engineering of it, and realized that council never, we never saw different design criteria with different costs associated with this construction. And this construction is probably the highest level of commercial construction. I personally believe that we can provide the same level of comfort, safety, efficiency, and public response to our fire personnel in our community with a substantially reduced construction cost and still provide the same kind of amenities. In fact, one thing I did learn was that in Fire Station 2, one side of the roll-up doors have these new bifolding doors that apparently are supposed to allow for faster response time. They're supposed to provide for a greater or less maintenance, therefore sort of a greater rate of return. But they were only on one side of the bay. In other words, this is a drive-through bay. And so I just simply asked, why is it not on the other side ? And the answer was because the fire personnel, in other words, apparently, and this is another problem I have. I don't know how this design came to be. Apparently, there's a committee there. And so this isn't about being critical of anyone. It's saying, if I'm going to agree to spend $400 a square foot when there's other construction techniques that can provide the same level of security, maintenance, and lifetime of the asset that are considerably less, I would like to at least see that process. We did not see that process. So I just received an email that the difference in the bif old doors-- Assistant Chief Hedges, do you have that off the top of your head? Yes, I do. Let me-- I've got it right here. OK. The difference is a total of $76,000. So our fire personnel, for whatever reason, thought that this station-- they didn't say this. They didn't say this interpretation. So I don't want to put any words in anybody's mouth. In other words, instead of providing those doors, we've got construction engineering techniques that I believe can be mitigated to provide a greater use of our tax dollars. And I know Councilman Wiesman, you and I sort of talked beforehand, and your comment was referred too far down the road on this one. And you're going to get a chance to comment, obviously. But I don't agree with that. And I believe-- I think we could save probably close to a million dollars by looking at this again, even with absorbing some of the costs of redesign. I've asked the Fire Chief on several occasions, does this hurt public safety in the community? And the answer has been a resounding no. And so I would like to have a conversation about it. It may come out to be the same. It may come out to be the same as it was before. But to have a conversation of what other options are out there that we could design this building and save money and pass some of those savings on to better firefighting equipment, high fold doors at $76,000, I mean, I almost fell on the floor when I heard that. So this isn't a criticism of any staff. It's more of a criticism of the process of the Council not being involved in, well, do we want a suspended slab with 30 foot piers 24 inches wide? Or will something else suffice? This is going next door to a fire station that's been around for 40 years. And my understanding, it's not literally falling on the ground. So this isn't a criticism of our fire personnel. It's not a criticism of purchasing. It's not a criticism of staff. It's saying we've got to change the process to be able to allow Council to make those policy decisions on what kind of money do we want to spend instead of being brought with something that says here's what it's going to cost, number one, that's over budget, over budget for fire station number four and fire station number three. So the first order of measure before we even get started is I would ask the Council, I've been instructed by the City Attorney that the Chair cannot make a motion according to Robert's Rules of Order. She's very adamant about that, and if I tried to do it, she 'd put me in a headlock or instruct the police officer here to handcuff me. And she's got her book right here. So two ways to handle that. One is I would ask this Council for some accommodation in this one specific instance to suspend that rule so that I can make a motion and if nobody seconds it, it will die. Otherwise, if that's not the case, then I would ask Council to make a motion and second it so we can at least have the conversation. So I will first ask, is there any desire to allow a suspension of the rules so that the Chair can make a motion for reconsideration? Yes, Council Member. I don't want to suspend the rules, but I mean I'll make your motion if that's... Okay. All right. All right. Well, I just wanted to make that commentary. I'm going to take comment now before we go through that. So I'm going to open it up for questions. Yes, I'm sorry. Yeah, this is sort of discussion to see if there even wants to be, if there's to be a vote to reconsider. Is that... So if we get off posting talking about the substantive issue, be sure and let me know. You made your argument about why you would consider it. Yes, yes. Absolutely. So any discussion on the motion? Yes. Council Member Wasney. A question for our Fire Chief or Chief Hedges. The design cost for Station 4, if this goes back out for another design, how much money would we lose in terms of... And that was my comment in terms of being so far down the process because sometimes you can save a dollar here and lose a dollar there and when you're all said and done, there isn't much savings at the end because I know we spend a lot of money on design costs because if we go back to square one to redesign, because I don't think you could just take an architectural plan and do a little change here and a little change there. This just has to go back out to design. So I'd like that cost, if I could, on what the city has already spent in design costs. Mayor and Council, Fire Chief Robin Palsgrove. I think this is something that we'd have to determine certainly with facilities management with Mr. Nielsen. The cost of the architectural design of Station 4 design costs with LEED certification were just under $400,000. So what's unknown is whether you'd be doing that in a complete redesign and whether you would recoup that savings through a redesign or whether there would be some elements of the existing design that you would be able to still use and then work with the architect at a lower cost. So there isn't a detailed specific response to your question at this point. But there is. In that, the city has already spent $400,000 on design costs. So that's my point in terms of is there enough savings in the redesign to get up to the $400,000 savings and then beyond that, in order to recoup. So I believe the problem is in the process and moving forward, I think we could modify the process so that we don't wind up in the same situation again. What we're dealing with right now are today's dollars that we've already spent, $400,000 on design costs. And I will emphasize that again. Do we have, and I understand the $76,000, but we're talking about trying to recoup the $400,000 plus in addition to that. And you say you think it's there. Yes. Okay. But I'm going to, there's some other council members that want to comment, but I think so based upon, because I don't think that, I'm not talking about a redesign. I'm saying you get the same floor plan. You get, but instead of maybe concrete walls, you get metal framed walls instead of six. It's not a matter of changing the design in the sense of the floor plan. It's how some of those components, the construction side of those components really value engineering. So I don't think it, we're not talking about totally redesign. It's saying, okay, here's the floor plan. Here's the design. Now, if we want to go to some different level of criteria for the construction elements, so that's not having to go back and, you might have to redo your mechanical engineering possibly, your structural engineering, but your point is a good one. And the chief's response is a good one. We don't know. And that's really my whole concern is we don't know what it is. And I for one am not willing to say, well, I'm going to let this one go. We'll catch it on the other end. Not knowing that what if it was $800,000? What if it was a million dollars we could save? Because if we have the conversation and we don't save it, we're not at anything. If we don't have the conversation and there's a possibility we could have saved it, we've just left a certain amount of money on the table. And to me, talk is the cheapest aspect of that. So that's really my reasoning for even calling for this motion to reconsider. And one comment, for example, on the concrete versus the metal frame. It also has to do with structural wind load, for example, that we live in tornado country. And if you're going to build public safety buildings, and so those are questions that are worthy of a discussion. Yes. So that- They are. But as a council member, I'm not willing to sacrifice when we do get to that discussion the integrity of that building in the event of some horrific weather event that does hit Denton. So as an example, I'm just saying, yes, it's easy to sit and look at the difference between concrete versus metal framing. But there was a reason concrete was put into that. And I believe it's wind load in the event of- So- They do have a safe room in there. There is a structure that is provided specifically for a storm event such as that to provide safety to the personnel that are remaining in the building. Absolutely. But I'm talking about integrity of the whole building. It is also housing, expensive equipment, not just people, but expensive equipment. So I will second Councilwoman Baguerre's motion so that we can move forward. You can have a discussion. And have a discussion. Absolutely. But I would ask facilities and I would ask Fire Department that when this comes forward, let's really get into the nuts and the bolts as to why we have some of these design standards for a fire station. But it's very different construction than building a different city facility for use because their use is different. And ultimately, public safety, when there is some kind of weather event, you've got to have integrity in that building where every single piece of equipment in there is damaged in that storm and is useless in the recovery efforts that will follow that storm. So again, when this comes forward, let's have that discussion in terms of the whys and the wherefores of these construction standards for these fire stations. Councilmember Gregory. Well, is there another alternative side simply? Do we need to have the motion first? Okay. All right. I'll hold off. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm going to move to reconsider this particular bid or this contract that was brought before Council. Councilmember Wasney. And I'll second that. Okay. But I would also caution that we do it prompt promptly. Yeah. So that I know the Fire Department is on a timeline and so that we can help them. I think it's next week. Thank you. Okay. We have a motion to second. All in favor. So I don't know. Go ahead. I didn't know that we couldn't discuss before motion anyway . But we always do. Okay. So yeah. So yeah. So the question is, we've already voted on this, right? What was the vote? That vote was unanimous. So the vote was unanimous. So now if we were missing two of our Councilmembers, so a vote to reconsider is one thing and then a vote to redo that motion. Explain the parliamentary issues involved here. Right. What is before the Council right now is the reconsideration of the action which was taken at the last meeting. It passed, as you noted, unanimously. So the item now before the Council is simply whether or not you want to reconsider what you did at the last meeting. Your rules require that that reconsideration motion come forward at the next official meeting of the City Council. This would be the next official meeting. So it is a timely motion to come before the Council. The motion to reconsider will require four affirmative votes of the body as currently sitting in order to pass. And should it pass, then it will come forward for consideration on the action, the underlying action, which is the award of the contract at the next City Council meeting. And I would also add that I did provide some information to the Councilmembers in my last status report on Friday. As it relates to this item. Then given that the vote that was taken last time, the unanimous vote to move forward, does that preclude the opportunity for the staff to work with the contractor or with the architect and do some value engineering? I don't know. Do we have someone from purchasing here to answer some of that? Council Mayor, certainly it's all a negotiation at the end of the day. The contract that the City ends up with, with the contractor that's been selected through the review process, the evaluation procedure, it still is in negotiation today. It's not in result, the contract has not been signed by the City. So there is time that we could, there's another path forward, which would be simply to direct the staff to work with the architect to do some value engineering and hit some type of a goal. Is that an option? That would not require complete redesign? I would say where we are in the process right now is the Council has made the award. The contract has not been signed, which is really essentially since the Council has spoken on the matter, it's really only a ministerial act. But it has not yet been signed, but I don't think that that would be dispositive. I think the Council's vote was really the issue. Certainly as on all contracts, there is, once one is awarded, sometimes there are change orders to change some things, to add additional things to the contract. The Council recently saw within the last couple of months, and I don't recall what the specific matter concerned, but we did in fact decrease the contract award. So there is a mechanism by which changes can be made to contracts. So that's a possibility. My only concern about I have been through a process of being a chair of a building committee where we did some value engineering. And it ended up saving us some money and costing us money at the same time. Because when we changed one thing, then we compromised the structural integrity of the building. We had to add engineering in another area, and the savings were not nearly what we had hoped that they would be. So I'm a little bit nervous about doing -- I'm all for value engineering, and we can do that, we can save some money. I don't know the story behind the doors, you know, why we need this door rather than that door. I don't know the idea. I'm not sure that that's a policy decision. But while I'm okay with value engineering, I'm a little bit nervous about the whole issue of a complete redesign and losing that much money that's been involved. >> As much as Anita said earlier, the contractor is aware of the Council's actions earlier, and the bonds have been ordered, and the bonds are on my desk today. So the city's incurred some expense with that, and I don't know what their mobilization or anything like that would be. I would have to inquire. So yes, working with them to value an engineering project at this stage is probably the best solution. >> Well, I want the motion to reconsider because I want to vote against it. After looking at having a meeting with staff and having a meeting -- because I don't think it's -- I mean, you talk about your experience on a building committee. You were involved in the day-to-day operation. I'm saying Council voted on a project on a consent agenda for $400 a square foot with no say in what kind of policy decision do we have on construction kind of processes and practices. Well, that's got to stop. I mean, and for me, it stops right here. It doesn't impede public safety, and it's okay if everybody wants to vote the same as they did last time, but I certainly am very strongly opposed to moving it based upon the process where we are in that regard. So I don't know if we're going to save money. That's my whole point. We don't know. We're making decisions on things that -- I mean, if we had approved that as it was without knowing that, number one, they're having to rob from another kind of pot of money to pay for the overage and that Fire Station 3 is going to be over , I cannot continue to make those kind of decisions without having a little bit clearer idea of how we're getting to this place. That's my reason for calling for this. Yes. Can I ask for clarification of the timeline? So that the city attorney said that next Tuesday, if you could repeat what happens next Tuesday and then if you could clarify what are we looking at in terms of timeline before today and when the new Fire Station 4 -- I just don't want this to drag on for another six months. Right. The motion for reconsideration is timely. It had to be on today's council meeting agenda pursuant to your rules. The plan would be if the motion for reconsideration does pass, then the underlying item would be back on the agenda on the 10th of January for the council to consider the award on the contract. Now, I think as your purchasing manager has pointed out, there are some provisions in the contract which I won't go into detail about, but just to make the council aware, there are some provisions that could have impact as far as termination for convenience of the existing contract. And I would refer you to your status report for some additional analysis on that particular point. But in response to your question, it would be the staff's plan to have that back on the agenda next week on the 10th. Mayor, I believe Mr. Nelson had some remarks that he would like to add to the conversation. Thank you, Howard. Mayor, members of council, just in terms of the conversation with respect to the schedule, if we would go back and do any type of redesign, then obviously depending on the extent of the redesign, there's a good chance that we would have to go out to bid, so we would have to follow that bid process. Just understand that as part of the schedule involved. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other comments? Yes, Council Member Briggs. Because we do have a card also. I stand the same as I stood last meeting regarding this issue. I believe that we should do, as you say, for the next station coming up. We need to be more involved in the process. And I think we have the opportunity with station two. As far as this station, I still stand that we move forward. But I will vote for reconsideration because I know it's important to you to change your vote. Appreciate that. Thank you. I also appreciate the fact that we have two Council Members who are out today. And so what this does is from their standpoint is put them back in the mix for next Tuesday so that they can be part of the discussion and part of the vote as well. And so I respect their vote. I respect their input. And so we'll bring this back up next Tuesday. Okay. Yes, Council Member Geary. The last time we considered this, I had requested that we get some staff input on comparable costs of building because the information that I found was that we're essentially paying San Diego type construction prices. And being very cognizant of the public safety aspect of this, what I have found is that places like Haltem City have metal structure buildings. They built for around $350 a square foot and they completed just a couple months ago. So I think it's worth our time to actually have the information that we can compare what these other cities are doing with their fire stations. That will help us in the future as well as we talk about what is kind of the process we're going to undertake with these new construction projects. So for next week, if we could please have some type of comp s for the past two years or so and maybe longer just so that we can see the ramp up in pricing because it does appear to have been a ramp up in construction costs. And also to ensure that we have sort of comparing because I got an email about some different construction of a fire station but it's not some of them are concrete blocks, some of them are only metal framing so need to make sure we're comparing apples to apples because anyway, so I appreciate it. Thank you all for indulging me in this and we do have a speaker, Councilmember Hudspeth. Holy cow. Wow. Mr. Hudspeth, state your name and address and your time will begin. Happy New Year. All right. My name is Councilmember Hudspeth. I live in 623 Newton. Thank you Mayor and Council. A couple of things that I noticed here. Now let me tell you from the perspective of a citizen. We want you to save money. I'm sorry. All of this talking about time and all of this. If they're safe, they're operable and they're cheaper. From a citizen's perspective, we want you to do cheaper. These taxes are killing us. Tired of paying these taxes. Tired of paying that light bill. I don't know how I got off on that. I just got to go pay it in a few minutes. It bugs me. I admire the chief. He's just saying, "Get me a building." Maybe. If you don't get me a building. I heard him last meeting. We're still going to fight the fires. We're going to go. But boy, he's got to sit here and listen to us go back and forth. And I'm just reading his mind because I have that ability. He's just saying, "Get me a building. I just want a building. Let me go." We're just talking about. Now, citizen, save the money. Don't spend the money if you can help it. So we all want the same thing. I just want to voice the part of the citizens that for some citizens that I think is important. Now the other thing I want to say is the listing on the agenda is that you're supposed to be, you're here to look at a warden or contract for the building of the fire station. The subject matter is the fire station. So I'm speaking to that. I am the elephant in the room. There are no African Americans where there is one. Since I've been here in 1970 to this point, in fact before that, there were none. I would like to see some African Americans at that fire station. I started this in 1985, I think it was. I said, "There are no women. There are no Hispanics. There are no African Americans." I asked the question, "Why aren't they?" Now what I was thinking is because you're racist. That's why. God since told me, "No, don't say it's racist. Stop that. Just ask the question. Why don't you have African Americans in this department? What's wrong with the system? Is it us? We don't know how to fight fires. Why don't we have African Americans?" So I put the question to the chief and bless his heart, he 's a good man. I mean he and his fire marshal, they're just good people. I mean he definition good people. They look at me as an individual, they consider what I'm saying and they tell me the truth as painful as it might be after I made my comments. So in conclusion, build a darn fire station somewhere, make it safe, and save us some money. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments from council? We have no more cards? All right. We have a motion and a second for a motion to reconsider. All in favor signify by raising your right hand. All opposed by signifying your right hand. We have it passes four to one. Is that right? Am I right? Yes. We have no more agenda items and we have no more concluding items. So that means we will -- oh, yes, I'm sorry, Councilmember Garey. Are we not posted for new business? I don't think we are, no. Mayor? Yes. Just a moment. You've spoken to this, but I feel a professional responsibility to repeat each time this subject comes up to assure our citizens based on your responsibility and mine that absolutely, that regardless of this discussion, that we're in a position to adequately serve and respond, we will continue to operate out of the existing station. This is a replacement station, which is a very important step forward that our citizens voted for in the bond election. But it will not affect our capacity to serve during the interim and during this discussion. Okay. Yes. My only concern is that this replacement station is also a larger station, correct? That is correct, sir. And it will be able to accommodate an ambulance unit, correct? Yes, sir. Because currently we don't have an ambulance unit there. We do not. And it is a response time issue in that area, and it is our intention that it would be part of a budget proposal next year to coincide with the opening of station for what we would be considering. Right, which is my only reason for voting no to the reconsideration. Because any delay is a possible delay to getting an ambulance to serve that area of town, which is long overdue. We have other stations that don't have anywhere near as many ambulance calls as that one does. So, my concern is those kinds of things. Fair enough. Yep. Okay. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Mayor. We will stand adjourned.