Jan 10, 2017 City Council on 2017-01-10 6:30 PM

[BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] [MUSIC] Good evening, I wanted to welcome everyone to this special call meeting of the City of Denton City Council at 630. If you would stand with me to pledge allegiance to the US and Texas flag. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> I pledge allegiance to the city of Texas, one state, under God, one indivisible. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Before I come down for the proclamations, just wanted to let council know and those viewing by television, those here seated, that our city secretary won't be here with us tonight. It was an unforeseen circumstance, so we'll be taking hand votes tonight. So I just wanted to let everybody know that ahead of time. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Okay, our first proclamation is for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. So those coming down, have we got anybody to, mayor from the proclamation? And it is on a different color sheet of paper, I really appreciate that. But this is a proclamation by the mayor. Greetings, whereas Dr. Martin Luther King devoted his life to advancing equality, social justice, and opportunity for all. And challenged all Americans to participate in the never ending work of building a more perfect union. And whereas Dr. King's teachings can continue to guide and inspire us in addressing challenges in our communities. And whereas the Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday and Service Act, enacted in 1994, designated the Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday as a national holiday of volunteer service and charged the corporation for national and community services with leading this effort. And whereas since 1994, millions of Americans have been inspired by the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. To serve their neighborhoods and communities on the Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday. And whereas serving others on the Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday is an appropriate way to honor Dr. King, meet local and national needs, bring our citizens together, and strengthen our communities and nation. And whereas the Dr. Martin Luther King Day of Service is the only federal holiday commemorated as a national day of service, and offers an opportunity for Americans to give back to their communities on this day and make an ongoing commitment to service throughout the year. And whereas citizens of Denton have an opportunity to participate in events throughout our state on the Dr. Martin Luther King Day of Service, January the 16th, coming up 2017, as well as create and implement community services projects where they identify the need. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim January the 16th, 2017, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day of service in Dent on, Texas. And call upon the people of Denton to pay tribute to the life and works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Through participation in community service projects on this day, January the 16th, and throughout the year. So, and we do have a follow up proclamation for the Dr. Martin Luther King Day of Service. So those who would be participating in that, please come down and join me. And if you would, introduce yourselves please. >> Cheryl English, Chair of the Denton Together Coalition. >> Andre Brian with Target Corporation. >> Gabrielle Spralik with Target Corporation. >> Brian Bodine, Target Corporation. >> Pat Smith, Executive Director of Serve Denton. >> Thank you all for being here. This is, I read this with great honor as I did the last one . Because of the commitment that you all have to our community. And after I read, I'm gonna give anyone that wants to speak and say a few words about the day of service. Tell us what's going on. Pat, everybody's pointing, everybody's pointing target. We're gonna have to let everybody speak. Greetings, whereas the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a champion for justice, helped awaken our nation's conscious and inspired a generation during a difficult time of division in our nation. He challenged America to make freedom a reality for all God 's children and prophesying a day when the discord of our country would be transformed into a symphony of brotherhood. And his call echoed the promise of our founding, that each of us are created equal and every day he worked to give meaning to this timeless creed. And whereas Dr. King understood the equality requires more than the absence of oppression, and it requires the presence of economic opportunity. And he recognized that we are caught in an escapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. What a great orator he was. And whereas from Dr. King's courage, we draw strength and resolve to continue climbing toward the promised land. And our nation has made undeniable progress since his time. But securing these gains requires constant vigilance, not complacency. And we have more to do to bring Dr. King's dream within reach of all our daughters and sons. And whereas we must stand together for good jobs, fair wages, safe neighborhoods, and quality education. And with one voice, we must ensure the scales of justice work equally for all, considering not only how justice is applied, but also how it is perceived and experienced. And as Dr. King told us, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And this remains our great unfinished business. And whereas Dr. King said, everyone can be great because everybody can serve. And because Target Corporation has donated $10,000 as part of their emphasis to have their employees involved in the communities in which they live and work. And the Denton Together Coalition, in partnership with Dent on Independent School District, City of Denton, Parks Foundation, Fred Moore Day Nursery School, and Serve Denton, have come together to honor Dr. King with a day of service on Saturday, January the 14th, 2017. So people from across our community can serve together to make Denton better. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim Saturday, January the 14th, 2017, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service here in the City of Denton. And ask the citizens of Denton to join me in seeking ways to serve by volunteering for these organizations within our community that are serving those in need. So what I wanna do is take a moment and I wanna hear from Target. I wanna hear from the Denton Together, I wanna hear from everyone up here that wants, because I also wanna know what the opportunities are on Saturday the 14th for service, and really appreciate the donation from the Target Corporation. They did this last year and I was part of building bleach ers that I believe are installed in the Redmore Park now. And we did it with, I think it was junior high kids from the city. So I'm just gonna, however y'all wanna do it, I'm gonna start here. If you wanna start, you wanna start, yes, and we'll just pass it around. >> Good evening everyone. Looks like I've been nominated by my peers here to talk a little bit about Target. So I'll be the one with the mic. So Target is honored to have an opportunity to continue Dr. King's legacy of volunteerism. Every year we donate probably over a million hours of volunteers in the company. And just locally, we only have about 100 employees over here across the highway, I-35. But among those 100 employees, we donate about 1,200 hours worth of volunteers back to this community, and we really get excited about that. So we are excited about the opportunity to reach out to our corporate and be able to provide that gift. But we were also really excited to be able to come out and work in different areas like such as Serve Denton to give back to this local community. So thank you very much for that opportunity. >> Thank you. >> [APPLAUSE] >> And last year we also partnered with Target and they were so gracious. And Denton Independent School District, Chris Ice came with the Gold Program and those were the middle school kids that helped build bleachers. It was very cold that Saturday. And we had different projects throughout the city. We had Fredmore Park, we had the Wheeler House, one of the nursery schools. And so we worked all over the city doing projects and then we came back together at the end of the day and had a program to recognize Dr. King and what his dream was and we all ate together. And so that's what we're looking to do. If you're available on Saturday, we'll be at the Civic Center at eight o'clock in the morning, nine o'clock. Nine o'clock in the morning and then we'll dispatch from there to the designated areas where we'll be doing service again throughout the city. So thank you Target. >> [APPLAUSE] >> I really don't have anything to add Cheryl, hit it all. But come on out nine till noon on Saturday and weather's gonna be pretty iffy. But if you show up, we'll find something for you to do to make a positive contribution. So we're gonna be doing bleachers for the Martin Luther King Center. We're gonna be doing fabric at the baseball fields at Fred more Park. We're gonna be building a shed and doing mulch at Fredmore Day Nursery School. And then anything else left will be doing work at the Whe eler House. >> All right. >> [APPLAUSE] >> Thank you very much. Thank you so much for what you do in our community. Thanks Cheryl. This is a proclamation for Human Trafficking Awareness Day. So who's here to receive that or to give some information on this proclamation? I see people hesitating. Come on down, come on. Yes, yes. It's everything. Come on down. And someone will need to be the spokesperson to share with us. Okay, hey, how are you young man, Superman? Great, what a great crowd. And will you be the one sharing with us about this? Okay, yes, if you could introduce yourself. >> Just tell us a little bit about them. >> Okay. >> Make the people aware of it. >> Yes, thank you. I'm Carrie Powell, I'm the chair of the Denton County Human Trafficking Coalition. And this Saturday, we, January in a whole is Human Traff icking Awareness Month. And so we wanted to honor that month with a day bringing all the organizations that deal with trafficking, child abuse, domestic violence under one roof. And show the community that we are fighting and we are standing up for what is happening in Denton County. And that we want the community to be familiar with their faces and their organizations so that they can freely contact them when they suspect or see anything. We'll have over 20 organizations come and Homeland Security investigators are also coming. We'll have a panel that will answer questions and we have a national speaker from Tennessee. She's the founder of Alliance for Freedom and Justice. And so she trains communities all around the nation on trafficking and how the community can be engaged. >> Well, I certainly appreciate you and your group, first of all, for continuing to bring this awareness to us. This great tragedy that befalls many people. So thank you so much for your commitment and your love and concern for those that you're trying to help. And this is a proclamation by the city, by me, the mayor. Whereas human trafficking is a recruitment, harboring, transporting, or procurement of a person for labor services for the purpose of involuntary servitude, slavery, or forced commercial sex acts. Or simply put, trafficking is modern day slavery. And whereas human trafficking destroys a person's dignity and strips away an individual's humanity. Human traffickers hold men, women, and children against their will. And through force, fraud, or coercion, make them work many times in the sex industry for little or no income. And where Texas is at the heart of human trafficking in the United States, with Texas having the second highest in the nation for a number of calls to the National Human Trafficking Resources Center. North Texas area is second in the nation in the number of trafficking victims reported. And whereas many local nonprofit agencies, churches, law enforcement organizations, and citizens have come together to form the Denton County Human Trafficking Coalition to combat human trafficking locally through training, raising awareness, advocacy, and providing resources to the victims of trafficking. To include Refuge for Women of North Texas, New Day Services, the POEMA Foundation, New Friends, New Life, Fourth The One Foundation, Operation Compass, Journey to Dream, the Children's Advocacy Center, Friends of the Family, University of North Texas, Vision Ministries, Woman to Woman Pregnancy Center, P3, Abigail's Arms, Peer Hope Foundation, Serve Denton, and numerous law enforcement agencies. I just listened to the number of organizations who are committed to this cause, thank you all so much. And whereas January is National Human Trafficking Awareness Month, in support of this effort, the Denton County Human Traff icking Coalition is hosting an expo on Saturday, January the 14th, 2017, and will bring together agencies, organizations, and minist ries under one roof to spread awareness to our community about trafficking and domestic child abuse, and feature nationally recognized speaker, Ashley Chapman, founder of the Alliance for Freedom, Restoration, and Justice, Inc., and the Engage Together initiative as the keynote speaker. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim January the 14th, 2017, as Human Trafficking Awareness Day in the City of Denton. And thank you all so much for what you're doing. And you know, there's several opportunities to serve on January the 14th. You can serve with the Martin Luther King Day of Service, and also go and become a part of this conference and this expo to learn more and become more aware about human trafficking in the nation , but also here in the state of Texas, unfortunately. So thank you all very much for bringing that more to our awareness. Thank you. Thank you. [ Applause ] Thank you all so much. Thank you all. Charles? [ Silence ] >> We have a wonderful community, people who really care about people in our community. I'm very proud of that, very, very proud of that. We'll go on to our next agenda item, which is presentation from the members of the public. We do have -- we got to review the procedures for addressing the City Council. So if we could go ahead and roll that, please. [ Silence ] >> The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure, including a code of conduct, which applies to citizens as well as council members. These rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum. Here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizens' reports. Citizens will have four minutes to give a report. There will be an electronic beep when time has expired. If the remarks are not concluded by that time, the citizen will be asked to stop speaking. If the citizen does not cease and a second request is made, the mayor will request to have the citizen removed from the council chambers. Citizens are asked to not approach the dais. If a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to the council, please let the city secretary know, and she will have a staff member distribute the materials to the council. The attorney general has ruled that council members may listen to citizens speak and may ask questions of citizens for clarification of the issue. Council members will not engage citizens in discussion of a topic, because to do so could potentially be a violation of the Open Meetings Act. When speaking to the council, citizens are to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member. Please refrain from making abusive, personal, impertinent, profane, or slanderous remarks. Anyone who violates this rule will immediately be removed from the council chambers. Citizens' adherence to these rules will help make an effective presentation and will preserve the order and decorum of our proceedings. Copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary. Only report from the public. Because the city secretary is not here, we will be keeping time via a timekeeper, and so she'll let us know when, I guess how will we signal? Here, you'll be able to. Oh, so there, oh, you can still do that. Okay. All right. Okay, good. Thank you. Okay, our first and only speaker for this agenda item, agenda item three, is Peg Carter regarding the maintenance of the Jim Carter Memorial Park. Good evening. I'm Dr. Peg Carter, and I have come tonight to ask you to take action for the Jim Carter Memorial Park. You have three handouts in your packet regarding this request. My address? My address, 2500 Windhaven Parkway in Louisville, Texas. Okay. If we could go ahead and restart our time too. Thank you, Allison. I'm sorry about that. Okay. Start over. Yes, I just wanted to give you your extra time. I'm sorry. All right. So I've come tonight to talk about the Jim Carter Memorial Park, and you have in your hand three handouts. The first page entitled Jim Carter Memorial Park explains the whole thing about why the park came to be. The second is the resolution from the City Council of 1981, and then a diagram of the park with a painting, and you also have a picture to kind of show you the size of the park. It's just a one lot size. This property is adjacent to the Denton Housing Authority's Heritage Oaks Senior Apartment Complex. It is owned by the City of Denton and was designated as a park before these apartments were built. Jim Carter, the first director of the Denton Housing Authority, was instrumental in obtaining funds and in getting this low rent housing project built. In fact, I believe it was the first low rent housing project for elderly in North Texas. After his sudden death in 1980, the residents and staff of Heritage Oaks petitioned the Denton City Council to use his park in connection with the Heritage Oaks apartments and to name it the Jim Carter Memorial Park. It was thought at that time that the neighborhood would be able to maintain the park, but that hasn't happened. In 2015, a revitalization of the park was done with the help of a grant from the City Parks Department and many, many volunteers. We were able to make needed repairs. A new zero scape watering system was installed and new plants planted. We also were able to add a handicap accessible picnic table and a barbecue... what is it? Grill. So now I'm going to ask the park be returned to the city so that it can be maintained by the Parks Department, just as every other city park is, and that sufficient funds be designated so that this park can truly be a park the city is proud of. Thank you. We have a question, I believe. Council Member Briggs? More for staff. Okay, all right. Any questions for the speaker? Did you have a question? Okay, yes. Thanks for coming. I just quickly read through the resolution and I'm just trying to clarify because you said that it was up to the the neighborhood or the neighbors to to maintain the park. It seems like what I'm reading here is that the Denton Housing Authority was charged with maintaining the park. Can you just help clarify that? It went under, yes, the Denton Housing Authority is was responsible for that as a part of the Heritage Oaks complex, apartment complex. So it since it's adjacent to the apartments, we were hoping that you know more the neighbor, more of those people would be involved in it. It seems to be being used more by the other, the rest of the neighborhood, more than the residents. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. And I'm not sure if the when people push their request to speak will it automatically show up on mine or do you have to take some intervention else? It will show up ? Okay, because I didn't, your, Kevin's didn't show up so Mayor Pro Tem. Oh no, yeah just for votes. I believe, yes. Yeah, I'm sorry . We're going to probably wing our way through this evening in that regard because Council Member Riggs, you had a question for staff I believe. I see that Emerson is here and I was wondering if he could come down and I guess I'm sure you're familiar with this area. Yes ma'am. So I guess do we have the resources to take this park back and oh no it's pretty small but is this something that is I think we can fold this into our current maintenance operation. Of course I promise you we'll be back at budget time looking for some further assistance. So okay, thank you. Council Member Wisene. Does the city own this park? It's city property, it is not dedicated park property. So it's never been carried on on the park's inventory. So something to explore I believe would be to find out how to get it dedicated to the city just in terms of liability issues. Well it is it is city property. Okay so it belongs to the city. So we own that. Yes ma'am. Well thank you for taking care of that park. Appreciate you. You bet. Any other questions? All right, thank you. Thank you. Okay seeing no more requests to speak from the public. Pursuant to our agenda we'll move on to agenda item number four which is the consent agenda. Oh oh I'm sorry yes did you did we have one for oh the open mic the open is it yes I'm sorry okay all right yeah sure come on up typically the procedure is to to fill a blue card out for that so yeah no come on up no yes sir that's why it wasn't it wasn't showing up on the agenda so I apologize. You tried to ignore me is that no no never just take your name and address your time. Mayor and council members my name is Willie Hetschpeth I live in 623 Newton. I was moved by the presentation as or the information presented about Dr. King and one of the things that I've been trying my best to do that he did is to just love everybody. Oh I have a hard time with that. What I tell God in this situation is can I pick and choose who I love? He said no you love everybody and then he'll specifically say this one right here then I have to work on that. Anyway what I want to say is some of the things that he taught he was working toward happening that's equal opportunity to be able to get a job and to take care of your families. So my question to you is the same one I asked during the work session. Please tell me why in the history of Denton there's only been one firefighter hired. I just want to know why African-Americans can't be firemen here in the city of Denton. What is the problem? And I ask that without saying what I think is the reason. I have to not think that way. I 'm working at it. I'm trying not to to let that be a part of what I'm I'm about here. Just answer the question why. I want to know so that I can help my brethren and sister and get a job as firemen. I don't know that that's the big deal . I just wonder why we don't have any. Secondly uh the work session that you have. I found out today as I asked the question you never answer so I have to just figure it out. I ask you and you never answer. The work session you have backup whatever that is. I think that's you get some additional information and you look at it somewhere. I you better not be doing it together but you do it I guess individually somewhere and then you come in and talk to us. Am I I'm gonna ask this question you're probably gonna answer answer it for me later. Do I have access to that backup before the meeting? So I need to find out how to get that. Okay so that's it thank you. Thank you. Now we'll move on to agenda item number four which councilmember Hawkins. Thank you mayor. I'm gonna move approval of consent agenda items a through you. Councilmember Wasney. I second the motion. Okay we have a motion and a second for the consent agenda item approval of items a through you. All in favor please signify as by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously seven zero. Agenda item five has been has been pulled. We will not take up agenda item five at this time. So we'll move on to agenda item number six which is a public hearing and what I'm going to do is call item number six and then I'm going to ask the city attorney to provide some commentary because items agenda item 6a and agenda item 7a are basically regarding the same issue so we're looking at combining those so public input will be for both of those but there's some explanation that's needed from the city attorney so I will call both of these items at this time. Agenda item 6a is hold a public hearing pursuant to the procedural requirements of section 4.07 of the Denton city charter regarding the certified petition contained concerning a tax freeze for persons who are disabled and persons who are 65 years of age or older who receive a homestead exemption on the property subject to the tax ceiling slash limitation. Agenda item 7a is considered option of an ordinance of the city of Denton calling a special election for may the 6 2017 in order to submit to the voters of the city of Denton a proposition regarding the adoption of a ceiling or limitation on the city's ad valorem tax levy applying to persons who are disabled and persons who are 65 years of age or older who received a hom estead exemption I'm sorry excuse me who receive a homestead exemption on the property subject to the tax ceiling limitation making provisions for conducting the election and addressing other matters related to the special election providing a severability clause providing an open meetings clause and providing an effective date so madam city attorney please. Thank you mayor and council members these items were to be presented by our city secretary and unfortunately she had to leave earlier so I'll try to do justice to her presentation for our citizens and for our council. Just by a touch of background here on November the 30th 2016 a petition was submitted regarding a tax freeze for those individuals who are disabled and 65 or over. That petition was in fact certified here to the city council by our city secretary as having met the requirements of the city charter this was done on January the 3rd 2017. By the Texas constitution article 8 of the constitution upon a receipt of a petition signed by five percent of the registered voters of the city and certified to the council the governing body shall call an election to determine whether by majority vote to establish the tax limitation in favor of those individuals who are disabled and who are 65 and over. With regard to the items before the council at this point in time I did try earlier today during the work session to point out to both the council and to the citizens who are watching this that that language in the Texas constitution does require the council to call this election that language is that election shall be called. So what happens this is this does not work exactly like the initiative petition did as it concerned the ban on hydraulic fracturing that was strictly a local initiative whereby when it was presented to the council the council could have adopted an ordinance which would constitute the ban. Here we're working with the Texas constitution but we're working with the procedural processes of our local charter. Therefore we go through these processes one of which is this public hearing but please understand that although we're having a public hearing the next item on the agenda which is your 7a item is going to be calling this election the council has no option by vote to establish the tax limitation tonight. So we will go through this public hearing but the council is going to call this election pursuant to that mandatory language of the Texas constitution. So with that I will be glad to stand for any questions I might also add that the election will be held on May the 6th 2017 as a special election and so with that if there are any questions I'll be glad to try to answer them. Any questions from staff? All right seeing none. I will now open the public hearing and asking council's consensus on because these two items are the same 6a and 7a to combine to spin the rules and combine the public input public testimony from both of those into one so people who are signed up they've signed up for either 6a or 7a but when you're coming to speak it'll be on both 6a and 7a they deal with the same issues council so uh chair would entertain consensus on that okay all right okay well and since it is a public hearing we do have blue cards and we'll go through those but you're not required to have filled out a blue card to speak on this issue so once we complete the blue cards then we'll invite anyone else down who has not spoken to come down and speak. And do we have I'm trying to pull up the the exhibit I don 't know if the my computer internet something but do we have something where we can display the uh or the language of the ordinance because is the actual ballot language in the ordinance I think I recall that it was. Yes mayor the ballot the ballot language is in this ordinance and I have a hard copy we can put it on the overhead it looks like Allison has is putting that up at this point so we'll call for that overhead please. Okay so uh what which is it is it is that the language there that profit that's in all caps authorize the adoption okay so that's the language that will appear on the ballot before the ordinance and against the ordinance. Correct. All right thank you. All right our first speaker will be Mr. Michael Hennan if you'll come down state your name and address and Allison how are we going to do the time on the there is a bell is that correct? Sir there should be a an alarm we'll ding when the time is up. Okay when the time is up do we have so we don't have the red or yellow like we typically have okay so if we could just listen for the the ding if not we'll ding for you all right . Mr. Hennan. Just don't ding me. No no no sir never. Mayor Council Michael Hennan 724 Thomas Street here in Dent on. I understand the procedural posture the council is in tonight with regard to this proposition and that it must be set for an election. However many of us here tonight I suspect will air our opinions regarding this issue to the effect that many of us like me who are 70-ish homeowners here in Denton and would be affected by this proposition will vigorously campaign against it for the reason that we do not believe that our obligations to pair to pay our fair share of taxes to support all the services that Denton offers to those of us who live here and when we become 65 years old. The Denton city already is generous in my opinion in the benefits it offers to senior citizens and this would be an unnecessary tax giveaway to a relatively small group of people who may not individually actually need this kind of tax relief. So I know what you have to do tonight however just letting you know that there will be a vigorous campaign to defeat this proposition. Thank you. Mr. Don Duff please to come down state your name and address and your time will begin. All right. It's Don Duff 10012 countryside. I am originally not going to address this but I understand there 's quite a number of very vocal people that are against this tax freeze. So that's the reason I'm coming to speak tonight. I organized the 100 volunteers that collected the petition signatures. State law requires five percent. We actually got 11 percent over 11 percent and I kind of consider 11 sample is a pretty good indication of what the rest of the people are going to do. This poster right here was what we approached people with. It was either on a table or it was on the back of a clipboard like this. When the people looked at this and they understood what it was, 98 percent of them signed the petition. And I'm not sure that you can actually get 98 percent of anybody to agree on anything. Age, race, gender did not matter. It was 98 percent from the time we started till the time we finished. The reason some people were saying that the two percent were against it was you know what we just heard. They didn't want to shift it to the younger people. And of course we had people said this is about ropes and ranch. Okay I'm good with that. Let's look at ropes and ranch. Estimate I have heard is that it would take about 900,000 out of the budget. I don't believe it's that high but that's okay. In 2016 there were 154 new homes at ropes and ranch and they would be paying taxes in 2017 and that's going to add about 400,000 maybe a little bit more to the tax taxes. The next year well I already know there's 156 that were signed up this year so there's going to be another 400,000 next year and these accumulate. By four or five years we're talking about over two million dollars worth of additional taxes and I really think that is probably going to cover all of the short fall that may be coming up. The other thing about ropes and ranch is you know I know you have issues with the roads in Denton. We don't because our HOA maintains our roads and never see I've almost never seen a policeman there and we don't even get electricity and and gas from Denton utilities. Another point I want to make is that of the people that signed less than 20 percent of them reside in ropes and ranch and I think considering 98 percent of the people were signing this petition I think we're going to it's pretty clear how the citizens of Denton overall are going to vote. Some people have questioned my motives for promoting this tax freeze. The tax freeze will not have any significance financial on me at all nor it will on the hundred people that volunteered. With DCAD appraisals continuing to go up every year we have people that are over 65 and disabled that this tax freeze will make a difference. So for the seniors and disabled the city of Denton this tax freeze is for you. Thank you. I guess that was the alarm that's a was that the alarm? Well that's sort of an interesting sound alarm. A little weak there a little a little peek it yeah. No thank you very much. Our next speaker is Mr. Willie Hud speth. If you'll come down state your name and address your time will begin. My name is Willie Hudspeth I live at 623 Newton. Point of order order these two I think you're out of order because these two items are different and they address different issues they should have been considered differently. The first one says it's a you you're evaluating a procedural requirement are you telling us about the procedural requirements? Well I want to speak to that. The second one it says you are calling for the election they're different. One is telling me what the procedures are I want to talk about that. The next thing is you're telling us that you're going to call for the election which was explained that you don't have a choice in that. Well I want to speak to that too they're not the same so we should we should be able to speak to each one of them and not combine them in the four minutes but I don't have any choice in it now but I am going to check with the authorities and see if you're overstepping your bounds by not allowing us to talk. Let me talk about the issue itself. I need to clarify what I said in the work session last time you met. I said that the people who will suffer from this financially the most are the seniors who don't own their own properties but rent and I was correct someone corrected me and said they don't pay taxes on their homes if they're not if they don't own them. Here's how it's going to increase and be a burden to them. I have rental property if I'm going to have to pay more taxes you can bet I'm going to pass those expenses on to the ren ters. I can't stay in business if I don't so if I have to pay higher taxes because few of them are being collected by this certain group of which I'm a member of that group I'm 71. So I'm going to benefit from that not with my rental property I'm going to pass that on to the renters. Now let me talk about the procedure. The guess who signed the petition what social economic racial group signed that position partition guess which social economic racial group is going to suffer the most if that thing is passed on. The ones who rent who don't own their own property well my people are in that the Hispanic populations is in that so it's not a good deal for people who don't own their properties and that's why I'm going to pass that rent that increase increased amount of money on to my renters and I should have more time. Thank you. Mr. Alfred Sanchez state your name and address and your time will begin. My name is Alfred Sanchez I live at 711 Jackson Street in Denton. The reason I'm against this 25 years ago we moved to Denton we had a young family I had my kids were little they we moved into Denton and we hadn't paid taxes but we had all this infrastructure available to our family. We had schools, roads, libraries, universities all this was available. We never paid taxes in Denton but yet because people that lived here or future or past generations had the felt that it was important enough to provide for the next generation. I feel the same way I'm 65 years old and it's my responsibility as a citizen to provide for the next generation. My parents they were from the what they call the the greatest generation. They provided for for our generation the baby boomers. I feel that the baby boomers some of the baby boomers feel that hey we don't need to pay pay taxes because we've been paying we paid our whole life. The greatest generation also paid my father paid his whole life he had 12 kids but he never he paid his taxes every year and I believe that we as as a baby boomer should take the same responsibility instead of acting like we don't have you know we don't have to care for the next generation. That's not America. America is we care for the next generation. If you don't you know in other countries you can go to another country and you move from one place and you may not have schooling. Here in America you move from one city to another and you have those facilities even though you haven't you have not paid for them. Now I was passing out flyers during when they were taking up the petition. The question that was being asked to a lot of people that signed the petition is would you sign this petition to freeze taxes for senior citizens and disabled? Most people signed it because you talked about senior citizens and you talked about disabled. Some of those people that after after they signed it I gave them I was giving information on the opposition and once they realized what they had done they they thought you know what they felt bad about it and what I would tell them all you did would all you did is sign it but you don't have to vote for it and so what I'm saying is a lot of people signed out of because they felt bad sympathy for for seniors and they and disabled but once they get become aware of what's what's really going on on this with this with this vote they turn around and say I'm not going to vote for that. We've had a lot of support from the community on this issue once they become educated they realize that you know what this is not something we want to vote for it's not that they don't care about senior citizens we all care about senior citizens and we care about the disabled what we don't care about is helping people that don't need help. This is not America. America cares for those that need they don't believe in helping those that don't need it. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Larry Wilson. Please come down state your name and address and your time will begin. My name is Larry Wilson. I live at 1509 Timber Ridge here in southeast Denton. It's been exciting being a part of a committee and a part of the people who went out and collected the signatures. There is a need by seniors and disabled folk from every part of our city for this tax freeze path to pass in May. Can you believe we collected 8,750 signatures it was exciting. These signatures were people who were supporting placing it on the ballot and I think that's important. They wanted it to come up for a vote. I'd love to tell you a little bit about who collected the signatures. There were people from almost every neighborhood in Denton. Seniors and young people alike collected signatures. Where did they collect these signatures? I think it might be interesting for you to know what all they did because it was a grassroots effort and it worked. We went to places like Fred Moore Senior Center, our churches, North Lakes Recreation Center, the senior center at different exercise, zumba, and yoga classes and even at a senior square dance one night. So we were collecting signatures in our neighborhoods, at our Bible studies, at the library, and at the early and election day polling sites. Locations anywhere where we could talk to registered voters. Let me share what you heard, share with you what we heard often from people who were signing. One example, we're a senior couple who owns our home but because of continuing increases in the appraised values, we're having trouble paying this increased amount of city tax. Other people said we are a surviving spouse of a couple and we're faced with fixed or decreasing incomes. One social security check, not two. Many told us they are finding it necessary to sell because there is not enough income to continue to pay the increased taxes. Probably the most heartwarming to me were some of the young people because you think the older people would be glad to sign this but some of the younger petition signers were concerned for their parents and their grandparents who no longer can hang on to their homes and this is a paraphrased quote but one young man told us, "Let me sign your petition for my grandparents who are afraid of having to sell their home and move in with their children or their family." He went on to say, "Yes, I understand that a portion of this tax will be passed on to we younger taxpayers but I have 30 more years to work and will receive pay increases in the future. My parents and grandparents need this tax freeze. Remember, both seniors and disabled taxpayers will benefit from this city tax freeze for as long as they own their home. Let's get out for the May election and make this permanent tax freeze a reality." Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Mr. Bruce Walker. Oh sure, sure, yeah sure. Is it Elma Walker? Yes. State your name and address and your time will begin. Elma Walker, 9805 Grandview. Of course, I'm in speaking in support of the disabled and over 65 tax frees. In 2003, the Texas Senate and House overwhelmingly passed the constitutional amendment and established an ad valorem tax freeze on residential homesteads of the disabled and over the age of 65 elderly. I don't like that word elderly and their spouses. 81 percent of the Texas voters voted in favor. To date, at least 218 taxing entities have that tax break, including Texarkana, San Antonio, Bryan, Texas, College Station, Grand Prairie, Richardson, Longview, Galveston, Cleburne, Granbury, Rockport, Trophy Club, Westlake, Amarillo, Arlington, Colleyville, Fort Worth, Keller, North Richland Hills, South Lake, Den ison, Sherman, and Abilene. And that's just to name a few. Remember, there were 218 of them. All of these petitions have passed the local initiative to freeze the city property taxes for the disabled and over 65. Some of the reasons we got probably the most signatures ever for a debt and city ballot is because the rapidly increasing property taxes is impairing the quality of life for more than ropes and ranch over 65ers. A significant number of ropes and ranch residents are, by the way, younger than 65 and are still working. A lot of those over 65 and disabled are veterans. Also, many homeowners in Denton plan to leave their homes to their children who may already be living with them. My husband Bruce and other Kwanians from Robeson built handicap ramps through Texas ramps and hearts for homes so that especially seniors can stay in their home as long as possible. Recently, a woman that they built a handicap ramp for was in a nursing home and she ran out of Medicare and couldn't get the Medicaid in a timely fashion to stay in that nursing home. She literally was evicted from the nursing home and thanks to the guys who built her the ramp, she returned to her home that she owned, owns, and her son lives there too with her. There are many clubs and organizations at Robeson that contribute money and time as volunteers in Denton. The other side of the coin is the need for the city of Denton to become more fiscally thrifty and maybe the new auditor could help us in that endeavor. The fact that this is approximately 8,800 signatures for this petition is a mandate and only approximately 20 percent came from voters at Robeson. I think you've heard that from the other people here. Many more of the signers were the disabled or over 65 in Denton and their children or grandchildren that care about them, you also heard from that, about that, are currently living with their over 65 relative, not just out at Robeson. And most of us over 65 are helping our children and grandchildren with massive college debt. Was that my time? No? Okay. Was that Kevin Cawthing? Robeson is paying more than the lion's share of our city's budget, the DME and including, I'll finish, and including the new gas plant which will not benefit Robeson since Dent on does not provide that utility, just the bad air. The Denton police does not patrol our neighborhood and until recently the city didn't even provide an ambulance. Could you go ahead and wrap it up? Yes, thank you. Appreciate it. Didn't even provide an ambulance at our closest fire station and Robeson is helping to pay for the new fire station one mile south of us that will take our insurance ISO rates from 10 to three less premiums. Thank you. Appreciate it. Mr. Bruce Walker, if you'll come down state your name and address please. She was just trying to get to the end of the paragraph so I could continue. Okay, fair enough. Bruce Walker, live with her, 9805 Grandview Drive. The city staff estimated that the first years of the freeze would probably cost about 900,000 like Don said and then Robeson is continuing to add a lot of people and a lot of people will help pay for that at Robeson even though some of them aren't even over 65 and benefiting at all. Also we know that Cole Ranch and Hunter Ranch, the NPCs in the area, will also greatly build up the tax base for that are adjacent to Rob en. Another disadvantage about living at Robeson having moved there locally from Corinth is how the county appraises our homes. The county looks at the neighborhood as a whole and determining taxes to do but for PDCs like Robeson and NPCs like Cole and Hunter Ranch it looks like the county looks at the values from the whole neighborhood where PDs and MCs have neighborhoods within neighborhoods and different price range houses yet they look at them all the same. We were all appraised together which brings our price up high every time we protest our our increase in taxes we get to end up getting the the maximum tax increase or the lowest we can get which is you know 10 percent. They knock it down to 10 percent last two years. I have actually had sales prices out there where we knew what the sales price was yet they were still appraising it at what it was listed at and they wouldn't change. So we are paying a lot of taxes and this would help a little bit only a little bit. Bottom line is the tax freeze for disabled and learning disabled and people over 65 is needed. Let me tell you something about being a senior citizen. I've been retired about seven years. My pension stays the same. Social Security goes up and then Medicare goes up and that takes care of the going up. My expenses go up every year. My taxes go up. The gas goes up. The food goes up. Utilities goes up. So I was real real comfortable six or seven years ago and now I'm a little tighter. Yeah I've got money in the bank but you need the money in the bank in case you get ill or one of your children needs help or you know you have to you have to go to a nursing home. So you you try not to get into the bank get every year you got to figure out where your money's coming from to pay your your bills every every month. So I didn't realize my father was retired 30 years and I kept noticing antiques sold every time I went home. I said dad where's the where's the spinning wheels? Oh I got rid of them. Then when I started taking care of them when they got too old to take care of themselves I realized what was happening. His pension and his social security wasn't covering what he needed. So being retired 30 years when he first retired it was great as he got older and had more health issues it wasn't so great. So this is helping every senior citizen. I really find it hard to believe that anybody that's over 65 wouldn't want to have this little help. It's not much. It's freezing it but it would help a little bit. It's only freezing the city . We pay school tax which is what 60 something percent. We don't have any kids in school but we're you know somebody says we'll give money back you know to the community. We're giving back 60 something percent of our property tax when we don't have any kids. So I want people to think about that because you know it's getting a little harder for every senior citizen you know and they hate to go into the bank if they have money in the bank. Thank you. Thank you. This is the last of the blue card but as I said this is a public hearing and anybody wishing to speak after that. Deb Armantor if you'll come down state your name and address your time will begin and then after Ms. Armantor we'll open it up for anybody else who wishes to address this issue. Hi Deb Armantor 2003. Misty Wood Lane and I'm speaking for the second time to council against this proposed property tax freeze for seniors. I agree that property taxes are too high. That's a huge problem for homeowners including for some of the anecdotes that have been told so far. The person struggling to keep their home so they don't have to leave the home. The person struggling with Medicare. Any of these people would also be helped by an across the board property tax decrease for everyone or a need-based property tax decrease . However what's being proposed I see is a a tax break for people the majority of whom do not need help and a tax increase for the majority of working families and everybody else who is also struggling to stay in their homes. Including young working families with new homes. This is what we've got here as far as I can see. This is robbing Peter to pay Paul where the vast majority of Denton property taxpayers are Peter. I see this as a regressive tax and I have not seen not tonight or before tonight a single argument that answers the main objection. What is my main objection and what I see is the main objection of of many others who are against this. That is the apparent inevitability that the rest of us that looking at the big picture in the long term and quite possibly in the immediate short term the rest of us will be paying for this. I'm concerned this is a tax increase on the rest of us and I haven't heard a single argument tonight to say otherwise and I would hope that anyone watching at home would really think about that. This is up to the voters to decide and I accept you know what the voters just whatever the voters decide. I won't be happy with it if this gets passed. However I would really like people to look at all the arguments for and against and to ask yourself has this question been answered to your satisfaction. That this is not going to be a tax increase for the rest of us. Again I see this as as a tax increase and and that is my chief concern. My parents who are homeowners who live in Denton in their 70s who would benefit by this this tax freeze are profoundly against it for you know the reasons that I have just stated. You know and I can't help but wonder if the benefit that many seniors will be getting is is so small just a little bit for each of them and yet it adds up to a lot for the vast majority of people benefiting. You know why why put the rest of of you know your city in so much trouble financially to at a time when we have a billion dollar budget to benefit just a little bit. Again I agree tax the property taxes are too high. I feel like the buzzer should be going off. Anyway I'm getting tired of hearing myself talk so I'll just stop but I agree that I agree that property taxes are too high and so again I agree with the problem. I respect the process but I'm just just deeply concerned and not satisfied that this is not going to that this won't be a tax increase for the rest of us. Thanks. Thank you. No you're good. Okay yeah thank you. All right this is a public hearing those are all the cards we have but any we're going to start from the front and work back so if come on down and state your name and address and your time will begin and the buzzer I believe is working is that correct okay. Well I don't need the buzzer because it won't be that long. My name is Shirley Johnson 9904 Crestridge Drive. I understand that city budgets need to have revenue to operate I get that and we know that Texas is one of the highest property tax states in the country but we also don't have income tax here so we can all be excited about the fact that we don't have income tax and then lament the fact that we have really high property tax so for the young lady that just had a point of view about the taxes are too high everywhere another option could always be to implement income tax. Now we go back to where the seniors don't generally have income so the younger generation who's out there working today gets an increase in taxes probably even greater than what we're asking for for a property tax freeze. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you. All right we'll just go ahead and we'll just go that by row by row if that's okay. Yeah that's going to be the easiest sorry about that. I wasn't going to say anything. Shirley Martin 8717 Franklin Drive, Denton, Texas. Just one comment it doesn't matter which way you feel about this. The DCAD has a 10% cap and regardless if there's a property tax freeze or not every year they're going to put the cap on your property no matter how many properties you own if you're a homeowner or if you have 500 pieces of property you're excuse me they're going to put that 10% cap raise on you and you got to go defend your taxes and hopefully you'll get it down to seven or eight percent. So if the property tax when it when the property tax freezes the ones that don't want that are against it I don 't know if the city has a waiver or not but I'm sure they wouldn't mind you signing a waiver and continue to pay your tax increases if you're over 65 and disabled. Thank you. Yes. My name is Gary Panuski and I live at 9900 Crestridge Drive . My concern is we're missing a little bit of the point we're going past the poor people that really aren't here. Three months ago you were presented with a bunch of data that said there are 6,700 homesteads in the city of Denton. Approximately 3,000 of those or 3,200 were people who owned houses less than $200,000. Let's get off of the ropes and range big money people and everything. We're worried about those people. That's almost 50% of the city we're talking about. As Larry mentioned people weren't living on fixed incomes and this is getting tough when you hit them for 10%, 10%. They've lived here I'm going to guess many many years and when I was getting some petitions yes my grandmother needs this she's really struggling yes my mother and dad are wondering what they're going to do. I hear all this I understand it there are some people that have a lot of rentals that that's going to have an effect on them so be it. What about those poor people that are in their houses 50% of the people in Denton based on your information which I'm requesting can we get a copy of that? Can that information was presented by the tax person or somebody? Can that be presented so that we can really work with that data? That's all I'm really interested in is being able to get that. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else on that row we're just going to go okay you're about right yes state your name and address and your time will begin. Yes hi my name is Prudence Sanchez I'm the wife of Alfredo Sanchez and I live at 7-eleven Jackson Street and as I understand that this piece of legislation was to keep seniors from being taxed out of their homes. It's going to have it's sometimes you know legislative intent has some really broad implications unintended consequences and so that's what I see can happen to Denton if we do pass this tax freeze. There are other ways to help senior citizens and disabled people by increasing their exemption or some way to reduce their taxes rather than doing a freeze which is something that I heard in work session this morning and I thought was a really good idea. We do need to target the need for people who are having problems paying their taxes their property taxes however we can't forget about the large cross-section of the population that could be harmed by this and there is a lot of anecdotal stories there are a lot of anecdotal stories that we can tell about certain people who've been affected in certain ways by having to pay the property taxes but the fact of the matter is that if Denton becomes a city that is seen as being onerous to young people moving here because the tax rate is so high then we're going to have problems with young people and young families wanting to move here to Denton even if we do have a you know two universities and a junior college. We want to be a place that invites growth. Some people may be afraid that there's going to be a senior exodus because taxes get too high. I don't know if that's going to be true or not but I can I know for sure that the way we want Denton to grow and even though it will grow and the tax base may broaden this tax burden will fall on on others in not the best proportion to the benefit that some senior citizens and disabled people will benefit from so I believe that there is a there's some alternatives I think that we need to look at what those alternatives would be and not pass this tax freeze because I do believe that in a few years I believe it was said by 2027 we're going to have a decrease of about 15 million dollars in tax revenue and it's going to have to come from somewhere and I believe that there is something else that we can do something better for Denton. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, can you come down down to state your name and address and your time will begin? I'm Paul Meltzer. I live at 1914 West Oak Street. First of all I'm pleased to hear that Robeson Ranch will continue to grow. I believe that'll be the case whether the freeze passes or not. I think it's an indication that Denton is an attractive place for seniors to come and live. That said the issue of fiscal discipline and tax fairness is one that is vitally important to all Dentonites. It's important to seniors who own their homes. It's important to seniors who rent. It's important to seniors who live on the street with no home at all. I'm pleased that from what I heard in the work session that council is committed to putting information up online about the consequences of this measure and that I'm pleased that we have a few months for people to really look about it and really really look into it and really think about what's fair for all. Thank you. All right public hearing anybody else wishing to speak? Anybody else wishing to speak? One more call? Seeing no movement we will no no no we'll go through all this all over again. Yeah so we will now close the public hearing and and we do want to inform the public that the information that you were speaking of that I believe we've instructed the city staff to put that on the website just sort of some factual data so it will be available to be able to analyze and and and use according to your purposes. Oh yes I'm sorry council member Gary. And that's that backup information is available today the information writing the number of homesteads, the number of non-homesteads, etc. All of that is available in today's agenda items. But I believe that will also be posted at that particular portion of the website so that it'd be easily accessible. Okay we complete agenda item 6a we're agenda item 7a. Any council discussion or chair would entertain a motion? Council member Wasney. I move that we approve item 7a which according to Texas state law requires this council place this initiative on the May 6 ballot. Council member Gregory. I'll second I'd like to speak to it when we have a chance to discuss. Okay we have a motion and a second do we now at this time discuss? Yes. Well I'm going to I'm going to second the motion and I'm going to vote to put this to the voters because that's my duty. That's what the law requires and I believe in doing my duty . And I turn 65 in just a few days. I'm going to benefit if this tax freeze passes but I'm opposed to it and I'm opposed to it because it costs money to provide city services and those costs to provide city services are not frozen. Even though seniors taxes might get frozen the number of firefighters won't be frozen because the growth that we've heard people talk about the growth new citizens moving to town that means we need more firefighters that means we need more police officers. The cost for their salaries aren't frozen. The cost to pay for their health benefits are not frozen. The cost to purchase replacement public service public safety equipment is not going to be frozen. Those costs will continue to go up and somebody else will be paying for those. The cost to maintain that equipment's not frozen. When I talked to some of my friends my senior colleagues and said so if you want a tax freeze or if you want us to reduce your property taxes what services do you get that you want to see reduced? It's silence. They don't list any services that they use. They might call for services that somebody else uses but not for services that they use. So if the freeze passes who covers the short fall in revenue? Who pays for those services? The cost of which are not frozen. You see the reason I'm opposed to it is because it's about fairness. It's about responsibility. It's about everyone doing their duty to do their fair share. About 11.9 percent of residents in Denton are 65 or older. Interestingly I did some research on the signers of the Declaration of Independence. There were 56 men that signed it and 12 percent of those signers were 60 years or older. You know it's the Declaration of Independence that formed this country and the last sentence in this is an inspiring sentence in the Declaration of Independence . It says and for the support of this declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence we mutually pledge to each other our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor. They were all in 100 percent in none of the folks that signed it said well I'm going to pledge myself to this but I'd like an exemption on my taxes. I'd like a freeze on my taxes. I'm not really all in and these are the kind of folks that I really respect that say I'm going to continue to do my duty. I'm going to continue to do what's right and to do my fair share because they were not just doing it for the sake of their country. They were doing it for the sake of their neighbors. They were doing it for the sake of their federal citizens their their their neighbors and their citizens their fellow citizens. So while I'm going to do my duty I'm also going to do my duty and try to keep paying my taxes because I don't consider it a burden. I consider it a privilege. I consider it my patriotic duty. Councilmember Wasney you show a request to speak again. Yes go ahead. You know seniors who support this are not asking for a free pass. They're not asking for a free pass. They still get their tax bill. They still pay those school taxes which are frozen. They're still going to pay their city property tax. They'll still pay their county property tax. The benefit for those seniors is that they can look at their budget over the next year and exactly know because they already know what the funds are coming in. Those really don't change and I brought it up today. Unless your spouse dies in which case you could lose a great portion of that money coming in. But let's say you do have both spouses still alive. They look at their retirement income. They look at their expenses. These are homes that they've either lived in for a long time or a short time. But budgets are budgets and when you are on a fixed income a budget is paramount knowing from month to month the money coming in the money going out. Let's say you're retired for 30 years but your income is still the same. Homes are going up and are capped at 10 percent a year. If we go out five years and those property values increase 10 percent a year we're looking at a 50 percent appraisal increase for homes for everybody. But when I was 30 when I was 40 when I was 50 I worked and sometimes I worked two jobs. I know a lot of people who are 75 or 80 they are struggling to get through each day. There's no option to go work two jobs. They have a fixed income. They're doing their best to try to make ends meet. This tax freeze will help people stay in their homes. Across the country when property values increased dramatically seniors had to sell. They had to move away. We're already seeing some of that. I know people who have left Denton. So again I come back to full circle. Seniors aren't asking for a free pass. They still get their tax bill. They're just asking to have the ability to budget those funds that come in and go out and be able to keep their homes. Thank you. Councilmember Hawkins. Thank you Mayor. I too will be voting for this but I am very against this. I know many young families in town that are they're struggling in many different ways too. I believe you know I was a little shocked when I got my property tax bill too. I've tried to you know kind of dispute it get it down as low as I can. I have three businesses. My rent's gone up but a lot of things have gone up. My assessed value on my house I was able to refinance it. Get rid of my PMI insurance. My PMI payment on that because of that assessed value. So there are a lot of positive things that have been happening too in our community with these higher assessed values. One thing though today that we did learn is over the next 10 years 15 million dollars will be missing. Kind of a guesstimate but close to that going into the general budget if this does happen. One thing that I am definitely struggling with is how permanent this is. There is no you cannot reverse this once you do this. I think that this has future implications on property tax rates. If you want to come talk to council about not raising property tax rates in the future this might you know mess that up a little bit. Future homestead exemptions and possible over 65 exemptions. So I feel like there's maybe another avenue to go about this but I too will be voting for it but I will definitely be advocating for this not to pass. So thank you . Okay council member Begari. Thank you mayor. I'll be voting for this tonight. I wanted to bring up a few items that we haven't discussed just for your consideration. I belong to the most indentured generation of any Americans. Average student loan debt for people that are just out of college is 29,400. I myself graduated from law school with debt of 109,000 dollars not that I was counting at age 25 and I have slowly paid that down working more than one job for many years. I consider myself lucky among my generation. I own a home. Most people in my generation do not own homes. Most people in my generation have negative assets so it's not even at zero yet and I know that many baby boomers help their kids that are in this position but I feel very strongly that the tax burden could not be any harder for our particular generation because we are not only being taxed on income we're not only being taxed on real estate we are effectively paying a tax to Fannie Mae of three six ten percent every year and that money goes to the federal government. So I would just ask for the people here to please consider the predicament that our generation is in. There will be no pensions for us. There will be none. There may not be social security for us. The situation that we will have after you are gone will be dire in my opinion and please just consider that. Also I'd like to mention one other thing which is that two things adjusted for inflation income is down since the 1970s. It has not gone up so when we're looking at actual wages apples to apples over time we're earning less and less each year as it's adjusted for inflation. During our budget discussions given all of the pressures being faced by not only seniors but younger people as well I was a very vocal advocate for the effective tax rate which is a tax freeze for everyone in the city. It's a tool that we have and we can we can utilize it as a city council any governmental body can utilize it. I was keenly aware of the pressure being felt. I will tell you now that did not pass and we only needed two people to pass it. It's a tax freeze for the entire city. The effective rate is the way that you achieve a tax freeze and the way that it is equitable across the board for everyone in the city. If you have a tax freeze for just one portion of the population that portion of the population can effectively tax the rest of the portion of the population without representation and I'll tell you how. Bonds. Every bond measure that comes before you you will still have the ability to vote on even if your taxes are frozen. But that those that tax money to pay for it will come out of new taxation so you will never feel the pinch of the bond. Everyone else will feel it. So for these uh numerous reasons I will be voting no for the tax freeze for seniors but I'll continue to vote for the effective rate because it's something that I believe in a tax freeze for everybody. Any other comments? Seeing none. All right I would just simply say the city's going to have some data out on the website. I would encourage everyone no matter what position you have on this issue study the data. This is our process. This is the greatness of our country is to be able to go to the ballot box and express our opinion based upon whatever rationale we want to use. But I also encourage people use the data and and you'll come to whatever conclusion that you believe that the data represents. So I'm hoping that our staff can get that up as quickly as possible and then feel free to email probably any of us if there's some data up there that would be helpful to see and we'll make sure that we can if it's available try to get it up there. So it's sort of a work in progress. Councilman Begarra your name is still on request to speak but you're that's okay all right. So we do have a motion and a second for agenda item 7a and we'll have to we will show our vote on that by a show of hands. So we have a motion and a second for approval of agenda item 7a. So everyone moving to approve agenda item 7a please signify by raising your right hand. The motion carries unanimously. Thank you. We'll move on to agenda item 7b and we do have a blue card to speak on 7b. It's consider nominations appointments to the city boards and commissions. I think I have a nomination believe it or not. Oh is it okay Mr. is it taking it for the airport board yes okay all right. Yours is in the backup and mine's in the back. Okay we have a card wishing to speak. I almost said council member Hutzpeth again. Oh my gosh. Mr. Mr. Willie Hutzpeth you'll state your name and address and your time will begin. Yes my name is Willie Hutzpeth I live at 623 Newton. I remember when you as a council switched through the the recommend by the recommendation of the attorney that you you choose who's going to be on the the city charter group you switched from letting council people recommend who they wanted to only council members in the district that they represent and the at-large people could pick anyone. It's pretty obvious to me if now you're going to let someone pick their person from anywhere in the city like you've been doing it's obvious to me that you did that for reasons that were not fair and they were not lawful but you did it anyway for whatever reasons I don't know but now you are here with now more board selections or yes people that you're going to appoint when I sit down I want to hear from you probably won't but it will be on the record you can only put someone on that board that presides in your district in your area that's what I want to hear then you're consistent if you don't do that per recommendation of the attorney and whoever you've got to get for that then you need to tell us why you could switch on that one issue and I heard the excuses we got to have a fair group what does where you live have to do with it being fair or not you mean if I live in a certain neighborhood or a certain place I can't be fair to the rest of the city yeah I want to hear what you have to say I'd be eager to hear that and see what the the attorney then has advised you to do in these this board appointments then I want to say something about the fairness of the taxes that you're trying to do here's what you do join me to go out to that during apprais al district and argue effectively for your taxes I've been doing it for years my property sits on two acres and I don't mind telling you I tell them all the time too my home is 3500 square feet I pay 85 no it is it is valued at 85 000 three acres 3500 square feet 85 dollars two years ago it was 67 dollars because I go out there and protest every year and I know how to do it call me I can help you thank you all right uh we don't have any more cards to speak on this agenda item so we do have some nominations uh we we do have um is there chair would entertain a motion I don't yes council member Gregory I move approval of the nomination says in our packet we have a motion we have council member wasney I second we have a motion and second for agenda item seven b all in favor please signify by raising your right hand motion carries Dalton did you raise your right hand okay I 'm sorry you put it down for all right no motion carries unanimously moving on to agenda item 7c considered option of an ordinance accepting competitive proposals and awarding public works contract for the construction of fire station number four uh we don't have a staff presentation on this we do have a card wishing to speak so before we uh go further council discussion want to invite mr. Hesbeth up to speak on this this matter station name I live at 625 newton I want to speak again as I did in the uh the open or the work session there are no african-americans the police department I talked to the chief I talked to the city marshal I talked to his assistant and let me just stay for the record they are trying their best to deal with that issue they really are and I trust them I think they are they are going to be successful eventually but as the as dr. King has taught me you just keep talking about it but you do it civil I'm working on that civil part you do it in love I 'm working on that love part but you just keep seeing it and then eventually people who are fair-minded and who would like to to do something about it will put forth the effort and be able to do that so I just keep speaking now as far as what the mayor did today bless his heart and last week and I don't want to bless his heart much because then he'll think that he'll be thinking that I like him and I don't want him to get that get the wrong anyway let me tell you about taxpayers and you're talking about raising the taxes we don't like you spending our money unnecessarily and bless his heart the mayor sincerely says that there's possibly something we could do about this the the construction of this fire station station that is really it really does sound like it's really high with how much it costs and in those meetings I've heard some of the rest of you too just wonder aloud is there something we can do why are these prices so high that we like members of the city council the citizens appreciate that don't waste our money remember one point one other point that the mayor brought or not he didn't bring it up I don't guess you all talked about it was what if you're getting bids and they kind of know that municipalities just spend more money so you they tend to to bid higher you were just wondering about that I wonder about that too bottom line is some of you are trying to to come up with budgets that are responsible and you really do work at trying to save money for the citizens of bidden and I think that's great thank you thank you uh councilman mayor pro tem rodin thank you mayor I was just going to move approval of agenda item I think it's seven seven c c thank you council member wasney I second the motion all right we have a motion and a second for approval of agenda item seven c all in favor please signify by raising your right hand all opposed by like sign motion carries six to one all right we now reach concluding items I've got a couple but we'll roll down the list as the request to speak are mounting and stacking up okay summer councilman wasney I have two things concluding items I'd like a work session on city council's closed sessions specifically the policies and procedures surrounding these closed meetings specifically the subject matter of the closed meetings and people in attendance at these closed meetings so if we could have a work session on that it would be much appreciated second item also like a work session regarding the recent announcement that our city attorney is retiring in February specifically I'd like it date certain for January 24th which is the next council meeting specifically the selection of an interim city attorney specifically a discussion on filling the position thank you council member hawkins thank you mayor maybe it's because it's getting dark earlier but I've had a few people approach me a lot of the lights around the unicorn lake that path are not working and I don't know if that's park property or private property but if somebody could just help me out with that that'd be great thank you council member riggs so I would like to request a staff report on current or also the history of diversity of public safety divisions and a while ago several months back I think it's during mr Langley's presentation we talked about a livable wage but that wasn't there wasn't a figure and I'm just curious curious if that ever came to be and if so if we can have a presentation on that what that what that would be for our city right now what we would consider a current livable wage okay council member baguerre my turn already um I'd like to have a discussion about the evaluation criteria we use for the rfq I believe it's rfq maybe a rfp for the delinquent tax collection contract specifically looking at the ranking the way that we give points for allocation for specific items within that rfq and I noted that last year I think the responses were due March 15th and I don't know if we're going to do that again this year but if we could be mindful of the timeline okay I've got a couple one is to get and I think we talked about it earlier about getting on a work session to discuss the Dent on Housing Authority and possible partnerships with various developers and providing workforce housing and some additional programs to help with transitional housing and the homeless I've got them all spread out over here would like a it's not so much a work session but I understand we we have a closing tomorrow on on a track of land that city approved as far as on the brinker substation I'd like to see a copy of that uh settlement statement to be fine yeah that's all I can think of well goes without saying like a work session on developing some new processes for evaluating construction projects for municipal facilities and how we can have some policy discussion on that process and if there's ways that we can improve it to to maximize our return of tax dollars in those construction projects and how we increase the the number of bidders which possibly may drive down some of the costs and then lastly I would like an update from and I think we might have had it actually an update from the is a development code review committee about where we are and how we're I think we might have done that but just you know a couple weeks ago I I think that's part of our issue I just want to make sure that we're moving forward continuing to move forward on evaluating our processes to begin to streamline that process to help both city facility construction projects and private developer construction projects anybody else this first of all thank you Allison for stepping in did a great job I appreciate that seriously thank you very much appreciate council's indul gence on that any other concluding items nope all right we will stand adjourned at 8 13