Mar 21, 2017 City Council on 2017-03-21 5:00 PM

[ Silence ] Welcome to meeting of the Denton City Council here on March 21st. You're stuck with me today. The mayor is traveling overseas in London visiting family. The first item is citizen comments on consent agenda items and we have one card. Mr. Willie Hutspeth, all dressed up for us today. [ Silence ] Which one? Mayor Crotty and City Council members, my name is Willie H utspeth, I live at 623 Newton. Thank you for providing a seat for me to sit in rather than the floor at this time. The consent agenda item that I want to talk about, there's several, but just as an example, whoever there is a consideration of letting a bid out, I want to express my objections to that if minority contractors were not considered in these areas. So I realize that I'm saying that and you're just waiting until my three minutes is up. You're going to continue with business as usual and you're not going to do anything about it. But I'm going to keep saying. Another one is the firefighters, Sarah. I just want you to answer the question. Answer it in your minds, why aren't there firefighters in this city? Except one. We've had, this city has been incorporated for years and we 've had firefighters for years. Why aren't there African American firefighters? You answer that yourself without me being so negative with what I'm thinking the reason for that is. Keely asked for some information about it. I'll be talking about that in the city council meeting tonight. Quit giving out information that is not accurate and up to date. She specifically asked, what did I, for the things that I was asking about. This is what frustrates citizens about count government. When you hide things, not hide. When you present it in a way that it doesn't seem like it's truthful, just tell us. Now you're probably going to get sued if it's because of the color of their skin, but that's okay. You've got billions of dollars to waste. But there is a reason why there are no African American firefighters. I just feel sorry for the ones who they're going to eventually hire if they ever do. And because now he's got to go in the barracks where he's with people who for years have been segregated. I don't even like my church because there's no white people in it. What is wrong with us? I went to Denton Bible the other day and I was the only black person in there in that section that I went to. We got to stop that. My grandkids don't get it. They think that we're all okay. They just love everybody. They've been raised the wrong way. They just love everybody. But boy, I tell you, we are just separated. We just separate everything. This is the colored section right over here. Thank you, Mr. Hudspeth. Next item on our agenda is request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda for March 21st, 2017. Councilmember Briggs. So L, letter L, it's about the Magnolia Drainage Project. And I just want confirmation that this is one of the first steps, the things that need to happen before Hinkle is repaired or repaved. This is that project that is going to start the -- okay. I can talk about that. Okay. Thank you. My name is Chad Allen. I'm in Capital Projects. Frank Payne is my boss. He's ill tonight, so he's not able to be here. So I can speak about this project, and you're absolutely right. We're going to do this drainage project and build these new box culverts up Hinkle so that they can repave that road. So this has to happen before that roadway project is done. So the roadway project can be done after the culvert project is completed. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Gregory. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. On item G, it has to do with amending of the contract for our public safety dispatch system. I have a couple of questions about that regarding what kinds of upgrades are going to be involved. There's been quite a bit of discussion the last few days in the news about that. So one of the questions is, are we having any problems with receiving 911 calls from any of the cellular phone systems? Another question is, I had seen on the news report that some -- that Denton County 911 is moving towards being able to accept text messages for 911 calls. I'm wondering if this upgrade will have anything to do with us being able to do that or are we renewing something that 's not going to help us make the progress that we need to be making? Thank you, Councilmember. I'll have an answer for you briefly. Good afternoon, Councilmembers and Mayor Pro Tem. My name is Laura Barons. I'm the Fire Marshal for the City of Denton and I have been the lead project manager on this particular project. And to answer your questions, I am not aware of any issues that we've had here recently, like Dallas in particular has experienced with receiving 911 calls. And that's actually -- they're receiving duplicate calls that are generated by certain phone carriers and they're having engineers from those companies going in and assessing to find out why that's happening. But to my knowledge, no, we're not receiving those same -- or experiencing those same issues. And in terms of being able to receive the text to messaging calls, what we're doing here, in the first phase of this project, we met specifically with all the working groups within the fire and police departments and we have developed specifications for new systems. One of them is for our RMS system, which is the record management system, one for fire and one for police. And the second one is for the CAD system, that's the computer aided dispatch system. And those new systems through this process will be bid out and we'll be able to upgrade all of our current operating systems in both of those two capacities. So that's what this is for. Do you anticipate then at some point that we will have an upgrade to receive text messages ? Yes. Okay. At some point, yes. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Any other questions? Councilmember Bergieri. I'd like to remove from the consent agenda items B, C, and D. Was that D or E? Bravo. C, I don't know, what is that, cat? Cat something. D for dog. And D for dog, okay. That's not what it is. Bunny cat dog, good. Oh my goodness. And for item C, I just wanted a small presentation from staff for the rest of it. I don't need any presentation, but just a very brief presentation for the Safe Routes to Schools at the whole session tonight. If you don't mind. Okay. And the other two don't require presentations. Great. Anything else? No. I do, I was notified by the city manager that we are pulling off item O to be considered at a later time. So when the motion comes out tonight, pull off B, C, and D as in dog, and O permanently. Okay, great. We will move on to item number 3A. Receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction regarding amendments to the management agreement between the city of Denton and the Dallas Entrepreneur Center. Mayor Pro Tem. Yes, please. I'm recusing myself from this discussion. Thank you. Okay. Everybody settled? Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem, council members. I'm here to update you briefly on Stoke Denton. I was here talking to you not very long ago about the same project. So the new information that I have to bring to you today is about a six-month action plan that's been developed by St oke Denton staff. And I'm also going to reiterate the proposed amendments that we have to the management agreement with the Dallas Entrepreneur Center. Briefly, during the February 21st work session, which was the last time I was before you on this item, we discussed Stoke Denton's history, budget information, and occupancy and activity. You also received a report from Tray Bowls of the Dallas Entrepreneur Center. And we discussed the establishment of performance metrics and proposed amendments to the management agreement with the DEC. During that meeting, council members requested a comparison of the structure of services that are provided by the Small Business Development Center in Denton and Stoke Denton. I've prepared that information and included it in your backup. And unless there are any specific questions about that information, I'm not planning to go into it right now. But glad to answer any questions if you have them about that. There was also a request for a community snapshot of current tech sector activity in Denton. And we're preparing a survey right now to be distributed to the tech community at large. We've also asked current Stoke Denton members to complete the same survey for comparison purposes. We did have that survey distributed to 27 members and eight completed it. I included those Stoke specific results in your backup as well. Again, not really planning to delve into that right now because I'd like to see the response to the broader survey just for comparative purposes. But happy to answer questions about the survey if you have them. During the work session last time, we received a strong message that council is interested in keeping Stoke Denton focused on the tech sector. I'm providing employment opportunities for our recent college graduates. So to be responsive to that, the staff of Stoke Denton has developed a six month action plan. Some of the highlights of that action plan include hosting Denton Data Day at Stoke on March 4th. And that was an event that was coordinated by a couple of folks from UNT. And that brought 50 people who were involved in data and coding and technology and various aspects to Stoke to work on city of Denton specific data for the entire day. So that brought a number of people into the space at Stoke and allowed them to work on a project that benefits the citizens of Denton. Another item that they're going to be working on in the coming months is building an advisory council of folks who are connected to the startup and tech world in Denton as well as DFW at large to advise and direct Stoke's efforts. I understand that two people have been recruited to be on that advisory council to date and there's a goal of adding another three by the end of this month. The mentor program is going to be another focus and that's going to be grown not in terms of adding mentors because there are already 25 mentors with expertise in various fields at this point. But the growth they're going to be focusing on is connecting mentors with members and making sure that there are plenty of mentor sessions available and that as many of them as possible are used. In conjunction with TechMill, Stoke has been hosting technical web development workshops. So TechMill does the programming. Stoke provides the space and helps with the promotion for that. Student discounts are also being offered. I believe that is half off membership. So from 150 down to seventy five dollars for students at our local institutions of higher education as well as DISD. Is that right? Okay. Good. Women Who Code is a group that fosters women in the technology industry and they have been meeting at Stoke for the past several months free of charge and they're going to continue to host those monthly meetups through 2017. Finally, Stoke is establishing a guest company program, which is a concept that more established technology companies in the community who don't have need of office space come into the space on occasion and work in the co- working open area in order to interact with other folks who are there. Foster relationships and kind of serve in more of a maybe an informal mentor role is a good way to describe it. So if there are any questions about any of those activities , I would be glad to answer them. But this is what they're going to be focusing on primarily in addition to recruiting new folks into this space, keeping an eye on the fact that it needs to be focused primarily on tech sector companies. Councilmember Hawkins has a question. Yeah, thank you. And that kind of goes to my question. Do you feel the open data event or any of the other events has kind of been beneficial in courting any tech tenants? What I gather from talking to the folks at Stoke and the deck is that it's very beneficial. I mean, bringing more people into the space, letting them see what it's like, creating those interactions among people is beneficial in terms of marketing and showing people kind of what the space can do to help them and whatever stage their business is in. Okay, thanks. Any other questions? Okay. Okay, to go back to the recommendations that I made to you last time, these are all the same as you saw when we spoke last about this. But what I'm recommending is amending the management agreement with the Dallas Entrepreneur Center to establish baseline metrics for certain things that will then be used to set future performance goals after the next six months should the contract be renewed going forward. We're going to change the term wording from will be renewed annually to may be renewed annually. The expiration date will change from March 1 2017 to September 30 2017. We'll add a 30 day prior notice termination option and an appropriations clause, as well as specify the remittance of 10% of the membership fees, excuse me to go directly to the city of Denton instead of to the landlord. Wanted to let you all know too that we're going to be doing some additional evaluation of the value that Stoke brings the city of Denton, we're going to be monitoring their occupancy rate as well as the graduation rate or the folks who move out of the space after they've accomplished their goals and are ready to move on. Recruitment of tech sector members will be something we'll keep an eye on as well as general business generation and growth and member satisfaction. So finally, we'll take your questions glad to answer any of them that you have and then I'm seeking direction to move forward with bringing those management agreement amendments to you for individual consideration at your meeting next week. Quick question on your previous slide the metrics that you said the city staff will be monitoring. Is there any reason some of those weren't put into the metrics that they are putting together as part of their baseline metrics. Yes, because we really want to set baseline metrics on some basic things first, because it is such a new space, and we want to gather information about the potential that the space has without setting unreasonable expectations I think is the best way to put it. But these these things that we're going to be using to evaluate it might factor into future goals in future agreements. What questions do you have. Councilmember Gary. It says that 90% of the membership fees that still collect that Dallas Entrepreneur Center collects will go to daily operations. So I'm trying to figure out what it is that the city would be providing in light of the fact that 90% of the rents are going to deck, and they're providing these various items for daily operations. So, where, what is it that we could potentially be providing in terms of resources. That's a good question. That's something that we would working with economic development to actually distinguish what are they doing as opposed to us and what are we providing. I don't know the answer to that question, but that is something that we would need to look into to answer that question. Do you want me to kind of give you the breakdown. Okay. So, we obviously provide everything that's associated with the rent and the, the triple net associated things about electricity and pest control and cleaning the facility that kind of stuff. The 90% goes to marketing programs, providing amenities to the people who are members. Those kinds of the operational aspects that don't have to do with the building maintenance and provision of the lights and air conditioning and things like that, if that helps at all. It does. I'm wondering if we should define resources a little bit better though so that we don't have a situation where, you know, six months down the line, deck is saying you were supposed to provide this and we say no, we weren't supposed to provide that. And we're happy to do that and I'd be glad to work with legal on it. I mean, I will say that we have successfully negotiated that line up to this point. I mean, that really hasn't been a problem. And we've weathered a lot together, working together under the existing contract. But if that's something that you would like for us to do before we bring it back to you for a vote next week, I'd be glad to work with Erin to do it. I would suggest just having a definition section and defining what it is that resources are. I mean, that's at the purview of council. We can do that. We can specify the, as Caroline has listed, what they are providing, what we provide so it's crystal clear who's responsible for what. Okay. Got it. Councilmember Hawkins. I guess just overall you feel comfortable that council is given direction to recruit tech sector members and with these amendments and these changes, that's what we are doing. I think so. I feel confident that they understand that that 's the priority and we understand that as well. Because it doesn't feel like it's written down, you know, but I know like the direction. So I guess. We've got it. Okay. Yes, Councilmember Wasney. Are we clear on the performance matrix standards for this operation? So, you know, I'm looking at nice words up there. The brass tacks bottom line is this is costing a lot of money. And so for future councils to really be able to sharpen their pencils and take a look at funding this program, there has to be a very solid performance matrix standard for the use of this building and the people coming in. You can't just say, well, you know, we have X number of members. There has to be. So whether economic development works with our finance department who is used to matrix numbers and maybe let them help you noodle what it is that, you know, so that there is some kind of a baseline and a standard of where are we going. So in six months to a year, 18 months, you can put up on a screen a chart showing here's what's happening. Here's what it's costing per job that is generated out of Stoke because it still comes back to taxpayer money funding this operation. And there has to be a matrix for performance. Don't know what that is, but there are smarter people in this room who know how to put that together that can help future councils when they come back and address this project. I completely agree. We have to set those standards for performance. And that's the idea of baselining for the next six months so that we have the time to develop what those future measurable metrics are that we can communicate to the council. So we're moving in that direction. Yes, ma'am. And I would make the survey mandatory that if you are a member, you've got to fill out the survey because the only way we have what, eight surveys in out of how many people? Twenty-three? Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven. So whether it takes phone calls, you know, emails get lost in the shuffle these days because people receive so many of them. Pick up the phone and say council really needs this survey. Economic development needs a survey. You've got to fill it out. And put some heat on deck and let them know we want the survey. So when these people are in there using the space, you know , they can kind of work the room to say who hasn't filled out the survey because the survey is going to provide us some of these baseline numbers and information that we need . So, you know, the survey results tell a lot and I think it 's really an important tool. So put some heat on them. Anything you have to do and get these people to fill out the survey. It will help you. Anything else? I have a couple of questions and as you're thinking about the evaluation, and I touched on this a little bit last time and I'm not sure how to situate it at least as it relates to justice contract or at least what we 're talking about in terms of goals, performance matrix. Because it really is to me, this has always been a larger conversation. Stoke is a resource to have in a community in order to move a certain sector of our economy in the right direction. It's not the end game with that. There's several other things that ought to be moving forward to make that happen. So I'm afraid we're putting it all in the back of Stoke to say we didn't draw in this company or this company or these things didn't happen. Where are we heading in terms of that broader conversation? I know there was the leadership dent in class, had this tech council concept. I'm not sure where that's at. I know where the economic development partnership board is in talking about strategies for the tech sector and how this fits into that. Part of me wants to see more discussion even in terms of evaluation, in terms of partnerships. What are our sustainable partnerships with our two universities who are ultimately going to be feeding in people, connections to a ton of resources at our two universities, three universities if you count NCTC. Other sorts of partnerships with the chamber or what not, other people that would play a part in the success of this. Talk to me about that kind of larger picture and what would be your suggestion of tying in that larger picture to this? Because I'd hate, of course I won't be here next time this comes around, but I'd hate for the ultimate success of the local economy on tech economic development to rest on the back of a co-working space. When in reality it's going to take several players coming together to make things happen and when those are happening , everyone's, hopefully the goal will be everything is coming into place and even this is succeeding as a result. So talk to me about your thoughts along those lines. So to be frank, some of these things that you've mentioned are in a little bit of a holding pattern right now. We're in a little bit of a rebuilding mode in my department and I think you're well aware of that. So the community conversation around growing the tech sector has been happening for a number of years. A lot of people in this room, a lot of people listening have been involved in that and there have been some great ideas generated that we need to continue to work to flesh out. We're going to have to pick that back up again because it is critically important for our economy and I think as we touched on last time, we're doing some new strategic conversations internally within economic development as a department that will have to be floated up through the processes and the approvals and the conversations with the Economic Development Partnership Board and the council. But I can say without question that we all acknowledge the importance of growing the tech sector. Stoke is a part of that. It's an important part of it, but it's not all of it. The partnerships have to be there. The conversations have to continue and I think we all have to be open to moving things forward as we all know they need to in order to keep Denton in line with the growing economy with creating the kind of jobs and opportunities that we want for our community to have. So that's kind of my general perspective on it at this point and it is critically important. So you get that. So that makes me feel good and I knew that already. I wanted to put that up, but I really do. I mean, as we look at some of the early stages of some of these conversations that led to a lot of things, this being one of them. I mean, we even had partners at the table, you know, who came and sought us out was folks from Peterbilt. No one would think of Peterbilt as a tech company. It wouldn't be your first thought. You know, you think they're in our industrial park, but they have some innovative engineers designs. I mean, they do a lot of computer automation and things like that. And they brought us in, showed us their, I forget what they call it, their lighthouse space where they come and do all their ideas and everyone's supposed to take off their ties and their titles. And they brainstormed things. And they were doing some cutting edge stuff along the lines of, and wanted to be a part and a partner of what Denton is doing to kind of build this sector of our economy. And I think there's probably a ton of those sorts of potential partners out there that can really help super charge our efforts to do some really interesting things. So one thing I would just suggest is you're evaluating it. If it makes sense, as you're thinking about these bullet points, to maybe add a bullet as it relates to partnerships , that's something to track. And I think STOKE can kind of serve as a center of that, at least as it's putting on programs. And certainly those partners would help feed some of those things. So just a thought and an encouragement as we're all thinking about this a year from now. And maybe I'll be able to come to the chambers to speak on some of this stuff. But think about the larger picture of this. And I think that's where we're really going to find success . Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or thoughts? And this comes back before us? Next week. Next week. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Okay. You're welcome. Thank you. Next thing I see on the agenda is Pledge of Allegiance. So I assume that means that this portion of the meeting is done. City Attorney, are we supposed to adjourn? Or what's the technical thing we do at the end of the work session? Close the work session. Okay. Good evening. Welcome to a regular session of the Denton City Council here on March 21st. The mayor is on travels tonight and couldn't be here with us. We're going to go ahead and get started with a Pledge of Allegiance to our two flags. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state, under God, one indivisible. Okay. We get started with agenda item three, presentation from members of the public. 3B receives scheduled citizen reports from members of the public if we can go ahead and roll the rules of procedures. 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. One, we have one scheduled citizen report from Jennifer Lane. Hello, my name is Jennifer Lane. I live at 1526 Willowwood Street in Denton and I'm reporting on the tax freeze. As a matter of fact, the very first time I ever saw a council meeting was a meeting about taxes and I was observing this while at the poll center broadcast. Here's a little shout out from NTTV. And it was in fact about the deferral tax that senior citizens can pursue and which about 177 or so in the city have done. School taxes are already frozen for seniors and if passed, the city will not be able to rescind this upcoming proposition. Unlike the school district, the city cannot appeal to the state for funds in the event of a revenue shortfall. So this is an issue right there. And assuming a certain percentage, 3% of appreciation rate, the homes valued at 150k or less will see no more than about 20, maybe $25 in savings. This tax freeze has the potential to shift the burden onto businesses which may push up the prices of goods and services. Using assumptions lower than the historic averages and not accounting for baby boom generation, the loss of revenue to the city during the first year at a very, very conservative estimate is projected to be $ 200,000 and by 2026 could be $2,600,000 or more. Depending on council's response, it could reduce the general fund for street maintenance, parks, recreation centers, homeless shelters, libraries, police, fire safety, etc. Seniors who rent, including those who are disabled or live in senior housing, will not benefit. The Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances in 2013 shows that a homeowner's net worth is 36 times greater than that of renters. The tax freeze would benefit those who are wealthy. There must be continual residential or business growth, which means additional city services, or the city council must reduce the budget to compensate for the revenue short fall. Failure to do so would harm younger families for the sake of an interest group that does not need the help. Seniors and disabled already receiving a $50,000 exemption in addition to the homestead and other exemptions available to the general public. At the bottom of that page are two links. I mentioned that the school taxes are already frozen and for most the taxes are the heaviest burden. School taxes can be more than half of the overall bill. City taxes are around 25% of the bill, at least with the school district, as I said, one can appeal to the state. There's a marginal benefit, as I mentioned, for homes that are valued at $150,000 or less. And in my opinion, the city would benefit more from the council raising the exemption for 65 and over by 5,000 a year, say. An additional exemption would give the city council more flexibility to react to annual fluctuations in housing prices. Now, I know that this is out of the council's hands at this point and even the candidates can't run on this issue, particularly because it's to the public in general. This is just a picture of some local dent in businesses. But I want this to go on the record so that the public who is here and who observes these videotapes has something to think about in terms of arguments against the tax freeze. And the assumption of 200,000 and 2,600,000 by 2026 is actually a pretty conservative assumption. And here are some percentages about appreciation of homes. And the values of homes, the city is assuming at 209,000 so . These are some tables that I'm providing for you from, given to me by tax expert, that show the years from 2008 up through 2016. And the average values of properties receiving the over 65 exemption. And here's tax limitation, estimated impact. Really, the percent was increased at 3% per year, not 2. So here we have the city's projection at 2%, but actually in the last little while, it's been 3.6% since 2008. Current plans at Robson Ranch have adding 160 homes per year until 2044. The city's assumptions are 200 to 300 homes per year. I'm not sure if that includes Robson. And what happens if a larger portion of newly eligible seniors have home values exceed? >> You can conclude your remark. >> Thank you very much. >> Your sentence. >> Okay, thank you very much. Anyway, here are the rest of the PowerPoint, which will be available to anybody who's looking online. These are younger families who would be affected, the interest group that does not need help. And very important is that it is irreversible. The tax freeze is portable also. >> Okay. >> The spouse is five years or longer. It could be 20 to 25 years. >> Thank you very much, Dr. Lane. >> Thank you. Please vote against the freeze. >> Next, we have additional citizen reports, and I'm going to query the council. We had a unique situation come up as people were signing up . We had the first person sign up. Two people were signing up for the second spot at the same time. And so the request would be that we'd be willing to suspend the rules to allow for those three. Is everyone okay with that? Great. Thank you. Then we're going to begin with Janice Heidelberger. If you can come up and please state your name and address, and you may begin. >> Janice Heidelberger, 425 Bernard Street, Apartment 907, Denton, Texas, 76201. Honored council members, Mayor Pro Tem, I hope I say that correctly, and honored citizens. Thank you for hearing me today. I'm a sixth generation Texan on all sides, including some of my family who are Denton farmers. So Denton dirt runs very deep in my bones. I have lived in Denton pretty much since 1992 myself, minus a couple years for seminary and then ELCA, Lutheran pastor in rural Nebraska. Today I live very near UNT and I have a daughter in eighth grade at Calhoun. I love Denton and one of the best parts of Denton has always been its parks. I recently found Clear Creek and that is a beautiful place. Thank you, city of Denton and honored council members. This is well worth my taxes. As a resident of Denton raising my family here, I want to be safe and like you. I want my child and her friends to grow up healthy, well adjusted and able to fulfill her God given potential to love God and serve her neighbor, all of her neighbors worldwide. I want to be able to walk around this town and bicycle safely and I want easy train access to DFW airport, to all the major major cities in Texas, plus north, south, north, east and west. I want clean air and clean water. And so I know we all do and for ourselves and our children, I want to live in a town that's a role model for the rest of America and the world to follow. Respectful council respectfully council members. I don't want gas wells on my neighbor's public school grounds and the ones there, I want monitored for methane and leakage. I want our parents and teachers to know how to stay healthy in the wake of these gas wells. Dear Lord God, my friend just now told me that her husband has MSD and just went through bone marrow cancer, well known to be a result of living from years of prolonged exposure to benzene coming off of gas wells. [Speaking in foreign language] Lord have mercy. From the deepest part of my bones, I want Denton to do what 20 cities across America have already done, committing to go 100% clean renewable energy over the next eight to 25 years in Vermont, Kansas, Colorado, New York, Minnesota, Maryland, Michigan, California, North Carolina, Utah and Texas. Over 80 companies and many others have made the same commitment like Walmart, Nestle, Nike, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola and Hewlett Packard. And as of March 6th, 701 global institutions valued at $5.5 trillion have committed to divestment from fossil fuel. But friends, instead of focusing on divestment, I want us in Denton to focus on investment, investment in 100% clean renewable industry jobs owned by hundreds or thousands of small employee owned businesses. I want Denton to lead the great state of Texas and America along with those 20 other cities. Jobs in clean renewable energy sector are permanent and easily they are living wage. The sooner the city of Denton goes to a 100% clean renewable, the better. The better for our labor force, our children, our elderly, our veterans, our active military, our farmers, our healthcare system, our world and ourselves. The time is now. It's time to tell a record 65 million refugees worldwide that there is hope for them that they may be able to go back home and farm. That rains will come again and that the droughts and wild fires across Amarillo, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri will see the relief of moisture soon. We know drought well here in Denton. I've lived through it and we don't like it. The Brookings Institution reports that economic growth and CO2 emissions are decoupling and going their own ways. Clean renewable energy across all sectors is good for the economy, public health and our national security. Let's respect the integrity of our military, our faith leaders, our scientists and our hardworking citizens. It's time for Denton to honor the contracts that it has, to pay whatever it feels needs to be paid, amend those contracts, work with our gas plant owners to remediate and to ensure that the children of those gas plant owners get to grow up healthy and safe in a clean renewable energy economy and world. Let's work together. Let's do this. Let's be a leader as a city, a leader and a role model for America and the world. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker who signed up is Deb Armantor. Hi, Deb Armantor, 2003 Mistywood Lane. I just want to say first a big amen to what Janice had to say. I completely agree and coincidentally it turns out that our talks overlap. I'm wearing a pin today that says stop the frack attack. We as a city, as you are all aware, are under attack by big oil and gas on a number of different levels. As you know, at the national level, not only big oil and gas, but the entire fossil fuel industry, every asset, every big polluter is eager to get rid of the EPA, and we now have an administration that wants to do just that. So that's scary for all of us. I know I don't have to convince you of that. At the state level, as you all know very well, we have HB 40, which still stands, which was the ban on fracking bans, that was an attack not just against our city, but it was in many ways a response to our citizen-initiated fracking ban, which some of you who were on council at the time supported that. And I just want to thank you for supporting that. The problem is when you're under attack in any kind of attack situation, you need to be ready to continually defend yourself. I'm not a fighting person, but I know enough to know that a fight is not just a one punch. There's a punch and a counterpunch, and then another punch and another counterpunch. So in the case of HB 40, unfortunately, we had a great defense against fracking with our fracking ban, but when they struck at us with HB 40, and that was low and that was dirty, it was not the fault of anybody here, we didn't have a counterattack. We ended up caving and our council at the time repealed our own fracking ban for fear of lawsuits. So now this leaves us vulnerable not only to a state that doesn't want to defend our health, our children's health and local control from fracking, but also a national government. So there are a couple things that I want to ask you all to do first at the state level, and this is something that we all can do as individuals. I'm also speaking to whoever is watching at home. There's a bill called the Protect Our Children Act that would allow municipalities to govern oil and gas operations within 1,500 feet of schools. And this is something that has been sponsored and was put out by Representative Terry Canales from the 40th district. And the name of the bill is House Bill 3403. It's called the Protect Our Children Act. And I don't think I need to convince anybody here why it's a good idea not to have oil and gas operations so close to schools. As you all know, over near Geyer High here in Denton, there was recently a gas leak that got into well water. And it was very, very bad for local health. And this was from an old gas well. As you know very well, after well stops operating, this stuff is continuing. I want to second what Janice said about please, since we're under attack, please don't go ahead with this gas plant. Renewable energy is getting cheaper and cheaper, and this is just not a good idea. So please support this bill at the state level, and please do more to defend us from fracking. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Katherine Lustgarten. Please state your name and address, and your time will begin. >> My name is Dr. Katherine Lustgarten. I reside at 11809 Sutherland Drive, 76207. I'm also here in reference to a recent methane gas leak, and I do appreciate you allowing three speakers that we didn't know that each other would be here on the same topic . But the Denton Record Chronicle reported on the recent methane leak from an existing gas well that posed a serious hazard to a Denton family. It so happens that that well and other wells are adjacent or very near Denton Geyer High School. And so I and several other, many other folks in Denton are concerned about the risk, potential ongoing risk to the students, faculty, and staff at that high school. Obviously, those same risks are there, are posed to local businesses and other residents in the area. But the high school is a public place and has a special safety concern for the city. We weren't sure who or how to ask for your help. Some of my cohorts are attending tonight's school board meeting to address the same issue, namely safety of the folks in the high school that are put at risk because of a gas well so nearby. Specific actions that we think may be beneficial, but we're asking for your help. We don't know. We're not the experts. But one possible action would be to install methane gas monitors in all the school buildings that are affected by those nearby wells. And that those monitors be operated 24/7, not just a once a month check or a once a week check or whatever, that they be continuously monitored by somebody other than the folks who own those gas wells. We'd like the public and local businesses to be informed of this risk factor. To my understanding, this leak was unknown until the Denton Record Chronicle reported on it. The gas company did not report to the city of Denton that there was a safety issue that needed to be looked at. We feel that the existing evacuation plan, in the event that a leak is detected, that the evacuation plan for that school is very inadequate. And we'd like that addressed, a better evacuation plan developed. We'd like the gas companies to be required to notify the city officials when they become aware of a hazard that exists at one of their well sites. So my request to you as a concerned citizen is for the city council and city staff members to take whatever actions can be done to protect the safety of those folks, Denton citizens that are at risk of gas leaks. And to work with the school board if that's appropriate or however you need to put it together, I don't know how that works best and hopefully you guys do. But we don't want these new safety implementations to take place a year from now or six months from now or three months from now. We'd like immediate action because as the recent article showed, these are not just potential risks by putting gas wells so close to businesses and residences in schools. They're real. They're actual risks and we'd like very prompt action. Thank you so much for your attention. Thank you very much for coming here today. That wraps up our citizen reports. Our next item for the council to consider is the consent agenda. We have a council request to pull off for individual consideration items B, C, and D, and then a staff request to pull off item O for consideration at a future date. Councilmember Hawkins. Thank you Mayor Pro Tem. I move approval. Councilmember Begari. Second. Okay, everyone vote on the board. That motion passes unanimously. So now we will take those three items individually and as I understand Councilmember Begari, there's no request at least for B for a presentation. Is that correct? Right. No request for presentation for B or D. Okay. So I guess we're open for a motion on B. Councilmember Hawkins. I move approval of consent agenda item B. Councilmember Gregory. Second. Okay, everyone vote on the board. That passes four to two. Moving on to item C, consider. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Hudspeth. See, I'm a newbie. Blame it on my youth and inabilities up here. You wanted to speak on item number B. So please, you have the floor. I live at 623 Newton. And I also should have had a card to speak for the open session. And I was here for it. Right at the end, this lady spoke before me. I should have had time to speak. That's okay. It's not okay, but I will not. Pursue that now. Do it later. My concern with many of the consent agenda's items, as I stated in the work session, is that it doesn't seem to, there doesn't seem to be any effort to bring in minorities in these contract situations that we are looking at. And I looked at myself on tape and even I thought to myself , man, you've got to stop talking about the black thing and the African-American thing. We don't have this for that. And I thought, well, somebody 's got to say something about it. And what God has told me in Galatians, one of the books in the Bible, he said, be nice to everybody. You can bring up stuff, but you don't have to be ugly about it and rude. So I've got to work on that. So I'm just going to, I just want to bring it up. And I just, that's all I want to do is just make mention of it. And I want to just ask the question to the public who's listening at this presentation right now, and you, council people. Why don't we have African-American firefighters? What is wrong with us? Do we not know how to put out fires? Do we know, can we ride on trucks without falling out? Why don't you have African-American firefighters? We have police now. Thank God somebody's doing something right over there. And the public servants, they're civil service people. Why? Why don't we have African-American? I've told you before, what I want you to do is figure out what is the, what amount of my taxes go towards paying for the fire departments and those nice buildings they put over here and the big old trucks that they ride around the internet, those luxurious living quarters? How much of my tax money is paying for that? I'll make a deal with you. I'll put out my own fire at my house. Just reduce my tax payment to you for those areas in which you don't have any representation of my race presented or we don't get the jobs in fire department. Tell you what, we got one black person in the A position in the fire department. One. It took me nine years of protesting to get one. So what I think, we'll take a percentage of one African-American who can put out a fire and do something that, whatever they do, and give me my taxes back or get somebody in those positions that looks like me. Then we'll go to the parks department and the electrical company and all of the other places that we're not represented at all. You take our money, but we don't get hired. Thank you, Mr. Hutspeth. Item 4C, consider approval of a resolution author izing the city manager or his designee as Denton authorized representative to commit to fund, if selected, the applications for active transportation and safe routes to school projects through the North Central Texas Council of Governments, confirming intent to pay 20% of the total projected cost and provide an effective date. I believe we have a presentation on this. Okay. Good evening, council members. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to come speak to you about our application to COG for transportation alternatives set aside. So, COG has $23.4 million to award to the 12 counties in the MPO area, and that's funding through our current federal transportation funding bill, the FAST Act. So they have this money to give out in two different categories. So one category is active transportation, which is your customary bike and pedestrian projects. And the other category is safe routes to school projects, which is providing safe routes to children to get to school either by biking or walking. It's important to note this is not a grant program. It is a reimbursement program. So we get reimbursed 80% of the project cost. I am now going to present to you the projects that we selected to send to COG as our application. So the first one for active transportation, we're calling this our Sycamore-Welch connection because it's a project on Sycamore and Welch. It connects our downtown Denton Transit Center to University of North Texas and also to our rail trail and to larger mobility in the region. We chose this project for a multitude of reasons. One of them was that we felt this would give us the most scoring options for the application. So it's regional connectivity, mobility, safety, equity, and local network connectivity, as well as the regional connectivity. As I mentioned, this connects to our rail trail, which then connects everybody down to Dallas and to Dart and to get you to the airport and then to anywhere on the road you wanted to go. The cost estimate for Sycamore, which we're proposing a side path on the north side that is consistent with our adopted bike plan from February of 2012, that estimated cost is just a little over $1 million. That includes a new traffic signal at the intersection of Carroll Boulevard and Sycamore Street. That money's already been allocated to the traffic department for that new traffic signal. On Welch, we are proposing a road diet. Right now, Welch is a four lane intersection, I'm sorry, a four lane roadway, very similar to Eagle. It'll be four lanes now, but it'll be three lanes in each direction, I'm sorry, two lanes with a continuous turn lane and then bike lanes. That is also consistent with our adopted bike plan. The cost for Welch, which is striping and some new intersection improvements like ramps and crosswalks, is about $283,000. TXDOT automatically includes an admin cost, that's their cost there. Total for that project is about $1.4 million. Our cost at the city is $289,000. And at the end, I'll talk about how we're funding each one of these. For the Safe Routes to School projects, we have two of them . The first one is for projects at Jennings Elementary School. We chose this for one, it's already included in our Safe R outes to School plan, which we worked on, I think it was in 2010, with DISD and city staff. It is ranked third out of the 20 schools in the Denton ISD for economically disadvantaged students. This is an important thing to note because it's one of the highest scoring criteria for the application. The cost for this project, which is putting sidewalks where they're missing currently on Stewart Road and improving some of the crosswalks there, is about $629,000. Not about, that's the actual estimate. Our 20% cost is about $138,000. Again, not about, that's the actual 20% cost. And that includes the TXDOT admin cost . The second one we chose was for Lee Elementary School. Lee Elementary is actually ranked fourth for the percentage of students who are economically disadvantaged. This is putting sidewalks on Mulkey. It's slightly hard to see, but the orange sections, the blue is where sidewalks already exist, and the orange is where we plan to put sidewalks currently. Again, this is also in accordance with our 2010 Safe Routes to School plan. The cost that we estimated for that was $285,000. Our 20% match is $56,000. Here's an overview of the cost and where the funding is coming from. So you can see for the Active Transportation Project, our funding is coming through two different sources. One is our bike fund. So every year, the engineer or my department, we are allocated $200,000 to do bike infrastructure to implement our bike plan. So we're paying a little bit out of that. Basically, it's for the striping on Welch Street, which is about $60,000, I think. And it's about, that's less than what we'd stripe it if it wasn't at the 20%. And then the rest of it, we have talked with the people in traffic to use the funds that they have for their new traffic signal at Carroll and Sycamore to use those as our matching funds. And that fund, the actual $289,000, will be less than what they'd allocated for that traffic signal anyway. And the traffic signal is part of the plan. So that's where those funds are coming from. For both of the Safe Routes to School programs, those fund ings are coming from the 2014 Sidewalk Bond Funds. Both of those are actually going to be less than what was allocated for those projects in the Sidewalk Bond Program. So we're requesting about $202.4 million. And if we were chosen for all three of them, we could get chosen for one or two or all three of them. We'd be paying about $500,000. Our applications were due February 24th. We turned that in. Since there is a little bit of a quick turnaround between when they open up the call and when applications are due, it's hard to get an actual funding resolution in that time. So I'm here tonight for the funding resolution that if our projects were selected, we would be committed to funding those. And we did submit a letter from the city manager with our application that we would provide the resolution. That's why I'm here tonight. If there are any questions, I will do my best to answer them. We have a couple of questions for you. Councilmember Gregory. Thank you very much for the presentation. I appreciate Councilmember Begarri asking that this be pulled for a separate consideration. I'm thinking of doing that myself because I would like to highlight this. To your knowledge, has the city applied for Safe Routes to Schools funds before? To my knowledge, we have not, no. Do you think that this has been facilitated by A, the B iking and Pedestrian Plan, and B, the work that was done on developing the Safe Routes to School Plan? Yeah, without either of those plans, it's sort of hard to make the case that we're actually committed to doing this. So it's an important part of the application that we actually have a plan in place that shows support for these types of projects. Well, my thanks to you, my thanks to the city manager. I want to point out that this is just a great example of where a variety of departments are not operating in silos, but they're working together, streets department, engineering, active transportation, and the city working together with the school district. That's what it takes in order to get bigger projects like this to happen that will benefit everyone. I discovered the Safe Routes to Schools a few years before in another life and was pleased now, and I'm so pleased that we're finally in a position where we can apply for these funds. Do you have any notion as to how many other cities are applying and therefore what our chances might be? I do not know how many other are applying. I do know that historically there have been less applications to Safe Rout es to Schools. Most of the applications for when they've had this open before has been for active transportation. So that possibly helps our chances if there's less people actually submitting them. Well, I'm pleased that we're going after that money. That's money that will serve the citizens of Dentonville. Thank you. Councilmember Wasney. When you can get 80% of the money in and the city only has to put in 20% to get kids to and from school safely, again, bravo to staff. And I'd like to see something like this every year come down because funds are out there. Let's fight for them. We have a lot of mobility issues in this city on getting kids to and to and from school. And it's important. So whoever had a hand in this staff wise, thank you from parents. Thank you from grandparents. Thank you from kids and for everybody who calls Denton home. So thank you. Thank you. In addition to having these plans in place, which help facilitate this as well, the fact that we now have a coordinator in place who's able to think about these things and go after them in a way that we haven't had the same staff capacity to do. So you're earning your salary. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think if we don't have any other council questions, we do have a card for this. Mr. Willie Hutspeth would like to speak. Mayor Pro Tem, my name is Willie Hutspeth. I live at 623 Newton. I didn't hear Ryan mentioned. How many kids are going to need to die or be injured badly trying to get to Ryan High School? I didn't hear Guy mentioned. How many kids are going to be need to be injured or killed trying to get to Guy? Why wasn't a proposal submitted for that? You've done some things to try to improve that. But I have breakfast every Thursday morning at Jack in the Box at the corner of McKinney and Loop 288. Every morning students are crossing there right through Jack in the Box, which sits two or three building spaces from the corner of McKinney and from McKinney on Loop 288. And for whatever reason, they cross there. The crossing lights are further down. But they cross at Jack in the Box where there are no lights and that last kid that got killed or hurt, I can't remember what happened. But someone was turning from McKinney on Loop 288 and at a reasonable speed limit. And they have to be at school early in the morning. The driver just did not see the kid. The kid thought he could, of course, make it. But when you turn that corner and you have these cars that just really pick up speed quickly, you can't make it. I'm going to be back before you. You got your buses running . You still haven't fixed that sidewalk. And now there's money. There's an opportunity to have money. And where are you putting it? Well, the elementary kids. Man, you got to do something for them too. So I'm not saying the money is wasted. I saw the kids at Evers. They leave Evers and walk down the street. I think it's a mulky they get to. And in groups of six to seven, eight, they're walked in the middle of the street. So we've got a problem there too. My concern is Geier and Ryan. They are still walking in the street. They don't have sidewalks. So bravo that you're doing something for some of the schools. But I'm telling you, one more person gets hurt or killed in that stretch of highway on McKinney. I'll be right back in front of you saying, hey, how many more must we lose before something's done? Thank you, Mr. Hutspeth. Councilmember Wasney. I'd like to make a motion to approve item 4C. Thank you, Councilmember Briggs. I will second. We have a motion and a second. Please vote on the board. Item C passes 6-0. Moving on to the final item off the consent agenda that's been pulled is item D. Consider a request for an exception to the noise ordinance for the purpose of the thin line film fest to be held on the historic Denton County Courthouse on the Square Lawn and at Travelstead on April 19th through 23rd, 2017 from noon to 11 p.m. The exception is specifically requested to increase sound levels from 70 to 75 decibels. Any council discussion? Councilmember Begarry. Thank you. I had requested pulling this off consent because we had so many complaints when the Oktopia Festival happened. I got a number of emails about the sound situation late at night. So what I did was I requested some information about thin line and it turns out that their shows are going to be at Dan's and at Backyard on Bell. And Taps and Caps, which are both pretty far away and interior venues. So I'm OK with this because I thought there was going to be like a stage on the square at 1 a.m. Basically on a weeknight. But that's not the case at all. So. OK, thank you very much. We do have a couple of cards along these lines. One is Mr. Willie Hutzpeth. No, he would not like to speak. The other one is I apologize. It's hard to read this. S. Heidelberger. Oh, it's you again. OK, thank you. Please state your name and your address. Janice Heidel berger, 425 Bernard Street, Apartment 907, Denton 76201. I want to encourage the council members to please not approve this exception to increase to allow an increased amount of noise on those days. April 19th through 23rd, those are school nights. And this is around the time when there is standardized testing going on in our year. And during the final month before our graduate and undergraduate students at our universities are are doing their final projects in that final push before kind of the middle of May when the whole semester comes to an end. So I think that that much noise is is unnecessary for that amount of time and is going to obstruct families and young adult students and then families with young kids who do live around that area very closely during that time from doing their very best in school and being good citizens. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Jennifer Lane.