Jun 13, 2017 City Council on 2017-06-13 1:00 PM

Welcome everyone to this meeting of the Denton City Council 's Tuesday work session. It is 1.03 on PM on Tuesday, June 13th, 2017. Want to sort of do some housekeeping here before we get started on our agenda. We've got a couple of public hearings on the agenda, on agenda items 1A and B. Typically on these type of council meetings, we'll just go right into open session after the closed session. But I've been told that the publications for the public hearings specifically said 630. So I'll be honest with you, I sort of have plans, so unless these things are time sensitive, I mean, if we're out of here at 4 or 4.30, I don't know if I'm going to want to or buy that sort of a also another kind of message to mentors. So what's the council's pleasure as far as just I mean, we have to either wait till 630 tonight to hear them or we have to we postpone them. Where does it say 630? Go ahead. It's what's in the actual notice is published in the newspaper and send out to surrounding property owners, not in your agenda. So it's sent out to the property. So our choice is just to not be here at 630 and let people come and wonder or? We're going to have to do 630. Yeah, we'll just do it at 630. I mean, because if the property owners, if that's the notice that was sent out to the property owners, is that the notice or was that published in the paper? I'm going to ask Ron and get it to come who's handling these projects. That was for both public hearing with the newspaper as well as to property owners. That's member breaks. Well, my question was, is it going to affect the timing since it is an annexation? It has to be. Is this the certain date that it unfortunately that's the reason why we have that special call meeting to have it at this particular date. Well, that answers my question. We'll just have to do it at 630. So if lunch has not been ordered for dinner, then we might have to think about that unless we. Yes, Councilor Wasney. Just on policy and procedure, staff really needs to work a little harder on coordinating these notices that they're not just routine. They need to look at the council calendar. This was obviously a work session Tuesday and not a full Tuesday because council members do make plans when they know it's a work session Tuesday. So shame on whoever didn't do their homework. Yes, we might need to see if we're going to have a quorum. Okay, well, I can be here. I can be here. Okay. Okay. All right. Five. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yes, just to clarify for the council, this is just a public hearing for the people to come in, their citizens to come in and actually speak. There is no action by the council at 630. It's just the first of two public hearings. Okay, great. All right. So we've got we'll move on to our work session reports. Thank you all. Work session reports 1A. Receive report and hold discussion. Receive departmental presentations in preparation for FY 2017-18. Proposed budget. Thank you. Our first department up today is police services. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, Council Member Reed. I had a message from Mayor Pro Tempigari that she is coming on her way just going to be a little late. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Chief. Mayor, members of council, good afternoon. I'm going to jump right into this because a lot of there's a lot of information to cover. But before I actually start in, I want to mention that in the last couple of weeks, you've had a lot of questions, especially last week. So if you'd like at some point later in the presentation, I can try to answer most of those questions verbally here while we have it because a lot of them tie into exactly what we'll be presenting. So. So our functional areas generally we consider talk about the two terms police sworn and non sworn police sworn, obviously being the certified officers that were under Chapter 143. Of the local government code and non sworn is all of the non police officers other positions. We have crossing guard separated out there. I get a lot of questions about that crossing guard dollars come in from the state and go to the school district, which then they give us that money back to fund our crossing guard positions. Where it's designated as seven point two three, but there's that's just how we carry it in the budget. There's actually twenty three, twenty five, twenty six individual people who serve as crossing guards across the city. They have at any given time. There's a supervisor that manages that and manages the hiring and the scheduling and everything of it. Our organizational chart. Sorry, that maybe doesn't well to PowerPoint. However, it just kind of shows you how complex and large we are. There are basically three major bureaus, each of those headed up by a deputy chief and then a lot of different positions, work sections and individual work groups under those. This organizational chart does not reflect the new positions that you graciously consented to last week. But it does give you an idea of all the different things that we do. So our staffing needs the last. Well, I made a commitment years ago when I came in as chief to give preference to the patrol function. First responder street function as a major priority, the department. And we've tried to maintain that number. We are currently by assignment allotted 80 sworn officers in patrol. One thing about this particular these particular numbers, if you look over under traffic and criminal investigations where it says openings on the second line, those are not sworn or those are not positions that we consider really into our openings, except the way we have people assigned, if that makes sense. So this is an ideal situation or indicates an ideal situation if we were fully staffed, how we would have people assigned. But we've tried to maintain a staffing presence in patrol that 80 allotted number. We would like to eventually get to 96. And I'll explain a little bit how that how we arrive at that number. Also on this chart, it indicates how many people we have in light duty at any given time. That's a current number. We've had actually more than that this year, about 13 people on light duty and for a number of various reasons. And so when you look down there to the actual people that can be on the street, given given the actual numbers reflected in this chart, that means that 80 allotted positions is in reality, 67. And the same thing over communications. We have some vacancies there. So you gave us five extra positions. We've tried to close that gap. We've lost a couple of people on that in in communications. And then in this year's budget, we had the seven additional officers. We had some retirements, of course, one death and then a couple of people that didn't make training that we've hired since the beginning of this year or beginning of fiscal year. So we currently have six vacancies plus if you had the five that we that we would get from the new positions, that's 11 total that we're trying to hire currently in the sworn ranks. We have nine people in field training and two about to go into the academy already in July. Question. Yes, sir. Councilmember Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. So light duty, does that have to do with people that have physical situation where they cannot be out on patrol doing the regular things that you would anticipate that they would need to do? Yes. Yes, absolutely. It's the injuries, illnesses, pregnancies, military duty. We have several people that are in the reserve still. And sometimes those deployments are several months up to a year. So that's considered light duty. Well, it's I'm sorry, it's considered absenteeism, but we categorize light duty sort of into that whole category. So all right. And in those categories, patrol, traffic, criminal investigation, is there where is the person that that does checks on parking? Me, you know, marks the cars and is that a patrol? Is that traffic? What is that? Now, those are non sworn public safety officers. So they're under the traffic section, but they're not sworn officers. Okay. And there's been times when we have had, I suppose, a patrol officer assigned to the downtown area just to be out there. Do we still have that or is that just assigned certain hours when there's more need or what's the current status? We have somebody assigned to the downtown area and the what we call the entertainment district, the downtown going all the way over to Fry Street is a patrol area. One of five districts that we have. And so there's always somebody assigned to that to the downtown area. Okay. Thank you. And one of the issues that we always struggle with with hiring sworn people is just the length and the complexity of that process and hiring them and getting them trained. So we threw this in just to remind you, I believe Mr. Holl man had mentioned this last week, but it takes about 11 months to work through that process and getting somebody hired, get them through the background check and all the tests that are mandated by TECOL to be certified officer, attend the academy and go through a field training. That can vary depending on whether somebody coming in has any experience or they're already certified. The chief, oh you got a question? Go ahead. Can you explain why it takes so long while we cannot just hire another officer who has already completed these trainings and we can hire them and they're ready to go? Well, we can, but they have to still pass a civil service test initially. If they're already certified with at least five years experience, they can get five points added on to their test score, which can elevate them on the list for consideration in the process. But they still have to go through all of the same processing of background check. And if they don't have tests on file with TECOL, they have to have a physical, a psychological, and polygraph mandated by state standards. So we can do that. We're looking currently at a lateral, what we kind of consider a lateral transfer program. We're exploring that now. There are some departments out there that do that that are 143. They would still probably have to go through the testing and get on the certified list, but we could potentially attract people in if we were able to negotiate a higher level to bring that person in. So under 143 regulations right now, when somebody gets hired on, unless they've already been certified, where they can bypass the first couple of steps of pay on the pay grade scale where you're already or where you're in training, if they can bypass that, they can come in at a little bit of an elevated salary scale, but it's really not anywhere close to what other agencies can do that are not under 143. So we do attract sworn officers often, and on every list there are some, but they still have to start at the bottom primarily. Which is discouraging for them to come. Right. But there are some things that we could do or work. Yes, we're working on that proposal now. Councilmember Wasney. If it's a lateral transfer from a police department, let's just say another North Texas city, do they still have to do the Academy? No, if they're already certified, they don't. We can run through either a modified version. It's kind of up to us what we think they need to do, depending on where they went to school and how long ago they are, how long they've been out of service, perhaps. But if they're coming straight in from another agency, they 're already TECOL certified, if it's in Texas, and they can completely bypass the Academy part. We may want to run them through some a few short versions of that in a field training process and in the Academy, we may take a few classes that are specific to the way we do things here in Denton. But they can bypass the majority of that Academy. And what about field training? Would that still be the 17 weeks or would it be reduced as well? It could be significantly reduced. I'm sure most of the certified officers that we hire in advance through the field training much quicker than 17 weeks. So I think it sounds like the lateral transfer option as something to really look into, which would help the department staff up faster. And then it's not the 11 month wait, which is, gosh, that's just a long time. And I understand that with somebody who is just absolutely brand new, they're not going to be able to get it for, especially if they're North Texas. So that, and I had several questions from citizens from last work session who asked some of those questions too. So that helps. Thank you. >> And along these lines, thank you, Mayor, that it seems like in our last discussion, there might be some issues with our current meet and confer agreement in terms of something that may contribute to this long process. Is that correct or not? >> Well, we're thinking that through the meet and confer process would be the best way to address a lateral transfer program or proposal is to get that, because you can make alterations to the 143 law through the meet and confer process. >> And you said 143 now a couple of times. I don't, I'm not. >> I'm sorry. That's a local government code chapter 143 that governs civil service for municipal police and fire. >> Okay, thanks. >> Question, Chief. On the, so currently the meet and confer does not accommodate lateral transfers, is that correct? >> There is nothing in there that addresses that. >> So it's silent? >> Yes. >> Okay, okay, thank you. >> Yeah, the only thing in that regard that's addressed is through the actual 143, that when we can give extra points on the test if somebody is already certified. >> That is in the meet and confer? >> No, that's one- >> Oh, that's just statutory law. That's just state law. Okay. All right. All right, thank you. >> Okay, our accomplishments and goals. All of our accomplishments are connected to goals from the last couple of years. We've made some significant progress. There's more things. Those are just some of the highlights. Some of the top priority goals for '17 and '18. One of those is a commitment to improving communication service delivery, equipment and technology, and the working environment in our dispatching center. So that's one of the major things that we're focusing on this year. And there's several more, and I'll cover some of those in detail as we move through some of these other things. Performance measures. We're going to talk, I'm going to talk again in a minute about response times in particular. But I want to highlight a couple of these, number four and five. Number four is something that we've always done. The last couple of years, it seems like we are getting flooded with individual requests, what we're calling neighborhood priority requests. And Deputy Chief Carter kind of invented a program for us, came up with a way to track those better and address them. We're calling it our neighborhood priority response program . So what I'm talking about there is, for instance, as you can imagine, with all the construction around highway and street construction around every place that's been barricaded or torn up for the last couple of years, there's going to be a detour around that area. And most of the times that goes through a neighborhood where nobody is used to having that kind of traffic. I'm sure all of you have seen that kind of complaint from your neighborhoods. So those are not something that we can just run out and make a call on and run out and address it and solve it right then. It's a prolonged issue that takes some problem solving and some continual response over a period of time. So we're tracking those separately and going to use that as a performance measure. And we hope to, with the help of, I've already talked to Melissa Kraft about it, and with the help of tech services, we want to put up a dashboard that's available on our website and on the city site and our Facebook page also where we can actually post those kind of things where the citizens can see them and track that progress. So for instance, got a recent complaint also about some homeless people in some neighbors' backyards around an area of town. That's going to be something that we're going to have to set up directed patrols or a continual response on. And those are the sort of things that we could post along with traffic issues and other things to that dashboard so that people can see where we're going with that and how we're addressing it. So on number five, I'd never like to miss the opportunity to talk about crime rate. Every year we get questions about the numbers of crimes and how safe is the city, and people see a rise in certain categories of crimes by number and they think, oh my gosh, we're having a crime wave. But that's really, you have to boil it into perspective in terms of per capita. So we put this chart on the bottom just to illustrate the fact that since 2010, we've had, except for one year, we've had a decrease in the per capita overall per capita crime rate in the city. So your likelihood or the likelihood of a person being indent and becoming a victim has been reduced. Even as the population has gone up, our numbers of crimes may have increased in that time period, but the likelihood per thousand of becoming a victim has been reduced in that same time frame. So that's another thing that we're going to track and try to publish as a performance measure. >> Is that all crimes in general? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. Well, the crime rate is based on all crimes. Now, what we're going to track as our performance measure is part one crimes, which is the category of things that are the more serious ones that you would think of. >> Right, or violent crimes. >> Right. Cost containment strategies. There's a number of those. Our online reporting has gone up every year. We had, in 2016, we had 2,204 online reports made. Part of our lobby remodel is hopefully going to address and increase those. Again, because in our new lobby, we have a kiosk with two computer stations, and people are using it all the time coming in. We come to the front desk. Instead of a calling an officer in off the street to take a report, we can direct them to those kiosks and they can enter their information directly into the system from there. Our police reserves and volunteers continue to be very strong. We have some volunteers that are almost indistinguishable from everyday full time employees, and they've been with us for a number of years. And our reserve training hours, I mean reserve officer hours that they put in in 2016 went up considerably to almost the equivalence of a full time person. >> Question. >> Yes. >> On the previous page, I think it was the goals in your reporting. You know, we'd heard some pretty specific statistics from our customer service regarding number of seconds for a phone to be answered and for a problem how many calls are resolved in the first hand. Do you have anything like that? Because I know that we've had some issues in the past about some long wait for the non-emergency number to be answered. Part of that I think had to do with actually lobby renov ations and having enough staff to answer the phone. Are we tracking the amount of time it takes to get a phone answered and things like that? >> Yeah, we have made some considerable improvements in that. We actually have not had, that I'm aware of, any complaints recently. We were getting a flood of them and it had to do with the phone system itself and the way people were logging into it . But now we monitor that and it's significantly reduced the incidence of people getting put into that endless loop of hold when they call in on a non-emergency call. That's one of that and you sort of started off as if we're talking about the dispatch calls coming in to dispatch or calls coming in. >> Well, I'm thinking more about, I'm curious about response time for emergency calls and for non-emergency calls. And I know those are two very different things. >> Right, right. And that's one of many things that's included in number five down there about customer service enhancements. And hopefully we're going to address that when we can get closer to fully staffed in the communications operation. >> Okay, and you think that as you're doing that, you might use metrics like tracking the seconds or whatever to get a call answered or? >> Yes, we track those now in halves for some time. >> Okay, thanks. >> Yes, sir. And process improvements, that would be one of them. But also one of the major things we're looking at, and I'm going to go into some detail on that here in a second, is we're looking for ways to keep our officers in the field , keep them from having to return to the police station. And there are several things along with that. We think that will in fact help reduce response times and reduce call hold times in fact. And just be presented overall more efficient and more responsive system. This is our budget highlights. The 17-18 baseline does include the additional six positions. >> Chief, you might want to change that. SRO acronym down there. >> I'm just kidding you. I'm just teasing Chief. >> Yeah. It's, that means school resource. >> Oh, Jackson, good. >> All right. >> Just to clear that up, which we're very proud of. I do separate, we separated that out just because we get a lot of questions about the school resource officer program. So again, one of those things that I try not to miss an opportunity to educate people on. The school district pays for one fourth of that program. So it's actually half of three of the six officers. So the three officers that are, we have three in the middle schools and three in the high schools. And the school district refunds or re-reimburses us for half of the three high school officers. So the city bears the rest of the cost of that salary and benefits and any other costs about vehicles and maintenance and things like that. >> Chief, I know a while back, I think it was when we were in the recession, there was some discussion about how do we, some of the cities around the school districts typically pick up half of that, half of the total. And I know it used to be a lot less than that and that during those discussions a few years back, there was an increase. Has there been any more discussion about that or is that just sort of fallen by the wayside? >> There is an annual discussion on that as we re-resign an MOU with the school district. But it's never been increased. You'd have to go back on a historical evolution of how those cost factors came into place. And some of those positions started through federal grants and were paid for in a three year diminishing scale and such. And so the school district picked up portions of it over the years. But the last few people have just been added by the council essentially without any other reimbursement. And so we ended up with the formula that we have now. But in my opinion, that would be really better served as an issue that the council and the school board would bring up in discussion with one another rather than me trying to deal with Dr. Wilson on it. >> Okay. >> Directly. >> Council Member Bruegts. >> So just on that note, is it a requirement or just a request that there be an officer in a middle school and high school? I mean, is that? >> It's just a fundamentally good program for both sides. There's no requirement for it. >> Okay. >> It's mutually beneficial for us to continue with that kind of program though. >> Council Member Washington. >> And to the chief's point, the council meets with the school board. And so I think it would be important to have that on the agenda the next time the council meets with the school board. So that you can really have an in-depth discussion because I think it puts the chief kind of between a rock and a hard spot to try to go and ask for that when it is a city function. So let's make it a city council responsibility to talk to the school board the next time that meeting comes around. >> Oh, I don't recall the council asking you to advocate to increase that since the last time we had that conversation. Probably what, six or seven years ago? >> No, sir, but you haven't directed me to do that. However, in the MOU that we resign every year, it suggests that. It doesn't hold either side to any particular formula or anything or put a deadline on it. But in the MOU, I think, and this was negotiated prior to me becoming chief, but it suggests that in the MOU that we will discuss that every year. So I've just been doing it with Dr. Wilson. >> We'll do it, yeah. >> I agree, okay. >> Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. >> How long is that MOU? What's the duration of it? >> It's annual. And so we, because the costs change every year, and so we just, we renew it every year. >> Okay, thanks. >> Mm-hm. >> Okay, this is a good time for me to try to answer some of the questions and then see if you've got any more questions. Some of the questions from the last couple of weeks, if you want me to do that. We've already touched on some of those, but I was going to cover it from, as you went around the table last week. I heard the question of why are we adding 12 officers in one year? How many officers are on duty at any one time? How will adding officers impact response times and is there , or what is the national standard for response times? And there was a question about recruiting techniques. Lateral transfers was a question from last week, kind of already covered that one. And then over the last two weeks, I've received several questions about officers staying in the field, writing reports in the car, and issues with uploading body cam videos. So I can kind of touch on all those if you'd like me to at this point. >> Can I just run through just a real brief answers on each one of those that we haven't covered already, because it certainly would be informative. >> Okay, so on the first one, the 12 officers in the year. You did grant us seven last year. The five more that Mr. Hollen proposed last week that you agreed with would make it 12 in one year, which is highly unusual, I'll say. But we have based all of our staffing requests, budgetary requests on a staffing study that we initiated through UNT, Dr. Eric Fritsch put together in 2013. And his, just real briefly, he has a formula through which he inputs 36 different criteria. And comes out with a suggested number of officers to achieve a certain service delivery standard. And in that study, there were three critical issues that were identified that we were suffering from in terms of insufficient staffing, the way it affected things. So one of those was insufficient immediate availability of officers to respond to priority one calls. The second was excessive response times. Our response times actually have been climbing for a number of years. I mean, as the city grows in population and size, it would normally climb, especially if you don't keep up the staffing levels and deployment. But since 2008, we crossed over a seven minute threshold and we have never been able to get back below that since then. >> And that's for priority one, which are a couple examples . What's priority one called? >> That would be anything that could be an emergency or potential emergency. So it would be crimes in progress, it could be major assaultive offenses, it could be a major accident with injuries. There's a lot of things that turn out not to be emergencies once we get on the scene. But many of them at least are potentially that way. >> Are those calls classified at the time of dispatch? >> Yes. >> And is it the dispatcher that makes the, I mean, do they say, how does an officer know that it's a priority one? Is it communicated that when they dispatch the call or? >> We have a list of those kind of calls that are priority one calls that the officers already know intuitively. And so the dispatchers can just go by the information they get over the phone. >> Okay, thank you. >> To classify. So the third one is insufficient self-initiated time available. And again, Mr. Hollman kind of touched on this last week. So this corresponds with proactive unstructured time that the officers have to do neighborhood patrols, address some of those neighborhood priority issues that I talked about, community policing activities itself. Self-directed things like traffic enforcement or monitoring pedestrians, bank and store checks. A lot of traditional things that we would like to be doing that we sometimes run out of time to do and can't do at peak times. So the national standard, there is a national standard here of a 33% unstructured time in regards to patrol first responders. That is an ideal to try to achieve in order to have the time for police officers on the street to engage in these kind of activities. We've seen things like our ticket enforcement go down in the last several years. We've seen community policing issues suffer where I'd love to have officers engaged in community meetings and going door to door and doing all kinds of things like that. But we just simply don't have the time to do that. When Dr. Fritsch did the staffing study in 2013, his estimates were that we had about 11% unstructured time at that point or self-initiated time during that time frame. We've been able to improve that. Best estimates we can make right now, it's gone up to somewhere close to 18%. But we're still far short of that suggested milestone of 33 %. Some other things that we just get now that we have always gotten, but it seems like the last couple of years we get more and more requests of things. Just being visible in neighborhoods, just patrolling through the neighborhoods. There seems to be a feeling sometimes that people just don 't necessarily feel safe certain places and certain times. They would like to see officers. So those are the kind of things that we have fallen short on. And so we need some additional people to address that. We've done a number of things to try to address all this issue internally. I referred you right up front to the position openings for investigations and traffic and several other positions. We have chosen not to fill some of those positions by att rition that have come open for retirements or other transfers. We took a couple of supervisor positions out of investigations. And there's several positions that we have left available to patrol just to keep it staffed up. If we were fully staffed in the ideal position that we would have people working in those other assignments. But right now we don't have those. And there's probably about 10 or 12 of those throughout the whole department. So those are all the things we need to address or that could be addressed. So jumping down to the officers, well, to sum it up, at the snapshot in time that Dr. Fritsch did that study in 2013, it said right then based on the criteria that he had available to him, which was basically through 2012 data, that we needed 26 additional police officers right then to be able to make these standards. Which would put us to that number that I showed you on the first slide about where it says 80 allotted positions. It would put that to the 96 number. Now that doesn't actually take into account the growth of the city or the change in police service demand that we have seen during that time frame too. So if we could get to that level, that would be ideal. And we set about a five year plan to add officers in each year. So now in the fourth year, we're actually still about 12, 13 people short from that goal of adding the additional officers that we need. So adding the 12 in one year is a huge step. It will get us closer to that ideal. And I thank you all for endorsing that. >> Councilmember Briggs has a question. >> So what I hear you saying is basically what we're doing and are approving now is just bringing you up to the staffing level you needed in 2013? >> It's bringing us closer to it. >> Closer to it. So there's still some ways to go. >> Okay, not only were the staffing positions, but you did mention that a specific crime analyst last time we met, that was a specific position. Do we currently have that position now or is that? >> No, we don't. That would be a brand new position for us. Many departments our size have designated crime analysts that are actually trained for that. Right now we're just using people who have an aptitude or propensity for numbers and understanding of things. And we're calling upon ourselves many times to just look at things and try to analyze them. But we're talking about finding someone that's a trained expert in that field. >> Okay, thank you. >> Chief, how do we compare to cities our size as far as officers per capita? I mean, are we? >> We're below the regional average in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area. But I hesitate. That's a good just like out there benchmark. But there's so many different variables that I would hesitate to, even if it was in our favor, to say we need to be at 2.2 per thousand. >> Sure. Okay. All right. Thank you. So along the same line, how many officers do we have on duty? I think that was your question, Councilman Briggs. The direct answer to that is we are scheduled to have, between the time of the day and the day of the week, 12 to 16 officers on duty at any given time. Given a pretty standard absentee rate of about 25%, I'm sorry, 16 to 20 is scheduled. Given that absentee rate, in reality, it's about 12 to 16 to cover the whole city. >> Are those just patrol officers? That's just patrol? >> Patrol officers, yes. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Gregory. >> Did I hear what is the absentee rate? >> Well, we can calculate it. It varies, but based on all of those things, illnesses, injuries, deployments, training, vacation, and court time, everything combined, it's just shy of 25%. >> And how does that compare with other departments in the area? >> That's about standard for police. Police work. It's usually somewhere between 22 and 27%, so it's right in the middle of that. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Councilmember Briggs. >> So I have a follow-up question to that. So I heard you say earlier that you try to have an officer downtown area at all times. So at least one of those 12 will be in that area all the time? >> Yes, generally two. >> At two? >> Yeah, at least two. >> Okay. >> So we have people that are on foot patrol during the peak hours of the downtown visitations and things, and we have people through the park. We now have an office, and I'll talk briefly on that later, but we now have an office set up in Emily Fowler, too. So there's an officer coming and going out of there that's their primary office. >> Yes, Councilmember Pro Tem. >> Can you address the body cam issue as far as where you need to download and kind of just overview of that? >> Yes, so that is not an uncomplicated thing, but I'll try to sum it up as succinctly as I can. So the body cam videos, we have to upload to the cloud. If there's an arrest made or if there's property and evidence to plug in or photographs or if it's a very detailed report, officers are having to come back to the field now to do it anyway. One of the things that we want to make sure, especially on arrests when somebody's filling out an affidavit, is that they review the body cam video most of the time to make sure that we have accurately depicted in the arrest affidavit what, or report, what is depicted in the video as well. And so it's sort of just a refresher. Things happen very quickly sometimes and things are said or done that we want to make sure that's accurate and corresponds to what goes out on paper. So making use of the body cam videos in that regard is a good thing, but it's very time consuming. So the average body cam video can take an hour to upload. So doing that from the field is not efficiently feasible. So we came up with the idea and talked to Chief Palsgrove a good while back about having satellite offices in the fire stations, seeing as how they were remodeling several of them and some new ones will come online. All we need really to do, what we need to do in an office function in the field, is a small place with a desk, a phone, a computer, and the software and hardware to upload body cam video. And so to keep from having to come back to the police station, we came up with the idea that if we can have an office. So we have an office in station seven on vintage and Chief Palsgrove and I have talked about adding those in at the press cut property. The station three rebuild and hopefully the station eight build on Colorado. I've also talked to Phil Williams about the possibility of having an office space at the new DME facility. Probably up front at their guard shack. So there's also the possibility of the airport in that same area, a few other places. But essentially, if we just had a place to keep that 15, 20 minute travel time down and for people to be able to get what they have to do immediately and get back to work on the street. That's the idea behind that. So the body cam, the technology is probably there to do body cam uploads from the field. But we don't have that capability right now. The best you can get from our vehicles is like the equivalent of a 4G LTE. So and there's also if somebody's traveling especially, you 're going to have some connectivity issues occasionally. And this is the same thing that we experienced in writing field reports from the MDC's because the software program that we're currently running is far too complicated. It's 20 years old. It's not really made legitimately for today's technology in the field. We can do uncomplicated reports in the car and many officers do if they're pretty short and not like I say, not complicated where there's long narratives. But there's a number of reasons why that's difficult even in the field. But the first obstacle is the software and the capability of getting that information into our RMS system wirelessly. And it's very, very slow. So when we try to operate the RMS system from the MDC in the car, it's very slow. The officers, the configuration in the car is difficult because if they're sitting in the car, they have to twist over here to get two hands on the keyboard. There's also some officer safety issues involved about how long you should be sitting in a parking lot, especially at night, you know, distracted to an MDC, you know, with your eyes off the surroundings. So there's a number of issues why it's not a real easy thing to do. The best capability and if we can get there would be a removable laptop or notebook. But right now, our RMS system will not load up and operate on a notepad or anything like that. Does that answer your question? Yeah, I'm sorry. I may be going too long. So is there an RMS system that would upload that way? We're hoping that, you know, we're about we're in the early stages of developing an RFP to go out and take a look at the possibility of replacing our CAD RMS system. And hopefully that's one of the one of the features that we will get. Okay, that's kind of what I was curious about. And I just want to we're going on an hour of this presentation and we got six of these just in this agenda item and we've got four more agenda items. So there's a lot of questions that are generated, but this is a budget process presentation. So certainly if you have any specific questions about because I think we can utilize more off sites to help these officers do that. But we can we can have some offline discussion about that. But so I've got several people. Okay, going over here. Yeah, quick budget note. If you would prepare a wish list of how your department can improve in terms of time, efficient time by an improved technology to kind of price out individually what different programs would be because tech is the future and it's today. And it will, I think, let this department be much more efficient. And so as we go into budget, make that list and bring it back to this council so that they can hear not how we can't do things because of technology. But here's how we can do things with improved technology. Thank you. That's my husband. Thank you, Mayor. Question on to your point, chief. How much do the body cameras cost round numbers? Where I'm going with that is, is it are they interchange able enough such that you could go into a remote office, drop one off while it's downloading, pick up another one and be on your way and kind of pick up where you left off? Or is it something where you have to watch it download? You could do that as long as it's a secured facility that can be locked and fits the standards that we have to go by us for security. So even if they even if they drive, sorry, even if they drive by the police station and drop it off, you're not static there. You're dropping it off. Someone takes it, downloads it, hands you the other one and off you go. Right. I'd have to verify that process how exactly that might work. But to answer your question directly, there are about a thousand twelve hundred dollars per per device annually. And we have enough right now to go around to every officer. So. Good. Yes, sir. In addition, could you also calculate because I was there serving ALR subpoena there at the police station and there 's no visibility for that. I'm a call it reception officer. I don't know the technical term, but that individual to see in that hallway. So there are some guys arguing and I made her aware and she could not see to then send someone out or to at least tell the officers coming out what they were doing. They were about to walk up on. And so I think if we had, I think it's important to have one maybe visibility to that hallway between the police station and the courtyard. I mean the court offices and then potentially I'd like to see something outside. One for the benefit of seeing who's coming in and then two, it may just add additional coverage for the apartments across the street and the rail yard to, if something were to go bad there, we have at least accessibility to to some footage that would capture someone coming and going potentially. OK, all right. We'll take a look at that. Thank you. Because we're just real quick looking through on the budget highlight page of cost of service, which is I'm guessing the internals coming back seems to be. It's gone up dramatically versus the rest of the items. Is that mainly technology area or is that other areas? It's quite a bit of it. Yes. And I think you had a couple of the questions that were asked at the council that yeah, just real quick, if you could run through. Yeah, real quickly. Really the only one I think that I have not directly address well to response times and the recruiting. I think directly to answer your questions, Councilman, there is no national standard for police response times. There are too many variables and you can research it for days and never really find a national standard. We're very unlike the fire department in that regard. So but there is there is statistics or there are statistics collected on that. And about a third of cities and it's probably the smaller ones can respond in to priority calls within five minutes or less. Actually, there's not there's not any averages that are less than about four. Another third respond within six to ten minutes and another third respond within eleven minutes to one hour. So that's kind of the broad gamut of police response. So for us to try to maintain about seven minutes is actually very reasonable right around here. I mean, there's there are some cities that have eleven or twelve minutes. There are some that have seven or eight, but there's very few that go under seven of any size. And then when you're talking about a major city like Dallas , you're talking about sometimes in that they're in that hour category. So and then the recruiting techniques, I think, was was Councilmember Huss with this question. And specifically you ask about state from other states and things like that. I can say this very very just sum it up. Most of our applicants and we pull them that come in, say we ask them where how did you learn about the openings? And the major the great majority of them have seen it on our website. So most of our outreach is through social media, through this, through our website, through our Facebook page. So the idea of job fairs and traveling to long distance recruiting places is sort of being sort of phased out right now. But to directly respond to your question in terms of the our May test. So we had when we the last test we gave, we had two hundred one people sign up. Twenty six of those were from out of state out of the two hundred one fifty six actually showed up and six of those were from out of state. So we currently have two people that are in the final process of being possibly hired, one from Florida, one from Missouri. So we're getting people from out of state right now. And the second most common recruiting tool is just word of mouth from people that are already working here. So that sums that up. So let me move on. We just have animal services to go. That's going to be fairly quick. We have 14 total FTEs and I'm happy to say that that's one of our goals. And we've already achieved that a couple of months ago. We're fully staffed and we're hoping to stay that way. If you haven't met Paul O'Neill, the shelter manager. He's a fantastic guy. Perfect Briggs in a lot of great experience to us. And he has made some outstanding efficiency changes and just in the general atmosphere out there. And then here are the budget highlights for that unit. And I will be glad to entertain any additional questions. Where is the contract in this budget that we do for our? Vet services contract. I have to ask and make sure it is it reflected in operations? Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah, so it's included in the operations line. So that's our vet tech under that. Okay. Right. Thank you. May I put them in then Council Member Husserl? Chief, when we met following the unfortunate situation with the animal services officer that was indicted. One of the things that we talked about was the possibility of making the animal shelter a cash free facility. I would just like to kind of pull a little bit and see if there's any interest in going in the direction of cash free . And I'd also like for you to give us your thoughts on, you know, ceasing the acceptance of cash at the facility. Go ahead. Well, I think we found in that that we do we do have a lot of people that come in that don't bring credit cards or checks, especially for adoptions or to get their animal out. So to cease that would be sort of an inconvenience to the customer. But it's entirely possible to do. Do you remember how much cash goes through animal shelter? I don't remember it being a very large sum at all. No, it's not huge. Lynn, Scott, can you help me with that one? We can get that. Yeah, we can get that for you. I think Council Member Husserl and then Council Member Rueb . Thank you, Mayor. Just so I can be up to speed. So when the police department suffers a loss, be it not at fault, someone bumps into the car this side or the other, does the citizen, I mean, do the police work with legal to try to recapture those funds if that individual has insurance or is that just do we just eat that cost? What is the process for recapturing those losses? It's a coordinated effort between risk management and legal . The city attorney's office to recover those. Can I get a list of what we've been able, what we've sought , what we've been able to get back, that sort of thing? Does that make sense? Does that exist? Yes, it does. In fact, there's a, I think risk management puts out a report quarterly that it may not have the cost on there, but it lists all of those incidents that are still pending. So they could probably provide that. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Just a note on the cash. Before I make any decisions, I'd like to know the amount of transactions that go through. And I would be concerned that we would be eliminating some people from even coming and adopting animals if we went to no cash at all. >> I was going to say the same thing, because one of the main missions of the animal shelter is to for adoption. And I wouldn't want to do anything that would discourage folks from doing that. If we're doing the list about recovery for insurance, we probably ought to expand it to go past just the police department, because we have an awful lot of automobiles on the road that are not police vehicles. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Okay. >> That's it? >> Is there any questions for Chief Howell? Fantastic, thank you, Chief. >> Thank you. >> Very thorough, appreciate it. Great information. So that leaves fire, I believe. Fire's up next. Good to see you up, Chief. >> Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. [BLANK_AUDIO] >> Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Robin Polsgrove. I'm your Fire Chief and Director of Emergency Management, and it's a pleasure to be with you this afternoon. Our FTEs by functional area, you see the divided into our three primary areas, fire administration, operations, and prevention, and you see the differences over the last three fiscal years. In 2015 and 16, Council made the decision to put in Medic Unit 7, that was six FTEs in operations, and also to invest in our prevention division in development review. And we added three positions there. In 2016-17, the council authorized Medic 8 to go into service. Again, six additional FTEs in operations and added one training captain position. So your primary investments in our organization's staffing over the last few years have been the investments in EMS response time that we've spent a good deal of time talking about and planning for. Our organizational chart is divided into those same grouping areas. My leadership team includes our Fire Marshal Laura Barons. And she is, of course, as our Fire Marshal manages our prevention division efforts, and is also managing our new division, Community Improve ment Services. You also see on the right side of this chart, Assistant Fire Chief Kenneth Hedges, manages all of our emergency operations, our field operations, as well as our staff operational functions that include EMS and training and safety. In administrative services, Allison Carlwitz manages our data analysis, our complex payroll, our contract development and management, and also significant responsibilities for EMS billing and EMS records management. Also working directly with me is our emergency management section, our emergency management coordinator. However, when we have significant planning events and certainly when we have an activation, that is very much a team process with representatives from disciplines throughout our city. I'm pleased to talk to you about the accomplishments that the organization has been able to bring forward. We have finalized the land acquisition and design stages for Fire Station 3 on McCormick and Fire Station 4 on East Sherman and Kings Row. We finalized the design phase of the new fire training facility and we've initiated construction. And construction has also been initiated at Fire Station 4. We've also finalized the land acquisition on Colorado. Council made the decision to invest in land banking for the future because of the very positive opportunity we had to acquire an excellent piece of property at a very favorable cost to the citizens. So we will be prepared for Fire Station 8 in Southeast Dent on. In partnership with the Police Department and Technology Services, we've been working together to complete a comprehensive dispatch and computer aided dispatch and record management system analysis. And we're moving forward on that with significant goals in the year ahead. I want to skip to number six and tell you that one of the things that we've done is placed Medic 8 in service in January. And I've got some very good ROI to report to you already in the first quarter of implementation of Medic 8. But I want to take you back up to number five and give you a pretty exciting report on the work that we've done over the last three years to bring forward an ISO process review and submit an application. ISO stands for Insurance Services Office. There is a national group that does an analysis and a ranking of your municipal fire protection service. And from that ranking is based your commercial and residential fire insurance rates. The last time Denton was evaluated ten years ago, we were able to take our city from a ten, I'm sorry, from a three, from a four to a three. The difference between a four and a three is primarily focused on an improvement in commercial rates for insurance . We have just received a confirmation from ISO just last Thursday that they have determined that our ISO rating in Denton will be improved from a three to a two. We are now in a 30 day time frame in which we may appeal. We have no intention of appealing. After that 30 day review process, ISO will forward their report to the Texas State Fire Marshall's Office and it will come to us for implementation. We'll be providing to you a more detailed informal staff report. We also intend to have a press release for our citizens and also to do a mass mailing distribution to all of our insurance entities. I want you to know a little bit about what that means to our citizens. You could see a residential rate improvement for the fire insurance of as much as 8% savings and a commercial savings of as much as 2%. Very exciting. We've done a lot of work on that and had the opportunity to be the clearing house and coordinating entity as the fire department. But I also want to be sure that you understand that there are other organizations that are part of how this ISO rating is determined. 40% of your assessment is your water distribution system. 6% is fire prevention control or your fire prevention efforts. 9% is your communication and dispatch system. And so only about 47% represents your fire protection. Well, I want to be sure and acknowledge that the primary difference over the last ten years has been the investments that this council has made. And the leadership direction and some of the planning that 's taken place into improving our water supply and water distribution system. That's the major change from our last assessment. We were awarded the full amount of points available for water system in a municipality. Now as we anticipated, the report does provide us some good direction as to how we can continue to improve as a city with our fire protection. And they do cite as we anticipated that we have a deficiency in our number of engines and trucks. And also they have a rating for the fire distribution system, which is what is your ability to bring together those engines and trucks for a significant structure fire based on response time. In those three categories, we received 50% of the available points. But I also want to share with you that one of the things that I was really pleased with in this report is that it did acknowledge the fact that one of our strategies that we've developed together is very, very effective. We talked to you a lot about the fact that every Denton firefighter is a paramedic. And how important that is because that's 70% of our call volume. Well, the same thing is true in reverse. Every Denton paramedic is also a firefighter. One of the unusual and creative things that we do here in Denton is that on every medic unit, we place fire protection equipment and self-contained breathing apparatus. So while those cannot be counted as fire protection response vehicles like an engine, we are able to count those personnel as firefighters because they are available and are often called upon to respond to structure fires. So in the area of fire personnel, we received all of the available points. So I look forward to sharing more information with you on that, but it's a very positive return on investment. Our goals for the next fiscal year include completing the construction of fire station four. And we anticipate that being completed by July of 2018. Initiating the construction of fire station three, but before it is the construction's initiated, we're in the design phase right now and we'll be coming back to you with design specifications for you to consider and look at in a large number of areas. We intend to come back to you in July so that you'll have a chance to look at options with regard to foundation and roofing, elevation, and including the HVAC system. So you'll get a chance to weigh in and make some important cost decisions and design decisions as we move forward. >> Good. >> We will complete the construction of the new fire training facility and that is scheduled for December of 2017 of this year. We're going to be completing the technology enhancements to 911 and PSAP that are part of our partnership with the Police Department and Technology Services. The public safety CAD system, computer aided dispatch, will be going out for bid this summer. It's estimated to begin implementation in early 2018. The fire record management system replacement will be going out for bid this summer also. It's estimated to begin implementation in the fall of 2017. And our design phase for the PSAP replacement is targeted for completion by the end of this fiscal year. >> Did you have a question? >> What does PSAP? >> Public safety answering point. It's our 911 center, our dispatch center. >> Thank you. >> And our final goal is extremely critical. The ISO rating that will be a significant improvement from three to two, it applies only to the core area of our city. We have areas in our city that are beyond five miles from an existing fire station. They receive the maximum ISO rating of ten currently and will continue to after this new schedule goes into place. However, one of the decisions that council made was for us to partner with a fire department south that is building a station in Northlake. And we will be able to use that to revise our ISO rating system for our city. Now that station is scheduled to open in fall of 2018. So one of our goals for this next fiscal year, the fourth quarter, will be to submit a revised application having it ready to go. So that including that Northlake station so that the southwest areas of our city and Thompson Ranch will enjoy the same ISO rating of two that our core city does. >> Councilmember Gregory. >> And what is the cost on our budget for that? Our commitment with Argyle? >> We have a ten year contract that we have committed to. It goes down each year. We've developed a creative contract in which as their rooft ops and their tax collections go up, the dent in contribution goes down. Our first year cost is estimated, which is the highest cost , is estimated to be 334,000, then decreasing 316 in that next year. Now I can report to you even at this early date that the significant growth in harvest development and in those areas which represent the rooftops and the tax collection base for the Emergency Service District number one are way ahead of their projection schedule. And our contract includes provisions for a true up each year that tells us what their tax collection is and then our payment is a percentage of that balance. So while this was developed so that we would give to you a worst case scenario that you agreed to, we're going to have a much more favorable first year payment. >> Just follow up, there was an upfront expense to the city to help with that. It wasn't there? >> No, sir. >> No, I thought there was. >> No, sir, they were able to accomplish their loan and their funding based on the contractual commitment that the city made. >> Okay. >> The Robeson Ranch developer wrote a check for 350,000. And Ross Pro Junior is a development company for harvest provided the land for free. So we had two very large contributions from the two developers who oversee both harvest and Robeson Ranch. >> The Robeson contribution is divided over the first three years. So the figure that I quoted to you will also be reduced by the 100 or 150,000 as that is divided out over those three years. So our taxpayer liability will be less than that. >> Chief, I want to say this again. I said it back then and I'll say it again. What a great opportunity that you took to partner and to meet a need. I mean, it's going to be a while before we got a fire station that was purely dent in city owned, didn't paid for out there in that area. And we're going to be able to meet that need very quickly. And if the percentages, you talked about going from a three to a two, 8% for residential and I'm not saying that for each point decrease, it's 8%. But you can only imagine going from a 10 to a three or a two, that's going to be phenomenal. But again, thank you for your work. That was right as you came on board and it was just Yeoman 's work. And I think that's just a real good example of just the partnerships that we can enter into with private developers, with other municipalities in our area and other political subdivisions to really meet a need. And we all share the cost, but none of them could have done it on their own at this time. So thanks again. >> Thank you, Mayor. Our first two current performance measures that we talk about here are ones that we've been hard at work on the last three years. I talked to you about the fact that the ISO process has been one that we've been working on and one of the reasons why it's been a multi- year process is because you're required to have a two years worth of record keeping on the training that your firefighters receive, on your EMS continuing education, on the testing that you do for your apparatus and for your hose and all of your equipment. Significant amount of detailed record keeping that we were deficient on. So we began our process knowing that we had to clean up our processes so we could present ourselves as a favorable candidate with this ISO application. So we're pleased that those have been a part of how we presented our performance. We're also, going forward, we're going to be developing, after we have the new record management system to support us, we're going to be proposing a new EMS response time metric. Obviously, that's what we talk about regularly. It's what you've made significant budget decisions to invest in. So we want to be able to talk to you about how we're doing there. It's also a challenge for us and for all of us to look out together because we've had an increase in our EMS call volume of 10% in 2015 and 11% in 2016. So you can see that we're following a very moving target. So we want to be sure we're focused on that. We have historically presented to you in your quarterly dashboard, a metric that measures response time to structure fires. And Council Member Gregory has challenged me a number of times with how come you have these 30 and 40% variations from quarter to quarter in a dashboard. And we've made a determination to adjust that in favor of the EMS response time for this reason. We're talking about a total call volume in our city of 14, 000 incidents. But fortunately, our structure fire incidents may be 200 a year. So you may be talking about 50 a quarter. When you've got obviously a data set that small, the opportunities for variations are incredible. So it just doesn't work for a dashboard metric. We're having to drill down significantly to find out on a single incident, well, the three closest units were out of service on medical alarms. So that's why you had a protracted response time to that structure fire. Well, if we're doing that kind of drill down, it's not helpful to you to look at quarterly as a dashboard. So we're making some adjustments there. >> And Chief, just because when you say 200 structure fires a year, that would almost seem like that the city is up in flames when you think of a structure. But what you're talking about, it could be a fire, it could be a fence. Anything that would require, I guess, the fire suppression equipment being dispatched. Is that correct? Is there a broader definition or what is it? >> Anytime we use a full complement of resources. >> Okay. >> The multiple engines and a ladder truck in support of an actual structure fire incident. And as you point out, it can be a major alarm apartment complex. It can be a garage fire. It's a significant amount of variation. >> Okay, great. And of course, we couldn't capture that in the metrics. So I'm glad we're able to. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> Question about the metrics. Are we keeping track of how many of the paramedic calls are for our homeless population? Because I know that's been increasing. Well, I secondhand know that it's been increasing just from anecdotal information. So I'm wondering if there's a way to verify that, if it's actually happening, or are we keeping track of it? >> We are now. It was a question from our council. I don't know whether it's Councilmember Gregory, perhaps, or one of our council members asked that. And no, we did not. Now, we do track a broader category of an indigent population as we track through our billing process. But that isn't a direct correlation to the patient served and whether they were homeless. So we've added that to the data that we're now collecting. Certainly, number three here, Mayor was kind enough to emphasize that one of the things we talk about, cost containment or effective use of resources, I believe, is just when we've got an organization that's flexible enough and creative enough to do things in some non-traditional manner . And that very often can produce a significant amount of savings over just one way of doing business. So being able to contract with ESD as opposed to long before we could or would have either the resources or the call demand to do our own station represents a significant savings. Partnering with a medical city, Denton, with a lease rate of a commercial modular building of $20, 000 a year to put in medic unit aid in advance of a permanent station facility certainly represents a creative way of doing business and a significant value to our citizens. I also talk here about absorbing our capacity. We are a constantly staffed organization. So that means you have federal and state requirements and safety regulations that would say that you wouldn't operate an engine with less than three personnel. You wouldn't operate our truck company, our aerial ladder with less than four, and you wouldn't operate a medic unit with less than two. So that constant staffing means that we use overtime in perhaps a different way than some organizations would, where you might think of overtime as being discretionary or extra. Whereas in fact, based on planned occurrences of vacation, based on unplanned occurrences such as injuries, you staff a constantly staffed fire service organization with over hires, some personnel who are floaters, and then with overtime based on unexpected occurrences. Well, we have historically over the last number of years been able to turn back as an ending balance at the end of a budget year personnel dollars in the fire department because we have very carefully managed that. So as a constant staffed organization, when we would come forward to you with a proposal for a medic seven or a medic eight, a unit that is constantly staffed with two individuals a shift, three shifts, six personnel. You would normally have to come forward with a budget proposal that was the cost of those six personnel, plus the cost of some addition to your floaters or some addition to your overtime budget to help, to fund those occasions when there were vacancies. What we've been able to do is bring forward both of those medic proposals and including the proposal that we're making this year for medic four at the rate of just the six personnel. Absorbing the capacity in partnership with our finance department to be sure that we're effectively utilizing our funds and not over asking if there's a way that we can manage our budget and make that work. Last year we also had a very unusual circumstance that you may recall that because of the construction we had an area off of Lillian Miller and I-35 that we could not access safely and would not be able to respond to. Again, because of a good partnership with one of the nursing home facilities there, they allowed us to house a medic unit there. So we put a peak demand medic unit in for a period of time and we also absorb that in our existing capacity. Cost containment strategies also include position expans ions. We've done a lot of analysis of our desire to enhance and improve our representation of organization and our work with our recruitment strategy. And while we've got a need to target those specific individuals who are qualified for an opening now, we also believe that one of the areas of deficiency is that we have not been as in touch with our community to expose the fire service as a profession for those who may not view it culturally as a desirable career or as one that they're familiar with or see themselves expressed in. So we have brought together responsibilities for recruitment and community service together in an existing position without adding additional resources. Also working with my staff identified a battalion chief position that I thought did not represent the best and highest utilization of a sworn leadership executive and organization. The individuals was used for technology management and data analysis which are certainly very important in our organization. But we found that we could accomplish those more effectively by transferring those responsibilities to our administrative manager position. Thereby allowing us to use that battalion chief position as a chief of health and safety. A position that did require the sworn position and to represent and to work effectively and very, very closely with our firefighters in the field. >> I'm sorry, we have a question. Council Member Briggs. >> So backing up earlier, I heard you say that minimum is three per truck. But when you hear people speaking about the staffing, it needs you sometimes hear four. Four is ideal. Is that just in like a wonderland? Like is that just what everybody wishes? And three is the minimum that you can go per truck? >> Three is the minimum by state law on engines. >> Right. >> Four for an aerial ladder apparatus. Four per engine, four overall is certainly the industry best case scenario. It's represented in national fire protection association standards. And a number of studies have shown the effectiveness of having four persons versus three. What we have done over the last number of years together is work with our association very closely and focus on what our priority needs were in serving our community. So I'm certainly supportive of the fact that additional staffing per engine is a positive thing. But what we've identified as priorities is to make sure that we were making our first investments in staffing that would improve our response time to citizens. And that meant adding more units and our focus of course has been on medical units because that's our citizen demand . >> Right, okay, thank you. >> Yes, Council Member Hussman. >> Thank you, Mayor. >> Regarding the recruitment captain position, is there measurable, what, how do you measure the success of that process, that position? >> Well, it is, that's certainly a big question. We gather metrics that determine what's the full representation and total numbers of the individuals we're able to bring into the wide end of the funnel that apply for our job. Then we look at what points in our process are we losing those candidates? Did they not come then for the test? At what point in our process of evaluating did we lose them ? So that's one of the areas where we've looked at our overall recruitment process. And we're also looking to be able to match that up with what are the impacts on our ability to recruit. With the decisions that have historically been made by city 's management with regard to the fire department of how we train and staff. Because while we operate under the similar chapter 143 civil service law, the law is actually different in some ways in the police department and the fire department. And then both departments have been able to vary those laws differently through their individual meet and confer agreements. Now in the fire department, the significantly different thing is that we do not do our own training. And the reason for that is largely cost. The process of certifying someone to a paramedic, that training is up to a year. The fire protection training can be up to six months. So not only the cost of training, but the unproductive time of having those folks on the payroll, while they weren't able to fill a position on the apparatus , has led to a decision and a strategy in the fire department in which we hire already certified firefighters and already certified par amedics. So of course what that means is that our recruitment strategy, that person who's job ready that we're focused on , is largely cherry picking folks from smaller departments who would desire to come here based on our salary level and the opportunities for advancement. And then of course it's also focused on a target audience of folks who are currently in a paramedic or fire protection program. Rather than a recruitment program that targets a population at large. Now the expansion of including community services is so that we can also have an impact on a community wide population to interest them in that junior college training of paramedic and firefighter. And one of the unique things that we've just been able to do this last year and just the Denton Independent School District just graduated their first class out of high school that went through an EMT training while seniors in high school. Those individuals have a leg up on then going to a junior college and be accepted and enrolled in a paramedic program . So our partnership with them is another element of how we 're seeking to make inroads in our recruitment strategy. >> Yeah, just go ahead. >> If I may. >> Yes, sir. >> More direct, and I don't know if this answer exists, but I'm going to either ask for it today or at a later date if we need to calculate it. How many people do we need to shove in the top of that funnel to reconcile $75,000? What is that? I need to understand better, how do we measure success? Understanding how many people do we need to tie to this individual bringing to the table but for them would not have entered the process. What's that number? >> That's an excellent question, sir, and I would be glad to work with our team and come back to you with a more detailed response. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. >> Councilmember Gregory. >> You gave me credit for something that I didn't exactly ask for with regarding to Mayor Pro Tembigere's question. Regarding homeless, serving the homeless with EMT calls. Because my specific question was, and this has to do with cost containment. And my question had been, do we have a significant number of people in the city who rely on calling our ambulance unit out, an EMT medic unit out in place of visiting a clinic or in place of visiting a hospital or visiting a doctor? I think some folks in the fire department call them frequent flyers. Folks who call because they feel badly and they don't have a physician. So they call our medic unit and the ambulance comes out and they do blood pressure checks and things like that and then go home. There's a cost to the city involved in that and I know that in some areas where that has become a significant problem. They have found that a cost containment procedure is to simply do some proactive wellness checks. To check in on those folks or to invite those folks to visit their closest station to do a blood pressure check or to see if their blood sugar is at the right level or I don 't know what they do, I'm not in that profession. And so that's what I was only wanting to see is if we had enough of those kinds of calls that we could do, that it might be appropriate for cost containment to do some type of proactive activity. So that's the question that I have out there that I think it might be good. And it may be that we don't have enough of those calls to warrant that, but I think it would be good to at least check and see about. >> Well, let me respond to that briefly, Council Member. I do not believe we have that volume now, although we're certainly evaluating it. We have a population that fits into that category of frequent flyer and we are designing specifications into our record management system so that it will be much more effective for us to be able to draw out those individual population statistics as we move forward. I have done a good deal of work with one of my partners who 's the fire chief of Plano to evaluate the strategies of putting in those type of care units. And a strategy that we've done a lot of work on and discussion about is the fact that that could be in a community that wasn't just doing it as something in vogue because other departments are doing it. But if we look at how does it serve not only our taxpayers but our budget, is that we believe it should be done in partnership with your hospitals. Because your other major beneficiary of that type of a service is the frequent flyer or the emergency room access folks into a hospital that are generally no pay clients that are accessing healthcare and that we believe that that type of a service, when provided at a municipal level, also has a significant impact on their bottom line. And that they should be participants with taxpayers in funding that sort of additional resource. So that's something that we're studying. >> And I'll bring it up because over the years, Texas is rated as the state with the highest percentage of people that are uninsured. And that means that people don't want to go and visit the doctor because of the cost involved or they don't go to a clinic or they don't know that the clinic exists. So over time, because of that high percentage, especially among children, school districts like Denton ISD have ended up having a full time nurse on every single campus. And in a lot of those nurses offices, those have become neighborhood clinics that are actually funded out of the school district budget. Costs to the taxpayers simply because of the high number of uninsured people living in Denton, living in Texas. So those are the kinds of hidden costs that happen because of all of the factors that go into our community, local decisions, state decisions, and federal decisions. So it's a question that just came up in terms of cost containment because, yeah, hospitals certainly bear a lot of it. The county ends up having to pay for some of that cost. And then in some cases, it's just a write off for the hospital when they can't collect those funds. So that's why I was asking about that. It's good to know that we don't have that many, but we ought to keep our eye on that in the future. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. I think you've seen this chart frequently before. It's one where we break down the different elements of response time. But I want to use this to make the point that although we 've come back to council with a number of proposals where we talked about land banking for future stations, and we believe that that's part of professional planning of the future. I want to be sure that you know that we don't identify our challenge here in Denton as having too few stations. Our strategy that we developed several years ago was a focus on the fact that Denton's challenge is response time. And that is a significant difference because if you've identified your problem as not enough stations, then you've got one bandaid for that problem. There's more stations and you've got one chance to take a bite of that apple every five or six years. And in our last bond election, as you know, we included two stations, but they were not new stations. They were replacement stations. So they don't have an impact on response time. The value of stepping back and saying that our challenge is response time is then that you've opened up the whole spectrum of what are the things that we can do about that. And you've also challenged your organization to be much more creative than just to meet it with the most expensive option of more stations. So what we've been able to produce is a significant number of process improvements and technology investments that have also had a very favorable impact on response time while planning for the future of more stations. We began with just a lot of focus at a station level and a shift level, at a captain level, of what are all the things that we're doing and the choices that an officer can make that either keep a unit in district and in service or take a unit out of service. That's important. And the next couple that we talk about there are ones that represents some well-intentioned policies, both in the department and in the city, but that had unintended consequences. My father used to call this a dollar waiting on a dime. For instance, the most cost effective way as a city, and we would assume the way for us to benefit taxpayers the most, would be to purchase fuel in bulk with the lowest therefore cost per gallon because of purchasing in bulk. But when the unintended consequence is that you would take a fully staffed fire apparatus out of their district to drive to one location to fill up with fuel, you can say that that may have been a cost savings on fuel, but it was certainly not cost effective. So we've implemented fuel cards for a number of our stations that are the most distant from the central fueling area. The same thing within the fire department. The cheapest contract for delivering oxygen bottles, for delivering narcotics was to have those delivered to a single location, central fire station. That was the cost savings. But what it meant was taking fully staffed medic units out of their district to come to station one, to stock up on the necessary supplies to stay in service. So clearly those were well intentioned policies, but with unintended consequences. And they've represented things that we've been able to identify with process improvement. We've also implemented a turnout time accountability as one of the components that we measure. And using the statement that what gets measured gets done, is that if we're talking about what is our turnout time and sharing that throughout our organization, there's an emphasis on this really is our number one performance measure. This is the most important impact we can have on surviv ability of patients and on exponential fire growth is how can we all work together to improve our response time. Our future project for process improvement include both automating our data collection and partnership with technology services. We want to continue to expand our EMS quality assurance. We're doing invasive treatment in the field as paramedics. It's absolutely critical that we do in depth chart and performance reviews, that we can target our training based on those areas of greatest need. I want to take you back to number one, the fire station al erting system. Because we've just implemented that at the new station, fire station two on Mockingbird at McKinney. And the new alerting system will be included in our station rebuilds. And we have proposals in which we will be able to expand that department wide. But briefly, I want to tell you what that is. Is in dispatch, when dispatchers take a call, they're continuing to gather information from the caller before they dispatch out the field units. And currently when they dispatch out the field units, that is a wire tone that comes out. On a structure fire with a number of different units, as you're listening to those tones for five or six units before it may get to the tone for yours, you are listening to those tones for a period of up to a minute of what can be delay or just processing time in our current process. This new technology, the fire alerting system, dispatch is able to initiate an immediate announcement to the unit. And they're able to begin their response while the dispatch er is still collecting pertinent data for the caller. And I have just a fascinating piece of information about this, because in addition to coming out over wired, it also comes out over wireless networks. So our station personnel are getting this on their iPhones. So in our pilot process, where just a few of our staff had this capacity, we had a structure fire that was on Woodland Street, in our fire district four. Our captain on an engine company at Central Fire Station got that on his wireless device and responded. They were at that fire laying attack lines and were making entry at the time that the station four crews, who didn't have that capacity yet, weren't a part of that pilot group, the time that they arrived on the scene. The difference in that response time was one minute, 54 seconds. Phenomenal. When we start talking about not just new stations, but start talking about the creative approaches of technology and a lot of changes in process improvements that we've been able to make that kind of difference together. So we're going to work to continue to roll that out department wide. You've seen this map a lot and you asked for it. So I've included it, but I can't show it to you again without the caveat that while this is four minute response time from an existing station, it is four minutes under normal road traffic conditions. What are those? And it also assumes something that is absolutely not the case. It assumes that your emergency units are in that station waiting on the call. Now more and more, while we certainly encourage our communities to have an attachment for their neighborhood stations, very often the emergency units responded to your home aren 't going to be the ones that have the number that corresponds to your station. Because it is a very, very busy and dynamic system. So when we talk to you, for instance, about a proposal for land backing at the Prescott property between four and two, we're not just talking about, oh, that would cover the uncovered white area between four and two. We're also talking about a detailed analysis of what is the frequency in which four and two are out of service, and the actual responses into those districts are coming from other districts. So it's a much more detailed analysis than just to be able to look at a static map. It is, and when I say static, it is not that. The system is very dynamic. As I indicated before, if you look at this 10 and a half percent increase in EMS call volume in 2015, 11% in 2016. But you've worked with me and worked for our community in making investments over the last number of years. Last year when we talked about Medic 7, I just had three months of history to talk to you about. I've got a full year of return on investment to talk to you about with regard to Medic 7 now. A 28 second response time improvement for Medic 6 because there is a medic unit in Station 7 now. A 21 second average response time improvement in District 3 because the calls, the medic calls in District 7 and Ropes and Ranch were responded to from the medic unit at Station 3 or Station 6. So a significant difference. >> But just a question, Council Member Briggs. >> So while we're on this page and we're looking at Medic 7 , there's a proposal for Medic 4. >> Yes. >> At the moment we do not have one there in the turquoise. So where does the medic come from at this point to come into the Medic 4? It is proposed in the upcoming budget. >> Well, it comes from the closest available medic unit. And that depends on where the call is in District 4. And it also depends on which ones of those other units are in service. >> Okay, so five, one, or two. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> And I have some data that specifically relates to that. Over 56% of the responses in District 4 experience an average response time of ten minutes or longer. And currently, when you look at those other stations that are responding, 27% of Medic 5's call volume runs into District 4 because of not having the minute unit there. Over 18% of Medic 1's calls are in the District 4. And 13% of Medic 2's call volume is into District 4. So you're moving them because you've got this permanent black hole. Now, in a dynamic system, in a grid system, you're always moving these units based on availability and units being out of service. But obviously, whenever we've got a significant area of the city without a response, then we're always moving into that area. >> Thank you. >> Councilmember Gregory and then Councilmember Ryan. >> Thanks. Well, Councilmember Griggs made a statement that I think, unfortunately, isn't accurate because on your next slide where you're talking about expenditure and budget highlights, as I recall, that does not include funds for Medic 4. Am I correct? >> The- >> The proposed budget for next year for the fire department does not include funds for Medic 4, does it? Or does it? >> Chief Palsgrove did not. I don't believe, he did not weave those into his initial presentation. Finance Director Springer and I, though, based upon your comments, have woven it into the bigger picture in the budget presentation. But it is not shown in his existing staffing counts up front. But we are building that into the base budget that you'll see here in the next week or two. >> Okay, just wanted to make sure, because right now it's not in there. And I hope that it will be, because as we've talked about it and as you pointed out, we're talking about the survivability of patients and a ten minute response time for someone who's having a stroke. That's probably a pretty significant issue. >> Yes, sir. Councilman Ryan? >> Yeah, I had the same question. I also kind of wanted to ask, as the city progresses with Bonnebray widening, obviously that's going to slow down the response time in that area, and same thing with 2181, etc. As those get widened out to four and six lane roads, will that improve that map a little, or is that, how is that defined? Is it an actual trip, or is that done by analysis? >> It's done by computer modeling, and certainly computer modeling takes into account the traffic flow and speed based on our arteries. So we do have the ability in that programming to adjust based on those changes. >> Okay, because I'm saying nothing, it looks like basically about Robinson Road South. All that area is beyond our four minute response time. >> Yes, and all those areas are beyond five miles from station seven. I also wanted to share with you briefly a return on investment of Medicaid. And once again, just like Medic Seven last year, we just have one quarter of history. Medicaid went in service on the Medical City Denton campus in January of this year. But normally, traditionally when you would put a new unit or a new station in service, it would be in an area where you were newly developed. And so that new station, like station seven when it went into service, would be your smallest call volume area until you had inf ill and a greater density of development. The day we put Medic Eight in service, it became one of our busiest units. When you add together the call volume for all of our engines and all of our medic units, in the first quarter of this year, Medic Eight represented 8% of the total call volume. With 431 responses that were primarily came from reduction in District 6 and 2. That gives Medic Eight in our first quarter an equivalent number of call volume with Medic Two and Medic Three and Medic Five. So I'm absolutely confident that next year when we come back to you with a full year history, that we'll have a very significant return on investment story to tell you about the value of Medic Eight to our system. Particularly as we continue to increase the medical call volume system wide. >> That's Mayor Gregory. On the map, I just noticed something. It looks like Fire Station Three right there along I-35 is right next to an area that's in gray. Yet it looks like it would certainly be within some fast response times. What's the gray area about? >> The gray- >> It may be a different color, I don't know. >> The gray area represents overlap between these colors. >> Okay, thank you, thank you. >> You bet. >> And our final slide represents the fire department budget highlights. And as you indicated, they do not reflect your direction with regard to Medic Four at this time. And I'd be pleased to respond to any additional questions that you may have. >> Questions, comments? Any other questions? Yes, there's no questions. Yes, ma'am. >> On behalf of a grateful city, I want to thank you, Chief Paul's Grove, for your foresight, for your ability to problem solve, to take a look at the rapid growth that this city has experienced and is experiencing, to take a problem and get it solved, to think outside the box and not let traditional barriers stand in your way. But to get it done, because with 70% of your calls being E MS, those are lives on the line when people call 911 and people have a medical emergency. You have saved lives, you continue to save lives. It has been my honor and privilege to work with you. And I just want to salute you and say thank you. >> Thank you, Councilmember. >> Councilmember Hussbett. >> Thank you, Mayor. My question is with the completion of the training facility , does that open additional lines for revenue as far as training other smaller cities or helping? Is there anything financially new that comes from completing that facility? Just because I know the initial scope of what we were going to build as a city open that door. With the scaled down version, does it still allow those opportunities? >> There are some opportunities there, and we're certainly exploring others. We know, for instance, that we'll be able to do a lot more collectively with our mutual aid partners with the drill tower facility. And that will certainly increase our ability to work together more efficiently and more safely. Some of those organizations have the resources to actually pay for those, others may not. But what we continue to look at, the potential to partner with NCTC because they do not have a drill tower facility. Now, as you pointed out, this is a much smaller scope, this phase one, than we looked at. So we don't have anything that represents a large classroom facility. We'll have an outdoor covered area for debriefing after a drill. But we do have the community room that was built into station seven that we believe can be a part of classroom that NCTC can offer and then be able to lease out the drill tower space as well. So we definitely believe that there's opportunities we want to pursue there. >> Thank you, appreciate that. >> Any other comments, questions? Councilmember Hatsworth will respond to you with more detail on your recruiting question. >> I'm grateful, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it, thank you very much. The next one is community improvement. >> Good afternoon, Mayor, Councilmembers. My name is Laura Barons and I'm your Fire Marshal. Community Improvement Services, or CIS, joined our team in February of this year. This is a detailed outline of the positions that are currently within that section. You'll see a change between the current fiscal year and the baseline for 17-18. This change was actually implemented in May of this year, so that change has already occurred under a reorganization and restructuring of the section. This included the elimination of a management position and reassigning two community improvement officers over to the planning division, where they were already performing some commercial CO review and also some reviews that fell under the planning and general zoning section. This is the actual organizational chart with that change already implemented. So our accomplishments for the 16-17, or current fiscal year, have been to complete an enhanced right away maintenance program with the annual reimbursement from TextDOT. This increased revenue of just a little over $6,700. Established an Union Pacific Railroad right away of entry and indemnity agreement for graffiti abatement and mural paintings. This is for the trestle on Dallas Drive. Instituted a graffiti abatement team to proactively remove graffiti on public property. Recognized provider of continuing education training by the state. This is an individual within the CIS group who is now trained and recognized by the state to provide continuing education training for our in-house organization and our officers. And facilitate the creation of historic landmark GIS layer and portable sign GIS layer for interdepartmental use. The goals for our upcoming fiscal year are to enhance our partnerships with legal and development services to advance our mission. Also to develop a comprehensive public education program to educate residents on code enforcement requirements and promote services provided. Engage homeowner associations and neighborhood groups in proactive enforcement of the code. And to partner with our non-profit and volunteer groups to advocate abatement assistance. Our current performance measures that you are familiar with , that you see in the dashboard, are the percentage of nuisance violations abated, the percentage of minimum building standard violations abated, the percentage of zoning violations abated, and the number of dangerous buildings repaired or demolished. We're gonna modify those, go ahead. >> No, I'm sorry. >> A question and it relates to the last slide in this slide. And it's sort of a question that came up after we got a response from our city staff to a question. Councilmember Briggs asked about railroad ties. So my question is, are railroad operators exempt from city property maintenance codes? >> Exempt? No. But we do try to work very closely with them because it is their property. And their representatives are the ones that are responsible for those projects, aren't local. So we have to work through their organization to get some of those issues that we've experienced, particularly on their property, abated or taken care of. >> Because I suspect that other businesses, maybe that have out, or management in another city or another state, certainly individual citizens and if we were improperly or illegally storing items in our front yard that look like what's along the railroad. That we would probably receive a friendly visit to say you need to become part of our 99.3% of folks who abate those nuisances . >> Correct. >> Voluntarily. But if you don't, then at some point maybe we get to go and visit with Judge Ramsey and maybe we start getting fines. At some point, if they don't get that done, are we going to go to those kind of remedies? >> And that's something that we would work very closely with our legal team in that, in what our recourse is to get them to comply with our local ordinances. >> And then on the other slide, about number of dangerous buildings repaired or demolished. 16 is a, I don't know if that's a good number or a bad number, because I don't have any idea how many dangerous buildings we think we might have in town. Do we know? Do we have an estimate of that? Our code enforcement people, they've been out on the street . We have a notion as to how many there actually are. >> Yes, actually within the last several months, we've got two specialty officers within our community improvement team that will actually be getting certified this month in dangerous building abatement. And to help enforce our minimum building standards, we normally team up and we will continue to team up with our building inspectors in working those types of cases. But they just completed an inventory of our city and to identify those buildings and we'll be happy to share those results with you. >> I think that would be helpful and maybe some way of us understanding what criteria are used to determine that a building is dangerous. I know one of my first years on council, I saw photographs of a building that, if you were driving by, I wouldn't necessarily notice that it was a dangerous building. Because I didn't notice that there wasn't even a front door on the building, it was a blanket. >> I understand. And that criteria is currently set through DDC and the property maintenance code. >> But if we could have some of that, maybe if you all could provide us some permission to educate us on what constitutes that and then the number so that we can have a better idea as to whether 16, we're really doing great or if we're really behind the curve. >> Absolutely, and again, we just completed that inventory process and so we can get that information. >> Thank you. >> And if you could also maybe split out how many were repaired and how many actually were demolished. >> Okay. >> Yeah. In our cost containment strategies, 85% of our discretion ary budget is actually related to our contractual services. So in that, we work very closely with our purchasing department in making sure that our competitive bidding process maximizes our internal funding and to get our mission accomplished. But also the management and execution of those contracts is important to us. So within that contractual services, it includes the nu isance abatement, the row maintenance, and dangerous buildings. Voluntary compliance also impacts our cost containment strategies. Our number one priority in voluntary compliance is to abate the nuisance. But it does also have an impact on the contractual services that we use if someone does not come into voluntary compliance. And we're having to use those service providers to go out and abate the issue. And lastly, just as I mentioned, one of our accomplishments was that internal training service provider in the current fiscal year. And this is just a portion of the, this isn't a full fiscal year, but in the current fiscal year, we've already seen approximately $700 in savings. And a gain in productivity of about four hours per staff member. Our completed process improvement projects this year include streamline of the notification process, a decrease in the city abatement time frame, implementation of automated main phone line directory system, the digitizing certificate of occupancy records, real ignment of tasks to reflect our scope of services, and the reassignment of staff to support those realignment efforts. The projects that we've identified for ourselves in the future are to evaluate the mowing contracts that we currently have and explore coordination efforts with the parks department, to update our SOPs to capture the redefined scope of services, establish a process with legal for routine case review and court documentation and court docket participation. And to perform a technology assessment in conjunction with development services, currently they're reviewing the track it and project doc system, which is the same system that we use. So if there's a change in that, we'll need to also reeval uate our internal use of technology for our record keeping. Our budget highlights, you'll see probably two major differences here. The first one is in our personal services and that reflects the reorganization changes that we made just a few months, or actually just last month. And then I do want to point out there's a significant increase between the 14-15 and 15-16 fiscal year. And that was the implementation of the row maintenance program where the city, actually as a result of a leap project, the city implemented $125,000 in funding to promote a pilot project that included eight locations within the city. To maintain the right of way, that included not only mowing but trash and debris pick up. That amount has currently increased to just a little over $ 325,000 and we currently monitor and maintain, let's see, I believe it 's 16 right of ways and 17 drainage systems in our entryways and major thoroughfares through the city. >> Yeah, Councilmember Gregory. >> A question on this. The insurance line on that seems fairly volatile. Is there somebody that can explain what that's about? >> I believe the insurance is an internal transfer from risk management, so maybe Chuck can help us with that. It's our fault. >> Just real quickly, Scott went over that a little bit. They look at a three year history of losses as part of their insurance allocation. So it tends to be a little bit more volatile depending on what the history of losses are in that area. >> Okay, I don't- >> This is just the risk insurance, the property liability and those type of things. >> So why is that in this community improvement services budget and not in other budgets? >> I think they just broke it out separately within a lot of the other budgets. I think it's in that cost of service since it's an internal service fund allocation, but they've just broken it out separately. >> Okay, thank you. >> Yes, Councilmember Husserlund. >> Thank you, Mayor. Do you, since you've taken over, I know it's been a relatively short time, but I would like to know in the future the cost of mailing the notices to citizens and how we manage that because my personal experience is that mail, the mail house that, for example, planning and zoning uses was not able to track receipt of that mail. And so we're paying, depending on what that postage is, there may be a better way of communicating with people that is trackable and at a lesser cost. And also, I don't know what the process is or the options, but kind of in that same area, I'd like to understand the time frame that's given. For example, right now I can put a couch out in front of my house, I'll get a notice that says seven days. So we paid for the postage, it says seven days, we're going to come back and check. Well, I can leave that couch there for that seven days because the trash will come back around before I have to take action. So we paid for something that is not effective. >> We, I'm sorry, go ahead. >> No, no, go ahead. >> We actually do, so we have a ten day notice. And many of our correspondents, especially those that's going out through mail, is sent certified for legal reasons because we need to be able to demonstrate that they were in receipt of that notice of violation. If they don't comply, then we've got that information available in working with municipal court to demonstrate that they were aware of the violation. And in terms of that type of trash that is put out for collection, our CIS group is trained to research whether or not a pickup has been scheduled. And so if a pickup has been scheduled for those types of heavy furniture, even the hazardous material program through solid waste, they will check first before issuing that notice of violation to see if a pickup has been scheduled. If a pickup has been scheduled, a notice of violation will not be issued. They'll wait until after that scheduled pickup to go back out to see if that violation still exists. If no notice, or I'm sorry, no pickup has been scheduled, then they'll issue the notice of violation. So we do try to avoid that kind of conflict. >> If I may. >> Sure. >> Just, I still would like to see other options because, and I can just tell you first hand experience. People take that green card and scribble and you can't, the post office doesn't monitor if you sign your right name. So anyone can take that sign whatever and they're not going to then say hey, this it and you. Or, I have concerns about the effectiveness of that. Especially when you're talking about going forward to legal , I never got it, that's not my signature. So I'd just be curious to see what that postage amount is. >> Okay, absolutely. >> Yes, Council Member Briggs. >> On notifications, do the officers leave a note on that day of the site of the violation without mailing something? Or is it just always through mail? >> Generally it's through, and I'm looking to our manager, Lancy Bentley. I believe generally it's through the notice of violation through mail. We have in the past used the door hanger approach, and I know that there's some communities that still do. It has a list of some of the more common violations. You can mark it off. It's got instructions on what to do from there. I think the effectiveness was a little difficult to track on if people were receiving those. If they saw them on the front door, again, it was easy to say I didn't receive it in those situations as well. They could blow off. So we can definitely go back and look at that. But for the most part, yes, the notice of violations are sent. They're sent to that address. There is considerable amount of research done on who the responsible party is for that piece of property where that violation may be present, and it's addressed to that person. >> Any questions? Fantastic, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Let's take about a five minute break. Five, ten minutes. >> It was clear. >> We are reconvening for this meeting of the Denton City Council Tuesday, June 13th, 2017 is 325. Work session agenda item 1A, we're down to, I believe it's environmental services presentation. >> Sir, good afternoon, council, mayor. I'm here to present the environmental services department budget. I want to preface this by saying the, or departmental presentation rather. I want to preface this by saying environmental services is a little bit of a strange department in a number of ways. But one of the things that you'll notice is that it is a department that is budgeted within several other departments. And so that is a little bit of a nuance issue and hopefully that will come across here. We're housed within water, waste water. We have transfers that come in from the general fund as well as from the drainage department. And so there's some, just want to point out those few nuances before we get started. So the environmental services department in terms of FTEs, we try to divide them up within the categories of functional areas. So regulatory compliance is the regulatory function of the Denton Municipal Landfill Operations. And basically we have four FTEs there. Sustainability department is four. We have a water and wastewater laboratory. It is co-funded by the water department and the wastewater department. And you can see the relative proportion of FTEs there. Industrial pretreatment department, which is within the wastewater department. And then watershed protection, which is in the drainage and receives transfers. Generally, this is the overview of the environmental services org chart. Assistant director position has laboratory manager, the pretreatment manager and the regulatory compliance manager reporting to that position. And then the sustainability and special projects group is actually a direct report to the utilities general manager. Accomplishments for 1617, we completed the remediation for TCQ's voluntary cleanup program for the 300 East McKinney Street property, which is the property across the street. We were the first recipient of the integrated storm water management, I swim silver designation from the council of governments. We completed the sampling and analyses necessary for the concrete phosphorus reduction and treatment program. We ended up having a reduction in the amount of phosphorus that we could discharge to the wastewater treatment plant. And both the pretreatment group and the laboratory group were very instrumental in working through that program. We improved our GIS database management, specifically for tracking on-site sanitary sewer facilities. That was a big project for us. Believe it or not, we have 758 on-site sanitary sewer systems that exist within the city of Denton. This number has been growing as we've annexed areas that have those on-site systems and they are required to permit and we inspect those systems through the pretreatment program. Our goals for 1718, we want to finish the 301 East McKinney property, the property adjacent to City Hall, which is also working through the TCQ voluntary cleanup program. We want to continue to improve our energy and water audit program and we want to really focus on the idea of evaluation of effectiveness of those dollars spent on those changes. We had 151 energy audits last year, 23 water audits and we certainly want to see that trend increase. We want to complete revisions to sub-chapter 17 of the Dent on Development Code. We've been working through those changes with the Committee on the Environment. This is related to environmentally sensitive areas and we 'll be bringing those forward as a part of the overall code revisions to Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council. And then we have some additional new stormwater inspection requirements that we have gotten tasked with the latest permit revision that requires us to actually also sample and have regulatory oversight over certain categories of businesses. And we are meeting that challenge currently by cross-tra ining staff in our pretreatment division, which also inspects the industrial areas and are trying to make sure that we can have as much coverage through those two departments as we possibly can. In other words, if an employee can go on site and perform both inspection duties in a single visit, that's a lot more cost effective for us than having two different employees in two different divisions. >> Dr. Banks, on the goals for 1718 number one. >> Right. >> Is that the property we just demolished? Is that the remediation? Refresh my, is that the one that you're talking about? >> Yes, that is correct. The old county building that house the jail that is here adjacent to city hall. >> What is left on that since the building's down? Was there some underground issues? >> Yes, there was some soil remediation that we're working through right now. >> Okay, thank you. >> So in terms of current performance measures, we are currently tracking decreases in municipal energy usage. Percentage of non-solar rebate funding that is used from the base amount each year. The percentage of solar energy rebate funding from the base amount that is used each year for these rebate programs. And the percent of renewable energy that's used in municipal facilities. We are proposing a number of new performance measures for the upcoming years. The number of active construction sites inspected per week. This is a requirement for us to meet with regards to our storm water permit. And we have a group that goes out and inspects these sites right now. Running about 50 to 60 sites per week, about 200 to 240 per month. The number of grease trap inspections that occur per year. We have about 600 permitted grease traps. This is a very important issue for us to keep on top of from the idea of preventing sanitary sewer overflows. And so we try to do a rotational inspection of those at least once every three years. So we're targeting right now about 200 per year. The number of pretreatment enforcement actions for regulated industries. We would like this to be as close to zero as possible. The number of activities and participation rate at the Clear Creek Natural Heritage Center. We want to generally increase this by 10%. We had 24 workshops last year. 50 field trips with DISD, 12 master naturalist training events. And we ended up having about 6,000 students go through Clear Creek last year. So a pretty large number of folks going through there. And then the number of energy and water audits. We had, again, 151 energy audits, 23 water audits. We want to increase that by 10% on each one. >> Couple questions. Councilmember Gregory and then Councilmember Briggs. >> Thank you, Mayor. Will you continue with the current performance measures and add those others? >> Yes, yes, sir. >> So when you talk about, for example, decreasing in municipal energy usage. >> Right. >> Do we have numbers that go with that, that we've reduced this much usage? >> Yes, we do. Senate Bill 898 actually requires us to decrease our municipal energy usage by 5% each year. Unfortunately, there's little guidance on what that means as your overall municipality grows. And so we've been trying to benchmark that against a base level. Generally, we're seeing energy decreases. Overall, we have not met that 5% per annum decrease. Interestingly, this year we are, and we've had a little bit of a cooler spring into summer, which may be contributing to that. So we do have a target, and we are actively monitoring that . >> And as part of that, I would imagine that in addition to monitoring, that we have some ongoing activities like replacement of less efficient items with more efficient items. >> That's correct. As buildings are upgraded or as new buildings are coming on , we're always looking at ways that we can decrease that energy. >> Do we have a program for replacing the current street lights with LED lights? And I know that there's some issues about whether they're bright enough or they're too bright. What's going on there? >> Yeah, Dent Municipal Electric has expressed some interest in doing a pilot program on that. And they've actually reached out to some individuals. I believe we've got a report that is supposed to be brought back to the Committee on the Environment in some time in the near future to go over that. So they have done some research on that issue, and they are looking at doing a pilot program. >> Thank you. >> Councilmember Briggs. >> So that was one of my questions, if we were going to continue with the current performance measures as well. Also, I'm curious on the number of energy and water audits, it's a good thing to increase those. But is there a way to follow up with the citizens who have had those to see if they have taken any advice or have noticed a decrease in their bill if they've taken our advice, just to kind of- >> Right, that's part of our desire to kind of broaden that out to look at the way in which those dollars are actually resolved. Resulting in real changes. So we definitely have that on our list of things to do. We plan on looking at both the utility bills and then going back and doing interviews. I think that's an important point. The numbers are one thing in terms of overall audits, but we need to make sure they're having an effectiveness. >> And has anybody ever entertained the idea of having a set temperature in our buildings? Because it's usually really freezing in every room in here. I mean, have we considered that with municipal energy use? >> I don't want to speak for facilities, but it's my understanding that they have programmable thermost ats and they actually control all of those issues. So from that standpoint, they are addressing it. I guess the temperature to which they set it to is a different issue. >> Thanks. >> I have a question. In that 5% reduction, of course, I mean what, after 20 years you're supposed to not use any air engines? >> Yeah, yeah, that's part of the issue, yes. >> State rules, you know? >> Right, but in that vein, and this is going to sound odd just because we have our own electric company, but have we really thought seriously about on some of our municipal buildings? What type of renewable energy, like if we're going to do solar panels on something, either new construction, or if we're replacing a roof. >> What causes me to think about that is when I visited the convention center that's being constructed. The whole top of their convention center structure are solar panels. >> Right. >> That will provide about 20% of their energy. And so it just would be interesting to see, because even though we have our own electric company, we still have to build in those utility costs into operational costs, which eventually translate into expenses and that we have to raise the property tax revenue in order to pay them. >> Right. >> So it'd be interesting to get an idea of, well, if we were to put in X amount, what kind of rebates are available through federal? Well, of course, we don't get any rebates because we don't get that for the credits. >> Right, right. >> Or just something that sort of looks at that. >> Right. >> And there probably is, has there been any of that? >> I think there has been some attempts to look at that. I think that when you compare that to utility scale, the numbers for doing rooftop versus utility scale, it's almost always going to be cheaper to go utility scale on a per kilowatt basis. I'd also point out that the interesting part about the Senate bill requirement is that energy could be 100% renewable generated on site and you would still have to demonstrate a decrease. So they don't care where the electrons come from. >> So it's a decrease in the actual energy usage no matter what the source. >> That's correct. Right, right, which has been a bit of a source of frustration for us because we can't take credit, so to speak, for the 40% of DME. It is a straight out energy usage from the building itself. >> Yes, Mayor Proctor. >> Dovetailing on that, so do we have metrics for municipal energy use for our buildings, like if it's going up or down? >> Yes, we can pull in information from each of the meters that are owned by the city and take a look at that on an aggregate basis or an individual meter basis or anything in between. >> And so has anybody done analytics in terms of seeing, are we using more energy per square foot, less energy? >> Yes, that's part of this analysis. And in terms of how granular you get with that, I mean, we 're looking at aggregates and then we're looking at individual buildings that have seemed to have increased. But we could certainly drill down further on that. We're tending to look at fairly broad time frames. >> So I don't know if this exists, but is there a policy in place set by the council regarding our own municipal energy use and a goal to reduce it? I mean, is that at the Committee to Environment or has it ever come up? >> Yeah, I mean, we're talking about that as part of the sustainability plan and the community environment and internal actions between the environmental staff and the rest of the other departments. >> So at some point it's gonna come up to the full council? >> Yeah, well, I guess in some regards it has because it's been adopted as a part of the sustainability plan and so in that regard that was presented to the council. It didn't have an individual resolution or ordinance associated with this particular part. >> Would you just want us to get sort of updates on that type of data or is there some action item you're looking for? >> Well, I'd like to see us commit to some type of real reduction in water and energy use as a customer. So if we could have a five year target or something, that would be nice. I mean, not just nice, I think it would provide some type of cost savings to the taxpayers. >> On the Senate bill passed by the state, if we're not meeting the 5% reduction a year, what are the penalties? I mean, do they make the city manager go down to Austin and serve as a sergeant at arms when the house is in session? Or how do they impose a penalty on that? >> Yeah, I haven't heard of that particular penalty, although it might be very effective. So far, there are not penalty provisions associated with this. And so this is an issue that I think needs some further analysis from the state level as to what that 5% really means. And there have been ongoing discussions about what that reduction ultimately translates to. Does it mean 5% for some baseline? Does it mean 5% each year no matter what? How do you factor in weather fluctuations, etc.? >> Which means that they're probably not that serious about it. And that what we need to do is monitor it even more closely and report it so that we know that we're following our own sustainability plan and trying to be responsible citizens. >> Right, Councilmember Ryan. >> Thank you. >> I'm gonna click over to the grease traps for a moment. >> Sure. >> I know that the companies that pick up the grease traps or that cling out the grease traps are required to register with the city. >> That's correct. >> Is there any other cities that require those companies to report back what they've picked up so they know which ones? because I know right now it's pretty much left up to the establishment to keep a record when the grease trap is picked up and somebody shows up. You've got to show that record. It's a handwritten copy that half the time you can't read the date or- >> Right, I haven't done a survey of what other cities do in that regard. But I can tell you what we do and how we try to address that issue. Our pretreatment group is the one that regulates the grease traps. And so as a restaurant owner, you have to have evidence that that grease trap has been pumped out as you stated. We also permit all the haulers. Or the same group permits the haulers as the group that does the regulation in the field with the actual grease trap. And so we have a manifest both from the hauler and from the restaurant owner, whoever happens to own the grease and grit trap. And so we're tracking both of those. They're both required to produce them. So it's created some redundancy and some ability for us to be able to check against them both so that we can make sure that that hauler actually hauled that amount of material and disposed of it. And that the grease trap record is indicating that same amount of material. >> Okay, because where this runs into problem is when the grease trap is actually handled by a management company, when it's a shared grease trap. >> Right. >> That now that documentation goes to the management companies opposed to the restaurant owners. And every time they come in for an inspection, it's a matter of trying to dig out those records and faxed around. >> Right, we encounter that on occasion and having that redundancy has really been able to help us on that regard. So. >> Okay. Dr. Banks, in the performance measures, are our vehicle emissions something that your department, not emissions, but I mean, how many of our vehicles are electric, hybrid? >> Yes. >> That's something that you all keep track of and sort of have some measurement of the, okay. >> Yes, yes, we have that information in terms of the number of alternative fuel vehicles and we have an overall aggregate and can break it down with regards to the amount of emissions from our municipal fleet . >> Okay, good. Do we get that data? I mean, another environmental committee probably gets that. You wouldn't mind just sending that? I mean, I'd like to see a copy of just sort of that, because I talked about it in last work session. >> Sure. >> As far as what are the vehicles, what types are they, and then the emissions associated with that. >> Right, right, it's in our greenhouse gas emission. >> Right. >> And so we can send that out. >> Thanks, appreciate that. >> Sure. >> I probably won't know what I'm looking at, but that's okay. I'll come talk to you about that. >> Okay. Any other questions on this slide? Okay, in terms of cost containment strategies, we did through that cross training with our pre-treatment group and watershed for our new storm order requirements realize the savings of a budget at point 75 FTE, which was about $45, 000. We have $44,364 from turnover and vacancy savings. And then we reduce our FY 17 to 18 budget by approximately $189,000. >> Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. >> You probably have explained this, but I really don't understand how the environmental services department budget works. So it's just a series of transfers from different departments? >> Yes, I may be able to address that in this slide. So this, the, let me go back to this one, I'm sorry for bouncing around. So the laboratory is within water and wastewater. So the budget for the laboratory is split between those two funds and that is reflected in the water budget and the wastewater budget specifically as water or wastewater laboratory. Watershed protection and pre-treatment are the same way. They are budgeted out in individual departments. There is a transfer for watershed protection because they handle mosquito control issues, which are, we receive a transfer from general fund from doing that. And they also handle all of the storm water regulations for the city. So there's a transfer that comes along with that. Sustainability and special projects is housed in utility advent. So it will be in the water budget and it will receive a transfer from a few departments as well as the general fund . And I've got a slide I can show you that if you're interested. Regulatory compliance for the solid waste operation is exclusively within the solid waste fund. Pre-treatment program, a component of watershed as I stated is in the wastewater fund. So if we go back to the two that have the major transfers, the sustainability department transfers are here and you can kind of see how those work. I will point out a couple of things on that. The transfer from electric, you'll see increased from the 16, 17 budget to the 17, 18 proposed. That is mainly due to an increase in the rebate program. Part of the transfer that we received from the electric department actually involves the energy efficiency rebate program. And so most of that increase is related to that particular component of the transfer. And you can see the various components of water, wastewater , drainage, solid waste, and then general fund. What we do is we have a cost allocation model and we keep track of the work that we do for each of the individual departments. And that ends up rolling up together at the end of the year to facilitate that transfer. So it'll show as a transfer out from the various departments and it'll show up as a source of revenue on the budgets for these individuals. So watershed's another one. It's a little bit fewer transfers going on there. General fund transfer is mainly for the storm water component and then drainage is making up the bulk of the rest of the budget. I know the inspection fees look a little weird. What we did was we didn't have an inspection fee for going out and inspecting construction sites in 14-15. One was adopted in 15-16, but because of the timing, we didn't have it actually in the 16-17 budget. So we got in 13,650, but in terms of what we had budgeted, we had not budgeted anything. And so the 17-18 then will pick up and that point forward should have no more zeros in it, if that makes sense. Yeah, I understand. Thank you. Sure. Councilmember. And I'm guessing that the reason that this looks a little bit convoluted, it has to do with directions given to us by our auditing activities to make sure that there's a clear tracking of expenses from one department to another in the cost so that we know where those costs are coming from and going to. Sure. Yeah. We always want it to be as clear as possible in the budget and show how these departments are set up. It's kind of grown through history where there have been elements that have been traditionally housed in water and wastewater that are retained in those areas that have become the Environmental Services Department through time. And is this an example of where we're kind of breaking down the walls between, of silos between those departments? I would like to think of it that way, sure. And it also is a way of ensuring that the regulatory functions of the organization with regards to water, wastewater and solid waste are not reporting to the management structure that has higher fire and review to them. So it's a way of creating an independent group as well as making sure that it's funded from the proper places. Yeah. Any other questions or? No. Okay. So real quickly on process improvements, some of the things that we've done, we completed staff training and created a standard operating procedure and a data management program for our stormwater annual reports to streamline that process. I've mentioned already that we cross-trained our stormwater and pretreatment personnel to perform multiple inspections at a single site. We continue to implement our laboratory information management system or LIMS. This is a crucial component of our laboratory operations. We're continuing to try to get instrumentation in that will communicate directly with the LIMS system so that we don't have keystroke errors or reworking from our personnel taking a paper print out from an instrument and actually translating it into data. One of the more crucial components to this as well is our ability to digitally submit regulatory information, which has been a huge benefit for us. The regulatory agencies on a mailed copy have in the past misplaced that mailed copy. And it's very useful for us to be able to send something digitally. Get an immediate acknowledgement, not have to worry about any data management other than just sending it to the regulatory agency. And so that's been a big project for us and we continue to work on it. The intention is to really get information out to our end users, which include both our internal and external customers. We purchased new laboratory instrumentation. At every opportunity that we get to upgrade a laboratory instrument, we will try to find a platform that will actually use or be able to interface with the LIMS system. And we've also obtained some software training through spreadsheet server to more efficiently manage our data. So in terms of future projects, we want to improve the sustainability plan reporting through new data management approaches. There are new tools that are available now that I think will enable us to do a lot better job of reporting that information. Some of you may recall that we had a platform for reporting that was built custom for us through a grant system. That thing is getting a little bit old and it is not keeping up with modern data technology. And so we're going to migrate from that platform and go into some new data management approaches. We want to complete our evaluation and implement improvements for storm water development review. That's part of our goal to improve the development review process with regards to the storm water requirements from the state. Our department is required to participate in that review and also required to take some survey information, etc. We just want to streamline that as much as we can so that the developers understand exactly what information we need and know where to get it and to make that process as simple as we possibly can. We're going to upgrade our construction site storm water inspection software. It's kind of the same situation. That software is getting a little bit old and we would like to get something a little bit more efficient, streamlined and modern. We want to increase our digital compliance reporting wherever we can. That's a little bit of a give and take because it depends on the regulatory agency's willingness to accept digital. But that is becoming more and more common every day. And then we just want to continually improve our asset management program. This is particularly with regards to the storm water assets of the city. We want to make sure we've got accurate maps, accurate hydrology information and everything that we need to be able to manage that from a storm water standpoint, both from water quality standpoint and also from a water convey ance. So that is pretty much the presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions or get any additional information that anyone would like. Yes, Councilmember Huss. Real quick, I would like to kind of piggyback on the LED light question. If you could add in there your thoughts because you have two competing interests, right? You have an LED light that's higher technology, less heat admission, lasts longer, but also takes longer to decompose , if you will, versus. So now you have a, if the city goes and purchases a whole bunch of those, then we're going to put a whole bunch of those in a landfill that it's going to take longer to do whatever it does. I don't know the technical term. That's my understanding. And so does that outweigh, so the length, does that outwe igh the thought that we're going to have to leave them in the landfill longer? Right, I haven't seen data on degradation rates of light fi xtures comparing LED to others, but I can certainly see if there's something out there. I'll look. Yeah, that's my understanding just from what I've seen. So I'd just be curious to know before we have to make a decision in that regard. Okay. Any other questions? Dr. Banks. Okay. Appreciate it. Very good. Thank you. Exhibit six, municipal courts and judge. Is that right? All right, did I miss one? I'm going to do the municipal court part briefly first. Okay, sorry. Then I'm going to turn it over to the judge. Briefly, here's the organizational chart. Municipal court reports to the finance department and reports through the municipal court administrator, Lori Brighton, who's here. FTE count is 16.5. We've had that FTE count for about the last three years. We reduced it half FTE a few years ago. In terms of accomplishments, I'll just highlight a couple of them. The fire department for their inspections area has gone to the automated ticket writers so they don't have to do manual tickets anymore. They can do those. And we've done some kind of upgrades over at the court in terms of more seating and audio visual system just for customer service enhancements for those who get the pleasure to visit. In terms of future goals, we continue to try to make it easier for folks to access their information in terms of web capabilities and more functions to be able to do on the web. We're expanding the notification system right now before someone goes to warrant, they get a phone call in terms of a pre-notification to try to avoid it going to warrant. We're looking at expanding that to text messages and email notifications and developing a process looking at the efficiency through our phone system of the phone response from the court personnel. In terms of performance measures, and these are additional performance measures that we're looking at adding is the phone system, the average call wait time. Looking at warrants issued to citations filed annually trying to reduce the number that go to warrants, trying to make it easier and notifying people before it goes to warrants to reduce that. But then when it does go to warrant to look at our clearing rate in terms of warrants cleared versus warrants issued. In terms of cost containment strategies, continuing to streamline the process and make it less paper intensive, again, monitoring customer service efficiency on the phone system. And we did reduce the baseline budget this year by a little under 30,000. In terms of line item reductions. In terms of process improvements, one of the big improvements we made through the open data is to put a lot of information out there that's requested by private companies. Not only all of those who want to offer defensive driving would contact us every month to get a list, but a lot of the insurance companies want to know what's occurred, so if it's any of their customers. We're putting all that out on the open data portal so they can go and get it every month and reduce the staff time that's necessary to respond to those requests. Also created a monthly case purge system so that once each case hits its amount of time that we have to retain it, that we can eliminate it out of the computer system. In terms of upcoming process improvements using our phone system to implement and improve customer service standards and just continuing to work with the judge and prosecutor's office on case processing. Here are the figures in terms of the baseline budget for the court compared to their other years, it stayed relatively steady. And with that quickly, I'm going to turn it over to the judge. >> We got one question. Well, we may have more, but Council Member Gregory's got one. I just often have always found it interesting and odd that the municipal court is under the finance department and not under the municipal judge. Is that a standard organizational structure in most cities? In terms of the staff of the municipal court are really under the city manager where the judge typically is appointed by the city council. And at least in Texas, in my experience, that's been kind of the standard where the finance department's been over the just administrative court operations, but separate from the judge's office. >> Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Good job, Chuck. Thank you. All right, now, so are we going into- >> Yeah, yeah. >> Oh, is that agenda item B or that's something different? >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Okay, judge's budget. Okay, there you go. See, I thought you were going to be up on this item, Judge. You just looked at me like I was crazy. >> Yes, I am. In fact, I can go through my budget presentation pretty quickly. Accomplishments and goals. I'll be honest with you. Most of my goals and accomplishments, I see them as being a matter of whether or not a court is conceived, whether or not it's perceived as being a real court. It offers justice. It's hard for me to put numbers on any of the things that we do. My probably, I have, we have reinstated the prior indigency and payment show cause dockets. Years, years ago, for ten years, I had a indigency docket, which was every week, every day. We had one every week and people knew they could always show up on that docket and get more time to pay. And I had people that took two years to pay it off, but they were there every month. I had their $25 or no money at all and I offered them community service and we took care of everything. And what I thought was a fair process that took longer than maybe some people would like to have it paid out. But everyone counted on it. I knew people. I saw the same people in Walmart after 11 o'clock at night. Because they would typically be asking, hey, I haven't made my payment, but I'll be there next week. Cool, see ya. So I was used to that. And then we had the Office of Court Administration's state mandated collection improvement program. I am not a big fan of the CIP. Never was, but it did impose on us certain conditions and requirements. Those have been revised somewhat, so I think that we have now begun to re-infuse some of the things that we did before. And so I will go over some goals and accomplishments in my next portion that I'm going to talk to you about. Performance measures, you see them on the screen. Those are numbers because I don't know how else to reflect a performance measure. Honestly, I think that my performance measure should all be zeros. And here's why, is that I think that I value whether or not you as a council hear complaints from the general public. Whether or not you have people come in and say it's unfair. I wasn't treated properly, I wasn't treated kindly, I wasn 't treated with courtesy or respect. That's a high one with me. Number of appeals, we are a court of record. So it is a little bit more difficult to appeal, I have to give you that. But we have had, since I've been here as judge quite some time, zero appeals to the county. And people who, I think in a perfect world, our goal would be self elimination, which is really a strange concept. If everyone started doing what they did, actually I hate to say this, but if everyone started doing what they're supposed to do, I would be unemployed and I accept that. Cost containment strategies, these are the same. Since I took this office as a full time judge in 1996, when I took the office, we had two full time judges and one part time. We had 2.5 judges and we had one other full time employee, so we had 3.5. We now have myself as a full time employee judge and I have one administrative assistant. Outside of that, I do have a 0.5 total for alternate or associate judges. The way that I've structured this from day one, I eliminated one and a half positions and I've gone with the concept of I recommend to you all and then you all have appointed associate judges that have experience, that have I think good reputations in the legal community. And often those who are also serving in other municipalities, so I don't have to pay for their training. Then they are called on an as needed only basis. I do not schedule, no one is guaranteed anything in advance . I have actually every single year that I've been here, out of that 0.5 that I have, one half of a part time FTE, I have used only about 25%, in other words, half of that. So I actually run out of judicial time 1.25 total FTEs have been, always have been. No benefits, no guarantees, no office hours guaranteed and no dockets are guaranteed to anyone. I'm going to talk about process improvements, I suppose, as we go along. That's our budget highlights. Again, the only increase that you will see are the incremental increases based upon years of service or merit. We don't ask for any programs. We don't have to. A lot of the programs actually in all reality are structured underneath the clerk's office. And so in that sense, I'm very lucky to have what I have and I'm glad to be here. Any questions? >> Any questions? >> Okay. >> I think you're up on the next item. >> Okay. >> Agenda item 1B, receive report on the scope. >> I'll be honest, I speak all over the state for judicial education and I've never done. >> Are you going on to agenda item B? >> I'm one. >> Okay, let me call it first. >> Sure. >> Let me go ahead and read the caption, yes. Receive report and hold discussion, give staff direction regarding dent municipal court policies and procedures related to indigent defendants. >> Well, let me get the right PowerPoint up on this one too . >> So we've got two more agenda items after this for our work session. >> I will try to make this very quick. For me, that's an amazing statement to make. >> It is. >> And it's probably a lie. But I will try as hard as I can. I was told today I had ten minutes and actually as an example of what can go horribly right. I sent an agenda item that I posted that was an unbelievable dump of data and information that probably people went, what was that? I unloaded what I had been working on. To be honest, we had been working on this for probably 18 months and that's not an exaggeration. In fact, I had reached out to a council member and said I wanted to go over these things. But we have been through a whirlwind of legislative activity. Some of it inside the state, some of it on the federal level, some of it just simply case law that's been involving over time and incidents that have occurred. So in that sense, we're tied somewhat with the police. So this is something that if you gave me three days to talk about it. >> Judge, if you could maybe stand a little bit closer to the mic, because I'm not sure if they can, because this is being televised and recorded. >> I'm sorry. >> No, I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Yeah, I'm used to walking around on it. So if you gave me three days to talk about it, I would give you three days of talking. But I have been told not to do that. So I will honor that. >> I will reiterate that request. >> So I will go through it quickly, but I do want you to know this. I feel very passionately about what I do. I feel very passionate about the role of the court. And I feel that humanity is the number one thing that we're supposed to offer. If I had a way of putting that as the goals and accomplishments all in one, that's what I would want it to be. I would want to be, because Denton is a very unique community. It is a community that has more demographically than I think many parts of North Texas. I talk routinely with the judges of Lewisville and Highland Village, and we are not a Lewisville or Highland Village. We have particular issues inside our community, and I'd like to recognize those, and I'd like to make sure that our court does so accordingly. The data dump that I sent you earlier, and that's why I put this up here, it was like fire hose. And suddenly you all went, what was that? Well, those are rules that I'm trying to form. Because one thing about court clerks, particularly good court clerks, they are very unprecise about what is the rule that applies here. And so I was trying to come up with these very specific rules. And so I started writing those, and then I realized, and it was pointed out to me, you all don't need to see all that. So it is, I will say this, I also have been here quite some time. The winds of change are with us. Perhaps it's my time, my term expires in next March. And for that matter, you all may see that time will come. But I think that really when you reach a certain point in life in which you feel that you're passionate in doing, you have to want the best for the system. And so I want to make some kind of a long lasting change that is appropriate for our community. So I want the city to be the best it can. I want our court to be the best it can. And I think that, and I say this kind of in jest, but I say this relatively routinely. And that is that I think people who come to the city of Denton Court because of the way the courts handle them, because of the way the city attorney's office handles them, they feel as if they're treated with respect and fairness. If you all hear complaints about the way a defendant has been treated, I would hope that you would call and tell me that. I take great pride, I've never been pressured to collect fines from the city. I've never been pressured about the outcome or decision I'm making a case. But if you have a defendant who feels that they have been treated with a certain level of disrespect, I would hope that you could come to us with that because I think people come into our court and very often they talk to our prosecutor. And our prosecutors, I think again, it sounds like a Hyundai commercial. But if you can't get a good deal on dentaminos for court, you probably can't get a good deal. We try to treat people accordingly to the way that they show us, and it's never been about the money. Yeah, I know that sounded a little cheesy. There are some internal and external pressures that are happening to us though. Increased automation, I do appreciate and I want to take on the mantra of a paperless system. But having said that, sometimes we also have to be careful that certain kinds of cases are best treated with a certain level of human touch and personal touch. And so we have to carefully walk the balance between paper less and highly efficient with people who feel they have no input or access to the system or any way to change it or understand it. So sometimes we have court pause that make it more difficult for a defendant to speak directly to the court. I personally believe that the office of court administration's collection improvement program has done that. But we are making some changes to that now. But I also say there are some other things that are going on financially that are impacting the state. And those problems never seem to get solved. The state has had a surcharge system, points value system against traffic citations now for eight or nine years. And I think it has created a financial nightmare for certain people at a certain level. They can never get out of the hole that has been created by this system. And so we have a certain category of people who are living on the edge as it were financially. And they're trying to keep a job and now they don't have a driver's license because the state won't give them a license because they got tickets and they can't pay the sur charge. And when they can't pay the surcharge and they get another one and it's just a horrible whipsaw effect. The last two sessions we've had bills that were trying to eliminate that didn't go away. It's too much money. It was $430 million to the state I think I was told at one point. It's not going away. But those are some of the financial pressures that are created. The other thing is as you all are aware, I actually gained a lot of insight. I read the entire Ferguson report. It was 86 pages. And the Ferguson report was just the beginning, I think, of a trend and a movement that came across this country. And now in the state. And you can agree or not agree with all of it or part of it . I think that the Justice Department went down to Ferguson to try to address the police department. I think in time they came to believe that there were factors there. They certainly could have turned out better than they did. But they turned their attention to the municipal court. And the report there really focused on the fact that some municipal courts, particularly that court, they were using their power to try to collect money from the citizens of the city. And it was being used as a tool. And there are a number of emails that were horrible emails. But the short and long of it is this. I think the attention that was supposed to be aimed at the police department initially, they found there may not have been much basis. So they nailed the municipal court and the structure of the court and where it fell within the city. And even that, and that was one case in which the Justice Department did say that it's underneath the finance department, perhaps that's not the most appropriate. So I think it depends on how it's being used. And then we had the 85th legislative session that we've just finished. The state of Texas passed several bills. Some of them kind of blossomed at the very end. The most significant is Senate Bill 1913. And a companion, HB 351, which is very close, so I wouldn't run it. I'm not even sure I can make the distinctions between them quite yet. But SB 1913 passed later in time and therefore it's a prev ailing bill. But it is, I will equate it to the equivalent of Ctrl+Alt+ Delete for municipal courts. It is a hard reboot, if you will. It has changed or it will change across the state a number of processes that we have always relied on. As a matter of fact, traditional court process generally is that if a defendant fails to pay a fine, as assessed by the court, the court issues a warrant of arrest, if it's an unpaid judgment, they issue a capious pro fine. And that's the way it's collected. And of course, the problem with that is, unlike any other kind of collection process, it carries a tremendous degree of responsibility, that is the jailing or incarceration of people. So once a defendant fails to appear in most courts across the state, fines increase. Some cities do also file a separate offensive failure to appear. We don't do that in the municipal court. We haven't for 15 or 16 years, as we did when I first came here, but we haven't done that for years. But we do increase our fees because people have failed to appear. I also think that at times, and this is part of the sentence came out incorrectly, but I think sometimes when we require lots of documentation, again, the collection improvement program, I think, has aimed, and of course, now they've changed their focus. But traditionally, this might have been a true statement, is that they required certain documentation. But a lot of defendants didn't have that documentation because, particularly in Denton, we have a lot of people that don't, it asks for a copy of their mortgage or their lease. Guess what? We have a lot of people that don't have a mortgage or a lease. And they really don't. And they'll say, well, I live from couch to couch. And so documentation is difficult for them. They were kind of artificial barriers that were created. But the CIP has broadened up, and I have to give a lot of credit to our court clerks office. The collections improvement, and we have two people in our court that are actually required by state law because of the CIP. It's an unfunded mandate, I think, is the terms that people use. But they're required, and so they are there to help in this process. And they have modified their process, and they will try to help people get a payment plan, if at all possible. But here's my proposal. In light of Senate Bill 1913, in light of HB 351, in particular in light of the other information that I just told you, I have four specific provisions I'd like to do. And that's why I came to you. I'm not necessarily looking for your direction or support. I do want your input. So in that sense, I want your direction, but I think it's within the inherent authority since I'm a appointed judge. And that is that I would like to go to date specific do ckets. We have a lot of defendants that I see, particularly those coming up out of jail, that their lives are in tatters. They really are. They don't know, and ask them whether you need documentation. They don't even know where their shirt is. So from that standpoint, finding all that documentation is difficult. So if a defendant comes and claims that they're not able to pay the fine in full, case will be specific to a specific date to reappear before the judge requests more time to pay, to request community service or an entire waiver. The reset court date will be clearly indicated in writing. In other words, I have the one inch rule that I like on all my forms, and that is the defendant signs a form. And it is literally within one inch of the date. So when they come in the court and go, I didn't know what date I was supposed to reappear. I go, so is that your day that loops through the June 13th day there? That day, yeah. So I like to have that in clear format. Right now we do have a process where they can come back and the system's there to offer them those these things. But I think people need clear guidance so that if they can 't reach an agreement or a payment plan with the collections improvement program, that they have a date. They know they can come back before the judge. And the short and long of it is, if they appear in court, they will receive more time. End of story. They will get more time. No one will be put at a war if they make their appearance in court before me. And even under the new revisions of CIP, that is within my discretion to do. They finally added, they went back to judicial discretion. I was really kind of surprised because for a while they had this idea that there was a four month period of time that all citations should be paid. And kind of had, the language kind of made implied the judge had to make special findings to the contrary. Maybe I'm being a little extreme about that opinion. But short and long, that's been changed. And they have a clear statement saying that as long as someone's before the court, the judge has a discretion to enter the plan as long as they want. But they won't be required. If they appear in court, they will not be required to qualify or present any information or proof. Notice in hearing again, our court clerk's office has already begun to put this in place partly because collection improvement program was there. And this part I have to give deference. I've been critical of the CIP and now I'm going to give them some credit. They have had some required notifications that we had to do that some courts did not have to do. But we have been sending out notifications, our collections improvement office staff. They call, they have been making a call, following up with people, and then we will send them notice. So these notices are again going to give them a court date to come back to court. So before it goes into a warrant, they're going to be sent another notice of a date that they can come back into court . And again, the control, I'll delete, they can reset it and we'll start over again. So again, if they're coming in, it won't go into a warrant. If the defendant fails to appear at that show cause hearing , we'll set it for a second notice, our second notice goes out with a specific court date for reappearance. And if they show at the show cause hearing, we'll work toward case resolution once again. All notices will contain information about alternative methods of satisfying the judgment. Some of our notices before and some of the language I think that was certainly applied by CIP and some of the things that I did really implied that there was only one way to take care of it and that was by paying the fine. We will provide them with information regarding some alternatives including community service and some other things that we might try in the future. Third solution or third major part of my plan is open access to courts. And this is something that I have done once for about a week and a half without much notice. And it's where I was going and now with Senate Bill 1913. And there's, to be really honest with you, Council, there is a possibility that 1913 could be vetoed by the governor. I don't think that it will happen, but it could happen. And if that does happen, to be really blunt with you, I intend on going forward these processes anyway. And so solution three is one that is probably the most radical. It is there in Senate Bill 1913, but if a defendant fails to appear for their initial court date, in other words the date on the citation, this has been a part of Texas Citation practice for many, many years. And that was if the defendant signed the citation saying they would promise to appear and they failed to appear, it would go immediately into a warrant or could go immediately into a warrant if they failed to appear. In this scenario, if they show up, if they miss that court date, if they voluntarily appear before the court or in the court offices, they will be allowed to see the judge to resolve the case without fear of arrest. In other words, even if it goes to a warrant, if they come in and they are voluntarily willing to take care of the case, we 're going to give them another shot. Solution number four, and this is something that I've been doing informally for a long, long time. That is that if someone comes in on an on-site offense, in other words they're arrested for PI, which is real popular and didn't on certain weekends, but if they come in on an on-site offense, just as someone is allowed to be released on a citation on the side of the road, they will be allowed to sign a promise to appear and released without posting bond. If they're arrested on a warrant, the defendant will be allowed to either enter a plea or sign a promise to appear. So they can come back to the court and ask for more time. But any person arrested on a KPS profile or unpaid judgment will also be released with a date to come back so that I can determine whether or not they're eligible or should be given community service or perhaps even an automatic waiver. And the last part is if they do enter a plea in jail, they 're entitled to a new trial if they make that request. Just the last thing, I've had some questions about some food donations in lieu of payment of fine. There is no provision or law that would allow us to accept canned goods or other goods in place of payment of a fine. One thing I'm sure you probably do understand, but of every fine that is assessed in our court, there is an additional court cost that is assessed and paid to the state. In our standard provision, it's $104. The first $104 received from any citation goes to the state . Just not something we can wait. >> And that's to offset the payment that they're making to help run the court? >> Don't get me started with that one. >> We know the answer. >> When I first started this job, when I first started as an associate judge, state court costs were $7.50, they're now at 104. >> It's a tax. >> It's the state skimming off money from the city. The last thing is I would like to, or two things, I'd like to expand our goal of community service. I would like to cultivate. I do think that we could spend a lot more effort to try to reach out to community service providers. I have something up there that's drawn some attention. And the last thing, and maybe this is just one of some kind of strange pipe being in my mind. We have a hard time finding good community service in this city. We really do. Because there are just not that many people who are able to provide the documentation and supervision for our people. So I do not mean this is something that would be mandatory. But something I would like to work on at some point is if we had some spare land, if you had a community garden where people could come and work. And then the food that's grown there could be given to our food banks and to our homeless shelters. And we could help do that. We have people. We have more people that want to do community service than we have opportunities to do community service. So we can talk about offering community service all day long. But if they can't find a place to do it, it will eventually break down and backfire on us. So I know that's just a really weird concept and one that people may find uncomfortable. Because I'm not sentencing, don't get me wrong, we're not talking about a work farm. Because that was the terms they used to use in Texas law back in the 30s. I'm not talking about any, this is a voluntary program. If someone wants to satisfy their fine by working the community garden, I'm going to go with that. But it looks like I'm going to have to start a GoFundMe page to get that done. So just an idea, I'm willing to go there. And so I guess that's pretty much my presentation. >> So if I remember correctly, you said that you really don 't need our blessing because you're the appointed judge, but you're seeking what? >> A vision. And I want your blessing on this approach. Because I want you to be really, here's, I think I did, no? They're not on there. >> Councilmember Gregory's got a comment or question. >> Yeah. >> Well. >> Or direction. >> I think I'm pleased with what you've presented. You're a lawyer, aren't you, first? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Well, I did pay my bar dues, so I'm hoping. >> I've heard it said that if you took a lawyer's heart and stuffed it in the net's navel, it'd roll around like a BB in a bowling alley. But- >> Okay, good, I'm good with that. >> That's not been my experience, especially with you. I think you've got a heart as big as Texas. And most of the lawyers I know have big hearts. >> Yes. >> Even the one sitting at the table with me here. But I think that the fact that you're wanting to go the extra mile, even if it does not become law, is a great indication as to the kind of service that you provided to our citizens ever since I've been on council and been aware of it. >> I appreciate that. >> And it's just been great to hearing all of these reports today from our police chief and our fire chief and our director of environment services. >> I guess in answer to part of your question, I do want to say this. There is a part of this that is radical in concept. And the radical part is, and from a purely financial standpoint, those who see traffic citation income as a line of revenue coming to the city, you could potentially see a reduction in that line. But you can offset that with a number of, I just looked it up for last year. This is a shocking number. Over $888,000 worth of jail credit given last year. $888,000. Now, I'll be honest with you. What has happened is people are in jail and I've made a determination in most cases that they're not able to pay and not able to come back. But because they were in capious profile status, I wrote the entire amount off. So they didn't spend but a night there. That's a shocking number. In fact, I think I've talked to somebody from the office of court administration. This is years ago. They were going, well, you're obviously making people stay in there for $100 a day. No. And the city didn't. If you stay more than 24 hours, there's probably, on a class C warrant, there's probably something horribly wrong. So- >> And I think, did you have any more comments? Council member Hutsbeth had a question or comment. >> Thank you, Mayor. So I too like the direction you're going. I would add and ask you to consider another wrinkle as a fairly frequent customer, it comes in bunches. I would ask that you maybe entertain a way for someone that doesn't want to spend an entire day but wants to talk to someone about their options, right? Because if I go to that window, they're going to tell me, pay or don't pay, there's no options. Rightfully so, they can't then entertain the circumstances. If there is a nuance that I would bring up. But if there were a way to, the citizens that can pay, that don't want to spend an entire day in your courtroom to explain some extenuating circumstance that by some mechanism could come in and say, here's my extenuating circumstance. Yes or no, that vacillates the fine and then be gone versus come there at a time, sit the entire day, wait to be called to go back and have the same result. >> Well, and I agree with you. In fact, there are some courts that have what they call open dockets. Our court process, we used to have huge dockets and those numbers have gone down. But in answer, we can work on that some. I will tell you this, that the dockets that certain people are showing up for are more the environmental code dockets. And because of that, there's a special component to that. But every day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, we have a two o'clock docket. And we will go through about, well, anywhere from 60 to 150 people in the span of about two hours. And so that's pretty efficient. And so they will come in, they'll have it, they appear before the judge, the prosecutor. It is somewhat chaotic, but it is efficient and people do have that opportunity. So we will work on that, to some extent, the dockets that you might be more familiar with are more specialized in nature because of the fact that they are committee service. >> Yes, go ahead. >> Yeah, no, no, and I guess I'm going to speak for the people that don't work here in town, right? Because two o'clock is, I got to leave Dallas at 12 to get here at two or- >> At least? >> Yeah, or stay all morning to then be heard at two and then that shoots by day. So again, I just offer it as a perspective from someone that does not work all day and didn't. And so while two is great, and I recognize the convenience, there may be an opportunity to lessen your docket by serving a different way. >> There is one legal constraint and that is that because people cannot speak directly to the judge about their case without having their prosecutor present. So there's an aspect to that that we have to have scheduled docket dates where we have all those people present. >> Yes. >> And the court clerks would pretty much have a stroke if it was just a complete drop in, although we can work that out. So those are some of the, but I understand what you're saying, and so more dates, more opportunities. So we would have to include all those components of the court system. >> Sure, no thank you. >> Councilmember Briggs and then Mayor Pro Tem. >> So back to the community service. I really like this presentation and we're going and appreciate your compassion and realism actually on this issue. My question initially was what are some examples of the community service that you may be, that you may give, and then I also heard that that is hard to come by. But do you partner, do we partner with nonprofits, are there city jobs? Is it just, I'm just really interested. >> One of the things that I was talking about doing is creating a process where perhaps if people are looking for longer term payment plans are going to have to come into my , which would free up, in my opinion, some of the collection staff to do this. So that is, I think we need to cultivate, to partner with some community service providers. I think we almost have to market ourselves to them. One of the problems is some of the places that we have, if they are younger, they don't want to have them without their parents there. Some of them that are great groups like Habitat for Human ity, they have requirements for certain kinds of jobs at certain times. So we would, I think if we were really going to do this properly, instead of right now, when someone comes in and asks for community service, I can approve it, but we tell them to go out and find that community service. We have some lists of some people that are out there, but that level of initiative, I was about to say is rare in some defendants, but that just finding it is difficult for them to do it. So if we could ever get to where we had a list and we go, well we have this next Saturday, such and such organizations told us they're going to be having a food drive. So you need to try, and we could give that to them with the information of a contact person and a verification process. And all that could be done by email, which would be better for us, I think, because you'd have verification in a secure channel. That, I think, is the optimum. >> Okay. >> But on that, do we like save the, within our city services, like the animal shelter is needing volunteers or the library systems. I mean, is that something that is an option currently? >> We have in the past, yeah, we have referred them to different city departments. Keep in mind that monitoring some community service defend ants is a job. >> Right. >> And so sometimes departments, as well as private industry or companies or non-profits are going, I want your help, but I don't have to be babysitting you. And I don't have to watch you and make sure you're doing it . So the answer is yes. The library at one time took in some. We have particularly, Civic Center used to have a lot more available to them as well. Some of that seems to have dried up. It's difficult to find, and keep in mind we're also competing with college students that are sometimes doing community service for other reasons. >> Anymore? >> Just one more. >> Okay. >> Follow up. >> On your presentation, and I guess it looks like there would be a decrease in warrants. >> I'm hoping. >> Right, if it works out right. So will that free up police officer time and jail time? I mean, would that release the pressure on other. >> I don't know if it would help the PD that much. It might reduce some of the stress on the detention staff. Sometimes warrants have a secondary benefit. But more importantly, I think where we would save ourselves the trouble is, we, very often people who have been arrested for some minor charges are there, they don't have the money, they won't pay it then. You're not going to see it ever. They have liabilities that are created by their medical conditions. And it's difficult to monitor them, so I think that we run the risk. There's a risk with incarceration. And I guess the last thing is, truly, honestly, whether someone has done things in their life that got to that stage, I'll even, I hope she 's not watching. I'll even throw my wife down a little bit. Sometimes she says, well, why don't they just go get a job? And I look at her and go, would you hire this person? I'm just saying. Because right now, they're not in the best state of life. And they couldn't go out and just go get the job, bring us the money. So those are the people that I have written off a tremendous sum of money. I have written off a lot of money. Every year, I write off, don't I? 888,000 is a staggering sum of money, though. >> Okay, Mayor Pro Tem. >> So when you gave us those four options for your recommendations, did you want guidance or just you wanted us to know? >> I particularly, I think, and I had reached out to you before, because I think that you have insight as to those things. And I'm also going to ask for your help in this, is I think a lot of our people also have some mental health issues. Not a lot, but we have some. And that Denton County, as an entity generally, not just talking about the government of Denton County, but as a whole, our community has, I think, done a bad job of providing good mental health services. So I think we could use it as a way to maybe find people services. And I would be willing to do this. If they would go get help from MHMR, if they would show me the proof of their attendance at MHMR sessions, I would take that as community service. >> So- >> So did you have, yeah, go ahead, Mayor Pro Tem. >> Okay, so of your options, I think that's a great idea, by the way. But of your options, to me, having the safe harbor provision is probably going to be the most effective, in my opinion, just having that open court policy. So that would be my direction to the extent that you- >> Well, and that is probably the most radical of those things I've been talking about. >> You keep saying that, but I just don't mean to. >> No, no, no, no, okay, you have to understand that I go all over the state talking to other courts. And I've almost been lynched in some of these places as far as saying things that they said, you know, what are you talking about? You're talking about ripping out the bottom of the court system. I had one, a good friend of mine said, looks like you've been drinking the Kool-Aid. And I said, what do you mean by that? And then I said, yeah, actually, I think I have been. I believe in this stuff now. I really do believe in it. And so there are courts that I think they've always seen warrants as their one way to make, to get their, to extract justice. Matter of fact, the motto of the CIP used to be a fine that 's not collected is no justice at all. >> So may I pro tem any other direction? >> Okay, I get that. >> Judge? >> No, well. >> Well, I just, I do have one quick question about reimbursements. So like, when we hold on warrants for other cities and wait for them to come pick up people on their warrants, like we're pretty much moving away from the warrant model, but they still have their warrant model. We have to hold for them. Do we get reimbursed for that? And the second part of that is when we hold for ICE, do we get any type of reimbursements? >> No, and we will transfer, if it is purely an ICE hold, what we have been doing is as soon as I've cleared ours, and I will clear it within 24 hours, they will be transferred to Dayton County. And then I'm not saying that I just want to pass it on, but the answer is, I don't think ICE is a component for our city that it would be for the county. >> Okay. >> In reference to the others, there are two issues. I have some serious doubts legally about going forward on our regional database here in the North Texas area. I've been telling a couple other judges this, that this system we hold for other cities that have warrants. And I've seen people make the grand tour from Mesquite to Richardson, Richardson to Garland, Garland Farms Branch. And I want to get away from doing that. In fact, we moved up and we set a 24 hour hold for a long time. It was, at one point it was ten days, but we now, we were one of the early cities institutes, a 24 hour hold, if you don't come pick your guy up in 24 hours, they're out. We could shorten that. The other thing that I am not going to be real receptive to , Texas has a warrant round up. I think it's good to have proactive times we go out and contact people with warrants, that's a whole different thing. But the term warrant round up, I think carries with it some negative connotation. I'd like to get away from being a member of the annual warrant round up where our symbol is a couple of handcuffs. >> Well, partner, you're in the wrong state for that. >> So- >> It's changing. >> Any other questions, Mayor Pro Tem? >> No, that's very helpful, thanks. >> Any other direction? I think it's an innovative approach. And from a financial perspective, I think it will be offset by the amount of money that is spent on incarceration. It will be interesting to see the metrics as they come forward after you get some time under your belt as far as how many actually take advantage of some of these progressive and proactive policies that you're trying to implement. And how effective they are. And compare, you say you write off this much, are we therefore getting more community service? Because we're not having to write off the money because people can go out and actually do something. >> Right. >> So I'm not seeing anybody have any real strong objections or anything. I haven't heard any comments or everybody okay? Is this your last? No, you got one more meeting. Is this your last meeting? >> This is my last meeting. >> Okay, all right, okay. >> And in lawyer time, this was less than five minutes. >> Yes, yes, so thank you, Judge, I appreciate that. Good, innovative program. So move forward on what you think is best for your court. >> Agenda item 1C, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding formation, responsibilities, composition, and member terms of the economic development partnership board. >> Before the room's clearing out. >> Good afternoon, Mayor and council members. >> I'm sorry, Lisa will be here at five, so I'm sorry. >> Good, I'll be done by five. Even though I'm married to a lawyer, I still count in normal time. >> [LAUGH] >> I'm going to give you all some information about the formation and the responsibilities, the composition, and the member terms of the economic development partnership board. Quick background, the city and the chamber of commerce entered into an economic development partnership in 1986. And in 2003, the council adopted an ordinance that created the economic development partnership board. According to that original ordinance, and none of this has been changed to date, the board's role is to provide economic development policy guidance. And its responsibilities are to design and recommend incentive policies to the council, to act as the recommending body to the council for specific project incentives, to review and recommend city and chamber economic development budgets to the city manager and the chamber president. And to review and recommend the annual work plans for the city and the chamber's economic development programs. As I mentioned, the first ordinance that established the economic development partnership board was adopted in 2003. And at that time, the board had seven voting members and two ex officios. The original structure had two council members and two chamber board members. As well as two representatives from the top 20 city of Dent on ad valorem or sales tax payers and the president of UNT. The city manager and the chamber president were ex officios . And I do want to note that from the time of the original ordinance in 2003, both the city council member representatives and the chamber board member representatives could serve out all three of their two year terms. Even if they were no longer in the roles in which they were originally nominated, as long as they served those three terms consecutively. The original ordinance has been amended four times, primarily to add additional members. And you can see there, they've been added over time. The only other additional change to the duties of the board was that they were expanded in 2011 to include branding and marketing for Denton Municipal Airport. Onto the current composition, the board has grown to 12 voting members. The six that I originally mentioned, plus the president of UNT and now the president of TWEU. One representative nominated by the Denton Black Chamber of Commerce and one nominated by the Denton Hispanic Chamber. Along with one representative with experience in general aviation and then one at large representative. The DISD superintendent has been added as an ex officio as well. And again, you see my note up there that the two council member representatives at this time are actually two former council members. In terms of service, all voting members either have to live or work in the city of Denton. And as I said before, they can serve up to three two year terms. UNT and TWEU's presidents do have an exception in that they can serve unlimited terms, but they do have to be re-dominated and re-approved by the council each time their two year term is up. Again, the second bullet point there is that city council and chamber board appointees may serve out all three of their terms, even if they're no longer in those positions after their original appointment. And a quick refresher on the nominating process for the EDP board. Each July, the city council appoints a three member nom inating committee that's composed of two council members and one chamber board member. That nominating committee then develops the slate of nominees and in the month of August, that slate is presented to the council for its consideration and vote. So that's the conclusion of my presentation. I'm glad to answer questions. >> Councilmember Briggs, if I could maybe at least defer to Mayor Pro Tem, she sort of asked for this to come forward. So if you have any comments. >> I asked for it to come forward. >> Did you? Okay, both of you, okay, go for it. Yeah. No, I didn't remember. Go ahead, I'm sorry. >> So I did ask for it to come forward, especially when the last sitting council member, a council left and then there are two council members that are not on the board anymore. So I wanted it to come back before council, before the nominations. So if there were any changes that we wanted to make to the original ordinance, we would have time to do that. >> Okay. Any, so you sort of have the floor, comments or observations or suggestions? >> I believe it's under the terms of service where even if they are no longer in that position, is where my recommendation would be to change that. So if they're no longer a council member by serving under that current council member seat, then I think that's where the confusion is, that we need to address it. >> Okay. >> Mayor Crickin? >> Yeah, I agree with that and thank you for the backup materials because that was very helpful to kind of understand some of the history. And what the purview of the EDP board is. One thing that really jumped out to me was that the EDP board determines or makes recommendations of the Chamber of Commerce's budget, their own economic development budget that comes to us. It seemed kind of a little bit conflicted in my mind because there's, I think, maybe six chamber members on the board. But they're also making recommendations for funding for the Chamber of Commerce. So I don't really know exactly how to address that. One way could be to not make that chamber budget recommendation come out of that board anymore. Another option would be to limit the amount of chamber seats that could be on that board. So those are some options for addressing what I would say is probably a conflict in terms of making recommendations on something that people have a self interest in. >> Can I ask a question of clarification? >> Yes. >> You're saying six chamber seats. So let me make sure I'm tracking you. So I know that there's per statute two of the seats are for chamber board members. >> Correct. >> So is what you're saying that the other members that are on that seat according to the statute may be chamber board members as well? I mean, when you say there's six, where are you? >> Well, okay, I probably need Caroline's help on this because the way that I see it, there are chamber members and some of them may at different times be chamber board members, depending on who's sitting in the seat. >> Okay. >> I can clarify that. There are indeed six chamber board members who are serving on the economic development and partnership board right now . Two that are in those spots. >> Right. >> And then four that are actually on the board of the chamber of commerce, but they're in other roles. >> They meet the criteria of those other. >> Correct. They serve in other capacities on this board, but that's half of the membership of the UDP board. >> Okay. Yes, Council Member Wasney. >> Well, a few thoughts. If you look at some of the other organizations that a council member may be serving on, and let's just use the North Texas transportation as an example. When your term on council is over, you relinquish that seat and someone else from council assumes your role because you are a representative of city council on that organization. So it's just an unusual set up with this organization that you can be on council, be appointed to this board, but when you're no longer on council you stay on this board, but you're there as a city council representative. So I feel strongly that if you are going to represent city council on this board, you should be a current member of city council and when you're no longer on city council, you relinquish that seat. And council as a whole then decides who's going to take that position. And it's just, this is an anomaly. And I think it's time to change that anomaly and to have current council members sit on that board. And not have former council members just continue because conceivably you could be off council for four years and continue to be on that board for another four years, but yet you're not on city council. So I agree that it's time to take a look at this and if it takes an ordinance, it takes an ordinance. Thank you. >> All right, we're going to go to council member Hussbuss, council member Gregory, and then council member Ryan. >> Thank you, Mayor. Ken, I guess this is a question for council. Can you, the competitive side of me says, I get it that TW and UNT are there, I get one side of that, but the other side of that is, these entities in the city don't always get along. And so I just want to understand the, well, I gotta not look at. So these entities don't get along. So my question is, not always. And so my question is, I just want to understand the rationale behind putting them there. For example, if we're in a lawsuit with the UNT about paying our utility rates, I don't know if it's great that they're then helping us with these decisions. They're a non-tax paying entity, so I get why they're there , why they're there and their role in the city. But I also could understand a good argument why they would not be there. So I just want to understand, they were added, so I'm assuming there was a conversation that predates May of this year. >> Was UNT one of the original ones? >> Yes, UNT was original. >> Yeah, UNT was one of the original ones back when it was first promulgated. And then TWU was added just because it seemed sort of silly to have one of the major universities represented and not the other. So I think that was the rationale for the addition of TWU in conjunction with as two major entities in the city that do bring a lot of commerce to the city. I think that was the main rationale in the sense of students bring housing requirements, bring sales tax and purchases and things like that. So I think it's not so much seeing them as an institution of higher education, although they are. But it's also they're a major economic driver for the community, especially, I mean, back. So I think that was the rationale. >> So a follow up to that. >> Yes. >> I don't know then using that as the rationale. I don't know how can we keep DISD out as a voting member and allow those two as voting members? Because I think DISD would contribute likewise. >> Yeah, well, that's certainly a discussion that we can have. I mean, I'm not going to necessarily dispute that as far as if what I stated was the rationale back then. I was just sort of giving you my rationale. So that's certainly a conversation that we can entertain. >> Okay, well, I'd like to. >> Or by the way, yeah. >> I see those three as the same. >> Same. >> So either we need to add DISD as a voting member or bump the other two down or help me understand why we leave it as is. >> Okay, good. Councilmember Gregory. >> Thanks. I think part of the history also is with UNT and then TWU being on the board, is that the attempt is to try to get some of the biggest taxpayers, they're not, and some of the biggest employers. And TWU and UNT are two of the biggest employers in the city. Because of that, they are significant economic engines to the overall economy of the city. I think that one of the reasons that there is concern about how many voting members you have is whether or not then you have a quorum. Because I think my experience has been is that, correct me if I'm wrong, but we have not had the DISD representatives show up to very many meetings. Is that true? >> That is true. >> Okay, so making a place for them and them not showing up could become a problem. If they became a voting member and then you couldn't make a quorum. I think one of the things I would suggest, if we're supposed to be giving you direction, is that staff brings back to us some language about if a person is no longer in the position for which they are representing, that they rel inquish that position. I think that also, you could have a university president that's just been reassigned, and they go away, and then for a year or more, that position is empty. Whether it's a university president or a council member or whomever, if they're no longer in that position, I think we just had language like that. We could probably end some of the concerns that we have that have been expressed in today's meeting. So that would be my suggestion for direction, but I'm just one person. >> So that would catch both the concern of the council members, but also the chamber board, if they're no longer on the chamber board. >> Anyone else. >> Then, okay. >> Sure. >> Council member Ryan. >> I agree, and I would almost say to allow the president of UNT and TWU to make recommendations for appointees, whether it's themselves or someone else, because if you have that situation, they may decide somebody from their economic development department might be a better person to even have on there. >> But they do have somebody come in that stand in their shoes, I think. >> Yes, those are the only two members who have designated representatives to stand in for them. >> Okay, but along those lines, I don't think that those, when I was serving on the ADP board, that when we went into executive session, that those individuals, because they were not actually appointed, were excused and not able to sit in on the executive sessions. Is that correct? >> That's not the way that it's been done since I've been here. >> Okay. >> I think that does need some clarification as to whether that should be done that way or not. I do agree that once you are no longer a council member, that you wouldn't be serving as the council member appoint ee. And I think that's up to the nominating committee. If there is a vacancy someplace else that you might fit into as to whether or not they wanted to just move you into a different slot. So if you were on council and you were a member of the chamber board and you were no longer on council, you might be able to continue on as that chamber board person as opposed to. Just, I guess what I'm saying is don't kick them off of that board simply because they're no longer a council member, allow them to shift into a different criteria. On that board. >> Well, yeah, but I think that's a- >> We've got an at large person. So if the at large is open, because we also have to worry about institutional memory on these boards. That's something that can be considered and not, I'm not saying that we need to do that. I'm saying that that's something that can be looked at. If that person brought a great deal of value to the board, but can't serve as a council member any longer. >> You're saying don't implement that necessarily as a matter of written policy, but yet in the process of the nominating committee getting together and coming up with their slate. Obviously, if we implement the idea that if you're no longer serving the capacity in which you were appointed, then you therefore vacate your seat, then the nominating committee is going to be asking people for other vacancies. There's not very many vacancies that come up anyway except for people's terms expiring. Then they can approach those. Is that what, am I hearing that correctly or are you wanting to? I would struggle with putting it in as some kind of written policy. >> I'm not saying put it in the ordinance. >> Okay. >> I'm not saying put it in the ordinance. >> You're just in the process. >> I'm simply stating that again, if we say you have to be on the board of directors. Well, if somebody drops off the board of directors and they are still one of the top 20 and that position happens to be vacant, then that nominating committee can look at that position. >> Yeah, I don't have an issue with that. >> So that we're not just automatically saying because you 're no longer on council or because you're no longer on the board, you can't be on there. We're gonna kick you off and find somebody else, look at what the other positions. I think that's just not so much from a written policy, but just kind of an understanding. >> I guess though we'd have to look and maybe make sure that as far as our term limits. So what I'm hearing you say is if they got into a new seat, their terms start over. >> Well, that's the other question. I would think that service is service no matter which seat you're sitting in. So that you don't end up with somebody who served six years as a chamber, from the chamber board and then moves in and does another six years as top 20. That shouldn't happen, it should be. >> Well, we don't address that, I don't think in the ordinance right now. >> It's not addressed in the ordinance right now, but it can be. >> Yeah, so in other words, what you're saying is that we need to put some kind of provision in that says no matter where you're serving, you as the individual can only serve six consecutive years. >> Much like our charter handles our positions. >> Right, okay. >> Whether we want to do that as a 12 year total or a six year total, but that you cannot serve more than 12 years consecutively on the council, but you can't serve more than six years in a seat. Whether we want to do it as a six year total or a 12 year total, six year per seat. >> Yeah, I wouldn't want 12 year total. >> Okay, well then just set it at a six year limit. >> And they set out the next. >> Six years and then you have to be off for a period of time. >> Okay. >> I'm sorry, can I just ask a follow up on that? Are you saying that you would like for that to apply to the UNT and TWA presidents as well or can they continue with their exception for continuing to serve but being renominated when their terms expire? >> I think I'd like to know how often they are actually there and how often they send a representative. Do we just allow them to a point or to recommend to a person for that spot? I mean, if they're rarely there. >> Well, but I think regardless of whether they're there physically or they're appointing someone, it's the position, it's the UNT president that can serve unlimited or their designee can serve as long as that person who's making that designation is still the UNT president. So if they're UNT president for ten years, they can appoint somebody for ten years or they can come for ten years. You're asking is that the exception that you would want to this sort of term limit? >> Right, because I understand what Councilmember Ryan is saying about the six year limit applying to a person, but just wanting to make sure that that. >> Yeah, I don't think that would apply to the university presidents. I mean, most of them aren't there six, ten years anyway, so . Yes, do you have a question? >> About that, do they usually send the same person each time? >> Yes, they designate one proxy to attend and it's that person. >> Okay, we're gonna go, Councilmember Walsh needed to make a pro tem. >> And these university presidents are by courtesy invited to sit on so many boards and so physically to expect them to come in person. They're gonna send a proxy, I think it's inappropriate to try to limit so that the term limits just don't apply to that seat. Because this is just kind of a different category, but I do agree with a six term term limit. Six years, open and closed, whether it's two years as a council member, four years as a chamber member board. So that add it all up, six years and it's time for somebody else. So that you don't have somebody on there for 12 years, 15 years. But this is time sensitive because in July, council is gonna appoint a nominating committee and it's already the middle of June. So it's something that we can't drag our heels on. This needs to be addressed so that when July does turn the calendar, we have an ordinance that we have had time to study and can pass so that that policy and procedure is in place. So that the nominating committee then has clear direction on how to proceed. >> Yes, Mayor Ritchie. >> Agree with the six year term max? >> Six years total service, however it's organized. Just want to reiterate again that one of the functions of the ADP board is that recommendation for their own chamber of commerce or for the chamber of commerce economic development contract. So if that's of interest, then I think now would be the time to address that. >> Yes. >> So like having a minimum number that could serve in that capacity, is that what you're saying? >> No. >> No. >> I mean, it's either, in my mind, it's either that you don't have a board that consists of largely chamber of commerce folks or you don't put that function with a board that consists largely of chamber of commerce folks. So it's, I mean, it's up for discussion. >> Go ahead. >> I think it would be hard to limit the number of people that are on the ADP board that are members of the chamber because your university presidents could be members of the chamber and often are. Council members may be members of the chamber. So I think that it would be very awkward and especially when you start looking at the representatives from the largest taxpayers in the city, the businesses like that, most of them would be. So I think you're going to have, whether they're on the chamber board or chamber members, you're probably going to have a number of members. And I would be uncomfortable with saying, no, you're on the chamber, so you cannot serve on this board, or we already have our quota. I don't like the idea of setting quotas, so that part of it I'm not comfortable with. >> And they're recommending which budget to the council? >> They recommend the economic development office of the chamber's budget request, which they make to you as the council. >> So, but that's not, they don't create that budget. That budget is created by the chamber, isn't it? >> That's correct. They submit it. >> And it's simply reviewed by the ADP board and they give their opinions on it. >> That's correct. >> Are we obligated to follow their recommendations? >> I don't believe you are. >> One of the provisions that I forgot was that they don't have to live in the city. >> They either have to live or work. >> And no, I understand that. So what, I'm not saying either way, my question doesn't imply that I don't agree with that. But what was the rationale that they don't have to live? because I don't believe we have any other boards or committee memberships where they, I think they're required to live in the city. Now I may be wrong, so if I am, somebody please correct. The what? >> The TIF board, I don't think has a residency requirement either. >> Is that correct? >> I don't know the answer to that for sure about the TIF board. I can find out, but I am not certain, again, back in 2003 what the rationale was for the live work. >> And that's on the animal shelter board. It's not required to live inside the city, they're just required to have their business within the city. >> Okay, all right, okay. >> All right. >> Yes. >> Part of the rationale could be, there are a certain number of seats for some of the biggest tax payer businesses. So that you could have that very large business with a very large property tax to the city. But that individual doesn't live in Denton. And you wouldn't want to have that residency requirement that would exclude. Because then you'd circle around and it would be meaningless then to say, well, now we've got to go down the list in taxpayers to find somebody who does live in Denton. The point was to find people who are really contributing a large tax number into. And so my guess is that's where that came from. And as I said, my question wasn't implying an opposition to that, I just, just curious. >> Yeah, along with that, if you have, it's a representative from what, one of the top ten or top 20? >> Top 20 tax payers. >> Top 20 tax paying entities. And if some of them have already hit their six year limit. >> Sure. >> And if some of them do not want to do it, then all of a sudden you're getting into a very small pool of people. And then if some of those people live just outside the city limits in Corinth or in another area just outside, then we might not even be able to fill the board. So I'm- >> No, and- >> Whether they have a business or they live in Denton, I think either one is okay. >> Yeah, it was just a question. So, yes. >> Two seconds. >> Yes. >> To your point, I agree with your concern. I just don't know practically a way around it, right? Because even if they're not on the chamber board, but it's a friend of them. I think that influence or that conversation of those dialogues, I think there's no practical way to subvert it. As I analyze, hey, here's what I'm concerned about, and here's a realistic way that every time I know it can be protected against. I just don't know that that avenue exists for me to get there. It'd be so cumbersome to write something that then assumes conversations don't happen outside of the board. And then it just gets kind of layered. And so I don't see a way around it, but I share your, I get where you're going. I just don't know a way to protect against it. >> No. >> Go ahead. >> Well, just so I can clarify. So in my mind, one way around that would be to make the economic development, budget presentation go through our city as opposed to going through that board. That's how I would see work around, because then you don't have that other layer in there. But that's just, I don't know if that's my opinion. >> Yeah, no, if we had a consensus for that, I agree. That gets it done and that's pretty clean, but we'll see. >> So, yes. >> Real quick, just for clarification, because I heard a couple of comments on six years max and then you're done. We're talking just six years consecutive, and then if you 're off, you potentially down the road could get back on? >> Yeah, I never heard six year max and you're done. Did you say that? Six years, so you can't come back and serve, period? Like if you wait, set out a year or two, or three years, and you get reelected. >> Because, see, I'm thinking consecutive, that you're six years, you set off for whatever period of time. Because we do have boards that it's difficult to get members on. I think airport is one of those that people rotate off and three or four years later they rotate back on. Because there's only a certain, and as to whether that falls into this group or not, but it brings back institutional memories. So basically I hear we've got three potential areas of direction. One is the limiting that if you are no longer serving in the capacity in which you were appointed according to the position enumerated by the statute, that you cannot continue to serve out your term. Say for the exception of the university presidents, actually there's four. And I feel like that we have consensus on that. >> Right, so let's go, I'm going to say maybe the more difficult ones for that. DISD, I'm hearing that they're not coming to meetings. Before we put them on there, I'd like to at least have somebody talk to him and say, do you want to be a voting member? >> Yeah, because that would be my point. Would you be here if you don't get the vote? Would you be at city council just for recreation? >> Of course. >> No. >> Absolutely not. >> So you know what I mean, if you're there just to listen, I think that affects your participation. >> Your attendance. >> So. Go ahead, Councilmember. >> I was going to say it might be better to have a member of the school board as a voting member. >> Well, I think that's what- >> Yeah, we've got DISD. >> If you wanted to have a voting member on that board, that would be the person to have, is somebody that if there's going to be tax abatements down the road that they can- >> Why don't we have a conversation with them? Why don't we have a conversation with Jamie and say, hey, do you guys have it? because Dr. Faiton came to me, who's the president of TWU, when she got hired on as chancellor. And when she saw the configuration, she requested, specifically requested to me that she be put on the board or some representative of TWU. So I think it would be good to have a conversation with him . And then bring that back to us and then based upon that conversation we can decide. >> Perfect. Okay, the next one is the lifetime or just six year consecutive? As far as serving your term. In other words, six years consecutive, you're out, you can get back on after a year or two layoff. Or the other position is, if you've served, is it six years consecutive or is it six years just total? Okay, so direction on that. >> Six years total, I believe is what she said. Council Member Hussbett. >> Work back. >> No. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> No, I don't. >> You're gonna do that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> No, so. >> Let me make sure I understand the question. The question is six years in a lifetime, if you will. >> And these are all non-university entities, right? >> That's correct. >> And city council. Okay, got it. No, so I would think six year increments I'm comfortable with. >> Okay, all right. Six year lifetime. I'm okay with six year increment. >> Six year increment, I guess that's a term we're using. >> Yeah, increment. >> Okay. >> What, total? >> Either total or increment. >> Yeah. >> Do you know what I mean? >> I do, I do. I'm trying to figure out as far as council goes. Like six years total, say if a council member moves over and that council member wants to stay, if they are longer than six years, does that mean that they cannot be back on the economic board? >> They'd have to sit out. >> They'd have to sit out. >> Yeah, I mean, based upon how it's presented currently. >> Right. >> So I'm just trying to equate that. Because if we're making these changes because of council member in a seat, then I don't want to limit that council member from not being on a board if that's where they want to be. >> Well, they will have had six years on it. >> Okay. >> I mean, consecutively. I mean, they would have had six years. >> Yeah, okay. >> Which means, yeah. >> I'm good with six years total. >> Okay, so did I just hear an even split? >> No, no, no. >> No. >> No, they can't, yeah. Did you say six years total mean lifetime or six year increment? In other words, you can't serve more than six years consecutively. But if you're off, you term out that you can come back on at some point. Whereas the other position is, once you've served six years , whether it's consecutively or two years here, two years there, you're done. You can no longer be appointed to that board. >> I think six years is good. >> Six years total. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So it sounds like the consensus is the increment, the six years consecutive. There's, I think, four to- >> No. >> Is that- >> Yeah, it's four to three. >> Yeah. >> Four to three. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Incremental. >> So the six years- >> Okay. >> Consecutive, as it's written right now, unless you are no longer- >> Okay, six year lifetime- >> No. >> No, sorry, six year with a lay out period. >> Right. >> Okay, got it. >> So it's two six year periods total, like you said, there 's no max. >> No. >> There's no max. >> Six years and then you have to stay off for a while and we haven't specified how long you stay off, maybe stay off at least one year. >> Two years, one year. >> And remember, the council is the one who eventually makes those nominations. >> Right. >> A council is the one that makes those nominations, so- >> The council makes the appointments. >> Appointments, yes, that's right. Okay, and then one other was the recommendation of the, currently the EDP is recommending the chamber's economic development department's budget to the city council. There's been a request or proposal put on the table to maybe remove that function from the EDP and just have either the chamber submit it to our EDP department and they present it or some other avenue that would be equivalent. I think we just need to know what the, if we're taking that away, we need to know what the alternative method is. >> Okay. >> All right. >> So may I ask a question about that then? >> Sure. >> Would you still want the EDP board to review my departmental budget and make a recommendation about that? Because that's the way it's done, is they review the chamber's economic development offices budget and my departmental budget and make a recommendation on both of them. >> Okay. >> I'm a no to that. I think that our economic development department should be here, like with our regular budgets. >> And I do that too, but it just has an extra step in front of it to take it to them first. >> Okay. >> Well, let's take a look at the board up here. The board's role is to provide economic development policy guidance. Designs and recommends incentive policies. I just think there's been a real overreach by this board. And no, I don't think you as a city department need to have your budget reviewed by an outside board. You are a city entity and I don't see any other city departments that have to take their budget outside the city. This is the city council of the city of Denton and this is the council that looks at the money and approves the budget. So your budget should come here first and only, just like all the other departments. And yeah, I feel strongly about that. And to Councilwoman Begarry's point, same thing. We're not talking about play money or monopoly money here. We're talking about monies that are controlled by the city council. And so those functions and those approvals and those budgets should all come through this room and this council. So thank you for bringing that up. I think that budget should be presented here. And to your point, Councilman Gregory, the process, I would defer to our finance department, Chuck Springer, and ask for his recommendation. Or our city manager on recommendations on how that would look. And let them kind of noodle that to include economic development's budget. Cuz you can present your own budget without having approval from some outside. So yeah, this is a really good conversation. >> Well, and the EDP board is a board of the city. I mean, sometimes we, it is a board of the city that the city council makes those appointments. So those are the options. We've got a couple, I guess, on the table. It's really that one bullet point, the third one. And then, of course, they review the city's budget. Is that up there? Is that up there somewhere? Is that in? >> Reviews and recommends the city and chamber economic development budgets. >> So that's really the bullet point we're talking about right now. Any comments on that or direction? >> Yes sir. >> Yes. First, I'm gonna use this as a plug cuz I'm very interested in this board. My name's Gerard, vote for me. Then, aside from that. [LAUGH] No, no, I think- >> Shameless. >> Yeah, I know it. I'm new here, I'm learning the rules. >> You're making the rules. What are you talking about? >> So, but no, I think that it is something that should come directly to us. And so I fall in line with kind of carving that out. But I think there's a template already laid and that's in the community development advisory board that uses those federal dollars. Each individual entity comes and presents to that board. In this instance, they would present to the council. So that this EDP board can still identify projects that they like and have a representative come present to city council. Here's the projects we like, here's why. And so it still gives them kind of that mechanism. It just moves where it happens from their individual board meeting to a city council work session, if you will. But I think that kind of that template is already laid out in just like parks department comes and talks to Barbara Ross's group and all these different departments bring those things and kind of has an opportunity to present. So I think that format is kind of already, I don't think we have to recreate anything. >> Okay, all right. We're going to go around the horn. I think I already know how you, where you. >> Well, that's interesting that you bring up the Human Services Advisory Committee and the other committee because what they actually do, those are committees appointed by the city council. That collect information from a lot of agencies and they recommend how we spend and they recommend the budget to us. And in fact, that's exactly what the EDP board does. >> Yeah, they're looking at budget presentations and then they're recommending to us. It's a group appointed by the city council making a recommendation to the city council. But in both cases, it's the city council that decides who's going to be on those boards. And it's the city council who decides whether or not they take those recommendations or not. >> So your direction would be? >> Leave it the way it is. >> Okay. >> Have they ever asked for a change in a budget that you 've ever presented to them? >> No, sir. >> Okay. I say leave it the way that it is. It's just, it may be an extra step for our economic development department. But there's nothing wrong with the system as it is because it's a city appointed board. >> Direction. >> I thought I started it. >> I thought I started it. >> On this? >> Yeah. >> So you're, okay. >> Well, you'd said certainly remove the city, review of the city budget. But are you saying remove also the review of the chamber economic development budget? >> Is that what we're talking about now? >> Well, both of them. We're talking about both of them. >> Okay. Yes. >> Okay. Yes. >> And that human services advisory committee analogy, it's not exactly correct because Barbara Ross doesn't go to them with her internal department budget. You know, they have certain federal funds that they distribute and some city funds as well. I don't know of any department at all in the city that goes to, maybe correct me if I'm wrong Mr. Manager, but I believe there's not any committees where a department of the city goes to them to get a recommendation for their budget before they come to the council. >> No, I think the closest I would compare this to potentially would be the PUB with the utility budgets, but even in that particular scenario, it's me recommending budgets to them to make a recommendation to you. So I don't think there's anything that really fits this bill in particular. >> Okay. Well, it sounds like that there's direction from at least four council members to remove. But I'm agnostic on it, it doesn't. I think in some ways it's sort of ministerial. I don't think there's ever been a change, but I also know that there's discussion with the chamber. You know, the city does provide a large degree of funding for the economic development department. >> The office of economic development. >> Office of economic development of the chamber. So I think there's some discussions on that in general, just between staff and the chamber staff. So, but it sounds like the direction is to just remove that duty of reviewing the city budget and the office of economic development of the chamber. And then we'll figure out, I mean, we'll find a way to process that either through the chamber, making a presentation directly to the city, or some other avenue. And so of the four, we've got the, the consensus was six years consecutive, but then they can serve otherwise. DSD, we're gonna have a conversation with them. Removing of the two recommendations of the budget. I can't read my own writing. What was the other one? >> And the council, the folks not serving in the capacity of the no longer, right? >> I can't even read my own writing. >> And it's not just council, it's anyone if they're off there. >> Right. >> Right. >> Yes. >> And so I would, I would ask since this is kind of time sensitive, I'm not sure how long the discussions with DISD might take if those are gonna be wrapped up in time for us to, to review this and make the change needed before July. Is that? >> Yes, let me- >> So is that something we can, is that conversation something we can wait on? And does that need to take place before these changes come back to us in an ordinance? >> I can, I can call Dr. Jamie, whose last name is escaping me right now. Tomorrow. If he'll take my call now, he might not. I can call him tomorrow and we can get that going. The nominating committee is set to be named by this body on July 18th. And then the nominations, the slate is supposed to come to you all on August 15th. >> Okay. >> So we will move with all haste. But I'm gonna ask Jennifer Walters if, is it correct that if we have to slip the, the nominations a little bit, the, the people who are currently in place can still function in place until the replacements, so it's not, we try to stay on top of it because that's the right thing to do, but it's not gonna cause the board to cease to function if we don't hit those dates I just named, but we'll try to. >> All right, any more discussion on this agenda item? >> May I say one more thing? >> Yes, you can. >> So we have the ADP board meeting tomorrow. >> Sure. >> At which we will be presenting our budgets. >> It's, that's, that's still the ordinance. >> Say, okay. >> That's still the ordinance. >> Just wanted to let y'all know. >> No, that's still the ordinance. >> All right, thank you. >> All right, any other questions, comments? Okay, let's take a. Okay, council members, we're returning back to our meeting. Dent City Council, Tuesday, June 13th, 2017. It is 540. And we do have a closed session item on here, but it's my understanding that it's, it's not mandatory, it's optional. Is there any questions from council that would require us to go into close, and I'm going to ask this question so we can at least understand really what the question is. And I don't think this is a closed session item because you 're just going to tell me what our options are. Because it says, and maybe you can just elaborate, elaborate a little bit on the, the caption. Talks about potential acquisition or release of real property interests. So apparently, if you could just go into just some general information about what that is. >> There's a provision in the contract we have with a certain property owner that has an option. Which is a first right to purchase a particular piece of property upon a certain event. That event has occurred, so you're being requested whether or not you wish to proceed forward with exercising that option to purchase or to decline it. And that's all you're being asked to do, one or the other. >> Right, so let me ask you, would asking what the event certain, what actual event occurred to trigger this election, would that be something that needs to be in closed session or just? >> No, it would come up in a, in a AIS, so the answer to that is that the event that has occurred is another offer has been, for the purchase of the property has come in, has been received by the property owner. We are now under the agreement entitled to either match that offer and proceed forward with it or to decline the offer and let the sale go through with the original offer that the property owner has received. >> Okay, all right, council's thoughts on that? >> Mayor. >> Yes, council member Hussband. >> Thanks, Mayor. I do have questions about the analysis from a city perspective. >> Then we'll go on to closed session. >> Yes. >> Yep, all right. So do we need to do that first? That doesn't have anything to do with agenda item D, does it, or does it? >> No. >> Okay, so we'll go into work session agenda item D. >> C report, hold discussion, provide direction regarding the procedure to assess the need and make minor updates to the mobility plan. >> Good evening, Mayor, council members. I'm Chad Allen, I'm the interim city engineer. >> I'm the interim city engineer. >> Capital I, right? >> Capital I. I'm here to give a presentation about the mobility plan and about the possibility of modifying it, making minor updates to it, and how we might go about making minor updates to the mobility plan. We don't really have a method of doing that right now. I gave this presentation during the mobility committee this morning and we got some really good feedback about that. So we're going to repeat that here and try to get some more feedback. So the presentation is going to include sort of what the mobility plan is, how we use the mobility plan, the flexible nature of the mobility plan, and how we change it today. We make major updates every five years, and then how we might make minor updates on an interim basis whenever we think we need to. So. >> Because I really want to try to get us out at 630. >> Yes. >> You've already had a practice presenting this anyway. So not trying to rush you, just making us aware of the time constraints. >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you, sir. >> No problem. The mobility plan and the roadway component map, which is the map most people think is the actual mobility plan. But the mobility plan really includes more components than just the map. But the mobility plan, it's a city-wide plan that's talked about and didn't plan 2030. It pertains specifically to our roadway network. It applies city-wide, and we use it as the guiding document for development of Denton Street network. At the local level, we use it in the development review process. It allows us to coordinate with TextDOT, and it allows us to plan our future CIP program. At the regional level, we use it to show what roadway priorities we have and to discuss that with NETCOG and TextDOT and Denton County and also local developers. The general characteristics of the mobility plan are, it takes into account decisions that happen over years. It's the mobility plan map itself, the roadway map that you often see, is not meant to represent precise geometrical alignments of the streets that are shown on that map. And during the final design process of roadways, we sometimes incorporate changes to street alignments. And even though there are minor changes to that map, they can still be considered as being in conformance with the mobility plan. >> Mr. Chair? >> Yes. >> On that particular point. >> Yes. >> The mobility committee recommended that that particular bullet point be communicated on the maps that the city presents as the mobility plan. So that, because I think that's part of the heartbreak, is that the mobility plan is meant to be more of a concept plan than the final plan of alignment. The roadway map he's talking about, yes, we received that really good feedback today. We can definitely add some notes on that map that says this is conceptual in nature, what the purpose is, and the fact that the purpose is not to precisely define the alignments of the roads. According to the Denton Plan 2030, the mobility plan should be an evolving document. It should be flexible. We should keep it current, but we shouldn't continuously amend it. And the Denton Plan 2030 recommends that we make major updates to the mobility plan and all the plans approximately every five years. So every now and then we feel like we're going to have to make interim updates to the mobility plan. And we think that some of them are minor and we should have a process to make minor changes to the mobility plan, especially the roadway component map. Minor updates that we're talking about would just take into account alignment changes of some of these roads that are determined during the final design process or during the development process. Like we said earlier, the lines on the map are conceptual. And when we get down to designing the road in its final form, they're going to vary a little bit. So we think we should be able to make these minor changes on an interim basis instead of waiting every five years to make a major update. The minor changes to the mobility plan would not change the overall mobility element goals. They wouldn't change overall connectivity of the roadway system. They would not touch on land use or zoning. They wouldn't change the street classification or use that are shown on the mobility plan. These would just be minor changes associated with final alignments of the roadways. So right now when we update the mobility plan, we go through the mobility committee and then we go to the planning and zoning commission and then we come to city council for approval. We're recommending for these proposed minor updates that we might short circuit the process a little bit. Communicate with the mobility committee and get approval and recommendation to city council. And it would just be that two step process to make these minor changes to the mobility plan. Here's sort of an example of a minor update that could be required to the mobility plan. On the left side of the screen, we see Mayhill Road. >> Right here. >> Okay. >> The way it currently is shown on the mobility plan on the website, that's our current mobility plan. Over here, it's the way Mayhill Road looks after final design of the project. We've completed the plans, it's gone out to bid, we're hiring contractors to build the project. And the southern alignment of Mayhill Road differs from the current mobility plan. I'm bringing this up as an issue because about seven months ago, city council was made aware of the alignment change for May hill Road. And some of our staff members made a staff update to the mobility plan and changed it to the way you see it on the right. And we've been wondering lately if we properly documented that change to the mobility plan. So if we went through this minor update process, we could do that with, for instance, with Mayhill Road. What we're hoping to accomplish today is just to discuss this procedure. And then if the mobility plan and city council recommends changes, we would go through the process the way it is right now. We would go to the mobility committee, talk about changing the procedure. We would take that to planning and zoning, and then city council, and get approval of this new shortened process to make minor updates to the plan. And then in the future, we could make this minor change, for instance, for Mayhill Road by going to the mobility committee and then coming to city council. Pro Tem? >> Did I understand you correctly that you want to get approval of this process change at planning and zoning and at mobility committee? >> We're talking about changing the process. Right now, an update to the mobility plan goes through mobility committee, P and Z, and city council. To make minor updates, we think we should make, we could possibly just go to mobility committee and city council. >> So I agree with that last part of your statement. I don't think you need to go to anybody besides council to change the process itself though. >> Okay. >> So that. >> Wait, yes. >> Actually, you do. Subchapter three, the DDC, is the Denton Plan Amendment Pro cedure and it spells out the process, which is very similar to a zoning amendment. The mobility plan is a component of the Denton Plan, as Chad has indicated. And that, because it is part of the plan, we follow the Denton Plan Amendment Procedure in subchapter three, which is what Chad has listed on the top. >> So, okay, I have a legal question then. Let's say that it goes to planning and zoning and they don 't recommend a change to the procedure, then what? >> Then it would come before you for a super majority vote to override that. >> That's annoying. Okay. >> Okay. >> Is that? >> Yes. Yeah, this, we don't want you to catch me. >> You can catch me around. >> It's okay. >> Go ahead. >> Sorry? >> Yeah, go ahead, catch me around. Yeah. >> Well, I was moving on down, so if you have something about the process. >> No, I was just going to ask for, just for clarification. The minor process is more the short term project and the major would be the long term overview. Would that be a good way to characterize it? As the project comes forward and we're actually in the design and acquisition phase, that's when we would make the minor changes. We're not going to make those minor changes on something that's 20 years out. When I talk about major and minor changes to the mobility plan, it's more about time frame. The DIN plan 2030 and the mobility plan and the other associated plans, a major update for those plans in general is recommended every five years. But on an interim basis, sometimes when alignment changes happen and when staff thinks it's necessary, we might make interim changes to the overall plan, the mobility plan, and that's what we're talking about here . And yes, you're right, those minor changes would probably come about when you're finally designing the project and creating plans and the final alignment varies a little bit from the overall conceptual map. >> Councilmember Ritch. >> My question is more specific to the next bullet point about the minor update for Mayhill Road. >> Okay. >> So are you saying that we have to do the first next step , which would be authorize the minor update and then go through, as we talked about it today, mobility. So the next would be planning and zoning and then it would be city council to change that procedure. And then we would, either the same meeting or in a next step update Mayhill Road, we can't just say today in consensus, let's just update that while we're here. >> The way I understand it from talking to Jennifer coordinating with her, yes, we have to go through that first process to change the procedure or to add a new procedure. I don't think there's really a minor update process in the code right now. We have to go through the first process to add it and then yes, Jennifer just told me we could possibly do it at the same meeting. We would make the change for Mayhill Road. >> Okay, just for time sake. >> Yeah, if I could just add. >> Sure. >> Thank you, council. We're just basically making an update to, or an amendment to the DDC. So that's going to go through the dual hearing process. And on that, we can coordinate the Mayhill, either to do it under the normal process as written since it's going to be the same. And we can parallel track that or we can just hold it until that process procedure has gone through and then we can just take it to council at the same time. >> Okay. >> So. >> Okay. >> I believe that. >> It would just have to be done after you make the decision to. >> Council Member Begarry. >> Yeah. >> On the agenda. >> Council Member Begarry, I wanted to correct the misstat ement. I went back to double check the planning amendment procedure and at that, at the P and Z level, they are making a report and findings to this board. They're not actually making a recommendation for approval or denial even though they may ultimately do that. All the procedure sets forth in sub chapter three when it comes before you is a simple majority. So I want to correct that misstatement and apologize for that. >> So what I'm understanding is if we, at the same time we take this procedure to amend the DDC, to go through just the mobility committee and city council, we can parallel the minor update for Mayhill Road at that same, contemporaneously with this process change and accomplish those two things in one meeting, change the process but also make the change to the mobility plan, the minor change to the mobility plan for Mayhill Road. >> I think that would be the most efficient. >> Okay. All right. Council Member Gregory. >> And when this was presented to the mobility committee today, the mobility committee recommended that the council, to the council to move forward with this process. >> The parallel track, the, okay. All right. I don't have an issue with that. I give that direction. Anybody have any opposition to that direction? >> The other feedback we got this morning was the fact that we should add that information to the roadway component map . And also what is the definition of minor? We thought that would come up in the future at the mobility committee and it would be decided then what to take to council that are considered minor amendments. >> Who's on the mobility committee? Okay, just two of you so far. Okay. All right. >> Roden was. >> Who was? >> Roden. >> Okay. All right. Any other questions for this agenda item? You have your direction? Thank you. All right. We will now convene in closed session at 554. We will consider following items. First consultation with attorneys under Texas government code section 551.071 and deliberations regarding real property under Texas government code section 551.072. All right. Thank you very much. We are now following the completion of the closed meeting. The city council will convene in a special call meeting to consider the following items. It is 6.33 PM on June the 13th, 2017. And we are in the city council work session room. We are at our agenda item one, which is public hearings. Agenda item 1A is, excuse me, hold the first of two public hearings for a voluntary annexation of approximately 118.041 acres of land, generally located north of McKinney Street and west of Trinity Road by the city of Denton, Texas. And I will now open the pub, I will now open the public hearing. The public hearing is now opened. >> Thank you, Mayor, members of council, members of staff. As stated in the introduction, this is the first of two public hearings as part of a voluntary annexation of a property located north of McKinney and west of Trinity Road. This property was part of a non-annexation agreement in the area DH 12 specifically. And the purpose of this annexation was triggered by a proposed development which would breach the non-annexation agreement. Non-annexation agreement is scheduled to expire in the year 2020. However, the applicant is proposing for development, which again triggers the annexation. The annexation, or I'm sorry, the proposed development, if annexation is conducted or approved, would follow with a zoning and an SUP. The schedule for the public hearing is as presented here. First one is tonight, second one will be next week. And then following those two public hearings are two readings of the ordinance. And that concludes my presentation. >> Any questions for staff before we take public comment? Council member Gregory. >> Just for clarification, are we expected to take any action tonight? I'm looking at the options and it says approve as submitted , approve subject to conditions if I'm looking at the right backup. Do we really need the action tonight? >> No, there's no. >> No, there's no action tonight. It's just one of the first of two statutory required public hearings. >> I just needed to clarify that. >> Okay, thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody, I see no blue cards, but anybody wishing to speak, please come forward, state your name and address and your time will begin. Anyone to speak at this public hearing for agenda item 1A? One more call, anybody? Do I close the public hearing? I guess I do. >> Yes. >> Okay. All right, seeing no one approaching the podium to speak at this public hearing for agenda item 1A, we will now close the public hearing and there is no action required at this time. We'll move on to agenda item B. Hold the first of two public hearings for an involuntary annexation of approximately 6.17 acres of land generally located north of Brush Creek Road and east of Fort Worth Drive by the city of Denton, Texas. >> Thank you, Mayor, members of council, members of staff. This is the first again of two public hearings for this subject property located south of town, just north of Brush Creek and east of Fort Worth Drive. This is the same schedule we're following with the previous annexation. Again, the purpose for this annexation is the applicant is proposing development of this piece shown here in the dark outline as part of a mixed use development. Two public hearings, this is the first, second will be next week and then following that will be two readings as shown here. That concludes my presentation. >> Any questions for staff? Seeing none. I think, did I open the public hearing? I don't know if I did. Well, I'm going to open it again if I did. I will now open the public hearing for agenda item 1B. This is a time for public comment on this first public hearing for this involuntary annexation. Anybody wishing to speak, please state your name, number, and come to the podium. Give us your name, address, and your time will begin. Just your name and address and your time will start. >> Okay. >> Right behind the mic, yes. >> 1000 South May Hill. >> What was the name, I'm sorry? >> Kathy Samula. >> Okay. >> Duncan Samula. Just curious if it's going to be a mobile home park or how they have that. Do you know what it's proposed to be? >> I think that was on the first agenda item. >> It was? >> Yes, I think that was on the first agenda item. >> All right, thanks. >> Okay, thank you. I will try to have staff get with you later to give you some clarification and updates on that. Okay, anyone else wishing to speak on agenda item 1B, public hearing? Seeing none. There's no action taken, I believe. Is there action required on this? >> No, sir. >> All right, thank you. We will now close the public hearing. Concluding items, anybody have concluding items? Yes, Council Member Riggs. >> I have a couple. I would like to say as part of the sustainability plan update, we are launching the survey for the sustainability plan tomorrow at SustainableDenton.com and Sustainable Denton Facebook. And it will be shared on the Facebook site, so please take that survey. Also, we have a Clean Air Action Day event planned for June 22nd from 5 to 8 at Eastside in the food truck area. And then I would also like a sidewalk update for downtown sidewalks. That was kind of mentioned in the last meeting, but just to kind of see where we are on that. And also an update on our red light camera contract. >> Question clarification, you said we have an event scheduled at the Eastside bar for, was that Clean Air Day? >> Clean Air Action Day event. >> Is that a city sponsored event? >> It is, Sustainable Denton. >> Okay, all right. Okay. Anybody else? I just have a couple. Yes. >> I have a bad few, so I'll try to get through quickly. >> Yes. >> I would like to know the process, the city is putting in that field there, Fredmore Park, the football field. I'd like to discuss the opportunity to name it after that event sponsor, Harold Jackson. He does a lot of football gaming in Horsford County, he's been very active. >> Been very active in the community for a while, and I give credit where credit is due. That's the current occupancy of 623 Newton that came up with that idea. >> And then I'd like to have an opportunity to discuss with everyone benefits for appointed board members and council be it, and here's an example of my idea. If we appoint someone to a board, I think maybe they should get them plus one passes for the city water park or something like that. Something in consideration for their time and serve on the board. Maybe we could give them a free pass for the life of their service to the city that they would, them and a family member get to go to the water park. Something like that, just as a thank you. I don't know if the council's ever talked about parking meters, but when you're talking about changing flow downtown. So for right now, I can go park in front of someone's business and stay. It says two hours, but I don't know how well that's enforced, and so that may circulate traffic a bit. So I don't know if that's been talked about, but I'd be curious about that. I'd like to know where we are on the mobile device. Restriction signs, because based on the new information that the state, we may go walk that back. Where are we on those signs? Have we paid? Is there opportunities to recapture some of that revenue or use it otherwise? But I definitely would like to save the revenue from them being installed, but also understand what they are and what we can walk back. And then just as an aside, I think it would be worth our time as a council maybe to have a field trip to some other downtown areas. Be it Great Vaughan, McKinney, just to kind of get a feel for what our natural regional competition is and how we can enhance our place in that competition, if you will. So that's just a thought, just if we all went kind of and kicked the tires in some local area, downtowns, and make sure we're putting our best foot forward, because that's, in my estimation, when I'm living in Louisville, I'm considering, hey, where am I going to drive and do I want to go to Denton? Do I want to go to Great Vaughan? That sort of thing. And so to understand kind of what that looks like. So thank you. >> Any others? Got a couple. Had a meeting down in Austin yesterday with some city staff in United Way. And Austin was great host, it was the city of Austin, and their staff were sharing with us their initiatives on homelessness and how they've tackled that over the last 20 years, very, very beneficial and productive. And I must say, flying back, and this is to testify to at least the completed segment of I-35, landed at Love Field at 512, is when I turned my cell phone on when we hit the runway. I pulled in my garage at 618. That's getting through the airport, that's getting through downtown traffic, that's taking the express lane. So I don't know if everybody's on vacation for the summer, but even the free lanes were not, I was stunned. So kudos to, hopefully that's going to be more the rule than the exception. And those are all that I have. More just sort of comments instead of requests. Anybody else? All right, we will then stand adjourned at 643 on June the 13th, 2017. [ Silence ]