Jun 20, 2017 City Council on 2017-06-20 2:00 PM

Welcome, everyone, to this meeting of the Denton City Council, Tuesday, June 20, 2017. It is 2 p.m. We do have a quorum. We're going to move on to our first two agenda items, which will be in this forum, and then we'll move on to the work session after we've completed these two. The first item, Agenda A, is consider adoption of an ordinance canvassing the returns and declaring the results of the runoff municipal election held in the City of Denton on June 10, 2017. Thank you, Mayor and Council. In your packets, you had an ordinance that did not include any of the provisional ballots that might have come in after the election night, and so I have put at your seats an updated ordinance. The only changes are for early voting. Paul Meltzer received one extra vote, so it's 729. And on election day, Mr. Meltzer received another additional ballot, and Mr. Duff received two extra ballots. So the totals for the two candidates for total vote cast, Paul Meltzer was 1,233, and Mr. Duff is 1,285. And you also, in your ordinance on Friday, had a blank as to the total number of ballots cast, and that's 2,532. And upon a favorable motion, second, and vote, you will be declaring that Mr. Duff has been elected to City Council District 3. Mayor Pro Tem. I don't know who's pressed, so I just need a second. Somebody raise their hand for a second. Councilmember Ryan. Second. We have a motion and a second for agenda item 1A. We're going to be voting by hand. So everybody in favor of the motion, please signify by raising your right hand. Resolution passed, or ordinance passes unanimously. And then we move on to agenda item B, which is oath of the office administered to newly elected councilmember, Mr. Don Duff. [INAUDIBLE] Okay. We do the certificate of election first before the oath requirement from the state. So now that you're officially there, we're going to do your oath of office. So if you will raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Don Duff, do solemnly swear. I, Don Duff, do solemnly swear. That I will faithfully execute the duties. That I will faithfully execute the duties. Of the office of City Councilmember District 3. Of the City of Denton, Texas. Of the City of Denton, Texas. And will to the best of my ability. And will to the best of my ability. Preserve, protect and defend. Preserve, protect and defend. The constitution and laws. The constitution and laws. Of the United States. Of the United States. And of this state. And of this state. And the charter and ordinances. And the charter and ordinances. Of this city. Of this city. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. No, he comes up, I think. Doesn't he come? Over 50, if he wants to. Or over done. And upstairs. If what now? We don't have any other business. No, we don't have any more business here. Yeah. You have anything to say, Council Member Wozniak? Yes. I want to thank my husband, Ray. He's been my rock. OK. And he's been my rock for 30 years. So council was tough. And you were there for me. I also want to just say that my parents always told me that the good Lord puts us here not to take up space, but to make a difference. So that's my challenge to you. With your life, make a difference. Whether it's with politics, with your family, with your friends, with your work, with whatever it is that's important to you, make a difference. And I was honored to sit in this seat for two years. And thank you, city of Denton. I will always love you. I believe we have got-- I believe we have a couple of council members who'd like to say a few words as well. I would like to say something. Kathleen, thank you for your strength these past two years. I appreciate your openness and your honesty. And I will miss sitting across from you making eye contact and watching your facial expressions through the meetings. I feel very honored and lucky to have served with you. I wish you and Ray much happiness on your next journey and many more happy memories with your family. I'm really going to miss you. Council member, Mayor Pro Tem. Kathleen, I owe you a lot, not just because of all of the things that you've done serving the city, but because of how much you've helped me in my own life. And I just want to say thank you for both of those things. And I wish people could see the fire in you that I got to see. Maybe they see some of it, but I feel really blessed that I got to see that just-- you really know how to get worked up, and I love it. So I'm going to miss that a whole lot. I think it was a great energy on council, and I just-- I cherish all the time that we spent together. Thank you so much. Yes, Council Member. And in addition to that, you also know how to carry on civil discourse, which I appreciate very much. I appreciate your service to the city, and I wish you well. Yes, and of course, we've known each other a long time before you got on council. And you were very supportive of me on council. We sat in the many trenches together in District 4. You were so compassionate and loving during my illness, as well as the walkers and everybody out at ropes and ranch. So I want to thank you personally for that, because I still think about that today. It's very meaningful. Thank you for your service, your passion. We didn't always see eye to eye, but that's OK. That's how it works. You were respectful. You spoke with conviction, and you followed your heart. And that's really, I think, all that can be expected of someone who sits in that seat. So you and Ray have a good time. I'm going to miss-- I'm going to miss bidding on the tables from an aesthetic point of view in my house. I'm not going to miss it from my pocketbook perspective. So Ray is just a wonderful craftsman with furniture making and just does beautiful, beautiful work. And I have the honor of owning some of those pieces. So I will certainly-- and as I said before in an email, as I'm on my way down to Austin, we will not be strangers. So I wish you the best in your new endeavor and with your family. I know you are very much a family person. And I think that's wonderful. So to you, Kathleen, and to you, Ray, it's been a pleasure knowing you and getting to know you over these years. So thank you very much. You bet. [APPLAUSE] All right. Yeah. All right, we are back in the work session room for our meeting of the Dent City Council Tuesday, June the 20th, 2017. It is 2/16. Moving on to our next agenda items, citizen comments on consent agenda items. We have three, four, four cards. And these are on consent agenda items. So Mr. Husspeth, if you'll come state your name and address , your time will begin. May I first? Yes, yes, sir. Mayor and council, my name is Willie Husspeth. I live at 623 Newton. Agenda A, we need to know about this pump to see if-- I mean, the water color. Let's see, water colors. What that photo is about, I think. You need to talk about that, I think. B, are these pumps, the lack of them working, is it dangerous? What do the pumps do? I think that needs to be discussed in public. C, are the African-Americans being considered by this company that you are hiring? D, let's see, personal protection. What is this personal-- D, what is this personal equipment all about, and how does it help the firefighters? I think you ought to tell us in public what that's all about. E, again, another pump. Is that dangerous? Is the pump not being fixed causing a danger? Is it dangerous that it's not fixed? What does it do? I-- let's see, HI. I-- just be in-- why must you have an ordinance to present a sculpture? What's the sculpture all about? And K, what are we-- K, how are the positions in the police department done now? How many do we have? Why are we changing them? Just a little information about that. That's my wish. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next card wishing to speak on clarification of consent agenda items is Ken Gold. If you come down, state your name and address. Your time will begin. Mayor, members of the council, thank you. My name's Ken Gold. I live at 2512 Natchez Trace. I'm just here for consent agenda item D. I don't take an opportunity enough to thank you guys. You do regular good work on a meeting business, every meeting business. And this one in particular, it's not a huge expenditure, 600,000. But it's a critical expenditure on the protective clothing, the coats and pants. It is required to be replaced by law every five years. And so for the department, that is an ongoing cost. And I appreciate you all addressing this. The gear is subjected to many harsh environmental things. Heat, obviously, the smoke, the soot, the steam, it's all carrying bad stuff. It has to be washed. It's a very harsh washing process. You've got special washing machines at some of the stations that does this. It takes a toll on the equipment. That's why it has to be replaced every five years, maybe sooner, if it's really beat up bad. This is just a sign of ongoing commitment to fire protection and denting from you guys. Thank you very much. You bet. Thank you. And we've got a couple of cards that-- this is an agenda item to speak on consent agenda items. And I believe Catherine Lusgarden and then Karen McIntyre, these are work session items, which we usually don't have citizens comments during work session items. This agenda item is for consent agenda items. So I just wanted to make that clear. So we don't have any more people speaking on the consent agenda item. Agenda items two, request for clarification of agenda items listed on agenda for June 20, 2017. Any council questions? None? OK. Yes. What was it, on consent to pull or just questions? Oh, no. Questions in general, I believe. On this agenda. Sure. Yes. Yeah, you can also pull as well. OK. So then my preference-- Thank you, Mayor. Then my preference would be, first, a question with A, the art piece that's donated. Is that something that-- I'd like to acknowledge that donation more formally. I don't know if that's done on site, or if there's an avenue for us to do that. But I'll yield to your experience how you've done that in the past. We could pull it and acknowledge it, or whatever that process is. OK. The same for FGH. I think it's important to have a report on those just to understand-- so that the public understands what it -- not in depth, but a general overview. This is what the mechanisms do. This is how they're applied, that sort of thing. Are you wanting those pulled for items for individual consideration? That's my preference. OK. And-- I'm sorry, go ahead. That's it. So question on agenda item 4A. Because if we have somebody from the-- who handles the public art here-- because I think sometimes we typically do have a formal recognition in a ceremony. I'm not sure exactly, but we can find out the answer to that question. If we had that, would you want to-- public art? Yes. So the question is, do you want to go ahead and have a presentation now, or are you just wanting more formal recognition maybe during the unveiling process? More of a question of how it's been handled in the past. Longer answer is just-- I don't think it belongs just on a straight up and down vote amongst a list of other things. We'll pull it then. Yeah. We'll pull it for item-- so I don't think we have any questions. Yes? Not for this. Not for this? OK. Yeah, sorry. But on the public art, don't we typically have a formal unveiling? Correct. If it is for individual consideration, we'll have the art actually there, and Millie Giles will be here tonight as well if we'll have it for individual consideration. Oh, OK. Well, we'll do that then. All right. I didn't know that. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So Council Member Hutspeth, you're wanting to pull agenda items-- consent agenda items for A, F, G, and H. And let me-- yes. OK. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Briggs? So I had a question about F, G, and H. Would you like for me to hold that question until tonight for the presentation, or-- Well, I think it would be helpful if maybe you went ahead and asked your question so that if it's not something they're prepared to answer, at least we'll have an opportunity to prepare for that. Well, it's more about the airport committee. I noticed that the vote was 2 to 0. The number 2 seemed pretty low to me. And so I'm just curious the amount of people on the committee, where there's a lot of people there. Is that something we need to-- I mean, is that even a quorum? I-- Mr. Mayor, appreciate the opportunity. So the question in hand is the Council Airport Committee is typically a three-member Council Airport Committee. Council Member-- former Council Member Joey Hawkins was on that committee. And when this particular meeting was held, similar to the Mobility Committee, it had lost a member, Kevin Roden, off the Mobility Committee. So there was just two members on that particular committee. Oh, OK. So it's the Council Advisory-- in my mind, I was thinking it was the Airport Board, which has several members. Right. And the Airport Advisory Board does not consider any financial issues in terms of lease agreements, grant agreements, that nature. So those type of items come straight to the Council Airport Committee for review and vetting. What did that-- they used to. About-- No? Oh, OK. I'm getting-- OK. About seven years ago, the Airport Committee did. But that's been changed since 2010. OK, thank you. Any other questions? All right, we'll move on to our work session reports then. Agenda item 3A, receive report, hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding the Mayor's National Climate Action Agenda and current sustainability activities. Also, I need to pass around. Catherine has delivered a petition with a resolution regarding this agenda item. So I'm just going to start with Council Member Briggs. And as I mentioned to Catherine in the meeting, because this isn't posted for official action, this is for information only as far as the resolution. And then she wanted me to also get you the petition. Good afternoon, Mayor Watts, Council members. At the June 6th City Council meeting, staff was requested to look into the Mayor's National Climate Action Agenda. This is a group of local governments working together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Most recently, they started a local initiative to kind of honor and uphold the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement after the US withdrew from participation earlier this month. And they're going to be working on that. So our goal here today with you is to do two things. One, to first review what the city is doing for sustainable actions and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And then secondly, what it would take to join this group. I'm going to turn it over to Catherine Barnett to go through what our sustainable activities are right now. Real quick question. And this is where I'm sort of unclear on. If you could go back to the first slide. Sure. So the Mayor's National Climate Action Agenda is that-- how long has that organization been in place, number one? And I don't think we've been a member of it. Or is this a new organization based upon the events and decisions made at the national level? It began, I believe, about three years ago. And we have not been a member. OK. They have seen their members go to the mayor's and they have seen their members go to the mayor's and they have seen their membership more than triple since the announcement to withdraw from the Paris agreement. OK. All right. Thank you. I just needed some backstory on that. Sure. OK, so just a little bit of background. The Simply Sustainable Plan was adopted in February of 2012 . And we have started the update for that plan, which was scheduled for five-year intervals, so 2017 update. We have been implementing and tracking reporting annually. There's an annual report on our website posted on sustainabledenton.com that you can review annually to see where we are on our actions and metrics. And then some items are reported through the City of Denton Strategic Plan as well. Just a few highlights related to energy efficiency and air quality. We manage the Greensense Energy Program for DME, which is energy efficiency rebates in the audit program. We have learned to conserve workshops and sustainability series. We have the sustainable schools program. We collaborate with many entities to improve strategies related to greenhouse gas reduction. And that includes best practices sharing through multiple municipalities, large and small. We track and report municipal energy uses so that we can improve decision making whenever we're looking at retrofits or new construction. And then we partner with our internal departments in data collection and analysis to respond to resource conservation efforts. We began tracking our greenhouse gas inventory in 2006. We signed the first US Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement in 2005. And we've been a part of that agreement since 2005. Since the 2006 inventory, our municipal greenhouse gas emissions have dropped 25%. And our community emissions have dropped 13%. So this is more about the climate mayor's group itself. And this is directly from the website, kind of stating the purpose and the intent of this group. So as mentioned, the group has tripled in size almost. We checked the website yesterday, and there's 323 cities now participating. All it takes to join this group is an email from the mayor. And so that's kind of an overview of the group. Once you join and become a member, they ask that you do a few actions to support the initiative and to be part of the Paris Climate Agreement. So these are the four actions listed. The city currently meets items one, three, and four. Those are things that we are already doing. As far as number two, we have not set a long-term target for citywide emissions that we want to reduce by. This could be part of the sustainability plan update, which is planned for later this fall. And you'll see in item two, it says reduce emissions in line with that required by the Paris Agreement. So in the Paris Agreement, they wanted to reduce emissions 26% to 28% from 2005 to 2025. So in 20 years to reduce emissions by at least 26%. As Catherine went over previously, from 2006 to 2015, the city of Dutton has reduced emissions community-wide by 13%. So it's reasonable that we could set a target in line with the Paris Agreement and achieve it. And then this is just kind of an overview slide of upcoming activities in regards to planning for sustainability actions. We'll be undergoing our 2016 greenhouse gas inventory here shortly. And we've already kicked off the process to update the sustainability plan with releasing a community survey for the public to try to get their input. And then that'll be a process that continues throughout the fall. So we'll take any questions that you have regarding the climate mayor's group or any sustainability actions that the city is doing. Do we have a copy of that original 2005 agreement that was executed via the US Conference of Mayors, that climate action agreement? Do we have access to that? That would be, I think, something that would be helpful just to see what it contains, number one, and what's different or what's similar to what we're talking about today. I can dig that up. Yeah, that's fine. Just pass it off to either status report or informal staff report would be great. OK, council, open it up for discussion. I will start. I brought this to the attention of council. Citizens reached out to me as a representative and asked me about this. And I brought it to council for consideration. So I just wanted to open up discussion and see how everyone felt. It appears everyone's pretty quiet. Yeah, I'm not sure what that silence means. Yes, Councilmember Gregory. I think that I would support a resolution coming before the council. And I would vote for it so that the mayor could make a comment, a connection with that group and formally become a part of it. OK, all right. Anybody else? Yes, Councilmember Hudson. Likewise, I'd like to see a side by side between-- I think you titled it Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement and the Paris Mayor's-- I don't know the title. But I'd like to see those two side by side to understand them. And do we know what is the governing body of the Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement that you referenced or that we've read about? Am I titling that right? It is. It's the US Conference of Mayors. OK, got it. And so can you give me an idea of what that interaction is? Because that's kind of-- if we have a better interaction with one versus the other, or as far as an ability to amend the requirements or the ask or the activity and enhance them, I want to understand that dynamic of what it's like to-- do we send an email to this to one group and they respond back? Or would it-- I mean, with that type of increase, I'm curious what the structure is going to be like. And can it support that much growth? And if it can, that's great. I just want to understand what is the communication like between the two entities? The US Conference of Mayors has an overarching climate resolution that was adopted in 2016 to enhance the original Mayors Climate Protection Agreement . All of the climate protection agreements have kind of evolved over time and set new targets as new developments, new technologies available. The Mayors Climate Action Agenda, to my understanding, came about because it was a smaller group that wanted to push a little bit harder, set some stronger targets, have a little bit more accountability. It's housed in the sustainability department in the city of LA in the mayor's office. So it doesn't have the overarching support of the US Conference of Mayors behind it. I don't know what their long-term support is going to look like with this growth. It's all very new. OK, thank you. Wow. Wow. We need to have more agenda items like this. Yes, Councilmember Craig. You know, it seems to me that this is an important statement to make. The city of Denton has made statements like this that we are concerned about environmental quality before. We've done it with our sustainability plan. We've done it not only with having a plan, but with actually following it, with monitoring the metrics on it. We've done it with all kinds of actions that we have taken in terms of monitoring our water quality , being leaders in that, coming to the EPA with a plan to preserve the water quality in our watershed while it's still in great shape. They didn't know what to do with that, because that usually happens after a watershed has been polluted. So the city has been very proactive in this. And why being in favor of clean air and clean water and taking the various steps necessary to do that has become a partisan political issue is still a little bit hard for me to understand. All this is saying is we stand with a lot of other cities in believing that we need to do our part to keep our air clean. I would agree with that. And our sustainability initiatives, as we have seen, are by global standards very effective and aggressive sustainability plans here at the local level, which we're doing. So I would also like to say that our efforts as leaders in sustainability are not political. They are not anti-business. And they are effective, meaningful, forward-thinking, and active policy. And whatever we decide to do with this, I am very proud of the work we do to increase our community's sustainability in meaningful ways. Mayor Pro Tem. I think I share Councilman Hutsmith's view that I'd like more of a side-by-side information presentation. But just very broadly, I'm looking at the climate mayor's letter to President Trump on rollback of US climate actions on March 28 of 2017. And I read this as a really political statement. I mean, I don't know if there's any other way but to read it in a partisan tone. And I think this could be alienating for parts of our city that don't necessarily agree with the statements made in the letter. So I'm concerned about inserting Denton into-- I don't like inserting Denton into state politics. Definitely don't want to insert it into national politics because it hasn't worked out well for us. So I'm concerned about putting us out there like that. But I want to continue all of our climate activities and all of the sustainability activities. In fact, I'd like to increase them to some extent. I was looking at Albany, New York. They have a goal of 65% diversion from the landfill, which is-- I mean, I think we're at like 13% diversion or something like that at this point. So I would love to continue and increase our standards. But I'm not convinced that this is the vehicle to do it. So I'm on the fence and I guess leaning towards not going in this direction. Probably based on these open letters to President Trump. I'm just kind of not in favor of signing on to things like that. But that's just my stream of consciousness. Yes, Councilmember Ryan. And then we'll go to you. Thank you, Mayor. I would probably echo Councilmember Begarry. I see this-- we are a member of the US Conference of Mayors , Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Once you add the word Paris in there, it becomes a partisan or a nonpartisan board. We're elected that way specifically because we do not deal with what is on the platforms of the two major parties of the United States. And so I would like to see them side by side. But I think just the one word in there alone starts to alienate a certain group of people within town. Councilmember Duff, welcome aboard again. Thank you. What a great first issue. Boy, that's the truth. I tell you what, I'm sitting here in District 3. And you start talking about the Paris Accords and all of that. And I think it pretty much follows the vote in the runoff. It's like 5149. So I'm going to have about-- whichever way we go on this thing, if we get the Paris Accords involved in it, I'm going to have half the people in my district upset about it. I think-- I've been looking at everything that Denton is doing. And we're doing the right thing. And I look at DME, what they're doing, they're doing the right thing. We're reducing our carbon footprint. We're doing what we need to do. I don't think we need to get involved with the Paris Accords. Question. You said that we're having a sustainability update or work session to update the plan or to-- We're working through the process to update the plan. We have a community survey out right now. And then we'll do some community meetings and then start meeting with the COE and the council. Well, I would suggest that in that, that we begin to talk about more long-term targets. I mean, we don't have those right now, even though we're doing very well. And that way-- look, I mean, I've got to-- I could pretty much skip over this and not say anything, because it seems like we've got a consensus already. But I don't have a problem weighing in on this. First of all, I'm very proud of what Denton has done since 2005. I mean, we are light years ahead of communities who've been trying to do this for a lot longer than we have . In fact, we're going to see a presentation directly after your presentation about the Denton Renewable Plan and how that it may far exceed the goals as originally intended. So from the standpoint of would-- if we took this action that at least was requested from the citizens petition and the resolution and/or some of the requests that were made, how would that help us or harm us? Or if we didn't take the action, would it stop us or would we not be doing something in order to help clean the air, help clean the water, help make our town more sustainable to create jobs? And we're going to continue to do that. In fact, when I'm at the US Conference of Mayors, I speak-- in fact, I'm going to speak Saturday or Friday to a group at 7:30 in the morning about what Denton is doing. They've asked cities who are really far advanced in their sustainability efforts to come forward and to share their story. So I'm going to get to do that, because we're so proud of what we're doing here. I'm concerned with the nature of just a few of those words, because let's face it, this organization has been in place for three years. We've not been asked to be a member of this in three years. We've been asked since the decision was made at the national level. And I will tell you, I know nothing about the Paris Climate Accord. I don't really-- I hear what's in the news bulletins. I hear-- but for me to agree to something, I'm going to have to read it. And then we're talking about an international resolution. I think we can continue moving forward. And if our goals that we decide upon line up with that, then we can move forward with those goals. I just really hesitate. And it is. I've had many emails on either side of this equation. And it's primarily been from-- and I even hate the word-- a partisan kind of positioning. But that's the nature of our politics right now. And we've got a lot of things to do in Denton. We've got a lot of things we're wrestling through and we're moving through. And I think that for me, I want to maintain as much of that community cooperativeness and community unity as we can. And we're doing so well in this area that I just hesitate to throw that wrench in the mix, because it's not going to impact. To see the way-- Council Member Gregory, I understand what you're saying. We are doing these things. And I don't like that that's what it's become. But that is the reality. And so that's my hesitation. But again, I want to see what the agreement says. I mean, if I can get a copy of the actual agreement, I have no idea what it is. And then also in our update, let's start talking about targets. Because I don't know if those targets are appropriate for Denton. I don't know what their cost benefit analysis is. So it's really-- for me, it's a little premature based upon at least how I like to deal with policy decisions with the facts. To me, if we sign on to this, what does it really mean? It doesn't have any teeth in it. And it's basically going to make some people feel good, because it doesn't do anything. OK. Well, it seems the consensus at this time is option number two, which I think was-- what was option number two? You had two choices up there. It was to forgo joining the group and just continue on with our sustainability plan update and actions that we're doing. With the caveat of in the update bringing forward a discussion on long-term goals that apparently we're missing. We sort of have that whole. Is that correct? Yes, Councilmember-- or may I pretend? Can I add that on that website for the-- what is it-- climate mayors, every city has their targets on there. So I would just ask that if you guys could take a look at some of those other targets that we may be able to incorporate. I think that's what you're saying. But I just want to be really clear that it's listed on there. OK. Any other questions, comments for this agenda item? Thank you, Councilmember Riggs, for bringing this forward. I appreciate that. Agenda item 3B, receive a report from staff regarding various scenarios for moving the city of Denton towards 100% renewable energy. Thank you, Mayor and Council. It's exciting to be here today. I appreciate kind of the warm-up act before me here talking about sustainability. And it's exciting to be part of a program that not only brings you information about how we go towards 100% renewable and does it from an approach of trying to be more environmentally conscious, but also does it in a cost-effective manner. And that falls along with some of the charge that's been given to DME in the past as far as going towards 100% renewable. Just a quick background for the audience on DME, and Council is aware of this. We've been around a while, since 1905. Many municipal utilities were formed in the 1900s. Most of them were very small utilities, small cities where investment utilities did not choose to serve. There are some larger ones that came in, to be San Antonio, Austin, Bryan, Lubbock, Garland, Denton, as a result of investor-owned utilities not providing adequate service. And C is seen as an important service to provide and moving on. 52,000 customers, 50,000 plus. This is about the same number of customers as another entity that's going forward with renewable energy, and that's Guam Power Authority. And Guam was in the news last week for a record amount of battery storage deployment, and we'll be watching that. They have an island system which has a lot of challenges, and where batteries will help meet that challenge. And so we'll keep an eye on that one. A little bit of our characteristics, 98% residential, 12% commercial and industrial. And what's significant about that is that 12% commercial industrial is 60% of our sales. And so the smaller percentage of our customers, a significant portion of our commercial industrial load here in Denton, which makes our load profile a little bit different than others as far as a little more challenging to follow the load on it. Sixth largest MOU in Texas, municipal-owned utility in Texas, annual budget, $176 million, and member of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which is the operating grid in Texas, governed by City Council with an advisory board, public utility board. I know some people have charged and said, we need to move towards 100%. We need council to provide staff instructions to move towards 100%. And you've done that. In the resolution you passed last year-- and I won't read it all to you, but just emphasize the last point-- to move towards 100% renewable by 2035 while continuing to offer competitive rates and electric reliability. And so it's a balancing act to do that. And that's what we strive to do and continue to do and will continue to do until directed otherwise by this council. So the key factors in increasing renewables, first of all, is the price. And we continue to see the price come down. We're seeing panhandle wind at less than $20 a megawatt hour. We're seeing West Texas wind around the $20 an hour mark and seeing coastal wind between 20 and 25. We're seeing solar prices, some indicative price that we're getting on solar is now getting around a $30 range. These are prices that were unheard of as low as two years ago. And so the price keeps driving down on wind, but especially on solar. Solar leaves us in a perplexing spot, as we discussed with council before, of when do we pull the trigger. Because every time we start to go that direction, we see prices go down and drop even more. A new request for proposal will be going out this week to wind and solar providers to bring us back a package and bring back information. And I'll talk about that later in the presentation. But the favorable thing about pricing here is it provides us consistency. And that's where a lot of people are seeing an advantage now. It's not just people going towards these contracts because of wanting to be more renewable. People are doing it on an economic basis. They're doing it because they want to lock in these cheaper prices they're seeing these days, especially as compared to gas prices, anticipating that natural gas, which is a major source for energy for providing electric generation in Texas, that those prices will go up in the future. And you can't lock in gas prices at today's rates for 15, 20 years. And you can on these renewable energy contracts. So it provides us an advantage that we can't get through other traditional contracts. Wind and solar power, the issue, of course, as we've talked about, doesn't necessarily produce what we need it. And it doesn't follow load. And I'll talk about that with some graphs I have later on in the presentation. Grid scale storage is at a pilot phase. It's certainly something we're keeping an eye on. But certainly, the initial projects we've seen at commercial phase, the Duke Energy Project that went in out in No Trees, Texas, those batteries cost about 20% more per megawatt than the Denton Energy Center we're building and lasted for less than three years before they cycled out so much that it wore the batteries out. And so certainly, those projects are something we want to keep working on research on and we want to see because it certainly has a capability to provide a solution to a problem we have as far as following wind, following load, and solar following load. But it's not there yet. And it's going to be there soon though. Question on-- because I know I believe the Duke project was in play in the discussion during just the discussion of the RDP in general. Correct. And so refresh my memory. What was the megawatt capacity of the energy storage out there, do you recall? It was 24 megawatts. OK. I got those right. 36 and-- yeah, I'm sorry. It's 36 megawatts with 24 kilowatt hour storage. So it could produce full load for about 3/4 of an hour. OK. And so when you say-- and the only reason I'm-- we now have at least some-- and that doesn't mean that there's not some new technology out there that could come online. But as far as that particular one, so you're saying that it was online. They used it for backup or for storing energy. And then they would release it to the grid whenever they felt it was the time to do it. And in that operation, did they replace the batteries or was this a pilot program that they're not moving forward ? They received a grant for it, a grant funding for it to start it. I believe they have replaced it and continue to replace it with newer technology and see where it goes next. OK. All right. Do we have any idea of same size as far as 36 megawatt? Just maybe some information on that. Just because we have sort of hindsight, a chance to look back and see what the pricing is. Maybe the pricing is different. So it's a good exercise to sort of see what was it like then and how long did it last in the pricing. And what we see for battery technology, as far as the initial use of it in the electric market, will be like Guam is going to use it. It's not used to sustain load for long periods of time, but more to sustain frequency. So Guam's island system doesn't have a ERCOT grid to back it up. They are the grid. And with a limited number of generation sources, they are challenged at times to maintain a quality of electricity. It doesn't dim the lights when somebody turns on a major load over here. And so the battery technology there will be used to help that more so than really provide what the engines provide. The engines, we were talking to another individual that operated the Warzilla engines like we were talking about. And they had like 1,400 starts in a month. And so that much cycling on and off, batteries aren't there yet. Whereas these engines, that's what they're proven to do. And of course, all that lays into managing the price fluctuations. And I've got a chart that shows what the result of those price fluctuations can be as far as spiking up and down. We'll talk about megawatt capacity versus production, and then the research and development projects that we're trying to participate in. So the breaking news for us-- and those of you all saw the PUB. It's not breaking news, but it's still news. We were talking about, with the original RDP plan, going to 70%. And our road to this has been, initially, started with landfill gas, our North Texas wind contract with Nextera, and then looking at coastal West Texas and West Texas wind, and then continue to look on the future for community solar , energy storage, and the band response to take us up this scale to get to 100%. What we're saying now with the prices we're seeing, we think we can, instead of opening up at 70%, we'll be above 80%. Matter of fact, we'll open up at 88% in 2019 and not have to impact rates. And we think that's the direction the council gave us, was maintain competitive rates, but at the same time, increase renewables as much as possible. And that's what we're seeking to do. We've got a couple questions. Yes, Councilmember McGregor and then Councilmember Briggs. Well, thank you very much for this update. It's always good to under-promise and over-deliver. That's exactly what you guys are doing. I've had some folks say, well, we still need to do just batteries and not do the natural gas generation. But I've tried to help folks understand that what we're doing is really what a lot of folks that are trying to reduce their greenhouse gas footprint are doing. You can't buy an all-electric car and go very far. But if you buy a hybrid car where you're combining electric power and renewable through batteries and backing it up with an internal combustion engine, you can reduce your carbon footprint a lot and do that. And that's what we're doing right now with the renewable dent plan. It's a hybrid plan until the technology allows us to get there. I'm grateful that we did not follow the lead of NoTrees and tried to do batteries and find out, just as we were buying ours, that they were having to replace theirs because it wasn't working. Sometimes don't want to be quite on the very cutting edge of technology because that doesn't always work. But thanks very much for the update. And it looks like we will get to 100% renewable a whole lot sooner than 2035. Well, what I'm very proud of is while other entities have set goals, we've set those goals. But we've set them close and achievable within a short period of time. Council Member Freaks. So if the projected renewables is 88% by 2019 instead of the 70%-- Correct. How much of that additional 18% comes from the 13% debt and the 17% market? So the renewable energy-- the increased renewable energy I'm talking about-- and I've got a couple of slides after this that will more particularly answer that question-- will come from solar and additional wind contracts. We're talking about an additional 50 megawatts of wind contracts and an additional 30 megawatts of solar contracts. So PPAs? Yes. Well, sort of to dovetail on that. Because remember, I don't know if you have the pie chart of -- remember in some of the presentations, we had the pie chart of so much renewable, so much debt, so much market. I've kind of replaced the pie charts with bar charts. OK. So then-- I've got that next. So if the renewable is going from 70% to 88%, I wasn't quite-- I didn't quite understand if I heard, is that therefore requiring less generation from the deck or less generation to be bought from the market? A little bit of both. OK. All right. A little bit of both. I mean, it's decreasing the deck operation, I would say, by about 5%. We were anticipating, say, 25% to 35%. Now we're looking at 20% to 30% on the debt. OK. All right. OK. Is that-- That was my question. OK. Thank you. Yes, I'm sorry, Council Member Hesbeth. So is that-- I just want to make sure I understand as you go forward. So 70% of all power created-- or when you're using these percentages, it attributes to all customers? Or is it a segment of-- I want to make sure we're on the same page. No, it's for all customers. They flip on a switch. That percentage of power will be renewable energy. OK. And then how does that reconcile with someone that then ops in for the preferential-- For the green cent rate. Yes. How does that kind of reconcile? So for the green cent rate, for people to go opt into that, we would buy renewable energy credits to take them all the way to 100%. So those customers opting in, would that-- they make up-- for those that would opt into that are utilizing that 100% rate? That way of getting there, yes. Got it. That methodology. Can I ask for the number later? So last time we looked, there was 168 entities, people, or companies that signed up for the green cent rate. Is that the question you were going to ask? Yes, sir. 100%. Thank you. OK. So to kind of answer some of the questions you all had. So we had 263,000 megawatt hours of renewable energy in 2016. We're talking about in 2019, in the original renewable demand plan, we would have purchased 937,000 megawatts of wind energy and 307,000 megawatts of solar energy. And this is the amount of our landfill gas on top, just living on top. And so we're talking about increasing that. 35% more wind. We're talking about 16% more solar. So Phil, on that graph, of course, that's showing us the total megawatt hours for the renewable portfolio. But our load is what? Our load is about a million and a half megawatt hours a year. By this time in 2019, I think it will grow to-- I think we anticipate the growth to be a million six, a million seven megawatt hours. OK. Council Member Briggs. Can you go back-- or I guess this is fine here-- the landfill gas. We have heard in recent presentations that the landfill is producing excess gas more than we can capture. If we find a way to capture that excess, will that increase our energy? If you put in additional generation to burn that gas through a generator, it'll make it interesting. Yes. OK, thank you. Yes. So Phil, real quick, on that last slide, were those percentages and those figures based upon the current load of 1.5 or the projected load of 1.6 to 1.7 in 2019? The projected load. Thank you. So let's talk megawatts and megawatt hours. So megawatts is the total capacity of what's installed. And so we were, in the original renewable didn't plan, we were talking about 100 megawatts of solar and-- right? Yeah. And I'm trying to remember, 220 of wind. And so now we're talking about increasing that to 280 megawatts of wind, 130 of solar. The plant, we've always talked about being 225 megawatts. So you multiply that times, what percentage of the time you think it's going to run? Well, landfill gas, that's just an engine sitting out there burning that gas. And so it runs 98%. It just runs all the time. I mean, except when they have to take it down for a little bit of maintenance, it's going to run. And so it runs most of the hours. You take the megawatts, in this case, 225 megawatts, times how many hours are in a year, 8,760 hours a year, times what percentage of the time you think it's going to run. And that's how many megawatt hours you're going to get out of it. So in the Energy Center, we expect to run depending on the weather, right? If it's a hot summer, it'll run more. If it's a milder weather year, it'll run less. But depending on the weather, how much it average, it's going to give us around 500,000 megawatt hours a year. Council Member Briggs, you have one. Does that amount of running, does that affect the emissions that we learned about in the RADB presentations? Yes, we are limited on runtime. I believe we can't be over 38%. Is that right? Yeah, 38%. So let me make sure I understand that. So we've got the deck has a capacity of 225 megawatts. Multiply that times 8,760. And that gives you a total of about 1.7 million megawatts hours. And you're saying we're restricted by our emissions based upon either federal or state law or permit to 38% of that. So if we took 38% times 1.7, let's say, we can't go over that. It doesn't matter if we need it. It doesn't matter if all of our wind and solar crashed. We can't run that deck for longer than that total number of hours. And that could be split out through the summer, some through the-- you've just got that many throughout the year that you can do. Is that-- That is a correct statement. The only exception to that is if there were some dire emergency. If you had a long winter or you just had a record heat wave summer and other units and the ERCOT went down and they needed that unit to run to meet capacity for-- keep life from going out, then we could get-- ERCOT could override EPA on that. But that may be a rare exception. OK. Council Member Reed. And this is only running for the city of Denton for our capacity for what we need. Is that what this is accounting for? This would be running any time the market prices are higher . In other words, if the wind and the solar aren't producing enough megawatt hours, we're going to go to the market or we're going to use these engines. Any time the market prices are more than what the cost is to run these engines, the engines will run, whether it's for us or for the market. So this includes the total for market and for us. I'm sorry. And so the market down here at the very bottom, what is that? So I'm glad you asked. That's a great setup question. So that's kind of deceiving. I expect payment afterwards. Yes, that's kind of deceiving because that's a net number. And what's really behind that number is there's about 500,000 megawatts we'll be buying, and it'll be about 500,000 megawatts we'll be selling. And so that's a net number of net net out. Well, why is that going back and forth so much? Because that's how much the wind and the solar, how hard it is to manage. Now, I've got the graphs after this start talking about that. There'll be times where we'll have excess renewable energy and we'll be selling it into the market. Or times that the market prices exceed what the cost to run those engines are, and we'll be selling that into the market. There'll also be times where the wind and solar is not producing, but the market prices are cheap, and we're going to buy it off the market. And so that 24,000 market number down at the bottom is a net number going back and forth. We got Mayor Pro Tem and Council Member Husserl. So if I understand it correctly, even if we have 100% of our energy needs met by wind, solar, and landfill gas, if the market price is such that we can operate the gas turbines at a profit, we will be required to operate those gas turbines. Correct. So conceivably, the city of Denton would be 100% green, renewable, but we're still churning out all of our VOCs and everything so that we can produce for the market. Is that right? Correct. OK. I have another quick question. So going back to the Brattle report, there was a low gas scenario in there. How has current pricing been affected or affected this particular dynamic, current gas pricing? My recollection is the gas price has stayed about the level of where it was as far as the forwards going forward, that they hadn't increased significantly. Jim, I mean, is that-- I mean, it stayed pretty close to where it was before in the Brattle report. OK. Councilmember Haslund. Can you help me understand the definition producing? So when we're talking about solar, if the sun's out, it's producing always, or is there some caveat that would interrupt that? I just want to understand. Because I'm assuming they placed the turbines, those for arms are optimal positions, and I know they turn. But I just want to understand that what interrupts the production, if you will, in those two-- for those two segments. Well, as you already observed, night and day. And so on this graph, this orange hump right here, this line right here, is solar production. It comes up, when the sun comes up, ramps up. Most of the day, as the sun sets, production drops down. The only thing that spikes in this is if you had cloud cover. So if you had a large cloud cover come over, it could reduce that and impact that and spike that. And so those are the kind of spikes we're talking about that, in the future, battery technology could help with. This is an average over summer. This is June through September. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. But again, we can have all the battery technology in the world and have everything at 100% renewable. But I just want to emphasize, the turbines are still going to be going, if the market demands it. If the market demands it. OK. So it's like kind of two different situations. We have what we have on paper, which could be 80% or 90% renewable for our own needs. But the reality is that the engines will be going. Somewhere, even if we didn't have the engines, there would be generation turning somewhere to back that up for when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine. Yes. It just might not be in Denton. We've chosen to mitigate that risk. Instead of going to the market, we've chosen to mitigate that risk with our own engines. OK. Also, just going back to the low gas scenario, we actually are in the low gas scenario. So maybe if I could get an informal staff report about plans to address the market falling out of the gas prices. Because we're actually quite a bit lower than what was anticipated. So I'd like-- I understand there's a smoothing effect that happens. But I think we're in a different market than what was presented in the report. So I'd like an informal staff report. Thanks. Yes. And part of what you're seeing is engines running less. Part of that would be because lower gas. Let me ask you just a quick question. On Mayor Pro Tem's question follow up. So her question was, if we meet all our needs, all the winds blowing, all the sunshine, and we don't have a need, quote unquote, for backup, we as a city, our load doesn't require that. I think your question was, you had a shall in there, I thought. In other words, do they have to be? Are they forced to be? And so if they're running, if the market prices are greater , let's say to run the engines, I don't even know what it is. Let's say it's $20 a megawatt hour. And the market's at $50 a megawatt hour. But we've got all of our needs met. We don't need backup. You're saying that the decision is made by somebody-- somebody makes the decision-- to turn those on to reap a financial benefit to the deck or to the city. As far as we're-- I won't say-- I'm going to call it profit. I don't know what else to call it. In other words, we're selling energy to the market because we can sell it-- we can produce it cheaper than what it's being produced for. So we're selling it for more than what it's costing us to make it. And there's that delta. Where does that-- first of all, is that a requirement? Does it have to be that way? I mean, I thought your question said shall or it will be. But is that a decision that somebody at the EMO makes? Is it a decision you make? Is it a decision somebody says, hey, we've got our needs met. But by golly, we'd make $100 a megawatt hour if we turn these things on for DME and the city. Let's turn them on. So as we sign up to be a member of RCOT and to be part of the grid and reap the benefits from having the backup of the grid that provides us physical energy, whether our resources are running or not, right? Physically, they're going to make sure the lights don't go out anywhere in Texas. RCOT is as an entity. Market-wise, they manage a market that says, I'm going to manage and make sure you have physical energy. But as far as the financial stability for you, you're going to pay whatever-- if you didn't provide that resource or you didn't contract that resource, you're going to pay whatever the market price is. And so we have to, as part of our being part of RCOT, we have to submit a plan for here's our availability of our generating source. And here's our strike price. RCOT, every 15 minutes, every five minutes, is looking through that stacking order and saying, here's the most economical resources to meet load in this five-minute interval. And so when our units hit that load, hit that point, we're going to get struck and run. RCOT's-- would you say RCOT's requiring that? I mean, it's part of the-- The agreement. --the agreement with RCOT. So our influence on that is we can't influence to a point where our strike price is in there. And they can't-- we don't run it when it's not economical. Of course. But they also have a independent market monitor to ensure that other entities aren't purposely withholding generation back just to get a higher strike price later in the day. And so your pricing and your actions, what you take, are monitored to make sure that it's ethical. So that delta above what it's costing us produce and what we're selling it for, that just flows into the DME budget. And if this is-- I'm going to try to speak in general terms, not anything that might be proprietary or anything like that. So it flows into the DME budget. So technically, depending on the success of that, I mean, it could either harm us if we're not being prudent with it, or it could help keep rates lower, even lower rates. You said this wouldn't have an impact on rates, but I think what you meant was it's not going to have an impact moving up. My understanding is this has an impact-- not what we're talking about the difference in the profit, but just the renewable program in general has the opportunity to lower rates. I mean, the impact is they could be lower. So that delta of what we can produce it, what we sell it for, that difference, it's more. That goes into just the budget as far as planning. This is how much revenue we've got. And if you do well, then it helps keep either costs down or you reduce costs. Correct. I mean, it's reflected in our ERCOT settlement statement, which we settle every day. OK. All right. I forgot a lot of that, so I preached it as a refresher course. That's what this is for. Yes, Council Member Reed. I have a couple of questions on that. So you said the ERCOT plan. Have we, counsel, do we see that plan? Is that something that we're a part of? So ERCOT has guidelines. I am on the ERCOT board. But ERCOT has guidelines of how they follow and how they dispatch generation resources. 550 units in ERCOT. And I want to say 70,000 miles of transmission line. And so they're monitoring dispatch net to meet load requirements in a reliable manner every day. So can this council, since that generation is in our city, can we set an ordinance or resolution and send it to ERCOT that we would like not to turn our gas plants on if our energy needs are being met by the 100% renewable? I mean, is that-- I don't think so. Or no, we don't have that choice? No, not when you sign up as far as being a member in ERCOT. You're putting your units in to meet the whole load of Texas. So basically, the gas plants are backup to ERCOT, not a backup to our city. Physically, yes. Financially, no. They're our backup because it protects us from financial impacts of the market price is striking higher, which I have a slide on that. And a couple of slides. Thank you. The way you say, when we decided to sign up to be part of ERCOT, is there really a choice? I'm not sure when that was. That was in the '60s, '70s, somewhere in there, that ERCOT was formed. And so it's really not economical. Like I've given you, for instance, I talked about the Guam Power Authority being its own grid, because it's an island. So it can't have interconnecting anywhere else. It's about the same size number of customers. Its rates are twice as the rates here, because they're isolated. And so just from a fiscal reliability standpoint and an economic standpoint, you really can't afford not to have that kind of grid back up. So you're saying that there actually would be a choice of a city or a utility disconnecting from the grid and just saying, we're going to be on our own. We'll sink or swim. Correct. I mean, that's essentially what ERCOT's done. Recognize that ERCOT's a grid within Texas, and it's very unique. There's an eastern interconnection grid that's everything east of the Rocky Mountains. There's a western interconnected grid that's essentially everything west of the Rocky Mountains. ERCOT's the only grid that's independent within its own state. And so we're, in effect, an island system just within Texas from the rest of the federal market. Do you know of or if you do a little follow up, if there are any municipal utility systems in the lower 48 states or independent electrical generation systems that are not part of their particular grid? Not that one. I mean, the only ones I know of would be island systems. Puerto Rico, Guam, St. Thomas, I mean, those are island systems. As far as anything that can air connect, they do air connect because the economics and the reliability. All right. Thank you. OK. So when I talk about the original, the blue line here is the original plan to be 70%, well, we knew coming in we were going to be above 70%. But that as you sign up for those contracts and you open up for business in 2019, with the contracts, our load grows. And the anticipation was that as load grew to a certain point, we would add solar contracts and ratchet back up. And that's the way we would continue to plan and always be above 70%. What we're saying now with the pricing we're seeing now, we'll open up at 88%. We'll fall down as far as percentage over the next four to five years until we get to a point where we add another solar contract and go back up. But we would always be able to be above 80% according to what we see in today's prices. Going back to air cot, what is the small fish rule? Can you explain that a little bit? Small fish-- what's it called? Swim free. So I don't recall off the top of my head. I remember the phrase being used. There is a small fish rule, but I'd have to look it up and see what it is. It has to do more with the market and with the independent market monitoring the market. So this is a busy graph. Let me start with just-- let's focus on one color at a time here. First color is the red line. The red line is our load. This is a typical average profile of a summer load, just like we're having today. Starts out mild in the morning. You advance to the hours of the day. And you get to late afternoon. You reach a peak. The sun starts going down. Factory starts shutting off. The load ramps back down. Rinse and repeat. This is the same for summer load. As I mentioned before, the orange line's the solar power that we're talking about obtaining. The blue line here is the wind power. And that's the only knock against wind power is it doesn't show up at the peak loads of the day when I need it the most. And the green line here is the addition of both the wind and the solar. And so we end up with these hours where I have more renewable energy than my load, excess energy to sell into the market. I'll still have some hours where I'll need to either buy from the market or use the engines to back up our load financially. Again, we end up with during the peak hours of the day, we'll have excess to sell. And then we'll come back to another time where I'm buying from the market or utilizing the engines to meet our resource requirements. That's a summer pattern. This is January through April. So here's a winter pattern. Again, focus first on the red. Wintertime loads in Texas are often called a camelback, a double hump. Get up in the morning, everybody gets up, gets ready, goes to work, loads slacks down during the day as the sun rises. Then everybody goes home in the afternoon, it goes back up, comes back down. Again, solar comes up, the wind blows, the green line is a combination of what's available to us from renewable sources. We'll have tremendous hours of excess energy that we'll be selling back into the market. And so I will have bought that energy at a contract price and will be subject to whatever the market is as far as how much I sell it back into the market for. And that's the risk. The challenge of going for more renewables isn't just a challenge of what's economical as far as the price. It's a challenge of how do I manage that risk of that energy that I'm buying at a contract price, let's say $25 a megawatt hour, and at times like this, during the winter months, shoulder months, that price drives down to $10 to $15 a month. And how much of that loss can I take that's offset by gains by when that energy is needed? And so that's going to be the challenge. But we'll have times again where we're using the engines, we're buying off the market, so in excess, and then using the engines, we're buying off the market. Just just looking at that one day at a time. This is May profile for ERCOT. Here's what they projected load to be. The dotted line is what they projected the wind production to be. The blue line is what actually showed up. And so there are days when it's under. There's days when it's over. And so the wind has become a little bit harder to predict in the solar. It makes it a little more challenging. What's the scale on that? Is that-- you add three zeros to that to get to that time of the day, that's $500,000. I'm assuming that-- I thought it was a megawatt hours. So that's megawatts of load for that hour. So ERCOT, this day, had a 50,000 megawatt peak. Worth 350 megawatts of that 50,000. And then the left side of it is-- That's wind production. This is total load. This is wind production for the day. So there were 5,000. The scale down there is sort of-- Yeah. Yes. So again, another busy chart. I'll cut down on these pretty quick. The dotted lines on this chart, this is two days of wind forecast. And this is something our own staff created to keep up with the wind. And wind production, it's a very exciting time, because we see this transition coming. ERCOT's added a renewables desk that is for managing wind and solar. And we're adding staff that is specifically backgrounds, degrees in wind energy. And so we see this as our future. This will be the future of energy production in Texas, is managing wind and solar, and how it works and integrates with power production. So the dotted line here is total wind production. The bars are what actually showed up. The different colors are the different types of wind. The blue is West Texas wind and what was expected, and what actually showed up. The red is coastal wind. Again, the dotted line is what was forecasted. The red line is what showed up. And the yellow, orange lines here are the Panhandle wind. And you see the Panhandle wind actually went to zero on that morning. And so knowing that the morning peak, we needed at that time, that's what makes it difficult to manage. So Phil, is this graph-- is this a statewide forecast? In other words, it's 4,000. So what is the-- so that's the fourth-- it starts at about 3,800 megawatts. That was the forecast of how much was going to be produced that day. As far as how much wind is installed, I believe there's 18,000 megawatts of wind installed. And there's expected over the next three to four years, 10,000 more megawatts to come online. Well, so when we hear that, we hear there's 18,000 megawatts of wind installed. There's 24,000 megawatts of wind coming online. But that doesn't mean you're going to be producing-- there's a factor there. So you're really-- that number is increasing and looks large. But you're really doing it to increase the actual-- because the capacity factor is what? 35%, 40%, or 20% or-- That's why I'm showing these. To talk about you don't get the total megawatts that you're -- so our peak load is 350. Going to be 350 to 375 in the next few years. We're contracting here for a lot more than that, because you don't get all of it that you contract for. That's right. OK. All right, thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Mayor Pro Tem. So if we're doubling or more the wind capacity that's coming online, what does that do to the price for a wind PPA? So the wind PPA is also affected by our production tax credits. Production tax credits are slotted to go away 20% a year, starting this year. And so that's why we struck a deal already for one of our wind contracts, is because we anticipated that the production tax credits are starting to go away. Therefore, we see a leveling off price of the wind contracts. We've seen them drive down, but they haven't continued to drive down like solar has. OK, but we're locked into 20 or 25 years. I don't know what the amount is on our PPAs at a price that could be higher than what the price is in the future, correct? Any contract we do, that's going to be the question is, could it go lower? Right. And that's a risk you take. So I think you have to look at it over a 20-year period. Could there be some years where the price is lower? Yes. Is there more probability that the price could be higher? And I think that's what we've gotten comfortable with, is the probability of prices being higher is greater than the probability of prices being much lower. Even though in the short term, the prices are actually lower? Correct. OK. Yes, Council Member Duff. As we were discussing earlier, my feeling is that as time goes on, we're going to be having a lot more solar available. And the reason for that is it's a semiconductor product. It's just like any other semiconductor product, is you get the higher volume, the price is going to go down . And it looks like to me that one of the important things to balance all of this stuff out is batteries. But that's a tough nut to crack. They're going to be expensive. And we may be 5, 10 years away from really having a good solution there. But I think in the long term, I'm not sure that wind power will go away, but in 25 years it may, simply because it's more economical with the solar. I don't disagree that solar will continue to go down. We think wind is about hit the bottom. But the only hiccup that may happen in solar pricing is when and if they lose their investment tax credit. You could see a bump then when that happens. But at some point in time, that's going to happen. But the cost is still going to go down. I can't see the wind turbines and all of that actually reducing their costs by a tremendous amount. And as those things wear out, it may be 15, 20 years. But I think they'll be replaced with solar. And we're seeing wind technology get more efficient also. The original farm we contracted with was a million and a half megawatt size units. And the units you're installing today right beside them are 2.3 megawatt size units. So similar capital investment. And they're going to get more megawatt hour production out of them. Yeah, but I think the solar will continue to go down where the turbines will not. Correct. So what happens when you have these fluctuations in the market? These are two days in March where prices spiked up to $373. So prices were rocking along at $20 to $30 a megawatt hour. And then you have something happen in the market. Disturbance in the forest, a transmission congestion, units , fossil units limited, cloud cover over a solar farm, which we don't have much solar yet in the aircott, so it wasn't that. Or just a wind lays down for a temporary amount. And so when that happens, you see these price spikes. In 2016, we saw about 176 of these price spikes over $100 a megawatt hour. And the market has a price cap of up to $9,000 a megawatt hour. And so that's the risk that we need protection from the financial risk while we see the engines being there to help provide a cover for that financial risk. Council Member Briggs. You kind of answered my question. I was noticing the date was March 2016. And I was curious about this specific day and how frequently it is that dramatic, or if it was just this one day you showed to make your point. Right, to make a point. And it is to make the point. But there was 176 of these excursions that happened in 2016. I had them go back and take a look. How many times was it over $100 a megawatt hour? And there's many more than that. There were over, say, $50 a megawatt hour. And so you're saying that in that time, that is when we would need to turn on our engines and create our own generation? Yes. Either turn on the engines for ourselves or turn on the engines to sell into the market and profit from it and help decrease the cost for our ratepayers. Just for my own amusement and amazement, where there is no blue graph on that chart, where it's close to zero-- It's just too small to monitor. So it's probably 10 or 15 or-- Yeah, that was in the early morning hours. And so it could have been 10. It could have been negative 5. And so it gets down to where-- to show this in a scalable graph, it shows $795 compared to the regular market. It just disappeared. So what is the minus 147.73? What's the significance of that? So that shows how radical the market can move. And evidently, I would be willing to bet that that was a transmission congestion issue. And they were sending-- ERCOT sends a signal to generators that says, I don't want you to generate. So it's going to cost you to generate. And so the negative 147-- that's a negative 147 saying it will cost you $147 a megawatt hour to put it on the grid at that node, at that spot. And then quickly, it changes around to where all of a sudden, oh, I need to power at that node. And it's switched from turned around to-- that's the value of these engines being at zero and being able to wrap up in five minutes to capture that. And so is that measured in 15 minute-- because those are 1 to 24 is an hour. And so it's every 15 minutes is when they're setting a price or when-- is that right? Yes. Yes. You said node a couple of times. So which node is this? This is north zone. North zone. This is a hub. This is a collection of nodes. So this is in the north zone. Where would you buy power from? OK, so that fluctuation is within the zone that we would buy from. Yes. North. So getting away from all the things of our PPAs and solar and wind power contracts and didn't need to send around all those things, what else are we doing? Well, what else we're doing is looking at community solar. We've been looking at community solar for years. We've been looking at a number of community solar programs and what works best. And we've been kind of struck by the same issue of why we haven't come forward with a solar contract yet. As we look at community solar programs, the price keeps going down. And so we're really fortunate that we haven't pulled the trigger on one of these programs yet. But still, we need to pull the trigger at some point to make this available to citizens. There isn't a ban for it for people who are renting or don't own their space and or don't have a house that's suitable for a solar project that there be a community solar project that they can buy into. And so we do plan to do a request for proposal from entities to develop a community solar program this year and bring that back to the council. That's my [INAUDIBLE] Given the fluctuation or the downward trend in the cost for solar, do you anticipate that our PPAs might be for a shorter length of time for solar than our PPAs for wind? Possibly. I mean, I think that's what we're going to find in RFPs is see what kind of pricing we get. The shorter period you time, the price may go up. And so you may-- You just have to look at it both ways. You just have to look at it and see what kind of tenure they put on there and see what we get. There are some people that are wanting to do a combination package. I want to say, you want some more wind. Some people have both of those capabilities in their portfolio. And we want to make a combo offer of wind and solar. And so that's why we want to issue RFPs coming out this week. Thanks. Council Member Duff. Is it possible, if you're buying the solar long term, to work out a pricing to where when the market is coming down, you can have it tied to something so that it-- you see what I mean? Yes. I mean, it's all a matter of risk. OK. So if we take on the risk, the price risk, then we get some benefit from it. Or we're taking a risk. Yeah. We're asking somebody else to take that risk. They're going to reflect that in their pricing. But we can look and see. Yeah. Yeah. It seems to me that it would be possible to do something long term there, where at least you're protecting yourself. So if the prices go way down, what you're paying should go down some, too. However you work that out. Yeah. OK. So the other project that's on our books or that we've been talking to is storage research and development. We've been talking to University of North Texas, University of Dallas, University of Texas of Dallas, University of Texas of Arlington. All these people are very excited about projects. We've been talking to Sandia Labs as far as doing research and us furnishing the laboratory, the place for them to do their research, furnish the land, furnish the interconnections. But we haven't been willing to fund their projects. We've been saying, go get your grant. We'll be glad to participate with you getting a grant. So far, Austin and San Antonio are much larger entities. They've been more successful in getting these grants. But we're not giving up. Certainly, it means we keep knocking at the door to work with these other entities to get some kind of grant, get some kind of research, and furnish our site as a site to do that research and development on. The other part of our program is rooftop solar. Rooftop solar hit a new platform this year. We went over 100 systems installed. We furnished a million two rebates in 2009. And I've got a whole slide here talking about rebates on the next slide. Demand response. Demand response, as I talked about, 60% of our sales is commercial industrial customers. And so that has a great promise to us of being able to reduce how many megawatt hours we'd have to purchase in peak hours if we could get people to participate in demand response programs. We fund for those commercial customers engineering audits up to 50% of their engineering audits for them to look at their factories, to look at their manufacturing facilities. Most of those come back with lighting retrofits, variable speed drives, all those standard things you do in an energy efficiency program. And we furnish a standard offer process to furnish them rebates just like we would for residential to do those same reductions. Energy efficiency. As the newspaper has quoted me before, as far as the cleanest megawatt hour is the one I never have to buy, never have to produce. I'm looking forward to getting a smile from you, Peggy. But that is the cleanest one. And so we do free in-home audits. We do the green sense rebates. And those rebates have provided a number of people ways to update their houses, to add the caulking, the insulation, to do all those things that have been written about you can do to lower your electric bill. We want to see our customers use electricity in the most effective, efficient manner. We have the green sense renewable rate that's about the 468 accounts enrolled. Talking about rebates and where we stand for rebates, these are other cities and other investor-owned utilities. And their rebate programs were tied for third across the state. American Electric Power, which is the largest investor-owned electric utility in the United States. And they have a North Texas, which used to be the West Texas utilities out of Abilene. And Central, which is the old Central Power and Light, out of Corpus Christi. Those two sections of both those companies they bought. And they have like rebate programs in those areas in that part of Texas. Other than that, we're tied for third behind those. We're first when we talk about with a battery system. I have put it out there to see if anybody would rebuke me on this. I haven't gotten any contacts from anybody. As far as I know, we are the only utility that provides a rebate for battery storage systems. And so when you put in a solar system tied to a battery storage system, and you go in time of use rate, that puts you in the business of managing your electric use to the point that's a benefit for you as a homeowner, and DME, and the rest of the customers as far as managing your peak load. Could you talk a little bit about if someone has a solar system, and they are creating more energy, and it's going back onto the grid within DME, how do they get credit for that? So we have a net metering program, and we pay people that push power back onto the grid, we pay them our avoided cost. We think that's fair to-- as far as what the cost of energy that we're avoiding buying, because they're pushing that energy back on the grid. So avoided cost, that means what you wouldn't have to pay on the market? Yes. So they get market rate? They get our ECA rate, or energy charge adjustment, which is over time what we're paying for energy. And so they get the equivalent of that. So that seems to be fair for both sides of the equation. Fair for the people who push the power back on the system, and fair for the other customers who don't have a system. They shouldn't pay more. We think they want to pay more than market rates for that power to come back on the system. So is there a chart or a way that we can see, since we have so many systems in place now, how much energy has gone back in and what amount we have paid to them? We will look-- Something we can get-- Some kind of informal staff report that we can bring any information back to you. I'm just curious. Thank you. Councilmember Hudson. That's a good question. Thank you, Mayor. Phil, sorry. It hit me like, can we go back to the bar graphs, the spice ? Or you don't even have to go back to it. If you can explain-- is that-- You're talking about the spice? Yes, sir. The one-- Sorry. Here, yes. 30 days in a month. How many days look like this? So 176 days out of the year 2016. 30 days in a month. How many days-- There were-- I don't think here. There were 176 times the price has spiked over $100 megawatt hour in 2016. This same pattern? Not so much the spikes, just a day-- if I take this as a snapshot of a day, and I say, is this the norm? And then to kind of dig in a little deeper to say-- This is in March. So these are shoulder months. So it's cooler months, right? If you looked at that graph today, those prices would be a little bit higher. These are running-- prices are running $20, $25 megawatt hour during most of the hours of the day. If I'm looking at today, where it's hotter and more demand, those prices are running more like $30, $35 megawatt hour. So they're running a little bit more already. And then whenever something happens that's unusual, then it's going to spike up higher. OK. And I'm assuming there's some-- you and your staff have some indicator, some trend, some-- Yes, I have staff that dedicates their life day in, day out , that look at this, analyze it, try to pull all their kind of information they can to predict it. Because what they're trying to predict is, what do we need to protect ourselves from tomorrow? How much power do I need to buy tomorrow? What shape should I buy it in? What price should I pay for it? At what time is the market price that the market's driven up the price higher than what we think the price will really be? Thank you. Councilmember Briggs had a question. Yeah. Councilmember Hesbeth, on that, the time that I have-- so I have 22 hours total in 2016 where the real time prices were greater than $300. And there were 11 hours in 2016 when the real time prices were over $100. That's what I found. Thank you. And 2016 was what I would consider a mild weather year. If you went back to 2011, you would find different. Now, 2011 is now, you know, is excursion on the other side. It's an extreme summer. It's the hottest summer ever. And so there's-- we have to prepare for the worst ever. And so that's what we try to prepare for. So one last note on here as far as the rebates. You'll notice-- and I'm not lobbying for this. I'm just pointing it out. You'll notice a number of cities have stopped offering solar rebates. Why have they done that? Are they not solar friendly anymore? No, they've done it because they've looked at it. And people are putting in solar systems. And we're finding that even when our rebate money runs out, there are people going ahead with their solar installations without rebate. And the whole reason for a rebate program is to incentivize people to take one step further for behavior they wouldn't normally do without the rebate. And so we may need to look at our rebate program as far as spreading out the dollars we have, increasing it, but spreading it out further so that it goes further. Because we're finding that as solar prices continue to drop further and further, that we find people moving forward with their solar plans without the need. It's kind of like when we started doing rebates for air conditioning systems. When we started doing rebates for air conditioning systems, the usual efficiency of an air conditioning system is measured in a SEER rating. It used to be eight. And we used to incentivize 10. Well, then the factory-- the market went to 10. So we used to incentivize 12, 14, 16, 18. And so we dropped our incentivizing for air conditioning systems for those different lower SEER ratings because we didn't do it anymore. The market kept producing that. We may be looking at that same situation happening with solar in the future. So next steps. We continue to follow council direction and keep trying to increase renewables, increase research into battery storage, increase research into integrating solar systems. We have meetings next week with how to integrate possible integrating a solar system research into our existing projects. And so we continue to meet with people to bring those projects back to council as they firm up and become something that's realizable. We anticipate being 88% by 2019. We're going to pursue increasing renewable energy, including community solar, energy storage, demand response. RFP is going out-- I said here this month, found out this warning from our purchasing manager is going out this week. And so we'll return back when we get the results from that RFP to the council. Questions, Council Member? Thank you. I appreciate this. And so just during the RDP talks there, we were talking about Givens Creek. And just in the interest of the citizens, can you give just a small update on that? Because that was kind of included in this whole talk in the previous times. We have a meeting this Friday with some of our other member cities to talk about-- continue to talk about what we do at Givens Creek. We've had an initial response from a buyer for the plant. Those discussions have stalled. In the meantime, we issued another request for proposal for other entities that would be interested in the plant and had some responses. We're meeting-- continue to meet with those different responders to see which ones have a realistic plan and see if anything materializes for many of those possible purchasers. Because I did notice that that wasn't included in any of this presentation. So would that affect our goals if we stayed on with Givens Creek? You know, the plans for Givens Creek, we're looking for how we can maximize the value as we come to the end of that plant's life and see what we can do to maximize the value of that plant site. But at some point, if we don't have a buyer, we'll look at a possibility of decommissioning that plant. Exactly when that would happen would be depending on not only our decision making, but also coordinating with other member cities of what fits in. At one point, we talked about the renewable dentin plan that having the end of life of that plant and beginning of life of our renewable dentin plan, there was either going to be a gap or it was going to overlap. And it wouldn't be like on this day, this didn't start it. So I think that's still going to be the case. I think there's a possibility that there'll be a gap or it'll overlap as far as-- if there's an overlap, we would just be looking at trying to sell that energy into the market. We wouldn't be dependent on it for serving our load, so to speak. Thank you. [INAUDIBLE] Thank you, Mayor. In the beginning, you talked about $176 million budget. How much of that is internal within the city departments? Because I know when the water department presented their budget, it was $1.6 million, and wastewater was $1.2 million. And so obviously, the other utilities affect how much electricity we use as well. Yeah. When I look at the top 10 number of customers, the city of Denton themselves is in that top 10 because of all the water pumping for water and sewer and so on, water park and everything else. And so certainly, the city of Denton is one of the top users in that. So let me understand. Are you asking what percentage of the city is-- Yeah, I mean, I can identify-- 2.8 million that is in those two departments. Do we have an idea of what the overall-- because a lot of times it's-- Yeah, I'd have to-- What we get is not-- I'd have to report back to you as far as what the total city-- Do we work with these other departments to say when you get your water pressure up to a certain point and we're in a high demand period, that we can lower our usage from a city side to keep that peak from jumping up as much? I think we can certainly inquire about that. What we have found with our other large corporations or large entities is they value their production more than they value any discount we could give them for lowering at peak times. We've had one customer go on time of use rate. And so most of them, if times are good, they're going to produce around the clock. But we can look at it and see. Mayor Potein? Phil, did I hear you correctly that there could very well be a time that the gas plants are running and the coal plants are running and we're selling energy from both the coal plant and the gas plant to ERCOT, to the grid? That's a possibility. Not long term. But for some period of time, potentially. And further, if Denton were to not be a part of that agreement, a new buyer could be operating potentially the coal plant as well at the same time that we're operating our gas plant, correct? Correct. So I'm really trying to understand how, from an environmental standpoint, having the coal plant operate and having the gas plants operate creates some type of net positive. So how that creates a net positive is, is ERCOT's load, total ERCOT load, is going to be so much. It's increasing. It's increasing. But on any given day, it's going to be some amount. And that means you're going to have that amount of generation. And so by having an increased number of wind and solar contracts in place that we're taking power off of, somewhere there's a less efficient, more polluting source that is not going to be on in the ERCOT system. There's only going to be-- I mean, the load's only going to be, say, 50,000 megawatts in all of ERCOT. That means you're only going to have 50,000 megawatts of production. By us signing up these contracts, by having these engines that are less polluting, more efficient, there'll be some less efficient unit that won't run. There are units less efficient, even, than our coal and more polluting than our coal plant. So our coal plant would take the place of the most poll uting type of energy production. Correct. OK. We've been told by the city attorney that we're sort of veering off. So if maybe you could address some of those questions in an informal staff report or something, that would be wonderful. Any other questions on this agenda item? Thank you so much, Phil. Appreciate it. Let's take about a five or 10 minute-- we're fixing to go into budget presentations, which is going to be three or four of them. And it could be an hour, or hour and a half or so. Let's just take a real quick break before we sort of leave. Good afternoon. Welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council, Tuesday, June the 20th, 2017. It is 4/15. We're moving on through our work session reports. We're on to agenda item 3C, receive or report and hold discussion, receive departmental presentations in preparation for the FY 2017 '18 proposed budget. Thank you, Mayor. Chuck Springer, director of finance, before we get to our first presentation. I wanted to highlight that we've included in the packet kind of some budget responses. We normally, during the budget process, tried to every week come back with responses from the prior week. So we've included in your packet a memorandum that had some questions from June 5th and 6th. So I wanted to give the council an opportunity to ask any questions regarding that before we get started with the presentations and to let them know we will be doing that throughout the budget process. Any questions from council on those presented questions? And of course, if we have them coming up through the presentation, we'll go back to them as well. Any questions at least at this point? All right. Thank you, Chuck. Thank you. Oh, first presentation. OK. Before you get started, I wanted to welcome you to your first council meeting. Jennifer Becker, I believe. Yes. New director of libraries. So welcome aboard. Look forward to your presentation. Boy, you're coming right in. Just hitting the ground running. Go in the deep end. Here, I forgot. Who was assigned to do the hazing today? Maybe you could skip that. Well, thank you so much for having us. My name is Jennifer Becker. I'm the director of libraries at the Denton Public Library here. And I'd also like to introduce our leadership team with the library. Kimberly Wells, manager of the Emily Fowler Central Library . Jennifer Reeves, manager of technical services within the library. And then Stacey Sizemore, who's the manager at South Branch Library. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So speaking of staff, this is a little overview of our FTEs by functional area of the library. We have four areas. We've got each of the three branches-- North Branch, South Branch, and Emily Fowler Central Library, as well as administration. And within administration, we've got technical services. Technical services is actually housed at North Branch because it is the largest building. And when I talk about technical services, technical services is the department that takes care of all of our selecting, cataloging, processing, and acquisitions. So that's what they handle for us. This is our current org chart. Under the director, we've got an administrative assistant, marketing assistant, a technology librarian who liaisons with the city technology department and helps us with some of our library-specific software, technical services, and then the three branches. So some of our accomplishments and goals. Our accomplishments for the last year, we created a strategic plan that began in 2017. It's going to take us through 2020. We're calling it our 2020 strategic plan. We've established a mentor program for library employees. We heard demand from library staff members who were interested in careers in libraries. And they were looking for ways to learn more about that career, or if they were already in the master's program to get their degree, they were interested in career advice from librarians. And so we have 10 pairs already who have met. It's a year-long program. They meet once a month and talk about career goals, managing the work-life balance, ways to get into a library and the different types of libraries. We've also increased security and safety at all three library locations. We added security cameras to all three branches last year. We've had staff training for all staff members with MHMR about working with people who may have some mental illness or stability issues, as well as the police department has come in and talked to us about open carry and dealing with a active shooter situation. So we've all had safety trainings. We also built the quiet room at the South branch. So now all three branches have an area where you can play with your family and enjoy family time. And also, you could come into an area that's more secluded and quiet for that individual study or business that you needed to take care of. Our goals for the next fiscal year are to do a lean review of our statistic gathering process. We gather all sorts of statistics, as you can imagine. And we're looking at reviewing to see which of those are relevant to us, what do we need to gather. And then also, we want to make sure we aren't duplicating effort. We're looking for ways to streamline that process. We're working on a way to develop an online card application. We have a lot of inquiries about people who want to use our resources. And they want to use it right away. And sometimes, when you want to use it, you can't quite jump in the car and get your card and then go back home and start using things. So we're looking to develop an opportunity for that. We're looking to create an online option for library giving, because if there's one thing we want, is we want to make it easy for people to give us money. So we are moving forward with that. And we are also interested in developing Spanish language instruction for staff members. And everything from-- we have staff members who are a little bit fluent, but still uncomfortable. So maybe getting them more comfortable with speaking Spanish. Or those of us who don't speak really any Spanish, that high school and college Spanish has disappeared, to get enough where we can help our customers as they come in, developing cheat sheets that we can assist them with getting cards at the reference desk, those kinds of things. So our performance measures that we're tracking this year are on the screen here. Three of them are the same. There are some of our go-to statistics, circulation of items, database accesses, e-branch circulation. And then this year, we added another one to check how we're doing with our outreach. Of course, we can always measure how many times do we go out into the community, and how many people do we see. But what is the impact of that? So we developed a survey to try to track that information. And we've given the survey twice already. It's a once a quarter survey. And our target was that 25% of people who we interacted with at these community festivals, visiting daycares, visiting schools, wherever we go, report that interacting with staff encourages them to visit the library, or maybe reminded them to come and visit the library. And we were seeing 36% in our first quarter. And actually, we already have our second quarter results. And 42% have seen that-- are saying that outreach, library outreach, is really impacting their lives. Next year, we're looking to add a new one to try to figure out how we can serve our Spanish language customers better in terms of programming, collection formats, what are their needs, and how can we address those . So we're always looking for ways to save money at the library. And some of the things we've done in the last year are we renegotiated some database costs. We talked to all of our vendors. And traditionally, database costs go up about 5% each year. And we contacted those vendors and said, what can you do for us? We may have to pull out because these costs are going up. And we were able to reduce some costs on two existing databases and then switch to another database on another one. The Texas State Library provides tech share databases that we access for a 90% discount. It's about 90%. And they added a language learning product in there called Pronunciator. So we replaced Mango Languages with Pronunciator since we could get that for that deep discount. We also are looking to stay informed about industry improvements. We had staff members who attended a conference and discovered a new tool called BiblioCommons, which just went live at the beginning of the month. So if you haven't visited the library website yet, I encourage you to take a look at it. It is a wonderful discovery tool. We had a previous discovery tool, and it was less functional and more expensive. So not only did we increase functionality, design, look, ease of usability, but we saved $7,000, which is a pretty good deal. We also are continually reviewing our facility needs. At the end of every fiscal year after Summer Reading Club has died down, we take a look at our surroundings and see what we can do to clean up and reorganize to make more efficient use of our space. We cleaned out the library storage units, and we're able to consolidate those from two units into one . And then, of course, we leverage our donations. I mentioned we love to ask for money. And when we ask for money, we do try to use that in a responsible way. We built the Quiet Room at the South branch this year with donation funds, purchased iPad replacements, 17 new iPads in all three branches. That includes four iPads for South branch, four iPads for Emily Fowler Central Library, replacing four of the iPads at North branch, and adding an additional two for a new elementary area, and then three staff iPads. Question? So I keep seeing Quiet Room. Are you saying that we don't have to be quiet in the library anymore unless we're in this room? We always ask that people are respectful of others. However, there are times, especially after story time, when you have young families, when things do get a little bit more boisterous than that intense studying would allow. So we like to offer an opportunity for families, as well as for that quiet study. Well, that's great. Thank you. So some of our process improvements that we've instituted this last year, we consolidated and streamlined our donation of physical materials process. We receive a lot of materials from the community. And we streamlined that, and we estimate that we saved over 170 hours of staff labor. And we're also making better use of our volunteers to deal with that also. We standardized our weeding processes. Library shelves only hold so many books, and none of those books on Pluto is the planet are valid anymore. So sometimes things do have to go out, and we streamlined that. We've created a trained inventory team that covers each location once a year. And the inventory is particularly important for libraries. That means that whenever you are looking up a book, that means the database that you're looking at up in is accurate, because there's nothing more frustrating than saying, oh, well, that's that Emily Fowler driving over, and then, no, it's not on the shelf. We've also standardized our volunteer process and streamlined that. We have a committee that works with our volunteers, gets them all trained the same way so that our volunteers could work at any branch, whichever is most convenient for them. And they can enjoy their work, and we encourage them to come back. And then we've reworked our phone system. We've randomized the incoming phone calls. They were all coming to one branch, which was a really heavy workload for that one branch. We were able to distribute that more equally across the branches, utilize voicemail, and slash the 5 million buttons that you have to press to get to a real person. Coming soon, we will be working on a new lean project for our statistics gathering that I touched base on a little bit a minute ago. Really looking forward to that. I can't tell you how much we're looking forward to that. And then our staff scheduling, we are creating a new schedule that will see the Emily Fowler Central Library close on Sundays to redistribute that staff to the other branches. And the reason for that is it's going to provide safer buildings, better service for our customers as we're redistributing the staff members. And currently, some staff members end up working a seven-day work week with our weekend rotations. And this will help reduce that. Yes, I'm sorry. On staffing, can you explain? Because there are some times you'll go into a library and you'll see a familiar face for a while, and then you'll go into another library and that face has transferred. Is there a rotating staff at libraries? And is it in a group? And do all those people transfer at the same time? Or is it one person will go to this library? It's kind of on a case-by-case-- transferring between branches. It's on a case-by-case basis. So sometimes maybe one staff member expresses a wish to switch. And we'll work it out with other staff members to see who wants to flip-flop. Or maybe we have a new staff member who's coming in and they would do better in another branch. And so we may move a more experienced staff member elsewhere. So it kind of depends on the situation. Oh, OK. It's not a standardized set. OK, thanks. And then these are expenditure budget highlights. Most of the increase in our '17-'18 budget is related, of course, to staffing costs. Those go up each year. We did receive a decrease in the cost of service. That's our transfers. And that has to do with how technology services within the city allocates their charges. We are one of the top users for the city's TS department with all of the computers within the library. Any questions or comments? Any questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. Very good presentation. I appreciate that. Thank you. [SIDE CONVERSATION] Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the council, city manager , and staff here before you to present the Department of Development Services budget. I have our community development team. I have Barbara, Danielle, Lisa, and I have Emily with our building inspection division. She is our interim building official. I have Allison, our assistant director of business development. And I'm sure everybody else is watching keenly in their offices. I'm sure they are. I wanted to talk a little bit about development services as it relates to the FTEs and the functions. We've got the planning division, the building inspection division, our gas wall inspection division, community development, newly acquired. And we're very happy about that. Thank you. And they've joined our team, too, to facilitate the planning efforts with our neighborhoods. And this slide provides a good synopsis of where we've started from 2014 onwards and where we are and what our baseline is for 2017-18. And as you can see, there has been a fluctuation as it relates to the FTEs. However, regardless, you will see a reduction in the FTEs. And that's because of some of the business modeling we've done, the assessments we've done related to functions , and where the right people fit as it relates to discipline. So as of 2016-17, we're at 62 total positions. And you can see that the planning division, we actually reduced two FTEs and transferred in one FTE. We did adopt two zoning enforcement offices from our community improvement service. And that was a result of increasing our efficiency model. Because we've done some modeling, we've discerned that through the site plan approval process , we should have individuals who should be able to make sure that the site plan that is on paper and what goes vertical on the ground is consistent with what we've approved. So they're going to facilitate that exercise, as well as look at our signage on private property and discern if there are any zoning violations. A synopsis of the organizational structure, some of it is by function, as you can see here. And of course, it is also related to the discipline. We have under the director of development services, the interim building official, Emily Loisel, we have our assistant director of business services. As it relates to the building inspection division, we're all aware that we've got our consumer health, our plan review, our zoning inspections, and what have you, and our building plan review functions that stem out of there. We have created the assistant director of business services . That function has been created to manage and monitor the development assistance center. And I'll dive into that a little bit as we talk about accomplishments and future goals. Gaswell inspections, the function of the inspections arm, and administrative services. We have a director of planning who will then manage long-range current planning and neighborhood planning. And then, of course, we have the community development administrator, which is Barbara. If we are speaking towards some of the goals and accomplishments that we've achieved, I would like to impress, and we're very excited about this, we spent a lot of time on our review process, on the development review process. We conducted mapping exercises. And through that, we had the opportunity to adopt standardization of this review process. One of the key elements that was missing or lacking in the development review process was the site plan review phase. So what we've done is we've initiated that. We've created that so that it actually enables efficient review of your building permit set once your site plan is reviewed. That is reviewed against zoning and what have you, and then you've got your building permit set, which is reviewed against your codes. We've also kicked off, initiated the rewrite to the Denton Development Code. I believe almost all of you, with the exception of two perhaps, maybe three I think now, were not present for the presentation by Clarion and Associates, where they kicked off the Denton Development Code update. We anticipate and are quite confident that we will achieve the completed version by 2018, early 2018. We talked at length about the notification process, both with PNZ and, of course, yourselves. We've enhanced the notification procedure to improve public access to information, as well as notification parameters and on-site posting. We've completed an assessment of the building inspection division business model, and that was conducted by our outside consultant, SafeBuild. Through that, they came up with several recommendations, which we can actually implement and have started implementing in-house. One of those recommendations was to create a more centralized service center, and we've created what we call our Development Assistance Center to facilitate same-day plan review, expedited review of permits, and really a concierge service for our developers so we can walk them through the process, depending on the maturity level of their knowledge of the process here. And all this is to create an enhanced customer service program to make sure that we can actually discern the processes for our clientele. We've adopted the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code. This was effective in November of 2016. We received an exceptional ISO rating for commercial and residential construction as it relates to our community development. I'm sorry, am I talking too fast? No, no, no, no. We've got a question. Council Member Hussbett, sorry. So you mentioned the same-day service. Can you give us someone that has gone through that process and what kind of feedback you've received from that? Sure. So what we've done is we've established the parameters and the criteria for that. So our goal is-- and we're going to start implementing that , too-- we have to first train our team and to make sure that -- so when we're talking about fence permits, for example, if they come in, they will be turned around that same day with a cutoff time of 12 noon, for example. So what we've done is we've created the applications. We're revising the applications to make sure that that's feasible. With our development assistance center, we're also going to have a plans examiner or plan reviewer who will sit at the front desk, so to speak, to facilitate the intake and then review of. Thank you. And if I may? Good job, folks. And I guess in that implementation and that training, kind of as that's going, I would request maybe a one-pager or something, two-sided, that I can then reference to. If questions were to come up, that would keep me from-- maybe just a cheat sheet of some sort that I could use and keep with me. So as questions come about, I can kind of disseminate information without having to ask or-- and I'd love to go through it, maybe, once it's all set up, just kind of to get a day in the life. Actually, we'd love to give you a tour. What we're doing is we've created a comment library as well, which will then provide answers to those frequently asked questions. So I will provide that synopsis for you. Superb. As it relates to our community development department, we've assisted 18 low and moderate income households with minor home repairs, rehabs, reconstruction, and also down payment assistance. We funded 20 social service agencies with our CDBG funding and our general funds. We've assisted over 7,000 individuals, and that's part of our KPIs, or our key performance indicators. We've coordinated with the Denton County Homeless Coalition and partnered with agencies to carry out point-in-time count to provide a snapshot of our homeless community in Denton. And we've also provided support for the homeless coordinator that is jointly funded with United Way. What are our goals for next fiscal year? Priority is to implement our new permitting software to improve the internal workflow and provide a more user-friendly experience, and when I speak to this, I'm speaking of e-Track-It, Track-It, and Project Docs. We have started evaluating that. We're in the process of reviewing and visiting an RFP for that. So we anticipate that we will have resolution and implementation for next fiscal year. Got a question? Yes, go ahead. On that implementation of the new permitting software, will that also help on the same-day permits in the number of areas that we may be able to do same-day permits? Absolutely. Our goal with the same-day permits are those easy permits, fence permits, accessory buildings, carports, detached structures. To be able to facilitate those, those will continue to be paper. The other elements that we're looking at when we talk about , we've got two different software. One is used for our permitting function, our inspection function, and the other is used for plan review. We're trying to have a single source solution eventually. This will be an incremental adoption of these tools. Question. Could you maybe send out an informal staff report if it's fairly easy to do? Part of, I think, we're looking at this is because we've had gaps in our process that we thought software would help, but that it hasn't. So if you could just give us a snapshot of what we're going to be able to do with some of the new software that we're not doing now. And I gave you an example of, remember, we had that report that I asked about of application. For each job that's in the system, to get a time frame. And you told me it had to be done manually. So if we could just get an idea of how is it going to help us to do things that we're not doing right now, technology-wise, that might help with some of the personnel issues as far as we're not filling in gaps in software with personnel. And that if we're using personnel, to do the things that technology can't do. Superb. We can get that to you. Thank you, Mayor. Along those lines with technology, we've talked several times over the years about having a way that citizens who may be affected by development could go to the website and become more familiar with what the stage is, what's coming, what the impact-- so that they could understand what this new development, how it might impact them. Absolutely. Very valid point. And I'm glad. Perhaps I didn't explain that eloquently enough earlier. We do want to enhance our notification process. So not only is that related to sending out notifications to property owners who are within a certain proximity of a proposed zoning change, for example, but also have notification measures on our website saying, this is what's happening, this is what's upcoming. And this is so that they are equally informed of what is going on in and around their community. So we want to use those tools as well. Thank you so much. Because Mayor Wright. Thank you, Mayor. You mentioned previously about the Safe Build report. I know I received a paper copy of that when I came on council. So has there been an actual work session item on that? Or is that scheduled down the road to-- The idea would be to schedule something down the road, both on updates on the building inspections process. We were actually kicking off a formal study tomorrow on the plan review process and identifying those areas in need of the code or process that need to be enhanced. So I would anticipate sometime in the fall to be able to come back with a more comprehensive solution, including the mayor's questions on technology gaps that we're trying to overcome as well. We will have adopted an updated Denton Development Code as well. And we will obviously have very frequent work sessions with our council and PNC and our subcommittees to ensure that everybody is aware, including our public outreach. We hope to complete and adopt our Sector 1 South Neighbor hood Small Area Plan. That is the name we've given it right now. Is that the one we talked about? Is that the one around Fry Street? That is correct, yes, sir. We also will want to complete, adopt, and begin implementation of our historic preservation plan. There has been conversation that has stemmed from the council as it relates to cultural districts, cultural arts districts. And in order to do that, we would have to lay the framework and create a comprehensive historic preservation plan. We also have, since last fiscal budget, allocated $60,000 towards that. And we would probably have to ramp that up. But we will come forward before council with a framework related to that. We will implement comprehensive leadership training for our staff. And this is obviously stemming from our discerning what our level of service is, what do we offer, what do we need to improve, and what does our leadership team need to know in order to train and facilitate. Create an environmental review function. This primarily relates to an urban forestry program, a green team. That's what we're calling it, the green team. And that's to make sure that our landscaping, screening, and tree preservation team is solid. We will continue to identify and implement improvements to the development review process. And I think this is an element that you will see as far as goals and accomplishments in every single budget that we do present to you. The development review process is dynamic. And it's often fluid. So we have to audit it quarterly. And that will be our intention so we can continue to improve upon it. Performance measures. I know there are several there. But what we've done is we've provided every division's performance measures in here. Otherwise, we'd have so many slides. And we were trying to compress the data. Our goal is to have an overall comprehensive percent of applications reviewed within 10 days. So we are going to have a completeness check of applications. We're going to make sure the content of the application is complete and then review within 10 days. We also want to make sure that percent of applications are approved within two review cycles. One of the performance measures is number of people served by public improvements. That's through community development. The number of households served in housing programs. Number of individuals served through city supported programs. Total funding amount from local, state, and federal grants that is going to be leveraged. Number of affordable housing units that are developed. Number of affordable housing units that are maintained. Perform 100% inspection on gas wells biannually. Our ordinance through our fee schedule requires two inspections every year. We want to inspect all our gas well notice of activities. We want to initiate quarterly meetings with our operators. And we also want to initiate quarterly meetings with city departments as it relates to process. We want to initiate community outreach and city education programs as well. What are some of our cost containment strategies from a departmental or global level? One is-- so let's talk a little bit about our efforts. I've summarized some of our departmental efforts. And what we've done is reorganize and eliminate five full time positions as it relates to building inspection, planning, and the overall admin function. So we've eliminated the building official position. This stemmed from a study, the safe built study that we had . We had a business assessment study on this. And we realized that this position was not necessary. We've eliminated one building inspector position, a plans examiner one position. We've eliminated the landscape administrator position because we now have that green team that will be able to do the review for it. And we also have the zoning enforcement arm that will be able to review the landscape plans on site. And we've also eliminated an admin three position and relocated them into our development assistance center. The savings associated with this organization is estimated at $435,000. As part of our assessment and our cost containment strategies-- I have a question. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. It seems like it was just a year or two ago that we were given some data regarding the number of inspections on a daily basis that a building inspector had to do. Correct. And that that was actually creating some issues in terms of-- because of our guarantee of doing inspections within a certain amount of time. They were rushing through those inspections that they tended to be less than fully complete, which meant that when they came back for the second inspection that they found things that they didn't see the first time simply because we were understaffed. So what have we done? What are we doing? Are we having fewer inspections? Have we figured out some more efficient ways for our inspectors to do their job so that they can be complete and thorough? Because what nobody likes is an inspector to come and give a list to a developer or a builder. And once that list is all completed, then when they come back to inspect that, they get yet another list. So a couple of things to answer your question. What we did was we conducted an assessment of the as-is date, of the as-is date of our building inspection function. What inspections do we do? What re-inspections are we doing? A lot of that was manual research, too. And we also invited SafeBuilt to do their own internal audit of the inspections function. And through that, it was determined that we can streamline a number of our inspections. We can streamline our pre-expires, for example. As well as, in terms of standardizing processes and inspections, was to create a comment library that would ensure that we didn't have different comments when you had a different inspector go and look at a re-ins pection, for example. So we've started addressing all those issues and realized through that that we really don't-- it wasn't an FTE issue. It potentially could be a technology issue on how you assess what it is you were doing and how much of it you were doing. Councilmember Gregory, did you have a follow-up? So if I'm understanding you correctly, Mrs. Molodad, what you're saying is that the problem of the repeat inspections wasn't a matter of staffing. It was a matter of what staff was doing with the time that they had out there and the processes that you had in place. Am I understanding that correctly? I would tend to agree with your statement. It's a matter of training. It's a matter of, if we're looking at plumbing code, are we all looking at the main things collectively? Are we meeting as an inspection team and regrouping and discerning? What are our common issues and how do we address those? So essentially, a management and oversight issue. If I can summarize. I think that's fair. And I think Councilmember Gregory's point as well, one of the things that Manal and I have been in discussion with is if, in fact, the processes get fixed, we still continue. And we are having issues driven particularly by spikes in demand, that sort of thing. There are ways of bringing in firms to contract those peaks, which we are currently studying right now. We believe that most of this has been more of a process and training issue. That's one thing in the Safe Bill report that came in over and over again was the lack of training and how that creates inefficiencies. So I think she's addressing that at this point. And again, the companion to this is the development review process, which also impacts the efficiency of the building inspectors as well. So they know what they're looking for and what they're enforcing. No. If I may. Sure. I'm glad to hear that we're talking about efficiencies. But again, effectiveness. Right. It absolutely is important. And I'm wondering if we have any systems in place where from time to time after an inspector does an inspection, there is a follow-up inspector that does the exact same inspection to determine if there is a level of reliability that all of our inspectors are on the mark in finding the things that need to be found. Council President Greger, absolutely. What we do is we have inspector supervisors who will then go and follow up and do audits and check to see that the inspection comments were indeed accurate. And they do that for re-inspections to make sure that there is consistency in the information that's issued. And I would imagine that that might be performed more on some building inspectors and less on others, depending on their-- Qualifications and training. Qualifications, training, time of service, and things like that. Absolutely. It's just I recall a few years ago when a balcony failed on a fairly new apartment. And it was not eight hours after that happened that questions were being raised as to whether or not the city had done its job properly. So I'm not telling you all anything you don't know. It's just important for us to be assured that there are some checks for reliability and for effectiveness. It's not just about efficiency. It's about effectiveness. Absolutely right. I think we're saying the same thing. And obviously, we're monitoring-- we've had a number of questions about re-inspections and what does that mean. Standardization of training, standardization of skill sets, those types of things become important. But in terms of managing this budget properly, I'm not going to recommend a budget to the city council that relies upon broken processes and poor training. And I think that's exactly what we found, is we've got some deficiencies. You're hitting exactly the issues that we're hitting in terms of are folks being trained exactly the same way? Can you necessarily hand an inspection off from Inspector A to B and have generally the exact same comments? So you're right on in terms of the things that we're looking at. But I disagree with over staffing an apartment because our processes are broken. And I think that we've kind of concluded that was the case. So we've acknowledged it. Menal's got a very specific checklist in place in terms of recommendations that we're following carefully. And I think the other thing that was interesting in this whole process is most of this was driven by the employees in terms of telling us where they needed the training, where the processes were broken. So it wasn't as if someone took an outside look. And I mean, it was a very collaborative process. And I thought very healthy in terms of helping us develop a plan forward. Well, I'm not at all proposing just adding more staff that are being ineffective. I'm all for if we can increase effectiveness, increase efficiencies, and reduce staffing at the same time, and ensure that the health and safety of the citizens, then we're all on the same page. Yeah, I think we are. And I just want to reassure you, we actually were building the exact same checklist on the development review side, which is really what starts frustrating development processes and where all of you get called quite frequently. I know that the inspection is one part, but not being able to get basic plans through our processes in terms of compliance with water engineering standards, that sort of thing. It's a real issue. And it really does-- it is a companion to this in terms of making that whole development process reasonable for our customers. And so that's really how we're attacking it is let's just identify where we can improve and put processes in place and staff around those more efficient and effective processes. I want to talk a little bit about the projects we've completed. Looks like a long list, but it's very rewarding, I think, for our community especially. We've completed a Kaizen, or a process mapping business efficiency. We did that event and implemented recommendations for our development review and our development review engineering committee. We included pre-development meetings. We added more information to those. We have project kickoff meetings now. We have a separate site plan review process or phasing program. We've enhanced the role of the DRC administrator and the case managers to make sure that the handing over the baton to the next level of review or service is well coordinated and that this original case manager is always available. And this is primarily to ensure accountability and add value for our customers or our clients. We've also created a quick strike team to proactively monitor cases and resolve issues that arise. And what we do here is if we discern that there has been an application that has come in for a second review and after looking at those applications, we think that there might be too many issues related to this program. And we might have to bring the applicant in or the client in and talk to them and figure out and understand their milestones and discern where the disconnects are. It will move them along because our goal is to limit the number of third reviews we do. So if we look at a program that is rather sticky, we will work collaboratively with them and start assessing the disconnects associated with that. Yes, Chancellor Gregory. We've heard more than one presentation talk about Kazan events or lean programs. And those are both fairly similar. And they're basically a different form of continuous improvement processes that we do. It's an assessment. It's a process mapping function where you assess your processes. You chart them out and you determine where the disconnects are or where the abortive functions are in that. It's a type of functional audit, isn't it? Yes. OK, thank you. We've established and standardized performance measures across all our review functions. We've established a completeness check for building permit applications and civil engineering submittals. We've reassigned the gas well land risk review function. And what I'm referring to there is when we look review plats, when we review large surface development, and if there are any associated plats with that development , then we work together to discern compatibility plans, set backs, and what have you. And that is primarily a land use function. And so we've streamlined that. And it enables us to then look at our inspections arm a little differently. And that goes back to the organizational chart that I presented earlier. We've reorganized the DRC meeting structure to streamline process and more actively monitor projects. We've streamlined the CDAC and the HSAC funding application . We revised our community development processes in invoicing, payment reconciliation, and what have you. What we're trying to do is eliminate paper or reduce paper. And we've implemented geographic running of gas well inspections to save on transportation time and expense to make sure that we cluster our inspections related to those. What are our future projects? We want to create written review checklists, have standard operating procedures, create comment libraries. And we've initiated all of these programs, evaluate the use of three-way development, and hold harmless agreements, and what the implications are on development timelines, create and implement enhanced training for our permit techs through our development assistance center, provide better customer service, and maximize first contact resolution. What does this mean? This means that our front line or our front face of our department and of our city, where a lot of activity occurs, we want to make sure that the initial questions can be answered, that the routing occurs in a timely manner of plan review, that the right people are called in at the right time. And this is the concierge service concept that we were talking about. Implementing revised workflows along with full implementation of a new permitting software, we touched on that. We have a question. Council Member Hutz. Not so much a question directly from an all, but to her department, I don't know how it's supposed to be split out, so I ask you. I'd like to see somewhere in someone's budget a drone worked in, because you figure Hayward-- when planning and zoning, when Hayward's trying to measure the tree canopy, he'll use someone else's view or whatever it is. But I'd like to see that kind of built in across all departments. I think it can be in various departments. It can prove useful. I don't know if it fits directly in this budget or where it fits, but I think we can really see some advantages to having our own available to us when we're looking at different projects. Let's see. Council Member Wright, did you want-- somebody want to respond to it? Council Member Hutz, but there are-- go ahead. We have one. We have a drone within the city. It's housed in the TV department area. We have it. Do they-- I mean, I guess my question would be, is that something they're going to use across the departments or what-- you know what I mean? I don't know if they let us-- Yeah. So that would be my question. All right. We'll look into that and get back to you. Yeah. We also want to implement phase two of safe-builds recommendations, and that's then-- that leans towards what we've talked about training and standardization. We're going to implement pre-construction meetings for our building permits. We're going to evaluate community development monitoring processes to incorporate monthly reporting to streamline the process, update applications and checklists for all development projects to provide clarity for applicant and for permit techs. We've already initiated this, and we hope to have very simple applications and have the ability for the applicant to easily address the questions on those application forms. Talking a little bit of-- Kat, yes, go ahead. It's about this page recording. OK. Talking a little bit about the planning division, we're going to start by division now as it relates to expenditure, and we're going to highlight some of the elements there. As we can see, we are-- approximately our baseline is 3.2, and you can see by the asterisk there-- by the operations line item, there's an asterisk, and that's related to the development services building lease payment. Yes. So when I did the math, that is $424,000 and $565 for the year, right? Is that just for the-- to cover the rent, or is there some other things in there as well? That includes an insurance payment as well, so it's insurance and rent for the two buildings, the main building and the annex. So how much is the insurance? Because if you divide that up by the month, that's over $35,000 a month. So I believe our total monthly rent is about approximately $40,300 and something. The insurance is about $1,700. So it's not much, the insurance. OK. Thank you. Yes, Councilmember Gregory. Well, we're on that subject since we brought it up. When we agreed to the lease, I said right then, if we don't start right then working on our master facility plan and enacting that, we're going to be paying that lease more than those five years. So hopefully we'll hear a report back shortly from our city manager about what types of steps are being taken to look at the facility's master plan so that we don't have to continue with those leases. Yes, that's in process. The building inspections expenditure is highlighted there as well. As you can see, it's a tad bit of an increase at 3.0 for the baseline as you incorporate your personal services and your cost of service and all the associated miscellaneous items. Gas well inspection division is pretty much on par. So at the moment, we have one inspector. Is that $339,000? Is that baseline? Is that for just that one inspector? Or is that holding over for the ones that we don't have? It is holding over for the ones that we don't have. So as we start seeing a ramp up, as soon as we start seeing that, we will start assessing the level of service and business models to see what is the best way forward to make sure that our inspections are not compromised. So that personal service baseline won't increase as we begin hiring because those are accounted for? Correct. OK, good. Thank you. Let's see. Mayor Pro Tem and then Council Member Housbett. I have a question. I don't know if you can answer it or not, but maybe somebody in finance. When the gas well inspections division was proposed, it was initially presented as something that would be self-funding via the gas well fees. And so I'm wondering how this particular division is funded , because I know it's a general fund expenditure. But I mean, how do we account for decreased gas well perm itting activities? Oh, Chuck, thanks. The gas well permit fees go into the general fund. So this is a general fund department. And the annual fees for inspections go into the general fund and cover this cost, basically. But it's just a general fund revenue and a general fund expense. It's not separated out, if that's what you're asking. Yeah, that helps. So do we know-- do you know what the fees were from last year's gas well activities? I think the estimated fees are about-- just the inspections is about 368,000. OK, so it's close to breaking even. That's what we think. Yeah, that's just the gas well inspection fees. Then any new development, we would receive fees off of those also. And has that held pretty steady over the past three years? The inspection fees have, in terms of new gas wells, that's declined significantly from what it was, say, three to five years ago. OK, thank you. So my question's back to-- kind of follow up to Keely's question. What is our timetable on hiring or filling those? Because you list four inspectors across the board. What is our timetable to build up to that, or at least begin to add? And I guess an additional question to that would be, what is that training? Do you hire someone in lateral? Do we have to train them up? What does that look like? Councilperson Houspeth, one of the things that we've done, if you look at the organizational chart, is we've split up the functions a little bit. And what we're doing is we're paying keen attention to our inspection function or inspection arm. We want to hire individuals who are familiar, very familiar with industry standards. And through that, what we're doing right now, because we have the luxury, because fracking hasn't ramped up yet, we have the luxury to do a business model assessment. We're determining what is best. And we're also trying to discern what that level of service would be. So hopefully, we will be coming back with a business model that addresses those questions. OK, thank you. Councilmember Gregory? Well, I had a question also about fees. So I don't know if Chuck needs to come back up. Because the question is not only about fees for gas well inspections, but we also have builders that are paying fees for building inspections , and restaurants that are paying fees for restaurant inspections. And what is the kind of a time frame that we use to reevaluate whether those fees are covering cost of service? One of our elements, part of our discussion that we're going to bring forward is in future steps is actually to review our fee schedule and to discern how much recovery we're looking at. If you look at some of the planning fees, for example, right now, they're, I believe, at a 10% to 20% cost recovery with the gas well fees as it relates to the gas well production sites. There was a discount of 50%, if I'm not mistaken. So those will ramp up to-- so we are going to do a comprehensive fee schedule assessment to determine what our cost of recovery is associated with the fees. Is that going to be done in-house, or is that going to take a consultant? We're going to do it in-house. We've actually started conducting that exercise. And that's for all of the-- That's for all permitting-- So inspections also? Correct. Now, as it relates to the gas well function, we used an outside resource to assist with that. So I'm going to have to verify and visit with our legal team and determine how we should address that. Because it's clear that we're limited by law of not trying to make a profit off of those fees. But as policymakers, we certainly think that those fees ought to be reasonably set to cover the cost of the service we're providing. Correct. And that's what we hope to present. And that's one of our projects for next fiscal year. OK, off to community development. And as you can see, there is a tad bit of an increase as it relates to the total when we look at the baseline and the existing '16-'17 fiscal budget. If there are any questions related to that, I'd be happy to address those. And if there are any additional questions, I'd be happy to answer those. Any additional questions? Thank you. Thank you so much. And just as a sort of a heads up, we've got one more presentation of budget. And I think we've got one more of the work session. And we've got a closed session. And I really want to get us out in the meeting at 6:30. If we don't make the meeting at 6:30, I will forego the closed session. And we'll come back and do it after our meeting is over at the 6:30 meeting. Because I don't want to keep the public waiting. So just sort of heads up on that. And the agenda item D, which is the low income housing tax credit, if we run short on time, is that one that is time sensitive for today? No, it was simply just checking in with the checklist process that we promised the council to move back with. Should you see any more 4% or 9% projects? But we could certainly delay that if you want. OK, we'll see how it progresses. And then we'll make it. Yes, OK. Mayor to the council, my name is Tony Puenta. I'm the assistant director of finance in the finance department. Thank you for letting me indulge you today. Just very quickly, here's our FTEs by functional area. I think same kind of format you've seen in all of these presentations we have. Currently 23 and 1/2 FTEs. They're broken down, as you see here, by functional area. I will say that the municipal court department also reports to the finance department. They have 16 and 1/2 FTEs. They made their presentation to you last week. So they will not be covered as part of this presentation. Here's our current organizational chart. Pretty linear. Again, this also includes the municipal court there as well . Just briefly on some of our accomplishments, I just want to touch on a couple here. This past year, we implemented a new vendor for chip and pin technology on credit cards. Very similar to what you see at Walmart and Home Depot. We wanted to make sure that our customers, whether they came into parks or into customer service or any area of the city, had the same customer experience, the same type of technology that we can get them in, get them out as quickly as possible without too much having to maneuver around with the equipment. Goals for next year, one of our major goals here is to complete the implementation of our Chrono system, which is our automated timekeeping system. You've probably noticed across the city and various city buildings, time clocks that are now on the walls. That's part of that process. We hope to have that completed this next fiscal year. At least that's the current plan. Our department's performance measures, I'll just touch on two. Certainly, we have current performance measures, but we've proposed some new ones. Number one under the proposed is our bank reconciliation to be completed within 60 days, a month in close. Again, very important, basic kind of function that we do. I will tell you that part of this process, daily we balance out our bank. We know what came in, came out, so that there's enough cash in the bank to cover any expenses that are coming due that day. We do that on a daily basis. And then number five on here, state law requires the city to pay all invoices within 30 days. And so it's something that we monitor. I will tell you that we're pretty efficient in that process . On average, we pay within 10 to 15 days. Now, we're cognizant of the fact that some invoices do have prompt payment discounts, and we try to take advantage of those as quickly as we can and pay those sooner. And that's why we try to keep that goal about 10 to 15 days from receipt of invoice. On the cost containment side, I will say that this past year, we did a couple of solicitations. Surely one of the major ones was we awarded a contract to a new external auditing firm, Petillo Hill and Brown, changed from Weaver. That was savings about $50,000. We also negotiated new contracts for financial advisory services, bond council services, and paying agent services. These are all related to the city's issuances and debt. Savings on some of those contracts, these were one-time savings, but savings on those will depend kind of on the size of the future debt issuances. And then number three that I'll point out to you, this was an interesting one. We do work with a outside firm to do some sales tax recovery. This past year, we found that we had a taxpayer that had misallocated sales tax. The comptroller removed a little bit, about $150,000 out of the city's next payment. What we found was that that original payment had never come back to the city. And so this firm was actually able to get us in contact with the auditor. We showed the auditor kind of what we were seeing. They agreed with us. The taxpayer got their money, but the sales tax revenue that went to a different city came back to the city then, so we were made whole. But again, that was a recovery that was made. In this particular case, the firm did not charge us for any of those efforts. All they did was just hook us up with the auditor that had done that audit on that particular taxpayer. Some completed projects for you. I'll just highlight a couple here for you. We did finally eliminate all paper checks for employees. So now all employees are either on a direct deposit, vast majority on direct deposit, or they get a payroll card . So we no longer print paper checks. So that was something that we were able to finally complete with this pre-note process for new employees. And then the item for future projects, we certainly want to eliminate but expedite the reimburse ment process for employees. Those are still paper checks. We're working on trying to get those electronic and, again, continue to eliminate the paper documentation on the AP side for payroll reimbursements or travel reimbursements. The finance department's budget, again, pretty straightforward here. Minimal increases as a result of merit increases is kind of the larger one up on the personal services. We did have a significant change from 14-15 to 15-16, where we moved out some expenses that were more citywide expenses related to how we pay for bank charges and credit card charges. And I'll cover those in the next budget that I'll cover for you, which is our finance miscellaneous budget, so any questions on this particular slide? So that concludes the finance department's budget. We do have another budget that we call non-departmental or finance miscellaneous. This tends to be citywide expenses across the city. They don't necessarily have a home, so this is where we cover those. You'll see on here one of the largest ones is this is where we budget salary savings. We are projecting for '17-'18. I think Chuck's covered that with you in his forecast. $1.5 million is what we're projecting for '17-'18. And salary savings, you'll notice that for fiscal year '15 and fiscal year '16, those are zero, because those savings actually are reported in the individual department budget. And so they don't show up here. This is just where we do the citywide budgeting on salary savings. A couple of highlights here for miscellaneous. The bulk of these expenses are related, as you see there in the footnote for the Fireworks Show. That's the Kiwanis Fireworks Show. We contribute $40,000. We also have a contribution of approximately $116,000 for arts utility support. That's the GDAC and the campus theater. Homeless coordinators on here, I think you're familiar with that. That's $40,000 in agreement that we have with United Way. And in the community market support, is about $9,000 that's included in that particular line item in '17-'18. And then the other item here that you have is the operations. That's where we have some of our larger contracts for bank charges, engineering services. The county contract for tax collection is part of this. Also, our contract with-- or our agreement with-- the appraisal district-- our share of the appraisal district's budget is included in the operations there for this particular budget. And then you'll notice here, too, transfer capital for '15 -'16. This is where we come back to you at the end of every year or through the budget process where we're projecting savings in an individual year. There might be supplemental needs or other needs that are identified. And so as those are being identified and approved, this is where we budget them. And we normally transfer them out to a multi-year capital project because those tend to be capital project in nature. They tend to span a little bit longer time than we have in the remainder of that particular year. So and cost of service transfers-- these are all the transfers to the various internal departments. So electric, water, wastewater, materials management. This is the general funds expenses for fleet, and the warehouse, and purchasing, and tech services as well. Question. Yes, sir. On the FY215 '16 actuals under operations, what's the big delta there between the actuals the year before and the budget for 2016-'17? There's a spike in there. What's that? In '15-'16, we actually had more of a contribution at the end of the year. We identified a number of projects that the council wanted to fund. Is that under operations? Yeah, I was talking about operations. See, in operations, the actuals was 964. Then it jumped to 2.1, and now it's back down to 1.6. If there's-- there must be some big ticket item in there or something. Well, the biggest one was-- the biggest one here was the audit expense. So the audit expense was not budgeted here. It was actually budgeted over in the accounting budget. And so we moved that here. That was $162,000. Now, that has subsequently decreased as a result of the new contract that we have with Petillo Browning Hill. Well, I guess when I look at the '14-'15 actuals as 964,000 , the 2015-'16 actual is 2.1 million. So there's about a 1.2 million delta, or almost a 1.1 million delta there. And then, of course, it pops back down only about half a million dollars to the budget. So there's probably something in there that-- again, a lot of this was where we moved some of the charges . [INAUDIBLE] OK, Chuck's telling me that that's where the lease to the Dacu building is included in that as well. But again, we also, in that particular line item, that's where we had a shift in some of the bank charges. We moved them here to this particular budget. So the lease amounts-- was that the renovation cost? I mean, I thought we had lease-- the lease amount is in the -- the planning budget, the other budget. So was this sort of the renovation expenses that went into this, or is there actually some of the monthly lease rate coming out of here? Chuck's telling me yes. The monthly lease rate's actually over in the planning side. Right. Correct. But initially, it was here. We moved it over to planning. OK. So initially, it was here, and then we moved it over planning for the subsequent year in '16-'17. OK, so then in '16-'17, it dropped it by half a million. But from 2014-'15, instead of-- if you could just give a breakdown of that, just an informal staff report on that-- We can do that. --just detailing it, that'd be great. Sure. I mean, it's not that crude. I'd just like to understand the difference. We can give you a detailed breakdown. Thank you. Appreciate that. That concludes my presentation. Do you have any other questions? And I'm wondering if that may be-- that particular category is where, at this time of the year, when we see some projects that need to be funded, and we transfer money from our reserve fund into that, is that where you would-- where those kinds of expenditures would show up? They actually tend to show up in the transfer to capital projects. That's that $2 million figure that you have there. Well, some of them are not capital projects. That's correct. But normally, we don't have enough time between the time that the council approves the budget and the fiscal year ends to be able to complete them. So we transfer them over to a multi-year fund. Council Member Barrett, are you speaking of the supplement als that would get funded before the-- Well, sometimes at the end of the year, we see there's not going to be enough money to keep the tax rate what we want. But we could do a one-time expenditure out of the extra money that had come in above what we had budgeted for in sales tax or something like that. So we authorize a one-time expenditure to buy the fire truck or to do this or that. So I'm curious as to where that shows up. An itemized list of that would be helpful. I think that would help answer that question. Yeah, the three years-- the '14, '15, and then the budget. Yeah, absolutely. Is that what you're asking, the May protein? OK. Any other questions? Fantastic. Thank you very much. Let's go ahead and get our dinner and dinners ready, and then we'll make a decision on the next agenda item if we have time on that one. Back in open session, Denton City Council meeting on June the 20th, 2017. We're in open session and simply coming into open session to call the closed session meeting. We will now convene the closed session at 537-- no, I'm sorry, 533. We will consider the following items-- consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code section 551.071, deliberations regarding real property under Texas Government Code section 551.072. We will now move into closed session as soon as we prepare the room. Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] I wanted to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Denton City Council. June the 20th, 2017, it is 630. Please stand with me to pledge allegiance to the United States and Texas flag. Let's pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We don't have any proclamations or presentations, so we'll move on to agenda item three, presentation from members of the public, if we will roll the review of procedures for addressing the city council. The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure, including a code of conduct, which applies to citizens, as well as council members. These rules were enacted to promote an orderly process, and to preserve decorum. Here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizens' reports. Citizens will have four minutes to give a report. There will be an electronic beep when time has expired. If the remarks are not concluded by that time, the citizen will be asked to stop speaking. If the citizen does not cease and a second request is made, the mayor will request to have the citizen removed from the council chambers. Citizens are asked to not approach the dais. If a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to the council, please let the city secretary know, and she will have a staff member distribute the materials to the council. The attorney general has ruled that council members may listen to citizens speak and may ask questions of citizens for clarification of the issue. Council members will not engage citizens in discussion of a topic, because to do so could potentially be a violation of the Open Meetings Act. When speaking to the council, citizens are to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole, and not to any individual member. Please refrain from making abusive, personal, impertinent, profane, or slanderous remarks. Anyone who violates this rule will immediately be removed from the council chambers. Citizens' adherence to these rules will help make an effective presentation, and will preserve the order and decorum of our proceedings. Copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary. Agenda item 3B, A, which is Received Scheduled Citizen Reports from Members of the Public. Deb Amator, regarding concerns on return of investment for economic development partnership in the Chamber of Commerce. Is Deb here? OK. If she comes in while we're still doing this agenda item, we'll let her speak. Agenda item 3B, Brandy Pounds, regarding hosting a transgender summit in Denton. Yes, if you'll come up and state your name and address, then your time will begin. Hi. My name is Brandy Pounds. Thank you for having me here tonight. I'm a licensed professional counselor in Denton. I own a private practice, Pecan Branch Counseling, on Elm Street. I actually was going to have Kat speak first. Is there any way we can switch that out? Sure. We can reverse that. You bet. Yep. OK. Thank you. Because there's good to speak as well. Yeah. Perfect. Come on up, Kat. And then I think I just saw Deb walk in, so we'll catch her on the backside. So if you'll state your name and address, your time will begin. Kat Ralph, 1203 Boliver Street, 76201. Good evening, Mayor Watts and council members. My name is Kat Ralph. I'm a social work student at Texas Women's University and also a local advocate for LGBTQ youth. Lucky for you, I'm not here to discuss money. In fact, everything I'm proposing today requires $0. Today, I'm standing before you to discuss the Human Rights Campaign's Municipal Equality Index that you all have in front of you. The MEI examines how inclusive municipal laws, policies, and services are of the LGBTQ people who live and work there. Cities are rated based on nondiscrimination laws the municipality as an employer, municipal services, law enforcement, and the city leadership's public position on equality. Each city is scored on a continuum from 1 to 100, one being the least inclusive and 100 being the most inclusive. The lower the score, the less access and opportunities the LGBTQ community has. Last year, Denton scored a 35 out of 100, which is not good . Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and the city of San Diego and Boston all scored 100s. Is our city doing everything it can to protect and support members of the LGBT community and other vulnerable populations? The answer is no, and as far as I can tell, we're not doing anything to make it better. In fact, our score could potentially decrease this year because our Human Rights Commission, better known or not known at all as the Denton Together Coalition, doesn't appear to be active. Here are other areas where we could earn points in the future. Denton could offer LGBTQ inclusive diversity training for all city staff. Denton could officially designate a liaison to the LGBTQ community who reports to the city executive. Denton could offer services designed to address the unique needs of LGBTQ youth who often face higher rates of bullying, harassment, and rejection after coming out. Cities can earn credit here by, one, directly providing services targeted to LGBTQ youth. Two, funding organizations that provide these services. The nonprofit outreach Denton would be a good place to start. Or three, providing other meaningful types of support, such as in-kind support to community organizations that provide services designed for LGBTQ youth, which Brandi will be speaking with you about in just a few minutes. We could earn points by coming out publicly in favor of LGBTQ rights, supporting LGBTQ community organizations publicly, by pride parade, speaking out against anti-LGBTQ legislation, partnering with LGBTQ groups to create solutions to city problems, and last but not least, Denton can test the limits of restrictive state law. And as we all know, this could become a reality very soon. Is Denton as a city going to stand up against the hate and bigotry that Governor Abbott is shoving down our throats, or are we going to continue to ignore the needs of our most vulnerable populations? Thank you. >> All right, thank you. The next speaker will be Brandi Pounds, hosting a transgender summit. >> Yes, it's me again. My home address is 305 West Pecan. My business address is 525 South Locust Suite 101. So I work with the LGBT youth. I'm a licensed counselor, so I work with adults and youth. I run a process group for LGBTQ youth on Wednesday nights. What I have found, overwhelmingly, is that there's no information out there. Parents that have these children don't have good access to good information. They get on Wikipedia, they call their PCP, their family doctor, and they're getting, they have questions about hormone replacement therapy. They have questions about testosterone, about top surgery, bottom surgery, when is it appropriate, when is, things like this. And there's no one stop shop to get this information. And so they come to me, and if I don't know the answers, I refer them out mostly to Cook Children's, which has the Genesis program, which is renowned for their work with the transgender youth. And so what Kat and I are proposing, what we're going to do, actually, is host a health and wellness summit in the fall. And what we'd like that to be is a free event for parents and youth and anybody to attend, where we have a panel of professionals, doctors from Cook Children's. We have attorneys that are agreeing to do this. We have the resource center in Dallas. Everybody's coming out and wants to do this. We'll have vendor tables. The idea is that parents or anybody that attends can ask questions right there. Ask a doctor, make a resource, make a connection, have a resource, just get information. We've got local vendors from the area that are agreeing to supply food. What we are asking you all to do tonight, the amazing thing would be if you guys would sponsor it, if the city of Denton would sponsor this summit. I understand that that's, you know, might not be what can happen. So there's some other ways that I'd like to ask for help. One of the ways is they get donation in kind. We would like to use a civic center. We were really close to booking that a few months ago, and then we had some scheduling issues and such. But we'd like the civic center. We would like you all to donate that to us. I also understand that each of you has some discretionary funds that you can use for pet projects. I have reached out to a couple that I know already via email and asked for some help with that. I will be reaching out to you each personally after this meeting to answer any questions. We are looking at maybe September, October. We are basing the date on what the MDs from Cook's Children 's can do, because they're going to be our headliners those are the ones who want the information from. So that's it. Any questions or-- Any questions? Seeing none, thank you. OK, thank you. We'll hear from you soon. Thank you. Deb Armitour, regarding concerns on return on investment, you'll come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. And I have a slide to show that's on Flash Drive. I've never done that before, so what do I-- That could help with the Flash Drive? If you come on out. It doesn't come at the end. And if-- Sarah's coming down. OK. Thank you. Sorry, I've done so many presentations here. I've never done-- shown it. I've done it transparently, but not-- there's only one thing on here. I think it's just called slide. Thank you. And I can start-- thank you. Let's see. Would it disturb you if I just started talking? No. OK, great. State your name and address and your time will begin. Deb Armitour, 2003, Misty Woodlane in Denton. First, I want to say thanks so much to Kat and Brandy for presenting about the Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index. This is something that other area cities have, and there's no reason why we shouldn't have this. And as they've said, that most of the things on this list do not cost anything at all and make us look good. So I'll get to what this slide is in a little bit. And you can start the timer. Most Dentonites are aware that the city of Denton pays our economic development department to develop our economy. Our economic development department has had some troubles in the recent past under old management, but are now under outstanding new leadership. And I have high hopes for their future. What most Dentonites don't know is that the city also pays our private Chamber of Commerce Board also to develop our economy into the tune of $238,000 tax dollars per year. This feels redundant to me. With our billion dollar budget and with basic road and sidewalk repairs going without maintenance due to scarcity of funds, now is the time to be reducing redundancies and inefficiencies in our city budget. And I applaud our new city manager and his hardworking staff for reducing a number of these inefficiencies and redundancies already. Why not reduce another inefficiency and redundancy by cutting off funding to the Chamber of Commerce? I did not see the return in investment in Chamber of Commerce when they would presumably still be partnering with our economic development department towards a common goal even if the Chamber Board wasn't funded by our tax dollars. And I should say that most cities nationwide and in Texas have fully private Chamber of Commerce. Our Chamber of Commerce is still private, but we fund them, again, to the tune of $238,000 a year that could be spent on other things. At least Chamber of Commerce should want to partner with economic development in the city for free. And if they need money, they can always ask council. If they don't want to partner with the city on economic development matters without getting annual funding, then economic development can do it on their own. We have an economic development staff full of trained professionals who are in it for the public good only. And who do not have problems of potential conflicts of interest. Again, I'm not saying the Chamber of Commerce should go away. I think they're an important part of our city, an important lobbying group. They do tourism too and that's wonderful. Although I still haven't seen yet any metrics on the success of our Convention and Visitors Bureau than you on downtown. And I question the wisdom of such an investment at a time when so many of our local small businesses, homeowners, and apartment renters are struggling just to make ends meet day by day. A fully privatized chamber, like other cities, fully private chambers can continue to be invested in tourism out of their own self-interest and for the greater good of the city. We shouldn't have to fund them and we can't afford to, I believe, when we have an affordable housing waiting list in unrepaired streets and roads. These are core functions of government basic necessities that I see going unattended to, not because you all don't care, but because we only have so many funds. Just a matter of priorities. Economic development is concerned about tourism too. Why not let them handle it or in partnership with the Chamber. Now, I think it's good to have a healthy Chamber of Commerce Board and they have every right to advocate for their businesses and interests and for the greater good of business in Dent on. But again, why are we bothering to pay them to do what they would already be doing on their own, especially when it creates conflicts, potential conflicts of interest and takes money away from other essential matters. And at the very least, if you believe we should continue to pay them, why is Denton one of the few cities nationwide that still does this? Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I'll talk about that slide later. >> Okay. We're moving into agenda item 3C, which is the citizen reports or it's commonly called open mic. There's two cards that we have and that's the limit. And I just want to reiterate that this is for citizens to report to make comments regarding public business, not on items listed on the agenda. So this is the portion where if you're wanting to talk about something on the agenda, this is not the time to speak. But if you're talking about something that's not on the agenda for these two speakers, then certainly I will come on up and share with us your thoughts. Mr. Willie Hutspeth, come up and state your name and address. Your time will begin. >> Mayor and council members, my name is Willie Hutspeth. I live at 623 Newton. I notice in the announcements talking about what you can and cannot say, so I'm not going to mention the person that I'm referring this first part to. I wanted to say that he used to be my son and now I want to -- he was my son until he joined the group talking about how messy my business was. Now, he told me this two months ago. So he used to be my son. And I'm going to play this part of my announcements for him . Let's see. [ Music ] Okay. Got that out of the way. Used to love you, boy. Okay. All right. One of the things that I want to say about that-- >> I did my best. >> Yeah, it happened. [ Music ] There you go. I want to talk about code enforcement. That's why my picture was in the-- on the paper. I mean, yeah, in the front page. You know, the frustration I have is the city requires me to have a dumpster and it's $75 a month minimum. You can get larger but it's $75 a month minimum. And whether it's anything in there or not, then I have to pay it. All I've asked for all this time that I'm there, been there , is let me put a trailer there. I can put all of my stuff in the trailer and none of it will ever be out outside. But the frustrating part about me and you know that to be true, people dump around my site all the time. They come and bring stuff. I've got stuff there right now that was dropped off Sunday. Just so I'm a small business. I'm trying to make it unlike those who are in the downtown district now saying that they want more money. Now, that doesn't bother me that much that they want more money. I think everybody wants more money. But to say that it's-- it shows what Denton is all about, the downtown area. There are no blacks in downtown Denton except the shoe guy. There's nobody else there. So how is that-- you know, that sounds different when I'm asking for money and I'm trying to pull myself up by the bootstraps I don't have and someone else who's had something going for them all their lives. It sounds different. It's like the fire department saying that they are a good group and that they need stuff and they need to-- we need to provide for them. And there's only two African-American firemen there for the entire duration of the fire department. It sounds different when you're in the fire department and your family has been in the fire department and you say it's fair. And when I say, what's wrong with this picture? Why don't we have more African-Americans there? It's the same with the parts management-- maintenance department. In the history of that department, not one leadership in that department, not one African-American, DME, not one. These are just the few I know about. So I'm just saying fair is fair. But when you've got it going for you, again, back to the example of downtown people, you're already there. You've been there for years. You're still there and no one like-- my color is there. Don't say that that's a good example of the breakdown of Denton or it's a good example of what Denton's all about . If that's what Denton's all about, then I've got a word for what that's all about. >> Thank you. Ginger Cain, state your name and address and your time will begin. Ginger Cain, 1600 Churchill Drive, Denton, Texas. I want to just first start off by thanking the ones that I need to, the council and those in the engineering department for beginning the work on the walk that's going in on Winds or. That's greatly appreciated. My understanding is that everything's a go for mid-July. So I'm looking forward to that. But what I'm coming here today for really is I'm not going to ask for the $15 back. But I think that the policy needs to be changed if you go to the swimming pool and you are there and something happens and you haven't even stepped in the pool and the pool becomes contaminated and they blow the whistle and they say no one can get in the pool and you have five kids in tow from the ages of six and down and you're told that you can't get your money back. You're going to have to wait 45 minutes to an hour to get in the pool, that that's just unacceptable and at the least you couldn't even get a voucher. So I know that I don't think that that's the image that Denton wants or that Denton wants to treat their families that way or out of town families that come to the Civic Center. And I want Perry Lane's $15 back but I would like to see that policy changed because it's not right. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right, we'll move on to consent agenda items. Chair would entertain a motion. Council Member Briggs. >> I'll make a motion. >> All right, and it is? >> To approve consent agenda items. I didn't write those down. Was it would we pulled? >> I think it's A, F, G and H. >> A, F, G and H. >> All right, so your motion is to approve the consent agenda, say for A, F, G and H which will be considered for individual consideration? >> Yes, it is. >> Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. >> Second. >> Second that motion. >> All right, we have a motion and a second. Let's vote on the board, please. >> Thank you. >> Motion carries 7-0. We will now take items A, F, G and H in order and they will be items for individual consideration. First off is agenda item 4A, consider approving the donation of a watercolor Turner Falls by the late Rob Erdle donated by Miss Millie Giles as public art pursuant to the City of Denton's donation of public art policy. >> Good evening council and mayor. I'm Christine Taylor with the Parks and Recreation Department and tonight we're asking you to consider approving the donation of the watercolor Turner Falls. We have it right down here. The easel couldn't hold it. They're going to hold it up for you in one moment. Rob Erdle was a professor at the University of North Texas and the City of Denton already has several of his paintings donated and purchased. We have several watercolors that hang at the South Branch Library and one of the watercolors is actually in the council work session room. So we're asking for you to accept the donation. It went before the Public Art Committee, met all the criteria that fits in their policy of what public art is and it passed with a 7-0 vote. >> Okay, any questions? Council Member Gregory. >> With gratitude I move to approve. >> Council Member Griggs. >> I will second. >> We have a motion and second for approval of agenda item 4A. Let's vote on the board. 4A passes unanimously. We'll move on to agenda item 4F. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas approving a consent to assignment of an airport lease agreement between BAM Denton Management Ventures, LLC and Sykes Vaughan Investments, LLC. >> Thank you Mayor, members of the council. I appreciate the opportunity to come before you this evening. The item under consideration here, item F on consent, is essentially the assignment of the fixed base operator lease, FBO lease with Business Air Management who's been a tenant out at the airport since 2000-2001 timeframe. They actually own and operate an air charter operation at the airfield as well. They're looking to focus on that air charter operation and they have been approached by another business on the airfield, US Aviation Group, which is also a fixed base operator on the airfield as well as runs the large flight school at the airport. Long and short is, is they would like to take over that fixed base operator lease and Business Air Management would like to focus on their aircraft charter operation. So it's a great opportunity for both organizations on the airfield to focus on areas of business that they feel that they would like to, you know, expand their presence at our airport. So this item has been in front of the council airport committee and been recommended 2-0 and certainly staff supports the recommendation as well. I stand for any questions you may have on this particular item. >> Council Member Hatsbeth. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. If you could just overview of what a fixed base operator is , just if you can compare it to something so that it kind of connects it all. >> So aviation terms are a little quirky for those who don't engage in that on a day-to-day basis, but a fixed base operator is much like a convenience store or more like a marina at the lake. So the fixed base operator provides anything from fuel-- typically fueling and aircraft hangering services, both commercial or for those folks who have a base aircraft out at the airfield. Whether you're a resident or a business, you may have an aircraft out there. They'll hanger it and provide services for it. So-- and then for those aircraft that may be transient coming into the community, they can provide a lavatory service, catering service, a rental car, anything from aircraft maintenance to those items already mentioned. >> Thank you. >> We do have a couple of people who have signed cards wishing to speak. I've got cards from both people that indicate not wishing to speak and wishing to speak. It's Mr. Damon Ward and Mr. Mike Sykes. Are you all wishing to speak? >> No. >> No. Because you're in support of the-- they're in support of agenda item at the assignment. >> That is correct, Mayor. Yes, sir. >> So if you want to, you certainly got this opportunity to come down and share. If not, they're in support of that. So I see no movement. You bet. All right. Okay. Council Member Ryan. >> Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of agenda item 4F. >> Council Member Gregory. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second for approval for agenda item 4F. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries unanimously. We'll now move on to agenda item 4G. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas approving a consent to assignment of an airport lease between JR Almond, MD, and CFD Integration, LLC, doing business as CFDI Areo. >> Thank you, Mayor. This particular item is another assignment. It's a smaller airport lease at the airport lease agreement . It's actually a personal hanger at the airfield. Dr. Almond is no longer flying and wishes to convey or otherwise sell his hanger to another party. CFDI Areo is actually a business based on our airfield, renting space from one of the other businesses and wishes to expand their operation and this particular lease agreement or taking over this particular lease agreement can provide them at least the footprint to make that happen. This particular assignment has also been to the council airport committee and the council airport committee recommended in favor to 2-0 in favor of supporting this or recommended for council consideration. I will tell you that as part of the assignment that it does not allow for commercial aircraft maintenance which is what CFDI wishes to do and so the subsequent item addresses that in terms of the lease amendment and I can speak to that now or separate items. >> Yeah, if council doesn't have an objection, it sounds like the agenda item 4H is closely related. We will vote on them separately but we'll go ahead and let him continue the presentation. Yes. >> So the second item H as the mayor indicated they are linked. It too was considered by the council airport committee and recommended for council consideration 2-0. This particular lease agreement again was a personal hanger that was entered in a personal hanger lease that was entered into in the late 80s. At that point in time we separated those out from personal hanger use and commercial hanger use. It's a larger hanger about 12,000 square feet. We provide a great platform for CFDI Aero to expand their base of operation at our airfield but it would require a revision or an amendment one to the lease agreement allowing for commercial aircraft maintenance. Again, council airport committee is in favor of it. Staff also recommends that amendment. >> Any questions for staff? All right, seeing none, council member Briggs? >> I move approval. >> Council member Husskind? >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second for agenda item 4G. Let's vote on the board please. Motion carries unanimously. We'll now clear the board and move on to agenda item 4H. Council member Gregory? >> I move approval to 4H. >> Council member Hudspeth? >> I second. >> We have a motion and a second for agenda item 4H. Let's vote on the board please. Motion carries unanimously. That concludes our agenda portion of consent agenda items. Move on to agenda item 5, items for individual consideration. Agenda item A, conduct a second of two readings and consider adoption of an ordinance to annex approximately 16 acres generally located on the north side of Barthol Road, approximately 340 feet west of I-35. And I do have a question for city attorney. So we've got a couple of cards wishing to speak. Do they speak after staff presentation or after reading of the ordinance? >> After the reading of the ordinance. >> Okay, all right. Am I supposed to read this? Okay. So I read it. Oh no, they do. Okay. Okay. Sorry for the confusion. My fault. >> Just have a couple of slides. As you probably remember from previous council meetings that the subject property is located on the north side of town. It is west of I-35 and here's Barthol Road. Here is the subject property. And the request, they have come forward with a voluntary annexation. The public hearing was on April 4th. We had the first reading on April 18th and tonight is the second reading and the adoption of the ordinance. So here's the ordinance and. >> Yeah, go ahead. That's fine. >> Go ahead and read the ordinance. >> All right. An ordinance of the city of Denton annexing approximately 16 acres generally located on the north side of Barthol Road, approximately 340 feet west of the I-35 southbound service road. More specifically described in exhibit A and illustrated in exhibit B which area abuts and is adjacent to the city limits so as to include the property within the city limits granting to all the inhabitants of the property all the rights and privileges of other citizens and binding the inhabitants to all of the ordinances, resolutions, acts and regulations of the city. Providing for a correction to the city map to include the annex lands and providing for a severability clause and providing an effective date. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Have a couple cards. Mr. Willie Hussbuth come down and state. All right. Dana Morse come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. >> I'm Dana Morse. I'm with Blue Beacon Truck Warsch's. I'm really here just to answer any questions you have and tell you we're anxious to get annexed because Loves is getting well ahead of us and we'd like to be right on their heels. So I appreciate it. >> Any questions for the applicant? Seeing none, thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Council Member Gregory. >> Well, it's rare that we have someone say I'm anxious to be annexed so I move approval. >> Council Member Briggs. >> I will second. >> All right. Motion and second for agenda item 5A. Let's vote please. Motion carries unanimously. Agenda item 5B, consider adoption of an ordinance accepting competitive bids and awarding a public works contract for the construction of the South Bonnie Bray Street, widening and improvements phase one. >> Good evening Mayor, City Council. I'm Galen Gillum, Director of Capital Projects. This item tonight is about a phase of the Bonnie Bray Road rebuild. The specific request is that council approve the award of a contract to Regal Incorporated, the amount of $11,810,220.07 for the construction of Bonnie Bray Street phase one. Here's a map that shows where the project is. North is to your right, so it's kind of leaned over that way. It's that yellow portion of the drawing. So it goes over Hickory Creek. It goes from Rosalon Drive South to about 500 feet north of Vintage Boulevard. Construction of a four-lane divided concrete roadway, storm drain system, sidewalk, bridges that will span Hickory Creek from Rosalon again to north of Vintage Boulevard. The bids go out and our consultant, Graham Associates, reviews the bids that come back in. We received eight bids. They researched the low bidder's qualifications to make sure they met minimum qualifications to do this project. Researched their financial statement as well. And we got a recommendation letter from Graham and Associ ates that the bid be awarded to Regal Incorporated as the low bidder. >> Councilmember Gregory, you have a question? >> Yes. Thank you, Mayor. One of the top three bidders is a local contractor, and there seems to be, in my recollection, some preference at a 10% level for local bidding. Can you speak to that, please? >> On certain types of-- when we go through certain processes, we're allowed to take that into account, and on others we're not. I'm not an expert on that, but sometimes it applies and sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the methodology you put out there to capture bids. >> And did this methodology not allow that? >> I'm not sure. You see, is the purchasing manager here? >> Yes. >> I'm sorry, I didn't put this question in earlier. >> Yeah, it's all right. >> No problem. >> It's a good question. >> Hello, Karen Smith. We can't take in local preference if it's over $100,000. >> There's the answer. >> There you go. >> Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. Councilmember Hussbeth, you had a question? >> Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor. >> Yes. >> Forgive me if I missed it. Reviewing the backup material, the contract, I saw where if there is additional cost that's, or a cost for bonds, et cetera, that's assumed by the contractor, but I did not see any language on if there's delays or if there's any punitive measures for being delayed or getting off schedule. And so I wasn't, I was just going to have you address, if it's in there, what does it say? If it's not in there, is that standard or why it's not in there? I guess is my question. >> Let me get the purchasing manager to speak to that part of the contract. >> Sure. >> If she doesn't mind. Sorry. I appreciate it. [ Laughter ] >> She's the expert on the contracts and stuff. >> Yes, sir. I appreciate it. >> In this contract, we use the cog and it has liquidated damages in those terms of conditions. So we reference them. We don't actually list them. The cog is a, I don't really know how to use it to say it. It's a regional, it's a regional council of government. So we use those terms and conditions for this type of work. >> And do you know generally what those terms and conditions are for that organization? >> In this case, I believe the liquidated damages are $500 per day. >> Per day they're off whatever sets schedule. >> Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Councilmember Briggs, you have a question? >> I don't really have a question. I just wanted to say thank you for keeping this off the consent agenda and putting it here. It's a really large expenditure and so it's good that we have it here. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. >> Just I guess to review now, we received eight bids. They range from 11.8 million to a high of 14.1. That spread is about 20% from low to high. So that gives us a pretty comfortable feeling that for this type of project that it's very similar numbers coming in from similar companies that would do the work. The funding, the specific funding for this project is from RTR, which is toll road revenues. Other phases of the building of Monte Bray will be from these three different components. Some money from the county, some money from bonds and some money from RTR. But this particular project is funded by the RTR funds. >> Other questions? >> Any other questions? All right, we do have one card wishing to speak, Mr. Willie Hespeth. Downstate your name and address. Your time will begin. >> Mayor and council members, my name is Willie Hespeth. I live at 623 Newton. This is an aside. Something's wrong with the speakers or the speakers are not speaking into the mic and I can't hear them. I don't know if anyone else is having that problem. I've just got old timers. So I live on, well I have property on Monte Bray. I have a business on Monte Bray. I'm very much interested in what's going on here. One question that I have is why haven't I been contacted as of yet with an offer for my property? I live on just past, I live on Monte Bray just past UNT. I guess this part of the project is happening to the south of there. I couldn't tell by the map because it was turned the wrong way for directions for me. And so why haven't I been contacted about my property? I've been told that the sidewalk on the east side of that street is going to be in the middle of my house. I don't think that's going to really go well with the traffic that's going to be coming through there with people driving through my house. So I'm assuming something has to be done about that house. Secondly, as another aside, I hope that some provisions have been put in place for African Americans to get some money for this project if that's possible. If that's allowed, maybe it's not. Maybe it's another one of those situations where this name I'm thinking about applies. So those two things. Why haven't I been contacted? Secondly, are African Americans being considered for some of these contracts? >> Thank you. Councilmember Gregory? Could we get Mr. Gillum to come back up and show the map again? Could you show the map of where this project is going? >> Oh, the project is the yellow, indicated in the yellow there. It's from Rosalonde Drive south to about 500 feet north of Vintage Boulevard. >> So that's the section that we're being asked to approve the contract. >> This is the section that you're being asked to approve the award of a contract for. >> Okay. >> Thank you. All right, any other questions for staff? Mayor Pro Tem? >> Move for approval of item B. >> Councilmember Ryan? >> I will second. >> We have a motion and a second for agenda item 5B. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 7-0. Moving on to agenda item 5C. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, approving a rate change pursuant to an interlocal agreement between the city of Denton and University of North Texas for the enforcement of parking regulations by the University of North Texas. Agenda item 5C. >> Good evening, Mayor, members of council. Good to be back with you so soon. >> Sure. >> I'd like to visit with you this evening regarding a proposed change to an interlocal agreement that has to do with some rate changes as it relates to on street parking. I thought what I'd do is just speak from the documents in your backup. If I may. >> Getting the overhead. And so this area, the area in question is in the Fry Street , Hickory Street area. And long or the short is, is University of North Texas had approached the city of Denton in the summer, end of summer last year, looking at changing the parking meter application in that area, looking to roll out some smart meter technology and related with that, then they were looking at a rate change to some, well, a rate change to those parking meters in that area. And so we worked with University of North Texas, brought this forward to mobility committee and a joint session of the Mobility and Traffic Safety Commission in the September time frame, brought it back at Traffic Safety Commission in November. There was a rate request to increase from 50 cents per hour to $2.25 an hour. And the Traffic Safety Commission had recommended to advance that to council for council consideration contingent upon some public outreach with the merchants and stakeholders in the area. UNT was able to do that in the April 2017 time frame. And the stakeholders essentially indicated we are not quite interested in these type of rates in terms of moving from 50 cents an hour up to $2. 25 an hour. And so what they had asked is could we be treated similar to the on-street parking and the retail merchant, stakeholders, et cetera, in the downtown square and East Hickory Oak area where there's on-street parking, two-hour free parking between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. We went back out with an open house on May 17th, hosted that, or actually UNT hosted that at their Greek Life Center. We had a couple other issues related in the area with the reconstruction of Hickory in that area. So we had great turnout and folks came out, weighed in, and essentially requested to take a look at these, this on-street parking and remove the met ered parking. And so if you look at this particular exhibit that is in your backup, the yellow lines demonstrate the locations where those parking meters would be removed. I'm visiting with University of North Texas Parking and Transportation Department as well as their administration. They are interested in, again, moving either to a smart technology or a smart meter-based parking application. As they are unable to collect the coins, their financial institutions are no longer taking the bulk coins to the tune of $7,000 in some cases. And so what we ask to do is move this forward, consider this under a pilot program, and remove the parking meters here in this location. As you may be aware, the planning department is moving forward with a small area plan in that particular part of the community. That's what we look at as some best management practices to bring that back in terms of parking enforcement related to the potential of having folks maybe staying a little bit longer than the two hours and not cycling those parking stalls over for those businesses and merchants in that area. But again, the merchant or the stakeholders business in the area are requesting that free two-hour parking, on-street parking. Two other components of this particular ordinance include a parking restriction related to Wilshire, which is over by the IHOP restaurant. And essentially, the university owns the property on all quadrants except for this one short segment here. There's straight-in parking here to the IHOP location. And so what they're asking there as part of their amendment to their existing interlope agreement with the city of Denton is to allow for regulation and enforcement of that particular segment. And then there's one other segment on Central Avenue, which connects from Eagle up north to Mulberry to their parking garage. And what they're asking there is the opportunity to simply enforce existing city of Denton parking regulations. So that might be parking within 30 feet of the intersection to assist with removal of line-of-sight hazard, blocking of driveways, which frequently happens in the university areas both at UNT and TWU from commuter students. And so those three particular items are wrapped into the proposed ordinance. Before I go ahead and process through the request to speak, is agenda item 5D sort of related to the main component of this one we're considering ? Because I think it's - and I just want to - just so that we keep that in mind, it doesn't sound like they're totally separate in the sense of one is removing parking, the other one is giving North Texas the enforcement capabilities. We don't necessarily need to go over that. Was that considered at the same meeting of the Traffic Safety Commission or were they separate meetings? They were separate agenda items at the Traffic Safety Commission meeting. They are affiliated in that they're addressing some parking in the same corridor along Hickory Street between Avenue B and Fry Street, Avenue A Welch area . What I would like to do then is - of course we're going to process through these questions. I would like to go ahead and have you present agenda item 5 D as well just so that we'll have a comprehensive conversation and then we can vote on it separately. Because if they're somewhat related, if we vote on one without having the presentation and the other one, then there may be some kind of impact. So okay, Councilmember Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. I need to clarify what the option is. The parts - all of the parts that staff is recommending and if indeed the staff recommendation of option one is the same that is being recommended by the Traffic Safety Commission. That is correct, yes, sir. Option one is recommended by staff and it is recommended by the Traffic Safety Commission and that particular item would remove metered parking in the red areas as well as the yellow areas depicted in the exhibit in your backup. And then it would also provide University of North Texas parking enforcement to enforce city parking regulations, on street parking regulations on that segment of Central between Eagle and Mulberry as well as provide University of North Texas regulation as well as the enforcement of parking on that segment of Wilshire between North Texas Boulevard and Avenue C. And that also includes the rate increase. There would be no rate increase. It would be a rate change rather than a rate increase. It would be a rate change to free parking moving from - Well, I know the two hour parking in that designated area, but in the other area, is there a - is that change? If somebody had been parking there and now they're parking there in one of those metered parking, will it look like they're paying more? Not if - not with the motion or not with the ordinance in hand. The ordinance in hand would essentially change - would change the existing rate of 50 cents per hour to free on street parking in those areas. So that's the only thing that we're being - we're asked to be considered right now? Along with the parking enforcement capability for the University of North Texas on the central avenue from Eagle to Mulberry and allowing for the University of North Texas to have parking regulation and enforcement on Wilshire from North Texas Boulevard to Avenue C. Then a couple of follow-up questions, Mayor, if it's okay. For the two hour parking, who will be responsible for enfor cing that, going around and marking the tires and coming back and issuing tickets? University of North Texas would take primary on that, but certainly our parking - our parking enforcement could do it as well, but at this point in time it would be the University of North Texas taking the lead in that. And is - do they get the - when those parking fines are collected, do they get 100 percent of the proceeds? No, sir. They - it's a two-third, one-third split as outlined in the - in the ordinance. Okay. And we've had - Excuse me, that's to cover their - that's to cover their overhead and manpower to go out and issue citation mark and chalk. And do you have - I didn't - I don't recall seeing it in the backup. How long have we had some type of an interlocal agreement with the University of North Texas for them to do some metered parking on the streets and take care of monitoring that and collecting on that? 2006 is what I understand from 2006 timeframe. That's the ordinance in place now. And we also have a different kind of interlocal agreement, I guess, with Texas Women's University, not involving meters, but allowing them to designate some of the on-street parking with their different colors and codes so that some of it is for faculty and staff and some is for students and some is for visitors. Councilmember, I do believe that's the case. I'm not fully ramped up on that particular ordinance with respect to TW. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs. Councilmember Gregory asked a few of the questions that I was thinking about. So just for clarification, there's not going to be any new meters added with any increase. The proposal is just for the free parking in the - in the yellow areas? All those locations - yes, ma'am - all those locations that are denoted by the yellow line as well as the red line would be free two-hour on-street parking, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. And so it would be strictly enforced by UNT only? At this point in time, for the first eight months - six to eight months as part of a pilot program, it would not - it would not preclude us, our police department, from enforcing it, but they would take the - University of North Texas would take the lead on that. And you said eight or nine months? Is that the - Correct. The theory here is to come back. We anticipate that there may be some congestion, if you will, in terms of maybe some students or other folks that may park a little longer than two hours . And so in terms of looking at that after a six to eight month timeframe, maybe coming back with some best management practices associated with that as well as maybe rolling some of that into the small area plan that's scheduled for that particular area. And so with UNT doing the tickets, are they able to withhold like grades or anything from the students like for the parking or is that - That's actually one of the reasons, as I understood, as it was laid out to me back in 2006 is we partnered with the University of North Texas not only in this location but several other areas within the campus and adjacent to the campus and that their enforcement capabilities in terms of those violators paying those citations has a greater effect in terms of their ability to withhold transcripts or hold registration for continuing students. Thank you. Councilman Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. Mark, you made comment that it's parking enforcement on Central from Eagle. You said Mulberry a couple of times with the ordinance read to Maple. From Central to Maple. I'm just trying to get clarification as to which one it is. You're correct. Good catch. I stand corrected. My apologies. It is Maple. Councilmember Hudspeth. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to touch on one thing with you and then those that come to speak. I want to make sure that we understand it's not similar to downtown in that all the parking around downtown is free, correct? For two hours? On street parking, yes. Yeah. And so here you have paid parking surrounding that area or they have the parking passes for UNT? That is correct. So a student that doesn't have a parking pass is motivated to park in the free parking that is going to be provided? Could be financially motivated, yes, sir. Okay. And so that's different from downtown where you don't have that incentive to go test the two hour parking limits. Whereas here if I don't have a parking pass or don't desire to buy a parking pass and I can get in front of one of these retail locations early enough, I could park for free back up to a different spot and get four, six, eight hours there for free. If someone was lucky enough to work it that way, that's conceivable, yes, sir. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Councilmember Gregory. And the request for the two hour parking in those areas, is that a request that came from the merchants in those areas? Merchants and stakeholders, yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Both that Traffic Safety Commission and the open house. All right. You know, and after reviewing agenda item 4D, we've got a lot of cards for each agenda item so we're just going to take them in order. I do have one question. We've got a small area plan that we are working on for this entire area. How does this, I mean, that's a pretty comprehensive look I think at the area, the small area plan. Is parking not included as part of a comprehensive look at a small area plan? And I believe Manal is getting up to come take it. I'm just curious because we've got a lot going on in this agenda item and the next one, but we've got, this is our first small area plan, so is not parking a real important part of this? And is this maybe being a little premature? Mayor Watts, councilmembers, city manager, absolutely. As part of the scope of work that we've created for the small area plan, we are going to look at all elements of land use which would include parking. And as an aside and in parallel track, we're also going to attempt to do a parking assessment and an comprehensive parking assessment too. I do know that this element or this item had advanced a little ahead of time prior to the small area plan coming online, so that's why they're a little bit on parallel tracks at this point, but we could bring them together and compartmentalize this function yet bring it all comprehensively together once we kick off and initiate the small area plan focus. So if, I mean, in your professional opinion, in developing the small area plan, and I'm just going to say ideally because nothing's really ever ideal, you would like to be able to consider all of these elements at the same time in cooperation with the University of North Texas to really do a very comprehensive look at this because I know they've done a lot of work on their parking situation and sort of a parking master plan. Would the review time of six to eight months that this ordinance is asking for, sort of a pilot program I think is what I'm hearing, that staff would come back and review it in six to eight months, is that correct? Correct. That's, in visiting with, pardon me, in visiting with University of North Texas staff, including the administration, that was one of the requests is, you know, let's roll this out, see where we are, see how we're moving forward, and then come back and reevaluate based on, you know, the citation, you know, how the enforcement's working , whether it's working, and if not, do we reconsider some other application? Do you go back in with some type of a smart meter or kiosk type parking program that would be implemented in the area? So what I'm hearing is that there'll be some time that as we're developing this small area plan, if what is currently in place based upon this pilot program, if there were some modifications that the city was asking to conform with the small area plan, that's something we could bring up at that. Do you feel comfortable with that timing? Absolutely, and we are going to work collaboratively with UNT as it relates to traffic modeling, as it relates to the parking situation, and then as it relates to their redevelopment aspects and then the city proper. So I do believe that if everybody is amenable, we will be able to reassess that condition/situation at that time. Okay. My only observation, I don't know if it rises to the level of concern, is that when I hear pilot program and we go back and revisit it, it's really hard to turn the clock back, and so I just want to make sure that moving forward, at least at this stage, we're doing something that is – the stakeholders obviously were some of the ones that put that forward. We're friction to hear from quite a few of them, actually. Okay. I just wanted to get that clarification because I think that's also in the next agenda item, which we'll address as well then. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for staff before we take public comment ? Seeing none. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mr. Williams. There's Mr. Willie Hutzbeth. Agenda item 5C. Come down, state your name and address, and your time will begin. Mayor and Council Members, my name is Willie Hutzbeth. I live at 623 Newton. I've never known of a pilot program where you get money and then you're going to evaluate the situation and then reduce what you were doing. Once you get that money – I don't know of any city, municipality, or anyone who has done that and then turned around and said, "Okay, we're not going to accept this money." I couldn't hear. I've got my hearing aid up all the way, and I've never had problems with this before, but I couldn't hear him. So I don't know for sure what he was saying. Let me just guess what he was saying. It sounds like there's going to be an increased time to park at certain places, but it's not going to cost anymore. Now, that made no sense to me. I couldn't hear, so I don't know what he was talking about, but that makes no sense. That if they're going to add more parking meters, I don't think they're going to leave the price the same, and I don't think it's going to cost the same. I think it's going to be more, but again. So the other thing is, when they had those meetings that he said – alluded to that was that they had – was there any vote? Did anybody take a survey or something of the people attending the meeting and to find out what they thought? Get a percentage or a number so that you could report that to us. If they did, I'd like to know what that was. It sounds like you're just trying to get more money from these students. That's not good. And I think what was alluded to by one of you members, that 's exactly what I would do. I would park my car in one of those long-term parking places. There will certainly be a market for someone to walk around and monitor when the mark is being placed. That's just what you do. And then you tell – someone pays them to put more money in there. It's cheaper to give someone a dollar if you're going to save $2. I don't think that's going to work. So there's enough parking. I don't think you need to gouge the people who don't have very much money to make them pay for these meters. But again, if I could have heard the presentation, then I think I would be better prepared to respond to it now. Lastly, I don't care what end of Bonnebray they're working on. They haven't talked to me yet about what they're going to do. So noting that we're not talking about the southern end or the northern end, then it's not worth being notified. I want to make that point. Thank you. Kim McKibbin. Please come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. Could I have this back, please? This overhead that he had? Yeah, they'll get it. Okay. My name is Kim McKibbin. I own the business at 1306 West Hickory Street. That's Aura Coffee. This is going to be a totally twist, a total different twist on the information you just heard from Mr. Nelson. And I have quite a few questions. Anytime I find an agenda information sheet that takes four pages to explain what the agenda of an item is, I know there's a problem. This particular thing has some, it's too convoluted to really completely understand. So let me break it down for you just a little bit, and then I'll give you a little bit of history. What you're looking at here in this area is the Fry Street Overlay District. This is the Fry Street Overlay District. Now we lost a lot of stuff right here several years ago, but inside this district there are 34 individual businesses, and there are 115 spaces, because I don't count just what North Texas considers. I look all in the entire space. And unless I misunderstand, the space for the Fry Street Overlay District goes from curb to curb, and somehow in 2006, North Texas started taking over that stuff. Now you have to realize that the parking meters have been there, the parking meters have not been there. Different things have happened in the course of history in this area that have done that. But I think that at this point that the Fry Street merchants are being used as another red herring. If you reviewed the information that was in all of the appendixes that was related to this, I know it was complex, it's weird, it's strange. You will see these exhibits used in other things tonight. But if I can really grasp this, what we asked for as merchants was the same consideration that they have downtown, which is two hours in public parking. Yeah, there's going to be probably a few students there that are going to deal with that, but where are the students going to go if you drive them out? They're going back out into the neighborhoods and they're going to take the stuff. I'm willing as a merchant to run that risk as opposed to having the meters, which will run 24/7 and cost, if you wanted to come in and have a $3 cup of coffee with me, it's now going to cost you $6, no matter how long you stay there . So an hour, if you increase the parking meters or if we use the smart meters, we oppose the smart meters and ask for the two hour parking. We know there's going to be some students there and that's just the way it is. Now if I can address the rest of this, because it is so big , if you can look at this, you say that they knew in September 2016, so why did it take until May of this year for them to notify any of the business owners that were going to be impacted? Council Member Housbett has a question for you. Yes, sir. Yes. So I'm curious about the businesses you referenced. Before you complete that, let me ask you, because I just don't know, that parking garage there in the area you circled, is that open to anyone or is that restricted? In the -- To the -- In the -- If you put the map back. In the youth center? Yes. Yes. Yeah, the area you circled has the parking garage. Yeah. Yeah, those are apartments. And there are also -- well, they say that there's public parking in there. It is also over $3 an hour to park in there. Even the businesses that are in that building only have a very limited number of spaces. I think that they have two spaces. Those are used for their employees. Obviously, places like Chipotle and Potbelly have more than two employees there at a time. So no, there's -- no. I've asked about that before. I was told that I could not rent spaces in there for my business to utilize. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Councilmember Briggs? So are you in favor of this ordinance for the free parking? That's the problem with this ordinance is that, yes, I am in favor of the free parking. No, I am not in favor of what's being suggested with the additional thing for UNT. I think these two things should be two different ordinances or two different considerations simply because they're mixing things that are not -- that can be separated and should not be included together. And there were other things about where UNT is offered -- is asking for their parking considerations. Does that mean that where they want to regulate, does that mean that they're going to put meters on places that are now public street parking? I mean, that's a pretty good question. What do they mean when they say they want to regulate the street parking? So that's two different issues. I think that they're intertwined and they were hastily put together. I'd like to see them separated. Okay. Thank you. I do have a question for staff before we continue on. That was a good question about -- and that was one question I had as far as when it says that the University of North Texas will have parking enforcement authority and regulate. Is that of our existing parking ordinances the city of Dent on or does that also allow for if it is on street free parking that part of regulate means they can also then convert that to meter parking? Has that been discussed? It has been discussed to the extent that in terms of regulation, they could convert it to like a D permit parking similar to what they've done with some other locations on inside the campus. So that's an affirmative that passing this ordinance on the Wilshire to Avenue C and was that central to -- what was it? Only on the Wilshire component. Only on the Wilshire. From North Texas Boulevard to Avenue C. So that could be converted to some type of permit parking whereas currently right now it's free public parking. That is correct, yes, sir. All right. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Appreciate it. Those are all the blue cards we have which blue cards indicating a desire to speak before the council. I will begin to read the white cards and if somehow you filled out the wrong card, just raise your hand and come down and state your name and address and we'll begin. Larry Beck, 915 East Sherman Drive is in opposition. Chris Ellis, 405 Ridgecrest in opposition. Oh, it doesn't say. Yeah, it doesn't say. It doesn't say. It just says opposition. So we'll just have to try to get some clarification on that or see if -- I'll read the comments as they're recorded. Clint Caskey, 405 Ridgecrest, business owner. Caskey's Bar and Grill is in opposition. Kylie Cox, 202 North Roodale in opposition. Gail Caskey, business owner, is in opposition. Casey Glenn, number nine Garden Gate Apartments, business owner of Caskey's Bar and Grill in opposition. Mitchell Hooton, business owner of Caskey's Bar and Grill in opposition. And Michael Hinnon is in support. So those are all the cards we have for this particular agenda item. Councilmember's discussion. Chair would entertain action. Councilmember Hutsbeth? I'm of the opinion I would like to see us put this to a different date and untangle it a bit. Because this that we're considering now is a bit convoluted . And then as you alluded to, the next item tends to then compound that further. My preference would be to have a good, clean conversation about each of those elements versus rolling those loose parts together. I just think it's confusing and doesn't allow for the proper vetting, in my opinion. Councilmember Briggs? I'm in agreement of that. I am in favor of the free parking, but I do have an issue with UNT being able to regulate our streets by adding permit parking on their own. So I would like to be able to discuss that a little further . Councilmember Ryan? Thank you. I'd like to know from legal if we can sever section four of the ordinance, which deals with the Wilshire, which is basically on the other side of campus, and that's the only area that's actually giving UNT the permission to put in meters or put in specialty parking of some sort. We can sever section four. The only caution I would add to that is that since this is part of an amendment of an interlocal agreement that we have with UNT already, it may be prudent to at least first discuss the concerns that councilmembers have with regard to that specific item before severing it. In that case, I would prefer to come back and have staff work on this a little further before we actually get a vote on it. Mayor Pro Tem? I really would like to know the comments that you read, the public comments. If they were in opposition to which item they were in opposition to, because I'm looking at the backup materials for exhibit seven, and some of the people that stated no on what you read stated no that they were in opposition to a parking fee raise. So I'm really just trying to figure out what the public opinion is because I'm a little bit confused based on that and exhibit seven. Sure. And I understand that I think if we were to delay this, that would give an opportunity if we unpack it. In other words, because a lot of these options, it may provide a little bit more clarity for the public because apparently this issue has sort of been going through several iterations as it's gone through the traffic safety commission and also the neighborhood meetings. So outside of calling each one of these people down and asking them, then that may be something we may be able to clarify at the next meeting if that's the pleasure of the council to table or to move to a date certain or something to that effect. Councilmember Duff. I'm sitting here listening to this and I think it's pretty evident that we need to put this off and I'm at the point right now where I can't tell you really whether I want to be for this or not. I'd like to go see the actual location that we're talking about before I make a decision. Okay. Councilmember Ryan. Oh, yeah. Councilmember Ryan and I'll recognize Councilmember Gregory . I was going to make a motion to table until the event's certain of staff. Okay, excuse me, to postpone until the event's certain of staff being able to dissect this and come back with more clarity to this. All right. Councilmember Gregory. This isn't about the motion. I mean, there's some confusion for me because the agenda caption says approving a rate change. Yet in the backup it talks about the fact that back in November 2016 there was a -- the Traffic Safety Commission endorsed a recommendation allowing UNT to establish a rate of 225 per hour or 45 cents per 12 minutes. Then during May 1st, 2017, it was 50 cents an hour -- increase of 50 cents an hour to 225. So it's sort of unclear. I think that there's some confusion as to are we talking about both a rate increase in some areas and free parking in other areas or are we talking about something else? Well, and I -- yes. Could we get Mark Taylor? Sure. To answer -- Yeah, I answered that. Yes. Mayor, the answer to Councilmember Gregory's question or maybe some clarification here was originally that's what the University of North Texas brought forward was a rate increase to the higher rate from 50 cents per hour to the 225. That had progressed through the Traffic Safety Commission. They were at a point where they were ready to recommend to Council and they just asked us to take it back, asked University of North Texas, because they were the one requesting the rate change to work with the merchants and the stakeholders in the area. So that was really just background information as to where it had progressed from in the November timeframe and what the Traffic Safety Commission had initially -- was initially ready to move forward with. And essentially what happened is after the discussion with the merchants and stakeholders in May -- I'm sorry, in April and the subsequent May 1 Traffic Safety Commission meeting, that's when we went back and did the open house and offered up the two hour free parking as an option. But there's other places where there are meters, right? That is correct. And those meters are going to be changed from coin operated to something else? That is correct. The current ordinance already allows them to have adjustment on that. And does the current ordinance already allow them to change the amount that they're charging? On those particular locations, it does not allow them to change the rates on these locations identified. I'm talking about the other locations where there would be meters. Okay. Can they change the rates? That is correct, as I understand it. They can change the rates with or without this ordinance? That is correct. So what's before us tonight is doing what the merchants asked and provide two hour free parking on those streets indicated in yellow and giving UNT regulatory authority on that additional street. That is correct. That's the only two items that are before us. And Central Avenue. And Central Avenue. Okay. Council Member Ryan. You made a motion. Motion to postpone to the event certain? All right. And the event was, I'm sorry, repeat that. My initial thought was event certain of more clarity, but I would say probably to coordinate this with the small area plan so that we can see how they work together. Okay. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Thinking back to the May meeting that I attended of the Traffic Safety Commission where a lot of the business owners who are here were at that meeting. And I feel like their needs have been met by this. So notwithstanding my confusion by some of the no comments, I'm going to go ahead. I mean, obviously we'll have to vote on the motion to table , but my preference would be to go ahead and vote for this particular item tonight. I'll withdraw my motion. Well, I'm going to make a chair decision. I'm going to call the names out again on the white cards. And if you want to come down and clarify your position on the staff presentation, please feel free to come do that. You don't have to. But you certainly have the option so that we can get some clarity on this. Mr. Larry Beck. I don't see him here. Chris Ellis. Chris Ellis here. Nope. Clint Caskey. Kaylee Cox. Boy, this is not working out the way I had planned. Kayla Caskey. It's all right. I'm doing it anyway. Casey Glenn. Mitch Houghton. Michael Hinnan. I thought I saw Michael here. All right. Well, I'm glad that only took 30 seconds. So we are back to Chair would entertain whatever action it 's pleasure to counsel. Mayor Pro Tem. I move to approve item C. Councilmember Gregory. Second. And item C being the two hour parking on the as indicated in the slide, regulatory authority for Wilshire between Avenue C and UNT Boulevard. And then just enforcement of parking regulations on central from Eagle to Maple. Is that correct? Mark, if you just real quick question on the clarification for the central leg of this ordinance, the central street. What were they asking for again? I had it pulled up for central. All the request is to allow them to enforce existing city on street parking restrictions, which would be parking within 30 feet of an intersection, parking within five feet of a driveway, blocking a fire hydrant, those sorts of things. Okay. So there's no opportunity that there's going to be any type of changing of the public free public parking to any type of either student permit parking or metered parking. Correct. Because their staff's recommendation on that was only to allow for existing or current city regulations simply because there are some multifamily developments in that area that have access to that on street parking. So that's part of this interlocal agreement that they're not going to be able to do. I just want to get clarification on when a vote is taken, what we're actually voting for. Whereas with the Wilshire, they can change it based upon this ordinance. They can change from free parking to, yeah. Okay. We have a motion and a second and we've got some questions from council members. Council member Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. I just have a problem with that section four where we're allowing UNT to meter or require parking permits. And because of that, I'll not be voting in favor of this ordinance. Okay. Council member Riggs. I feel the same about section four in Wilshire. So the other parts I'm okay with, but if we're not going to allow time for UNT to discuss that section, then I will not be voting for this either. Council member Hudspeth. Likewise. I think it's evidenced by the fact that you couldn't even easily surmise what we're going to vote on, that there's a problem. And the fact that then you introduce the opportunity for them to surprise the folks on Wilshire with a rate or some sort of fee there. And all the while, while they've taken over SAC and SAVE and that parking lot lies empty, if they want to have permits, they can use that. They took that. So my point is, you couldn't surmise what we're voting on easily, then that is an indicator that there's a problem. I won't be supporting it. Okay. So if I heard the council members who expressed opposition to the current motion on the table, it's primarily, at least I haven't heard from Mr. Duff. I think I don't want to go forward with this either. It sounds like primarily the issue has been with the Wil shire segment. So if there was an opportunity, would North Texas, is there a representative from North Texas here? Would you mind just, I've just got a question for you if that's okay. Thank you, sir. I'm Dr. Gary Robinson. I'm the senior director of transportation services for the University of North Texas. Thank you. You've heard the discussion here this evening. If you were to have to prioritize the change on Hickory Street to two-hour free parking and the opportunity to change public free parking on the Wilshire section, what I'm trying to think of is that if the council is going to vote to either table this or deny it, we might get something back fairly quickly that everybody can agree on. It sounds like most people have agreed on two out of three of these kind of issues or items within this ordinance. The only one that's sort of causing an issue is the Wil shire. Is it, would it be beneficial to North Texas to come back and pass those other two fairly quickly and then there can be discussion into the Wilshire or would you just still want to have them all three brought back after further discussion at the same time? Thank you for the opportunity, for the choice. The situation with the business district, the university, we were collecting almost a half million dollars in coins and that in itself is a nightmare. The meters that are on campus, we have shut those down and we decided to use park mobile and also these digital units that are in the core of campus . Our reasoning in doing that is the banks have said to us they're not collecting or taking coins. We have a limited agreement with Wells Fargo through July 16th. So if you could vote for what the merchants are asking for and having the free parking, we can go ahead and pull the rest of those meters out. And then they will have their free parking. Eagl Avenue between Eagl and Maple. I come through that street daily and it is difficult to get through because of the way the on-street parking is set up and we have watched, we have no ability to enforce any of that at this time. But it's difficult to make turns on the Eagl. I would bet you that if you tried to get the ladder truck down that street with cars on both sides, it would be very difficult. That would be our second priority. The third priority is the Kindorf-Wilshire area. So if you could pass the first one, we can work together to discuss Central and Kindorf. But the primary thing right now for us is to be able to remove the rest of our meters out of the business district so that the business owners will get what they're asking for. It also helps us to solve a problem to where we can quit taking coins. We will be doing the enforcement if you approve it. We'll be doing it 8 to 5, Monday through Friday. We'll still have the same agreement in place on the one- third, two-third split. And we're not going to go crazy riding tickets or in imp ounding cars because many of those individuals are our students. So we're going to have to strike a balance working with the businesses and making sure that we don't go off the deep end on the enforcement. Okay. All right. Couple of questions, I believe, for you, Councilmember Gregory. So if this motion fails, then it's likely that the meters stay on Hickory and Frye and Avenue whatever that letter is right there where Frye turns into something other than -- Avenue A. Avenue A, thank you. And the merchants aren't getting what they're asking for. Correct. So this is a concern. And I'm guessing that it takes a little while to take those meters down? No, sir. It doesn't take us very long to pull them off. Who does it? UNT does it. We own the meter heads. The city owns the poles. That's a good partnership. All I can tell you -- Doesn't that sound like bureaucracy, doesn't it? All I can tell you is that I've been here five -- when I came here five years ago, and that was explained to me, that's when I first met Mark Nelson. And Mark and I have been working with this since then. Well, maybe the person who made the motion would amend it so that we could maybe make some progress tonight. Mayor Pro Tem. I'd like to amend my motion to approve but striking Section 3 and Section 4 from the proposed ordinance. I'm leaving the rest of the ordinance intact. Councilmember McGregor, you seconded that. Is that acceptable? It's acceptable. And I believe our city attorney has a comment. Just a clarification. Based on the speakers, first he was okay with the removing the meters to allow the two-hour free parking. Later in his speech, he mentioned that they would like the opportunity to enforce. And so -- and to me, that tells me that they may want Section 3. I just wanted that clarified to make certain before this council acts. Yes. Central doesn't seem to be an issue here. It doesn't -- I mean, the concern I've heard from the council members is the Wilshire potential change from free parking to permitted parking, whereas the enforcement of Central, which is just enforcing the current City of Denton parking regulations, which means either we're not doing it very well or you guys can do a better job of it around your campus. That doesn't seem to be the problem. So I'll ask Councilmember -- or Mayor Pro Tem if she's -- I misunderstood that. I thought there was opposition to Maple Street as well. So what I'll do is amend my motion to approve item C, striking only Section 4. Okay. I agree. All right. So -- and Mr. City Attorney, that question was posed earlier on, and there seemed to be some concern about it being an interlocal agreement, but is it okay for us to strike Section 4 in that regard? Given that the Director of Parking Operations from UNT has come here and actually attested that they would be fine with that, I don't have an issue going forward. Okay. All right. Thank you. You bet. All right. We have a motion and a second for agenda item 5C. The motion is to accept the ordinance, however striking Section 4. Is that correct, Mayor Pro Tem? All right. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 7-0. We'll move on to agenda item 5D, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Dent, Texas prohibiting parking on the south side of Hickory Street from Avenue B to Welch Street. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm Julie Anderson, the bike and pedestrian coordinator, here to give you this presentation tonight. I will talk very well into the microphone. Hope everybody can hear me. We are here tonight to talk about how we're going to implement a portion of our adopted 2012 bike plan, which does require an ordinance to remove on-street parking on the south side of Hickory from Avenue B to Welch Street. I first want to provide some background to anybody who might be new on council or to the city about how we got to where we are right now. Our bike plan was adopted in February of 2012. This was after very lots of work with the public. There were two public meetings. There was a focus group. They met four times to take feedback from the public and to take it back and to create the plan. The plan then went to various commissions, work sessions, planning and zoning commission, and then it was approved unanimously by the city council on February 21st, 2012. What exactly is in our bike plan and the part we're talking about tonight, which is Hickory Street? You can see Hickory right there in the middle. It's red. Oak and Hickory both are red. If you cannot see the legend at the bottom, red does design ate that it's meant to be a bike lane. This is what was adopted in the bike plan. In order to put in a bike lane in some of this area, you'd have to remove parking to do that in just some small areas of this. I think it is important to note that this isn't tied to the parking meter issue. This has been on the book since 2012. If parking meter stayed, if there was free to our parking, if there was a smart meter, regardless of what happens to the meters, we'd still need to request to remove on-street parking. Just to bring you up to date on what we've done currently on the bike plan in this area, there are bike lanes on both Oak and Hickory from Avenue C out to Bonnie Bray. That was completed in 2012 when we did convert those to one -way streets. We've also done literally everything else on Oak and Hick ory besides this section right here with bike lanes. Something's either funded or coming through. You can see the white that's circled is that one little section that's not been completed yet. There's bike lanes on either side, and we're trying to complete the connection with this section right here. This is the only place on Hickory Street where there's existing on-street parking. That's why we need to come to you tonight to request to remove the parking to facilitate a bike lane. Some prior actions and committees about how we got to where we are tonight. We did bring this to mobility committee back in June of 2016. At that point, we were still debating what was going to happen on Hickory Street. Was it going to get moved forward to do the utility work? That still wasn't finalized just yet, but mobility committee did push to get that project moved forward. At that point, staff needed to know what we needed to do on Hickory Street as well. We talked about removing the 22 parking stalls. Mobility committee at that time was supportive of that. UNT as well has been supportive of removing these parking stalls that do abut their property. Then we ended up taking it to traffic safety commission on May 1st. Prior to that, we did send out letters to people on Hickory Street between Avenue A and B Street to let them know this was going to be an item at the traffic safety commission. At that meeting, there were several merchants. They wanted us to look at other options. At that point, it was tabled and we were directed to get more feedback from the public. At that point, we had an open house on May 17th at the UNT campus where we received a lot of feedback from the public. Responses were basically evenly split between those who wanted to remove parking to facilitate a bike lane and those who did not want to and wanted us to look at other options. These are just two of the ones of those who came. All of them are provided in your backup if you'd like to read those. After the public meeting, bike advocates and some merchants in the Fry Street area met together afterwards to kind of see if they could come up with an option that could be amenable to all of them. They did come together and they presented an option to staff. On the left-hand side of the screen is what staff has been recommending. That's removal of parking on the south side of Hickory Street. The one that was presented to staff from the advocates and merchants was to remove parking on the north side of Hickory Street. On the face, it would appear that it would be less parking stalls lost. On the north side of Hickory Street, there are a lot of driveway entrances. There are only currently 17 parking stalls. On the south, there are no driveway entrances, so there's 22. However, if you do remove parking on the north side, therefore creating a buffer with the parking on the south side, you do have to taper the travel lanes. You're moving the travel lanes over eight feet for this one block because the parking is now on the south side and you're moving the travel lanes. I hope this makes sense. In order to facilitate the moving of the travel lanes, there are some tapering involved so that you have a safe transition with those travel lanes. That would remove an additional three parking stalls on H ickory Street by the CVS. It actually results in a saving of three parking stalls. It's consistent with the bike plan. It still creates a bike lane through this area. It's a safe, direct route, just as the one staff was recommending. It's a little bit of a higher cost. There are some bump outs involved and possibly some drainage at the corner. Overall, it wasn't deemed unsafe by staff. If this was the option that people wanted to move forward with, staff was fine with that. However, we still did recommend option one of removing parking on the south side. Again, it is the safest, most direct route and it's in accordance with the bike plan. At the Traffic Safety Commission meeting, we presented several options. This was what we were asked to do to look at other options. You can see we were asked if we could route people through the UNT campus. Could we route them somewhere else? Staff doesn't recommend any of those options. For one, they're not safe. They're not direct. They're not part of our adopted bike plan. We recommend options that require removal of parking to facilitate a bike lane. There also is an option to not remove any parking. Then you just place sharrows in the roadway, which is not consistent with our bike plan and does not connect our network. With those alternative options, at the Traffic Safety Commission on June 5th, after we presented all of that, nine individuals provided public comments. Five of them spoke in favor of option one, which was staff 's recommendation of removal of parking on the south side. Three of them spoke either in favor or in preference for it . Three of them spoke in favor or showed a preference to option two, which was removing parking on the north side. One who spoke sort of mutual in the options, he just wanted a safe bicycle route. At this meeting, no one spoke in opposition to any of the options that were presented or asked for another option. At that point, the commission voted to approve this, 6-0, for removal of parking on the south side. That was staff's recommendation. That's our recommendation now. That's what the ordinance states. So just one last time, our recommended option is removing parking on the south side of Hickory from Avenue B through those six parking stalls just after Avenue A. The rest of that section is already no parking. We recommend this option because, for one, it's the safest option. It keeps people on their bike in a bike lane for the entire quarter of Hickory Street down to the square. It is the most direct route. It's part of our adopted 2012 bike plan. It completes the bike route on Hickory, as I stated. It reduces a traffic slowing maneuver of having to parallel park in that area. It does provide a better clearance for the bus stop that's on the corner of Avenue A and Hickory Street. It does promote people to ride on the street instead of on the sidewalk when there's a lot of pedestrian traffic in this area. Also, it contributes to our strategic plan, which has the goal to increase our mode share from 4.7% to 7%. And the way to get people to mode shift is to give them safe options to ride their bike, which is providing them a safe bike lane in this area. With that, I'll stand for any questions. One question of clarification. So option two, which was the collaboration between the advocates and the merchants, you don't have an issue with that? Staff is just saying we recommend option one. Are you opposing option two? No, we don't oppose option two. Like I said, you have to move the travel lanes for just one block, which seems a bit messy, but again, it's not unsafe. Okay. All right. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. I have a couple of questions. So on your slide about the June 5th meeting, there were there's nobody in opposition to any of these plans. But in the backup on Exhibit 7, there's quite a bit of opposition to the plans of that at the meeting. Right. Nobody at the June 5th meeting spoke. I don't know if they didn't attend that meeting or if they changed their minds. I can't speak for the business owners. I know at the first meeting on May 1st, several of the business owners, mainly all of them who were in attendance, wanted a different route. I don't know if bike advocates spoke to them and showed them the benefits of having a bike-friendly location. Okay. So then my next question, the consensus from the backup is that the business owners wanted an alternate route, essentially using a UNT service lane or going through that route through campus. And you mentioned that the campus route was unsafe. Why is that? For one, that's a heavily pedestrian area. It's not our property. Obviously, it's UNT's property. Anytime you have to direct people out of the most direct route, I mean, if you were in your car, you're not going to want to take the longest way to get there. You want the most direct route. We're not having to deal with a lot of pedestrians walking through there. Also, the back entrance off of Mulberry Street, I believe, is a service entrance for maintenance vehicles. We don't want to be mixing people on bikes with people who are walking. Was there any discussion with UNT about potentially routing a bike route through there? We did talk to them about putting a sidewalk, widening the sidewalk through here. We had very preliminary discussions about going through the UNT campus. I don't think they were in favor of that either . And the sidewalk widening, where did that end up? It could be done. I mean, they weren't super supportive of it. There are lots of trees in that area. And so with the tree roots coming up, it'd be hard to put in a concrete. You might be able to do like a gravel pathway. I wasn't supportive of that because, again, we're taking people off of the bike route for one block to mix them with pedestrians. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Councilmember Ryan. I know, I don't recall the last time I drove that section between Avenue A and Welch and there was not a beer truck somewhere along there. What are, do we have any enforcement regulations that we could stop them from parking in the bike lane? I know we can't stop them from parking on the street if they're making a delivery. Right. So right now, those areas are already signed as no parking. So if it's signed no parking, I assume police officers free to give them a ticket for parking. I don't quite know how that works, but I do know it's already signed as no parking. Councilmember Gregory. Would you put the slide up where it showed options one and two or A and B? I don't know how they were labeled. Yes, right here. Thank you. So option. The one on the right is option two, the one on the left, which has been cut off is option one. So option one, it was the one that we started working, that you all started working on. Correct. And then some advocates and merchants suggested option two. Right. And what was the process that you all went through to see if that was even feasible? What staff went through to see if that was feasible? Yeah, what do you have to do, what does staff have to do to see if that even can work? Oh, right. So Noreen Housewright, our senior transportation engineer, she puts pen to paper, she draws it out, she sees where do we have to put the tapering, how long does the tap ering have to be. We essentially just create a preliminary drawing for that so then we can see where will parking have to be removed, where do we have to put the tapering. We really just see it on paper and we talk about it and that's when we decided there's nothing inherently wrong about it or unsafe with it. So and you all presented both of those to Traffic Safety Commission. Correct, we did. Talked about the pros and cons of both of them. Correct. And then the result of that meeting was what? Could you go back to that slide? Yeah. The results of that meeting, some people who were bicycl ists and who were merchants spoke in favor of actually they preferred option one. One person stated they didn't want parking on the opposite side of the street of the businesses, he wanted parking on where the business was. Some people on bikes spoke about how they didn't like being blocked by a car, like by a row of parked cars, they wanted to be more visible. The parked cars provided less visibility. That's not to say that other cities haven't done a floating parking lane for a bike lane, multiple cities have. And according to the bike plan, what is the role of the Traffic Safety Commission? To provide recommendation, I'm sorry I'm not entirely sure, they provide recommendation on implementing the bike plan and safety. It's right there in their title. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions for staff? Will we take public comment? All right, thank you. Thank you. We've got some cards wishing to speak and some wishing not to speak so we don't sort of run into the situation we had last time. If you're coming forward to speak, if you have, if you're in support, please share whether it's option one or two so that we'll understand exactly which one you're looking for. Suzanne Townsend, if you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. My name is Suzanne Townsend and I live at 425 Hedy and I appreciate the opportunity to speak. So I attended the open house, I attended the Traffic Safety Commission meeting and I was there when the merchants and some of the cyclists met. So, you know, we were kind of discussing what we wanted things to look like and then someone proposed the option two, the alternative option. And, you know, everybody generally was like, hey, that's kind of a good idea. And then it sort of abruptly ended because some people had to leave. So after more thought, I am looking at all the options that we had, including, you know, the other four that were not on street. I started to prefer option one because it appeared to be the safest. I did have concerns that those parked cars on the south side that were, they're protecting the bike lane, but they 're also prohibited, or not prohibiting, but they could block visibility between traveling vehicles and people in the bike lane. And then if somebody wants to turn right onto Avenue A/Fry Street, there's concern that maybe the traveling vehicle may not see a cyclist who's wanting to go straight in the bike lane. So that was a concern. There was also the concern that someone who wants to shop at the local businesses would have to park on the opposite side of the street and then walk across to the north side to visit the business. That was also a concern. So over time, I did lean towards preferring number one. Number two would be acceptable, but it is kind of odd to shift all of the lanes over one for a block and then move it back. So definitely I would say that after looking at all the different designs, I would say that option one is the safest, the most consistent, because it is the same as the rest of Hickory Street with parking on the north side and a bike lane on the south side . And it's also, it appears to be the least costly option as well. So I definitely would support option one. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Willie Hutspeth, come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. May I counsel? My name is Willie Hutspeth. I live at 623 Newton. I prefer option one also. I ride my bike to work sometimes to my place of business, and it's kind of confusing the way it is now. And I think the continuation of the bike lane all the way down would be great, better. And when I'm driving, it would make it easier too when I'm going that way, going home. One suggestion I would make to the group is to, if you're going to paint that area green, I would suggest you do it regularly so that it can, the color of the bike lane can be there for a long period of time. Right now, it's only been three months, I think. It's almost all gone. So again, I would be in support of one. Thank you. Garrett, is it Roemer? Roemer? State your name and address. Your time will begin. Hello. My name is Garrett Roemer. I'm at 3232 North Locust, and I also attended the open house and the Traffic Safety Commission meeting. And just wanted to give my support for option one as well. After kind of looking at the map, we have bike lane in essentially the same configuration from Bonny Bray all the way to Avenue B. We have the section in question and then from Welch all the way to Cedar, even across Carroll. And it's the thing that I liked about option one is that it keeps the whole bike story on Hickory consistent. Some of the issues I had with like some of the real alternative options of routing people up onto like an expanded sidewalk or through the UNT campus as it changes where you expect to find people. So if you're in a car, keep track of the cyclist. It kind of becomes a game. If you end up on the sidewalk, back on the road, share us. And so I like the consistency of option one that you end up with. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Brent Erskine, state your name and address. Your time will begin. Good evening. Thank you guys for giving us a chance to speak. My name is Brent Erskine. I'm the business owner and property owner of 1314 West Hickory, which is Vertman's bookstore. I came before the council about seven months ago with a project for this area. And I was told that there was not enough parking in our project. Now I have the city recommending that they remove 22 spaces from in front of our business. So I'm getting conflicting information from our city. I would like to understand if there is parking is an issue down here or is it not an issue? If we came with another development that was 20 to 30 spaces short, is it going to get approved or is it not? So consistency. I would suggest that if it was mandated by the city to remove parking, that it would be option one. That was my comment that said that I would prefer customers not have to walk across the street to our business, as that seems to make more sense and is safer. However, it would be great if we didn't lose any of our parking in this area. Thank you. Thank you. Alex Payne, come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. Alex Payne, 2304 Cavendish Lane. I wasn't intending to come here to speak on this item, but became very interested in it and really more from a big picture city perspective. I've had I've taken issue with the Traffic and Safety Commission, I believe is what's leading a lot of it in changing most of money our streets around our campus, both T.W.U. and U.N.T. to one-way streets, one-way couplets, and while I do support bike lanes and safety, I do oppose basically eliminating parking, which eliminates the visual friction that causes people to slow down. When I see a wide open road and two lanes of one-way traffic, it encourages the people to speed up. So to me, a solution would be I'd rather see in a pedestrian area, in a retail area that does struggle sometimes being on one-way streets that you would look at even eliminating a parking or a drive lane. Make it a complete street, but encourage there plenty of places to park, places to walk, places to bike. But just to eliminate parking, which I find very ironic and comical in that everyone up here was somehow wanting to support the businesses by making sure they had free parking . We then on the next agenda item, we eliminated however many . So I would just, you know, I haven't been in the meetings. This is my first knowledge of this, but like a lot of these projects I've seen happen on North Locust and Elm and West Tobani Bray on Oak Street, you know, to me it's just it goes against my nature and wanting to be a good urban city. And so I would just encourage you to look at this also within the context of the small area plan that you intend to embark on. Thank you. Thank you. Those are the blue cards we have. I'll read the white cards. Unfortunately, they don't delineate between options. You got one? Let me look. Yep, you did. Come on. Had you in number five again. I was wondering, I had two cards. I misread the agenda item. I apologize. Kim McKibbin. Yes. Kim McKibbin. I am the business owner and building owner of Ora Coffee. What you have here in front of you is a little misleading because it looks like it's a really, really long way where they're going to remove parking. If you look right there where Crooked Crust is and where Cool Beans are, it basically turns to a no parking zone there, which we have no problem at all with putting in the bike lane. Now, I am not anti-bike. I don't even get there. But I do have to say that there is an option that was not considered. I feel like whoever took the motion from the meetings that we had with the cyclist and the business owners at my coffee house, which the city refused to attend, did not get the full story as it was reported. Some people had to go and that was the end of it. Now, when it really comes down to it, what we're talking about here is not this big long red mark. It is 1,600 feet. 1,600 feet that starts at the jack in the box and comes down and ends at Cool Beans. Now, right now, I sit on my balcony and I watch the cyclist and there's not 29 cyclists that come down that road even in the longest, hardest part of the semesters. And they come right down the middle of the road. It's 20 miles an hour through there. It's not supposed to be 30. It's 20. And we've asked the city to reduce it to 20 and they've reduced it all the way to welch to 20. What I would like to see considered and talked about is the -- and I can't find anywhere in the bike plan either where it says that there's supposed to be a bicycle lane through there. I can't find the page that it's on. So the only option that I was told was -- would be for them to go into a share -- into the share road for 20 miles an hour in with the traffic for 1,600 feet. This is what they're doing now. I'm not aware of any major accidents that have happened in this area. Most of the time, if the traffic's busy, it's not moving at all. So I don't think that the traffic commission adequately represented all the options in this case. And when they handed in, it was moved that way. I would like to see the parking that we just kind of dealt with not be lost. Because once again, you've got 35 businesses in that area. There is another option. And I just would really like to see everything considered. I know this is presented in the extremes and I know that the bicycle emotion runs high. But 1,600 feet at 20 miles an hour, the cyclists go more than 20 miles an hour, by the way. And in this area, there's lots of ways for them to route around if they're not comfortable. Thank you. And I appreciate your listening. Councilmember Amaro-Portem, did you have a question? For staff. Okay. You want to take that now? If there are no other comments? There's no other blue cards wishing to speak, but you want me to wait and read them? Okay. All right. Michael Hennan, 724 Thomas, in support. Rachel Rachel, 217 East Congress Street, in support. Jonathan Royster, in support, 604 Myrtle Street. Chris Ellis, 405 Ridgecrest, in opposition. Clint Casey, 405 Ridgecrest Circle, in opposition. Business owner of Caskey's Bar and Grill. Kaylee Cox, 202 North Riddell, in opposition. Gayla Caskey, 405 Ridgecrest Circle, in opposition. Owner of Caskey's Bar and Grill. Austin Nelson, 1304 West Hickory, apartment number 102, in opposition. The parking on the south side of West Hickory should remain because it is needed for the residents and businesses in the area. Casey Glenn, in opposition, business owner of Caskey's Bar and Grill, of number 9 Garden Gate Apartments. And Mitchell Hooten, number 13 Garden Gate Apartments, owner of business Caskey's Bar and Grill, is in opposition. Those are all the cards that I have, Mayor Pro Tem. Question for Julie, if you have a moment. Looking through the bike plan, does it specifically state that there would be a bike lane on this street? Yes. Because I'm not able to find it. You don't have to find it for me. If you know where it's at , then that would help me. I'm sorry, I don't remember the exact page, but you can find this map in the bike plan. You can also find it online . This is the section in the bike plan that says this is meant to be a bike lane. That's what the red in the legend means. Red is a bike lane , orange is a shared lane, purple is a side path. Let me clarify that a little bit. With that red being a bike lane, does that mean that there's no parking? Is that understood from the bike plan? It's understood there should be a bike lane. And the only way to get a bike lane is to remove parking. So the bike plan doesn't say to remove parking. The bike plan says that should be a bike lane. And when staff looks at that, the only way to get a bike lane is to remove on-street parking. Or use some type of sidewalk or mixed model? You could do a sidewalk. Again, that's not what the bike plan calls for. So if we want to change the bike plan, you could again. But it's better to have a complete network in this section. Okay, thank you. Councilmember Ryan? Thank you. Julie, if you can flip to the slide that's got the two options on there, the two pictures. It's showing on option one a bollard in there. Correct. Are those going to be spaced out all along that section? That's to disturb people from actually parking in the bike lane. That way there's no parking in there. Okay. And that will just be through this section or will that be? I actually don't know. We might have it all along Hickory Street, but it would definitely be in this section for sure . Thank you. You're welcome. Councilmember Gregory? Thank you, Mayor. So our experience in starting to apply the bike lanes, the bike plan. In some cases, the road is wide enough that all we have to do is put it in. And in other cases, we have to maybe narrow some lanes a little bit to put it in. In other cases, what we've done is a road diet where we've had some short roads that have two lanes going each direction. And we've moved them to one lane to each direction with the center turn lane and bike lanes. And in some cases, it means removing parking. Are there any other options I'm missing in terms of what the implications are of putting bike lanes on roads? No, that's about correct. I mean, regardless -- I mean, unless you're going to start out with a brand new street where you can have everything, which we don't have in this case. Well, and in fact, in some cases, what we've done, for example, on the large project for Bonnie Bray and the large project for Mayhill is what? We've included 10-foot side paths in those projects that connect to larger regional networks. And they're 10 feet wide because they can accommodate -- at that width, they could accommodate both. Correct. They're meant to be multi-use for people on bikes and people walking. And those are areas where we're acquiring right of way anyway. And so we're requiring enough right of way in order to accomplish all of that. Correct. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Any more questions for staff? Seeing none, Council Member Gregory? I move approval of item D as recommended by the Traffic Safety Commission. Is that option one? Yes. All right. Council Member Briggs? I do have a question for staff, actually. Okay. Or it might be, Manal. It's about the small area plan. Right. I know that we had talked about that earlier, and parking is encompassed in that. And I'm curious if the decision is made to remove parking and they come back with their small area plan and say that we need it, is it -- I mean, we're not going to be able to add it back. So, right, I'm just curious on the small area plan if that would be affected or if -- do they also include in that area plan biking, bike lanes? Councilperson Briggs, at this time what we're looking at is a comprehensive master planning exercise to discern what would be necessary. So I can't pinpoint if they do recommend bike lanes and where they recommend them and if they do recommend eliminating and/or redesigning or reconfiguring bike lanes. So unfortunately we don't have the consultant's data. We haven't initiated the program yet, so we can't address that just yet. So do we have an idea on the time -- on the timing of that? It may have already been addressed earlier. We're hopeful to -- in the next, I would say, three weeks to come forward before council with a contract for your review, purview and consideration. Okay. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. I don't have any questions for staff. Thank you. Okay. I was just going to make a comment. Sure. I won't be voting for this, not because I don't want a bike lane. I think bike mobility is really important, but I think there are other options that we have that we haven't fully explored, whether it's the shared area with the pedestrians , which that actually works in a lot of countries. I was in Amsterdam three weeks ago. That's exactly the situation they have through the entire country or through the entire city. So it's very workable. So I'm not in favor of that for that reason, but also because of the small area plan and because we don't know what the effects would be on development standards and parking standards in that area. I'd like to have a more holistic approach to this particular area, but I would like to see bike mobility just not in this format. Okay. All right. We have a motion. Council Member Riggs. So I'm on the mobility committee and we did talk about this ahead of time and I initially was in favor. I'm in favor of bike lanes, but I honestly I didn't really consider the amount of spaces being taken out for the businesses. And once that came to my attention in the small area plan, I started having second thoughts. So if it was approved, I would prefer the option that the cyclist and the owners came up with together instead of just staff. And so that's that would be my preference. Okay, Chair, we'll call for we have a motion. We do not have a second yet. Chair will make one final call for a second as far as on this current motion and then the motion will die for a second. Chair will give a few seconds. Oh, well, okay. The original motion, I believe, has been withdrawn. Is that correct? I mean, it was one second. So yeah. So Council Member Hudspeth. I'm going to make a motion that piggybacks off the other motion I made saying that this is these two are intertwined and should have been broken out. But I think the gentleman from UNT had a great point to move those forward. But my motion for this is that we postpone it because it should mirror the decision we just made, which was a temporary decision as understood to come back in eight months. So for this, I would ask that we and the word always confusing. Are we postponing or tabling? Postpone. Thank you. So we're postponing to and I don't know that a date certain is accurate. I just think we don't I think we need to gather more information and have it line up with the temporary thing we just passed so that we're moving methodically. So if I could maybe comment on that. Please do. It sounds like what you're asking is the postpone to an event certain and what you would like to see is this come back after the eight month period has gone by where we rean alyze what we just did in the first motion and or the small area plan. I'm just so. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. That captures the sentiment. Yes, sir. Okay. Council Member Briggs. I will second that. I think more information is good and I don't want to lose the bike plan completely. I don't want that to die. I want it to come back and be revisited for sure with more information. So City Attorney, you have enough information as far as the motion as far as the event that would trigger it coming back? It would be two separate, you know, whichever event happens first, either the small area plan or the pilot program review is presented to you in connection with the previous item. Okay. Well, I want to I want to make sure you're okay with that. Yes, sir. No, that's accurate. Okay. All right. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries six to one. Let's take about a five to ten minute break. It's a little bit before eight forty five. Welcome back everyone to this meeting of the Denton City Council June 20th, 2017. We were going to resume our agenda. Agenda item E is considered option of an ordinance of the city of Denton authorizing a memorandum of understanding, excuse me, between the city of Denton, Texas and Denton Assistance Center. DBA served in to implement employee to empower. Mayor, council, we're going to do a brief. Hold on. So, customer Brian, you can recuse yourself. Yes, mayor. I've filed the necessary paperwork with the city secretary. I am on the served in board. So I'm accusing myself from this item. All right. Thank you. We'll start about that. Apologize. We'll start when he exits the building. Not the building, maybe the room. He may be leaving the building. I don't know. Tell me when he's out the door. All right. I'm sorry. Thank you. Hi, I'm Danny Shaw. I'm with Community Development. We're going to do a brief presentation on the employee to empower program. We're seeking for council to consider adoption of an ordinance that would authorize the city of Denton to enter into a memorandum of understanding with served Denton for this program employee to empower. The program is designed to help the literally homeless gain skills and experience and confidence that they need to obtain living wage jobs. Basically, ETE will help people develop a job history, provide training and experience to develop soft skills, and connect people to long-term employment opportunities. A little bit of background. In fall of 2016, Councilmember Bagary asked for staff to look at the Albuquerque program that was similar to this and to see if we could collect some information that also inspired our counterparts at served Denton to actually come together with a pilot program. Pat Smith brought that to the attention of the city as well . And so we organized a meeting with several of the service providers who directly serve the literally homeless in the community with staff and discussed that particular draft proposal. Within the context of that presentation, it was decided that we would form a steering committee with some of the other providers to talk about how we might look at a particular program. And so within that, steering committee met several months, drafted a proposal for a program that they then brought to Council on February 21st, and they did a presentation that included the request for $42,000 to fund this pilot program . Although I'm a little nervous to use pilot here earlier. It seemed like it was a little bit of a bad term. This is a pilot project though. And so within the context of that meeting on February 21st, Council did approve funding for that program and directed us to move forward with developing a memorandum of understanding, which we did. And so now we're here to ask that you authorize us to enter into that memorandum of understanding with Served Denton. A couple of other points just as a refresher, just to remind you what the program is, especially for you new council members. This program will take in the pilot process 10 individuals, and that will be five individuals in two six month periods. They'll complete 25 hours of soft training skills, so an hour of every day that they're working. They will do some sort of training, whether it's a program where they're just doing the traditional typical job training, so resume building, interviewing, but also some of the soft skills that make them more employable, things like conflict resolution and some other things where they might need some additional experience. The goals of the program are to essentially get 50% of those folks into some sort of long term employment, and 100 % of them will also get other assets like gaining those soft skills, but also linkages to some of the other programs in the community like Bank on Denton for money management. And especially linkages to other adult education programs like the DISD adult education program where they can earn training and certifications and the NCTC certification programs. To give you an overview, just as a reminder what the impact of this program would be for the budget, we're looking at again two days a week, so they'd be looking at Tuesday and Wednesday right now I think is the plan for 52 days. That's approximately $400, that's actually a little bit more, at $9 an hour, so each person would earn a total of $ 3600 for the year. So that means that over the course of the year $42,000 would support 10 people, that's $36,000 in salaries, and then $6,000 for the administrative cost for the fiscal agent, that's for Serve Denton to administer the HR part of the program. And then just as a fiscal note as well, when you initially directed us you did indicate that it would be split, so in the memorandum to split the funds over two fiscal years. So it would be $21,000 in this fiscal year and $21,000 in the second fiscal year. And I just wanted to show in the previous presentation that while the city is contributing the $42,000, there are also in-kind donations that are coming through the other organizations. So while we have a cash investment, other agencies who are partnering in this program will also be investing funds. So for example, Serve Denton will be providing the transportation for those employees, so they'll be picked up at the place where they're staying and then transported to the work sites. Vision Ministries is kicking in program management, so their staff member will take the folks who are employed to the program sites to work and to the other training sites that they might be at. Vision Ministries and MKLC will also provide assistance for workers, so if there are anything that they need in order to do the job, gloves, boots, or whatever, they'll be helping out with that. Our Daily Red will be providing lunch on those days for all those folks who are working. MKLC will also provide overnight housing in their emergency shelter so that folks can have a good night's sleep and wake up and be able to take a shower. And then we also, drug testing is part of the program, so Solutions for North Texas has agreed to partner with that. And then of course there's an investment of the time of staff and meeting with that steering committee. So as you can see, there's additional investment. And that 's just what was previously planned. Throughout the course of this pilot, there will be additional connections to other programs that will probably provide other in-kind supports. So that's essentially it. Okay. Any questions for staff? We got one card for public comment. Any questions for staff before public comment? Thank you. Mr. Willie Hudspeth? Okay. Deciding not to speak . Councilmember Briggs. I would like to thank you for all the work that you have done on this program. This is fantastic. And with that, I would like to make a motion for approval. Mayor Pro Tem. I would like to second and also thank you, Danny. Thanks to everybody, Barbara, and also all of our community partners who really put this program together in such a short amount of time. It's been really an amazing thing to watch. I don't want to take credit for it because it was actually a constituent email back in April. Laurie McLaurin contacted me and asked if we could do a program similar to Albuquerque and your department and our nonprofits just ran with it. So, yay for citizen involvement. Yeah. I want to thank you as well. Mayor Pro Tem, I know you don't want to take credit, but I appreciate you being the messenger and bringing it to our attention. And I appreciate staff stepping forward. I certainly appreciate our community partners because without them, this really would not be happening. Yeah. A couple of them are in the audience today. Pat Smith and Carly Cuban served it. Thank you. Thank you all so much for that. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 7-0. Moving to 6-0. Sorry. Yeah. It's getting late. I can't read. If someone would please go get Councilmember Ryan from outside, we'll be good to go. Okay. We're moving on to our public hearings. Public hearing 6-A, hold a public hearing regarding the potential termination of the tax increment reinvestment zone number one. Just want to make sure and clarify that this is not an action item tonight. The council will not be taking a vote on this particular item, most likely just be giving direction, but there will not be an action item or a vote taken on this particular agenda item. We wanted to make sure we gave this opportunity for the public to give their input on the work session that we had a few weeks ago. Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. I am Caroline Booth . I'm the Director of Economic Development with the City of Denton. And I'm going to give you some information tonight about the establishment of the tax increment reinvestment zone number one, which is referred to as the downtown TIF. I'll update you on its fiscal status and give you some information about potential uses of the downtown TIF funds, as well as future options for the downtown TIF. To get everybody up to speed on some background about tax increment financing, TIF does stand for tax increment financing, and it's a tool that's used by local governments in 48 states to publicly finance improvements and infrastructure within a defined zone. And in Texas, it's authorized under Chapter 311 of the tax code. And I have a little graphic up here to help us understand a little bit more about how it works. So the first step in establishing tax increment financing is to geographically define the boundaries of the zone. And then once you determine that you're going to establish it, you set a baseline year for the property value. And so that's down there at the bottom of the graphic where it says baseline property value. And you see the creation and then the time span between the creation and the termination. As property values increase over time, the difference between the current appraised value and the baseline value is actually called the tax increment. So that's what you see in yellow in the graphic. So, for example, the 2016 value of the downtown TIF was $13 6 million. You subtract the base property value from that amount, which was $79 million, and that equals a tax increment of $ 57 million. And these are approximate real numbers for the downtown TIF . So you have $57 million of an increment. The tax rate is applied to the increment, and then the revenue from that goes into the TIF fund. The revenue that's generated by the baseline or that $79 million goes into the general fund. So, again, the yellow part represents the incremental value that's captured over the lifetime of the TIF. And then when it terminates, the entire value goes into the general fund. So moving on to a little bit more background. Under Chapter 311 of the tax code, the zone must meet at least one of a list of criteria to be considered for tax increment financing. The criteria that you see here on the slide were the ones that were used to establish Denton's downtown TIF. And they include it being a contiguous area within the city limits. The area's present condition impairs the sound growth of the municipality. And the TIF project plan includes the use of land for comm uter or transit rail systems. And less than 30% of the property in the proposed zone is residential. Now, I want to point out that at the time the downtown TIF was established, that percentage was only 10%. It had to be less than 10% of the property in the proposed zone as residential. That has been changed by the legislature to 30%. >> When did that occur? Do you remember? >> I couldn't tell you exactly. >> Just decide. >> A timeline for everybody to review about the development and establishment of the downtown TIF. In 2003, the council adopted the downtown master plan after a review process that included a public hearing and recommendation of approval by the planning and zoning commission. In 2005, the city commissioned something called the downtown catalyst project study. It was completed that year. And it dealt with identifying five large scale projects that were viable developments within the downtown area that could then spur additional development. So that study was completed. And then in 2008, the council had a series of discussions regarding the timing of establishing a downtown TIF. And it was decided at that time to wait until the completion of the downtown implementation plan prior to considering establishing a TIF. So after the downtown implementation plan was approved, it kind of fell in line with the two other prior studies in that all of these three plans and studies were developed with community participation and reviewed and endorsed by stakeholders in the community, city boards and commissions, and the city council. And all three of these plans recommended the creation of a TIF in the downtown area. In December 2010, the TIF was established. And in 2011, the TIF project and finance and feasibility plans were adopted. And these are documents that are required under the stat utes for the formation of the TIF. And in 2014, the project plan did have an amendment that was adopted by council. So we all know the area that we're talking about here. This is a map of the TIF zone. And it's to the eastern boundary. That street is Bradshaw on the eastern side of it. And you can see clearly the other ones around the other boundaries. In terms of fiscal information, the project and finance plan called for a total contribution to the TIF fund of $24.8 million. And in the chart, you can see that that's broken down into the four major project areas that were developed and estimated when the TIF was being formed. In terms of the percentage of the valuation that's allocated to the TIF fund, you can see that years one through five, 100% of that increment goes to the TIF fund. Then starting in year six, which is this year, 95% goes to the TIF fund and 5% goes to the general fund. And it continues to decrease by 5% over the next several years and ends up at 85% contribution to the TIF fund and 15% to the general fund. To keep going with the fiscal information, only one expenditure has been approved by council to come out of the TIF funds. And that is a grant to the rail yard development, which is a transit oriented development. And that total grant is $380,000. Two payments of totaling $152,000 have been made to date. As of September 30th, 2016, the TIF fund had $1.29 million in actual revenue that has gone into it. And we did have a request for a piece of information that I want to explain a little bit to you. From January 1, 2011 to date, we estimate that the city has spent $12.96 million within the downtown TIF zone. That estimated amount comes from nine different city funding sources and it includes capital projects, rent payments, utility costs for the Patterson Appleton Arts Center, and other types of expenditures. So this is not solely capturing capital expenditures, but is our best estimate of all of the money that's been exp ended within the zone. I want to go a little bit more into detail about possible uses of the funds. If we were to look at some projects that the city has underway, either in planning or implementation stages that would fit with the eligible project plan categories, under the parking and transportation category, we see a possible application for the wayfinding signage project, which the development services department has been working on and is just on the cusp of implementing. I understand from that department and from the finance department that we could apply TIF funding to three phases of that project. And we would have to be cognizant of the fact that all of those, if we were to use the TIF funds on that wayfinding signage, we would have to make sure that they were actually within the downtown TIF zone and not in the larger DTIP area. Complete streets is another project plan eligible category, and our staff and folks that are involved in the complete streets projects think that this could be a useful application for complete streets elements between Elm and Locust. Again, have to be within the downtown TIF zone, couldn't be outside of that. Downtown projects, there is a possible opportunity here for funding the downtown reinvestment grant program within the boundaries of the downtown TIF zone through the TIF fund. Currently, the downtown reinvestment grant is funded by mixed beverage tax revenues. And finally, utility drainage was the last project plan category listed in the TIF project plan. And this is provisions to regulate stormwater runoff. And so I've been in touch with our engineering department, and they say that certain elements of the downtown drainage master plan could be a potential application for TIF funds. So at this point, we have some options to present to you. First option would be to terminate the downtown TIF fund, at which point the balance would revert to the general fund . I do think it's important to point out here that about one- third of that fund balance from the fund would actually go into INS, the INS portion of the general fund, and the other two- thirds would go to O&M. That's information from our finance department. So that's one thing to consider. Then a second option could be to preserve the downtown TIF under the existing project and finance and feasibility plans, but to identify eligible projects for immediate use of the TIF funds, like those examples of projects that I gave you earlier. And finally, you could opt to change the terms of the downtown TIF to alter its length or the percentage of the increment that's dedicated to the TIF fund. And we have been in touch with our legal department about exactly what would need to be done by the council to undertake those kinds of changes. And it's fairly straightforward, amending the creation ordinance to reflect a new termination date or amending the TIF finance plan to alter the percentage of contributions. That is all of the presentation that I have, but I'm happy to stand for questions. Councilmember Gregory. Well, this isn't so much a question, but a comment. Because we had a work session two weeks ago, and the caption was, "Receive a report and hold a discussion to give staff direction to the downtown TIRs." But immediately, the discussion really started to focus on dissolving the TIF. Killing the TIF was the focus, not really about the goals of the master plan, not really about the best ways to use the TIF fund. It was just mainly focused on arguments to support the idea of killing it. About three quarters of the way through the discussion, four council members had indicated their desire to termin ate the TIF fund. I heard other folks that were not quite certain yet being encouraged, "It's time to take a position because we're going to need to move on this." The quality of the questions has an incredible impact on the quality of our deliberations and the quality of the answers that we get. And the question of, "Do we kill the TIRs?" was a premature question to be discussing, in my opinion, on June the 6th. I think it's still premature tonight, yet the caption tonight says, "A discussion on the potential termination of the fund." And while I hear that we are not going to have a vote on it tonight, I think the caption probably would allow for a vote on it tonight. I hope that we don't. I hope that we postpone doing that. If necessary, I'd be willing to make a motion to postpone. And the reason I would is because we really haven't heard or invited input from any of the stakeholder groups. We haven't invited from the Main Street Association, the Downtown Task Force, the Downtown Business Groups, the Downtown Residential Group, the Economic Development Partnership Board, and the general public. Well, we're going to hear from some of those tonight. We should not make a decision until we take a comprehensive look at the Downtown Master Plan and the Downtown Imple mentation Plan. What was the vision? What were the goals? What has been accomplished? What still needs to be done? Which goals are no longer valid or viable or needed? And what goals should be altered or added? And what I did was I went through the approved 2003 plan and I tried to summarize the goals. So this is your work product? This is my work product, yeah. And it includes the vision taken directly from the document and a couple of vision statements up at the top. And what I did was, after going through it, and I suspect you could do it differently, but I came up with 15 different goals. One of them was to implement the TERS. And in that, on page 39, it said, "This plan does not advocate a major large-scale investment, but rather to create a strategy that will allow the downtown's growth and prosperity to pay for those investments." So I think that we ought to talk about the TERS and see if it has been useful and see what we could do to make it more useful. Should we continue it as originally planned? Are there more effective ways to use the TIF funds? Are there better and more appropriate projects than those considered five years ago? Are there better tools than the TIF fund? One of the options before us is to change the terms of the TIF fund or to -- and we're not at all prepared to do that. We have to have a lot more talk. So it's my hope and my prayer that tonight we can use this as a starting point to begin hearing from our community and not rush into a quick decision to kill part of the plan that's been in play for over 15 years and the part of the plan that helps fund the rest of the plan. I'll tell you, when you have plans and you don't have a commitment to fund the plans, there's hardly any point of having the plan. So I think as we talk about the TIF and we talk about what we're going -- if we might replace it, we're going to talk about how we're going to fund the rest of the plan because that's significant. Otherwise, we're really saying no to the plan if we're saying no to funding the plan. So I hope that this is the beginning of a conversation where we invite a lot of input and not just a step towards a quick termination of the terms. Thank you, Mayor. While I enjoy a good soliloquy just like everyone else, I think the citizens here are waiting to speak, and I'd like to encourage you to hold our comments and let 's hear from the citizens that have been waiting here since 630 for this particular item for them to be heard. That would be my initial request. And then I'd like to just insert a foothold, and we'll talk about it later, but I disagree with the characterization of our work session and what I had helped to extrapolate from that conversation. And I think it's never a bad thing to ask questions and gain an understanding. I don't have the luxury of being on this body for 10 years, going on 12, but so there are some questions that I need to ask to better avail myself of the information and adjust with new information. So with that, I would ask you to -- we can be here all night. That's okay. But these people are working and have been so gracious to wait, and so I'd like to hear from them so that I can make note of their thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Caroline, can you clarify something that you said for me? Sure. You said, according to finance, if the balance were to be used -- or I'm sorry, if the TIF were to be dissolved, the TERS were to be dissolved, then one-third would go to debt payments, and the other two-thirds would go to operation and maintenance. So truly, there would only be about 800,000 available if we were to dissolve it. Is that correct? One second. Okay. Yes. Let me just find -- let me find -- I jotted down what the breakdown would be. Yeah, you're right. It's about 800,000 that would go to A&M -- O&M -- GIGM -- and 396,000 to INS. But if we chose, as a council, at some point to utilize that money and then dissolve the TERS, let's say that's just down the line, we would not have to pay the money to O&M -- not have to divide it between O&M and debt, correct? I don't want to speak to that part of the question. I'll find out. Okay, well, it's a good question to think about for the future. Yeah, and this was a brief conversation with finance this afternoon, so I'll make sure to find out for you. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Okay. Seeing no more requests to speak, we'll go on to public comments. Ginger Cain, to state your name and address, your time will begin. Ginger Cain, 1600 Churchill Drive. And I'd just like to say that, you know, I appreciate our downtown, and I really think it's become very vibrant, and a lot of people come to Denton just to come to our square. It's unique, and I like that. I think what I -- I attended a meeting yesterday to kind of hear some input as to why people were for not dissolving the TIF, and I agree with some of their points. But some of the things and fears that they have, I think, are that if they're not getting that money anymore, that the downtown is just rapidly going to start going down , and I don't feel that way. And I feel like that overall we need to look at our city as a whole. There's a lot of different areas that particularly I think that city, the main job is utility, streets, sidewalks, safety, and that type of thing. And we have streets all over Denton that need tons of work, and we need to look at the arteries that bring people into the downtown square, too. It's almost like in some of the ways of coming in, I'd like to blindfold them before they get down there so that they wouldn't have to look at some of the things that you have to pass by to get to our wonderful downtown. And also, might want to fly them in if you're coming in through -- down Hickory Street from the university, because that will literally almost tear up your car and make a trip down that road. It's really bad. I want us to -- I would like to see the city consider taking a look at the downtown plan and what we still need to complete, and also ask the questions is why have those things not yet been done if they were in the plan? So were there money set aside by the TIF? Who decides all of that? And how the grants go and things like that. So take a look at all of those and consider Denton as a whole and not just one area. Thank you. John Lenz. You can now state your name and address. Your time will begin. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. My name is John Lenz. I live at 2304 South Gate -- or Stone Gate Circle in the Stone Ridge -- South Ridge area, 76205. I have had limited time to thoroughly understand the reasons why it's being considered to be discontinued, the T IF program. But I believe I have a good understanding of how and why it was created and how it's calculated. I do own a downtown property and business along with my 31- year-old son who had a vision to create a business here in Denton versus Austin. It was his choice. Our business is called Harvest House at 331 East Hickory. It used to be the old Barneys Auto Supply. I think many people are familiar with the old Barneys Supp ly. We made a major investment in significant improvements. We received many thanks and compliments from people throughout the city. Our property taxes have increased about fivefold since 2014 . Therefore, I have made a notable contribution to the TIF. Having said that, though, I have publicly and repeatedly called Harvest House contribution to the community as part of what I call a mall theory. I encourage people to come downtown Denton not just to visit Harvest House, but to visit Eastside, Oak Street, Hickory Street Lounge, Dan Silverleaf, Barley and Board, L SA, Mellow Mushroom, Bearded Monk, and the new Denton County Brewing Company and many, many more. Business owners like John Williams, Dan Mohica, Monte J ensen, Ben Easley, we work together to create this environment where people want to come downtown, where they want to go out and enjoy themselves come downtown. My four key points that I'd like to express here are, it's my understanding a lot of people put a lot of work into establishing this program that went into effect in 2010. My understanding it's being considered to be abolished and rolled into the general fund over a very short period of time of consideration by a few people. Three, I am in support of TIF for the potential betterment of the city of Denton economically as a whole. Lastly, most importantly, I am not in support to abolish it without at least more thorough economic analysis and or consideration of options. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker is Alex Payne. Alex Payne, 2304 Cavendish Lane. Background, I've lived and worked in Denton since 2002, moved to downtown into an apartment in 2003. 2004 was able to join the downtown task force at an early stage and worked on much of the background dates that Caroline presented, worked through all those dates since the inception of the downtown master plan, the DTIP, the formation of the TIF. It's been something that's been a passion of mine and something I've worked tireless hours on along with a lot of other people represented here today. 2017, this year I'll be moving my office to downtown and making a further commitment and investment into a property on South Elm. I truly believe in the use of TIF and has been proven to be an effective tool to encourage quality redevelopment in urban areas. Very close to here, Dallas has 14 just in and near their downtown. Fort Worth as a whole city has 12 TIFs that they use. It was so successful in their original downtown TIF that they've now used this in other areas to encourage redevelop ment because much like Denton, it's an old city and it can be used to effectively rede velop areas that have already developed much like our downtown and then encourage the type of development they want to see. I gave a presentation last night in which I ask, are we there yet? I wasn't at the meeting in which this was discussed. I know there's some discussion of downtown's thriving. Why does it need our help? And I think the context of what you consider downtown may be too small. I think we tend to spend our time on those streets that have been improved, the square itself, East Hickory. Looks great. Things are happening. However, if this is working. Overhead, please. There's a picture of East Hickory. Yeah, it looks wonderful . Things are happening. Industrial Street in the TIF zone, right down the street from where things are happening, I consider that blight. There's no sidewalks. There is no development. It's a very uninviting place to walk. However, if there were a complete street there, I feel like people wouldn't feel the need that we need a parking garage . They'd be glad to walk from that location to Fuzzy's Tacos or, you know, Dan's Silverleaf. Can I real quick question on that picture? If I get more time? Yeah, you'll get more time. I just want to. No, no, of course. What is on the right hand side of it? What is that? That's the self storage. Okay. All right. Okay. And those are just residential homes, what I would consider blight. You bet. Okay. I think quite possibly the worst area of our downtown and in dire need of redevelopment, which is where rubber gloves is. And around that, the street itself, the railroad crossing, the lack of sidewalks and the industrial buildings that are in that area. Some of those do and some of those don't fall in our TIF area. I would encourage as we look at this and try to amend this TIF, expand this TIF to include those areas. Project I've been involved with, with Tim Beatty, who's redeveloping the Monroe Pearson building. That street's being placed on him to redo improvements on that street because he's taking a risk and putting in the investment to redo that building and bring a great tax generator, sales tax generator and visitor to downtown. He's also being asked, upgrade our crumbling infrastructure . He didn't ask for TIF funds because he didn't know to ask for TIF funds. I suggested he go to the TIF board, but he didn't even know to do that. All he's received is a $25,000 reimbursement grant. Again, I'm not even quite sure if that's in our TIF zone, but part of my presentation, I would be encouraging you to look at how to improve it. And I think it is to expand some of the areas that are bl ighted in need of help. The issues I've heard either indirectly, I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, is that there are, you know, there's issues with the perception of how Stoke or the rail yard benefited from this TIF. That transparency hasn't been there, that the goals and visions aren't maybe known to the public and what we're waiting to spend that money on. Should we spend it on a, wait and save it and spend it for a big parking garage? I don't believe so. I agree that there are some transparency issues. I'm on the downtown task force and I've felt like I don't know what's going on with the TIF board. And is there anything that we can do as a task force to be giving vision to the TIF board and what we should be doing? I take exception with that because I too agree with that problem. But it is not, in my opinion, intended to be a savings account for one big development, nor is it to be to lie in the pockets of developers. It's to be used for small incremental projects. These things make impacts. The cedar streets that were done several years ago and the East Hickory streets, those make impact. I know I've given you more than what I took, so that's fine . Do you have a question? No, he's got a question. He's got a question. Alex, you've obviously worked in the Fort Worth area and the Dallas area. And one of the things that was discussed at our meeting was the fact that the new buildings, the growth in that is not what we expected. And we're seeing most of it in the increased property values. But what I'm seeing is we're redeveloping a lot of buildings. Is that normal? Are the other towns doing more scrape and rebuild? Or is it just -- In an area that I'm very familiar with, which is the TIF district and near Southside, which is the hospital zone of Fort Worth, absolutely there's just appreciation of property values. But they led the way with improvements like Magnolia Street that made that an inviting area. Now they're doing South Main Street, things like that. And so buildings are getting redone, but then there are major big projects getting built in that area because buildings are getting redone. So I would subscribe to the theory that these are the first things that do happen. And then because that's such a cool area that people want to be, and then you give developers the tools that they need to make developments in a downtown area challenging already. But you give them the tools necessary to make these things come to fruition, the kind of things you want to have happen down there. They'll start to happen because this is a cool area and an inviting area. And so I think we need more incentive, but also more control of what we get. I think we kind of just get what we get here. And unfortunately, I don't believe in that. So again, I think you know my position. Involve the stakeholders, expand the zone, and do not kill this TIF. Give it time to mature. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Bob Moses, come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. My name is Bob Moses. I live at 1702 Pine Hills Lane in Corinth. I own a property on the square at 115-117 West Hickory. It's the home of Beth Marie's Ice Cream and now Mad World Records. We've owned that property since 1998. I'll tell you, when we bought the property and started renovating it, we did it on a Saturday morning and it was nothing downtown but pigeons. We pulled up two trucks, a flatbed trailer, and my SUV right in front of where Beth Marie's is had no problems. And since that time, I have participated in the various studies and various meetings that have gone on to eventually cause the TIF to be established. As part of that, I was a member of the Main Street Board for, I guess, two different terms, totally maybe 12 years. I was one of the original and still am on the downtown task force. I was one of the original seven people and am still on the TIF board along with our mayor. And I just encourage, I think that what Alex and what John have said before me is very true. We need not to rush to judgment. We don't need to hurry this. We have people who are stakeholders that are involved in all of these organizations. And I think what I would like to see is the city council and staff challenge those different groups to come forth with some suggestions. We were given some guidelines when the TIF was established to basically guard it as a TIF board member and to try and be careful and not let it dwindle away by people pulling from it in small chunks. And actually, the parking garage continues to be mentioned sometimes in a derogatory way. It is something that the TIF could never contribute towards helping with, but that was one of the things that the then city council suggested we should try and guard against having money pulled away so that there would be some money to help an investor and to promote that, help participate in the construction of a parking garage. Now, if that's not the name of the game now, if as has been said in the work session that the city can take care of those things, fine. Then let's look at the other things the city is not taking care of. The lights around downtown, the streets, some of the things that Alex showed. I don't know if money can be spent for dedicated police patrol around the area, but we're now so vibrant that we have a problem. And we could sure use not 24-hour protection perhaps, but continual presence of police in the downtown area to make it feel safe for our visitors and for our community. So I think there are a lot of things that the TIF can contribute for. I think it's used in other cities. It's used for good purposes. And I encourage this group here to consider that. I appreciate what Councilman Gregory had to say. I think he is spot on with his impression of the sentiment of most of the stakeholders here. And so I ask that you take that into consideration. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem, do you have a question? Yeah. Mr. Moses, thanks for joining us tonight. I have a real brief question. You mentioned guidelines to guard against -- I don't remember how you put it. I can't read my handwriting. You said -- oh, you received some guidelines to guard against pulling away the money. I'm not real clear on where those guidelines came from. Well, when the TIF was formed, we were -- and this was now six, seven years ago, so I don't remember the individuals. But in being asked to become a member of the TIF Board and sitting down and discussing with, I assume, it was members of the City Council or staff, economics development staff, I don't know -- I don't remember. I have to look back at the minutes to see who talked to us as a group that very first time. But it's kind of been a continual thought expressed by the -- and the TIF Board is chaired or is directed, as is the downtown task force, by staff members. They attend -- we do have our own chairman, our own president, but both of those organizations are simply advisory. We try to look at things. We do vote. And we try to determine what we think our recommendation is and put that forth and it goes to the economics development group or to the City Council. But I don't remember the individual. But it's been a reoccurring thing until just very recently. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Next speaker is Greg Johnson. Come down and state your name and address. We'll begin. Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council, Mr. City Manager. Thank you for your service. I miss some of you. Dalton. My name is Greg Johnson. I live at 2405 Winthrop Hill. When I heard about this, I was trying to think of what would an example be that I would liken this to, the idea of killing the TIF at this point. And all I can come up with is this would be like taking your kid out of school in fourth grade because you're not sure they can graduate with honors. I mean, if you look at the stated purpose, the amount of money that was intended to build, you look at the various projects, this thing is an infant. So our slogan that we advertise our city is Denton, original and independent. Does Loop 288 Shopping and Razor Ranch make us that? No. Do tourists come here to see our landfill or the mall? No. Downtown is our calling card. It's where we bring our relatives when they visit, our customers when they come to town. It's where our staff brings companies we're trying to recruit to move their businesses here. It's our fingerprint. But downtown has some unique challenges to it. The infrastructure is old. The other thing that's really unique about downtown is typically your building line is your property line. So you can't put a dumpster on your property. You can't put a sidewalk on your property. You go build something off of Teasley or Loop 288, you got your dumpster enclosure, your sidewalks, all your infrastructure. You can't do that if you want to here. And the thing that worries me a little bit is we've been talking about our sidewalks, our downtown trash problem with dumpsters sitting right out in front of the door of a restaurant. We've been talking about that for 10 plus years that I've been on the downtown task force and we've never addressed it. And it's been brought up certainly in two budget meetings that I've been a part of, the pilot program to deal with the trash downtown. And it's never made the cut in the general fund. You know, since its inception, what I've heard about the T IF is it's like the savings account for a parking garage. I've not ever been to a TIF board meeting and I'm not sure how many of you guys have. But frankly, there's never been enough money in it to do anything, right? It's an infant. So it's got $1.2 million in it now after seven years, six and a half, seven years. Yet the project costs listed in the original plan for infrastructure, streets, sidewalks, flood removal, et cetera, if I remember Caroline's slide, that was $20 million. So we've got $1 million in it today and the stated amount cost seven years ago was $20 million. So maybe we need to give the TIF board some new direction. Maybe we need to be clearer with our communication. Maybe you should have a joint meeting and give them clear communication. But don't throw the baby out with the bath water. There's much more to do downtown with public infrastructure . We pale by comparison to other downtowns and how we handle our trash, how we light our parking lots. Hell, we have two gravel parking lots and we wouldn't ever allow a private citizen to build a gravel parking lot on their property. Yet it's good enough for us to do on our own. We use TIF money to create that. You know, we had the Leadership Denton Project just last year or maybe it was two years ago. They did the study on parking and what they told us was we don't need a parking garage yet. What you need to do is mark your current parking, light it well, and create safe pedestrian walkways to get to and from them. We haven't done any of those things yet, but TIF money could be used for that. But you couldn't do any of those things with a million too. It's not time yet. And why wouldn't you use the tax dollars generated from the property owners who benefit from those visitors? I would subject to you, I would think of a guy that lives down on Teasley that works in Dallas that never comes downtown would argue at a budget meeting, "I don't want you using my tax dollars to fix the trash problem on the square." I fear that infrastructure items like these won't make the cut in a general budget discussion because they never have. Give it time to work, tweak the things if needed, but don't kill it while it's an infant. Councilmember Gregory. Thanks. You were talking about other cities. Do you have any knowledge of TIF districts in other cities, especially close by, that could be useful to us? Well, I want to grow up to be like Alex Payne, so I'll piggyback on his. I have some experience in downtown Fort Worth. Some partners and I bought a building in what they call their Fort Worth South TIF zone. We closed on the building and probably within 30 days we got contacted by the Fort Worth South Inc., which is basically their group that runs the TIF. And they said, "We understand you bought this building. We'd like to meet with you and talk about it." And they wanted to know what we were going to do with the building and if they could help. And actually offered us $100,000 if they could have some say in what the outside of the building looked like. Ultimately, we restored the building to match a photo from, I think it was 1902, where there was horses and carriages out in the front. And they wanted to bring it back to that and they used those funds to help that happen. So if you just do a study of Fort Worth South or Fort Worth Inc. and go look at what they've been able to accomplish in those zones by helping with trash, pedestrian access, and those sort of funds. Now, if we have a Hunt family in debt and I wish they'd raise their hand because that certainly helps. But the private investment happens when the public investment happens along with it. You can't put everything on the backs of the private guy because you don't get as nice of a product that way. But it really doesn't cost $100,000 for a horse and carriage, does it? You're the only one in the room that can tell me. We've got a long night here. Let's move on. Thank you very much. Thank you, Greg. That's getting close. Mr. Johnson, Monty Johnson, I've got two cards for you so you're going to come speak. Is that correct? Okay. All right. Thank you. State your name and address and your time will begin. My name is Monty Jensen. I own Mellow Mushroom on Hickory Street. I also live at 2114 K Wood Drive here in Denton. Engines that aren't maintained eventually cease to properly function. It's hard to fathom a Denton engine with comparable land footprint that creates jobs, taxes, employment and repeat money spent by residents and repeat money and repeat money spent by those residents at other small businesses again and again than that that's spent downtown. It's got to be Denton's biggest dollar generating engine for its size, maybe Denton's biggest dollar generating engine, period. The city is chartered or participates or has other interests financially and otherwise in the TIF, in the downtown reinvestment grant, economic development, Denton Main Street, Chamber of Commerce, at one level or another. My question would be do we as a city want a seat and a voice in how business moves forward? If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. The money in the TIF only comes from the TIF, but more money comes to the city than what's held in the TIF fund exponentially. Taxes generated in the TIF far exceed anything held in it. Rather than disband, consider meeting with the various business board constituencies, whether it's the TIF, the downtown reinvestment grant board, the Chamber, Denton Main Street Association, or adding, thinking about things like adding other TIF areas, fixing what you don't like about how the TIF operates today. Alter your direction for how the TIF functions. Address issues, change boundaries of the TIF, add other TIF s, look at what the goals of the TIF are. Consider paving the two gravel parking lots that I believe the city owns, and I believe also in violation of code. The timing is highly unfortunate. One, not much money was in the TIF in the past. There's $1.29 million in it now. And the two biggest fund generators in probably the last 50 years in downtown with the Bell properties, Wells Fargo Project and the Denton Record Chronicle, are coming up that also stand to generate huge money in this TIF. To disband it now, I think would be a travesty. The $1.29 million in the TIF is about 0.1%, one-tenth of 1% of the $972 million in the city of Denton's budget. We have big plan initiatives with big admin companies that come in and lobby for funds. The mall, razor ranch, Buc-E's, other developments have been incentivized. None of them are an engine or vital to the heart of the community of the city of Denton. No other small business initiatives exist in and of or by the city of Denton, not one single one. We'll give all of that money to Buc-E's, razor ranch, Winko , whatever. There's no other small business. Roads, infrastructure, services are the responsibility of the city. But if the city doesn't focus on small business, those things are going to have to either be paid by big business, which can't necessarily or won't support it. And I doubt any of you, when you run for re-election, want to say we don't support small business and we haven't. So our only alternative is to increase residential taxes. That doesn't go very well. It's not an A or B equation. In attempt to paraphrase an earlier comment by Mayor Pro Tem on bike lanes, please reconsider simply disbanding the TIF because there are other options not explored. The thing I would leave you with is it's not necessarily a TIF function, but I got a downtown reinvestment grant for my sign at M ellow Mushroom. It was outside of my budget. Mellow Mushroom so loved that sign that Starlight Signs, based here in Denton, is now the sign provider of preference for all Mellow Mush rooms nationwide. So in the law of unintended consequences, you have all of this money that has come into the city of Denton from Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Arizona. Money that generates taxes, that creates jobs, that creates employees, and it creates money that's spent here in this city that would never have existed if I hadn't gotten that grant. Signs run $30,000 to $50,000 apiece. At 50 signs, that's $2.5 million that came into the city of Denton on a $5,000 investment. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Ken Gold, come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. My name's Ken Gold. I live at 2512 Natchez Trace here in town. I'm going to be swimming a little against the current here. First thing I want to point out is, I think it was addressed a little bit, is that the downtown is doing pretty well. That's good for everybody. There's more to be done, obviously. I think the city, the city of Denton, has shown that it supports downtown. This can be documented by the actual history of its investing over $12 million in improvements in infrastructure to the downtown area. There's no evidence this level of investment will stop, to my knowledge. None of that $12 million came from the TIF. It came from a variety of other sources that was pointed out earlier. Part of the confusion surrounding this issue is because there are several funds dedicated to downtown. So far, the six-year period, the six-year-old TIF has invested a little over $150,000 into downtown, and all of that to a single beneficiary, the rail yard. That's the entire and factual history of what the TIF has actually done. My opinion on this is that all we've gotten so far with the TIF is an extra layer of obviously unneeded and so far unco operative bureaucracy. Unneeded because anything the TIF can do can be done through the normal budget process and done bigger. The $12 million in the last five years shows that. Uncooperative, I say, I'm going to be delicate here because of the disappointment with trying to get help with the badly needed repairs to downtown sidewalks, and they're protecting their garage project. So for me, I don't see any need for this controversial funding method. I commend the Council for supporting our downtown, and I believe you will continue to do so. Thank you. Thank you. Tim Staulfus, come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. Council members, Tim Staulfus. I live at 3004. No problem. I'm used to it. I live at 3004 Picontree Drive, also owner of More Fun Comics and Games on the Square, as well as two other retail establishments in the downtown area. I want to take a moment to talk about vision and fairness. One argument that's been brought up about the TIF is that downtown is done. It's thriving. The problem with that is there is still a lot of work to be done. A very good example that comes to my mind is directly behind my business, Walnut Street, which, if any of you are not familiar with it, it's a blight. It's a row of dumpsters, you know, parking that's undefined and a road that's rough. It's unlit at night. It doesn't feel safe to walk down Walnut Street. A few local businessmen and visionaries have held events back there where they've cleared out the parking, they've cleared out the dumpsters in an effort to showcase the potential that exists if money is invested in Walnut Street . And in the process of a renovation project for Walnut Street, which would fall well within the guidelines of the TIF as it was created, you would create a connection between Elm Street, Alcua Dulce, and Industrial Street, where people would feel more safe, especially at night, to walk down there. And the reason I bring that up is because people keep talking about the parking garage. I think we need to have discussions about what to use the money on. I think the parking garage personally is a terrible idea, but no one's had those conversations. It's way too early to kill the TIF in the interest of long- term projects. And I also think that keeping it to talk about projects like what I talk about with Walnut Street is important because the city has invested a lot of money in downtown, and it's much appreciated, and it's generated a great deal of activity and financial windfalls for the city and for its residents. But at this point, I feel it's also unfair to residents of District 4, of District 3, and wide swaths of District 1 and 2, who now are going to ask to continue to pay into downtown when the opportunity is going to exist for downtown to invest in itself with the money it's generated, and in the process, generate growing sales tax revenue and drink tax revenue that will benefit the general fund and the entire city. And those numbers have been growing rapidly. I can tell you from personal experience. It's the 20th. I had to do sales tax this afternoon. The numbers have grown dramatically, and with the proper investment of the TIF money and continuing to have conversations in the long term about how to best put that money to use to create a vibrant downtown and take care of areas like Walnut Street that are ugly and need work, we can continue to generate more funds for the rest of the city and not just downtown. I thank you for your time. Thank you. Mike Cochran? Come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. I actually had intended to speak on this. I came for another item, but I don't know what my card indicated, but I'll speak anyway. Mr. Ryan, if I had known you were going to be elected, I would have returned your phone calls. I apologize. In any event, I don't think that this TIF is a very good idea, and I'm opposed to it. I think that the idea of closing it down is a reasonable plan because this Council, previous Councils, for a long time have demonstrated a commitment to the square, and not to mention the county as well. A commitment to our courthouse square as the central focus of the community, and you all have done an admirable job of doing that. It's been said before by a lot of the folks that very little benefit has come from this TIF so far. They've explained that it didn't have enough money in it, et cetera, but I think that you all are connected to the community. You're not a private board. We know how to get in touch with you. We don't even know who the TIF board members are. I think that you all are much more accessible and much more qualified to make these decisions about how public monies are spent down there. I would personally like to be able to withhold part of my own taxes to use just for my neighborhood. I think that that's an incredible idea, and I'm sure everybody does too, but this is just not fair. It's not the way it should be done. There are many advocates for this TIF, and I think that they make a passionate argument, and I can understand their interest and their self-interest in pursuing this. But I would say that the TIF enabling legislation gives a perfect solution to the problem. Rather than diverting money from the general fund, which would be a natural process of taxes in a booming economy, there's a mechanism in tax code 311 that gives the TIF board the ability to raise taxes. And if they like it so much, then they should tax themselves in order to produce these benefits. A lot of TIFs are done this way, and that was my original understanding of how TIFs operated, was that they – people in a defined area voluntarily agreed to pay a little extra because they were good citizens, and they wanted some specific improvements that would benefit their area of the town. But when you divert funds from the general tax fund to use specifically in this area, I think that it does a diss ervice to the rest of the community. And I've heard – and I'll just say one last thing is that I 've heard a lot of discussion about a parking garage. It's held – you get a parking place down there, there's no question about it. I believe you could use hotel motel funds just as easily to fund a parking garage or at least get the ball rolling on that. And so I think that that would be their answers to all these questions and that they're entirely reasonable. I mean, it's a great place. The community benefits from it. The community is willing to support it. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Next speaker is Jodi Ismert. Jodi Ismert, 819 Anna Street. And it's been a while since I 've been up here speaking, so hi again. Okay, so I live downtown. I feel like I'm a stakeholder. I 'm in one of the neighborhoods. I'm less than a half a mile away. I often jog through the downtown probably every morning, actually, just about. And so I'm very familiar – my family goes to a lot of the businesses of all of the people that are out here quite regularly just because we're within walking distance. I, however, am kind of grinning against the TIF. I'm still somewhat undecided, but I feel like – kind of like what Mike was just saying – it does – you know, if we have taxes , it really should go to the whole community. And our streets, our infrastructure, it's a mess. It is – I mean, it is a mess. It does. It makes the city look blight ed. And in the downtown, also in the neighborhoods right next to downtown, I would like to see the roads. I would like to see lamps. I would like to see everything cleaned up. I would like to see streets that are actually drivable, sidewalks, bike paths, things of that nature that truly makes the area walkable, because right now it's really not. For a long time, you know, when my daughter was a toddler and I had her in the stroller, I got one of those jogging strollers specifically because I was having to go up and down curbs all the time. Not because I was actually jogging with the stroller, but just because it was really hard to walk around downtown. As far as the TIF is concerned, there's only – it's only supported the rail yard. My concern about that is the rail yard has no metrics telling us whether or not it's been successful. You can't find metrics anywhere on it, as a matter of fact. I've looked. I've asked. I know other people have asked. I stopped asking because they're not there. So I don't know how successful the rail yard has been. But if they are available, please let me know. So that's what TIF money has been spent on so far. I know that it was requested four street inside Rock Repair and that the TIF board did not meet in a timely manner to actually fund that. Being that it is only $1.2 million, I can kind of see, you know, maybe perhaps there isn't enough funds in the TIF fund at this point. But why hold – I'm not quite understanding holding all these funding for a parking garage. I just – I'm against the idea of a parking garage. And I do like some of the things that Alex Payne talked about, and I like the photos that he showed because that's something I experience every single day. I would be in favor of seeing funding go towards helping that. I don't know. I'm kind of undecided at this point. So I think there definitely needs to be more meetings. And I like the idea that people are being listened to as well. So that's all. Thank you. Thanks. Next blue card is Paul Meltzer. I'm going to state your name and address. Your time will begin. Paul Meltzer. I live at 1914 West Oak Street. I'm rising mostly to say that I think we're having the wrong conversation or in the wrong order. The TIF is a funding mechanism. It's a financing mechanism to finance something. I think really the important question at first is what is the something? I think what's critical is to determine what our goals are for Denton, what the role of downtown is, what strategies and tactics will keep the community vibrant and distinctive with a great quality of life. And from that will come projects that we can prioritize. And then we can see what funding mechanisms are best suited , what things are short term, what things are long term. The financing question comes after you've established goals , strategies, tactics, projects, priorities, sequence. So I'm glad that this may well be the beginning of that process. I really don't have an opinion separately on whether in and of itself the TIF is a good or bad thing until we know what it is we want to fund. Thank you. Those are all the blue cards that I have. I'm going to read the white cards into the record. And these are people wishing not to speak. And I will read either support or opposition on the card. And I think it's probably just based upon the caption that was in the agenda. Michael Hinnon, support. Is it Dan? Is it Baron or Sarin? I apologize. 5316 Cayenne Lane, opposition. Sean Tregate, 3508 Pleasant Hollow. I'm sorry for the mispr onunciation. Ben Esley, 707 Northridge Street, in opposition. Jen Morgan, 200 East McKinney, in opposition. Scott Campbell, 115 North Austin Street, number seven, in opposition. Mike Cochran's already stated his position. I believe it's Hunt. Warren Hunt. Ron Warren Hunt, 4211 I- 35. Just simply said it needs more info. Jan Piper Hunt, in opposition. Jeff Doyle, in opposition. Marybeth Rienke, 124 Industrial, in opposition. Josh Berthum, 2813 Dana Lane, in opposition. Brent Ward, 117 East Prairie Street, in opposition. Jenny Hooker, 816 North Belle Avenue, in opposition. Julie McRoberts, 203 East 3rd Street, number B, in opposition. That's all the white cards. This is a public hearing. If you've not filled out a white card and you've not spoken because of a blue card, come on down and state your name and address if you want to speak. Mr. Duff, Council Member Duff. When you say opposition, are they opposing killing it or keeping it? I think based upon the caption, I would say they're opposed to killing it. Okay. Thank you. Yes. And if I was incorrect in that assumption, please somebody be sure and correct the record. Thank you. So hi. Deb Armantar, 2003, Mistywood Lane. I've heard several downtown business owners speak in favor of the TIF, and I understand what they like about it. If there was a special fund for my neighborhood, I'd be excited too, especially if I were promised that, well, you know, you didn't get what you wanted from the fund last time, but next time, you know, maybe your wildest fantasies, pipe dreams could all be fulfilled by this fund. So I really do understand that. I love our downtown. And I do believe that there are some things we need in terms of road repair, as others have said. I prefer to see that as come out of the general fund I consider road repair, road maintenance, and basic infrastructure, I mean, it's just a core function of government. That should just be a no-brainer in general budgeting. As council members, it's your job to see the big picture at budget time, not to be thinking in terms of your own little segment, little piece of the pie. And I see a number of you doing that and the kinds of questions that you're asking about this, not just about this issue, but at budget time in general. I applaud that. At budget time, you should all be thinking like at-large members. As a city, we are right now recovering from years of what I believe to be poor city management and what I think no one can deny has been serious debt. Our billion-dollar budget is out of control, and I'm thrilled that we are now in more capable hands than our new city manager. We now have an internal city auditor, which is a position that went deliberately unfilled under the old city manager. So things are really on the up and up. As others still have said, there's damage that remains, things that went ignored, basic road repairs, et cetera. I believe we all need to unite as a city around a sensible general budget plan instead of fighting over our own little piece of the pie. And this is what the TIF mentality does. It compartmentalizes the budget instead of seeing the holistic big picture. And again, I understand why individual citizens do that. But as a council, your job is to really see the big picture at budget time. Now, everybody will get their piece of the pie, maybe not the kind of fantasy piece they had in mind. But that can only happen if we eliminate these territorial disputes and the bureaucracy. And I agree with Ken Gold. I do see the TIF as kind of another layer of bureaucracy and red tape and time to getting whatever it is that needs to be done from the general fund or from economic development. I see it as a matter of financial responsibility and overall budgeting versus hiding little chunks of money under various mattress es all around the house and kind of guarding them and hoarding them. In closing, I just want to say someone said earlier that taking away the TIF feels like pulling your kid out of fourth grade because you're worried he's not going to graduate. I don't see it that way. I see it more as pulling your fourth grader out of private school because you realize you have nine other kids at home and you can barely afford to keep them clothed and fed. So I'm not saying, you know, we're in such dire straits, but we do. We have a budget problem. And, you know, if you just keep that one fourth grader in school and say, you know, I really love this kid. I want to invest everything in this kid, then, you know, your whole family, not just the other kids, go starving. So anyway, put the kid in public school. You know, put the money back in the general budget. Thank you very much. Thank you. It's public hearing. Come down and wish and speak. Come down and state your name and address and your time will begin. Hey, Ben Easley, 707 Northridge Street. Also owner of the Bearded Monk. I was just coming along to support. I wasn't planning to speak today, but that was that was pretty fantastic. I love that this discussion is going on. I've heard a couple of times that this feels like downtown just wants to keep its money. This is a large area that we've seen. It's not. Hickory, Lokes. It's a much larger area. We saw that on the original map. There's quite a bit in there that still needs work. I would love to have this money from for my my home neighborhood as well. Boy, that would be great. But I don't think everyone's neighborhoods could benefit if we spread this out across all of them. Right now we're protecting this for a specific area that makes quite a bit of money for the city. If we take that was math eight hundred thousand, I think is what it ended up being. Spread that eight hundred thousand out. Let's apply some of it to the Bonnie Bray expansion that we were talking about earlier. Eight hundred thousand or a portion of that going to that project of eleven million dollars on the low end. What can we really do across this entire city with that much money? I don't have sidewalks in my neighborhood. It's a nice neighborhood. We just don't have sidewalks. I think if we spread that eight hundred thousand out, I could probably get one section of a sidewalk on one of the streets in our neighborhood. If we spread that eight hundred thousand out to do sidewalk s in everybody's neighborhoods. If we keep that focused on downtown, on the other hand, we can really do some good. We can keep attracting people in. I'm not going to get any of it. I've already rehabbed a building with the grace and the goodwill of my building owner. But I do care about downtown and I care about my neighbors like Jen, Denny, Kenny, and Brian. They moved in and did tons of work. And I'm seeing people I've never met before coming to Dent on because of them. If we do that more, if we rehab more of these buildings that need that work, we're going to have more people come in. We're going to see people coming in from Dallas, from Fort Worth, over from Frisco, Little Home, down from Sanger. And if we use it to fix a sidewalk, fix lighting in a neighborhood, which would be great, we won't see a financial return from that. I think that's all I've got. >> Councilmember Hudspeth. >> Question. Which building did you rehab? >> 122 East McKinney. Right next -- well, if you don't wear Denton, they're a little bit brighter than I am. I'm the one with the big white and black and white mural, the new lighting in the parking lot that used to be darker than anything. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions? Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thanks, guys. >> Thank you. Anybody else who has not filled out a card wishing to speak , please come down and state your name and address and your time will begin. We'll get you next, Kate. >> Mayor and councilmembers, my name is Willie Hudspeth. I live at 623 Newton. The discussion is great. I think this is what you do in government. And then the council votes. What I've heard is some good points, some things that I needed to hear so I can think openly about the issue. One is my thought. You shouldn't have money just set aside for one group, especially in a city. It shouldn't be there for them to use just for their project. That's one thing that I derive from the discussions. Secondly, a discussion needs to be had about how do we then improve this group. But I think the discussion also needs to be talked or added or discussed. How do we improve other areas? So it's just a discussion about how do we improve areas. And then I think a couple of people said prioritize, figure out what's -- well, first you figure out what needs to be done, as they indicated. And then what's first and where do we begin to attack the problem. I think those are good discussions that need to be had. But the thing that I really focused on is someone said people come to Denton and they like coming to downtown. Well, who? Who are those people you're talking about? I think you know who they are, and it's all general because we don't really know who they are. We just say people. Nobody is discussing the people who have a problem with coming to downtown Denton. And I think the numbers are kind of small, percentage-wise, and the actual numbers. The numbers are small, but we're here. We're here. And I just think just for my own need to just say what I struggle with just needs to be voiced. Not in an angry way, not in a you guys get back and let me step forward, not that. Just there's a book in the Bible by the name of Amos, and he said, "Quit talking about yourself and be concerned about others." And he's telling me that. And I think he's right, but I want to say this, just in just talking generally, that monument on the square is not something I would come to, I would go anywhere to see. Now, I'm not the thousands of people who come and don't even know a thing is there. I'm not the thousands of people who are working and doing all of this stuff and talking about the trees and how nice it looks down there and all of new buildings and all. I'm not that person. I'm thinking about you have something erected high. It's up high. And to me, when you walk through the arches, you're like bowing your head down and worshiping the thing. And it reminds me of what my mother went through, my grandmother and my great grandmother went through by the hands of humans. That's what it reminds me of. And it's not pretty. So just one person speaking in the wilderness by himself, I don't come to downtown Benton, and I think it's a great place from that standpoint. Thank you. Come on down. Well, we're not supposed to have public demonstrations, but by the time I said it, it was over. So not a whole lot I can do. Hello, Mayor and council members. I actually wasn't going to speak, but I've been listening to the entire event and discussion and I kind of felt compelled. I'm Kate Linus and I live at 1120 North Locust. So I actually live downtown. I work downtown. I play downtown. If I get my doctor to move downtown, I'd be set. Okay. But this Denton has changed for you who have been around in Denton for a long time. It has really changed. I used to come up in the 70s and it was nice. It was a nice little town. We'd come up for the music. Yes, I was much younger, not terribly young. We came up in the 80s. No pretty way to get into Denton in the 80s. No pretty way to get into Denton. But you also didn't want to go downtown because there really wasn't anything in downtown in the 80s. There was, you know, oh, I suppose there were a couple of bars and there were a couple of places that, you know, good girls didn't go right. Then in the 90s, boy, it got a little bit better. Then 2000s, it was okay. It was growing. But you could park on the square on a Saturday morning, Saturday noon, Saturday evening. Never had a problem. Now I live off of downtown. I work on downtown. I could ride my bike and park my bike on downtown. And you make a circle one time around. You don't find a parking place. You go somewhere else and you find a parking place and you can walk. It's not any bigger walking anywhere in the downtown area to a store than it is going into a mall. What I really enjoyed about this whole conversation of do you agree with the idea of the TURZ, the zone of special tax incentive financing, the tax increment, going back into those areas that are growing the income? Do you need to expand it? You know, Alex had the photos. There's a lot more to be done even just in that small area that is this TURZ, this zone. But what about all the other groups that were saying, hey, I want this too. So why not extend it to the historical homes, areas, and lighting and pedestrian walking? Why not fix the sidewalks, like particularly in front of 11 20 North Locust? Which the city says is Textot and Textot says is the city's . And by statute, sidewalks within any municipality belong to the municipality. So, yeah, there's a lot to be done. But what has been set up with this particular TIF, the downtown TIF, was established by a lot of research, a lot of background, a lot of participation from the city council , the staff, the stakeholders, all the various groups that everybody else has mentioned. This one has actually worked. And we know it's working because there's money in it right now. Not bad investment for, you know, was established December of 2010. And through the 2011 to 2016 taxes, there's 1.29 million. That's pretty good. But it's a drop in the bucket as to what you could do, as somebody mentioned, $11 million on just that one portion of Bonnie Bray. And there's $800,000 if it's dissolved right now. So it's important to have the conversations. Ask the stakeholders. Talk to each other. Talk to everybody in all the neighborhoods and find out what everybody thinks is going to be the best. So that's my comments. Anybody else wishing to speak? Come down, state your name and address. Your time will begin. Zach Youngblood, 836 Hawes Copper Canyon. It's nice to see new faces on the council. For those of you who have heard me talk here before, you know I'm very much a numbers guy. So what I'd like to talk about is the 2016-2017 budget document, the entire adopted budget, namely the one page in which the downtown tax zone is discussed, where they describe $25,000 used for downtown parks for the previous fiscal year, which according to Ms. Booth doesn't seem to have been spent. And going forward, they're talking about $207,000 on sidewalks in this fiscal year, which were coming up on quarter four. And I'm not sure if there's any movement on that. So in addition to that, you know, I tried to find this information. I tried to find the 2016 annual report for the TIF board. And even though the 2014 annual report board, the 2014 annual report was presented to council on March 3rd of 2015 , the 2015 report was presented on May 3rd of 2016. I did not see any indication that you all were seeing the annual report of the TIF board for 2016 at any point to come. But those are my main points. I just would like to say I think it's a great idea that people have had about more TIFs. I think a good border for a TIF would be the exterior city limits of Denton. And you can call the TIF the general fund. Thanks, y'all. Thank you, Zach. Appreciate it. Okay. All right. Okay. Hey, keep going. Mayor Pro Tem. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? Come down and state your name and address and your time will begin. Anybody else wishing to speak? One more time. We will now close the public hearing. Council discussion. We already announced that we're not taking specific action on this. Comments? Observations? Councilmember Briggs. So I have a question for Carolyn. Can the original boundaries be expanded? You talked about changing the percentage and making certain changes, but you didn't mention boundaries. So I'm going to say provisional, yes, the boundaries can be changed. I think what is important to remember is that percentage of residential, that 30% or less of residential within a TIF boundary. If it's more than that, you can't have the zone. I know that in the original work on forming it, when it was only 10% residential, the zone was initially going to be bigger, but it had to be made smaller, right? So to accommodate for that percentage. So that's going to be the issue that we might get into if we expand it or if we apply it to residential neighborhood, primarily residential areas. Okay. Is that right, Jennifer? Do you have anything else? Jennifer Descartes, City Attorney. Just one addition. Thank you, Mayor, Council. Just one addition. There is a way around that if the property owners themselves petition to be included in the TIF, then I think that zeros out the 30% requirement. So it's a way to get around it, but we'd have to get everybody on board and on the same page. Councilmember Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. A couple of questions. The first one's pretty easy. Can you explain the difference on the rail yard project and STO, just mainly for the public's knowledge? Sure. So the rail yard is the entire development, including the redevelopment of the commercial building that was there, the old paper form warehouse, and then the addition of the new multifamily residential. That entire project is called the rail yard, and STO is a technology coworking space that is within the commercial building inside the rail yard. So the money from the TIF has gone to rail yard partners, which is involved with the entire development. STO is a component. Which is a 380 agreement that we did with rail yard. Correct. And the other one, question I have, I don't know if you ran across this, but East Hickory, when we redid that, we took funds that were initially earmarked for Walnut and Austin and possibly Pecan, I'm not sure. But there were some other streets surrounding that were supposed to turn out like Cedar that we diverted the funds. Were those any type of cog funds, or were they just city funds? Hold on a second. I'm going to turn around and look at Julie Glover. Those were city funds. You sat here all this time to answer one question. We know what they are. They're city bond funds. Okay. They're just general fund debt service funds. Okay. Is that it? Council Member Rind? Council Member Dove? Didn't I hear something about how much money has actually been spent downtown, on the downtown in the last few years? Because I heard something like 24 million or something like that. You know, I look at this 1.1 million and, you know, we're not really talking about a whole lot of money. I understand 1.1 million is a lot depending on, but for a city it's not. So I don't know what the TIF can do that the City Council can't do anyway downtown. That's just my thought. Thank you. Council Member Hudspeth? So when you talk action next steps, I think I didn't number it, so I went A through P as far as speakers, not including the white cards. But I think for me, I think next steps are to take a look at that board, establish guidelines, rules, and establish that board. I've read the ordinance and it calls for two council members and it has a matrix for how that board is constructed. So first I think we need to fix that because that's not in working order with what has been laid out for the ordinance . And then I think, so my next steps would be to one, fix the board to where it looks as it's supposed to, and then two, then look at direction next steps, what we want to do. But I think once we have that those, that proper mix that's representative of our community, of our city put together, then that group can then do their due diligence and kind of report back or kind of have a stair-stepped approach to it. But I think that's part one in my mind is to establish a board and regular meeting schedule and direction. May I make a comment about the board composition and the necessary change in membership because of the changes in the council? It's time to do board nominations, but we were waiting until the new council was seated. So it's time to do that just in the regular schedule of needing to reappoint board members. How many board members are there on the table? There are seven. How many are coming up? How many are termed out? Four. Okay. So there's going to be four new ones anyway. There are four who are terming out plus one seat for a council member who's no longer on the council. So there will be the opportunity for five different folks. Council member Briggs. So on the 12.9 million, that's the amount that the city has spent on its own, right, through the general fund or other? Through the nine funds within that TURZ zone in the last six years. I have a couple of questions about that amount of money, and you may not know, but if you don't, I would like to have that in the future. So what projects downtown were funded out of the 12.9 million, was that before the TIF was created? Was this like on the list to be funded? Oh, the projects that have subsequently been funded within the zone. Is that what you mean that I included in that master list? Okay. I'll have to find that out. We specifically asked for just within the last six years since the zone was created. And what downtown future projects like say Mobility, Bike, Street, Pedestrian are scheduled to be using the general fund like bond funds, money? Are there projects that are scheduled in different departments that are to use general funds? Oh, certainly there are, but we'll have to get with the departments. What would those be? Yeah. That would be good to know. And I just have a couple more. Sure. I'm taking all the comments that I heard tonight. Is it possible to pay for extra police patrol with TIF funds? I think that is correct. I think that other TIF funds, I know I've heard the Fort Worth example of using funds for that, but Jennifer, please. I'm just going to say that it's an administrative, it's considered an administrative cost that can be reimbursed through the TIF. And I believe Las Colinas, their TIF does that as well. Do please. So just so that I understand, that would be the police department would pay the salary of the officer assigned to the area, but then the TIF fund would reimburse. Okay. And is there a spot, we heard talks about the dumpsters downtown. So the TIF would pay for dumpsters to be moved to a central location or would pay to purchase a central location for those dumpsters? I don't know many details about potential changes to the solid waste situation, but we can look into that too and find out. I'm not sure exactly how that would work. Okay. And finally, last question. As a head of the economic development department, would you actually recommend this area for a TIF if it were coming up today? Would it qualify and would it be your recommendation for this area? You know, I appreciate the question. I think that in the years that have ensued since the formation, downtown has changed a lot. If you look at the list of criteria that have to be in place for a TIF zone to be formed, I think the area would still meet the criteria with the possible exception of that 30% residential. I don't have a good gauge on how there's been so much more residential development in the zone. But if you look at just the list that the statute supplies, I think that it would still be applicable. I will say, and I'm drifting into dangerous territory here, but I think from a purely academic standpoint, TIFs work best when they have participation from multiple taxing entities. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with this TIF or that it can't be functional and help us get to where we want to go. But you did ask for my opinion, so that's my only little caveat there. But there was the opportunity for that to happen and it didn't for whatever reason. Thank you. Councilmember Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. To Councilmember Duff's question about the $12.9 million that was in our backup, it's listed as expenditures in the downtown TIF zone. I'm a little concerned with that list. Some of them I think are very appropriate and it's clear that there have been a lot of city investments in the downtown that are actually directly related to the downtown master plan. The first set up there under transportation, the downtown transit center, that was one of the goals of the downtown master plan was to get that into place. Bike lanes and bike racks and sidewalks and the pedestrian crossings, that's all part of the plan. There are some things on this list that really have nothing at all to do with the plan, such as the public utility training or the public safety training center. The ongoing payment that we do for utilities for the Patter son Appleton Art Center and the campus theater. That's not a commitment to the downtown, that's a commitment to the arts. The City Hall East door replacement, that's just maintenance. If we're going to put that on the list and count that towards $12.9 million, then let's put the potholes and the payment that we do for street lights and the payment that we do to replace the light bulbs downtown. There are some things that are really appropriate on this list that have to do with accomplishing the master plan, the downtown master plan. And there's some things on the list that are really, it looks like just put on there to try to get a bigger number, which is fine. But we ought to be measuring, looking at expenditures that are actually part of our investment towards achieving the master plan. It seems to me that that would be a better list to work from. Okay. I'm not really sure where to begin, so I'm going to start. First of all, I totally disagree with your characterization of the work session. That was a work session that I requested based upon the Wells Fargo project. I said, maybe we need to take a look at the TIF. We had the conversation. I was on council and opposed the TIF back in 2010. We never had this kind of discussion during the 2010 discussion. The Main Street Association, Downtown Task Force, EDP, they all did discuss it. There's no question about it. Two of those organizations are directly related to downtown . There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But we never had this level of public discussion on this in the beginning. So I want to go to your master plan. You provided some work products. I wanted to go through it. Because my big contention with this was the same it was back in 2010. People thought I was opposed to the TIF. I was opposed to the percentages. I was opposed to the presumptions because the plan was not going to work as it was proposed. That was in 2010. So I'm going to read the 2003 master plan goals that you provided for us. 2003. This is a plan, 14 years old. Signage and wayfinding. No. We're just now doing it. 14 years later. Active fountain, like a splash park, should be located within two block radius of the square. It should be situated in a plaza setting no less than 10th. We're having a splash park now, but I don't think it's within two blocks of the square. Two block radius. So no. Conference and performing arts center. No. Complete street section, street scamp scrap improvements that increase on street parking. We've done some of that. Trash storage. No. Sidewalk environment providing more shade through trees and awnings. Hickory Street. Possibly. Portico's and balconies. No. Traffic, Fairless Square. Some with DCTA. Festival streets using the alley streets. There's been some of that happen on, I think, what's the one, Maple? Behind, the gentleman referred to as Walnut Street. Walnut Street. Farmers market that included handcraft goods. Community market. Consider a special development code for downtown core, those blocks that are face to square in the surrounding Mew s streets. I guess those are the four streets. I'm considering, I'm assuming that's the form-based code. Answers no. Improved mobility access to downtown including a roundabout at the junction of Eagle Bell and Dallas Drive. Yes. That one's been done. So my point is this. And I appreciate, first of all, I appreciate the conversation from everybody's perspective because I think that's what's important. But what I heard was a common theme. And I saw pictures and I heard people talk about all these things that need to be done in downtown. I have no disagreement with that. None whatsoever. When you look at the amount of money that's going to cost, it's going to cost three times what the TIF has even proposed to produce. So several people made comments that people who live at Te asley Lane or live somewhere out that don't ever come down to downtown, they don't want their tax dollars paying for downtown improvements. Well, of course they're going to pay for downtown improvements. Because there's not enough money in the TIF to do what everyone that has come before this day is tonight has talked about. If you were to reconstruct those three or four or five streets that were talked about, what was Hickory Street? $3 million? Let's just say $3 million. That's $15 million. Second of all, that's bond funding. I've asked this question every time we've had this conversation. We've got $24 million of the project plan. This plan was back in 2010. Finance has always maintained that to do projects and base that on debt service, you're going to get $10 to $12 million worth of projects. Because the rest of that $24 million will be required to pay for debt service. So right then and there -- and so then if you're going to pay cash, let's say we want to build the TIF up. It's going to pass you by. I mean, Kate, when you were talking about being in debt in a long time, I don't know how many of you know this. But on the square back in the early '70s -- and this is televised -- but there was an adult film store, adult movie theater on the corner. I think it's where -- is it where -- Andy's Bar is right now. So we have come a long way. All right. I was probably about 10 years old. I mean, I shouldn't have known what that was, but I did. My point is this. People say if you're opposed to the TIF, you're opposed to downtown. Well, that's just faulty thinking by the numbers that we've put. I agree. Some of this list -- I just asked for all the expenditures. My point being the city of Denton has been committed long before the TIF ever came about and is going to be committed no matter what happens in this situation. But the point is the TIF, in my opinion, has hurt the downtown. And you're going to say how in the world -- I want to hear what he's fixing to have to say on this. And I'm going to tell you how it has because it's created a psychological impediment. It's created a situation where people are having to think, well, we don't have the money in the TIF, so we're going to wait for a parking garage. You know how long it's going to take to get money in the T IF to finance a parking garage? It's going to take five to eight more years at least. By that time, it's over. I can tell you the real estate professionals in here can tell you. You have to move quickly. You have to move decisively in markets because you don't have a whole lot of time to take advantage of those development opportunities and activities. So waiting on the TIF to do all of these things that people have enumerated, it's not going to get done. And so this whole conversation -- and what I'm really not surprised at -- this is the first time we've heard these kind of concerns about the downtown within the context of a TIF conversation . So as far as I'm concerned, the work session did exactly what it was supposed to do. And that was it was supposed to start a community-wide conversation that includes the entire community of Denton to say, how do we best develop our city if we have assets in areas of 226 acres, which the TIF boundary is? And how do we make sure that it's protected? How can we find the tools to do that? And is the TIF the right tool to do it? So this is a very short-sighted argument for many of you all who are supporting the TIF, not because the TIF is not a good tool, but it's not even going to come close to doing what has been asked to be achieved by public comment here today. Now, I'm not saying I have the answer. What I am saying is we can start the conversation and we can look at, well, maybe the TIF is to do something a little less than what it was supposed to do. Maybe it is for sidewalks and things. And we reduce its amount as far as - but then the city can come in because if we do $15 million worth of bond funding to fix the streets in downtown, to fix this street, Industrial Street, well, that means that debt service gets paid from the general fund. So that means people are paying for the improvements in downtown. And they may do that gladly. I'm just simply saying let's have a conversation. Look, when you read the project plan, that's one thing I've realized. We pass a lot of plans and we don't work them. 2003, it hasn't been done. We had to move dumpsters off of Cedar Street, which was part of the downtown implementation plan, because we had a congressman coming who provided federal funding and we didn't make provisions to get those dump sters off, as the plan said. We don't work our plan. So when I read the project plan and it says, "This plan presented to the community and adopted by the Denton City Council in August of 2010, focused on parking, complete streets, solid waste, and form -based code and the planned transit-oriented development." When I look at that list, parking, the city of Denton has gone into a lease with DATQ to provide an extra 100, 150 spots, I think, public parking, and the complaint about it being gravel parking, well, I will tell you, the council approved that. There was no one who came down to this dais and complained about the council having gravel parking in the downtown. So I find it very ironic that today now there's a complaint . We've got enough projects where we could take that $1.2 million in downtown by the time you paid the parking lots, by the time you fix a couple of sidewalks, guess what, it's gone. And so there's still a lot to do. Form-based code, we've been talking about that since 2003. So my point is, if we're going to have a plan, let's work it. If we're going to have a plan, the good thing is to go back and review it. And I will tell you, I asked for the review and many people think you are asking for it because you opposed it in the beginning. I did oppose it in the beginning. Guess what? When I look at it now, I was right. I was right because it's not been able to do what we wanted it to do. We've got the same complaints today that we had six years ago. And I guarantee you, we will have the same complaints six years from now that you are having today because we will not be able to do anything if we rely on the TIF money solely to do that. Now, some will say it wasn't meant to be supplemental. Okay, fair enough. I don't necessarily disagree with that. But when you look at the catalyst projects in the project plan, there's no way those are -- and the final thing is this whole plan was based upon all the numbers. Zach, I'm sort of a numbers guy too and I remember you from the fracking days, I believe. Yes, sir. So when I look at the project plan in 2017, this was the assumption. And this is what the whole plan is based upon. The whole financing is what you're allowed to use, what you can spend, how much you've got in the TIF, all of this number crunching. So in 2017, the increment was forecasted to increase to $65 .3 million. Well, guess what? We beat that. What is it, $78 million if we just use the estimated 2017? It's about $78 million. Now, the project plan said of that $65 million, $52 million will be catalyst projects and new development. And that's what the whole plan was supposed to do, was revitalize downtown, redevelop it, get all this new construction coming in. That's what the plan was supposed to do. And about $13 million was forecasted for just the increase – you can sit down if you want – increased – I just don't want you standing there if you don't want to. The increased value of $13 million for just the base property. That's how much they originally had planned. Well, it's reversed. It's reversed. Of the $78 million, $21 million has been new construction, most of them apartment buildings. Now, that doesn't include those that have remodeled their buildings and put half a million and a million dollars in their buildings. All right, doesn't include that. The increase in value, including some of the ones of the remodel, has been $56 million. So the assumption of the plan has really been turned on its head. I am not opposed to a TIF being in downtown. What I am opposed to is it staying the way it is because it 's not working. It's going to create this sense that we're going to come back to this place six years from now because we're not going to have done the things that we need to be doing all across the town. And that is fixing the streets, doing the things that need to be done that city's core services are supposed to provide. Now, if we need some additional money to do the sidewalks, to put in lighting, to pave gravel parking lots that now seem to have become a really big issue, well, then we can do that. We can do that. So my next steps are we take not just the downtown task force or the Main Street Association or the Economic Development Partnership Board, but we have a community-wide discussion about this. We have a community-wide discussion about this to see how do we tweak this where we maximize our dollars, where we maximize the cooperation, because right now we've got an us against them mentality. We don't need to have it. We've got plenty. There's plenty of commitment on this council for the downtown. I was just down there the other night. I go down there. I park a little bit away. We've had also people come before the board who propose parking garages. We've got people who propose -- who may come up proposing parking garages. I don't think the parking garage is the solution. It's $4 to $8 million. We can do much more for downtown with $4 or $8 million that will bring many, many more people down there. So I got to tell you, Councilmember Gregory, I'm really sorry that you had to say those things in the beginning because I just think they're flat out wrong, and I'm sorry that you feel like this council was either misguided or something, because I can tell you, after the end of that discussion, I think that's the way it is. I don't have to push this thing through. I want to have the community conversation. Somebody else asked for that. So this is working to me the way it exactly needs to work. I don't care if people are fired up. That's what it takes. You've got to get people fired up because we're all here talking, and I will guarantee you, in three to four months, we will craft a solution together that will make this TIF obsolete, and none of you will walk out of here feeling robbed or disappointed. Or feeling like somehow you weren't heard, because that's how we work here. And as mayor, I can tell you, my commitment is, that's exactly how it's going to go, because this is exactly how I planned it to go. Nobody was going to plan on -- the vote actually was put it on the agenda. Put it on the agenda. And guess what? We heard the community. We said we need more public input. And we backed off of that. So this is a good starting point. We've got the board that we're going to be able to deal with. And I'm sorry I've taken so much time, but this is on public record. This is televised, and I'm so glad it is, because honestly, I heard anecdotal reports of the meeting last night, and I was appalled at some of the things that were said. Absolutely appalled. And some of them that were said were from people who stood right here and wouldn't say them here tonight. And I'm just saying we have to stop that. We've got to start talking, and we've got to start communicating, and this is the beginning -- it had to start somewhere, and we wouldn't have had this today if I simply hadn't have asked, can we have a conversation about the TIF ? Councilmember Gregory. Thanks. What -- and I liked a lot of what you said, except the bad things about me. I don't take those back. Not today right now. Well, I don't take mine back either, so we're even on that. We are even. I think what I heard you say was that we need to work the plan. No, that is not what I said. We don't -- oh, you did. That is not what I said. I said the plan that is presented back in 2010 is not going to work. You've got six years under your belt. You've got $1.2 million. The plan was to say we were going to have $52 million worth of new investment. Okay. It's not -- no, I'm not saying that. When I'm talking about the plan, I'm talking about the downtown master plan, not the TIF plan. Well, Councilmember Gregory, it's 15 years old. Well, I agree. I mean, it's 15 years old. Oh, I know. I can do that math. I can't do those big numbers, but I can do that math. But my point is that the TIF was simply part of the plan. The TIF was put in there as a way to help fund the plan. Has that worked? And -- no. Thank you. And part of the reason it's worked -- it did not work is because the TIF did not get implemented when the plan got implemented. Had it been implemented sooner, there probably would have been more money that had been raised. But my point is this, that when you have a plan that's 15 years old, actually, generally, most kinds of plans like this, big comprehensive plans, we stop at about 10 years and take a review. And we ask those questions about what in that plan should we still be pursuing? What have we already accomplished? And we've accomplished several things on the plan. What are things on the plan that are no longer viable? Are you talking about the downtown master plan? Yes, sir. So you're saying we need to open up the discussion and revisit the downtown master plan? Yeah. I don't think that's -- is that part of the discussion here today? That's what the TIF was intended to help fund. Okay. That ties it in. Okay. That's the whole purpose of the TIF. It was part of that plan, and so I've suggested all along that as you talk about the TIF, you can't talk about it in isolation from the plan that was intended to help as a tool to fund. And looking at the plan tells you, you know, what we still need to do, what we need to change. There are things on the plan that we've accomplished without the TIF because the TIF wasn't put into place. So I like the idea of the conversation about the TIF, about the master plan and what we need to do and the best tools that we can have in order to accomplish those things in that plan or things that aren't in the plan that we need to add to the plan. Well, I'm just looking at Goal 10, TURS. This plan does not -- this is the 2003 master plan. This TURS does not advocate a major large-scale investment, but rather to create a strategy that will allow the downtown growth and prosperity to pay for investments. I'm just simply saying we've had 15 years of doing it the way we've always done it, and by golly, it just hasn't worked. And I'm saying let's talk about it and figure out a different way to do it. And it may include a TURS. It very well -- it probably will. But let's look at it and talk about it. Instead of going along like we always do and we've not had anything come to us, I mean, it's just -- you can tell my level of frustration, because everybody wants downtown to succeed. But I will guarantee you, if we do nothing, it's not going to succeed. And I see people nodding their heads because it's not going to, not if we plan on the TIF and then we pour another, who knows, $20, $30 million from the general fund, and people eventually not appreciate that, because it creates -- so I just want the conversation, and this is the beginning of the conversation. And so I appreciate everybody coming out and stating all your positions, for, against, neutral, whatever it may be, because that's how we do it. And it was not done six or seven years ago. That's not anything saying about anybody. I'm just saying this kind of comprehensive discussion on any major project in the city is what is vital, even though it frustrates people, even though it makes people think that there's some faction trying to get control of things. I totally disagree with that. This is about people having a voice, and I will guarantee you, you will have a much better solution when you have more people at the table than when you have less who are always like-minded. Council Member Hussbett. So thank you, Mayor. So I'm going to make a motion that we go with option three, but before I do that, I think I need to go back and echo what you said. There's nothing -- if you don't know anything about me, I'm speaking to those that would sit here and those watching. I'm a straight shooter. I don't run from confrontation. I welcome your comments, your criticisms. I'll take those head on. So Councilman Gregory, when you go on your soliloquy and you include things that were said in a work session that you set silent and then take an opportunity now to then bring those things up way after the fact -- I've seen you at least three or four times since, and none of that's brought up. I have a real problem with that. It undermines our work session. It undermines our working relationship. And if you have any issue with me and with anything I say going forward, I expect that to come forth in a work session before we get in front of this desk, or I'm going to start cutting and editing those work sessions because they're all videotaped and I'm going to splice them together, and I'm going to expose the fact that things aren't being said directly at one point and then coming out later. We are to have direct conversations. We're all elected here. We're all accountable. And I expect to hear it before now if I've seen you before. And I'm very disappointed. And it pains me that you've cheated the system that says we are to have open and honest conversations. And if you have any issue with anything I say in work session, say something, because I promise you I'll do the same. And that's my commitment to the citizens. I expect to be held accountable. I expect to get things done. And to Mayor's point, I'm not going to sit behind -- and you've been here 10 years in bringing up -- that won't be me. I will have measured things that I want to get done or measured things that I've approached. And I'm not okay with that. And I'm not okay with your approach tonight and how you conducted yourself this evening with your soliloquy. I 100 percent disagree with it. And I ask anybody to go look at that work session and look at that conversation and compare and contrast what was said tonight versus what was said then. And then you reconcile that how you may. I take great issue with it. So I'm going to make my motion that we go with option three on the agenda, which is to -- open the iPad -- change the terms of the downtown TIFTA, alter length. Councilmember Hussbett. I think we're giving sort of direction because we're taking any action. Yes. The direction is yes. To come back and work session. Option three. Thank you. You bet. Mayor Pro Tem. I don't want to echo what anybody has said, but I do agree with your statements, Mayor. And I'm of the same mind as far as the fact that I don't believe this has actually worked in the way that people think it would work or think that it has worked. I think we attribute things to the TIFTA that are not attributable to it. But my point is a little bit different, which is a general frustration with how we do business at council and at the city. We will easily spend -- oh, I don't know -- 15, 20 hours of time on a million dollars. That's a really normal thing for us to do here. Staff time. We have like 11 people here. At the last TIFTA board meeting, we had 11 staff members there. That is a normal way to conduct business at City Hall. And at the same time, we will have $200 million expenditures. $100 million expenditures. Just goes right through. Real fast. Real fast. I have a real problem with that. And the reason it's related to the TIFTA is because TIFTAs and TIRTAs are what makes that possible. So little funds, little things here and there, that's how this happens. We have to administer every single little tiny thing, and it takes 15 hours and tons of staff time to do it when we need to be having comprehensive discussions in the general fund process. We will skate through things in the general fund that should deserve -- they deserve this amount of time in the general fund discussion. And they don't get it. They do not get it. And you know what? We have minutes. You can watch our videos. I had to dig for the TIFTA board minutes. I had to really do my homework to figure out what the heck happened and all these different things. You still can't find -- the transparency is not there. So if we want budget accountability, we want actual citizen participation, and we want effective use of your taxpayer time via your staff and your public elected officials, this needs to happen through the budget process. It doesn't need to be these little siphoned off funds. Just from a structural standpoint, it is ineffective. And I know that there are things that people want to purchase with those funds and they want to have a plan and a vision, but from just a mechanical standpoint, it doesn't work. That's my grievance. Please let's stop doing this. I'm begging people to please make us stop doing this. That's it. >> Councilmember Gregory. >> Well, I didn't think I was silent two weeks ago when we had our discussion in the work session. I was criticized for being silent then, but I was criticized for speaking too much tonight. So I'm going to have to find that balance. >> Oh, no, you're going to have to not. >> Yeah. That didn't finish. That didn't finish. Let's have some decorum, myself included. >> I'm done. >> Okay. All right. So it seems like, Councilmember Hussbuth, your direction was to get with -- begin the conversation. You talked about the board. I think we're going to have a conversation about the board. And the next step is to have another work session? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. Before that work session, what kind of conversations, community conversations do you want staff to have with the stakeholder groups like Downtown Task Force, Main Street, and wider community organizations that can help us with this conversation? >> Well, listening to everyone speak tonight, what I'd like to do is -- and I'll find the money for it. I want to rent a coach bus, like a Greyhound-type bus, and just drive it. Have everyone jump on, and we're just going to drive the T IF area and talk about projects. And let's look at it and have a real conversation while we 're there. Let's not look at maps. Let's not look at Google Earth. Let's just drive this TIF area and drive down Industrial Street. I mean, and I say that because I had that experience when I went to San Antonio for a planning zoning conference. And it worked wonderful because they're talking about actionable items, and then they're showing you what it looks like at the same time so you can -- I'm not a visionary. It takes me a second to catch the vision. So I have to see it and then hear someone talk about what it could be. Someone like Alex that says, hey, here's what it could be if you look past what's on this outside facade. So I think if I take those stakeholders on a -- let's just drive it and talk and then come back with real conversations from the field, if you will. So that's my approach. And just as a District 1 rep, that's how I envision it going. I'll be honest with you. I have the layers of the D-tip, the this, the that. I mean, I don't know that I have a good grasp on that. But as a District 1 representative and as a chunk of this falling in my district, I want to get those that want to jump on and show me what you 're talking about. And so that's going to be my approach. I'm just going to string that together. Sure. Councilmember Briggs. So I would just like to end here and say what I expect from our next discussions. I would like to make sure that we have a discussion on how the TIF can be aligned to protect, enhance, and broaden the downtown area for our entire community. We need to have an evaluation and assessment of need, community and stakeholder discussions and input, like Councilmember Hesbeth just said. We need a definite strategic direction, planning, execution , measurement, and accountability. I would like for all of those things to be brought up within our next discussion. Okay. Councilmember Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. I brought up at the work session that I wanted, I knew that it would be well above what we will ever have in the TIF, but I wanted to see a list of projects that are potential. And that's something that the downtown task force and the other groups, all the stakeholders can kind of have some input on. Hey, I'd like to see this project. And I think when we leverage our money, I mean, we've just recently were approved for funds for a new pathway along Sycamore that runs all the way from your campus to the train station, that's RTC funds. We can leverage that money to do other improvements on that same road at the same time, those types of things, working with the best use of TIF money is leverage in another project that's already going on. And those are the types of things I'd like to see. Councilmember Gregory. The other thing I think we might want to look at is if we continue the TIF fund, if that is the appropriate fund or source of funding for the downtown reinvestment grants as opposed to the current source of funding that we're using, that probably should be part of the discussion too. I guess, and so staff is getting sort of these directions. I guess my direction is we need some input. I think I hope that what you've heard is maybe not everybody up here, but most people up here on council believe that something needs to be modified to increase the efficiency and the benefit of whatever tool we're going to use. So I would encourage that conversation to begin at those different groups. Bring some suggestions. Bring some ideas. Bring some recommendations. I think if you go back and read the project plan, you're going to see that it did what it was supposed to do. It was supposed to be sort of an aspiration, but like anything, you go back, you double check it. I mean, if you're in real estate, what do you do? You get a deal and you check it every year, every two or three. Is this doing what it needs to do for me? And that's what we need to do with this fund. So I would fully anticipate that as we move forward, this document will evolve. And I have to say about the expanding of it, I don't think that's going to work because we're already struggling with it with being 226 acres. Is it really going to accomplish what we want it to accomplish? We're just going to be -- people say nickel and dime. We're just going to be just holding out and time is going to pass the downtown by. So if there's projects that need to be -- the whole city is interested in the downtown. It's not just the downtown people. The city is interested. The community is interested in making sure that it thrives. But I think what the community is trying to say is we don't mind putting money into downtown, but if we're going to improve your traffic, if we're going to improve your business income, if we're going to improve the overall feel of downtown, why do we want to leave one leg of the revenue stool behind ? You've got sales tax, you've got permitting fees, and then you've got property tax revenue. Find a way that we can modify this that is consistent with something that will be effective where the city can work with the entire community, not just one segment. So I fully anticipate in 30 to 60 days, if we don't have some kind of thoughts and ideas coming from the Downtown Task Force and Main Street Association Economic Development Partnership Board, I'm going to be very dissatisfied because we're not going to let this thing drag on like it did for 13 years and six years. I mean, if we're going to move, we've got to strike while the iron is hot. We've got to make sure that we're doing the most that we can for the entire community and those places in our community that are real gems and assets, of course we're going to make sure that they're doing well and they're protected. I mean, anybody that thinks anything other than that, I really don't understand that, quite frankly. So I look forward to it. I've looked forward to this conversation. I think I told every council member this is going to be a fun conversation tonight. And it has been. It's been very informative. Everybody's been very professional, tremendous decorum, and I appreciate everybody's input. So does staff have enough direction? Because we're going to take a break after we get through this agenda item. Yes, we do have the direction. Thank you very much for wrapping it up in a way where we can all go forward and bring you back something within 30 to 60 days, if not before. I'll be out of town 60 to 90 days. Okay, thank you for the extra 30 days. I want to make a general comment to everybody who's here tonight, everybody who's watching or will be watching tomorrow, that if people have questions about the TIF, about anything related to downtown, city staff is here to provide factual answers to people in the community. I encourage everybody to contact my office, contact me directly, contact Julie Glover, who's our downtown program administrator. We want to help people be fully and correctly informed. And I hope people take us up on that offer. Accurate information is very important. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. Any other questions, comments from council? All right. Well, it's not quite good morning yet, so it's still good evening. This is welcome back to the meeting of the Dent City Council, June 20th, 2017. It's about 1133. We're moving on to agenda item. What were we on? Okay, 6B is what we're on. Agenda item 6B, hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas, amending subsection 35.5 of the Dent on Development Code pertaining to self-storage use and adding a limitation 35 or L35. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, city manager. I will try to be as succinct as possible in the interest of time. This request is by an applicant. It is not a city-initiated request, and the request is to amend the Denton Development Code as it relates to self-storage units. Okay, I just want to provide some background as it relates to the proposed use or the permitted use schedule that the applicant is proposing. Prior to 2002, the self-storage use was permitted in the commercial and central business zoning districts. And if you recall, typically self-storage units were ones that were developed that were single-story, and they sprawled a larger area or spat ially sprawled a larger area, and they were accommodated dead storage of excess personal property and were often designed in a manner that was similar or looking in style to the warehouse-type developments. Currently, this use is permitted in the ECC, ECI, ICE, and ICG zoning districts. There are no specific design criteria associated with it, so what that means is there are no specific building material requirements. There are no screening mechanisms, and that detail has been provided in your AIS. But the applicant has come here tonight and will be requesting an amendment to the Denton Development Code to expand the use beyond these districts that I've just mentioned, which is the ECC, the ECI, the ICGs, and to allow the use with the approval of a specific use permit in the CMG district. In addition to that, the applicant is also proposing a new limitation with the DDC, and I will read those out to you and explain those to you. And what the applicant is proposing is to provide some architectural mechanisms or elements that would enhance the aesthetic appearance of these uses, that all sides would be constructed of 100% masonry, the masonry products such as stone, architectural, concrete, block. It would limit on the exterior materials would be limited to no more than -- I beg your pardon. Let me start again. I'm sorry. It's a little late. The limitation on exterior materials exclusive of windows and what have you may account for more than 70% of the exterior wall area. So what that's saying is that you would have a minimum 70% masonry component to the elevations for the self-storage use. No overhead bay doors or storage unit doors would be visible from adjacent property or public right of way. No outdoor storage would be permitted. And all fencing materials would be limited to masonry and broad iron and would be constructed in compliance with the fencing or requirements in the DDC as that ordinance is amended. And of course the landscaping mechanisms would also follow that. The planning division reviewed the applicant's request and was very comfortable with it for several reasons but wanted to add to a few additional requirements associated with that. After doing some benchmark analysis or conducting benchmark analysis with what other communities do as it relates to the use. One of the things we realized with our code is that the self-storage use was permitted in the industrial land use category and we are proposing with this request, should it be approved, that the self-storage use as a commercial land use category be removed from the industrial land use category and be incorporated into the commercial land use category. In addition, we are in support of requiring an SUP and that limitation that I just read to you but also encompass that in the ECC and ECI districts. And all individually leased storage units would be contained in a climate controlled building. So what I presented to you in the previous slide is what the applicant is requesting. In addition to that, planning division's recommendation is a little more enhanced to incorporate these elements. I wanted to discuss some of the considerations that we looked at originally. If you review the CMG district and what its intention is, it is for retail service and it is typically located along commercial corridors near residential districts. In some communities you have overlays associated with it. The proposal or the recommendation is to permit this use, the self-storage use in the CMG district with that L35 limitation and a specific use permit. The use itself does not produce nuisances such as light, noise and traffic. But visually it can have an impact. Therefore that L35 restriction and the proposed SUP would enable to accommodate design that is complementary of surrounding built out or future environments. The CMG district is also intended to develop with a pedestrian friendly mixed use character including compact development patterns with multi -story structures. And so the additional requirement for the L35 restriction is that the requirement for the L35 recommendation that all individually-stored units must be contained within a climate control building to encourage compact development is also added here by staff. I wanted to show you this visual right here. And what this aerial does demonstrate to the viewing audience and yourselves is where we typically have ECI and ECC zoning districts and their proximity to residential neighborhoods or highly visible corridors. And with that it is staff recommendation to go ahead and not just incorporate SUP and that L35 limitation for the CMG district with the climate controlled element but also to encompass the ECC and the ECI districts . The planning division recommended approval of the request with the following conditions as I mentioned to you. Classify the self-storage use as a commercial land use category, removing it from the industrial land use category in the zoning districts as reflected in the DDC. Permit the self-service storage use in the CMG district with an SUP and with that L35 limitation that I discussed earlier on. But also to modify the ECC and the ECI districts to require an SUP and that limitation for the use. The planning division, just to add on to that, that new limitation of L35 discussing the building material requirements, instead of the 70% the planning division was proposing 100% masonry product excluding doors, windows. The limitation on the exterior materials where we have the 70% maximum was also incorporated into there. The fact that overhead doors or storage units should not be visible from adjacent property or public right of way, prohibiting outdoor storage and all fencing and landscaping materials be consistent with. And lastly, all individually leased storage units be contained within the climate controlled building. >>Councilmember, oh, sorry. No, go ahead. Did you have a question? Councilmember Brazer, you want to ask it now or you want to ? >>I can wait until the-- >>Okay. Sorry, go ahead. >>So, first the applicant's request and staff's recommendation was presented to the Planning and Zoning Commission. The Planning and Zoning Commission was comfortable and recommended relocating the self-sourced from the industrial land use category to the commercial land use category. However, they also indicated that they would-- they recommended that self-service storage units be permitted in CMG with an SUP. And so if you look at the limitation L35, that was not incorporated in their recommendation nor was staff's recommendation to include climate controlled facilities or to expand the SUP and that limitation to the ECC and the ECI district reflected in here. And the reasoning behind that based on what we understand from discussions with the PNZ was that the SUP itself in the CMG district would enable you to do appropriate site design and create those design criteria conditions and did not feel that the ECIs and the ECC districts should require an SUP. And I'd be happy to try and answer any questions that you may have. >>Okay. Councilmember Briggs. And we have not opened the public hearing yet so I just-- I just want to let everybody-- because I need to remind myself. So does the applicant have a place in mind? I didn't see a map. Where exactly in the city is this being proposed? >>So absolutely. The applicant does have a property in mind. However, this request is the amendment of the DDC and upon reviewing it was-- the impetus was to develop, you know, a subject property came in mind, was referenced by the applicant. However, staff's purview on this was is this DDC amendment appropriate in the CMG district citywide? And then what are the implications or ramifications of this requested SUP and modification of development criteria and-- >>Yeah, sure. >>Okay. Well, I have another question about this change because we are actually in a rewrite of our code right now and I'm just really not that comfortable making a change while that is going on. So have you thought about that? >>Absolutely. That's why-- we did conduct our benchmarking with this request and we analyzed what other communities do, what other codes are in place with other cities within the North Metroplex area. If you look at staff's recommendation, it's a little more restrictive than what is being proposed by the applicant and of course than the recommendation of the PNC and that was based on the research we've done. >>Sure. >>So is it common for an applicant to make recommendations to change our code? >>It's not uncommon for applicants to request an amendment to the code as it relates to perhaps definitions or changing the development criteria to further enhance the aesthetic appeal and compatibility within context of the built out environment. So that's not unusual. >>Mayor Pro Tem. >>With respect to the masonry requirements, so PNC did not -- okay, help me understand. The planning department proposed 100% masonry as an additional requirement. It wasn't the applicant. >>We're saying that if you were to use-- I'll go to that. So all sides of the self-storage facility would be constructed of 100% masonry, stone and those materials that are referenced there. The limitation on exterior materials would obviously exclude your windows and your doors and your entry treatments or features and glass would not account for more than 70% of the exterior wall. >>So what the applicant was saying was that he wanted the second story option of glass on the second story, if I remember correctly, or if I understood that correctly. Let me just cut to-- with respect to the planning and zoning commission, they're not in agreement with the department in terms of the mason ry requirements or the glass requirements, correct? >>And the reasoning behind that was if you have the requirement for an SUP, a specific use permit, that could be addressed through that function. >>That's what I was trying to get clear. Thank you. >>Councilmember Gregory. >>A lot of times when we're talking about the new code, I thought that it was going to include some typical types of illustrations of what this might look like or that might look like. Had we talked about that at all, that the new code would have some examples of things that would be in compliance with the words that are put into the code? >>The Denden Development Code update, the features associated with that, will there be graphic illustrations? Yes, there will as it relates to showing your floor area ratio, your lot coverage, your setbacks and what have you. >>The reason I'm asking is because I'm having a little trouble visualizing what this would mean. On the one hand, 100% masonry building sounds good, but if it doesn't have any windows, it sounds like brick walls. >>Based on building code, you would have to have the windows. You would have to have entry features. What we're trying to say is that you will be limited to those building materials. If you are going to have glass, it cannot be more than 70%. >>It's actually calling for a variety of materials to make it more aesthetically appealing or architecturally appealing? >>Correct. >>That's it for right now. Thanks. >>Any other questions for staff? Thank you, Manon. I will now open the public hearing. We've got a card wishing to speak, but this is a public hearing, so you don't have to have a card. Mr. Alex Payne, if you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. >>I hope you haven't grown tired of me just yet. I should really read these agendas more often. The TIF got me here, but this one actually strikes real close to home. I'm personally involved in ownership management and currently some development of self-storage. I'm not the applicant in this case. Nothing going in the city of Denton proper, however, have looked and are considering sites. I can tell you as someone that does understand our zoning and our development code that people that look to do this in Denton are often discouraged because it's only allowed in industrial zoning districts, and that's not really where the market wants it. People want them close to their home. They don't want to go into an industrial area and feel unsafe in some cases to go store their Christmas goods or whatever. And so this is actually something I applaud that they're doing. However, I would encourage you to really look at what, quite frankly, Jim Strange on P&Z did. I called and talked to him this afternoon. I think the city, I think they're right. The SUP basically gives you the opportunity to critique and get the product you want on a site-specific basis, but this extra layer, this L35 layer that the staff now wants to put on it, I think is overstretching on a couple of things. Biggest and foremost is the climate control issue. That's a market-driven aspect. It can be compatible. It can be aesthetically pleasing. But whether or not it has air conditioning in the unit or not should be up to the tenant. Whether or not they want to pay that extra $15, $20 a month , it's like saying, we'll let you do apartments, but you've got to do granite counter tops. Who really cares? It's the person inside that really cares. So I take issue with that and wish that be stricken if that 's something you do, you know, implement. And then I kind of take issue with the fact that, hey, yeah , this is something we're okay with doing, but let's go ahead and put these requirements now on ECI and ECC zoning, not because it's not necessary that it would encourage quality development, but I feel like if I owned a piece of property that was zoned that and I had intended, you know, to develop a self-storage product and all of a sudden you've now changed the game on me without any real notification or interaction, I would struggle with that. Again, it doesn't impact anything I'm personally doing. I just could see where someone could take an issue with that. But, again, it seemed like two motions came before the P and Z that did not pass. And finally what passed was do the SUP on this zoning designation and that takes care of it and let the applicant and the, you know, the P and Z and the council at that time make the determination of what the quality product, how you want it to look and get the neighboring uses to, you know, comply with their desires and the desires of the market. So that's all I would encourage you to do. Thank you. >> Thank you. I have no more cards, but this is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak, please come down and state your name and address and your time will begin. >> Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Michael Coker, 3111 Canton Street, Dallas, Texas, representing the applicant in this application. We've been working with the city staff since April of last year to get us to this point and we've done an awful lot of the leg work and we have a specific site behind the Taco Bell on University and also behind the Carbosh. It's about six and a half acres that has a creek running through on the university side. So it's a very limited ability for developing under the current zoning. So we asked at that time with the staff in April of last year how we go about getting to yes. And one of the things, because we talked about changing the comprehensive plan, changing the zoning on the property, none of those solutions really worked because there is a neighborhood right behind this property. So we did in fact do the research that the staff asked us to do and we looked at all the jurisdictions around Denton to see how their regulations worked and we provided a substantial amount of input into them and actually did in fact recommend architectural guidelines to help make sure that whatever we built was not unattractive, that it fit into the neighborhood and it was not over impressive on the neighborhood. One of the things that happened at the staff recommendation based on your current redoing of your zoning ordinance was that everything be in a climate controlled building and to have verticality so that you ended up having to have elev ators and stuff like that for third and fourth floor. Well, our site's immediately adjacent to a neighborhood. We didn't think that was appropriate. So we wanted to have it low key, maybe two stories, but the second story might be a lot closer to university and we've agreed with all the rest of the provisions that the staff has proposed because we proposed them as part of our recommendation to change it to the CMG component. With that, Mr. Mayor, I'm happy to answer any questions, but we are opposed to the air conditioned component for everything because that really destroys the economic model in the way it's supposed to be in adjacent to neighborhoods. So with that. Sure. Any other questions? Council Member Gravery. Thank you, Mayor. Sometimes when office development, commercial development, professional offices go in very close or about neighborhoods, it sounds like that this could do given the zoning classifications that we're talking about. We talk about a different kind of roof line that would be, that would mirror the type of architectural roofing that you would see in the neighborhood close by. Is that in here? Do you contemplate that? Would that be something that would be handled through an SU P? Council Member, I think that that's one of the situations that would be handled through the SUP process because you'd be asking not only for an operational plan and a construction plan, but you want to see elevations, how it looked from all four sides, what the neighborhood was going to see. Our particular tract has a utility easement between the neighborhood and our property, which is 16 feet wide at this point. We added additional 20 feet to that, so there was a distance of 36 feet between their fences and our wall should this pass because we've waited to submit our SUP application until the council makes a decision on this. Thanks. Any other questions for the applicant? Or applicant's representative? All right. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. I did have a comment, Your Honor. Yes. Well, I'm not an honor, but go ahead. Because I don't think his time has expired, has it, Jennifer? Because the applicant gets 10 minutes. Go ahead. This has nothing to do with my case. Oh, well, then I don't know if you were talking about it. I was a little concerned about your inability to express yourself on the last public hearing. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. You're out of order. Okay. Mayor, it's late. I'm about to have a sugar low. Mayor Pro Tem. Okay. Sorry. Before you go into a coma, what is the lighting situation with these facilities? They're very lit up for safety purposes, but then we're going to be next to a neighborhood. Is this for staff or is this for the applicant? Staff. Okay. As far as it relates to the code. In fact, Julie's going to open up that section, I can tell. But they would have to comply with the Denton Development Code as it relates to lighting, what lighting features they can have adjacent to a neighborhood, what lighting features they would have depending on the area. Here it is. Where is it, Julie? Half a candle at the property line. So it would be half a candle at the property line. Say again? Half a foot candle at the property line. Half a candle. Half a candle. So your illumination and depending on how it falls on the property is what those define. And through their glare and illumination plan, they would show where their lighting features and fixtures would be and how that light would fall. So you wouldn't want to have light pollution on your adjacent residential districts as an example. Okay. That was my question. Thank you. Okay. I've got a question for you, but I'm just going to get the public comment and then I've got a question for you. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak on this agenda item? Come down, state your name and address, and your time will begin. Anybody else wishing to speak? All right. We'll close the public hearing. Question for staff. I'm going to see if I can get real animated on this one. Help me understand just a couple of things because I got a little confused about all the different moving parts. Sure. So applicant came forward with certain requests. Staff decided, well, maybe this looks like a good idea. We'll sort of expand it, maybe make it citywide, zoning classifications. Staff came up with the L35 limitation and was recommending that that be applied in the ECCCI districts. Or no, is that right? No. My watch. But the Planning and Zoning Commission -- go ahead, sorry. I need to interject. The L35 condition was provided by the applicant with the exception of the climate controlled component. Okay. So that was one enhancement that staff asked for. And then the other enhancement was to expand it to the ECC and the ECI districts. And then the third thing was just to level out the -- to ensure that the zoning ordinance was appropriately accommod ating the use in CMG was to take it out -- take out the self -service storage use out of the industrial district and put it into that. So that's where those elements came from. Okay. The applicant suggested the L35, which was the masonry components, some of the glass components, things such as that, for just the CMG. And an SUP, yes. And an SUP. Yes, sir. And is that what Planning and Zoning passed as a recommendation? The Planning and Zoning Commission diluted that slightly and said the only requirement would be for an SUP in the CM G district for self-service storage. Okay. So the only thing that they excluded was they took out the L35 limitation. Yes. For Planning and Zoning. As far as the applicant's request is concerned, yes. So in an SUP, because I know we've had some talk about on an SUP, you can't use an SUP to deny something, create such crazy restrictions that nobody's going to agree to it and therefore you're de facto denying it under the guise of an SUP. So on an SUP, would the things that would be contained in the L35 limitation, such as masonry requirements, window requirements, glass requirements, the things that sort of were encapsulated within the L35 limitation as suggested by the applicant, would those be things that you could address in an SUP hearing and you would have a legitimate rationale to ask for those things? So it would then be site specific. The SUP would be site specific in terms of would we look at the surrounding character to determine what building materials are being used, for example, would that work? I just want to preface that with when we looked at this proposed DDC amendment that was initiated by the applicant, we looked at it comprehensively citywide and didn't look at it site specific and that's why we introduced those other elements. So yes, the SUP does give you the ability to ensure that does this use in fact, is it complementary or does it complement the surrounding land use pattern? And so to what extent then the question arises is can we say you have to have 100% masonry because then that becomes a staff is recommending 100% masonry versus the applicant requesting 20% masonry, just as an example. So those development conditions of criteria are not tied to the SUP. Okay. So then I just had it and I just lost it. The like if I were to say the CMG, because my concern is we 're fixing to have a development code rewrite and it sounds like that there's a specific use or application the applicant is trying to apply this new code requirement to. I really hesitate to go apply it to all the other zoning classifications that staff maybe had recommended other than CMG, especially because if we really want to do that, then we can do that in the process of the DDC code requirement because so question for the attorney. It was brought up by one of the speakers that if we added this to the new zoning classifications, this L35 and the SU P, not just to the CMG, but to the other ones, the ECC and the ECI, would people who already have property that zone that unless they have started building or have done some type of vesting activity, they would be subject to the new zoning requirements. If they've not pulled a permit or platted or created some kind of activity that constituted a vesting activity, they 're going to be subject to the new ones. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Well, I'm really okay with going with sort of a hybrid and that is actually more of what the PNZ recommended, but leaving the L35, if that was recommended by the applicant, but not exposing it to all the other zoning districts. My only thought is I just hope we don't have to undo that not because I really had a question actually, Mr. Attorney, if I had a question for one of the speakers who spoke in the public hearing, am I able to ask a question of them? Yes, you may. But it doesn't require reopening the public hearing. I can just ask for a question of clarification. It's a clarification. Yes. Okay. I would like to ask Mr. Payne just a real quick question if you don't mind, just so I can understand exactly what you were saying. Were you saying that, of course, you were saying don't extend it to all these other zoning classifications, just the CMG? Is that correct? That would be ideal. Okay. I just think that, yeah, through the process that you were already going through, you can do that. Okay. I think it's kind of a rush to go apply this new ordinance to existing properties that hadn't had any reason to do that. And then as far as the L35 limitation, if the air conditioning was taken out of it, even though you're not the applicant, as a business professional -- As a person who is considering and doing it, it sounded like it was the applicant's desire that that be gone. It would also be my biggest item on that list be gone. The other one, the visibility of doors from the street, I think what you'll see, it's done a lot of times. It's becoming a component of the market that's now REITs want in this game, and they demand the highest quality looking properties. However, you do see glass, and then you do see basically mock doors so that people know it's a self-storage facility . Okay. Most of the times, they're not even operable doors. You won't ever see anybody go roll that door up, but you see these faux doors from the street behind glass, but in a very professional environment. So those are my two actual hot-blooded items, but bigger than -- for the applicant and for us, the climate control is kind of a biggie. Okay. All right. Thank you very much for that clarification. Councilmember Gregory. Do we sometimes, when we talk about the SUP, are there some guidelines for items that could be considered in an SUP or that are off limits from an SUP, requirements that are off limits? Our Denton Development Code specifies, I believe, 15 criteria, if I'm not mistaken, or SUP Chapter 6, which states that compatibility, is it noxious, is it causing a negative impact on surrounding properties, if I may have you. Okay. It's late. I'm tired. I didn't remember that. Thank you very much. Any other questions for staff? Any action from Council? Mayor, you had said something that I thought that sounds like a reasonable way to go, but I can't think of what it was that I could put it in the form of a motion. Sure. I think it was adopting the planning and zoning's recommendation of an SUP and just the CMG, but adding to that the L35 limitation without the air conditioning component, if I'm hearing that correctly. Then I would move what you just said. Okay. Council Member Hutsbeth. I'm going to second, just because I'm partial to planning and zoning, I think they make great decisions. Now or before? Council Member Ryan. Okay. So if I have got this right, we're going to take it out of the industrial zone and put it only into the CMG? Yes, I think that was the staff recommendation. But not in the ECC or the ECI? Who was wanting it removed from the industrial zone? We're not removing the use. We're removing the classification. The DDC, through its schedule of uses, has residential, commercial, retail, and industrial uses. This is called commercial. It's in the industrial use right now and we want to move it into the commercial. So it's not a change of use. It's just a change of classification of where it sits. And that would be, and I think that would be part of my motion. Okay. And that was part of his original motion. Does that answer your question? So you can only do these in the CMG after this point? And they would be permitted by right in ECC and ECI with no restrictions from the L35 is what I'm understanding. Okay. Is that what planning and zoning had suggested? Correct. Planning and zoning only are addressed in SUP and CMG. That's it. And then reclassifying it to commercial. Okay. All right. But we're adding the L35 limitation without the air conditioning component? Correct. Okay. In CMG. Yes. Everybody in? You got that? Councilmember Pro Tem? I'm not voting for this. I don't like the L35 stuff. Okay. All right. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries five to two. Agenda item five C. No, I'm sorry. Six C. Is hold the second of two public hearings for voluntary annexation of approximately 118.0 for one acres of land generally located north of McKinney Street and west of Trinity Road. Good morning. Mayor, members of the council, members of staff. This item is a second reading, I'm sorry, second public hearing that is for a voluntary annexation of a property located north of McKinney and just west of Trinity Road. Property is being considered for annexation as a result of a proposed development. The current properties currently have a non annexation agreement as per the non annexation agreement. If any development is proposed, it will be considered for voluntary annexation. If the annexation is approved, zoning would come next as well as a specific use permit to facilitate the manufactured housing development. That's being proposed by the applicant. Again, this is the second public hearing for this annex ation. This is the schedule as shown here on this slide. That concludes my presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Any questions for staff? I will now open the public hearing. This is a public hearing for agenda item 6C. Anybody wishing to speak on this agenda item, please come forward, state your name and address and your time will begin. Thank you so much for your patience. No, it's fine. This is my first time. Basically, my concern with this is the fact that it is going to be turned into a manufactured housing development. I live currently at 608, I'm sorry, by the way, my name is Tammy. I live at 608, South Trinity Road. My husband and I just moved there like a year ago. And with this process, basically we're going to have mobile homes in our backyard. And our neighbors aren't very excited about it because one, it's going to increase a lot of traffic flow to our area, which is not really designed for the traffic flow that it's going to cause. Like on the one side, there's a one lane bridge going across to 380 and it would be a major congestion area. The other concern is basically there are two mobile home parks already currently in the area. And so it's basically going to create this really long area of mobile home parks. So and our feeling of it is just going to create too much stuff there in the area. It's going to create overpopulations of the schools like Ryan High School and all the schools in the area are already overpopulated. So what are we going to do to fill that void and to make up for that? And also behind us and our property, behind our property, I don't know if the person currently owns that property, but it's basically there's like five or six buildings back there that have been abandoned and nobody's using them. So it's kind of gotten to be very trashy looking. In fact, a roof blew off of one and it hasn't been taken care of. It's just laying in the yard and sits there. So I'm trying to think what else there is basically. A lot of our neighbors wanted to come tonight, but they weren't able to come because of work and such. So I definitely think there will be more controversy in the future leading up to this because none of us were notified that anything was going to be happening like this either. So it was really kind of a concern that we just didn't know to begin with. So that's pretty much all I got. Thank you. Again, thank you for staying up with us. This is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak, come down and state your name and address. Time will begin. I promised this lady I would stay with her tonight because this was her first thing and she didn't know what she was getting into. I would ask that if things like this come up, I don't know who sets the order of things, but if you really knew something was going to happen and that people were going to be here very late that had other obligations that that be taken into consideration in the future. Thank you. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak, come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. I am Dan Serene, 5316 KM Lane. I'm over in that area. I've been over in that area for 15 years. And the major problem we have over in that area is we don't have any roads. Mayhill Road, it's supposed to have been started years ago. And like most of the roads in this area, they are behind schedule, behind on funding. And Mayhill Road, I'm finally seeing some utilities being moved. But you get on Mayhill Road, you get over to McKinney. McKinney's the same situation. Two lane road. It's so bad that the kids over there that have to walk to Ryan have no sidewalk on. So the solution they came up with, they're allowing them bus passes so they can take the bus to get over to Ryan. So the roads don't have any capability to take on more traffic. And with this kind of density of a housing area, you're asking for more traffic on roads that are already overbur dened. And Mayhill, even with the improvements on it, it's not going to be sufficient to handle the traffic that's coming, that's headed for Mayhill. Mayhill connects 35 and it connects 380. Right now they're finishing up on 24.99, which is going to pour into Mayhill. And those two, you know, having Mayhill put that much traffic on it, it's just going to add more to the burden on Mayhill, more to the burden on McKinney. And those roads just are not going to be up to it. So once you get roads that are not up to it, then that just , you know, the problems just kind of cascade from there. The high school traffic on McKinney, it backs up already. So if we have any problem over in that area, the fire department can't get to it. So it's just kind of a cascade of things that there's no good solution to it. In that area, we don't mind taking, you know, some of the load. You know, we've got several manufactured home parks over there. But we've also got the dump over in our area. And we've also got gas storage wells over in our area. So we're taking our fair share of, you know, parts of it. Every city's got parts of it that they have to have. But we just want to, you know, we want to take our fair share. We don't want to be burdened with any more than we have right now. So we're just, you know, just looking for, you know, if you 're going to do this and let's have some solutions for all the problems that it's going to create and add to our existing problems. But I've always been waiting for roads to be done. I waited for 35 to be done since I moved down here. I moved down here in 1973. So and finally it's being worked on. So I just ask that you, you know, if you're going to do this and come up with some solutions as to the roads and the other issues that we have. Thank you. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? Come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. So I'll just close the public hearing. But I have a comment I can do close the public hearing. So I have a comment or a question. All right. Anybody else wishing to speak? I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing. Council Member Briggs. So I have a question. If we approve the annexation, does that mean in essence we are also approving the mobile home park? No. That people are talking about? No, we're not considering it's just the annexation tonight. Okay. We're just talking about the annexation. Okay. To follow up on that, because there'll be a whole different process. If an applicant, if it gets annexed, then to change the zoning, because it comes in in a default zoning, there'll be a bus. There'll be a whole new set of public hearings. Right. Notifications. Correct. Things such as that. Okay. So if this property is annexed, then next step would be the initial zoning of the property. And that would be where we would be discussing those uses, whatever is proposed as part of that zoning. Council Member Briggs. And to follow up again, annexing the property does not commit us to a particular zoning. Is that correct? Correct. And while annexation does not require us notifying surrounding property, a request for zoning change does require us to notify surrounding property. So more of the neighbors would be notified, plus there would be signs that would have to be posted on the property . That is correct. Thank you. Council Member Briggs. So following up to that, as far as the notification system for the people that are here tonight that may want to come back. So it's the 118 acres. So is it 500 feet from each from the boundary or 500 from the middle? Because some of these. Boundary. I need to make sure that, you know, these homes are going to be notified. From the boundary. From the external boundary. 18, correct. Okay. So from then out. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Gregory. And if a property that's within that 500 foot courtesy area is outside the city limits, they still get notification. I believe so. We could just say so. Yeah, we can make that a courtesy. It's the DENCAD list of property owners and that's what we 'll be sending it to. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions for staff? This is not an action item this evening. So we'll move on to our next agenda item, which is 6D. Hold the second of two public hearings for an involuntary annexation of approximately 6.71 acres of land generally located north of Brush Creek Road and east of Fort Worth Drive by the city of Denton. Thank you, Mayor, members, council members, staff. This is a second reading. Sorry. Second public hearing for this involuntary annexation of approximately 6.71. Property located north of Brush Creek and just east of Fort Worth. Similar to the other annexation, the schedule for the annex ation is presented this slide. That concludes my presentation short. Just again, a public hearing for this annexation request. Okay. This is public hearing. I will open the public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak on this item, please come down, state your name and address and your time will begin. Anybody is wishing to speak on this agenda item? Anyone? All right, we will close the public hearing. Council member Gregory. Could staff remind us again of why, what triggered this as an involuntary annexation? Yes, the property shown here is being developed or proposed to be developed with a mixed use development. This portion that's in the black area comprises of multif amily units. There will be pad sites along Fort Worth. Because the property in question is in the city and is adjacent to the city and development would require public utilities and water and sewer, this fits within our annexation criteria and therefore pursuing annexation. We did notify the applicant, I'm sorry, the property owner, and they did not respond in the timeframe that we established. Therefore, we are moving forward with annexation. Thank you. All right, no actions required on this. We'll move on to agenda item 6E. Hold a public hearing, consider adoption of an ordinance designating the property known as the O'Neill Ford Civic Complex bounded by Withers Street on the north, Bell Avenue on the east, McKinney Street on the south, and Austin and Oakland streets on the west, a historic landmark . Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council members. This is a request. This is item number HL71 to hold a public hearing, consider adoption of an ordinance design ating the O'Neill Ford Civic Complex historic landmark. First, I want to say that I don't feel worthy to loosen the strap, so to speak, of this landmark designation. It was actually begun in the early 90s by Mr. Cochran and Peggy Caps and other people involved in preservation. And tonight we're just sort of wrapping up what earlier was begun back then. You'll hear from Mr. Cochran shortly. At 23 years of age, O'Neill Ford designed a home up on North Bell in 1929. It was the second structure he ever designed, and that was for his friend, Mary Marshall, who was a teacher, a professor. And the home now is called the Gertrude Gibson House, and it was given to Texas Women's University by her. Thirty-eight years later, Mr. Ford designed the building we 're in tonight and after a lot of significant projects that he did. So it's difficult to overstate the significance of the work of this man with very humble beginnings from a little town that's no longer on a map called Pink Hill, Texas. So this designation caused me to learn a little bit more about his body of work, and I'll hopefully send you tonight away with dreams of architecture. I'll just show you just a few slides, and I'm going to channel them all here and speak a little quickly and just go through them. This is the area we're dealing with real briefly here, the boundaries. It's where we are right now, and it's this piece of land. It's 32 acres. There are six buildings on it and various sculptures and landscape features. It's bounded on the east by Bell, on the north by Withers, on the south by McKinney, and on the west by Austin and Oakland Street. In there, some of the buildings. There's one thing I missed with the slides in here. I want to make sure I share with you. Zoom down here. There's just a little of the background. I'm going to again click through these very quickly. This speaks to the background. So Mr. O'Neill Ford, again, difficult to overstate his work. This is a big project he did, a 750-foot tower of the Americas in San Antonio, designed in 1968. It remained the tallest tower in the United States until 1996. He was instrumental in preservation in San Antonio, including the work on the Paseo del Rio, or the River Walk, and the restoration of the San Fernando Cathedral. He also worked on this list of projects, including La Vita, which is a historic preservation project in San Antonio, Sk idmore College in New York, Texas Instruments Buildings, buildings for their executives , homes for their executives, and other things, including here in Denton, the Selwyn School. And this is the cafeteria of the Selwyn School that exists today. It's actually I would call it a threatened building because , as you know, the Selwyn School is left, and so the future of these buildings are a little bit unknown. This, a lot of times people say this building burned down. You can see some fire damage in the back there where the black is over those doors. That's the actual kitchen. There was a fire in there, but the structure is in good shape. Neil Ford's brother, Lynn Ford, was a craftsman, a woodcar ver. The whole family were craftsmen. The father of Mr. Ford worked for the railroad, and whenever he would leave town, he would tell his four children, they each had to make him something. When he got back to town, they had to give him something. So they all became craftspeople. The reason we have all the wood carving, the wood above your head, is his brother. In Dallas, you have a building like the house like this, the Bromberg House, which was recently listed for a couple million dollars. I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm just saying that a lot of this presentation is outside the scope of the item that's been posted for tonight. Okay, we'll just go forward. It's about only a fort in the site, so we'll get right to what's on the site. We know we've designated these, there are a lot of signs around this property, so you think that it's protected, but it actually has no local designation. That's about putting a local designation over the buildings we're in, which include the Emily Fowler Library, which was built in 1949 originally, but then remodeled twice by Mr. Ford, including the pieces here. Of course, it includes our civic complex built in '66, which is a copy of the building, La Vijita in San Antonio. I'm sorry, he built the La Vijita in San Antonio as well. The pool complex, this is a picture of our pool complex before, was modified in the early '90s. There's still some remnants of O'Neill Forge work left around there, such as these lamp shades that you see. The senior center, which is designed in the same style in the building we're in this evening, and the Denton Women's Club, which was designed in 1928 by a Fort Worth architect, Wiley Clarkson. It also includes a couple sculptures, including this sculpture, which is really a place for children to play, done in honor of Betty Lane Blazer, who died young of cancer, and this was built in her honor. And then the Pops Carter sculpture as well. So there's things like that there. The Landmark Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission both recommend approval, and staff recommends approval of this passing an ordinance designating the O'Neill Forge civic complex, a historic landmark. Councilmember Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. The question that really jumps to my mind is, does this designation in any way put any limits on modifications, remodeling of the buildings that are within the designated area? Does it put any limitations or requirements on modifying, changing, adding, taking away any of the play structures, adding more sculptures or public art, or taking away any sculptures or public art? Well, when restrictions, it adds a layer of, I guess, a layer of auditing of that process. So if you were going to take away, say, that sculpture there, that would require a certificate of appropriateness. So, or, you know, the Pops culture, any of those things. So if you're going to add a sculpture, yes, you would need a certificate of appropriateness from the Landmark Commission or from the Preservation Office. If we were to, there were some wooden doors to this building that were carved by O'Neill Ford's brother, that were recently removed and replaced by some doors that are not as architecturally significant. Would that have required to go before one of those boards for review of appropriateness? Well, that's an external alteration to one of the buildings . So we need a certificate of appropriateness. You get into, there's some flexibility in our ordinance where if that's not visible from the street, whether it needs to go before the Landmark Commission. The current ordinance revisions we have, if we pass them through those doors, wouldn't be visible probably from the street. So that would have to be approved by the preservation officer. That particular item wouldn't maybe go to the Landmark Commission. But if it was something that was visible from McKinney or if the Denton Women's Club wanted to make an alteration visible from Oakland or Austin, that would go before the Landmark Commission. So exterior alterations visible from the streets, probably before the Landmark Commission. Okay. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. I don't know if you answered this, but what about additions to the entire complex? Would that also have to go before the Historic Commission? Yes. You would have to have a certificate of appropriaten ess for that. Ah, okay. I can't vote for this. Just letting you know. So if you could show the map of what all this is bounded by . Sure. Let's get everybody back here. The boundary is right there. As you know, we bought the tax building next door. And we tore it down to eventually, somehow there's been some talk and planning about this being an area of master planning, the municipal complex. So if you could point out on that map, I'm trying to have a hard time. Is that the Civic Center? Okay, I see the Civic Center. Around the circle. So then the tax building lot is, I'm talking about the jail , the old jail next door. The old jail next door. So if we wanted to build a new building on that, what's the impact of the designation on that process? It would need a certificate of appropriateness. It's within the boundary. And to build something else. And it would have needed, you know, when the jail was going to be demolished, there was some question as to whether it needed a certificate of appropriateness then. And that's because really what we're doing here is passing this ordinance. But right behind us in the courtyard is a local historic landmark designation for this whole complex. But there wasn't an ordinance on record anywhere officially . At least there wasn't a legal ordinance that showed that designation. So when that topic came up, I sort of knew here there was some pretty good momentum to take down that building. But that may have, if this had been passed, there would have been a requirement of a certificate of appropriateness . And there will be one required if you put something back in that place. So does that mean that the building has to be designed in a certain way that's compatible with all of these other buildings? Architecturally or? Yeah. And this is the this is the quandary, I think, what I hear. I mean, for me, I think this is a great opportunity. My concern is not knowing all the potential unintended consequences of what the city may be planning to do with these sites. But you're saying that each the Civic Center is a historical marker, is that correct? The Civic Center now does not have a local landmark designation. OK, what buildings in that boundary have a local landmark? The Denton Women's Club has a local landmark on it. The Qu aker Town Park itself has a local landmark on it. Right. Which is the boundary there. I'm not actually sure where that boundary is, but whatever the park was, you know, there's three parcels there legally now or three parcels that we have. The Civic Center is not and this building is not. They neither one of them have local landmark designations. Now, yeah, and I see those signs I showed you earlier point out a couple of other interesting things. But that is those are state. Councilmember Briggs. So I just wanted Council to recall when we had our presentation on the municipal complex. I the architect was there who we had we were in talks with and I mentioned that the image looked a little out of place for for the area since we were over here and he said that the architect would keep in mind the area surrounding it when designing it as far as the external building goes. So, I mean, I think that's what we're talking about, right? Just the outside, not that it cannot be there, just that it would need to kind of fit into the right design. The mayor was mentioning the same the, you know, your specific style. There's not a specific style. There is a compatibility issue like bricks, it could be material. But it isn't set in stone. We had we were just landmarking the site. You know, the, again, that was sort of the backup material about O'Neill for what he's known for is building in the local style is his architecture is is called mid century modern but really it's a Texas vernacular. So there's a lot of room in there and what's considered appropriate in that space. Councilmember. So several years ago. One of the structures that he had designed in this complex the swimming pool was had went through a massive redesign of some of the buildings to support it. And there was an outcry among some of our local folks Mr Co chran showed me a newspaper article in San Antonio where they were decrying the the loss of an O'Neill Ford structure. On the other hand, there were some folks that were using that structure every summer. That said, it really wasn't adequate to serve the purposes. So how would this new designation does the problem was I think when it was all said and done was there were not a whole lot of elements that really, someone say, we're not appropriate to reflect what had been there before. Most people would probably say some changes were very needed. Would this have, would this allow for some rather significant changes, so that the building would function more appropriately to serve our citizens, yet maintain some of the elements of appropriate this to the style that that forward had. How would it work. Well, of course it would do that I mean, and good architecture which we're in now and it's gone 50 years. It allows for that flexibility and what what you look for in a case like that is when you're going to expand when we needed more pool shelter or an admissions window or whatever that was. It just, you would have looked for its. You would look for one you look for retaining original material so it's kind of ties into sustainability so repurp osing of a structure in the, in the, in what it's made out is very important so if you needed to add on to that pool house. It just would have been looked at using the idea of compatibility of scale and of material to that complex. Ideally I think people would have liked to have seen I think O'Neill's Ford's for Denton it's really when people talk about them, they talk about O'Neill Ford his money of all those great even with that great big tower, the little chapel in the woods on the Texas Women's University campus is considered one of his most important works. Mayor Pro Tem. This 32 acres, how was the line demarcated around it. It's the yellow line. Yeah, what, what led to that being the designation in the, in the early 90s there was a ordinance passed designating this everything within this boundary as the O'Neill Ford civic complex. Okay. So if it was my ordinance then it could be modified. I'm assuming. The reason I bring that up is because, to me, the complex, about 30 acres, 29 acres of it is historic for acres is a parking lot. And that part's not really historic and doesn't need to be a part of it. I could get on board with this if we went back to the drawing board and carved out the parking lot portion of it. So we'd be preserving the actual buildings themselves but in terms of restricting what goes on the undeveloped part of the land I can't get on board with that so I'm just trying to think of ways to support this. I think that the reason you want to look at protecting it is you just moving. So mid century modern architecture is kind of having a moment right now and when these things happen historically, that those are this moment will be will continue. After 50 years and another hundred and 50 years, it's only going to be more recognized and considered more important. And since O'Neill Ford did the civic center and did this building. It's all able to be appreciated because everything around it is compatible, scale is compatible, things like that. Mike was probably going to mention it, of course this building we all know was originally designed to take a couple more floors. The building that was taken down by Grayson Gill, the Dent on County jail by a fellow of the American Institute of Architects Grayson Gill, a builder built in the 1950s. I often looked at it and figured that O'Neill Ford worked really hard to make this building fit with that building so it's always it's what it's what you do when you think about design. Okay, I'm not saying you couldn't carve that out though of course I'd be happy if we have that's what it would take. Great. All right, any other questions for staff for we open the public hearing. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right, we will now open the public hearing anybody wishing to speak, come down state your name and address and your time will begin. Thank you for staying up with us. Yeah, well, it's a real struggle. I have to tell you. I understand it looks like you're all suffering to so that 's good. Mike Cochran 610 West Oak Street. Thanks for the opportunity to come down here and speak. And if there is no card for me, it's because you used it on the other. Okay, I'm sorry. It's good to get your input. There we go. Anyway, this has been a long time coming about I know you guys have been real busy for the last 25 years so it finally, finally makes it back up in, I was going to talk a little bit more about Ford but I think he's done a fine job of that it's just a matter of. He's a homeboy basically somebody from here. He moved to that exactly 100 years ago. He always had a relationship with the community and he always was was it, I guess didn't sort of made him as well as he's made a mark on dentin as well. If you can. Oh yeah, you got you got it up here. You can see, he was thinking about this whole area in a pretty holistic way for a long time. And you can see here, I'll point out up in this corner here . They thought they had the contract for the post office for the terrible building over there and they got out politic on that. But he had all kinds of ideas for for this for this whole parkland here, including a big fountain right up there like a splash park, just as you described with coming on down into the tying us into the courthouse square. And you can't really see that easily here but he also had designed a series of small check dams along the creek to just make a sense of space, make something beautiful, and they would be just, you know, small just little little smaller waterfalls along there just to enhance it. So he was he was connected to dentin, and you know we're always striving to find something different about this place something better. And this is something that's genuinely dentin, it's not manufactured it's not you know it's not something, you know, a craft beer revival or whatever it's something really from dentin. And that's why the council in 93 thought to to designate this whole area that. Let me just skip to some of the objections that you all have had on this and basically the thing to remember about this I think you're overthinking the restrictions. Whatever you give us you can take it the way. And that's pretty much it. All the restrictions as I understand them would be would be to somewhat encourage you to use good sense and good taste. When you do something here, and it's not going to stop you from doing something if there is a public need for it. No question about it, you have the power, future councils will have the power, you're not locking them into anything. Other than a level of scrutiny, okay, you send it by the Landmark Commission. You appoint the Landmark Commission, presumably you'll have people there of good sense and, and, and, you know, good good faith and there. It's not any kind of an onerous burden. I mean, I live under the rules of the Landmark Commission at this point in my, in my neighborhood and you know I've had about two encounters in 20, 25 years. In any event, I think you're you're putting a little bit too much, you know, I know it's important to troubleshoot these things and to look for the worst case scenarios out of what these words say. But I don't think that some of those things that you have envisioned are really much of an issue at all. I would also, I guess, make the statement that I hope that those doors come back here because it was my understanding that they were taken away to to restore to fix them by Al ton Bowman who is a really, if I may speak just for a moment more about because you all look like you're really alert and really, really, really into this. But I'll just like to make one offer to and say that, you know, when when we went through this process, you know, 25 years ago, I got an agreement or I got asked the form of the firm of Ford's old firm of four pound Carson, which is, you know, one of the best architectural firms in Texas. And they've done the stuff around here after Ford died. They would design a sign for us, a monument sign of some sort for the front saying the O'Neill Ford City Complex. I've written to at least four mayors in the last 25 years, asking if we could take them up on this. And I never bothered to come to the city council meeting before about it. But it seems like we could use TIF funds in order to fund the fund the thing. Okay, your time's up. Yeah, it's over. In any event, that is what I would encourage you to thank you. Yes, Council Mayor Pro Tem. Do you have a question for the speaker? I do. Mike, I always love when you come here because I learned something when you speak. But you did say something that caught my attention. I think I heard you right. You said if you give it to someone, council gives it to them, they can take it away. Exactly. Were you here for the TIF discussion? Yeah. Just making sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but you can modify these things. You know, the thing is, it's kind of to ensure you just don't do something stupid with the properties that are here. And I don't think you will. But nevertheless, it's just it 's an added. It's a symbolic acknowledgement that we have something special and we should take care of it. Okay, thank you. Councilmember Gregory. Mike, I know that this is I'm starting my ninth year on council. Would it surprise you to know that you are the first person that's ever accused us of overthinking? It's generally we're accused of something else. Well, it's all because I'm a former councilman. That's right. Okay. Thank you, Mike. This is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak, please come down and state your name and number and your time will begin. Name and address, not your name and number. That's on my voicemail recorder. I'm Jane Piper Lunt. First, I'm going to say you rock tonight. Okay. I'm about to pass out. And what's your address, ma'am? Oh, 4211 North Interstate 35. The town that I moved from to here had a Carnegie library and they did not appreciate that they had a Carnegie library and they put aluminum windows in it. And they missed out on a one million dollar Carnegie grant to restore that library because they put those windows in. This kind of preservation is very important because you never know what is going to happen with this building. You know, you can get some millennials in here in a few years. They may not have any appreciation for this. You know, I mean, and a lot of people don't understand the difference between restoration and preservation. And so you've hired an incredible person who I feel you need to give a lot of latitude to because he's going to do some wonderful things for this town. And he's in fact, I don't think he's strict enough, you know, but you know, because some of us preservationists really want strict stuff because we don't want to see it ruined. He's very workable. He knows his stuff. So I really recommend that you follow his recommendations. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? Anybody else wishing to speak? OK, we will now close the public hearing. Councilmember Br iggs. I would be happy to make a motion to preserve this treasure . Councilmember I will second. We have a motion to second for agenda item six. Let's vote on the board. I thought she was going to vote for it. Motion carries six one. Motion carries six one. OK, concluding items. Nope. Oh, now it lights up. I told him one o'clock we'd be here till he didn't believe me. Councilmember Gregory. Two things, Mayor. One is I'm hoping that we get on the agenda very soon assignments for our council committees because the Hot Fund Committee is needing to meet around January 28th or just shortly thereafter in order to do our work before the budget cycle comes around. The other thing is I would ask that fairly soon that we have a work session with some comments from our city attorney regarding review of our open meetings rules and limitations and the issues that are revolving around those. Great. Councilmember Hatsbeth. Mr. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. City Manager, could you I want to put an earmark here and because I don't know if it's relevant yet, but kind of if you can give us plenty of notice with the Wells Fargo building, I'm assuming there'll be some level of asbestos abatement. And so that's right downtown. You know, I think we're going to have to I would like to see the city take some real forward notification type steps or whatever that requires to make sure we're we're kind of getting the word out. Hey, if you're sensitive to this that or the other. And I just want to get in front of that pretty well. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs. You know, we're going to we're going to pass a council rule that these concluding items we limit them to what he got about five or 10 of them. I will I will limit mine. No, you're good. I was giving our time between next. No, I 'm just I'm just so so I just want to real quick revisit our Civic Center pool policies regarding refunds after the presentation today. See if there's some exceptions that can be made for certain situations. I would like to have an update on the municipal equality index score and the things that we can do to raise it in 2017. I know that the number presented was for last year and there should be an update coming soon. I would also like to see what percentage of jobs in Denton pay a living wage. And you have a definition for that. Oh, what a living wage would be being able to afford food, clothing and shelter. But I mean, is there a certain income . I mean, that's that's why I'm asking. I'm asking you're saying is there a definition wage and how what is the percentage of jobs we have available in our city that support that. All right. Sorry, I'm skipping over to see what's important here. No, no, go ahead. I'm just getting your time. I would like to see if we can get a total in a staff report the total of sales tax that is provided in the TIF zone area just the sales tax that comes from that one specific zone. Is that if that's possible. And also, I would like to request if possible. So a map, a city map with the non taxable property property tax shaded one color like for universities, churches and and then also like in a different shade for sixty five and up that are going to be participating in the tax freeze. Another color just so I can visually see our city and then see all the land that's actually taken off the tax rolls. I've never really been able to we've heard percentages, but just to visually see something. That's it. That's it. Thanks. Oh, I'm sorry. I have one more thing. You forgot you miss read a card earlier into the record. And so in regards to the the TIF and the the citizen would would like if you could reread that correctly before the end of the night into the record. Who are we talking about? Okay. Okay, well, I think I said that but go ahead. Councilmember Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. I don't know if this would be a informal staff report or short work session on sales tax enforcement. The city has a mechanism for things like food trucks, the community market, that type of thing to make sure that people actually have sales tax permits on on file and that they if they're traveling and working in other cities and we get our share of the sales tax. And then I'm going to cut it short on this and just ask for a staff report on why on the Muni code online we have the subpart B which handles all of the zoning which is our DDC. Is it currently. It's not what's currently our DDC. It's what used to be our DDC and why that is still part of what we list online. I mean, it's got the zoning classes of SF one and etc. And just kind of why that's still out there. All right. Mr. City attorney as far as the request from councilmember about correcting an item read into the record. Is this an appropriate time to do that. Oops, no, but you can go back to that item and make the correction. Okay, I'm going to do that real quick. Is that all right. Yes, I'm going to go back to the agenda item 6A I'm opening the agenda item 6A. I'm not going to read the caption when look at the agenda and decide that. Jan Jan Papa Lunt was in support of at least the caption was was talking about dissolving the tip. So now we will end agenda item 6A and I have one concluding item. I believe I'd ask for a count on a bike count on the Eagle Drive bike lanes. And I thought assistant city manager fortune told me that they had done that, but I hadn't seen any information on that. I think it's for pedestrians and bicycles were included in that just sort of an overall tally of how that pedestrian corridor is being used since our road diet. So just what I can update on that. And that any other concluding items. Now, not quite one o'clock. All right, we will stand adjourned.