Feb 06, 2018 City Council on 2018-02-06 12:00 PM

Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, February the 6th, 2018. It is straight up noon on this Tuesday. We'll move through our work session meeting here and then we'll reconvene up in the council chambers at 630, our regular scheduled time. First item on the agenda is citizens comments on consent agenda items. This is different than agenda item three, which is citizen comments on ethics related work session report. So we do have a card for agenda item number three, but we do not have a card for agenda item number one. So we will go on to agenda item number two, request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda for February the 6th, 2018. Clarification of agenda items. We'll start over here. Dr. Riggs, you have? For questions on consent agenda? Yes. Well, well, or anything listed on the on the agenda. Yeah, I have a question about item B. The landscape design services for Mayhill Road widening. Is this does this include the landscaping for the SUP for the landfill or is this something totally different? This is something different. The landscape for the SUP is going on a separate track and we've got an update for council in about two weeks. Okay, thank you. Councilman Ryan, did you have one? Yes, Mayor, I would like to pull item in from the agenda so we can have a discussion on polling locations as to whether that's something we want to change now or make sure that we have a work session on it before we have future elections. One of the two. Okay. All right. Anybody else? Seeing none. All right. Oh, okay. Boy, it's in. Yeah. No, nevermind. All right. I'm just buttoning in on your conversation. Okay, we'll go on to agenda item number three, which is citizen comments on ethics related work session report items. We do have one card. Mr. David Zoltner, we'll give the room a chance to sort of calm down and we'll start your time. David Zoltner is about to speak, folks. Stay here for this. And Jennifer, just as a reminder, what's the time on this? Three minutes. Okay. Yeah. So, you're going to have your time at this address and you 're good to go. Yeah. Good afternoon, mayors and council members. My name is David Zoltner. I live at 2501 Timber Trail in Denton. You are three meetings into your ethics mission right now and I have kind of a long laundry list of things that I know I can't get through in three minutes. So with your permission, I'm going to kind of scatter shoot across the tops of the ones that I think are most important at this point. First, this would be my first opportunity to thank this council for at least allowing citizens three minutes and then I see a couple of public hearings in the future. But I do want to thank you for at least allowing us to weigh in along the way here rather than just before you vote on the board. So that's a thank you. And it's only right and proper because this is actually kind of a citizens ordinance that you're working on right now. I have one public comment for Mr. Boricuez. I don't know how many citizens in this town actually were here or had the opportunity to watch your December 5th first presentation or your introduction to this ethics ordinance on video, but I have to say that was probably two of the most inspiring hours I have ever heard on the subject of ethics in this room in probably 25 years, especially when you got to the point about just because it's legal doesn't make it ethical. That ought to be the motto just following this from here on out. So I do thank you for that. Okay, comment number one or opinion number one, I've sent an email to council members previously. It's not a secret how I regard this conflict of interest issue and I don't believe that the dollars and the percentages are where you ought to be going. I think that's just creating kind of a little protection racket for council members and little safe spaces for you to function and maneuver around. This is why in my opinion most of these other cities have actually gone to the zero threshold and I would hardly encourage you to kind of back up just a little bit and talk a little bit more about whether you really, really, really want to do that. Looking ahead at the schedule, I do see a couple of public hearings in the future and again I thank you for that. One request I would have is that both of these public hearings appear to be scheduled around noon meetings just like this and so we have a lot of people that are at work and would love to probably weigh in on this. So what I would ask you to do, respectfully ask, is that you maybe schedule one of these public hearings in an evening meeting or possibly even a Saturday meeting. I consider this ethics ordinance to be that important that at least one of these opportunities for public to be more available and it may not tie up or ask any more of Mr. Boricuez in terms of his time. It could be videoed later. And actually it would be what I would ask is that it might even show up in something slick in my mailbox like this, you know, ethics hearing in April or May or something like that. So it's important to me that the public at least have a chance to weigh in on that. Oh, okay. Question? Yeah, we have a question and then go ahead. Were you aware that we actually had a Saturday meeting a couple of weeks ago? Were you aware that we had a Saturday morning meeting a couple of weeks ago just on the ethics ordinance? Well, I watched every bit of it. Oh, I know that. I'm talking about the public hearing. Oh, public hearing. Because we had a section in that meeting for citizens to speak. No, the little three minute, no, I'm aware of that. But I mean, when you get down to your final version and it 's all cut and dried, I mean, no, I'm very aware of that Saturday meeting and I've actually watched it twice. It was that good. It was that good. So. All right. Well, I can do the, have one more. Can I have two seconds? Real quick. All right. Real quick. I'm going to give a little latitude. Real quick. I do consider the ethics. I know we covered some of this on your very first meeting, but the ethics review board, I really think that you need to spend a little more time on the ethics review board who can be the members, qualifications. It's that important. So I would like to see, I'm looking at only three more meetings here and I know we covered some of this in your very first meeting, but let's talk a lot more about the qualifications, duties, powers, jurisdiction and all that coming. Okay. Yep. All right. Thank you, David. Okay. So we'll move on to our agenda item four, which are work session reports. Four A, receive a porthole discussion, give staff direction regarding the development of an ethics ordinance, including, but not limited to discussion on misuse of information, et cetera. Hello, mayor and council. Sorry, go ahead. That's okay. So I'm councilor Allen Borquez here for what is your fourth meeting in this process, the third substantive one, where we will tackle module number three. Our last meeting was the Saturday meeting and it was long and it was involved and I think we made a lot of progress and now we're keeping on schedule to try and complete this in a reasonable amount of time. And so there's nothing really to report from the last meeting. Your ordinance is in process and we'll plow forward. Here are the six items we're going to cover today and we're starting with the misuse of information. And so the first question that I have for you is one about restricting the use of information that one obtains solely because of their involvement with city hall as a public official and whether or not they can use that for private purposes, whether it's their own private purposes or others. Is that something you would like our code to prohibit? Council Member Reed. Are you talking about any information or confidential information? It could be any information. It could be restricted to confidential information. Confidential information could be regarding, that's a pretty broad term. There's obviously things protected by the attorney-client privilege. That's confidential information. The city is custodian of lots of confidential information regarding things such as employees, their spouses, their finances, their healthcare. Because of our public safety functions, police, fire, EMS, lots more additional health information, when we're engaged in economic development, there's confidential information often belonging to other parties, businesses, those sorts of groups, sensitive financial trade secrets. Then we get into things like buying and selling real estate may be considered confidential in certain arenas. For sure that's the sort of thing that typically we wouldn 't want disclosed. But the question is if internally we're discussing rezoning , we're discussing infrastructure, my gosh, I would love to have that information for my own personal investment purposes if I know where the new wider streets and oversized mains are going to go. I'm not allowed to use that information. Do we want to address that sort of thing in our code? I say yes, and we should restrict it. Restrict it to what? Well, I don't think that, say if I am a developer and I know that something, we're going to be doing something, I don't think that I should use the information that I found on council to go out and invest in the property next door or something like that. That's what we're talking about here, right? Yeah, but when you say restricted, do you mean based on confidential, non-confidential, or do you have some other--? No, I was just trying to get clarification of what he was talking about. I think when I first read it, just because my mind doesn't go to buying property development, I was thinking that I have my blog and that I take information that I learn on council and I share that with my constituents and basic knowledge, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn't that restricted and if that was covered or not. I think I understand the question now and what it's directed for. Okay. We're just going to go down the horn, I think, Council Member Ryan and then Council Member Greger. I definitely can think on confidential information, anything that's public record that's on our agenda is public information, so I don't know that we can really restrict usage of that knowledge because now you're narrowing what a council person is allowed to do, but anything that's confidential should be restricted. Thank you. In our last meeting, Council Member Hudspeth asked a great question which was, "What are we trying to accomplish? What's the big thing that we're trying to accomplish in the whole ethics ordinance?" And Mayor Pro Tempigari answered by saying it's to increase public confidence in their local government and to increase transparency, and I agree. And I think it's that, but I think it's even more than that because what we're saying here is that Council Member wouldn't use it for personal purposes. I think that we also have an obligation to, as our ethical behavior, to act in a way that doesn't harm the city, which means it doesn't harm the taxpayers. So maybe we're not releasing information or using information for personal purposes, but maybe we're using it to help a friend. We're not going to get anything out of it, but we like a friend. We shouldn't be able to release information about real estate transactions or lawsuits or negotiations or anything like that that might not be of benefit to us, but could benefit someone else. There's other cases where we might, if we were not successful, say we didn't want, for some reason we were opposed philosophically or politically to a road being built or a road being expanded to somehow use information that we had that was confidential information to try to subvert the whole project, to make the project go away. So I think that the answer to my question here, to the question here is yes, but I think it goes further. I think it's any information that's confidential that would harm the interest of the city, not just information that would help me personally, but that would harm the city in some way by increasing the prices that we pay or increase. You get the idea. I do. Okay. I think, okay, we got a little public service announcement on the back of Mr. Hutzpah's laptop. Early voting. Yeah. All right. So, yeah, I think we need to restrict at least the type of information to confidential information, or if we're going to use public information, it's, you know , if you use that information prior to it's becoming publicly known, and that publicly known just doesn't mean it's advertised. I mean, things can get around, so I'm really probably going to walk that back. I think confidential information for sure, but other than that, I think it could get to be a pretty slippery slope of trying to define, you know , then we have to decide what's the definition of in the public domain. And I agree about the harm, but also about maybe this is just limiting it to the officer, and is, you know, is there a sentiment with the council to extend that beyond that, and if so, how do we define those parameters? You know, like we had consanguinity and affinity, those kind of things. I mean, they're probably included in this. I mean, as far as an officer, does that automatically go to the affinity, consanguinity? Are those all linked together moving through this ordinance , is my question. The definition we have now would not. Okay. But we can do that in this section if we say you can't use the city's confidential information that you obtained solely because of your position with the city for your advancement or for the advancement of people within that realm, that matter of degrees. And I think the person's official city duties, I'm sure that in the examples, I think I recall, or we're going to probably need to flush that out when we get down to the specific wordsmithing because I mean, if I'm out doing something that's not necessarily, I mean, what is my official city duty? Is it anything I talk about or is it somebody just walks up to me and gives me information? But I'd like to know a little bit more about what that means. But I think for sure confidential information, I'll have to chew on information that's not confidential. Okay. Anybody over here? So for sure on confidential, not sure about the scope of other. Councilmember, Mayor Pro Tem? Well, I'm just going around the horn. Yeah. I'm definitely okay with the confidential information. A little bit concerned about going beyond confidential information. But I think if we put in a restriction like what Council member Gregory was talking about, even on public information that it can't be used to harm the city, then that could cover a good amount of self-dealing with public information. Although harm would have to be really carefully defined. And I like the idea of extending it to affinity and consang uinity as well. Okay. Councilmember Hussman? Yeah, I think just kind of flatly, at the confidential, kind of as a line of demarcation, yes. And I think everything that we pass, I think, should extend to those levels across board. I don't see where you would separate those yet. But just kind of going forward. So yeah, I think they should apply here as well. Okay. So they should apply to -- I've lost you somewhere. I think the levels should remain constant throughout the entire document. Who it applies to? Yes. Okay. Gotcha. I think that should be a constant. I didn't know that would vacillate. I've not entertained the fact that it would go, you know, depending on what the subject matter is. Okay. So that's a given for me and then yes at the level of confidential information. Yep. Great. Thanks. I pretty much agree with virtually everything that I've heard here from the other council members. I think we're headed in the right direction. Okay. The confidential, hey, you know, if you -- that's definitely not. Yeah. All right. Fantastic. Okay. All righty. Oh, I'm sorry. Council Member Briggs. Just for clarification purposes, when you would say we've all agreed on confidential information, that means information that we learn within a closed session, right? Or that's we've gotten an illegal memo, right? I mean confidential -- so if you're wondering in the halls and you run into somebody and they tell you something but it's not or has not been defined as confidential to the public, I'm just trying to figure out what that information means and how that distinction's made. And that's a good question. In other words, we may have to expand. I mean certainly confidential in the sense of executive session reports or meetings you may have with staff where it's clearly known that this is confidential information or if there's any nondisclosures, NDAs that are signed. So that means we're going to have to be a little bit more diligent when we're having conversation with staff to have an understanding of the level of that information. Yes. Well, it may be that we need to define confidential information. You went through a list. You did not mention I don't think personnel matters, but those are confidential I think by law. So we might want to define that more clearly. Do you have one in your back pocket? Well, I have several. I'm not sure any of them are perfect. That's why I was curious what scope of data you're interested in protecting. You know, we say personnel matters is confidential. Well, it's true that we have an exception to the Open Meet ings Act that allows us to go back behind closed doors and have a very broad discussion on personnel issues outside of the public's view or earshot. But 99% of the data probably regarding those personnel decisions are not exempt under the Open Records Act. So most of an employee's personnel file is going to be open . But yet we're allowed to have conversations about them behind closed doors when deciding to hire, fire, discipline, transfer, all those sorts of things, which is a reason why some cities will specifically say their definition of confidential information includes information that is conveyed in executive session. Because the Open Meetings Act does not necessarily prohibit disclosing what was said in executive session. So if there's going to be such a rule, cities put that rule in their ethics ordinance. If I could ask, I'm just trying to get clarification. I thought that there were certain issues regarding personnel issues that were confidential and that there may be some discussions of allegations of imp ropriety on the part of a staff member that would lead to a demotion or a dismissal that are not necessarily available to the public. Am I mistaken on that? Is all of that information public information? Most of that information is going to be public. I mean, there's certain categories of things that are made confidential for certain classifications of employees. For example, there's a whole different section for police officers, law enforcement, those sorts of things. But for example, staff reviews, evaluations, whether it's an attaboy because an employee did something fantastic or it's a disciplinary action because they made a mistake, those things are public. I would say most of the contents of a personnel file are public. So, when you get into what's confidential or not, I think we do need to be specific about what our intention is. I think clearly we can say that things that would put the city at a competitive disadvantage, such as how much we're willing to buy land for or sell land for, should be considered confidential. We have an executive session that would allow us to have that conversation, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is confidential under the law unless we try to make it that way under our code of ethics. So I think I have a sense of what you're wanting and I'll try and cobble together a definition that fits that for you all to review. Yeah, and I think it's important to, because even in your official duties, because you're going to have all kinds of conversations with people. And for me, the essence of this is, are you misuse of information? Are you using information that you only have access to because of your position on the council and you use that to either obtain some kind of personal gain or cause some intentional harm either to the city or to somebody else? I mean, because you can use that. So that's really, for me, the crux of this is if I've gotten that information confidentially because of my position on council and only because of that, then, but gosh, if you hear something out there, if you're traveling in circles and you 're talking about projects and all that and you hear things, if it doesn't really affect the city, if the city's not involved in it yet and you don't have any idea that they are, sort of like a Supreme Court, they can't review a case that they think may be coming before the court, then, so yeah, it'd be interesting to see what you craft, a couple of options here that we can sort of, yeah. I think I got enough to move forward. Okay, good. Similarly is a common provision in ethics ordinances that prohibits city officials from basically abusing resources and the samples that I provided you together define it pretty broadly, whether it's having staff, city staff come do work for your business on your home, using city equipment. Some folks get very old school with that, backhoes and other pieces of heavy equipment end up on somebody else's property for the weekend. I can't go out and grab that backhoe. You can't unless you're making it generally available to the other citizens at the same level. Okay. And that really is the test and these days we're going beyond just staff and equipment and office supplies. We're talking about things like software, licenses that the city has access to now that maybe would benefit you for your personal business or in your personal life. And so it's fairly common to somehow restrict that unless those resources that are paid for by the city are equally available to other members of the public. Councilmember Gregory. Well, my answer is yes. But you didn't mention that last part unless those services are available to other members of the public because I don't think that being on the city council should mean that you can't get the same services that other citizens get. That's right. One of the examples I gave you the last one in your packet is the city of Laredo that specifically says except when those resources are lawfully available to the public. And I think that that exception does not put you at a disadvantage by being a city council member. Everybody okay with this in general? Councilmember Briggs, you have a question? I do. Okay. I just want to clarify. This I host council or not council but my district meetings in a library which is a city resource. Of course, this isn't for personal gain and it's not my private business. It's for the constituents. But I just want to make sure because that is something that I do and we use the library which is a city resource. If that was not included in this. Or could that be seen that way? Well, the answer to that question depends on the availability of that meeting space at the library. Right. You know, the example city of Dallas specifically says you can't use city resources for personal benefit including political benefit. It specifically adds that in their ethics code. But if that room is available to anybody else, whether it's the Lions Club or your neighborhood's book club under the same terms or conditions, then that wouldn't apply. You're free to use it. Okay. If you have city staff use city trucks to take city tables to set up the event for your political function, you would have crossed a line at that point. And that's what I think these types of rules are meant to prevent. To prevent. Okay. Yeah. So, I'm trying to see if anybody else. Oh, y'all do okay. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Go around that one. Yeah. Oh, oh. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Gerard. Yeah. I just want to make sure. I'm tracking with you on the last example. But you may, I just want to be clear because there's instances where I don't think it's a bad thing to treat a council person different than the general public. And that may be if, for example, there's a city building that has an office space that I want to use and they say, well, we've stopped the public from using it because they didn't maintain it. That sort of thing. Well, I think there's an extra layer of accountability to a council person or accessibility that would then not group them in that same bucket. So my question to you is, in that instance, if the general public has used a public facility and burned a bridge, but that space is still available to the, a council person, are you saying that goes against what this intent is? I think it would not go against that intent because I think if that public resource, in your example, a facility, a meeting space is being provided to members of the city council for purposes of them doing their jobs and duties on the city council, that's legit. It's fair for them to provide you an office, they could provide you staff, computers, all sorts of things that citizens wouldn't be given. But you're being given that not for your personal or political use. You're being given that to do your official duties with city of Denton and that would be okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. Let's say with Council Member Riggs, library space, totally get if she's using it for that and other people can use it. But if there's a, if the public gets charged to rent, let's say on the use of something, whether it be the civic center or whatever, and then a council member wants to do something that's consistent with his or her job on the council, it's not a political event, it's not a private event, but it's what is how does that work as far as if the public has to pay a rental? Does that mean that the council, which is really the city, I mean, or is it just to just it's a zero sum, it just cancels itself out? I mean, is that I think that any use of that resource that a city council member is doing in furtherance of their job on the city council, it's allowed, even if a citizen or another club would be charged something, because I think it's consistent with your duties to have town hall meetings, neighborhood or district meetings, and those sorts of gatherings. Okay. All right. That answers it perfectly. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions on this? And sounds like we're okay with this with a couple of, you know, clarifications and caveats and things such as that. Okay. Okay. This next one, the name is a little bit misleading. When city ethics ordinances often talk about abuse of position, we've already covered for financial gain, for your relatives gain. We've talked about using your position to hinder or thwart a private interest or to promote a private interest. All that's really left to cover under the umbrella of abuse of position is really some form of harassment. And so the question is, do you want to address issues of harassment in your ethics ordinance? Some of the samples that I brought forward for you include things like harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, genetics, disability, marital family status. It's a fairly broad thing. It makes sense to address it somewhere. You get to decide if you think an ethics ordinance is the place to address it. Councilmember Briggs. Well, I believe our HR department has a pretty consistent discrimination and harassment policy. So would it be wise to just implement that here so we're all abiding by the same policies? That's certainly your call to mirror the language if you like. And I think that's definitely easily doable if the council wants to have that direction. But going around the horn. Yeah, from the back up, I like the city of Houston's wording, your example one. Okay. I would want to be sure in the language that we use that we include sexual orientation and gender identity as areas where we would not allow discrimination or harassment. Anybody on this side of the table? Councilmember Mayer-Protein? Yeah, I'd like to example one, which I think is the Houston example. That's the most comprehensive, although I think you would just have to add identity to the gender section. Okay. Councilmember Dunn? The Houston one was one that I noticed and I agree with that one. That's a good way to do it. Well and those protected classes, I'm going to call them sort of the things you listed out. Those would certainly come into play from a discrimination point of view. And from a perspective of harassment, I mean you could be harassed really not based upon any of those protected classes as far as whether it's you 're constantly, somebody's council member's calling code enforcement, hey would you go check this person out? Would you go check this property out? Would you? So the discrimination piece is pretty clear. I think, you know, because we've got such a broad base set of laws and regulations at every jurisdictional level. Harassment that, and I don't recall the Houston one, is that, is harassment defined in that one or is it primarily just, are most of these examples based upon the classifications that where discrimination is prohibited? It's primarily based on those classifications. It reads, it's unlawful for a city official to use their official position to harass or discriminate against any person based upon ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation or religion. Yeah, I mean, and we've broadened that from what I've heard , but even from that perspective, can you harass someone not based upon any of those class ifications is my question. And I think you can. I think you can. The question is always going to be, is it actionable? Yeah. Okay, so, all right, that's, I appreciate that question because I'm, it's, I'm having, that sort of shifts how I look at this. Because to me, abusive position, is it actionable, meaning, is it actionable from a legal perspective, from a jurisdictional or judicial perspective? But I know that as Mr. Zoltner mentioned that you said in your first one that it may be legal, but it might not be ethical, but it could be the same way here. We could be harassing someone that it's legal to do that because it's not based upon any type of either protected class or one that we've added to it. But it's based upon something else. I mean, I don't know what it could be. So does that make sense? It does. It's not directly on point, but I'll share a short story. When I was a lawyer on staff for the Texas Municipal League , I'd get a call, I got a call one day from a city secretary who's very frustrated. She's being harassed and she wants it to end. And it turns out it's a city council member who's harassing her. So we go through this long conversation. Well, is it someone trying to get you to perform sexual favors? No. Are they offering to promote you if you do sexual favors? No. Are they going to withhold advancement? Well, it's particularly troublesome when I'm harassed at home. Oh my gosh, this council member is bugging you at home. Turns out the city secretary was married to the city councilman. And so I realized you don't need a municipal lawyer. You need a marriage therapist. You need something else. And that was part of a long journey that taught me that bosses are kind of allowed under the law to be a jerk. And I tease my own staff that fortunately for me, being a jerk of a boss is not illegal. But you know, there are these, you know, you mentioned protected classes. And of course, we're also, you know, as Denton is part of a nation that's caught up in the Me Too movement and everything else, where even though something may not meet a legal definition under Title VII of sexual harassment, we can all probably acknowledge this is not conducive to a productive workspace. This is disrespectful and we should hold government to a higher standard. These categories that are listed in your examples and adding gender identity, those are easy to say, you shall not be a jerk to someone at the office based on this demographic. Beyond that, yes, we can. I'll need some help in defining what that would be. No, I understand what you're saying now. So I got it. Yeah. And so I'm okay with what we've said. And it may be we have to see how it turns out and see if we run into something that we haven't addressed. Okay. Yes, sir. So it triggers something in my mind that we probably need to address somewhere because it's addressed in the charter in terms of council members' responsibilities and restrictions in terms of our actions towards staff. So I would, I don't know if you're going to address it somewhere else, but for council members to harass individual staff members because of the way they're doing their job, let's say it's a director or an assistant director or a coordinator or someone like that or a librarian for, you know, we're there yesterday. That's not our job. To do that, our job is to, if we have a concern about the conduct of a staff member, is to talk to the city manager. Is that something you would like to address under the guise of the ethics ordinance? I know that in cities, we don't have any recent history of that, but why wait until we do to address it? Why not just say something now that this includes, you know , I don't know how to word it. I mean, you'll have to work on it a little bit. I think you're talking about direct persistent either giving instructions to staff, interfering with staff's jobs, making demands of staff without going through the city manager and the proper department heads would equal a form of say harassment that could get referred to your ethics commission. We've had those issues. We do have a little scar tissue on one of those issues. Our mayor once said that all ordinances and laws are the result of scar tissue, something that happened. And we had a person who was on the traffic safety commission who took it upon himself to pull over when work crews were working on roads because that has to do with traffic and he'd get out and tell them that they need to do this way or that way. So yeah, I think some type of wording that elected or appointed officials are not to interfere with with the proper functions of staff. Good luck on drafting that one. I'll work on it. But yeah, I think we're all I think everybody's good conceptually with what what we have here this expressed. The Houston language also includes an answer to the second one if that's what you want, which I assume when there is some administrative or criminal investigation, city officials will stay out of that. The next one, the next one is a tough one. I think, are we going to create a duty to report in our ethics code? Well, a member of the city council, an advisory board member or an employee have an affirmative obligation to turn in a complaint against someone they know is violating the code of ethics could be against a council member, it could be against a co worker. During that that first day of training we had here in December, we talked about things such as the code of conduct at West Point and other places where cadets told to not lie cheat, steal or tolerate those that do. What does that mean you're going to create an obligation to report and some duties, some cities have said so and makes it an ethics violation itself . If you don't turn someone in. So this is not every ethics code does not include this provision. Is this something we want? And if you read the literature on ethics, as I do, often the authors will tell you that that's one of the problems in organizations, as most folks show up to work every day, not to be unethical, not to be corrupt, not to lie, cheat or steal. They just want to keep their heads down and do their jobs. They want to earn their paycheck, have their health insurance, get a couple days vacation and go home. To tell them they've got a duty to rat out the person in the cubicle next to them or the patrol car next to them or whatever is a step up a step above what they want. But what's to say about an organization when it tolerates unethical behavior and people are not reporting what they see and hear. It's kind of a management decision. But I think this is this is a difficult one to make and I'm eager to get some feedback from you. Well, I mean, I'm okay with it conceptually with a big if. I would like to see sort of a an intervening step, a precursor. In other words, if I see something going on, especially if it's an employee, I mean, because I think the city manager and of course I want you to maybe share about this as well. I would hope to think that we'd take an incremental step of if somebody sees something happening to me, I would want them to report that to somebody. Now would I want it to go directly to the ethics committee right off the bat? I think I would want at least at least one opportunity to correct that because that means you're probably catching it at the beginning. And I'm not sold on that. But I just I mean, that's about trying to mitigate the damages and unless you have all the facts. It's another thing. How do you know what's really going on? You know, how do you know if there's a violation? You may be suspicious of one, but you might not have all the facts. So if there were a intermediate reporting mechanism to where some steps could be taken to mitigate that. And then, of course, that puts everybody on notice that here's a potential problem. And now you can keep a better. So I think who you report to would be an issue. I think the amount of response to that report could be an issue. Just glancing at your first two examples, you can see the range of options, you know, in Irving, it says you shall immediately report if you suspect a violation. And then if you drop down to San Antonio, it requires you to have knowledge. Slightly different. Yeah, slightly different burden on the person reporting it. Could I before we go around the horn, I'd like to hear your thoughts just from the personnel perspective. I mean, this applies to council members and board members and the like and we'll mirror the handbook, but I wanted to hear your thoughts on that. When you say from the personnel perspective that if there is an employee who witnessed something or Yeah, if there's somebody who thinks that there's an ethical violation going on with a fellow employee, would you want it to immediately go with either suspicion or knowledge or what level of information do they have to go strict straight to an ethics commission? Or would you want it to management to be able to take a shot at it first? Yeah, I definitely want management to take a shot at it first. I mean, this is just part of managing an organization is you run into these issues. It's how it's why we create certain tailored training programs, that sort of thing. So you certainly like to do that. And also from a day to day management perspective, there's there's management issues. And then there's legal issues. You know, having knowledge of certain behaviors that immediately puts the city at risk if they're not active upon for instance, and that there's a there's a sliding scale there as well. So I would definitely want a supervisor city manager's office somebody notified immediately. And you know, I think you're bringing up a great point too, because employees aren't always aware if there's a violation occurring. It's really how well we're training them based on case studies and the law. Okay, we'll just go Okay, we'll start here. Go ahead. What I noticed in the backup between the city of Dallas and San Antonio and Irving ordinances is, you know, whether it's knowledge, actual knowledge versus a suspicion. So I'm okay with creating an affirmative duty to report if there's actual knowledge. I feel like there's really not an excuse to not report something that you have actual knowledge of. And the Dallas ordinance seems to be one that addresses the managers issues as well because it creates an affirmative duty to report when you have knowledge. And you report to the fraud, waste and abuse hotline, which typically creates an HR process and an investigation process. So I'm comfortable with that. I think what's left is what happens when you suspect a violation. Does that create an affirmative duty? I think that if you were talking about reporting to the fraud, waste and abuse hotline, I don't see a problem with saying, Look, if you suspect something, you have to report it. And that's an affirmative duty. We ask people to do that all the time. So I'm okay with extending a report to the fraud, waste and abuse hotline, but not necessarily to a board or just I would like things to go through the hotline aspect and have everybody be required to do that if they have knowledge or suspicion. Okay, so knowledge, direct knowledge and suspicion would go to what you're saying to the hotline fraud, waste and abuse hotline. Is that is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay. Well, what I noticed one of the three was that some people are differentiating between knowledge and suspicion and creating an affirmative duty for knowledge, but maybe not for suspicion. If it's just a report to the fraud, waste and abuse hotline , I think it's fair to say, Okay, if you suspect something, report it. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah, let's go over here. Yeah, I must be left. I'm right handed, but I must be left eye dominant. Go ahead, Councilman. Councilmember Dowd. Okay, you know, I read this and what we're saying here is, is if you know, if you see something you have knowledge of it or whatever, you know, it's a violation if that person does not report it. Okay, I guess I have a little problem of placing that that kind of burden on everybody. So what happens to somebody if they don't report something? That's a good question. They would then from what I'm hearing is based upon this and some of the examples that if they didn't report it, then they could be brought under an ethics violation of failure to report. Is that my understanding? Yes, you know, for example, the Dallas language failure to report a violation is a violation. That's the route they chose. That, you know, to me that gets a little, a little difficult. Yeah. You know. Councilmember Huss with any comment? Well, yeah, I'm the same. I think I can, I can agree with the, so short answer is I don't think it needs to be in here because I think Mayor Pro Tem's point is accurate that you can go through the fraud, waste and abuse line. And I think where I draw the line is if, if anyone is perfect all the time, then as far as predicting violations, then let that person step up. But assuming that's not the case, then go through the proper channels like everyone else and we'll see where it goes. But if you're, if you're all of a sudden you're like, Hey, you know, in the NFL, if you get, if you get a challenge wrong, you look, you don't get a third and then you only get, you know, so I think it's, it's, it's a matter of interpretation and there's no way to get it right all the time. And so when you're saying absolutely I have to report something that purports to be a problem, I could be wrong, you know, and so the best process I believe is the one we already have established and why should we be any different than any other citizen? That's what it's there for. There's a system in place, utilize it. If I could just to get a point of clarification or ask Mayor Pro Tem, because I'm, I thought you're, were you saying that you wanted what you described in the ethics ordinance or? Yeah, so the Dallas ordinance requires reporting to the fraud, waste and abuse hotline. So that's what I was pointing to was that affirmative duty to report to the, and it is in their ethics ordinance. So I guess I get it, but it's anonymous. So I don't, I think what's the point, right? Because I can tell you, I did it all day long and you can't tell me I didn't do it. And if I don't do it and say I did it, you know, there's no , there's no way that's, that's a rabbit hole that's useless because it's anonymous and you can't ever know if someone did all you have is their word. And it's like, Hey, you know, we're going to put them at a table with a bright light. And I mean, stop it, you know, so that, that's my thought is it, we can't, it's unenforceable. So that's what I'm going to come over here first and then we'll come back around. Yes. I agree with the mayor pro tem, uh, that, that if you have knowledge of a violation that you have an obligation to report it, it's not saying that you have an obligation to predict that somebody might violate, which is not about a prediction. It's about something that you've observed or have knowledge of. Um, I think that, that, uh, if, if it's a staff member, uh, and they are using the waste fraud and abuse hotline, uh, that's a recorded message and there's nothing that prohibits them, but they have an obligation to say, my name is Dalton Gregory and I'm reporting this, uh, as I'm following my duty to do so. So now I've done that. And if I'm concerned that maybe the person that's listening to the message won't remember that it was me, then I'd probably follow up with a, with a, uh, something in writing to make sure that, that I've done my obligation. Um, so I, I think that, that if, if we're talking about creating, um, an environment that, that encourages, uh, citizen trust and their local government that, that if, if I'm an employee or if I'm on the council and I'm aware, I have knowledge that somebody's stealing from the city, I have an obligation to report it. Or if I have knowledge that they're not following some other rule, that, that I have an obligation to report it. >> Any other mails over here? John, go ahead. >> Yeah. Um, I agree with Councilman Husspeth, uh, that you are getting into a slippery slope. Child waste and abuse is supposed to be an anonymous tip line. It's now you're going to start taking away the anonymous part of it and require that they say who they are. Otherwise you have no, otherwise you have no knowledge of who it really was that, that made the report. Um, I, I, I'm, I think I'm okay with the knowledge part. It's gonna be, how do you define if somebody has knowledge of a situation or not or whether they are suspicious. It's, you know, are you watching CNN? Are you watching Fox as to what, whether you're factually correct or not. So, uh, it's, it's a real slippery slope on this particular point. >> Councilmember Riggs? >> They have to, I believe they have to report a violation. I mean, if not, why are we even creating an ethics ordinance? If we don't require somebody who sees something going on to report it, then we're just saying, it's okay. You can do whatever you want. I mean, that, that's how I feel. I feel pretty strongly about it. Um, the process on how it gets done and to whom we can talk about. I see two different, um, solutions. For me, um, if it goes to the, the city manager, does the city manager ever turned that issue over to the ethics board? Um, like you say, you give them one chance and they either do, um, stop or don't, and then it goes to the ethics board. Or does it not ever make it to that, um, ethics board? And then if it doesn't, is the ending of that, um, report the hotline? I mean, so there's, there's two different issues that we're kind of talking here. So, I mean, I think that it should be in our ethics ordinance and we should be requiring people if they see something to let us know, because if not , then they might as well be doing, I mean, the same thing. I mean, if, if they see somebody stealing from the city and choose not to say anything about it, I mean, I don't, I don't think that's right. If it comes to you, is it, you know, at what point does, do you see in this paradigm of this, or are you saying, at what point do you see you, uh, if somebody, somebody comes up due to your report, let you know something's going on and you investigate it, you look at it, you see that that's accurate. Does it get reported right then, or do you address it with the individual employee thereby giving whatever decision you make, whether it's probation or whatever. And then if it happens again, then do you report? Uh, and, and I guess this goes back to my memory is not very good since I'm getting a little bit more gray hair. Um, so when we talked about who this ethics ordinance applies to, I know we talked about employees, but I thought what we said was that this ethics ordinance would somehow be embodied in the employee handbook. Am I wrong on that? You're correct that the employee handbook would be modified to match the decisions the council makes in the ethics ordinance. Okay. So I guess then regarding this issue, whatever we decide then gets mirrored in the employee handbook. So help me understand. I think the employee handbook as it stands, it's going to be much stronger than this anyway, um, primarily because there, there is a legal duty, um, particularly of, of supervisors to, to report, uh, you know, issues that would be, uh, categorized in this manner and they would be dealt with immediately. I can't envision as a manager turning an employee over to an ethics review board. Um, you know, if there's an ethical behavior going on or something where the city's been put at risk, I mean, that's our job is to deal with that immediately and safeguard the interests of the city. I can see this apply more to, you know, council members appointees, that sort of thing where, um, you know, and I think the other thing council member Brains brings up a good point, but once this gets enacted, there's going to be shades of gray. Where I sort of going to take the middle ground and agree with everybody is trying to, trying to prove that someone knew. Right. And I've seen this over and over again when it comes to vendor relationships, talking to council members and a lot of times, you know, you, you just, you, you can't account for every single scenario and, um, you know, if you, you've really got to rely on the honor system that people will report it. I think it's a great policy statement. I think it sends a message. I think it's got, it states your values, but being able to prove that somebody knew something and didn't report it's a whole nother thing. So yes, Don, sorry. Yeah, I, I, I can, I kind of think that, that, you know, basically saying somebody has to report it. I think they're really the best we can do is have a policy that we encourage people if they see something to say something. I don't think we can, you can, you know, just flat out say that you have to, because I mean, a lot of people are going to see things going on and they 're not going to report it. I mean, that's, that's a fact. The other concern I have is, is I don't, you know, throughout all this, I don't want to create a situate situation where we end up with witch hunts popping up. I think, I think that's something that, and it's probably going to happen anyway. Okay. But we don't need to make the ordinance where it makes it easier to do that. Okay. Yes. On the duty to report, I had attended a TML workshop for elected officials and one of the council members from another city was saying they had a problem in their city with the open meetings law because a quorum of council met prior to the meeting and kind of worked out what they were going to do. And it included the mayor. That's not going to happen here because our mayor is as fastidious about the open meetings rules as anyone I've ever met in my life. But, but if in another administration in a couple of years from now, the mayor is accused, the council member can't report it to the mayor. Who does the council member report it to? What would you like the chairperson of your board of ethics is one option. The hotline is also there because my thought would be is that whatever gets reported to the hotline goes to the city manager and the city manager then decides if it's an employee issue, then he's going to refer it to either HR or the department head that's over that. If it's a non-employee, he's going to refer that to the board of ethics. If there's anything to it, if any sort of initial inquiry convinces his office there's anything to it. So I think that option would always be there. That's why I wasn't quite sure if that's the road y'all are going to go down or not. I'm conflicted. I see, I mean, on its face do I have an issue with requiring based upon knowledge or suspicion? It sounds good. I think the implementation of that gets difficult. I agree with council member Hussbeth that, you know, what I may observe something that may be a violation, first of all I have to know it's a violation which means people have to be well versed in all of this. I mean, which they should be anyway, but that's even more reason to. And so I'm conflicted. Yeah, so I'm not sure exactly. The fraud, waste, and abuse route, I like that scenario, but what I'm understanding is your recommendation is that it be a requirement in ethics code that you -- that's where you report it. Your question is here, who do you report it to, do you report to? According to Dallas it's the fraud, waste, and abuse hot line. What Dallas says is that if you choose to -- corrections, pardon me, mayor -- if you choose to use that hotline, you can check the box that you 've met your obligation to report it. So I don't think you're limited under Dallas' code to just using the hotline. No, I understand that. They're providing that as an option which, you know, I think that enforcing this requirement that city officials report suspected or known violation is going to be difficult. Doing that, punishing someone for not doing it, is going to be difficult. What I think the advantage of a rule like this is, is it sets the expectation. For those of you in the organization who are on the fence and you don't know, if your own moral code of ethics, your own professional code of ethics don't tell you to report, well, the city has told you that you do have that duty and we've given you the easiest way to possibly do it so that those outside the organization can know that we're policing ourselves within the organization. Go ahead. We're going to go here and then we're going to come over here to the side of the room. I'm sorry, but I have to tell the story, but it illustrates a point. Once upon a time, a long time ago, when I was a principal, as I was making rounds one morning, I stopped at a door where I had a teacher that was supposed to be on duty to make sure that everything was cool in that part of the building. There was a door that was unlocked, anybody could walk in. So I stood there, waited and waited and the person that was on duty didn't show. And I kept waiting and I kept waiting and another teacher walked in and stopped and said, started visiting with me and she knew that there was going to be a problem because that person had not been showing up for duty and she was completely aware of it. But the unwritten code, the unwritten code in the school was you don't rat out a colleague. But we had a rule that we did have after that in our campus handbook that you have to report these things. She would have reported it. Because she didn't and because that teacher wasn't showing up until I discovered it, our kids were not as safe as they should have been. The facility was not as safe. The other teachers were not as safe. So I think that when you have a rule in place like that, it reminds people of their responsibilities and their duties. I wouldn't necessarily want to punish that person, but it was serious. I visited with the teacher that was aware of that afterwards saying, you realize that there was a problem. She said, yeah, I do. I was conflicted about it because I also have -- I know that we have a responsibility to our colleagues too. I said, well, your duty, your most important duty is to the children in the school. I think that our employees' most important duty is to the citizens in the community, to the taxpayers. There's my story. >> Okay. Councilmember Hussbett and Mayor Pro Tem. >> Yeah. I just -- I say it all the time. If you're not going to enforce it 100% of the time, then it just opens the door. And that's exactly what I hear about, you know, it's unen forceable. So you're just putting a rule on the book. And it's not -- I just need someone to help me understand if I'm wrong. But my understanding is just because you make a rule doesn 't mean people follow it, right? There's people that break rules every day, all day. It's illegal to drink and drive. So -- but that doesn't eradicate drunk driving. So I think that's -- if we can agree on that, then having a rule in place for the sake of a placeholder that's unenforced, you're almost asking for people to call the rest of your document into question rather than a succinct document that is 100% enforceable that then doesn't leave that interpretation or -- because we're having this conversation now. And there's at least three or four people that have said, hey, we can't enforce it. But we're going to put it in the ordinance. That just -- that defies logic to me. Because we're conceding this is going nowhere. But it looks great on paper. So that's just -- I don't think that's the way to change behavior. If you want to put that in your mantra, if you want to put that in your tagline or whatever, you want to come up with a phrase, re-report stuff, that's great. But I think to put it in a document and not enforce it is weakening the document. >> Okay. Mayor Pro Tem? >> Well, I just wanted to point out that when you make a call to the fraud, waste, and abuse hotline, the time of the call is recorded and the date of the call is recorded. So you could -- if you're reporting, you could easily put in, you know, Tuesday at 1 o' 5 I made the call and nobody would know what the content of that call is except the caller. So you could retain your anonymity and verify compliance. So I don't see this as an unenforceable rule at all. And I agree that if a rule is not really enforceable, you should proceed with caution. But this isn't one of them. I mean, this is actually an enforceable rule in my opinion. So I go back to the fraud, waste, and abuse hotline. It's also a good hedge against what Councilmember Duff mentioned about witch hunts because I think as we all know, only like 10% or 5% of the calls to the hotline have actually resulted in a finding of wrongdoing or an investigation of wrong doing. So the hotline itself and the mechanism for the auditor to filter and HR and all of the mechanisms that we have associated with the hotline actually prevent exactly what you're talking about, which is, you know, going on a wild goose chase or a witch hunt to find some wrongdoing. There's -- it's built in with processes. That's one of the reasons I brought up the hotline as opposed to something else. Yes, Don. I kind of like the wording to say that you have a duty to report, you know, and that doesn't -- that doesn't imply that there's, you know, any violation if you don't. But at least it puts it on the -- you know, the word out there that it is your duty to report whatever. Anybody over here? Yes. To that comment then. So then let's take that a step further, right? So let's assume that you can report and you can document the time you called. And let's assume that you failed to do so. And let's assume that you did not -- so you failed to report. You can't document what time you called. What is the punitive nature of that? What do we do? That's the question. So let's take that to the next step. So let's assume you're right. Let's assume we're down the road and that happens. What do we do? Well I want to challenge kind of the premise of the last couple of comments. I think the data is out there and I didn't bring it with me . But as a guy who writes a lot of ordinances, I've read the data before. Most people are rule followers. Most people do follow the rules when they're aware of what the rule is and the rule is reasonable and makes sense. And from a code enforcement standpoint, if the objective is compliance, simply making people aware of the rule gets most of them to comply most of the time. So it's a numbers game that we're playing, not to get 100% compliance, 100% enforcement, but to dramatically improve things from where they were. The other point is when I think about this sort of situation, I think of two sets of burdens that are on, let's say, our employees, for example. One is the burden to have to narc out their coworker. That is a tough thing to do. To report someone else's bad behavior, that weighs on a person. What also weighs on a person is carrying around knowledge that their coworker is doing something against the rules, something that's damaging to the organization, something that's damaging to everyone's reelection campaign, damaging to the team that they're on. And so it may be useful for an employee or a board member to be able to say, I hear you, buddy, but I have a duty under this ordinance to report you . So don't do it. Whatever it happens to be, taking a gift, taking a trip, being involved through their parents-in-law to a corporation, doing a contract, whatever it is, don't do it because you're putting me in a position of ratting you out. And I like, I love you. I do. I love my job more. Don't put me in that position. Or it tells employees and board members and council members , don't be so cavalier about what you're doing here in the gray areas because somebody who learns about it's got a duty to turn you in and you don't want that to happen. So just follow the rules. And that's why I think these are on here. I think you can enforce it a lot of the time. There's no way we can enforce this rule 100% of the time. It'd be difficult to prove that knowledge aspect. But if we get a little bit better compliance and a little bit better behavior, you have to decide if that's worth it or not. If I may? Yes. Because I didn't get an answer to my question. Okay. What do you do? I don't know what you do. And that's my point. Okay. Let me make sure I understand. I honestly cannot answer that question. So let me make sure I understand your scenario. Let's say for instance, I see you doing something unethical . I'm just kidding. But anyway, I've got a duty to report. And I do not. And somehow in the course of an investigation or a course of somehow somebody's done something wrong and it rises to the surface outside of reporting. And in that investigation, it comes out that I had knowledge that I did not report. All right? So what my understanding is, if we have a duty to report, there's a duty -- and I associate duty with requirement. I mean, so I don't know if I distinguish between those two. So if I have a duty to report and it comes out that I did not, well, then according to this ordinance, a couple of things will happen. The person who discovered that I did not report -- in other words, I violated the ethics ordinance -- and if it's an employee, a fellow employee, then they now have a duty to report that to -- in this case, the Dallas case, the fraud, waste, and abuse hotline. And if that investigation occurs and it's found to be subst antiated, then I most likely would anticipate that according to our ordinance that I think as I was going to be drafted, there would then be a recommendation made to the ethics board against me as violating the code of ethics for the duty to report. I think -- so to me, there's a difference between if it's unenforceable or it's -- I think you used the word difficult. And I think the scenario I just laid out shows the difficulty of that. But -- and let me -- I've got one last point. So I'm going to go ahead, after hearing the conversation, for me, I'm okay with the duty to report in this particular thing to the fraud, waste, and abuse hotline. I'm going to tell you why, because of something somebody said, I can't remember who said it, but that 90 or 95% of those, once they get looked into, sort of are nothing. So to me, that adds -- that is that mitigating step that I was looking for that says you make the report to the fraud, waste, and abuse hotline. Then before it goes to an ethics committee referral, ethics board referral, there's a chance to take care of the problem, however staff or management decides to do that. And then -- so that's how I understand what that particular language was. So that's where I am. So go ahead. I'm sorry. >> Yeah. No, I think that's great, but I think it's interesting how the explanations migrate, right? But I'm specifically -- my position, I don't work for the city, right? So as an elected body, there's a different level of -- I'm accountable to the citizens, and that's different, right? You can't -- I can't be fired by the city manager. And so in your scenario as an employee, yes, there's that. But give me the same scenario that applies to this council, this draft, and this ordinance, because I think there is a difference. There is a difference in accountability to a city manager and an elected official. You can't just -- to the sugrant of some, you can't just fire me, right? I mean, there's a process. And so that's kind of what -- >> That's a fair question. >> Because I'm looking at it -- I'm trying to look at it realistic every -- hey, because if I'm going to be in agreement with it, then I want to see what it looks like in action. And so I need to understand what that is in action. What do you do to someone that's elected that didn't -- that you, in theory, proved they didn't fulfill a duty to call an anonymous tip line? >> Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. >> I think for one of our next -- one of the next two meetings, we're supposed to be going over the actual process of the ethics violation and what happens when an ethics violation is brought up. So we haven't gotten there in the module yet. So I guess my question or my comment is if we're waiting to know what the process is for reporting violations before we vote on any -- or we take any direction on the actual underlying substance of our ethics ordinance, we might need to change our order of how we're doing things. That wasn't my understanding, but I mean, that would be my suggestion is if we're getting caught up on what happens, maybe we need to address what happens sooner rather than later. >> If I may. >> Yes. >> I think that's been the narrative all throughout. Mayor Watson said how the reporting piece weighs heavy in his decision making. And I'm saying, yeah, absolutely, I'm not willing to make a decision on something without understanding how it's applied. I mean, that to me is -- and I think that's -- and so I think the question would be the opposite even if the group hadn't decided on it individually. Don't tell me what you envision happening if -- again, I say if because I don't think it's enforceable at all. But -- and I think -- I mean, I think there's good people out there, sure, but I think if you're a narrative well, you're a narrative well. And so I don't know that you're motivated by 90% of other people. And so my question is, again, even as an individual, if this body hadn't got to that slide yet as an individual, what do you want to happen to a elected official that does not call -- that can't prove they called to an anonymous tip line? That's really what it boils down to. That's the answer I'm looking for. What do you individually want to happen to a council person that's elected if they -- if you attempt to prove they didn't call anonymous tip line? What happens? What do you -- what's your personal preference? >> I mean, are we even posted for discussion about the -- I mean, I think that's the question about the -- I guess this is a question for Aaron. Aaron, are we posted for a discussion about that particular part of the ethics ordinance? Can we discuss it broadly? >> If you look at the way the caption is worded, it gives a longer list of topics which Alan is talking about, but it's not limited to those. It's just basically talking about development of an ethics ordinance, including but not limited to these topics. So I think you can. >> So can I just say something? >> Sure. >> Here's the thing. We've had a policy discussion for two sessions so far, and we've made decisions on things that we think are ethics rules without knowing what the consequence is for violating that. And so now to say, okay, well, I need to know what the consequence is. Well, we didn't need to know two sessions ago. What's changed? >> Nothing's changed. And if you talk about the gifts, we talked about how those applied in real life scenarios. And so each way along the way, we've talked about it. And again, I'm just asking. I get it. >> So that's an answer. That's where we're going. >> Okay. >> The answer that I would suggest, I'm sorry, is because I know you've asked me a couple times, I think what would happen is a call goes into the hotline. The city manager makes a discrete inquiry if it appears that there is something to it. And maybe if a council member who's thought to have had knowledge hasn't clearly said, yeah, I ratted out this person. Well, then what? It gets referred to the Board of Ethics. And the Board of Ethics then lets that council member know, hey, we've gotten a complaint that you knew about this and you did nothing. Please explain yourself. That's what's probably going to happen, the direction that we're going. And whether that's fair or not, I don't know. I think that there seems to be enough consensus on council to have a rule like this. And if so, then I would probably go ahead and put this in the draft so you all can see what it looks like. But also our next session, not today, but the next one that we have is set to go through the details of what happens to a complaint, what's the life cycle of a complaint, how is it evaluated, how is it deliberated, and all of that. And that was set up that way only to provide some order to this process. Y'all wanted to go through the details of the ethics ordinance you were building. And so how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? It wasn't to create drama by putting that toward the end. It just seemed like a logical process. And that's what I proposed. And I think that's a good process to move forward on. It doesn't mean we decided on it ultimately. It means we're going to put that in there and look at it. But I would suggest that in that process, because I think Councilmember Hutsbeth has a good question, and that is the employee thing example, which I used is fairly easy, but if it's a council member, and I liked your suggestion that if it comes up that that's the situation, there is no intervening step in the sense of once that knowledge is found out or that suspicion or you have knowledge that there was not a report or suspicion, that it gets referred straight to the chair or straight to the ethics board. In other words, you're right. We're all sort of equal here. So no sense coming to me or anybody else. But again, that doesn't mean we're deciding on it. We're just saying put that in there. And as we move through this, I'm sure by the time we get to the end, there's going to be some things we may want to go back and modify based upon some of the decisions we made moving down the road. Absolutely. I anticipate you want to change some of the guidance you've given me so far. Okay. All right. Is that, I mean, is it germane to, I mean, because we've Not exactly. I just have a question about Okay. Just a question. I mean, obviously the mayor cannot fire a city councilman, but Rats! But can the rest of the city council remove? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I wouldn't want that. Yeah, yeah, no, hopefully not. Okay. It's not in the charter. Okay. That's not in the charter. Okay, so I think we've got enough direction. I mean, unless do you have something that would add mater ially to what we've the direction we've given him? Just going to restate what what I think we were going to if you're going to do that. No, you're trying to summarize what you believe we've given him direction to do. No, go ahead. Sure. Yes. So yes, it is going to be in the in the ethics ordinance. For staff, it's going to go through the waste and abuse hot line and then to the city manager. For elected officials, it will be reported to the Ethics Commission. I mean the Ethics Board or whomever. What I suggested was just to provide the hotline as an option for anyone who wants to report it and if it's regarding a council member, it will then be referred by the city manager's office to the Board of Ethics, the Ethics Commission. Okay, but but that is just one option though, right? There would be if if somebody wanted to go directly to they could to the commission. Yes. Instead. Yes. Okay, that's what I thought. Right now, the way we have set up the fraud, waste and abuse hotline is monitored by the city auditor. So it may be the city auditor's responsibility to refer it to the ethics commission. So I want to make sure I understood your last comment. So what I thought I heard you say was they that people have an option to either report to the fraud, waste and abuse hotline or go directly to the ethics board. For council members and mayor. Okay, but not for employees, right? Okay. All right. And then we have further discussion on that. Obviously some of these things might be modified. Certainly. Let's take a five minute break. Welcome back, everyone. It is 133 on this Tuesday, February the sixth 2018. We're back in session. City Council meeting. We're on work session reports work session report for a so we'll pick back up on our discussion about our ethics ordinance. Thank you, Mayor Council. We have two sections to go and the next is section five dealing with hindrance. And this is the notion that there could be an ethics violation for a city official including a council member to purposely take steps to stop or prevent a municipal activity such as a service being provided or a rule being followed. There's not all cities have this. It's not a very common provision. There are several that do though, and it all reads exactly the same. So only gave you one example in your backup material, because all the other examples I found were worded verbatim the same. So whatever the source of that is cities copied each other. I bring this up just because it's one that I've seen get a lot of activity, whether it is the mayor's wording choices on an agenda being accused to have violated this rule because they didn't want to see a certain action come forward. And so they were games game smithing word smithing the open meetings act. Is that going to add up to an ethics violation. There's a few more. The key part of this is thwarting with some city official using their city position to thwart a service from being provided to thwart a regulation from being enforced to thwart an ordinance from being used. I've had city planners accused of violating this rule. They didn't let the opponents present their video at a public hearing documents were turned in in advance of the hearing but did not make it into the agenda packet for the meeting. The vote didn't go the way they wanted at the meeting. So the opponents turned around and filed ethics complaints against the planner and the planning department saying you intentionally thwarted the proper execution of this board of adjustment meeting by withholding this data by not putting this data forward. So you violated the code of ethics and examples that I've seen of that often are by folks who didn't get the vote they wanted at a board of adjustment. They didn't appeal the board of adjustment the way state law says. So they're hoping to either get a second bite at the apple or they're hoping to punish those city officials who are involved in that hearing and the only avenue they could find was an ethics rule. So this is not a majority type section and that's not the majority of codes that I've reviewed but it's enough that I wanted to bring it forward and discuss it and see if it's something you want in your code this or some version of it is the example and in your in the back up. You've only got one. Is that the language you're talking about that is yes almost verbatim. This one's taken from El Paso that it appears in several others. So let me ask you a question on this one because there's been a I think a theme running through just this discussion that one at least for me and I think I 've heard it echoed that we don't want this ethics ordinance to be a tool whereby people can just file ethics complaints to sort of harass and of course one way we do that is going through the procedures of how do you implement one. What are the what are the consequences if you found to have either acted in bad faith and those kind of things. But of all the things we talked about is this the one that from your experience would be the one that would be more problematic about being abused that this would be one that could easily be kind of used to do exactly what you just said as far as if somebody didn't like something they'll just throw that out there. Yes. Okay. My fear with this language is that it's sort of a catch all that those are not pleased with something that's going on or not going on will use this. I've seen this language this one comes from El Paso. I've seen it actually used in El Paso to accuse mayors and council members of what are in essence Open Meetings Act violations and although their ethics code doesn't include the Open Meetings Act or those requirements this is their political opponents opportunity to get at them for an Open Meetings violation is to say well you met and talked to somebody outside of a meeting you're thwarting what would have gone on inside that meeting so here's the ethics complaint against you. So let me because what I my first blush is I would not want this to be used as something a tool to so easily file ethics complaint against employees who didn't who just because a meeting didn't go the way they thought or you know of course deliberate is the key word here I mean things are inadvertent but don't I think is in our discussion today because then from a city council perspective what if I were to go to somebody and city engineer planning director and say hey don't do this or would that not fall under the harassment code part where it could where we're saying okay I'm using my position to not necessarily gain to have a personal gain but to hurt someone or to th wart a process and so without discussion yet and I can change my mind because I'm persuadable but my my hunch is I think I'm sort of hesitant to put this in here because I think it could be used but for council members I think we have some other things that we've talked about earlier that if this is happening if the substance of this is happening that there's some other provisions that you could use that would take care of that I think I agree that the language you've already directed me to put in the code regarding things like undo influence might might capture that and abuse of office would capture that yeah but this is a peer has appeared in enough codes but I thought I needed to bring it forward and discuss it even if it's too rejected yeah but so your recommendation you're not necessarily making recommendations but you see this of all the things we've talked about so far could be the most problematic to create an environment where it's being used to harm instead of really trying to fair it out ethical violations yes that is true okay council member Briggs so I'm trying to understand the definition how it applies I've kind of gone over your examples a little bit but I bring it back to things personally that that I do or that it affects me and so is it because as a an official I do blogs and there are some things that city staff brings to us that I don't agree with that I put out would that be considered a hindrance if I am advocating against something because I don't believe it's right for the district or the citizens I don't think it would be okay right you know again I'm trying to try and clarify some of the examples for example you have an ordinance that says this board shall comply with the open meetings act and two board members are often a back room talking to each other and then maybe one leaves and goes and talks to another one on the cell phone citizens learn of this they would say well the ordinance says thou shalt comply with open meetings you're having a conversation over here you're thwarting a rule or regulation of the city I'm filing an ethics complaint against you and I don't think that's what this is meant to say that's how I've seen it used I know how the open meetings act works and there's a mechanism to enforce that already to turn those conversations into an ethics violation I think is a stretch but I've seen it happen that's why I think this language is subject to being abused and how I've seen it used before I don't read this as being too dangerous because of the deliberately thwart language but if we were to keep this you could even put additional language that says shall not knowingly perform or refuse to perform any act in order to deliberately thwart you could add with the sole purpose of thwarting you know that way if there's other reasons that somebody may have taken an action any other legitimate reason automatically disqualifies this from going into effect just a thought yes when I first read it I was reading it from the point of view of if it was a staff person or a department that decided that they were not going to enforce a regulation and ordinance passed by the City Council and so I thought well yeah I think I kind of like that but as I hear this discussion going on I'm thinking there's certainly other ways of dealing with that because that's really more of a personnel issue that's for the council to deal with the city manager on if that appears to be the case so I can't think of anything that we that this helps to address that's not already addressed somewhere else and and it sounds like it could be used as a catch-all to to because of the the vagueness of it and as a result I think I would I would mark the no box on this one okay anybody else I agree with Council man Gregory on that I understand if we do if we do add it I'd like the additional language but I don't think it's necessary anybody else I don't think this is necessary no comment or no okay I think I have guidance on this one yeah which takes us to our last slide which is the longest amount of backup material because I wanted to make sure that although I'm sure you have all filed your own disclosure statements your financial statements by being members of the City Council in a city over a hundred thousand population I realize there may be some others some citizens who may not have seen what all that entails because the question is is is the code itself going to create some sort of requirement to disclose financials that's separate and apart from the state or are you going to just silently defer to the state or are you going to set up your own categories can I ask yes go ahead yes so my question on this one is I don't I don't see any point I mean I wouldn't mind if our ordinance simply referred to Council is expected to follow all state rules and regulations that apply to to to elected officials and I think being careful not to be too specific in terms in case the the state goes and changes the numbering of those for sure and so then then then we're referring to antiquated numbers and we didn't you know make the change but tell me if if a person knowingly misrepresents their financial interests in those forms that we're required to fill out because of state law what happens what what if a citizen has a complaint that that that hasn't been done what are their recourses well there there are criminal penalties for failure to fill out your disclosure requirements under state law my understanding of the process is normally there's there's a notice and a warning and an opportunity to cure okay those those filing requirements and so I think normally the first time or second time that there's not the penalties are not enforced against that person as long as they do turn in those those reports and what are the penalties what can they go up to well it's five hundred dollars per violation what what is the maximum that a city could assess in terms of the penalty it would be if you were to go to the criminal route it'd be it would be the same you could choose to put in civil remedies if you wanted to so the civil fines which are allowed to go higher if you were to do that I think I'm comfortable with the state law on that well a couple of the examples I gave you said the city of Galveston city of Carrollton and your backup both basically say that thou shalt comply with state law regarding financial disclosures the third example I gave you is is the rule from chapter 145 the local government code and spells out all the data that's meant to be disclosed under state law and then you see by way of a separate example what a municipal code might require and that's the city of San Antonio's which is slightly different than state law yes ma'am Brittany with the state law isn't there reliance on the local district attorney's office to enforce that yes so there's not really any way as short of the district attorney's office enforcing criminal a criminal violation to enforce the criminal violations you're correct what I've seen most often in the state law requires that these forms be filed with the city secretary and those are available through the city secretary's office so what I've seen more often than the criminal DA is people filing the open records request to get it they don't get it or it's incomplete they complain at City Hall someone comes in and corrects their filing that's what I've seen happen more often I can't say with any certainty how often local DA's do enforce it the formal route so from my perspective I'm not really interested in the criminal penalties because there's already a mechanism in place for that albeit I don't think it's I just don't think that there's a lot of motivation for elected district attorneys to enforce criminal laws against elected officials in their district especially because these are typically during election time when you know you find the reporting is always during election time for the most part so I just don't see that as being effective but what I think could be effective is having a civil aspect within our own city rules that provides an extra layer of enforcement that way people don't have to rely on the criminal part of things they can just have a mechanism to actually get compliance at the local level would you would you think your board of ethics your ethics commission would be that civil route I would I would think so if that's where everything else is really heading to so an option could be you don't have to file a different form the form that's required by state law and turning the city secretary is sufficient but if someone fails to turn in that form timely or fails to complete it that could be the subject of a complaint to Denton's ethics commission that's what I would see especially just keeping things in-house I mean it seems a little bit cleaner than it's something that could be addressed quickly in-house is what I'm saying I agree let's go with councilmember Riggs and then we'll go to councilmember So I was out of the room for a little bit but I I know that there have been some citizens who have seen issues with these documents and wasn't sure or the the way to report documents that had false information or that were wrongly filled out or that were not filled out at all and so are we talking about the process for a citizen to report that at this point because now the only option is I guess the Texas Eth ics Commission so would this bring those complaints to this board to review what I think we're discussing at this point is not requiring any additional information or a different form but basically mirroring the state's requirement for a form and if there's defects in what someone turns in or they fail to turn it in a complaint could be filed against them internally at City of Denton and heard by your ethics commission in addition to whatever state law remedies may exist with this Texas Ethics Commission or the district attorney's office is that accurate that's where I think we are at this point so if our if our ordinance says you're required to follow state law and there's a citizen that believes that the person is not following a council member is not following state law that 's extraordinary says you're supposed to so that right there allows them to file a complaint with the Ethics Commission right yes okay and and if for some reason they're not getting satisfied they can go to the district attorney and if the district attorney does not want to pursue it for political reasons or whatever they still have at least two more remedies that I know of one can't they when I was on the grand jury a citizen could bypass the district attorney and write a letter directly to the grand jury the grand jury foreman has a special key to a post office box that only the foreman that can open up and and from time to time a letter comes to them because people are bypassing the DA person can still do that can't they I'm not at all familiar with that can they could they file a complaint with the Texas Rangers or with the Secretary of State I do know the Texas Rangers is the the public integrity and units investigation branch now so I would think that's available to them so I mean I'm for just saying we follow state law and if somebody feels like that a council member has not followed state law or a candidate who's not they can file a complaint with the with our ethics board I think that's sufficient unless we want to have rules that that require different kinds of disclosure from what this the state is requiring do we so do we but I guess we will talk about if we do have that route of civil a civil case or a civil complaint what the consequences of that are what the penalties or the fines or because I mean I don't have a problem with that on its face I think my concern would be what does that look like and if somebody files a complaint that's sort of just in bad faith or really I don't even know if I would want it to be that high of a standard but I mean I just don't want this to be used as something that is used to harass on the opposite end yes which we can probably code around we can probably code that we could probably draft that so I'm okay with that with the caveat that I want to see what the specifics are of a breach of that or a violation of that okay yeah any more comments on that oh yes I'm sorry I mean I would definitely want to give somebody an opportunity to fix their report I think that's the first thing that you want is an accurate report so whatever our methodology is for going about this the first step should be you know you have X amount of time to fix your report okay without going directly to quote unquote an ethics complaint there might be a here's your notice right like a breach or a violation and you have so much time to cure it right yeah okay because as it stands there's not really any way to make people fix their reports other than the DA yeah yeah help me understand that component so who would be the one to point out the errors errors in the report well what I think I'm hearing is there may be several times but what we're talking about is in the form of a complaint so somebody may say let's say they look at my financial disclosure and they see something that seems like it's an error maybe they know something about some property I own or something that I didn't put down or that I own with somebody else or something like that and they can point out that hey I have you know you've got a problem here based upon my knowledge in these areas and then according to Mayor Pro Tem there might be a time for me to cure that oh you know because you can very inadvertently sometimes you know miss something so I think it could be anybody it could be a citizen who's you know that's some people that's what they do they look at the financial disclosures to see if hey is this they look at the ones from previous years to sort of shore up and true up and it 's whoever notices something in that report because it is public record is that is that helpful yes and then I guess my follow-up question that would be how many bites of that apple do you get so if one person notices one thing you cure that another person notices something else you cure that just in perpetuity well I think as far as it this is just me speaking if I don't think that I think that if somebody points out something and you cure it you get reset to zero whether you're going to the ethics I mean you know you get a chance to cure unless somehow there's some knowing I guess you just intentionally withheld but if somebody didn't notice everything that was wrong if somebody didn't notice everything that was wrong and you cured something then somebody else came and cured and you still get that chance to to cure it before going to the ethics board I mean if it's if it's wrong it's wrong and if somebody points it out I think we should have an opportunity to cure it but I don't think that there comes a point where well you get only you don't have to cure 10 errors if you've got 20 of course you start getting that many then people are going to be wondering you know what's you know I mean you start getting accumulation of that there's going to be some problem with are you really would I be that inept at filling out that form I have a feeling that if there's that many years that gets cured at the ballot box yeah yeah yeah we should have so it sounds like we're okay with the state law disclosure except we put in some process whereby there's a notice right to cure and if not it goes forward yes that what I'm hearing okay that's what we can have great all right that's it for for for today's session we did it right at the two-hour mark this is a preview of things to come this is when we get into the meat of how are these complaints handled how are they reviewed and how that process works okay and so we'll have some samples and recommendations for you next time all right thank you we're on schedule yes thank did you have question Keely no okay all right any other comments before we close out this agenda item all right thank you I appreciate you very much yep all right we'll move on to work session a report for B which is receive report hold discussion and provide direction regarding the regulation of station less bike share companies to include a proposed application and permit who's handling this work oh yep yep requests I apologize no you're good yeah yeah well that's a different question yeah that's good well good afternoon Mark Nelson director of transportation here with the city of Denton pleasure to come visit with you this afternoon regarding bike share more specifically dockless or station less bike bike share here in our community and to a certain extent what's taking place in the North Texas region so really wanted to open with this as a as a work session opportunity with respect to what what we put together as a staff I'll walk through some different elements later but you know certainly as we walk through this I'm certain that we may have missed an item or two or and and obviously open to other ideas that you may have heard or have with respect to how we we might be able to craft a a positive policy or proposed policy moving forward so with that this presentation will go over a little bit about what stationless bikes are get into some policy discussion move forward with what what's taking place here in Denton that's some staff recommendations as submitted to you in the backup and then seek policy direction on the draft policy as we might be able to move that forward with your direction so what is it it's a it's a new generation of bike share you may be familiar with in some of the larger cities for a number of years I know dating back to at least 2011 2012 I think even before that they had these docked stations where where you would check a bike out from a fixed location in fact at one point in time the city of Denton looked in into doing that back in the 2014 time frame stationless does not require that it has a GPS application that allows it to be a little bit more flexible in terms of start point endpoint origin destination so what the what these bike share companies do they since they put a product out there they pay for it in terms of the initial capital there's no cost typically to to the city whereas in the past establishing one under a true dock station or a docked system you may have some cost associated with the initial capital and hardware rolling stock etc. so as I stated as a GPS based application whereby you download application for whatever bike share operator you wish to engage with or whatever opportunity you may have you know submit an amount via credit credit card or what have you a pay pay application and then every time you use that particular bike operators product you get tagged a certain amount whether it's 50 cents a half hour a dollar an hour or some variant to that extent so advocates state that it provides accessible affordable transportation it also provides some level of flexibility but on the flip side of that the opponents indicate that you know with that flexibility there's some safety and aesthetic concerns really where and these aren't just all these are just some of the highlight issues but you know where then does that bike end up when Joe Q citizen picks it up at the corner of main and first Avenue does it end up in some you know does it end up in the front porch of a business or does it does it actually end up in a established bike rack location or recognized bike park location so and we actually have a few representatives with us here in the audience we've met with a number of them but here in North Texas this isn't a an exhaustive list but this just kind of walks you down through a few of these we've met with v-b ikes been Opho and line bike we had a request just this morning to meet with another firm Z agster I think they're they're here at UTB I believe I will give you a heads up that online bike they are in 40 different markets those are just some of the markets that they're in at this point in time and I did get information that rather than their deployment method as a in mass they did move forward in Dallas with a with a phased approach but they do have a substantial number of bikes in that location or that city the spin at UNT yes sir those are dockless those are I mean that's those would be dockless okay are they there now they have they have signed agreements MOU agreements with both TW and UNT as I understand they will be rolling that those programs out beginning March 1 we actually have a representative from UNT if you'd like to hear more on that well I would eventually but I want to hear the rest of the presentation just because those bikes may wind up somewhere outside the confines of the two universities and and so I mean that's really the issue here is anyway we can get to that real quickly one of the issues I think about it as we move forward is they have asked or both the university have asked for a specific branding of those particular bikes so rather than being the typical color of spin no understand so you could resly identify where they're absolutely so station or coming from or correct it'd be specific to those two universities did you have a question well it was on along the same lines but also reversed other bikes from the city ending up on their property and and vice versa but we could talk about that yeah I'm sure it's going to come up in the presentation I just want to get an idea so what are some of the other cities or communities doing here in North Texas and to a certain extent around Texas so obviously we're we're here today starting our discussion on on policy and how we might approach that Dallas has been visiting and interacting with the bike share operators for the past several months we understand that at some point in time in the March time that they'd be advancing a they'd be advancing a policy of sorts Fort Worth has a B cycle which is a docked system was actually supported and originally subsidized through their public transportation operator the T in Fort Worth and so they too are reviewing options to take a look at how that might how that might play out Irving has Irving has an MOU with with V bikes for their campion trail which is a trail system along the Trinity River system however we understand through my interaction with senior staff at city of Irving that there are a few operators they've indicated line bike and OFO have made their way in there whether officially or through users just dropping bikes off there whatever the case they have they have a presence there Plano V bike line line bike and OFO they are actually taking a draft policy or draft ordinance for consideration by their council next week and then Highland Park you may have seen that in the news where they've essentially banned or just not allowed the use of or the presence of bike share in their community now they do have within their borders they have SMU that has V bikes V bikes works closely with their rebalancing operation to ensure that they get those bikes out of there before date certain each morning and I understand there's there's a level of understanding between V bikes and the city organization in terms of getting those particular blacks out but again they are there through an MOU with SMU. Keating I'm sorry Councilmember Briggs got a question. So on the Highland Park where they're banned I think you kind of address that so it's not that the bikes don't end up there and when they do they get out quickly but it's just that they don't they don't allow the bikes to be on their on the city's right away that's correct as I understand their okay ordinance yes ma'am thank you and so and then the Austin has a B cycle it's a docked system they they had some issues back during South by Southwest where some of the bike operators came in I created some concern with them as I understand and I did not update this slide as it went out on Friday morning but Thursday evening their council approved an ordinance and essentially their permit policy was $30 per bike so you know I think that sends a pretty clear message at least the way I read it that they're happy with continuing their relationship with B cycle rather than a $30 per bike that makes it really cost prohib itive as I understand for a bike sure to operate with that that right. So again this kind of just gives you a little visual on how what we're talking about in terms of what some communities have done what others are considering in terms of you know a permit process versus a restriction versus some level of RFP. Councilmember Briggs was that $30 is that a one-time fee per bike or is that I understand it's a $30 fee for any bike that you bring with them for an annual basis so so annually so it's it's permanent annually not just we have marked bikes and marked bikes comes to town and I want to introduce you know 10 bikes well then I'm in it for $300. Okay each year if they continue to stay as I understand okay thank you I just wanted clarification I just want to make sure you stay fairly close to the mic just so that understood yeah it's not a criticism just I want people to be able to hear what you're saying it's important. Any questions on these options? So this this slide really just outlines some baseline discussions in terms of where we or where you may wish to go with particular options this is not an exhaustive list but these are some of the ones that we've seen staff has seen as we looked at and considered other policies that have been put in place or under consideration. Mayor Pro Tem has a question. Well I'm interested in the corral and home zone type of approach I know that it would change some of the mobility benefits but if we were to establish our own home zones would that prohibit any of these operators from having their own agreements with private entities and they could use you know create private home zones for their bikes? Would it can you say that again would it create an issue with that? We're not if we were to establish like corrals for bikes on city property we're not saying we wouldn't be saying okay well you can't establish corrals on private property. No that as I understand it if let's just use a large apartment complex they they may wish to have those on their their own private property if they 've got a large let's say student population that may wish to engage in their product. Okay. But again these are essentially virtual bike racks so whether you paint you know utilize a an on-street parking spot or a parking spot inside a parking lot or even if you identify a location similar to around the square where we have those established bike racks that's essentially where you might see them and in fact in visiting with the county they have requested that we work with any of the operators and we've reached out to vbikes not to place bikes on a specific corner of the courthouse square they see it as a photo opportunity where the flag and their war memorial is on the southwest corner I believe. Okay. I mean we don't have jurisdiction over the county's property are you saying that they want us to I'm not following. So we essentially engaged the county as we were starting to move forward with this and there are on the sidewalk or the walkway around that's where that is the county but where it kind of bulbs out into the right of way those are those are that's city property. Okay got it. So again some of the different options that are being put out there Plano is indicating they're going to look at a nine month pilot program in fact that's what we put in our document is a nine month pilot program the University of North Texas I understand has roughly a seven month pilot program that they're going to engage with on as part of this MOU. One question that has come up do you limit the number of do you limit the number of bike share operators through whether that's through an RFQ or RF P process or do you move forward with an unlimited number of operators through a permit process then taking a look at number you know limiting the total number of bikes that you may have in your community for instance I've been told that vbikes had 120 bikes in our community I got additional information just this morning that they actually have they're indicating 62 bikes but the point is is if if you've got 200 to 300 bikes per operator and you've got three or four bike operators that may be substantially more than than what what our community may desire or actually need depending on on use and data information. Kelly, Councilmember Briggs had a question? You know so one of the other issues and how how an entity may be able to to help manage it is is working with the bike share operators and and requiring a very robust rebalancing program what does that mean essentially requiring the the bike share operators to say before 8 a.m. every morning go out and relocate bikes that may have found their way off appropriate locations say into ditches or in in front of private businesses whatever the case may be they can also take a look at the data on there in some cases and determine whether a bike's been in a particular location for two days three days five days seven days and and prioritize that if it's sitting in a location for seven days it's obviously not being used it's not making the money so we could dial that into your policy and and indicate that in fact we've done that in the draft policy that anything more than seven days needs to be relocated. Again with your rebalancing program ensuring that they have team members here in your community during specific hours and that during specific hours that they respond within a certain amount of time we've indicated 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and that they would have a two-hour time frame to respond during that time frame if it's if there's an issue or concern that's raised or brought to their attention either through the bike and pedestrian coordinators office or whatever whatever office is chosen to manage the program within two hours of business the next day next calendar day so if that happens to be on a holiday or a weekend then then you'd require them by a 10 a.m. the next day to have that bicycle relocated again that you know we've seen photos or at least I've seen photos of bikes parked in various locations to include trees lakes fences so on so forth and so that's really that's really the issue there it gets back to a good neighbor policy you know what are they doing to rebalance those bikes to ensure the orderly deployment of bikes and use of bikes. Councilmember Briggs has a question. Right for example there's been one at my son's middle school in the middle of a sidewalk for almost two weeks I believe somebody has moved it onto the actual DISD campus but it's in the way of kids walking to and from class they just kind of have to walk around it where would that fit in on response time would that be a next day you need to move this it's not in a great location or would this be you have seven days to come remove this from well on something like that I think it gets back to Mayor Pro Temb igere's comment is that if it's at a location that's not authorized to have that and certainly yes that would need to be relocated within the two-hour time frame or by 10 o' clock the next morning okay that's the way I would envision it that's the way I would interpret it okay I'll just add that the point of the the geofencing and the permitting is actually to give us an ability to enforce the good neighbor policy and make sure that the bikes are being taken to certain locations obviously not presenting any liability issues to the city in terms of blocking right-of-ways that sort of thing and and also dealing with the aesthetic factor of having those bikes all over the place so that really is the point of the perm itting program is to is to lay out clearly with the expectations of being a good partner and just real quick on the geofencing essentially what that is it's an application through the all you know mounted on the bike and essentially if you take it outside of a particular known location it simply would not lock and so therefore if it's not locking the user is continuing to be charged for the use of that so it encourages them through payment penalty to bring it back inside the geofence so what are some other things in terms of regulating options looking at revocation of permit here again this would be this would be in an effort to ensure that that we don't have a substantial number of employees out there having to to relocate these bikes that may have found their way to an undesirable location or if for whatever reason the customer service of a particular operator wasn't as strong as we wish or requested them to be then essentially this provides some some opportunity and encouragement for them not to you know not to have their bikes impounded again we don't have we don't really have the real estate and we're not we're not in position in terms of overhead with personnel to do the impoundment on a on a daily basis and then you know an interesting thing there too is is that it may be just as easier for a particular company to leave the bike impounded and roll out a new bike rather than go rescue that one in terms of you know what it costs for that impoundment process versus you know actual fee as time as well as time spent going to retrieve that bike so again the issue would be encourage good neighbor policy and rebalancing your bikes that issue would only arise if you had unlimited bikes if you had a limit on the number of bikes then the ones out on the street and the ones in the impound then you can't come in trade them out one for one so one of the things that the we've put into our draft policy and something that we borrowed from the Plano model is this escrow escrow account getting back to that if there's damage or if there's additional staff time associated with any you know I guess excessive enforcement or management of the bike share program then you may you may draw down against that escrow account if you implement that so data sharing that's one of the other interesting things that we would like to have one of the things that we're interested in simply because if you've got 150 bikes or if you've got 300 bikes if you've got 300 bikes role deployed per operator how frequently are those bikes being used so that's one reason why you'd want to know that data if it's something less than that or whatever the case may be you'd like to know how frequently are the bikes being used from what what origin what destination by chance whether the distances if you could drill down through different heat maps where those bikes are moving to and from it may help our bike and pedestrian program in terms of investment of infrastructure for for bike bike lanes and bike infrastructure so mayor pro tem this gets back to your point drawing in established agreements with property private property owners how how how that would play out requiring that if a bike operators here in town and chooses to to interface or restricts them from just dumping or putting 20 bikes at a particular location specifically I'm thinking apartment complexes so vbikes vbikes is here you trusted you've seen their bikes around our community they're based in Garland we do have a representative here in the audience today they showed up last summer we did not have a permit policy in place they interfaced early on with our bike and ped coordinator at the time and you know after after a little bit of time we were able to work with them to to identify some of their rebalancing programs and activities they have enhanced that rebalancing program I believe they've they've got a five day five day per week operation now with three teams in place addressing some of those bikes but you've seen them in the downtown area we've seen them over it at the transit center and then over at the different universities is primarily where we've seen a lot of the different vbikes but they are one of the operators in the Dallas area as mentioned earlier they have an MOU in place with with Irving to operate on their campion truck I think that picture is the southeast corner so is the county not wanting any corrals on the southwest corner so this is actually this is the northeast corner this photo is the northeast corner okay the southeast corner is the Wells Fargo building so it'd be so caddy corner to this back on this southwest corner right I was turned around okay in fact this was a photo taken last week and certainly messages went out to vbikes to correct that they did get it corrected what was the correction well you know the bike that there were some high winds that day and so those bikes had fallen down so that's really petty but okay so some of the pros that we talked about that earlier in terms of I think I think Councilman Briggs had a question are you wait okay yeah let's let's get through this and we'll save the questions so again increase access provide an additional mode of transportation bike program had a seven percent mode share essentially we had a roughly a four point seven mode share that means walking and biking to work or during your daily activity we had identified a seven percent mode share in our for our community to to advance some and guide some of our bike and bike and pedestrian infrastructure so this kind of helps moves towards that direction again last mile connectivity with DCTA have communicated with DCTA they're supportive of the bike share concept but understand that that in an orderly and responsible format and would support any direction that we go in and then again as I stated earlier there's no upfront cost typically with the with the dockless bike share at least I'm not aware of any in terms of the research that I've done yes go ahead mayor protein sorry I have have too many questions so with the with the vbikes user agreements are the users agreeing to not put the bikes in the right right of way do we know that the user agreements would be typically to allow them to place the bikes on a specific location on their property on whose property on the private property okay so there's not a restriction and in the actual user agreement that says no you can't put it in the right of way in the permit policy there I'm sorry I misunderstood the permit policy what we've we're recommending there is a there's a requirement you would have to have a permit to operate within the city's right of way okay I'm sorry I misunderstood the question Dalton Councilman Gregory the current photo is pretty important I think because it's an example of somebody who is using a bike share a shared bike in order to connect themselves to public transportation that's sort of what we'd like the problem with that is that that particular bike is blocking pedestrian sidewalk so how do you cure that kind of an issue because in one way it's sort of doing what we're we have a goal of it doing of providing a link for folks who need to get to public transportation but not at the cost of pedestrians that are needing to use that sidewalk so education and outreach you know clearly when you when you dial in on your on your application the first thing that pops up you know you know a notice to remind users responsible use of the bike to include where you park and leave the bike you could even go as far as putting on the main tube a sticker of some such I want to talk about the main tube that's the tube here or even potentially maybe a little bit tight on the handlebars but down on the tube you know identifying you know don't block sidewalks you know be courteous to ADA needs or concerns but did I understand that through the magic of the interweb that if somebody parked their bicycle there and that wasn't an allowable spot that it wouldn't lock so that's a geofence and what I understand say that again geof ence a geofence would basically indicate that if if for example what I understand on these geofences though they have them in place there they may not be tight enough to differentiate between a two and three foot distance but certainly if that bike may be five to my right five five feet to my right out in the middle of that street there it could it could be engaged or if again if you go back and take a look at geofencing a particular location around one of the universities those are pretty set and hard property lines so so if it doesn't get parked in the right spot the bicycle doesn't lock and the user continues to get charged at whatever the hourly rate is correct and they're gonna know that because of their am I taking too long no I'd just like to get to this presentation okay go ahead yeah yeah let's try to get through the slides and then we're gonna we're gonna try to consolidate our question no he's gonna tap his fingers yeah I mean yeah let's just get through I mean you got three sides okay understanding we've had an opportunity to read those I won't read those out and we'll move on to the next one unless there's a question on any of those points we can 't ask it anyway okay so what is it that we're that staff understands what are the goals out here so again we want to ensure that that these bike operators work in a community partnership establishing a good neighbor policy if you will one ensure safety we don't need these bikes or any bikes for that matter laying or out in the middle of the sidewalk s and you know creating creating has trip hazards or concerns with ADA access again talk we 're just talking about that where where where might we want to put these bikes how how how do we regulate that you know through the rebalancing program ensure that these bikes are maintained and and done so in an orderly responsible process process and again we do that through specific or specific requirements as part of a permit or policy process and then address the liability if they are going to use or if they're going to be active in the city of Dent on right away and there's a permit associated with that then we need to ensure that they're you know have insurance in play and just address that liability concern so understanding those goals staff move forward with a with a pilot program if you will a nine-month process again looking for the accountability of the operators establishes that feed operate within the within the the right away the public right of way keep talking about this robust rebalancing capability want to ensure that they have the staff and capability to to to carry out those rebalancing programs establish fines whether it's through their escrow account or through the through the impoundment of bikes again data sharing we'd like to we'd like to see some of the information should be readily available we don't necessarily want the data dump we'd like data given to us in a clean usable format and then going back to the liability issue ensure that the the bike operators have insurance in place and then an evaluation whether we want to do that on a 30 60 90 day or just let it ride through and take a look at it at the end of at the end of the nine-month process because this is a relatively new technology if you will or program that's out there it may warrant a 30 every 30 to 60 days as we we run across new new issues as as we move along so this moving forward council direction so do we look at a ban similar to what Highland Park has done or do we move forward with the license process which staff is recommending or we do a RFP process or continue to operate without any type of ordinance in play essentially no restrictions at this point in time so yeah I'll just start here my my direction would be to do an RFP process there have been I know that there's a lot of different bikes there's different seat adjustments there's different safety measures I'd like to be able to put specific things out that we would like for our citizens and that our citizens have requested and see see what comes back I want to address or ask about the city liability I know that on one of your slides I think you say address liability but what what is our liability I mean if any regarding crashes injuries if we do have a licensed program in the city I mean are do we have we're gonna have the standard provisions we put in all or if we go the RFP route the same thing that we require of all vendors that they have commercial general liability identification holding harmless of the city as part of the permitting activity so it would be no different than what we do in other situations and just back on the cons list one of the cons that I didn't see listed was also councilmember Gregory was talking about what we like to see right here is that last mile public transit being used and and I think that's great I agree but I'm also concerned about the barrier to entry for some of those who use our public transportation system but may not have the ability to have the technology to use the bikes or the deposit to add for the bikes I mean are we being selective on who can use these bikes and who who who do not use them and is that the type of data that these companies are gathering or is that the kind of data that we could have that I don't necessarily have an answer to that question but I would certainly work with with the bike share operators and see what kind of data I can get from them in terms of how how what other programs they may have in terms of low income or economically disadvantaged in other cities too if they have some kind of feel that they work with these companies. Councilmember Ryan. Thank you mayor. I think you you said early on where they had so many days to reposition do we currently have anything with them if we notify them are they doing any repositioning or they just let them fall where they may . They they are repositioning we've not given them specific direction as to where they reposition them rather we give them direction when we see or at least what I've been involved with is we've notified them hey you've got bikes that have fallen down it's halfway in the street or it's halfway across the sidewalk or we've received a complaint from a particular business owner but this bike has been there for five six seven days and we we we push that back out to the to the bikes now. Okay and under the proposed ordinance what would a business have to do if it's parked maybe not even on the business property but on the sidewalk next to it or in the right away nearby if the city didn't take care of it. So what well so what we're proposing is that each of the bikes generally do they do each of the bikes have a unit number you know a well-placed unit number a phone number as well as a an email address website so that they can communicate we would also do do some public outreach through our own organization to ensure that folks know that they can get in touch with our bike and pedestrian coordinator who we would see managing the program to ensure that you know hey if if this particular business calls us in they report that also if they could report that to the bike and ped so that we could help manage that ensure that they stay on point. Okay because the the biggest complaint I get is something similar to this or there was one that sat at South Lake Park for almost a month over the summer right now there's one on the corner of Normal and Oak that's been there a minimum of three weeks and that's that's the issue I think is the biggest complaint is they 're just being left in places and they're not being recouped and taken back to a central location. Through either a permitting process or an RFP process either one we can certainly identify and specify time frames responsiveness that sort of thing so I do think that something that should be able to get improved and we would require some level of understanding that the technology or the minimum the responsiveness complaints is is handled with the next amount of time so either either option gives us that venue. You okay and then we'll come over to Don. First question for you is the the proposed regulations and the pilot program have you gone through those with the vendors? We we not point by point we've submit we pushed that out to the vendors and they've had an opportunity to review those they've given some responses concerns on certain issues and and certainly we would try to work with them as best we could. My reading of the the provisions is that you have addressed most of the community concerns right and so I like I like the recommendations of staff to put those in place in a pilot program and I would say if that doesn't work for some reason then then second alternative would look to for an RFP but I'd like to do those. The reason I'm asking is if you talked with them is that hopefully the restrictions don't mean that that bike share program goes away. I'd like for it to stay if they're willing to be good neighbors and handle it properly because what we don't want is for the bikes to become a problem for their obstructions for pedestrians or they're obstructing access to businesses they're obstructing access to public property public facilities they have to be responsible in doing that and and if they're willing to do that I mean we were we were on the br ink of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in partnership with UNT and TWA to have docked bike share stations now we're getting it essentially for free except for for you know if we can and if we can solve the problem of being an obstruction then then I think it's I think it's fine to move forward. Don I just had a simple question on this one I would assume if they put the bike totally in that grass area that's not an acceptable place to leave it. You mean between sidewalk and the curb? Yeah yeah yeah yeah probably not. I think if we you know do a do a pilot program I think by the end of it we'll have a lot more knowledge and I also think that something to make this work is educating the public the people that are using the bikes I think you know if they can do something to educate them of where they you know where they need to take it and not leave it and all that kind of thing that would be very helpful and it'll make things go a lot smoother. So much can we hear can we are we posted that we can hear from the operator? I don't think we're posted to that I'd like to get through this discussion first just to see it some direction and then yeah because yeah. So for me my direction is really more I'm gonna give my perspective and then I'll kind of that's what I'm going to so our perspective is and what I've seen is some they have the giant van and some guy jumps out unloads a whole bunch of bikes jumps back in and goes I'm I don't know I'm gonna assume until I can ask I'm assuming that person's 1099 they're not an employee or doesn't really have a vested interest in it or at least he purports himself or she purports himself to be disassociated to some degree. So my point would be to tighten that up a bit but also I so overall my my ask would be not to implement this program just yet to continue to gain garner some more information and give them time to understand what's coming if they don 't then self-correct and so I think that meets both worlds. So those that say hey we don't need to regulate this okay we give you six months three months to fix it yourself and then we have three six months of saying hey you knew this was coming and you did absolutely nothing to better yourself so we'll fix it and so I think that that then fixes it but in that interim I think to make it more palatable that person is jumping out of that van gets to put three in a row at a time right because that's what it's it's an efficiency they're grabbing ten bikes and laying them all out one spot driving to the next corner laying out ten bikes so I'm gonna put some distance between that to make you earn your keep you know it's like hey you want to be here that's fine but you're gonna have to get a little more creative than stopping at every corner dropping out 50 bikes and leaving our town and so I think that's what's important to me is to give them an opportunity knowing what's coming fix it yourself if you if you have a method if you can do it better let's do it I'm shocked that they can't track the things and and I would just from experience from experience anyone that's been to Aldi you don't have it's a quarter but that quarter is so very imperative to that shopping cart I mean I seek out those quarters I'm taking my cart back and I'm checking the rest of them to see if I can get another quarter out of the deal so it's very simple I mean people like me are easily motivated you know so there's there's a method to the madness and I'm willing to allow you time to figure that out understanding that this this is unacceptable because and let's paint let 's step back a bit because in all seriously some somewhat seriousness someone with a wheelchair is stuck and can't get by because of your product is infuriating to me because it is so insensitive and I understand it is absolutely not the bikes companies fault it's the users fault and even to that end I don't care you know my concern is that if my daughter's riding her bike or if there's a disabled person going down the sidewalk that they be able to have a path and it matters not because it ultimately there is a there is a fix for that just you can't be there you can't be here in our town and then we don't have to worry about you know so I think if if there's a default if there's a concern it absolutely is imperative for safety reasons that disabled person be able to travel our city unimpeded and wherever that that cost your company matters not you know to me. If I could kind of jump in a little bit here and Council member Gregory and Hudson both bring up good points I do want to share that you know sir Nelson did reach out and he's met with at least four bike companies I can think of and part of the reason that we're having this discussion the way that we are today is the bike company's ability to utilize their technology control their technology it varies some of them are more sophisticated some of them are further ahead than others we've had some we've had bike companies representatives come in and basically say well our methods to drop the bikes if you enter into an agreement with us we'll go ahead and hire people to clean up the community otherwise until there's enough money in it for us we're not going to do that and we've had other bike companies basically say look we'd really like to know what the rules are we prefer more orderly way that we will come in we've got the staff that will promise you and deliver we just want to know what the rules and regulations are and so I'm not sure I would recommend in fact I probably wouldn't recommend an approach where we don't regulate it to some extent either an RFP or a permit process I think is the way to go on the plan because right now there's it's an interesting survival of the fittest market and these companies are sophisticated in varying degrees and finance in varying degrees and my concern with you know not regulating upfront is there are just some of these companies that are not staffed right now to rebalance the bikes and their technologies just not where people want to see so I just think we're going to all continue getting a lot of complaints and I totally agree with you in terms of blocking the right of ways and that potential liability especially to our handicap population so it's a serious issue but these conversations that Mark has had have been very eye opening and kind of the reason that you're seeing the program laid out in the way it is is we think that it gives us the ability to really clean up a lot of the complaints that you all are getting. Mr. Pro Tem. Mr. Holman or Mayor Mast. Yes. One other statement to the manager's point we've had a number of these entities that have engaged with us and they're holding off in terms of you know coming into our community seeking seeking our input and how they may roll that out so I think that may play into any any decision that you apologize for not making that point earlier. Mayor Pro Tem. Well I'm in favor of regulating I have a few issues with what has been proposed because for instance the idea of leaving a bike in in the middle of a sidewalk for five days or seven days is just I don't think there should be any amount of time that a bicycle can block a right of two types of right of ways there's the mobility part which is you know we have people who have mobility issues and need the sidewalk and then there's the grass median part I see those as two different things but I just don't see any amount of time that a bike should be able to be blocking a right of way I think if it's there then it's at risk of being impounded. I think that we should probably in addition to permitting we should definitely do the liability issues just reading the terms of agreement terms of use on the v-bikes I didn't see anything on there specifically that said you can't park in a right of way I did see that it said you can't you have to be in compliance of all of the local city's laws but I think it's pretty easy to say you know you can't park in the right of way if that happens the bike's gonna be impounded and this is gonna be the fee that you have to pay. I do think there needs to be an escrow account because my guess is that it's gonna take some training for people to understand that they can't park like this and then as far as the aesthetics on the square I'm less sensitive to the aesthetic argument well hold on let me back up I am very sensitive to the aesthetic argument on the square because there are segregated water fountains on the square so I understand walking past something very ugly and hating it but we don't really have the ability to change the fact that there's a giant brick paved area in front of this courthouse on the square that's perfect for corralling our options would be to take out a parking space which I can't wait to get all of the complaints that we would hear if we took out a parking space for crawling so while I'm sympathetic to the aesthetic arguments the reality is that that's a really good those are really good spaces for crawling bikes so I would just say before we come to some type of agreement that we should have an understanding about what's ugly on the square. Okay then I'm you're gonna go and then I'm gonna make a few comments. So just back to Councilmember Hatsbeth's argument I mean if we don't put some form of basic policy and licensing in place it's gonna be hard how do we justify regulating other businesses I mean that's what it is it's a business and we're just allowing them to use our city property without any kind of permitting or regulating or policy I mean I could go and set up a rental chair business and say here come sit here I've got chairs here you can take these and you can leave these chairs anywhere else you can apply that to anything I mean what about selling newspapers I mean do we allow that are we going to continue to allow that how how does that work I mean so I just want to go back to an RFP process because there are some things the different data the different types of bikes the safety issue there are a lot of things that I think council and citizens can specify that we want for our citizens that if we don't issue the RFP then we're not going to get the best thing for our city. Okay well I was going to say I might be the most bearish on this council regarding this whole issue but I think maybe council member Hussbett might be in a close second this is ridiculous I mean would we allow a car to be parked up on the sidewalk would we allow a motorcycle to be on the little inlets on the square if we 're gonna if I'm going to agree to anything it's going to be an RFP 150 bikes per operator how many operators you want four as 600 bikes we need to limit the number of bikes we have no data we have no data on how many people are riding them now we need to work with DCTA because I agree that this could be an opportunity to provide the first and last mile then DCTA needs that we have a policy that if somebody rides one of these bike shares to a to a station they put it on the bus they take it with them and and maybe you have a corral out at DCTA where they can drop them off and have them I'm more for docked bikes because I'm not for having what 1040 bikes on the square in each one of those corners because quite frankly I don't see these things being used that's why I'd like to see the data and I'm certainly open to if the data points out that I'm wrong so okay with it private property how are you going to regulate bikes how are you going to identify bikes that are on private property that are left somewhere else so so we need to make sure that we have some really strong enforcement mechanisms to make sure that these things are we don't let people put mattresses on the side of the road we don't let people put and I'm not comparing this to litter but when you look at it right here these things are everywhere they're in trees they're in they're in parks they're in creeks and and so we're not going to be able to fully educate the community enough to say on a sort of a honor system this is what you need to do with these things we're going to have to provide some regulation that says okay if you're going to take it to a station that's great you need to put it on the bus the buses I believe have bike racks do they not they do buses have bike racks you can put it on the bike rack now whether it's paid at that time or not we can let the business decide that model our only key is you can't just leave it at a bus stop and if they stay on the if they stay on the bus if one of them stays on the bus and if somebody needs one they get off the bus they take it and they they go wherever they're needing to go but to me the big issue is how many of these does this city really need so I'm not for having multiple operators in here with unlimited numbers you know even with 150 bikes I mean if you're saying there's only how many in the city right now I understand as of this morning there was 62 it had been told late last week there was 120 okay and we're able to get the data on on that on how much they're being used and the likes of that just that just came across this morning but I'm not okay I'm not the data is not in a usable format and the reason why I think an RFP is better because I think like the city manager said these companies have all different levels of equipment of data sophistication of maybe internal policies staffing levels and we got to get this we got to get this is close to right I mean I was in Washington DC a couple weeks ago and there they are there and somebody said that they're subsidized or they're run by the city which I'm not for that but here 's here's the docs they're all lined up where they need to be they're placed throughout the city if you get one you ride there you go put it back I never saw one bike that was sort of hanging around somewhere so this can certainly be an important part of our mobility plan and transportation for people who need it and and I agree with that and we need to make sure that we we craft a policy that will encourage that having said that we need to ensure that the rest of the community is not inconvenienced or endangered by by where these things are and so the two big elements I see because I don't think they should be on the city right away we're not gonna I couldn't park something up on that sidewalk I couldn't you need to have it open for for crossing if we need to put docking stations somewhere in locations where they can they can have you can get them off the square there's got to be places where you can place them off the square this may be one block off that would be much more convenient I mean we have public parking all around the square and I think to take one spot that's not aesthetically on the actual corner so it I think in in in theory this is a good this is good policy but we've got to get the implementation correct because it's just it's out of control I mean and so I'm okay with an RFP I think that's the best way to go simply because it provides a competitive nature and then you get to place your own specs on the actual how you really want to do it which will help regulation because then if they don't have enough staffing I mean this and you need to limit it to the number of bikes because like you said it it may be cheaper for them to leave them in the impound a lot and we might have you know and so with North Texas and TWU I didn't know that they're entering to separate MOUs we need to work with them to say guys I mean this is this is great but we need to have an orderly process because what if those bikes start showing up everywhere and I believe we have a lot of right-of-way in the university campuses so I'm not trying to overregulate it to strangle it I'm saying we need to regulate it so that when people walk in come into our city the first thing they don't wonder is what are all these whatever the color is I mean whatever the brand is I mean I'm not going to point this particular bike company out because it's the only one in town whereas if it's orderly if it's really regulated and operated in a way that helps the citizens I think it can be a great asset but if it's not done right somebody's going to wind up saying let's go the route of Highland Park and I don't think we want to do that but it's critical that we get this in a way that that promotes the kind of city we want and and promotes alternative modes of transportation and I think we definitely need to work with DCTA and I don 't mean on an informal basis I'm talking about to have a memorandum of understanding on how do we incorporate these bikes because people who ride a bike they they put it on the bus if they're riding it from if you're going to the bus station or the train station the train station can have them so that'd be a great place to have a what do you recall it what's it called something corral or bike row yeah yeah a virtual bike rack but personally I I I aesthetically on the square I mean if you want to take one corner maybe but to have each corner with 10 or 15 bikes that I still would like to know the data on how much they get used and the data could be important I mean like you said heat map where's everybody going that that would be very helpful to the city but I really struggle with this if it can be done right no problem with it but we got to get it right and yes Don's been having Don's got a question yeah I look at this and I don't see any way we can control this whole situation without having the bikes docked that was my first thought when I when you know when I first read this and kind of scary when I agree with mayor but councilmember Duff what are you talking about no I just I just you know the backs are going to get scattered everywhere I just don't think you can train the citizens to you know put the bikes in reasonable spots they're going to be all over the place and you know the only the only way that that that can be controlled is the repositioning and it has to be done very often and that's going to be a big expense to the people that are that are operating this because I mean you know you're you got people you got to pay so I just don't I don't see it really working without without them being docked that's that's my opinion mayor pro tem well I was going to ask for some clarification about the people who want RF Ps it's going to take several months to actually get the RFP out on the street and then to get responses we might not have the responses that we want in the interim we need some type of regulation of the bikes I mean I don't see any way around the corralling issue or even the permitting you know having people permitted I guess maybe you could decide you're just not going to have permits but to me the best practice would be if you're going to do the RFP that's fine but we have to have some type of regulations yes and even for the RFP process if we have a winner for the RFP but we don't have any regulations for them to abide by it's not really helpful so I think we just have to address the regulatory aspect yeah and I agree and so I wasn't and that's a great idea so we certainly need to talk about what would go in an interim or a permanent permit ordinance notwithstanding an RFP process councilmember Gregory well the only thing I can see that's different that would be different in terms of what the city gets to control between an RFP and a in the regulations is the total number of bikes maybe there's something else and that may be and that may be part of it but I think that that every other concern other than the number of bikes and we could even in our regulations say a company can only and we have it you can only have up to X number of bikes per bike company and so what I'm saying is I think we need to talk about limiting because if you have an RFP you're asking for one am I is that my correction is that am I correct on that if we ask for an RFP are we saying here's the bike company that won that bid and is coming in I didn't mean to interrupt you but I wanted to make sure I had the clarification on that okay but so what I would say is I think we need regulations as soon as possible and I think that that what I've seen is maybe with the exception of the regulations that you proposed regarding the total number of that the vendor can have is there any other objections to the regulations that have been given they're saying that two hours after you notice you got to move the bike and if that doesn't happen that the city could impound the bike and then you're gonna have to pay to get it out so it our people are the colleagues here at the table okay with the regulations as presented that we could put into effect as a as a stopgap measure and and and then we you know do an RFP later if we decide that we really need one so any other regulations that we want to change well I had a question about something that you brought up I didn't take away that we could only regulate the number of bikes in the city through the RFP process is that I mean couldn't an ordinance regulate the well I don't know who I'm asking maybe legal I mean couldn't an ordinance say there shall be no more than X number of bikes within the city limits or does it have to be through the RFP process if you're doing it via a perm itting system yes it's gonna be hard to regulate just a general number amongst many different companies who come here well unless you're charging by bike yes if you're going through a permitting system through via regulatory ordinance and that would be correct question that's that answer my question yeah I think we would want to explore that further because I think that would and we and we might need a briefing in closed session also about it for legal purposes because we'd want to know if you know do we decide that that we now have enough convenience gas stations and we're not going to allow anymore you know I think that those are the kinds of things that where we may be edging into some areas where we're going to need legal advice in the closed session well I hear you but never mind I'm not going there I mean I struggle with this I mean I hear what you're saying and we do need some legal guidance on that but I would be shocked if we can't say that we can regulate the number of bike share bikes in our city because if we cannot if we cannot I would just ban it because if you can't do that you're gonna you're gonna have I mean you're gonna have people jockeying for market share and so forth and so on and so and yeah you would say well the market will decide that people who can't make it business wise but I don't know what these business models are I don't know if they're really making money on the rental of the bike or maybe it's the data they're gathering I have no idea what the business model is and I don't I don't necessarily need to know but all I know is this city only needs so many of these types of bikes I think to meet the demand of our citizens and without that data man we were just shooting in the dark Council member Hussle. Mark can you when we get into because it looks like I'm on the downside of four can you help me understand I know it. What did you say? I'm not a stretch can you help me understand the difference if I'm looking at it objectively I'll tell you why I get hung up right we don't go after Kro ger for someone taking the shopping cart off their premises right we don't we don't chase down Kroger because someone stole the shopping cart and is utilizing it incorrectly and so I have a hard time reconciling those two because I'm seeking seeking equal enforcement here's a I understand the company it has some control over it I'm not I'm not trying to really what I'm looking at succinctly is they have a customer that may or may not be handling their property properly Kroger has someone that took their shopping cart and ran it into a ditch I see those things to be the very same but we're not talking about going after Kroger because their shopping carts end up in ditches now we can argue about the numbers I get it but just give me the overall just kind of the perspective of the problem through your eyes. One differentiation and I think it's an important one is that generally a fill in the blank ACME groceries or whoever it may be they have a private they have private property and conceivably that grocery cart is to be utilized on that private property yes it escapes from time to time what I've heard not heard it just taking your question that you emailed out I'm not heard of a substantial issue within our community of rogue grocery carts but the substantial difference is is that these bike share companies are utilizing the city right of way for their primary place of business versus where the grocery store or box store has private property where generally those carts would remain okay and if I may sure thank you and so thank you for that that that helps to your point Mayor Watts I think I think you you may have touched on something there in that instead of on the square proper right because we're trying to extend that anyway through via lighting via that I think there is a way to kind of work together to increase traffic outside the square in you know and so now if I'm picking up a bike on footward drive on Carol and I'm leaving the community market and I can ride into the square versus on the square proper you know maybe it's a man to probably prohibition on these high traffic areas and let's push it off a block or two I mean you're on a bike it'll take you no time to clear that block again but it also increases traffic outside the square proper and maybe you know that that's to the benefit of those businesses and just kind of congestion generally but again I lean on the side of I understand RFP in a perfect world for me I would give them you know because we've got I don't know how long they've been here already I don't go back and look at it but they've been here significant time anyway there's been conversations and still I'd love to hear from them I don't know I get it but I'm just saying I want to but I I think ultimately it just makes for a cleaner regulation if I have you're talking about data if I have one month if I have two months of data that says you absolutely forewarned on February 6th and you absolutely failed for the last 30 days and I'm absolutely going to do this going forward that just to me is more clean than to say the alternative let's start with RFP or a set of regulations now and if we're going to go that route so if I if we can't if I can't see a consensus on allowing them 30 days to build a track record then the alternative that for me is I just again I hang tight on the three three because of the wind blows and you knock over three it's not that bad right I mean you you get a cluster of 38 then it gets it gets crazy you know and so that's my thing is I want to control the pooling of them and have whomever is setting them out have a vested interest in diversifying their their inventory versus I got to make these four stops and get to the next city mayor pro tem you had a comment well no just that I wanted to respond to council member Gregory mentioning do we have any problems with the proposed regulations as a stopgap measure my only thing is I really don't want to see bikes on the right-of-way for five days I mean I feel like if they're on a sidewalk they need to be picked up within a few hours so that's my only change to that and I actually agree with you council member that's with I mean there's no reason we can't put all wheeled carts and wheeled things in the right-of-way restrictions I mean if people are putting grocery carts in the right-of-way those should get picked up as well okay I want us to take a moment where 's an agreement between air pro tem and councilman I mean I was a little more shocked but council member done saying that he did so I just I just want to point that out okay we 're gonna come on let me go with just councilman Ryan he hadn't really that's thank you mayor I'm not necessarily for the RFP process because I think then okay council member I'm sorry we're picking winners or losers and we're not letting the natural market you know filter its way out whoever provides the best service to the citizens whose bikes aren 't staying in the right-of-way and ending up in an inbound lot that cost them more money they're the ones that are going to be successful it's I remember several years ago the conversation when uber and lyft first came to town that was you know it took you 20 minutes to get a lift because nobody was in Denton then all of a sudden it took you a minute now it's balanced out and they know how many people's you know they all know the drivers know how and so if we charge a permit fee they're not going to put 150 bikes in Denton if only 10 are being utilized they're only going to you know maybe put 15 or 20 in at a time until they that business builds up and I think the free market system is a better way it's a better way for the citizens as well okay council member breaks well I guess it just depends on if the council wants to do an RFP or not I was trying to get clarification for that for me again I said it because you get the best bike you you get to choose the company that is has the operators that want to be true partners in our community and to their customers and that allows us to to do that but in the interim I guess when I I said RFP I thought maybe that meant that we would choose the one company and then that too would be in our city and we would have an agreement with them so I don't know if I'm in the interim if all the bike companies are still allowed to come in or if it would just be the one that's already here would stay do we need to make these decisions now the number of bikes the number of companies is that something we need to decide today absent regulation or permit ordinance what have you we very well could end up with a situation where we have more than one company multiple companies operating without any guidelines or or parameters and so you know having those parameters in place while we gather some of the data may be beneficial and then run a concurrent course with a with developing an RFQ or RFP downstream may be an option because what I just heard councilman Ryan saying is that it's okay for all the companies to come into the city and we'll just let the citizens decide which bike is best but what about the bikes that never get used they just sit there forever well if the companies are paying a fee a permit fee for each bike that's in the city they're not going to bring bikes in that aren't getting utilized well it's a yearly fee so they pay that fee for the year so they wouldn't have to do anything different for for a year I think we can kind of regulate some of the concerns by some of the suggestions that Mark's brought forward in terms of you know response time we want to see a plan where the bikes are going to be housed you know requiring that the geo fence to be put in place if we if we do some of these things make sure they're off the right away I think it's going to start addressing some of the issues to begin with the you know my only concern with the RFP can where we're going we are picking winners and losers I think that's true however I was I was I was about to say if we're not going down the RFP thing I'll change my mind but I was going to counsel you to try to set your expectations that we probably would have to do an alternate dockless versus docking because the only the only docking systems that I'm aware of the cities are subsidizing those those systems so I think I think it opens up a whole nother and we could be the first where that's not happening but you know it I just think that there's a whole nother set of policy questions for the council to consider if we head down the licensing path and start doing so this I think the market's gonna deal with it because there's a the accountability is going to be a big regulator here especially if we start impounding bikes and in finding well I'm gonna say I'm shocked that I'm hearing that an RFP process is picking winners and losers because that's exactly what the city does every time we bid something out we go with an RFP so I disagree with that I don't I don't think that that is because this is a very unusual and very kind of specific business and application to come into the city it's not like Lyft or Uber coming in that's already use a lot utilizing the streets and all that we've got I mean now if Lyft or Uber works coming in and they're parking on our sidewalks or they're hanging out on creeks or over bridge overhangs well then that's a whole different story but I just I disagree with that characterization simply because we do that all the time and in essence and maybe that's a philosophical discussion but my big concern I don't care how we do it we need to limit the number of bikes and if the market doesn't do it we need to figure out a way to do it because that's what Dallas is dealing with that's what prompted this whole conversation with the city of Dallas was that there were several companies in Dallas and I forgot how many bikes they had and they were just I mean they were having the same problem we're having but on a much larger scale so I don't have a problem with putting in regulations temporary regulations if y'all don't want to do an RFP process I think we'll be back to that because I don't again I want to see the debt I don't think there's enough usage right now based upon what I've seen and what I've seen anecdotally that the market is going to be able to determine that because again I don't know the business model for I mean how do you make money by charging a dollar an hour I don't know what the bikes cost you're collecting data and I don't need to know what it is all I know is I don't want 500 bikes or 300 bikes in this city that aren't being used that are everywhere at all times of the day we've got to figure out how to resolve that and I think it'll work a couple more comments and then we're gonna wrap it up and give direction yes well I think that having a license and a permit process that's recommended by the staff on the pilot program is going to solve the immediate problems and I think that that since it's on the pilot program in six or nine months we can come back if we see that more bicycle companies are coming into town and we're having an issue with too many bicycles then we can go to the RFP process that choosing to do a license and permit process is an interim basis doesn't prohibit us from doing our and I said I'm okay with that absolutely well I think the majority of us are yeah okay I would agree with Councilman Gregory and if you looked at the backup Dallas currently has no regulation or perm itting same as us they're having problems we're having problems by doing regulations and permitting we we can cure some of that and the the thought that because the city always does this do we do an RFP for plumbers and then everyone in the city must use the same plumber no we we allow some free market in certain areas and I think this is one of those areas yeah free market will work best go ahead Councilmember Riggs I'm backing up to a comment I think you said earlier that the bike and ped position would be monitoring this but that is vacant at the moment and so if we leave here now and we do this agreement permitting and say four more companies decide four more companies decide to come in right and that's a lot of other bikes who is going to manage this program so from a staff perspective at this point in time our traffic our traffic engineering and our CIP group is met is managing and taking over the bike and pedestrian program so whether whether it's that particular individual or we work collaboratively to staff it until we get that individual in play we can we can make that happen just sure because that is time and money that we're going to have to do managing this program our our permitting fees going to compensate for that staff time and I'm just trying to figure out how that's going to work because this is adding more time to our taxpayers so I think the answer is we don't know yet and it's a significant enough problem that it's it's between between mark pretend myself we will figure that out and assign somebody immediately to to monitor the issue but I think to all of your point you've all sort of made this we don't have enough data right now we do think that the regulations are going to change behavior and make a difference and if we say if we believe that down the road the we're running into issues and we're wrong that it doesn't significantly cur tail that behavior we can talk to you about the fees and going a different path my guess is in six to nine months we'll have this under control what is the what is the proposed do you have a proposed permit fee I know you said somebody said thirty dollars per bike some city did it what what are you proposing that we provide or no on a per bike so we have that yeah and that would be that would essentially be an entry at at five hundred for the first fifty so that's ten dollars a bike ten dollars a bike five hundred and then fifty one to one hundred seven fifty and then the cap at at a hundred and fifty at a thousand I think to councilmember Briggs point I don't think this is necessarily where the season be compensated is gonna be compensated if we start having issues and having to bill them you know for our time and that's probably you bring up a point we need to think through a little bit more that if in fact we start impounding bikes and having to spend that staff time should we set that type of a fee up a little bit higher to recoup our costs and we can certainly make that recommendation to you when you bring it back okay two more over here councilmember husband councilmember duff councilmember husband go ahead briefly I I do agree with that because I don't want to count bikes and then I again I'm absolutely serious about the Aldi theory I mean I could find you any number of high school kids we have four high schools you give me any number and that they can turn them into the to the landfill or wherever we want to take them and I guarantee you just kids running around if you say I 'll give you five bucks a bike that you find anywhere loose bring them to us we'll give you five bucks and and so we're going to charge them more than that and we're going to get them off the streets we're going to see it into our kids and we'll just put a put a all points bulletin out on all these bikes bring them bring them to us we're going to make money off of it or and and the bike companies on it cleans it all up and it keeps its local employees that's taking care of it and and we fix it and and and so I just again I encourage anybody just to go to Aldi and watch it's a it's a beautiful thing councilmember duff yeah I'm good with putting the regulations in and you know giving it six months nine months okay and let's see where we are if it works I think that's great if it doesn't then we'll probably be discussing the docking yeah and there's not a there's not a cap on these bikes on this temporary regulation these are just recommended mayor so if you you wish to to reduce the total number to something less than 150 per per operator I understand what you're getting at is a total cap in the community just the number of bikes I mean however many operators you got I really don't care it's how many bikes do you have here no we we didn't we didn't put that forward as part of the the pilot program because we also have the other issue with the University of North Texas desiring as well as TWU desiring to have a program as well and how those may interface one other comment if I may mayor the escrow account in terms of the costs associated with the enforcement and you know empowerment that that also is a is a component in terms of covering the cost associated with management if we have the ability to restrict the number of bikes per permitting now I mean I feel like that would probably address at least something in the next several months so I would be in favor of restricting it to a hundred per operator so it would just be those first two sections for fees so a maximum of twelve hundred fifty dollar for fees of operation second thing I really want to echo what the mayor said about working with DCTA I feel like a lot of the issues could be addressed by having a more robust and healthy relationship with DCTA in terms of what does it look like when somebody gets off of our right of way and onto their bus we could have it addressed by the seating arrangement by bikes being docked at the seating I mean there's so many things that we're not utilizing in terms of how our relationship with DCTA could be that this could address so I would just encourage communication with DCTA probably work session and then the UNTW issue making sure that they know that this is coming I mean I'd hate to see them sign up for 500 bikes or something and we have a hundred bike per operator limit okay so I'm not going to win the maximum cap on bikes because we so I'm good with that right so you've got directions temporary regulation perm itting licensing with the fee structure that you had on there the I'm going to say 60 or 90 day because 30 days you're not going to collect enough data I wouldn't think but we need the data we need to be able to collect the data say that one more time I think it'd take at least 90 days and we'll just sort of see how it all flushes out and then we'll come back in 90 days or 120 days and examine the data see what's happened I think that yeah I think we 're going to find that we're going to have to deal with how many operators or how many total bikes eventually but that's a fight for another day and how we deal with bikes that are from some other either private entity or bikes that are you know either with UNT or TW I guess they're going to be handled the same as if if your bike is in the right away and you're from apartment XYZ you have the same requirements because you're operating in the city under that permit is that my is that my understanding of that okay great any other comments questions Dalton's tap in his pen he's telling me he's telling me to wrap it up am I clear on the 150 or the 100 I'm okay with the 100 because at least it puts a little I mean but you still got unlimited operators right that's per operator okay council question yes could you say for over a hundred bikes that that the that the permit fee is like a hundred thousand dollars well well well we'll address it with the data that might so you hundred we'll just go with a hundred I don't hear people having any objection to that so yes so we're saying we could have five hundred bikes in our city is that what we're saying we could have more than that what it's all five different companies there's more than those five companies okay conceivably there could be more okay all right fantastic all right we are finished with this work session see that's why wasn't it good to say the questions at the end we got them all flushed out all right let's take about a ten minute well let's go ahead and call it call the closed session because we're going to go into closed session now I believe yes is this the only thing we're doing okay good all right I will convene this closed session at 3 37 p.m. we will consider the following items consultation with attorneys under Texas government code section five five one point oh seven one and today's date is Tuesday February the sixth two thousand and eighteen wanted to welcome everybody this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday was it February 6th 2018 it is 6 33 p.m. if you would our first agenda item is to pledge allegiance to the US and Texas flag and please stand with us if you're able Texas flag I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state one individual okay our next item on the agenda is proclamations and presentations we do not have any this evening in there third item on the agenda is presentation for members of the public I do not see anybody signed up and also don't see anybody signed up for open mic so we'll move on to agenda item number four which is the consent agenda councilmember Gregory I move approval of items for a through zero with the exception of item in that we're pulling for individual consideration and I believe the city attorney also has a comment as well yes item 4o there is a copy of the ordinance in front of each of each of the council members there were two typos in that ordinance which has been since been corrected so I would ask if maybe mr. councilmember Gregory would amend that motion to also include item 4o as substituted my amendment includes item 4o as substituted by our legal department here on the diet so just to confirm those changes were simply clerical in nature and did not change the substantive aspect of the ordinance that is correct all right mayor pro tem second all right we have a motion and a second for the consent agenda item save for agenda item in and then with a substitute ordinance for agenda item oh let 's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero will now take up agenda item for in which is considered option as an item for individual consideration considered option of an ordinance ordering election to be held in the city of Denton Texas on May 5th 2018 do we have a staff okay and I guess councilmember Ryan you pulled this too so was there a specific I guess do we need a full presentation or did you have a specific question about the posting or that it pulled it about the locations okay I felt it I know in the middle of last election cycle we there was some discussion about changing polling places or looking at all sense or second locations and I feel like that's a discussion we may want to have at this point because both districts three and four have their polling locations are on one particular side of the entire district so okay I guess if that's really your only inquiry my thought is since I didn't know that this was coming up is there an is there an opportunity for us to have a work session on it okay so you're aware of this and okay you're gonna go this let me recognize councilmember Duff yeah what I'd be concerned with is at least in the run off and actually in the election because where we we place those voting places okay so let me make sure I understand because I know last year the question was really about the runoff during early voting because it was held at the Kimberly location of the county courts whereas for the regular election that's not a runoff we have our polling places that one for each district I believe so is that are we talking about changing locations or adding to both of those different scenarios those are just the runoff scenario I'm looking at having a at least a small discussion on the options of changing locations okay for election day yeah for election day due to the fact that over the the last two censuses as we've red rawn the districts the polling places have ended up on the edges of those districts okay so we have requested big I guess nevermind go councilmember Duff you're still on have you no you're no Jennifer you're okay I can manage that you're good and Ryan has so council member Gregory well I just when we have that discussion yes I would hope that we will have had some it's a there's a ladybug crawling in that's fine now that's good luck yeah yeah that we could have a discussion or maybe even invite the county elections official because I think that there may be wanting to have some discussion about something like even on election day official election day having as an alternative location the the Civic Center where despite whatever precinct that your your district that you're in you could vote there also so if we could have them there sorry we have the dates of the 13th or the 20th available for a work session discussion we if we can order the election tonight it won't make any difference in the polling locations because we contract with the county so we can alter that contract at any time before we're finished the last day to order the election is the 16th so if we order the election tonight we can still do the work session either on the 13th or the 20th and by February 26 we have to let the county know our decision on additional polling locations okay all right councilmember Briggs I will go ahead and move approval for item oh I mean item in yes okay all right councilmember Gregory second we have motion second councilmember Ryan thank you very yeah the 13th I think would work well because we're still before the date to order the election yeah I'm I'm in favor of going ahead tonight but I would also ask that something be placed on the regular agenda that would allow us to to vote on selected sites on that on that night all right I councilmember Hudson yeah thank you the 13th would be my preference as well there's some I have some conflicts on the 20th okay all right okay I think that of course I think some of that will depend on I mean I'm okay with that just need to make sure that we can get somebody from the county there to participate in that conversation all right so we have a motion and a second for approval of agenda item 4 in with the direction of work session next I guess that next week on polling locations yeah all right let's vote on the board please and carry seven zero okay all right thank you got a little confused there we're gonna staff has asked us also to pull from the agenda agenda item 5d which was a contract for extending adding additional fees to some legal services contract or legal service contract primarily being that we may still have to do more based upon our discussion earlier so just sort of do it twice would sort of seem inefficient is that sort of your summary of that the city manager all right thank you so we will not be considering agenda item 5d that will be pulled from a subsequent work session so we're gonna go to five sound like the old city attorney rattling their papers all right agenda item 5a is considered option of an ordinance accepting competitive bids and awarding a contract for the supply of electric meters and equipment including electric meters photo voltaic meters etc. Good evening city manager mayor members of the city council name is jr richardson I'm the electric meter and superintendent in our previous three years we've purchased this equipment the meters and associated equipment through a rfp that expired on october the seventh on october the sixteenth we sent out an invitation to bid to 247 vendors on november the seventh we received seven proposals but out of that seven two of those proposals were late so we were only able to review tally and evaluate five of the proposals received currently we have over 53,000 electric meters in the city a little over 29,000 of those have the remote connect disconnect capabilities 19,000 of those do not of the residential meters and about close to 5,000 meters now are commercial meters on this invitation for bid we actually broke it out into six sections so we could get a better competitive process a competitive process from our vendors of that five that we received sections a b and f only had one vendor submitted proposal c and d had all five vendors submitted proposal and section e had only four of the five submitted proposal here we have a picture of our 200 amp 200 amp residential meter this meter is actually equipped with that remote connect disconnect capabilities we purchased these meters to install at new customer installations also to use for maintenance and for replacement of older or damaged meters dm e also uses meter sockets with our instrument rated transformers this here is a picture of our 13 terminal meter base this is used to reduce the primary voltage down to a voltage that's safe to actually have inside of a meter socket and it also connects to the current transformers which measures the current of the customer's load here in this picture we actually have here these are the secondary current instrument rated transform ers these typically go into a current transformer seat what we call a ct can on the secondary side of our transformers this device here is what is a primary metering set this is a potential transformer which reduces that primary voltage down to a safe voltage and this is a current transformer which measures that current that's flowing through the primary lines of the customer we also have our tree and ami equipment we actually have gateways we have two gateways one is in mckinnon park tower which we own the other one is located at the eoc tower which we just rent space for them that way we have redund ancy our primary gateway is the one that's actually located at mckinnon park here in this picture though we have an extender bridge this is what we call the extender bridge at the top we have 77 of those on our system the meters hop from each other up to the extender bridge and then the standard bridge takes that reading out to each of one of the gate ways also on here you can barely make out is that's the power supply unit that's listed here and then this is just a secondary run of conductors coming up to power up that unit here we have the funding the account numbers that we're going to propose to fund the purchase of the meters and related equipment staff recommends that we recommends approval of the lowest vendor bridge for each section it's not to exceed a yearly amount of 1.4 million but not to exceed a three-year amount of 4.2 million and I welcome any questions at this time. Councilmember Briggs. Hello so a couple of questions going back to the very beginning I guess page three of the remote disconnect and non-disconnect I remember we had discussions about these type of meters in our council meetings regarding fees in our our ordinance on policy so when I believe that in that discussion it was part of our goal to make a majority of those remote disconnect correct and so that's what we are doing we are changing those old ones to the new ones and this is part of that process that is correct and in this proposal for bid all the meters that we will be purchasing for residential will all have that remote connect capability okay that's good news and the commercial doesn't mention if it is remote or non that's because if it's under 200 amp we can utilize that disconnect device or connect disconnect device anything over 200 amps it's not safe to have that device inside the meter so they're not included okay thank you you're welcome excuse me any other questions councilmember Ryan I will move approval councilmember hudsp eth well I'm gonna say second and I'm gonna thank JR for for the pictures so that I can translate to English what you're saying so outstanding presentation I appreciate that you're very welcome a pictures worth a thousand words yes sir okay we have a motion and a second for agenda item 5a let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero moving on to agenda item 5b consider approval of a resolution adopting a renewable resource plan for dent municipal utility public utility board recommends approval six to zero all I have to do is find out how to blow this up JR JR is the expert I don't see a button that's mine that's mine okay tell you what we're just gonna run with it oh look at this been here before I don't know what you push Brian but thank you I'll come to remedial powerpoint training George Morrow general manager of DME and I'm here tonight bringing forward to you the I guess we'll call it the final renewable resource plan for hopefully for adoption and or any other comments that the City Council may have so it's a background you recall some presentations made by ERC ERC was consultant for the city to develop the renewable resource plan and and I thought you guys did a great job by the way and we presented it to the PUB and the City Council in October and and try to get some direction on the number of questions and to present the preliminary results and I think there was a lively dialogue with you know both the PUB and the council at that time so I found that very informative for me and there were there were four key questions that were posed to the City Council one is should the should we accelerate our renewable purchases and the response was yes should we move forward the hundred percent renewable goal that response was yes should we consider or should we delay solar purchase because of a potential solar tariff I think that got a lot of discussion in the end said no let's don't do that and should whitetail be counted as renewable resource and the response was no from the council so our starting point going forward our existing power resources you saw this table in the resource plan this assumes that Givens Creek will retire at the end of September there's still some dialogue going on for that but that's the current plan at the moment and it also includes whitetail which the council suggested not be considered as a renewable resource so we're starting point is forty four percent of load so we're forty four percent renewable starting the first of twenty nineteen so the mission of the plan was to get to a hundred percent and the findings were that solar in a relatively low congestion zone somewhere like in the Midland area for instance would be the preferred new resource that we had more solar coastal wind was rated second best for all the reasons that were discussed earlier with the city council and that other types of wind that would be southern northern and western would be lower ranked option from coastal wind got a question a request from Councilmember Briggs back to the previous page so for clarification so the forty four percent January first twenty nineteen which over a year so we'd be at forty four percent renewable energy if we did not do anything right if we don't have the whitetail which would add eighteen percent to that we're at forty four percent that's our starting point so the wh itetail is just eighteen percent correct okay so I have I can hold my last my next question okay all right thank you so the bottom line out of the resource plan again I'm trying not to go through all of the the gyrations is that two hundred megawatts of solar and a hundred megawatts of coastal wind are the preferred targets that we should be pursuing to get to the hundred percent by twenty twenty goal this just a snapshot this was in the resource plan it shows shows our load in blue green is the amount of renewable resources we have on top of that you see the the whitetail is purple so that's that eighteen percent that I talked about that would be over and above you know what our other renewable objectives are then that would be replaced as it retires at the beginning of twenty twenty four with with another renewable resource contract so that's just a pictorial we do have an RFP on the street that I believe our consultants talked about with you we got some offers in October we've been vetting those waiting to you know get make sure everybody's on board and we're anticipating one award out of that that's all we can make the way that that's set up and we'll be bringing it forward to you in the not too distant future that particular deal so don't let too much out of the bag at the moment but I think we're going to have something that is pretty exciting and that's not really going to be impacted by the solar tar iff so that's actually a great a great project I would say from I was going to add one personal comment you know as I came into Denton kind of the new person on the block I looked at your objectives I looked at the resource plan under development by ERC and I like to say I'm totally in a line with that and the reason is you know renewable resources are as cheap as I've ever seen that you know we where I came from we bought a lot of 15 cent solar and wind 10 cent 8 cent 6 cent 5 cent and we're just out in West getting below three cents and here we are in the market as it was described to you by the consultants we're down in the two to two and a half cent range so you know how I don't see that it could ever get any lower and you know we're starting to run out of the tax credits and that kind of thing so this is really a great great time to to accomplish the council's mission so I just wanted to pass that that thought on to you so this won't be the the final RFP so we 'll be issuing up as we as we bring the the new project to you for approval we'll be issuing probably concurrent with that some additional RFPs we'll probably have separate wind and solar RFPs and we'll be targeting that's that Midwest Midwest Texas solar and perhaps the coastal wind but we'll leave it open and hear what all the proposals are make sure that we get the best option for this for the city we've been talking with other municip als they may want to partner with us and as you heard during the last presentation that 's a good thing because we can get some economies of scale perhaps on some of these projects some it will not matter but there may be others where it makes sense and a couple of communities have talked to us that are putting their own RFPs out there and saying would you like to piggyback with us if the right project was proposed and and we've been open to that and the council can give me some feedback on that if if you wish but I'm assuming you're okay unless I hear otherwise you know a big item in the renewable resource plan of course was debt and energy center that it was talked about in a great amount of detail as to what it is and and what the impact of that will be going forward when I put the pencil down and we did this presentation for the public utilities board we were 89 percent complete we 're at 93 percent today so the project's moving ahead quickly we're staffing that project as we speak getting ready to start doing some testing out there commercial operation anticipated for early summer in fact I was out there last week for doing a tour and there was like 300 craftsmen out there working so there's a lot of stuff happening out there to get it ready and you know the value of the deck is going to be its hedge value it's going to provide a hedge against market price spikes at aircott and you know depends on what happens in the future it could provide a great deal of value to us or it may not but it's still going to operate and the forecast is somewhere right now between 12 and 20 percent the market will say that you need to operate to provide some value to the aircott market and some some revenues for for the city so I heard this out of the presentation that was made by erc to you and I had this on here already but we're going to be looking at every possible option to get some additional value out of the deck you know it for us it's a given it's it's almost ready to operate and we're going to do everything in our power to try to you know to make that a going concern to make that make sense financially and economically and you know a resource like that is a 30-year resource and so what happens in year one year three year seven you know may not be where we end up at 22 or 25 or 27 you know we just can't predict we've seen so many changes in the electric industry over the years in the gas business I started in west Texas for El Paso electric company gas was 25 cents a million BTU I seen it at $50 per million BTU in California during one of the crises and we've seen a lot of it at 10 and 15 dollars per million BTU today it's three dollars so you know we really can't predict things and and and you know just got my fingers crossed that down the road that that that's going to make a lot of sense from a business standpoint since you know the citizens and the utility made that investment I threw this slide in here about whitetail and that is because where I came from fir med and shaped wind was an accepted commodity firmed and shaped means instead of getting the wind as it comes out of the machine let's say that you you take it around the clock and there was a lot of reasons for that out in the west and that was mostly because it was hard to schedule and plan for and particularly if you were one or two you know you a little bit further away from it you had to manage that wind and wind can be especially transient so instead of having maybe some parties in between you and that wind project you just say okay give it to me around the clock and you take the swings somebody else and you know price it accordingly and that it looks like this firm didn't shape resource that does is recognized as a renewable in California I'm doing more research I'm not prepared today to come and make a pitch for whether whitetail should or shouldn't be you know perhaps I found a few things out that our consultant perhaps didn't didn't know if you just let me plant the seed here and and not pursue it at this point in time if I find out some things I think it's worth your time to talk about about whitetail you know it could provide a more economic portfolio for us if we're able to consider that as a renewable I consider it worth my time it's one of the things that's it's got my interest at the moment when I go back to the 2009 time frame and I look at the origin ating documents and the attend of the parties and and some of those types of things that so I didn't want to have you think that there's that I'm not doing something here so just want to plant that seed to do that a couple questions from council members council member Gregory well this is regarding whitetail correct and since that contract does not run out until 2023 correct my my question has to do with if that's going to impair our ability to reach a goal of 100% renewable by 2020 or if we need to consider changing that goal to 2024 if for some reason we are not going to be able to achieve use whitetail as part of our renewable package you know at this point because of the economics I mentioned to you earlier solar and wind right now are very very very attractive I I don't see you know much lower these things can go I think we can get to the 20% excuse me the 100% as early as 2020 we're we may have we may have all of that under contract by the end of this calendar year that's possible if whitetail if I'm able to come back and we have another discussion about whitetail we say that is renewable it would just adjust how much additional we would purchase and it would smooth it out a little bit instead of having that large amount that's an excess of our load we could kind of taper it a little closer to our load and I think there's some significant economic benefits to doing that if it if it's if that's the right answer you know if after we vet this and talk about it some more so we'll talk about it more later before we lock down all the pieces on the renewable tranche that will be a I'll come back one way or the other to to talk about that thank you customer breaks my question is also about whitetail and why so you're saying that you did some investigation and you came up with some new information and you would like for us to now consider whitetail as renewable energy no I didn't exactly say that okay I said I just want you to keep the door open a crack okay because I'm intrigued with what I've seen so far that I might be able to make a case but I might not you know it's a council 's purview and I'd like to just have a chance if I go a little further down this road and I develop what I think would be enough new if interesting information that you'd want to think about it again then I'll bring that back forward so you've discovered that it's actual physical energy and not recs the part that I would be talking about if I the part I'm speaking about is the actual physical part of that deal so there's the two pieces to it there's the there's the physical energy and then there's the recs over and above that physical energy so you know I can trace back that energy to some recs you know they're wolf ridge recs basically and there's an additional 30 megawatts over and above that piece so I'm only talking about that 30 megawatt physical piece and the the recs themselves I I think that's not something I'm going to pursue or want to talk about anymore so half of that deal the rec piece is not what I would talk to you about okay thank you so thank you council member Duff yeah I course we took a took a little trip down to red gate and I think they gave you a really good opportunity to learn a little bit and say what what I was really impressed by though was Jason we have somebody that's very knowledgeable and it's going to do a great job running deck and I really appreciate it because I was really impressed by how much he knew he knew the questions he's been there and done that I think yes we're absolutely very very fortunate that the city hired him and he's going to do a great job out there no doubt yeah you know what kind of one of the ways I look at deck is okay we're going to have all these renewables okay and and they'll be you know we'll run most of the time on those renewables but we've got the deck setting there and that almost puts a cap on our on a what probably around $25 a megawatt it's going to be a cap because we're not going to go above that because anytime you know we're having to go on the grid and buy at a higher rate we're going to fire that up so that that is a real hedge to keep our rates down besides the fact I think that you know when summer's things spike and all that kind of thing you know we'll fire that thing up and we'll be we'll be getting revenue in from from the grid and we'll be coming back to the council during the budget session and we'll be presenting more information about the cost and the expected revenues on the deck associated with that 12 or 20 percent and so we'll get it we'll get more information about that but yes it will provide certainly provide a hedge against the market and you know what that means economically or from a business standpoint that's to be to be seen but thank you for that trip down there so stack is a unit down in south texas outside of mcallan that's run by a co-op down there identical basically to our project and it was a very useful and good for me to go down there and and see that myself any other questions oh councilmember breaks it I guess is this the do you have more slides on the presentation or is this I am winding it I got no I didn't know I just didn't know no I have a summary after this okay all right and you'd like me to run with it so basically we're here tonight to bring forward to you the the final renewable resource plan it points us to a hundred percent renewable target no later than 2020 it came to some conclusions about what the best renewables were this midwest texas solar and coastal wind we do have the current ongoing evaluation of an RFP for probably we're looking at about a hundred meg awatts of solar under that RFP and we're planning some additional RFPs not too far after concluding this RFP to see how close we can get to that hundred percent this year okay and just to we do have one card wishing to speak and then we got some some not wishing to speak but just want to give heads up councilmember breaks okay I can wait till after the the public if I want to go ahead and let them speak that's my Gregory figure Mr. M orrow all along as we've been talking about a hundred percent renewable and trying to get to it whether it's by 2035 or 2020 or whenever all of our goals have included that we wanted more renewables towards that 100 percent that we wanted to ensure reliability electric reliability and we wanted to ensure that we have competitive electric rates that was in the last resolution that we passed and I didn't see those two provisions in the attachment to the resolution exhibit today my question for you is does it ensure reliability and competitive rates for our ratepayers to get municipal electric great question I I think it does it you know the reliability in air cod is handled by the air cod itself and we're part of that we play a role in that we're actually doing more than our role we 're bringing forward this that energy center which is going to do a lot to make air cod and hence dentin more reliable we might not have had to really do that necessarily but somebody's going to have to do that you know there's going to have to be some machines out there for every municipal that says I want to go 100 percent renewable I mean you just can't do that on its own there's going to have to be something out there that can follow the load provide flexible capacity right now we can a dentin or a georgetown could rely on the grid because there's still a lot of conventional machines out there to do that part of the of the reliability but eventually you know those who are being retired bit by bit and you know folks other folks down the road that maybe want to increase renewables as as visionary as dentin is doing is probably going to they're going to have to probably look at some options such as the such as the deck so I followed I heard you speaking mostly about reliability correct and I appreciate that what about competitive rates right so that was my earlier statement today as I said coming in I thought this is a very doable plan because of the economics that are available to us today for renewables they weren't there a couple of years ago two years ago you might pay twice as much in fact we did under the blue belt agreement for solar it's dropped that much in just a couple of years so I think the time is right to get out there and contract for that and that's going to be well under the market clearing price in aircott and well under our average cost of power so it's going to drive down our cost and and we'll be looking forward to you know bringing that back again as part of the budget process and showing how much our purchase power costs are going to be reduced in the next year they're going to be very significant and it's going to be it's going to be great we're very lucky to be able to do that I could also add to sir Moore's presentation for councilman Gregory the the entire renewable dentin plan we know that there was concern about whether or not renewables were the cheapest way to go in actually crafting the plan and the two factors that were weighed most heavily were least cost alternatives right now and we happen to be in a market where renewables are very cheap and reducing risk and uncertainty so those two particular topics are really the cornerstone of the renewable plan right customer because you still want to hold it for after public input just to follow up to this because we did get an email from a citizen who says that we are choosing the most expensive option by going the renewable route and so what I'm hearing you say and I think that I've seen in the report and from our guys here in the audience that that is just simply not true and it is extremely competitive and we are not doing any damage to our ratepayers by approving this resolution totally correct correct okay great thank you so much all right any more questions before we take public comment all right thank you just wanted to remind those on items for individual consideration to speak or to have your comments put in the record the cards need to be turned in prior to the agenda item being called so not an issue just wanted to put that out as a reminder so I'm going to go ahead and read the cards wishing not to speak we've got Mr. Ed Soeve 1620 Victoria is in support of this agenda item Carol Soeve of 1620 Victoria is in support of this agenda item and Jennifer Lane 1526 Willowwood Street is in support of this agenda item for 100 % renewable at least the recommendation of the energy didn't renewable plant card wishing to speak is Catherine Lusgarden if you'll come down state your name and address your time will begin. Mayor Watts and council members my name is Dr. Catherine L usgarden 11809 Sutherland Drive I think it was less than a year ago when I stood here for the very first time for citizen input and my concluding comment that evening was that I looked forward to the day when Denton's power would be from 100% renewable energy source so I only wanted to show up again tonight to thank you I know that there were many steps taken over the last many months a lot of hard work on lots of people's part I've paid attention to the deliberations and process that all of you have gone through and I just wanted to say thank you very much for taking those steps I never dreamed and my wildest dreams that we might be this close to 100% renewable energy so soon so just thank you again for making that giant leap happen. Thank you very much appreciate that. Having no more cards on this agenda item Councilmember Br iggs did was your question answered by the Mayor. You said you wanted to hold a question till after public input did you still have one or I do okay all right if you want to go ahead and okay well when I did mention the one email about that I there were 50 or plus in favor of this that I also want to give credit for my question maybe for legal or the city manager because this is a resolution and not an ordinance so and Councils change and so if the majority of the Council changes is this really resolution null and void if that's not something that they go by since it's kind of I mean an ordinance is what we're going to do and what we plan to do a resolution is this is what we really would like to do is my interpretation. It still signifies the policy of the Council has adopted via this resolution to change it this Council would have to come back with another resolution to change it okay so it's still continue to be binding yes ma'am okay. Mayor Pro Tem. I don't have any questions for staff so Councilmember Gregory has a question for staff you can go ahead of me. Well it has to do with the last question because if a Council passed an ordinance could another Council in the future come back and change that ordinance do away with it or something. Yes they could okay. Councilmember Mayor Pro Tem. Well I just I don't have a question for you George but thank you I just wanted to clarify I'll be voting no for this I don't vote in favor of anything having to do with the Denton Energy Center. Denton is in a non-attainment area the Denton Energy Center will be putting almost 50 tons of VOCs into the air within Denton City limits we regularly reach 80 parts per billion of VOCs that's an orange ozone day that means that children can't go outside that means that people with congestive heart failure cannot go outside that includes my dad that means that people with pollution induced asthma like me cannot go outside so for the 50 people from the Sierra Club who emailed in support of the renewable plan the renewable plan relies on the Denton Energy Center it relies on pollution VOCs ammonia slip of a litany of toxins being pumped out into Denton in an area that is already a very very very poor air quality area I won't be voting for it. Thank you Councilmember Briggs. Can I have clarification on that comment is that does this plan it's not just the renewable energy it is also including the the DEC one in the same? Staff or the City Manager? So this is a renewable resource plan but as you know it has to mention the DEC because that's one of our resources but it doesn't really impact this acquisition of renewables I think you had quite a bit of discussion about that with that with the consultant whether we have the DEC or not it doesn't really impact the economics of the DEC we could we can do both but but there did need to be some discussion of the D EC in a power resource plan is kind of very conventional and typical that we we at least mentioned it and and there were a lot of questions about it and how it interacts with the renewable plan so it's separate but it's part of in a way. Okay all right okay any other questions for staff? Councilmember Gregory? I move approval of the resolution but I do so offering an amendment so that at the end of the first sentence we add the words in a manner that ensures electric reliability and competitive electric rates so that the whole sentence reads the City Council adopts this resolution approving the renewable resource plan to achieve the goal of providing the city's electric customers with 100 percent renewable energy as early as 2020 in a manner that ensures electric reliability and competitive electric rates and I go ahead and leave the the second sentence in as it is stated and I've provided copies for all of you and for our city secretary so I move approval of the resolution with that amendment. All right Councilmember Ryan? I will second that and as was shown in our Friday staff report this report also includes investigating battery power to go at DEC so there is while DEC may not be amenable to some we are also looking at additional ways to to store that energy that the DEC may not need as much runtime as what it originally did. Okay all right Councilmember Briggs? I would also like to add a friendly amendment to go along with Dalton's I don't know the right process. Well yeah just go ahead and state your amendment then Councilmember Briggs decide on. Okay to that we should develop demand side goals for FY 2021 for community solar local solar generation energy efficiency including programs to assist low income Denton residents storage and demand response so we have measurable goals within our resolution of other ways to achieve. Do you have a can I yeah I just okay and in the resolution it doesn't it doesn't say anything about the DEC. Okay did you need to see that okay because she's making it as a friendly amendment so that's going to be a decision you make on whether to include it in your motion at least. Yes you want me to pass it down? I can't agree to it because I'm not even sure what demand side goals for FY 2021 for community solar means. It was in the response from Mr. Morrow in our backup. Okay I'm just not I'm not comfortable enough with that right now. Okay Mayor Pro Tem did you have a comment? Well I was just going to clarify that my understanding is this resolution essentially adopts the recommendations of enterprise risk consulting and as a part of the enterprise risk consulting report which I actually read and appreciate and agree with in many parts the DEC is a part of that because that's a part of our energy portfolio and so that's that's my point of clarification is that we're adopting the energy risk report. Okay so we have a motion and a second for agenda item 5B with the associated amendment that Councilmember Gregory has submitted to section 2 I believe of that resolution so seeing no more requests to speak or staff or questions for staff let's go ahead vote on the board please. So you're waiting on me because I don't really know how to vote because I don't want to vote for the DEC but I want to vote for 100% renewable resources . I'm very confused. Part of the charge with if I may Mayor yes part of the charge with enterprise risk scope there was quite a bit of misinformation out there when we initially started the review of our portfolio how the how the DEC would work what it meant to the renewable portfolio that there was a direct link with Dutton's energy needs in terms of renewables and in the DEC and their scope was simply to acknowledge that yes the DEC is part of the current energy portfolio and B explain how it is used who calls it who calls it up to to run how those decisions are made and acknowledge that set of facts and memorialize it so it was really an attempt to clean up some misperceptions about how the D EC is used and it's really commanded by ERCOT so we wanted something on one one document that clarified all the facts so the DEC is part of our current portfolio we wanted to educate the public as far as when it gets called and why as well as also state that we are heading towards 100% renewable nonetheless so that was it was just to memorialize all the facts and clear up some misperceptions. Right but this resolution is more so guided that 100% renewable energy is a goal that we will have by 2020. And yes and the idea with the with the 100% goal is that by 2020 we will have enough wind and solar contracts maybe battery but at least wind and solar at this point to meet our load contract if we need 300 megawatts we're going to contract for 300 megawatts that is what it means. Okay. Motion carries 6-1 move on to agenda item 5C consider approval of a resolution of the city of Denton Texas approving the solid waste and watershed protection sponsorship program. My name is Ethan Cox I'm the director of solid waste recycling for the city of Denton resolution you have in front of you is to formally approve a sponsorship program for solid waste and the watershed protection programs. This is an item that we visited about in November of 2017 just to refresh your memory a little bit the solid waste sponsorship program is there to promote recycling responsible waste practices we partner with nonprofits and organizations that share those same goals. Our existing budget is just over $22,000 and we are planning to propose a budget for fiscal year 18-19 to the order of about $15,000. Likewise the watershed sponsorship program promotes pollution prevention as well as water quality and storm water awareness. Their budget is as follows about $9,000 and $9,500 each of the last two years and their existing budget is $8,000. Very similar to a DME sponsorship resolution that the council passed in November there are a number of proposed policy requirements for those applying to receive a sponsorship. Any sponsorship over $2,500 will come to the PUB as well as the council for approval. There's a number of qualifying criteria that organizations will need to meet those objectives in order to qualify. I think for all of these sponsorships that we approve a quarterly report will be provided to the PUB and council. And that is my very short presentation. I'll stand for any questions that you might have. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, council member Hussbett. Can you go back one slide? I just want to clear up something. Please and thank you. I believe that adopts the definition that the city of Dent on has. We actually have a policy within the policies and procedures guide for the city and basically we try to mirror that any way we can. Thank you. Okay. Seeing no questions, chair would entertain a motion. Council member Ryan. I move approval. Council member Gregory. Second. We have a motion and a second for agenda item 5C. Let's vote on the board please. Motion carries 6 to 1. Agenda item 5D has been pulled. We'll move on to agenda item 5E. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton authorizing the approval of change order 1 to a contract between the city of Denton and Regal Inc. I guess. Good evening council, mayor, Todd Estes, city engineer. I have project manager for the Bonnie Bray project phases 1 through 3, Noreen Housewright with me this evening. This is the first change order for this particular contract . It went to bid last spring, when it began construction last July and this is the first change order we've had. It comprises a multitude of items in that change order, the chief of which was an item that was originally intended to be a secondary budget item for the overall project. The change order itself is in excess of $500,000. The original project, and I apologize, we inserted this slide this morning as part of an effort to make it a little easier to understand the numbers that we had in there the first time around. The anticipated cost of the project originally, what we're talking about here is for construction, the item you see on that first block right there, that's what was actually bid and the contract amount was $11.8 million. When the project was initially put together and went out to bid, we knew we had four major gas lines in this project scope and the intent with the early discussions with EnLink was for EnLink itself to do the relocation, the city would reimburse them for that cost to the tune of about $1.6 million. That was not included in the regal contract because EnLink did want to use their own crews to do that work. Typically we don't do gas line relocations because of the specificity of the crews that need to do that work. As we began working through this, there was a commitment from EnLink to have those relocations done by January of this year that was not complete. They are still going through the negotiation process of what really has to be in that relocation. They want to argue a few things back and forth with us. So the contractor and the design consultant came up with an option when it became apparent that we were impacting the critical path of the project, which would have really delayed this project and cost us more in the long run. They came up with a solution that relieved us from having to actually relocate two of those gas lines. So they've done a few things that were not our preferred way of doing the project initially when the project was set up, but they are acceptable. We can use these things. They do save us money. So what you see in that second column there is we would have to amend the construction contract to a little over a half a million dollars, but we would end up reducing the total amount of EnLink participation or the money that we would pay EnLink for relocations by a million dollars. So the net change to the overall project cost would increase the construction contract to $12.3 million. It would also, the anticipated final cost on those EnLink relocations would be around $550,000. We're still getting a good number on that one, but we believe that is a pretty valid number. It should come in less than that. So a total project cost now of $12.9 million, so a net reduction of almost a half a million dollars in project costs. Just to give you a brief rundown on the project itself, N oreen's going to run you through just a little bit of what happened there. Good evening. Basically, the change order is broken into two things. The first section is items that are related to not reloc ating or lowering those two gas lines. One of the items is there was one of the four-inch gas line was close to the bridge vent. So since it was not relocated, we went ahead and spanned the 30-foot easement that they have, so we added a set of bridge vents. The other issue was some gradient to protect the 12-inch line. It's in the floodplain, so there was valley storage needed with our clomer. Part of that 12-inch line was to be lowered, basically, because we're cutting into it for our valley storage. So we changed our gradient plan, so we actually have a berm over that 12-inch line now, and just reworked it so we still are in compliance with our cl omer, but we protected that line and now we don't have to lower it. The second section are just things that happened is we moved along. We had to add some fencing along a property that had horses . When we first purchased that property, it was a different owner, and since then, the new property owner has horses there. When the contractor went through and kind of pulled out the existing fence, it kind of left an open end for the horses to get out, so we went ahead and added some fence into it. There were some changes to the intersection at Roselon and Bonnie Bray. That is the northern limits of this phase. Those were asked for by our traffic engineer. They would have been things we would have done in phase three, so we're adding them to phase one, but they're really not, if you look at the total project, it's not an addition. It's just added to phase one instead of phase three. Changes in the bridge girders and drill shafts, when you get in there, you have oarings, but when you actually go out and drill, you have to get into the gray shale, so we had to drill about three feet deeper on each one of those columns, and they're paid for by the linear foot, so we had an increase in that for our change order. Then when our storm water protection group came out to look at the job and the initial inspection, they just had some recommendations they wanted us to add. That's the summary of all the changes. Here's the layout with the table in the front explained as well for the Raugle contract. This shows what I was talking about. This is the 12 inch line. This is the one that we, instead of cutting, we put a berm through here and we are regrading all this to make sure we get our valley storage. This is the four inch line. You can see it's really close to vent two. What we did is we spanned it. It looks really close. Now you have two A and two B, and it's 30 feet in between. It kind of looks closer in this picture, but to protect the line and then also make sure that if InLink has to service that gas line, they have adequate room. As Todd mentioned, there's four other lines. It's two lines plus two stub outs that we're still in negotiations with. This is the total project for phase one. These are the two lines we're talking about. This is the 12 inch and this is the four inch. Then we have some relocations up here with two four inch lines at the intersection at Rose Lawn and also down here just north of Vintage where those homes are and right here. Those are the ones that we're still in negotiation for, but they were not on the critical path, so we didn't do any modifications to the plans and we're just going through the process with InLink for those. Again, this is that same table I showed you with the overall cost to the project. This is our recommendation to approve change order number one. Any questions? I've got a question. If we go back to the project cost slide, the summary, that first slide that was very concise, I appreciate that. It helps me understand it. Yes. If I were to ask you before seeing this, and this is just this phase one, this isn't the total Bonneberry project, this is just phase one. If I'd have said, okay, phase one is costing us how much money? What is the construction cost of that project? Would it be the $13.4 million that you would tell me? In other words, is that 1.5 estimate of the relocation, was that included in the total cost of the project? Yes. Funds that were already appropriate for this project included that 1.6 in there. This is going to sound very minor, but I'm just curious. I'm always curious. I'm sure the fencing was not that expensive, but I'm curious. The contractor tears the fence down and we're paying the contractor to put it back up. Is that my understanding of that? Yes, but that's typical on most construction jobs. We have to move things because we're getting things in and out of the way of doing construction. We have to put back what was taken down. No, no, I understand that. If we were relocating the fence, I get that. At least what I heard from the presentation is at the time that the fences were removed and probably along the whole frontage of a property line, is that right? There weren't any livestock, so it's like, we're just going to take this down. It was along the southern portion of that property. We have the north-south cut through the project. It was not negotiated through there, so when the contractor went through and was preparing the right-of-way for the construction, that old fence came down that was crossing perpendicular to the project. Okay, so it wasn't the whole property line bound? No, it was the fence that was in the right-of-way we purchased, but it left a hole. Got you. All right. So, in other words, we're having a net savings based upon because they haven't relocated it quick enough. All right. Yeah, all right. Okay, Council Member Hudsbeth. So I'd like to discuss the ... Is it two lines that they are going to move that you said that aren't critical? Yes. What is our confidence level that that's going to get negotiated and get done? Better said, I want to know if we're going to be back having the same conversation later, or if you're confident that we're going to get this fixed before it becomes an issue. We are confident that it'll get resolved before it becomes an issue again. It is off the critical path, which is what drove these changes, critical path of the project. So we're actively working with InLink to make this happen. Part of what happens with a lot of the franchise utilities that we work with is that it may take us longer to go to construction than what was initially communicated to them. So over a course of history, they don't have a good feeling that we're going to move. And then when we finally do finally move on a project, then they're trying to play catch-up now. Because moving a 12-inch gas main, and I think it's another - Four inch. Another four inch gas main, there's a lot of effort that has to go into figuring out where that's going to go. So we just, like so many franchise utilities, want to make sure that we actually moved on our project before they went on theirs. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. Okay. Any more questions for staff? Great. Mayor Pro Tem? I move for approval of item E. Council Member Gregory? I second. But people in the audience should know, as soon as it became clear that there was a savings to the city, Quick Draw Bagheri got her finger up there and moved approval very quickly. I'm kind of mad because I was trying to get to her first, so I second. All right. Okay. So let's vote on the board for agenda item five E. Motion carries unanimously. Agenda item five F. Consider nominations, appointments to city boards and commissions. Do we have a vacancy or something that we've got to fill? Okay. Yes, Mayor and Council. I'll stay here this time if that's all right with you. Yes, that is fine. You bet. We have four vacancies to consider this evening. The airport advisory board, there was a vacancy due to a death, and Council Member Duff has nominated Ed Ahrens for that position. City Development Advisory Committee, Council Member Ryan has nominated Larry Varns. There's a vacancy on the Human Services Advisory Committee, and this is a nomination for Council Member Ryan. I do not have anyone at this time. Okay. And there is a vacancy on the Public Art Committee, and this is a nomination for Council Member Duff. Yeah, I don't have anyone for that yet. Council is able to vote on these nominations this evening pending approval of their final confirmation process for these two. Okay, so we do have a couple names that we can vote on. Is that correct? All right. Council Member Briggs. I'll move approval of the nominations mentioned. All right. Mayor Pro Tem. Second. All right. All right. Second. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 7-0. All right. Our next item on item for individual consideration, our agenda item 5G, considered option of an ordinance of the City of Denton authorizing an agreement between City of Denton, Texas and Kiwanis Club. Mayor and Councilman Brian Langley, Deputy City Manager. The purpose of this item is to consider a sponsorship agreement with the Kiwanis Club and the City of Denton for the Fourth of July Fireworks Show. This is at Apogee Stadium held every year. The City of Denton has had a long-standing arrangement with the Kiwanis for the Fireworks Show. In 2015-16, the funding for that event was increased from $ 20,000 to $40,000 for larger pyrotechnics display. For this event, $20,000 is proposed for pyrotechnics, and the other $20,000 would be used for a variety of activities related to the event, including security and the different types of traffic control and so forth that's required to make the event successful. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have on this item. Councilmember Briggs. Do they receive hot funds? The Kiwanis Club does not receive hot funds, and this is not a hot funds eligible project because it's a Fireworks Show. It can only be general fund dollars. Okay. Councilmember Gregory. Move approval of 5G. Councilmember Ryan. I will second that. All right. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries, 7-0. All right. Well, it's a wonderful celebration for the community, so thank you all so much for doing that for us. All right, we're going to move on to our public hearing portions, and I do have a question for Ms. McKibbin. I think you've got two cards out. Where is she? Three out. Okay. Okay. So I've got 6B. Is one year on? I've got A, 6A, 6B, and G. Okay. All right. Thank you. I was trying to sync up the item number with the agenda item, so thank you. So 6A, B, and G. Yes. All right. Thank you very much. All right. We're going to go to agenda item 6A, which is hold a public hearing. Consider adoption of an ordinance to rezone approximately four acres from neighborhood residential NR3 to neighborhood residential mixed use NRMU 12. And before staff presentation, I will go ahead and open the public hearing just so that I don't forget to do that. So the public hearing is now open, so we'll have staff presentation. All right. And in the interest of time, we have combined A and B, the zoning and the SUP into one presentation. Okay. So it'll be one presentation, but it'll be two. We'll have to vote twice. Yes, sir. All right. That is correct. All right. So this is cases Z1712 and S176 for the Mingo Road Apart ments. Let me go ahead and also open the public hearing for 6B, so we'll do this all at once. Yes. All right. Thank you. All right. So as we mentioned, there are two aspects to this request. The first being a request to rezone the property from neighborhood residential 3 to neighborhood residential mixed use 12 district. And the second aspect of the request would be a specific use permit to allow for a multifamily use. You can see the property outlined on the map in yellow. It's approximately four acres in size located on the north side of Mingo Road, southwest of Boyd Street and generally located near the TWU campus. So the first request is a rezoning. You can see on the left the existing zoning map, the property being NR3, as are the adjoining properties to the north and east. And then on the right, we have the proposed zoning map, what it would look like if the property is rezoned to NRMU 12, which is consistent with the zoning to the west of the property. The DDC outlines two criteria for approval for a rezoning request. The first being, rather the request matches the future land use element of the Denton Plan 2030. And the second being, rather the rezoning would facilitate the provision of public infrastructure. Looking at the first of those, the future land use designation for this property is neighborhood university compatibility area. The intent of that designation being to provide areas where housing and services can be located in the same area to serve both the existing neighborhoods as well as the nearby universities, UNT or TWU. The NRMU 12 district is consistent with this. It provides for a mixture of uses, a variety of housing types and smaller scale commercial and institutional uses that would fit that description. Looking at the infrastructure available in this area, we have water and sewer lines shown in red and blue along Mingo Road. Extensions of those would be determined at the time of plat ting for the property. Mingo Road is located to the south. It's currently a two-lane undivided road. It is designated by our mobility plan as a secondary arter ial. So the ultimate buildout intent for that road would be a four-lane divided road with sidewalks on both sides. Any dedications or improvements associated with this development would be determined at the time of platting. Also wanted to point out that there is a DCTA Connect bus stop that's located here just south of the property and that would also be available to the residents of this future project. Looking further at the compatibility of this request, the location of the property along an arterial roadway and the existing development pattern with no other roads connecting to the property would make it unlikely to develop with single- family uses that would be permitted under the current zoning. NRMU 12 is intended to provide compatibility with nearby neighborhoods because it does limit the scale of a lot of commercial uses and it permits a mixture of residential uses that could be consistent with that surrounding development. Have a question. Council Member Briggs, you have a question? I had a question about Mingo. If you know when the estimated day of that or timing of that extension will be. I don't have an estimated date at this time. To my knowledge, there's no currently planned projects to enhance that portion of Mingo. So it could be 10 years? Could be. Thanks. Other things that would provide for compatibility with this request would be buffering requirements between any non-single-family uses that could develop under NRMU would be required where it abuts this existing single-family neighborhood to the north and the east. NRMU would be a logical extension of the existing zoning pattern seen to the west of here and it does provide a transitional zone between non-residential uses and the single-family neighborhood. And this rezoning would also facilitate infill development, which is one of the goals of the Denton Plan 2030 to take these pieces of property that haven't been used for much in the past and allow for more enhanced development of them . So staff is recommending approval of the rezoning request. We found it to be consistent with the goals and objectives of the Denton Plan 2030 and found that it also would encourage infill development on this property in a way that would be compatible with both the surrounding zoning and development pattern. The Planning and Zoning Commission also recommended approval of the rezoning request seven to zero. Real quick question on, and it may be, I thought I read, is this the one where they were talking about the setback from the residential was 44 feet or something like that? Yes, sir. Is that going to be in this presentation or? Yeah, we'll get to that with the SUP. Okay, all right. Go ahead. I'm sorry. You bet. All right. So the second aspect of this request is a specific use permit to allow for a multifamily use on the four-acre property. The DDC outlines multiple criteria for approval for an SUP. Those are outlined in pretty great detail in the staff analysis. So I've just summarized them here. And the ultimate intent is to ensure compatibility between the proposed use and the existing development. Specifically looking at would the request impede the development of surrounding properties? Would it generate any nuisances? Would there be excess traffic through surrounding properties? And would it be compatible in terms of landscaping and development standards? So looking at the site plan for what's been proposed, there 's two different versions up here. On the left we have what was presented at the Planning and Zoning Commission. And then on the right is the slightly modified version of the concept plan given the feedback that was received at PNZ. So we'll walk through that briefly. You can see there are three buildings proposed. They are substantially set back from the surrounding neighborhoods to the north and the east. On the east side they have currently provided for a 44-foot setback from those existing residential lots. And that setback is an increase to 70 feet on the northern side of the property. So that is much enhanced from what would be required by the code, which would be 15 feet minimum plus one foot of setback for each foot of building height over 20 feet. So up to a 35-foot setback is what the code would have required. So they're offering an enhanced setback above and beyond that number. The site does feature approximately 60% landscaping. You can see in the hatched area here on the right plan, most of that landscaping would be open space provided on the northern end of the property as well as in the middle. And the major change that occurred since PNZ, there was some question about the dumpsters being located on the far northern side of the property adjo ining some of those residential yards. And in response to that, the applicant has relocated those dumpsters towards the middle of the property to avoid any nuisances there. Here is a sample elevation for the buildings. They're proposing a total of 48 two-bedroom units. All of the buildings would be two stories in height and they are proposed as being constructed of brick with stone accents. Staff found that the proposed development is consistent with the goals of the Denton Plan 2030 as we talked about for the neighborhood university compatibility as well as for infill. It would provide needed housing in close proximity to TWU. Given the configuration of the site, there's no direct veh icular access between the surrounding neighborhoods and the property. And additionally, it is located along a DCTA route, so there would be alternative means of transportation available for the residents. The buildings are proposed as two-story and they're also proposing increased side setbacks that would make the use more compatible with surrounding neighborhoods. And in addition, the development would be required to meet all DDC requirements for screening, buffering, lighting, and things such as that to prevent any other nuisances. Notification was sent about the request. As of the time of PNZ, there were four oppositions received . One response in favor. You can see those properties outlined on the map. And the applicant did hold three neighborhood meetings. Two of those were prior to the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. And then in response to some of that feedback at PNZ, they held a third meeting on January 22nd where they presented that revised site plan showing the dumpsters being relocated. Staff is recommending approval of the SUP request because of its consistency with the Denton Plan 2030 and for the fact that it would provide moderate density housing in a way that minimizes impacts to surrounding single-family neighborhoods and also is compatible with our goals for infill development. The Planning and Zoning Commission also recommended approval with a condition that staff had recommended and that be that a full site plan submittal would be required for this development to ensure that it does comply with all elements of the Denton Development Code, specifically in terms of site design, landscaping, parking, and building design. And with that, I can stand for any questions. - Council Member Briggs. Could you go back to the image of the site? Yeah, that first one. You can go one more. That's good. So we're talking about this being likely TWA students, right? That's gonna fill the need. Do we expect them to walk along Mingo to get to...that is an extremely dangerous roadway. There's no sidewalk. What is our plan for that? I know that in the mobility, we talked about maybe starting from Roodale on, but there's a significant path there that I don't know...I guess that there's a little bit of sidewalk, but do we have any plans for that that you can talk about the safety of the students? - I'm not aware of any plans for sidewalk extension beyond what would be provided with the frontage of this property. The sidewalks that they would provide would connect to those on the property to the southwest, which would at least get the students to that bus stop to provide an alternative means besides driving. But beyond that, I'm not aware of any other plans to fill in the gaps in the sidewalks. - Do you know if that bus stop goes to TWA? - I believe it does. - Okay. - If you're looking at that. - Council Member Hesbeth. - Thank you, Mayor. Any feedback after that last citizens meeting after P&Z? Did any of the dissenting opinions change or did you hear from anyone after that? - I haven't heard from anyone. I did attend the meeting and there was only one resident came. He was one of those that had spoke and voiced some concerns at P&Z and he seemed relatively pleased with the relocation of those dumpsters because they were originally proposed right behind his property. - If I may, Mr. City Manager, I think in these instances, if there's something we can add to the process, because you just helped me with that other situation similar to this, where we could flag these, they're kind of up against a neighborhood when it comes to the trash pickup, something that kind of toggles. It says, "Hey, let's treat this a little different timing- wise as far as being picked up at a commercial time of day," that somehow if it butts up against a neighborhood, it then kind of triggers a mechanism where it goes defaults to a residential, somewhere in our processes, that'd be great. - Okay. I'll talk to Mr. Cox about that. - A couple of questions I have. Looks like the opposite, actually most of the opposition is at that northern end, which is where the dumpster was originally slated to be located. Were these opposition letters, and I can't recall in the backup, the date of those, was that prior to the relocation of that dumpster? In other words, did that mitigate a lot of that, and these are just, I guess how timely are these? - One of the responses was received prior to P&Z in writing . The others were cards that were provided by people that attended the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. - Okay. - And like I said, only one of those people came to this third neighborhood meeting that was held following that. - And if you could go to the slide that shows the P&Z recommendations on the SUP. So help me understand, I mean, I know what a full site plan submittal is. It says, "Shall be required to ensure the development compl ies with the requirements of the Denton Development Code in terms of site design, landscaping, parking, building design as provided in DDC 35." If we didn't have a full site plan submittal, wouldn't they still be required to comply with the requirements of the Denton Development Code in terms of site design, landscaping, parking, and building design as provided? I mean, help me, what am I missing here? - Yeah, the intent of this requirement is because, if you remember in the past, SUPs often had a very rigid site plan that they were tied to. This is in trying to allow what they've shown here tonight to be conceptual and allow them a little flexibility if anything needs to be tweaked afterwards, saying that it would still have to come back through staff for that formal site plan submittal rather than what's presented at the SUP being considered the site plan. So it's providing that step in between SUP and building permit to ensure that everything that was discussed at this meeting is still met as well as all the code requirements. - Okay, so then I think what I'm... So let me make sure I understand what you're saying. So the site plan that we saw, the one that showed pre-PNZ, post-PNZ, you're saying that, if we could just maybe put those up, you're saying that the proposed concept plan, that that condition, whereas before, most of the time the council would say, "That's it? You're held to that." And so that condition is saying, "You're not held to that. It's a concept plan," which I don't think we have a definition of how much that can change in the process. I mean, that could... Which that only concerns me in the sense that there's been some concessions made based upon feedback and things such as that. So is there already some idea of what might need to be twe aked in order to move this project forward that varies from the site plan that we're looking at? - In speaking with the applicant, my understanding is that the building locations and things like that are pretty well established, but there may be some minor tweaks that they would wish to make in the building elevations or exact parking locations or something like that. But I don't believe there'd be any substantial changes they would anticipate needing to make. So if the council wished to make specific conditions for the dumpster location or the setbacks or something like that, I suspect they would be amenable to that. - Sure. Okay. And then if you could go to the elevations of the buildings . I can't really tell on that. Now, are they held to these elevations based upon... Or is this just concept as well? - This would be conceptual as well. - Okay. Are those offsets on there or is it just sort of flat straight across? - I believe these are offsets where these portions with the stone absense would stick out a little bit further. And you can kind of see some of that on the site plan as well. - Okay. All right. Okay. Any other... Council Member Briggs. - I think you kind of got to my question about the plan being able to be changed, that there's some things that could be changed after we vote for the approval. So that's a concern for me. - Okay. Any other questions for staff before public comment? Seeing none. Thank you very much. So we've got some cards. We're going to go through those first. And if you've signed up for both 6A and B, if you could just maybe combine those in your comments. And if you need more time, we'll talk about that. But anyway, so we'll start with Ms. McKibbin, if you'll come down, state your name and address for both agenda items 6A and 6B. Your time will begin. - Yes. Kim McKibbin, 1306 West Hickory Street. Thank you very much for being here tonight. It's nasty outside and I appreciate that you all have been here since 12 o'clock today doing different things. First off, I want to apologize that I was not aware of the P and Z meetings when this particular plan came up. I am familiar with this property and it does have a history in Denton dating back to the mid 1800s. It's one of the first farm sites inside Denton. It has some magnificent trees on it and seeing these plans gives me a little bit of hope that this developer with a little nudging possibly from the council and the planning and zoning can preserve some of these trees. There are some post-hooks on this property which may very well be heritage quality trees for the state of Texas. I would really like to have that looked at. I know it's private property. I know they don't have to, but it is definitely a sense of goodwill to the community if the developer is willing to look at some of this stuff. The development thing on the left that you guys can't see anymore, but I can, the one that came back from planning Z, planning and zoning does allow some more open spaces it looks like to make those adjustments to the streets, to the sidewalks. I too am concerned about them putting 48 apartments here and the people who are going to be in them not having any way to get out there without walking in the bar, y'all call them bar ditches. I call them the ditch between this housing project and the thing and the connection there for the next road down. Because this property is so unique, it is on a slope. It sits on a hill. The upper hill of it has a history of being repeatedly struck by lightning. The trees that are there are there for a reason and they're kind of holding some stuff together. This property also is currently or has been for the last few years a site of like an urban garden center and has some of the best examples of Texas wildflowers in the county about all that's left. When they start looking at landscaping in the DDC and making variances to that, if some of the sod could be removed, set aside and put back instead of a carpet grass, something ugly and green that has to be watered and utilization of some of the native wildflowers for this landscape, that would be an exemption coming from the DDC that I think the community could get behind and give these people an opportunity to do something different and unique and maintain the character of this property overall. The other thing I want to commend them for is the fact that they're building, supposed to build, 48 two-bedroom apartments. These are apartments that will be utilized by both students , graduate students and young families. It is not the typical pattern that we have seen with the S ROs that are basically student housing and nothing else. I do appreciate that as well for the developers and for the people who have looked at this project. The other thing that I wanted to go back towards was once again connected with the mobility as we move forward with some of these projects. There's not currently anything in the developmental code, but handicapped parking, please, if you guys can start to look at some of those kinds of things as well as the building of some of the apartments that automatically are accessible. I am an occupational therapist. I work in a rehab unit. I spend a great deal of time trying to locate accessible housing for people. If we could just as a community start to look forward with that and develop some places or encourage development or maybe even incentivize some development, that is handicap accessible. Thank you very much. Thank you. You bet. Thank you very much. Any questions? I don't see any. Thank you very much. Next blue card is the Lawrence Holdorf. Is that correct? Please come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. I'm Lawrence Holdorf. I work with Allison Engineering. We're the engineer on this project. Address is 2415 North Elm Street. I also had a presentation that I could or I wish to bring up. Mainly it's just to reiterate everything that Haley did a great job of doing. I'm going to go ahead and start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. I'm going to start with the presentation. In all reality, I just want to say that we did revise the site per P&Z's recommendation. We also held that neighborhood meeting, and I did not receive any other feedback other than the one participant. The site plan requirement that is being placed on this development is not driven by us. We are not requesting that the site plan need to be revised . It's not something that we're doing. It's my understanding that it's kind of a direction that the city is trying to take the SEP and the zoning kind of plans to allow a little bit of flexibility there. We kind of approached this project from a standpoint that this would be held, that the site plan would be something that would be pretty well held in concrete, that we might be able to ship the building five feet this way, like away from the property line, but things such as our setbacks that we discussed, landscaping that we've placed, and all general open space and things like that, requirements, locations of dumps, things like that, would be held and would be more or less firm requirement for the development, and that city staff would not allow flexibility on those issues. I just wanted to go ahead and say that those possible concerns are not really driven by the developer at this time. I just wanted to go ahead and just offer the availability to ask any questions to the engineers. If anyone breaks as a question? We just had a citizen comment about the property, and it is a lovely property. I drive by it every day, at least twice. Have you considered the historic trees on the property and thought about maybe preserving any of them? Is that addressed, or is that not something we can count on ? With the tree preservation mitigation plan, we have a requirement of trees that we have to preserve, and I'm looking at the site and location of the trees that actually did drive the development. We did want to preserve some of the ... We wanted to preserve all the big trees, all the potential protected trees, and that's what drove the U shape in the back that swings out a little bit too far and then comes back in. We are protecting as many trees as we possibly can. The bigger trees that are the protected trees are primarily in the middle of the development and just north of the dumpster location. I'm not sure if you can see the mouse, but basically here is one of the bigger trees, and then over here, as well as here and here. We did have to remove one tree, but that's ... Unfortunately, it was smacked up in the middle of the development, it was going to have to go just about with anything that went on the site. We're preserving as many of the trees as possible, and planting buffer trees along the sides and everything else that we can, street trees, mitigation trees. May I? Sure. Okay. That's good. That's good. Thank you. There's about at least four trees, I think, I heard you say . And she mentioned that the property is up on a hill, that it is kind of higher up. Do you know how that affects the elevation, like say that since there are single family homes all around, do you know how much further up that's going to hover above their properties? Well, fortunately, the hill is pretty well ... We're wrapping around the hill. The hill is actually more or less in the middle of our green space. Okay. So our building's being located close to the property line and running along the contours. We're actually not building our buildings up to the point where they're like eight feet or 10 feet above the property line. I don't know the exact footage. It's been a while since I've looked at the contours, but no , we're not putting the buildings on the hill. The hill is going to be left primarily intact. We are going to have to grade the back part of the property to prevent drainage from going to the property, to the north. And we are putting a detention pond between the east building and the east property line, being able to enhance that with landscaping and whatnot, trees and shrubs, to allow us the ability to capture the drainage so we're not doing a negative impact with the drainage to our neighbors. That should alleviate a lot of drainage issues that the neighbors were expressing. So that was one of my other concerns, the flooding into the neighbors. So the drainage pond, the retention pond will mitigate that or take care of that issue? Right. Okay. And the detention pond to the east will take care of the eastern property line, but we will have to install inlets and do some grading, some ditch grading in the back to prevent any additional drainage to the back. Council Member Husspeth. Thank you. My request is for the city manager or staff, if we could take a look, I too am concerned about kind of looking at the map, that foot traffic. I think it ties into the parking lot for, there's a sidewalk just west of the property that I think potentially could tie in and that gets you a better part of the way down the, down Mingo. But if staff could just take a look at that and give thoughts on how best, even if it's just maybe unimproved surface, just I'd like to look at that whole stretch down Mingo to see how we see that coming together just to kind of give, have an insight or at least start planning in advance how we, because that'll be a good use for the neighborhood as well, kind of to get to foot traffic down to downtown, that sort of thing, just how we envision that flowing. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? I've got, so I want to make sure I understood what you said in the beginning of your presentation, that the applicant has not, doesn't have an issue with adherence to the site plan as presented post planning and zoning. Correct. Is that correct? That's correct. All right. Fantastic. Okay. Any other questions? I think you probably had a little time left because of our question. Anything else you'd like to add or say? Oh no, I just wanted to be able to answer any questions you guys had. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you. I have no more cards, but this is a public hearing. So anybody wishing to speak on either agenda item 6A or B, please come down, state your name and address and your time will begin. Anybody on 6A or 6B? One more time. Seeing no one scurrying to the front. We will close the public hearing and we will need to take a vote on these separately. Council, what's your pleasure on agenda item 6A? Council member Ryan. Thank you, mayor. I move approval of agenda item 6A. Okay. Point of clarification. I do not believe that there are any recommendations on 6B. Okay. Got you. All right. Mayor Pro Tem. Second. All right. I move that we close the public hearing and we close the public hearing. Okay. That is correct. All the recommendations on 6B. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you, council member Ryan. All right. We have a motion and a second on agenda item 6A. Let's vote on the board, please. All right. We have a motion carries 7-0 on 6A. I do have a question for staff on 6B. I'm just curious as to when the applicant sort of stated they were okay with the site plan, proving the site plan as it was post planning and zoning. And then he sort of conveyed an idea that staff was sort of -- maybe that recommendation from PNZ was more staff driven than applicant driven. Is that sort of a correct analysis of that? Yes. That recommendation did generate from staff and planning and zoning commission also recommended the same thing. Okay. All right. Yeah. And I don't think we need to on this one, but I'd like to get some kind of either staff report or something that sort of is the rationale behind maybe this change of process. Certainly. That would be helpful for us moving forward on SUPs. Certainly. All right. Okay. Thank you. Council member Briggs, you had a question? Well, more so just a statement. I'm going to approve this with hesitation because of the mobility issue, but also because of the dedication to preserve the old trees. And I know that I don't think that we can put that in there , but also the moving the dumpsters away from the neighborhood. I just want to make sure that that is not something that is planning on going back if that's something that you guys are going to hold the developer to because I know that was a big issue for the homeowners. Yes. And that is the applicant's intent to keep all of that the same. That would be a condition if you all wanted to specify that that could be attached to the SUP as well. Yeah. And that's really my concern about this particular sort of development is typically with SUPs we do look at a site plan because this is really our only shot. And I'm hesitant to allow changes to be made unless we somehow craft all those changes right here at the dais tonight to say, "Well, we want this in. We want this in. Don't do this. You only changed this much." Stopped it coming back to council because ultimately we may be responsible for that site plan as it was submitted. So that's my only concern about this is if we miss something and delineating the adjustments that we don't want to occur, then it could be problematic. So that's one reason why I wanted maybe some report from staff on that. It's not a criticism. It's just trying to understand. No, no. We certainly have. Yes. We certainly have. We certainly have. Any other report from staff? All right. Council Member Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of 6B with the recommended conditions and with also the trash revetments and the setbacks as represented in the concept plan being substantially those that would be done in the final provisions. Now, I do that saying that if the developer decides that they would like to move the building a couple of feet further away from the property lines, that 's fine. Mayor Pro Tem. Second. Okay. Any ... So I want to make sure I understand this. So the only things etched in stone per se on the concept plan is setbacks stay the same and the dumpster locations stay the same per the concept plan. Anything else is free game. I was trying to say that the concept plan, substantially as it is, but if they decided to ... So that the setbacks are at least as far as they are now and that the trash collection is in more the center of the property rather than at the edge of the property, but if they wanted to make a change to move those buildings further away, as the gentleman suggested that they might ... I mean, they might end up needing a few more feet of space on that east side for a larger retention pond or something like that, that I 'm okay with them giving more setbacks than what the concept plan shows right now. All right. Thank you. Council Member Briggs. I would like to add the preservation of the heritage trees into that. So that's designated in the concept plan. Is that a friendly amendment asking the mover to consider? It is. All right. I believe you said that's okay. For staff and for city secretary and for my own edification , what exactly ... So you're saying that the friendly amendment is to preserve the trees that were in the concept plan as presented by the applicant and staff. Okay. All right. And Council Member Begarry, you're seconding that motion as well. All right. Council Member Ryan. Yeah. I'd just like to know if there's some reason we can't tie them substantially to the concept plan as presented. I realize that staff had recommended that it come back through PNZ as opposed to us, but is there some reason why that would not be acceptable to tie it to what has been presented to us? I'll ask ... Okay. You're asking the mover or are you asking ... I guess staff is ... Sure. If I could just provide a little clarification on it. The way the code currently reads out just requires a plan. In past practice, there was full site plan and there were times where we were recommending denial of applications. And so when working with the applicants, what we thought was it's really not fair to put them through a whole design review and spend tens of thousands of dollars if we're recommending denial just of that specific use. So the intent was really to bring more of a concept plan, holding them still to that plan, but knowing if there needed to be an adjustment of the setback, sort of what the council member mentioned, if they needed to increase the width of the drainage pond. Past practice, if it had to move two feet, then we were coming back to city council to reopen the SGP to then adjust the setback. And so this was merely providing that concept and they would still have to meet what was approved, but it's just those ... If little things needed to be adjusted, that was all. If that helps. Yeah. Okay. And I guess to that point, the difference between a site plan and a conceptual plan, conceptual plan would allow for that movement, but a site plan would not. The conceptual plan would actually turn into the site plan. So they would still have to meet all the minimum requirements of the code. Part of the issue is also, once we get into platting and looking at easements, things tend to adjust as well. And so it's just trying to build in those, sort of that flexibility without having to come back through public hearing. Okay. All right. Council. Okay. Council Member Hesbeth. Yeah. I just want to say, I like the project, but all the friendly amendments are pushing me closer to no. I mean, at some point, the gentleman is here, we know Lee very well. And for him to stand in front of us and commit that, "Hey, we're willing to work with the trees. We're willing to do these things that are sensitive to the area." And then as a council, we stand here and say, "Hey, we appreciate you being here. We appreciate your company's commitment to our community, but we don't believe you. So we need to put all these extra regulations on top in this amendment to then challenge your sincerity in saying so." At some point, we got to start taking people at their word, right? Everyone's not disingenuous. He's here. We know his company. He's committed to what he's going to do. And then we stand here and say, "We got to add six layers on top of your word just because we believe you. We trust you, but we don't trust you." And so I think it sends a terrible message, and I wish we would consider that as we start piling on this stuff. And I'd ask us to take that off because it really is, I'll support it just because I think it's a great project and it's a great use. But absent that, I'd absolutely vote no just because I think it's onerous and I think it's a slap in the face for someone to stand in front of us and tell us what they're going to do. And we say, "Oh, by the way, we don't believe you." And so it troubles me to my core. - Okay. Council Member Briggs. - So I'm going to disagree. The reason that I wanted to do that is because the option to go back with a concept plan, it's not that I don't trust whoever is here. The engineer on the project works with the city. That's great. I trust that what they're saying is true. But if something dramatic were to happen and to change, if we approve it, we can't go back and change that. And if a citizen comes, a homeowner in there says, "Well, this was supposed to happen, and you didn't protect me," then I'm going to say, "Well, I 'm sorry I trusted the guy." I mean, I just want to make sure that what they've asked for is going to be in there personally. It's not a dig on someone's personality. - Council Member Gregory. - Thanks. When I made the motion, I was saying, "Let's go with the plan that the developer proposed and that if he needs, and rather than making him stay to it exactly, if he, as he indicated, needs to make an adjustment, especially an adjustment that is beneficial to the residences on the east or to the north, that he should feel free to do that." It wasn't in any way to impugn his integrity. It was to give him some flexibility to follow the plan, but to have a little wiggle room. So I'm sorry that you interpreted it a different way. It's certainly not the way it was intended. - It has nothing to do with your amendment. It has everything to do with the latter, but let's vote. - Well, and we will. I guess let's not lose sight or forget that the applicant stood here and said that they were willing to commit to do the site plan as proposed, which includes all the things that we were talking about. So this wasn't an applicant-driven request for some flexibility. It was staff, which that's not a criticism. It's just that's what the facts are. So all right, we've got a motion and a second. Let's vote on the board, please. And we've got a motion with the concept plan, with a friendly amendment to preserve, I believe, the trees with, you know, you can't reduce the setbacks or change the dumpster location. Am I missing something? No. Okay. All right. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries seven zero. Let's take a quick five minute break. We're going to get ready to wrap it up, but I don't think we can. All right. Welcome everyone back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on February the 6th, 2018. It is now 829. We are back in our public hearing agenda area. We've got agenda items C, D, and E of 6C, 6D, and 6E that have been withdrawn. So we're moving down to agenda item 6F, hold the first of two public hearings for voluntary annexation of approximately 0.30 acres of land. Thank you. For the record, Cindy Jackson, senior planner with the planning division. This is the first of two public hearings for a voluntary annexation. The land, as you can see, is located on the east side of old Alton Road, just south of Teasley. The land consists of approximately a third of an acre. It's the southern portion of lot one of Denton Creek est ates. The northern portion of the site, which you can see right here, was recently rezoned in October 2017 to CMG. Once this site is annexed and zoned, it will become part of the adjacent site and will be developed as a vehicle for repair site. Again, this is the first public hearing. The second public hearing will be held next week. On March 6th will be the first reading of the annexation ordinance, and April 10th will be the second reading of the annexation ordinance and adoption of the ordinance. That concludes my presentation. And I'll stand for any questions. Any questions before we open the public hearing? Seeing none, thank you. Thank you. I will now open the public hearing for agenda item 6F. This is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak on this agenda item? Please feel free to come down and state your name, address, and your time will begin. Anybody wishing to speak on this agenda item? And there's no action to take on this, is that correct? No, that's correct. One more chance. Anybody wishing to speak? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing on agenda item 6F. Agenda item 6G, hold a public hearing and consider a request by GDHI Homes LLC to rezone approximately 13 acres from a neighborhood residential NR2 district to a neighborhood residential 6NR6. And I will go ahead and open the public hearing so I won't forget. Okay. Good evening. I'm Shandrian Jarvis with the Development Services Department. And I need to find the presentation just a second. Okay. This is a rezoning request for Z1726. This is a site located along Audre Lane just southeast of the Audre and Nottingham intersection. To give you some landmarks, Mingo Road is here on the diagonal. The Denton Bible Church is here to the north. And then the Denton Church of Christ is here. And then the subject property is outlined in yellow. The request is to rezone approximately 13 acres from a neighborhood residential 2 district, which allows single family units at a maximum density of two dwelling units per acre. And the applicant is requesting to go to a neighborhood residential 6 district, which would permit single family dwellings, duplexes, and townh omes at a maximum of six dwelling units per acre. The property is primarily undeveloped. There's some limited agricultural uses, and it has not yet been plotted. As Haley mentioned in her previous presentation, we look at two criteria for rezoning requests. Number one, if the request meets the future land use plan. And then number two, if it can be adequately served with public infrastructure and public services. So when we did the assessment of the future land use plan, we found that the request did not meet the future land use plan. This area, as you can see on the map, is primarily classified as low density residential, which is intended to promote single family detached housing that range from one dwelling unit per acre up to four dwelling units per acre. And just to give you an idea of what else is occurring in the vicinity, we have some moderate residential land uses along Mingo, which can be expected along a major arterial. This district tends to serve as a buffer as you transition into the lower and established residential areas. To the north of Mingo, we have some commercial areas, and even going out east, there's some employment center industrial. We did find that it didn't meet the future, the request did not meet the future land use plan because NR6 is typically what we consider a moderate density residential use. And it would introduce some uses that are not really compatible with low density residential, such as the duplexes in the town home use. And it would also be a density that's higher than what is surrounding in the area, which is about a little over, currently this area is a little over four units per acre. When we look at the existing zoning in the area, we see that the properties surrounding the subject property are primarily low density residential. We see mostly NR4 districts around the south, south, west, east. Immediately to the north, if you remember, there was a rez oning request about a month ago for a similar NR6. And what council ended up approving was an NR6 with the conditional overlay, which basically essentially brought the property back down to about an NR4 district. The conditions included a max on the number of units that could be developed on site. And it also limited the use to single family. When we assess the available public infrastructure in the area, there's water and wastewater utility available along both extensions of Audre Lane. When this property does develop, there will be extensions will be required to serve the development, but that is available along the two edges of the property. Audre Lane on the west side is currently a four lane und ivided roadway. And the mobility plan calls for a four lane divided with sidewalks and bike lanes. On the north, we're calling for an ultimate cross section of about 65 feet of right of way. I think it's about 25 feet of pavement and also with sidewalks and bike lanes. Dedications and any street improvements for those two segments of Audre would be taken or acquired at the time of the subdivision or the planning. As required by the Texas Local Government Code, we did public notification for this request. We sent out 66 letter notices to properties within 200 feet of the subject property. To date, we received nine letters in opposition. In addition, we sent out 173 courtesy notices within 500 feet of the subject property. And the applicant also held a neighborhood meeting last month. We struggled a little bit with the recommendation on this case, but ultimately we decided to go with the P&Z recommendation. At the P&Z meeting, they recommended seven zero to approve the request with several conditions, which included one that the property would be limited to single family residential use only. The maximum number of dwelling units that would be constructed on the site would be 54. And then to address concerns with the surrounding neighbors , they also recommend a minimum front yard setback of 20 feet. And staff has no objections. We support that recommendation. That concludes my presentation and I will stand for questions. - Okay. Council Member Briggs. - So how close do all those recommendations bring that P&Z recommendation to an NR4? - The only difference between that recommendation and the NR4 is two dwelling units. So they get an extra two dwelling units over what they will be allowed with NR4. - So may I? - Sure. - I have a question maybe for legal. Since it's really important to keep the consistency of the zoning, because I do see there's a large area that has not been developed to the other side, is it possible for council to approve an NR4 and make the variance for one or two homes? That way the zoning stays consistent and then the homes that we just allow an extra home or so on the property? - Typically, in my opinion, the answer would be no. Typically what you do is you, in this case where you've gone to the higher zoning, you can add the extra units because the zoning allows it. You can always be more restrictive, but you can't be more generous in allowing whatever use in this case, more lots in this particular setting. So you're allowed to go up to a certain point and you can restrict that, but you can't go beyond that. - Council member Gregory. - Thank you, Mayor. So when we did the previous zoning, we did NR6 with restrictions to so many homes and that was 4.6 units per acre. This is, the result is 4.15 units per acre. And my understanding is to the north on Audra where there's a development there that the housing density, the actual that's been built because it was done before any of the current zoning was there, is something higher than 4.6. What is that density over there? - Well, I would have to defer to Haley because she actually worked on the first case. But while she was giving me those numbers, the properties, the existing properties were developed before the new zoning map went into effect. So when we rezoned this area, we picked the categories that were closest to what was on the ground. And so it resulted in what is existing on the ground is higher than what we would allow in current, under the current zoning. But I think the current density for the area is about a 4.6 . - Well, as Council Member Briggs was trying to point out, I mean, our goal is to try to have some type of compatibility with neighborhoods. And we're somewhat limited on the tools or the way that we can use the tools that we have. And so the tool that I think PNZ is planning, proposing of going to NR6 but with restriction so that you no longer have by right duplexes, townhomes, attached townhomes. It has to be single family and it has to be limited to whatever that number is, 54. So that the equivalent, it's 4.115 dwelling in this breaker . Okay, thanks. - A couple of questions. Did the applicant submit sort of a preliminary design with lot layout or anything like that? - Okay, they can talk about that when they come up. Okay. And, oh, I just lost it. So the zoning change that we approved to the north, I think one of the things I recall when we talked about it was that sometimes the trucks or cars could potentially be parked in the driveway, but blocking the sidewalk because of the building line. And I think in NR6 the building line was 10 feet or 15 feet or something like that. So here the recommendation is for the front yard setback to be 20 feet and the side yard setback and backyard setbacks are still the same as they would be in the, okay. Okay. Any other questions for staff before we take public comment ? Thank you very much. Appreciate it. We do have some cards wishing to speak, but does the applicant want to come down and make the presentation first just so that everybody has opportunity to hear the applicant before they bring their public comments? - Good evening, mayor, council, city staff. My name is Thomas Fletcher with Kimley-Horn, 5750 Genesis Court, Frisco, Texas, 75034. I am the engineer for the applicant. Just I'll go through a few slides briefly. I think these were pretty much shown before, but this is the aerial image of the tract with the tract itself outlined in yellow. It's just over 13 acres in total size. You can see there's some trees located kind of in the central area to the eastern portion of the tract, which was, my understanding was an older hom estead. Here's the zoning map. The current zoning map is currently zoned in R2. This map shows the tract just to the north that was recently approved in R6 with overlay conditions. A couple of things that I'll want to point out. When we went through and started looking at this request, one of the things I did is I pulled some of the plats of the surrounding areas, the existing developments. The two I pulled were the two that are adjacent to our southern line. One of the plats was Aldra Estates Final Plat, which created 54 lots on 12.021 acres, which is a density of 4.49 units per acre. That is directly to our south on the eastern, on the western portion of the tract. On our south to the eastern portion of the tract is East O aks Edition Phase 1, which platted 34 lots on 7.745 acres, which is a 4.39 unit per acre density. As you can see at 4.15, what we're proposing is less than the surrounding properties and is compatible with the existing developments, future land use. This is a conceptual plan that we presented to P&Z. This plan has 56 units shown on it. It's got an open space that's in the northeast corner of the tract and then also that goes up to Aldra, the section of Aldra to the ... That's the east-west section of Aldra to the north. As part of the P&Z hearing, listening to the residents' concerns, the planning commissioner's concerns or questions, we came to the overlay conditions that are proposed, which staff has already gone through those. What we've done is we went back and we made some adjustments to the plan. One of the things with the elimination of two lots going from 56 to 54, we looked at where the trees were located on the property. As part of the meeting with the adjacent HOAs, one of the concerns that came up was buffering the existing property and the existing trees. What we tried to do is once we go into preliminary plotting , we're required to do a tree survey as part of that submittal. We looked at the area a little more. We tried to do the layout in a manner that we could try and maximize the preservation of trees. We also did it in a manner that we maximize the depth of the lots adjacent to the existing homes, knowing that that was a concern. Those main lots right there on the entry, it looks like there's about nine lots. Those lots have a depth of about 160 to 180, so that's a very significant depth for a single-family lot. The lots to our south, the existing lots, most of those lots, their depth is around 116 to 118, so we're providing a significantly deeper backyard compared to the existing lots there and then the addition of that open space as well. The street stub that we're showing to the east, one of the concerns was that if we were requested to provide a street stub back to the east so that that undeveloped tract would provide connectivity, the residents didn't want Latimore to continue. There was a concern there that that becomes a long street into the adjacent parcels and it just kind of generates a cut through traffic area. What we did is on this site plan, we offset that street connection to the east so that there is not a long street going through to the next adjacent property. Some of the things that came out of the neighborhood meeting, traffic was a concern. The existing Audre Lane is four-lane undivided roadway, which has capacity for our project. Fifty-four units is going to provide a very minimal increase to the overall traffic. On-street parking was a concern. That was where the development overlay condition for the 20 -foot setback came in so that we ensured that there was adequate room in that driveway for off-street parking. Street damage, that was brought up as a concern in the HOA meeting. During the process, once we go to pre-con, the city inspect ors will govern the contractor and make sure that if there's any damage that occurs to the street that that's remediated for, that's part of the requirement for final acceptance is to go through and take care of any punch list items that may be listed. Tree removal was a concern. I did have one of the residents approach me after the hearing and voiced her concern that some of the trees there are very nice, large oak trees that were part of the initial homestead that was there. When we went back and re-looked at the site plan, we looked at the aerial and tried to capture those trees in an open space lot that can be utilized as the residence for open space and create amenity for the development. Like I said, that lot may shift. There's really two pockets of trees that are really nice there. What we would do is go out and do a tree survey and then determine which trees are the more protected heritage type trees that we would want to create a nice open space around. Density was voiced as an issue. As you can see from what we're proposing, our density is in line with the adjacent subdivisions, actually a little less. Then, decreased property values based on the cost of land, cost of development. The developer is anticipating an entry market of no lower than 250,000 on the homes, which is higher than most of the adjacent residences. That would actually help improve the property values in the adjacent area. That's just a summary of the benefits I went through. I'll leave it at that and be glad to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, Mayor. You said that the developer really has no control over whether people park on the street or not. That made me think of something I think I remembered that in the development that went before, a zoning change before us recently, one of the conditions that planning and zoning added was to address the parking on the street and requiring that the dwellings have side by side two car garages rather than the stacked two car gar ages. So don't you think a developer could, because I've got to ask you a question, could do something to control on street parking by providing adequate garages and adequate driveways that would actually fit vehicles? Right. The developer, the home builder is required by code to provide two garage parking spaces as well as two off street parking spaces. So what the change in the front building setback does is provide additional depth for that driveway. The 20 foot. So each of these lots will have two car garages and then they'll have driveways that are a minimum of 18 foot wide by 20 feet for that front building setback. So that would allow, if you've got multiple vehicles, you may park some in the garage or some in the driveway, or if maybe you use your garage for storage, you still have space for two parking, two cars to park in the drive. And the other thing that I heard you say was we're now considering the price for an entry level home at about 250,000? For this development, based off the, based off the land costs and the development cost and the builders that we've talked to, the estimated starting price would be in the 250 range. That's kind of entry level. So that's considered. Well, I'm not saying that that I'm saying, I'm just right. Just curious if that's what we're really, if that's what the market is today. And I meant that that's kind of the starting price point for this home. As far as what the market considers entry level, my statement wasn't intended to. Well, it just seems a lot different from 1977 when I bought my entry level home. Thank you, Mayor. You showed an area there that's basically a lot to preserve trees. Yeah, there the green space. Have you looked at how that will be maintained? Will that be dedicated park space? Will that be an HOA? It would be an HOA. So an HOA would be set up for the development. There would be HOA fees. We've got green space along Alder Lane so that we can have a nice screening fence and then an entry monumentation for the development. We also have the green space that's in the northeast corner and that goes up to Aldera on the, you know, in the northeast. So all these green spaces shown on this layout would be HOA open space. It would be owned and maintained by the HOA. My experience with the city is that unless the area is of a certain size, then it's not cost effective for the city to take ownership and maintenance of it. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Gregory. Is that green space in the northeast corner also a detention point? We haven't done drainage studies, but more than likely we will have to provide detention and that strip there, I believe it's about 80 foot wide. Everything on this side is draining to the northeast. So we do anticipate that we'll have to provide detention and that we would utilize some of that open space to accomplish that. And that would provide the drainage to the creek a little further north? Correct. There's development to the north, so it would actually go into an underground storm system. We would have to connect to that. Okay. Thank you. What is the anticipated average lot size and then average home size? Any idea? The average lot size, all the lots shown on here are a minimum of 50 foot width. The minimum depth on these lots, I think the little block that you've got in the center there is roughly 115 to 120. All the perimeter lots are a minimum of 125 to 130. The nine lots that are right there on the entry, like I said, I believe they're in the 160 to 180 range as far as depth. So if you look at the average lot size, the minimum lot size is probably around 7,000 square foot, but I would guess the average lot size would probably be closer to 8,000 square foot with the... Okay. Now that's helpful. What about home size? Two story, one story? These lots will accommodate one story and two stories. So the outline in yellow is kind of what we, as residential engineers, designed for a pad. The pad depth is 75 feet, which will allow for a nice one story home that's generally 18 to 2400 square feet. Typically if the builder is doing a two story, he'll only utilize about 60 feet of the depth and have a little bit larger backyard. We could see these home sizes going up to 28, maybe 3,200 square feet. Okay. All right. Good. Okay. Any other questions for staff before we take public comment ? That's not staff applicant. Sorry. It's not even late. Only 5 to 9. Any other questions for the applicant? Anything else you want to add? That's it. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. We'll go ahead and take public comment. We've got three cards and then anybody wishing to speak is welcome to after that. But Mr. David Zoltner, if you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is David Zoltner. I live at 2501 Timber Trail, just very near this development. Regarding this Audra project, I very well understand why this applicant started initially with this NR6 application. There were proposed 56 homes that would exceed the density of NR4, and so it's perfectly understandable where this zoning would have started. There were also initial plans for 10-foot setbacks for homes as large as 28 to 3,200 square feet, as you heard. There could have been other initial plans for town homes and duplexes, which would always have been a possibility with an initial NR6. At the P&Z meeting on the 24th, this applicant graciously and willingly accepted a number of overlays that I'm extremely grateful for. They've been summarized here tonight. 10-foot setbacks, single-family homes only, with no duplex es in town homes. This developer has extensively created an NR4 district for the lack of only one or two units. Now, 13.2 acres times 4 is rounded to 53, so we're only talking one unit. Now, quite frankly, the only reason I'm here tonight is because I've been told by two separate people on the planning department that the P&Z would have had no authority on the 24th to grant any variance whatsoever, but city council could. There's kind of a conflict right here, what I'm hearing tonight, on whether or not you have the authority to grant one unit. I'm here to suggest and actually recommend that you amend this ordinance to an NR4 with a one-unit variance, keeping in mind that leaving it or retaining this NR6 will set a negative precedent and have consequences for all existing NR3s and NR4s in low-density neighborhoods. It will set a precedent where we have an immediate—the property just to the east that you saw on one of those maps is another 13 acres. I know personally one developer that's just waiting to see if P&Z is ready to ignore another staff analysis and came into developer demands once again. Again, I support this development. I do support this development, but I seriously oppose this whole planning process and the way it's gotten to this point. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker is Kim McKibbin. State your name and address. Your time will begin. Kim McKibbin, 1306 West Hickory. I don't think I could have said much better what the gentleman before me just said. It was just last month—I was thinking it was really not too long ago—that we got the lot to the north. They cried and they pleaded and they carried on and wrung their hands. Now we've got the lot to the area to the south. Next will be the one to the east. We are, once again, as I have reminded you guys, you are the keepers of the 2030 plan. These things are not zoned for this in the 2030 plan. They are zoned for single families and these guys are going to keep pushing and keep pushing. I can't blame the developers. It's perfect. It's just got a cattle pasture on it right now, but the houses are going to be different from what's currently in that area, particularly to the area to the south because the houses are older. The ones that will be going in will be a homeowners association that will put certain restrictions on them. Yes, homeowners associations can keep people from parking in the street. They can say, "Don't do it." Once again, if you go to this higher zoning—and I understand the legality of it. You can take certain things away. If you move to this, you continue to open up the possibility that, "Well, it's adjacent to this. Let's see how much we can push it to be this." Once again, you are the keepers, you are the line. We've got the 2030 plan. We've got the new developmental codes coming up. You've got small area plans coming forward. Just please take that into mind. I too would support it as the gentleman before me if it was the NR4, but the 6 just opens up a lot of things. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Next speaker is Thomas Fletcher. That's you. This is all the cards I have. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? Come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. Anybody else wishing to speak? Anybody else? Councilmembers, do you have these questions during the public hearing portion? Okay. All right. Well, I will go ahead and close the public hearing. Mayor Pro Tem? Well, I have two questions, one for staff regarding what Mr . Zoltner said. Is it true that we can provide a variance or allow for a variance with NR4 and plus two or plus one? No. And I think the city attorney spoke to that earlier on the previous item. I just wanted to add to that, that density, which is the number of dwelling units per acre along with setbacks, those are all zoning functions. The only board in the city that's authorized under state law and our DDC to give grant a variance is the Zoning Board of Adjustment. And so I don't know who made that statement in the planning department, but it's not a correct statement. Okay. So then my second question would be for the property, and it's for you also or somebody from planning, the property to the south, which is like the Latimore neighborhood, if I remember correctly, it came up in a prior hearing for the property that's next door, I think it's 13 acres next door. And that property was NR4, but it was zoned a long time ago , if I remember correctly. And so if the Latimore addition would have been zoned today , would it be NR4 or would it be NR6? I seem to remember that if it hadn't been zoned today, it would be NR6. And what had happened, just to kind of go back a little bit in history, prior to the last update of the code, the previous version did not regulate by density, it regulated by minimum lot size. And so what turned into NR4 was really the residential 10. So it just governed by minimum lot size, which is why you see a lot of these developments a little bit above four units an acre, where you're looking at 4.3 or 4.4, depending how you round. And so when the NR4 was created, it just sort of dropped that down. So in addition to reducing the density slightly, it also reduced the minimum lot size from 10,000 square feet down to seven, and then reduced the front setbacks as well. And so that's why there's always this sort of, it never really true ups between some of the older developments that were done under the previous code. So I mean, just to get to the point of my question, is the Latimore subdivision really an NR6 by our current standards, or is it somewhere between an NR4 and NR6? It's somewhere in between the NR4 and NR6. Okay. That's what I remember from the first discussion, and it was kind of a deciding factor for me at that time. So I appreciate that. Thank you. I don't know if I can go ahead and move. I'll go ahead and recognize you. Yeah, and then we'll take a comment. Sure. Okay. Well, I'm going to go ahead and move for adoption of the zoning request with the conditions outlined. And just to address some of the public comments, I trust our planning and zoning process as far as the board to address some of the details of the plans. And I know it's not always perfect, especially on the city side of things, but I do trust our citizen commissioners to be able to look very closely at projects and find a solution that works for that site, which I think is demonstrated by this particular plan. So for that reason, I'll be moving to approve, although my preference, if it were an option, would be to go to NR4 with a variance. Okay. Council Member Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. I have another question for staff. We're currently looking at changing up or working on a revision of our DDC. Based on your knowledge of where it sits right now, would all these neighborhoods most likely end up under the same zoning when we rezone since the density is basically the same? We're starting that mapping now and whether we actually go away from density and looking at minimum lot size as the regulator. That's sort of where we're at now. But the intent is to not make any of the subdivisions or properties nonconforming. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Briggs. For clarification, the staff refused the original proposal, but is accepting of the P&Z amendments. Is that correct? As a... Yes, ma'am. One of our major concerns was the allowance of the duplexes and townhomes. So when P&Z put the overlay in place with those restrictions, we were fine with those restrictions. And the setbacks and the lot size. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Council Member Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. I will second the motion. All right. We have a motion and a second. Just want to clarify, just to summarize the conditions. Conditions are limited to single-family residential, minimum front yard setback of 20 feet. I think the number of actual single-family homes was 54? 54 single-family detached. 54 single-family detached. Any other conditions that I missed on that as far as in the P&Z recommendation and what the movement has moved to adopt. Okay. Let's... We have a motion and a second. Let's vote on the board for agenda item 6G. Motion carries 7-0. Now, moving to our concluding items portion of the agenda. I'm going to go ahead and... I think I'm going to go first. I don't get to go first. I only have one. I'd like to get a work session on... We've talked about the downtown and our plans and those kinds of things and form-based codes. I'd like to get a work session to revisit that. We'll begin to talk about possible design criteria for some geographical area of the downtown and that can be part of the work session just to determine how do we want to continue to proceed with the downtown and just get some discussion going on that. I think that's the only one I've got. If I've got another one, I'll swing back around. Council Member Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. I noticed that there was some construction started on Bell Avenue in the downtown area near industrial. And at nine last evening, there was still a significant amount of dust being kicked up as cars were driving along that road. And I know that the last time that we did that a little bit further north, one of the property owners after it was all over told me that he lost a couple of air conditioning units because of the dust and the clogging up the systems on the units on his roof. So my question is, and you could get us back to us in the staff report, is there anything that we can do during this repair process to minimize the dust by applying water at times or washing it down in the evenings? That's not a good thing for the residents that live in that area to have to breathe and it's certainly not good for the mechanical systems and the residences and the businesses around there. We will definitely look into that and get back to you. Thank you. Council Member Duff. Somehow or another, I missed something on the bikes today. And you know, we were talking about, you know, we can't do bike racks, but we can, they can do a virtual bike rack. They can designate areas that literally you have to take the bike back into those areas to lock it back up again. If you don't and you dump it out there, they're still on the clock. I think that's something we need to look at. It's called geofencing and that will definitely be part of the permit application. We'll come back to the council is what is their plan and to assure us that they've got that in place. That that'll clean up the problem of bikes everywhere. Council Member Briggs. Just to piggyback off your conversation about the downtown, which is great. I'd like to add into that work session, historic designation or national historic registry. What with the recent events coming up, what as a city we can do what we cannot do in regards to protection and preservation. Also it was brought up today earlier that both of the ethics discussion public meetings or public hearings were scheduled at noon. I would like to see if we could get one of those arranged in the evening so we would have one in the afternoon and one in the evening. All right. That it? Yes. Council Member Hussbeth. Thank you. Just a reminder, neighborhood empowerment Thursday. Excited about the Stoke open house Friday. I think that'll be fantastic. Kind of to see state of the union there. I think that's about all that I had. I do want to thank the city manager. Three presentations today, seeing a lot of transition, different information that's helpful. The chart on the Bonnie Gray street was very helpful to kind of understand those numbers better. I appreciate that responsiveness and attention to organizing that data. Mayor Pro Tem. Regarding that downtown conversation, if we could also include a discussion about Louisville's updates to their fire code. They recently added some, I'm not sure exactly, somebody on staff can be a better verse than I am. But there's basically what we can do to update wiring in the older buildings, whether it's incentives or what that would even look like, really, the costs. The second thing, on February 17th, there's a conference called Ignite. It is a nonprofit national organization to prepare young women for leadership in public office. If there's a way that the city could also promote that, whether it's, I don't know, the state of the city address or any of our public type of things, it is nonpartisan. I think it would fall in the purview of what we do. Council Member Housman. One other thing that I did want to touch on. I think demolition starts potentially tomorrow. But I just wasn't sure if this is on the mini mall. But whenever that starts, did we put out some sort of notice on dust, whatever that's going to look like? Just kind of, did we put out a notice that, hey, this is going on if you're allergic, this, that, or the other. I don't know how we're going to manage that. But I would like to see us put out some sort of email blast or something that would address that old building that, you know, how are they going to have to treat that, I guess, waste, if you will. One last thing I forgot. I'm not sure how I forgot it. But state of the city is February the 15th, I think. Is that right? It starts at 630. I can't see back there. Is that right? It's at 6, 6 o'clock. So I wanted to invite everybody out to come join us there. It's at the new Denton Convention Center at the Embassy Suites Hotel. So it'll give you a chance to see the facility and hear about what's going on in our city and where we're heading. So I wanted to remind everybody of that. All right. I think that's it for this evening. So we will now stand adjourned.