Feb 20, 2018 City Council on 2018-02-20 12:00 PM

Good afternoon. Wanted to welcome everybody to this meeting of the Denton's Council. It is Tuesday, February 20, 2018. It's 12.02 p.m. We'll move down through our agenda. First item on the agenda is citizen comments on consent agenda items. I do not see any blue cards wishing to speak in that regard , so we'll move on to agenda item number two, which is request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda for February 20, 2018. Councilmember Briggs. Okay. So on item B, I would like to say thank you for this purchase. I know we talked about it a while ago, and I'm just curious if we have an installation day estimate on the sirens. Councilmember, we have executed the contractor will with your action today, and we're still looking at probably a 90-day window before installation. We're also looking, associated with these three sirens is also the software upgrade for the entire siren system. I have the three locations also. You may be familiar with those or saw those in the backup, but we're going to be installing those at Billy Ryan High School, at Collins Stadium, at the Concrete Elementary. So we're hitting schools this time. When we presented this and talked about it during the budget process, we talked about a three-year process of adding to and expanding the siren system, doing them three to four a year. So we also are looking at coming back in this next budget process with a couple more school locations and then an expansion in the ropes and ranch area for our year two expansion. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. I would like to ask council to consider pooling E for a closed session, closed item. We talked about this once before, but I don't remember an update. So if that's possible. Okay. Mr. City Attorney, is that, sorry, caught you with your mouth. Yes, that's possible. I prepared a little. Okay. And so that will just be, we'll talk about that in just our regular closed session, executive session agenda time. That's correct. Okay. All right. And may I? Just one question on that. So once we go into executive session and come out, you're not asking for that item to necessarily be pulled for an item for individual consideration, at least at this point. At this point, I just like to have an update on the item. Okay. Yeah. And then I think you had some other comments. Uh huh. I, I would like for somebody to come up and discuss to the public what this means for the children in our community. Thank you. This is the, for basically our percentage of our use of the Children's Advocacy Center. They assist us greatly with mainly child abuse investigations, not only investigations and the interview, forensic interviews of the children, but also counseling services, as well as family and victims of non-offenders. Okay. All right. Thank you. Sure. Any other questions? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Thank you. So the amount that, that we are proposing to make available to them was calculated by them and it was based on a fair share appropriation or, or can you explain that? Yes. Basically, it's a, it's a percentage of usage, depend of, with all the different agencies that use the advocacy center, which is quite large. So we are the, I guess, the second largest user of their services, second only to Louisville PD. So they look at all the percentages of usage and then the amount it costs to provide their services after, I think they're, I think in 2016 or 17, I'm not sure about this year, they raised like 1.5 million to offset that. So it's that percentage of use after their fundraising efforts on the amount of usage that we use their services. So if I may, mayor, because, because my memory is when we were doing the budget calculations, we saw all of the jurisdictions within Denton County that end up using their services. Yes. And very few of them were actually paying their fair share based on usage, based on the percentage of, of kids within their jurisdiction that, that were benefiting from the services. So, so the organization then has to raise funds privately to cover the cost for the cities that don't, that don't pay their fair share? I don't know if that's why they raise funds. I know they have, I know they have fundraising efforts every year and quite extensive, it seems like over the last number of years. How much that covers of those other agencies, I don't have that answer. Okay, thanks. One last, last one. I'd like to request to pull item O for a vote, a separate vote out in the regular meeting, please, on the polling locations. Yes. I'm done. Thank you. I have a question on O. I read in the 380 news that DISD, both of the trustees that are up for election have three opponents each. Plus, they're having the bond election. So the polling places are going to impact the school district also. Has anybody from the city or has anybody from the county elections group talked with DISD about these alternative locations? City secretary can answer that. I can. Yes, I did contact the school district and was given, they contacted each of the campuses. The principals were in agreement to use the sites and the superintendent was also in agreement. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, I'd like to go ahead and pull item E, which is the closed session item. So we could have an individual vote on E. And then I have a question for clarification on item N, the palladium resolution. I wasn't here last week, but from the video, it seemed like the property is going to be paying taxes. Is that correct? That is what the developer stated, yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. And I guess one I have and Councilmember Ryan had brought this to my attention. I'm not going to. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you have, did y'all have one? Oh, and this is on our public hearings. So if, and I don't need an explanation right now, but maybe when we get up into the council meeting, but it seems like Councilmember Ryan, if you could sort of talk about, yeah. Yeah. The third public hearing that we have, once that is passed and goes into effect, would negate the need for the first public hearing. You wouldn't need to change the zoning in order to, you would just need the SGP, but you wouldn't need a zoning change. Yeah, so I bring that up to say that if we can maybe have some discussion with the applicants, if that's truly the case, have some discussion with the applicants, see what they are. I mean, we'll go ahead and proceed as if we're going to hear it all as scheduled. We might move the agenda items around maybe to facilitate a more linear discussion on that. But yeah, if we could just be ready to maybe talk about that when we get there. Yes. Okay. I'm sorry, Councilmember Hussbett, I apologize. No, thank you. I'd like to look at item C on the consent agenda. And I just had a question as to if we're going to get notice, and I think I may have an answer that and looked at it yet, but if someone could maybe speak to that. I wanted to know if we were going to get a notice similar to when we use council funds, where they at least pass by and we vote on it that way. Okay. I'm not sure I understand your question. Do you want a breakdown of what we're thinking about spending? No. So when a council member is going to use their discretion ary funds, we get just in the consent agenda, it'll just show up as a line item or an issue there that we approve. Is that how this process works or is it just done and we don't get? So the way this works is we would, economic development, we 'd pay for the table at the chamber banquet and then we just pass those tickets on to whoever would like to come from council. Is that what you mean? Okay. Okay. Councilmember Hussbett, the way we would propose to do this is similar to the DME sponsorship program in solid waste is that on a quarterly basis we'd provide you an update in the entire council of what all sponsorships had been executed with this policy. So if that answers your question, we'd have a routine reporting for all of those that we'd provide to the council. Okay. But it'd be more after the fact than- Yes, sir. That's what we had intended to do. We certainly can do it differently at the council's direction though. Okay. I don't know if there's traction for that. My preference is to get an update and not that, yeah, just an update. Similar to we do our contingency funds. Okay. My preference, I don't know about the rest of the group. What's been spent, kind of what was intended. Right. Okay. We can certainly do that. But I'll see what everyone else thinks. Okay. Yes, any more? No, no. I don't know if there's conversation on that part. If not, I'll go to the next one. Yeah. Yes. I have a question about that. Okay. So which does this come from, the general fund for the- It does. Because the other ones that we had come up for DME come from the right payers. And so this one is a little different. It comes from a separate fund. It's general fund for these. And so one of the conversations we've been having internally is what all departments had sponsorships that they were executing. What were those? What were the dollar amounts? And as we looked at that, we had three different departments, DME, solid waste, and now economic development. Economic development is a lot smaller than the ones that you saw for DME and solid waste. But nevertheless, we wanted to have an official policy that was approved by council authorizing those. And will there be overlap? So you mentioned a table. Will there be three different tables from the city for one or are there rules against that? Well, we're going to try to- we will coordinate those and see if there's a need to have more than one table for a particular event. We will certainly look at that. But generally speaking, we're going to try to not have overlap that's there. Okay. These are different types of events and really related to economic development purposes rather than nonprofits, which is what you saw in some of the other areas. Right. Thank you. All right. Hopefully that helps. Any more conversation on that particular topic from Mr. H ussbett? If not, I think he has another clarification. I was going to say, I don't think that we can really have a discussion on what he's proposing. I think we would have to do that at a different time because we're not posted for that discussion. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Yep. Okay. And then E has already been pulled if that's right. Yes. Okay. So no issues there. Then I'd like to pull F just to have a general summary in the regular meeting this evening and then vote on it. And the same with G, just a general summary, maybe just that last overview page and then vote on it individually just as a kind of a public awareness. And then I have questions regarding M in that contract if someone can speak to that. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So I'll fast forward to the end of the story. So I sent the designations, so I'll go kind of over the questions. So one, I use this as an example of by my account, by the backup, 10-year history with this group, 13 projects, they listed on their application. I don't know if there have been more or less. But for me, for them to not have a presence in Denton and to dispense that kind of money over that period of time, I understand there may be some specialties that they provide, but I really, that's really troublesome for me, especially when I look at, so if you look at page 71 of their contract, their hourly rate is portal to portal, door to door. So when they leave Dallas, the meter starts running. Yes, sir. And so we're paying them travel time at an hourly rate to get here, right? Yes. So that really, over 13 projects, it's a big number to me, and I could be wrong. And I understand where you're coming from, especially on any time you start looking at what the transportation costs and things like that roll into the overall contract. When it comes to this particular specialty, we do not have many businesses. The only one I know of, I think we have one that actually resides in the city of Denton. All of the rest of these firms are in the Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington area, and they come up this way to provide that service. The one that we do have here, we have used them before. I believe we actually had an annual contract prior to the one we're trying to initiate in right here. That particular contract, we had some issues in getting the responsiveness in the reports. There was a lot of accuracy. There were some issues and concerns between our staff and what they provided to us. We were not getting the quality of work that we needed to get out of them. So even after we had worked with them on multiple occasions , it became apparent that we needed to not go that route. We went down the RFQ route to say who would provide us that quality service, and this is where we came back to. This firm does have a past history on individual projects over the last 10 years. That's why you don't see 120, 130 that you would see with somebody else, and you will see in the next version of this contract, three years from now we do another contract. You would see this company with that much more experience here. I understand you're concerned, but the availability is really limited here. Yeah. And so 100% with you. I want good quality product, but I also would like to pin them down, and I'd like somebody to ask them if they've ever considered officeing in Denton, and have them say, "No, that's fine, but I want to see it." You know, I at least want to ask the question. We can definitely ask that question. Yeah. Tell them that Denton's great. And so then, also, I have a question about the expenses in the contract. So expenses plus 15%. Help me understand that. Why couldn't we purchase it directly? Why are they marking it up 15%? Am I understanding that right? I would have to go back to that specific item, and Karen, you may be able to address this item better than I would in the contract, the plus 15%. Yeah, it's page 71. Typically the ... And I don't have it in front of me. I hear you. Of the PDF, yeah. Typically, when we see items like that, it comes down to those are items that are passed through for them. So that 15% is the cost of whatever it costs them to have it done, plus them just managing the ... Getting it to us, getting it back and forth, their staff time actually trying to get that coordinated and brought back to us. That's fairly typical on all contracts that I've seen. And that varies 10%, 15%, 20%. That's pretty typical. Most of the items that that falls under are fairly low cost items. They're not the items that we're paying the bigger dollars for the actual construction testing and things like that. These are going to be reproducibles, some things they're going to send out, and then they'll pay ... Just pick somebody out. I don't remember off the top of the head who they're actually talking about in that contract, but it could be like they pay FedEx for $15 worth of reproducibles. They're going to add 15% to that for them doing that for us . Okay. And then ... So thank you for that. And then ... So they have a reporting charge of $50.5 as a minimum, but is it not ... Their entire purpose is to report to us. Yes. So help me understand why they would have a line item. So it's ... Whatever round numbers, it's $450,000 and there 's a separate line item for reporting or is that baked in and they just put it ... It's baked in. Okay. The other piece that they have in there is also in there to say anybody that touches this project at all in a time and materials contract says this person has this much ... If they spend an hour on it, it's going to cost $55. And that's where that comes from. They list everybody they think conceivably touched this project so that it's just straightforward to us what are the actual costs going to be if they have to engage that person. Okay. And then on the reproduction, we have a reproduction department. So I'm assuming we utilize that versus ... Because I just ... I hadn't looked at our rates lately, but it's not 46 cents a page. I can look into that one for you. Typically what we see is we're already talking to the consultant in this case. They're eight and a half by 11. Sure. We could have them send us a PDF and tell them we just want digital copies of everything and then cut down on that markup and then have it done here . Other times it becomes something that we're going to pay a higher price for anyway, like very large plots. 48 inch by 60 inch piece of paper that we're using to go to a public meeting. Any way you look at it, you're going to pay a premium. And if they have the facilities on site, then they can do that typically cheaper than if I went to FedEx or even internally, we may not have that resource. Yeah. And I guess that's my understanding. This one project, I get it. But if you're talking 10 years, that to me is a significant number if we're continually not to bring whatever we can in-house. So I understand one-off, but if we're, and again, I understand it differently if they're here in town. But if they, it's just that to me caught my eye. And the same thing, and your answer I think would probably be the same, but the typist at $55 an hour. I want to avoid all of that, if at all possible. Again, as a legacy type expense, I think that that's a little high for me to be comfortable with understanding. Heck, it just seems a little, some of it may be baked in. I may be just not understanding. And so I just saw those line items and they jumped out at me. And typically what we see, I can explore this with the consultant, but typically what we see on these types of contracts, it's pretty much uniform across the board. When you get into administrative type services, and they're calling it typist, it's most likely an administrative service that this person is providing. It's probably not just typing, it's other things as well. If they have to engage that person on the project for anything, they've got their base rate and then they generally companies have a multiplier that covers all their overhead and expenses and that gives us the rate that you have there . Every company is going to give us that by and large across the board. You're not going to see, there's differences in the numbers , obviously based on the company, but they're going to have that in there. Not saying that we'll actually engage them on that. They may never actually do a typist function or what they have there, but they're obligated to say, I may have that person for some weird reason on something remotely. They're obligated to put that in the contract, say that person may be engaged. If they're not, I'm going to have to use them. But if they don't include that in there, then we have to go through a contract amendment process to actually have that person in there for the occasion when we might need them. Got it. Then along those lines, and I think it may be the same thing, but I just want to make sure you and your team are acutely aware of the difference between, I guess, an engineering inspector versus a staff engineering. I mean, the swing is like $100-so round numbers. And so I just am sensitive to the water being muddied. I'd like to make sure we have clear definitions that one doesn't supplant the other or one's utilized more than the other, and the functions don't line up with that usage. So yeah, and the hard part when you get into items like that for each individual company is that is their published rate sheet. All of these companies typically come up with their own, and they have their own job classifications. So an engineering inspector for them is an inspector on an engineering-related job. So they call it an engineering inspector versus we call ours public works inspectors or building inspectors. It's just the way they actually have it termed inside their company. Another company would call it an inspector. Another company would call it something totally different. And that's really all we're talking about. The functionality, though, is that's an inspector versus a staff engineer who's got more the engineering component of what they're doing. Yeah, no, and I just would want whomever's performing that function to have the proper certifications and it not be a typist going to look at a project and getting billed as an engineer. Not to say that they do that, but I'm just saying that's kind of an extreme example to make sure the functions line up with whatever definition to reconcile those. Sure, and part of that is covered under the Texas State Board of Engineers and the regulations that we have to operate under. They could lose both their firm license and the particular engineer license if they stamp something without actually having overseen the project. That takes care of it through that state requirement. Great to know. Thank you. Yeah, and then I have one for Aaron on this same issue. So it mentions alternative dispute resolution, but it doesn 't give a geographic restriction. Does that matter? Or does that kind of take care of itself? That kind of takes care of itself when the parties agree to where they want to have the mediation. I think what you're thinking of is the typical venue provision that you see in some contracts that litigation, any actions arising out of the contract will be held in this case like Denton County. This is a different time to try to settle those in med iation instead of going to court. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Anybody else? All right, let me make sure I've got a list of the ones we 're pulling. And of course, when we get out there, make the motions. I'm showing that -- let me go back to the first page. We're pulling F and G. We're pulling E. M, you're not wanting to pull. We just sort of went over all that, I guess. Yes. Okay. And O. Is that what I've got? Okay. Anybody have anything different? If so, we'll deal with it out there. Okay. And we'll move on to our work session. Any other clarifications on the agenda? All right. Thank you all. We'll go on to our citizens' comments on ethics-related work session report items. I don't think I saw any blue cards for that. So we'll go to our work session reports starting with agenda item 4A, receive a final report from the Len Ross and Ganaway LLP firm and BKD. Who's going to be presenting that? Okay. Okay. All right. Well, you're going to also need to be around the microphone because that's the only way we can hear you. We are going to -- okay. All right. All right. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. This presentation is designed as a summary and overview of the written report from both BKD and my firm as well. We first started with the background. Concerns were raised at the city level from a tip received from the city's anonymous hotline. It was investigated by the city's Fraud, Waste and Abuse Committee and had begun -- the Fraud, Waste and Abuse Committee had begun the investigation of the relationship between the Parks Foundation, the Denton Parks Foundation and the City of Denton itself. More specifically, one question had been raised about the amounts that had been sent to the foundation paid for on behalf of the city and whether that foundation had a duty to return or reimburse any of those funds. There were questions raised about facility users agreements , fees assessed by the foundation -- excuse me, fees assessed by the city and given to the foundation as well as foundation usage of city staff and resources. Problem in front of computer, guys. >> [Inaudible] >> Okay. >> [Inaudible] >> Yeah. Thank you. Used to have a clicker. Investigation team was the first to report the amount of money that had been sent to the foundation. The investigation team was myself and members of BKD, Todd Burchett as well as Julia Mast and Todd, I believe you take over from here. >> Yes. >> Mike. >> Julia Mast and Keith Seifert also participated in the investigation as well. Julia Mast here to my right used to be a city council member herself. So she's had the privilege of sitting in your seats. Scope of work that was requested in the first phase was to come in and to go over the internal auditor's work, read and analyze those documents, interview some city employees, and as a result do an assessment of what had been done up until that point in time and then have some dialogue about potential work moving forward and have discussions with legal counsel. And so at that -- after that point in time, we were engaged to do a second phase of procedures and so those procedures included conducting interviews of not only city employees but also foundation personnel, analyzing financial information from both the city and the foundation, looking at books and records, journal entries, some detailed transactions and following those transactions through to bank statements and so forth and performing analysis of those things. And then in addition to that, looking at policies and procedures, minutes, and really getting a good idea of the types of interactions that have occurred between the city parks department and the parks foundation over the last five years from October 1, 2012 through September 30 of 2017. And in general, follow up on the matters that were originally looked into by the Fraud, Waste and Abuse Committee but also look at additional things that came to our attention as we conducted our work. We just want to communicate that the work that we did was not intended to be a full accounting of the parks department or a full accounting of the parks foundation. We didn't do a financial statement audit of any sort. We did conduct some detailed analysis of financial records and we did follow transactions all the way from one end of the transaction to the other, but the kind of work we did doesn't constitute a financial statement audit or what we would consider a full accounting of anyone's books and records. Timeline. I always, as any step of investigation, I always set out a chronology first and foremost, so we'd like to do that today. On September 12, on or about, the city received an anonymous complaint related to the foundation not reimbursing costs related to the Eureka 2 Park project that the caller believed rode to the city. The days that followed, the Fraud, Waste and Abuse Committee began conducting an investigation into the specific issue and received several comments. On October 4, the city sent a letter to the foundation and that's referred to as the October 4 letter, notifying them to temporarily suspend fundraising efforts on behalf of the city until a review was conducted. The letter was leaked to the media by an unknown source. The determination of the leak is beyond the scope of our work. On October 13, the city released another statement clar ifying the October 4 letter and communicating the status of the Fraud, Waste and Abuse Committee work. October 16, three days later, the city's internal auditor resigned for unknown reasons. On October 18, Lynn Ross and Ganaway was retained and on October 20, BKD was retained to initially assess the internal auditor's work and provide feedback. In early November, BKD was retained through and worked with my firm, Lynn Ross and Ganaway, to conduct the work which is the subject of this report. At the point, and that was November 14th and we were formally retained, it was determined that this would be a council led initiative because of course the city auditor reported to the council as opposed to city staff. So in terms of the concerns that are investigated in more specifics, in an overarching way we're looking at representations that were made to the city council, either by the Parks Department or the Parks Foundation and asking whether there were fair representations made. Did the city have a written policy that was clear that clearly outlined the conduct between the two parties and we'll discuss that a little bit more in a moment. Clearly should the city have been reimbursed for the two expenditures paid for the Eureka II project by the city and had those ever been reimbursed should they be reimbursed in the future. There is this concept about return on investment that had been used often in abbreviated fashion ROI in numerous presentations before city council and what the ROI on the investment that the city was making in the foundation. So we were asked to look into that as well. Payments to city vendors who were also foundation employees so we were looking for relationships between that were maybe kind of crossed up between the city and the foundation, looking for potential conflicts of interest and that sorts of thing , looking at the condition of the books and records of the foundation and those sorts of things. And then there were some legal matters that Julie was asked to look into regarding potential violations of the city's fraud directive and did the city council authorize the foundation to place signage on city property and then another legal matter that was looked into is did the city council authorize assessing the field enhancement fees with the youth sports association and so forth. In terms of the analysis that we performed, as we mentioned we conducted interviews looking at the policies and procedures and so forth, city council meetings, foundation meeting minutes and so forth. In regards to our interviews, we interviewed some specific parks foundation personnel involved in the running of the parks foundation. We also interviewed six city employees during our time of interviews. Finally with regard to the parks foundation, we interviewed the foundation president and we also interviewed the executive director Molly Tamke and with her attorney present, we're not able to interview the foundation treasurer, Simone Royster, who declined to participate in a face-to-face interview with us. In terms of cooperation from the city, we asked for complete access to the books and records and to personnel. We did get really good cooperation from city personnel. We provided everything we asked for and we pretty much said from the outset that we're just going to investigate and see what the evidence shows us and follow it and let it take us where it takes us and report back to you and that's what we've done and been able to have a high level of cooperation with city personnel. In terms of cooperation from the foundation, that was a little more challenging. We asked for certain things and initiated requests for documentation. It is pretty routine for us to have more than one set of requests for information and we did have some resistance with the foundation president on a few occasions in those interactions in terms of obtaining information and having access to foundation personnel and so forth. He had stated that he was concerned that he didn't know what the nature of the investigation was. We tried to alleviate his concerns. In the end, Mr. Culp did interview with us. In the end, he did turn over records that we requested. It was just maybe a little more cumbersome process than what we would have liked. So in the end, the foundation provided us what we needed and we did have access to Mr. Culp and one of their administrative assistant personnel. We did not get to interview the treasurer. Discussing again about cooperation received from the foundation, I was the point person in many of the communications for the investigative team and Mr. Culp was the point person for the Parks Foundation. As stated by Mr. Burchett, we had many conversations back and forth via email regarding what we needed and why we needed it, but he did offer to be interviewed without condition and he was interviewed and he was very helpful to our investigation. He was very thorough and helpful in his answers. Two foundation witnesses obtained legal counsel, as is their right, and initially resisted being interviewed without certain concessions. As stated, one of them wanting the list of various inqu iries and a guarantee, list of various inquiries, list of questions to be asked and answered, and those things were agreeable. One of the other problems that we had was an assurance that we would not, anything that we found out would not involve anything for a penal code violation. Of course, as an investigator, we're trying to find out information. We can't provide an assurance such as that. One member of the board refused to participate in the face- to-face interview, but the other person was interviewed with her attorney present and she was very pleasant and cooperative, as was her counsel. Conclusions. Legal counsel, that would be me. I did not uncover a violation of the fraud directive on the part of the city. City actors, legal counsel found that the contractual obligations were complied with prior to their expiration. Of course, as you know, there's no current contract between the entities. That expired on September 30th, 2017. We also concluded that the city council did not authorize the foundation to place signage on city property. The city council also had not authorized an assessment of the field enhancement fees. Of course, these statements are based on the information that we were able to gather, considering some of the limitations that we encountered. We found that the city does not have a written policy on how it's to conduct business with the foundation. There was a service agreement in 2007 that was entered in February 2007 and expired on September 30th, 2017 and expired the same year. With the scope of our scope, there was really not a memor andum of understanding or any sort of written policy between the city and the foundation on how things were to be conducted. Most interviewees that we interviewed noted that there were really blurred lines between the foundation and the parks department. There were a significant amount of time for city employees, parks employees that were used to assist on Eureka 2, including the maintenance and the marketing, and city and parks employees that were really diverted from their typical parks department duties for months upon months to assist with Eureka 2. Even after Eureka 2, city employees were requested to design and print off flyers and different items promoting the foundation. From our investigation, we found that the city council minutes and other things that we looked at, that the city council did not know the full scope of the assistance that the parks department was providing the foundation during the time of these different foundation projects. Pretty much of our scope period, there was a parks department personnel that was tasked with keeping the books and records on a current basis for the foundation as the foundation treasurer updated the official records of the QuickBooks system every couple months. So if they needed to know how much money they had in the parks foundation, they could ask the parks, city parks employee about the funds that were there because the official record of the books were not maintained on a day-to-day basis. We did an extensive interview with the former parks director, and he also said that there were blurred lines. He felt that these blurred lines became more apparent during their Eureka 2 project because there was a major time crunch. He stated that he would divert potential donors. The people would come to him and say, "I want to donate for the parks department," and he would divert those donations to the foundation. His explanation was it was easier to expend dollars there. They don't have a lot of the red tape. They don't have an RFP process, so it was easier to really expend money out of the foundation rather than the city. So he was diverting funds, and we did not find evidence that city management had any knowledge of this happening. He indicated that he did have significant spending influence within the foundation on what the foundation would be spending money on. The foundation really doesn't have any written control surrounding procurement, so money would be directed there and spent out of there to avoid the city's restrictions on procurement. There's no formal conflict of interest policy in place at the foundation. We did, in our interviews, indicate that that was something that they considered during all of their board meetings. The foundation would talk about conflicts of interest, but they don't have a formal policy in place. We have a question. Councilmember, I mean Mayor Pro Tem. Are we asking questions during the presentation, or are we waiting until the end? How many? It looks like we're almost to the end. If it's too difficult, could we wait until the end? I don't mind. I just want to get through and figure out what we're doing. Yeah, okay. Yeah, let's do that. I'm sorry. Thank you. Okay. Okay. The city actually did capture the parks maintenance efforts on the Eureka II project within the time payroll system. So if the city parks maintenance staff worked on the Eureka II, they coded their time within the parks time management system that way. So we were able to find a figure that was discussed even before our investigation of 173,000 that was identified by park maintenance. But we feel that from our interviews and our other analysis that the investment for Eureka II went far beyond this 173,000. From our interviewees indicated that the foundation really became accustomed to going to park employees for different administrative functions on a regular basis even after the Eureka II project was finished. And I was just jumping into a real quick slide. There is an ongoing disagreement between the two entities about two Eureka II expenditures that did come to council. Information was related to council that Parks Foundation would reimburse playground equipment for $95,000 and that's a rough number on November 10, 2015 meeting. And then in March 1, 2016, there was an emergency called meeting for the city council and they expended approximately $85,000 for pour and play, the surface covering for Eureka II. We found that the Parks Department staff report, this was in June 2016, that was presented to the mayor and the city council was inaccurate. Their ROI or return on investment calculations had inputs and assumptions that were incorrect and we've lined that out, the details of that within our report. The amounts raised by the foundations were understated for the historical period that was presented in that report and when comparing the historical to current foundation monies that were raised, it made it skewed and looked like they were doing significantly better fundraising now than they had historically so that was inaccurate. And there was not any accounting for the additional investment the city had made for office space, for the personnel time and different things like that within the ROI calculation that was presented. The foundation, also what we uncovered was the foundation signed the signage sponsorship agreement with an outside company, S&B Visionary, for a campaign to advertise on city property for $40,000. 25% of the proceeds that were received were to go to S&B Visionary and although we have not been able to lay our hands on that agreement between the foundation and S&B Visionary, the city was not a party to it and again this agreement was done without city management approval. Interviewees noted other commercial advertising at different city facilities and including a bank sign on the Eureka 2 playground equipment discussions, further discussions, some of those playground equipment certainly for Eureka 2 was donated and sponsored by particular individuals so that answered some of those issues but not all. But most importantly the city's agreement with the foundation does not address a foundation selling advertising on its property. There's a distinction here that makes a difference. There's DME signage on city property, there's Denton Police Department signage on city property but those are part of the city of Denton. The Parks Foundation while working with the city is not the city and the city did not, city council did not authorize this action. Okay the city parks department has an agreement with the youth sports association to collect this enhancement fee of $5 per register player. This has been happening for the city foundation records only go back so far in QuickBooks but as far as we understand this has been happening for 15 to 20 years. The payments though are going to the foundation rather than to the city even though the foundation is actually not a part of this agreement. We looked into the foundation's records and during our scope period the foundation had collected about $48,000 from the association and had paid out to the youth sports association about $55,000 during the same time frame. The numbers don't necessarily match up because you can collect money and then spend it as necessary so you don't not limited to just spend what you collect in a certain year. So that's the difference in the numbers and why we haven't, those numbers don't match. It makes sense to us and it was beyond our policies and procedures to go back and reconcile that but that's one of the recommendations that we have here in a moment. So let's talk about recommendations. We recommend that, okay, so the recommendations really have an assumption that the parties are going to move forward together. So I mean that's up to this obviously US City Council to do that so that's kind of an assumption that we're making for these recommendations so take that into consideration as we talk through this together. Evaluate the city's arrangements with the foundation and determine whether or not it's in the city's best interest to continue and what that should look like for any given period of time. I think first and foremost there should be a memorandum of understanding that really sets out the relationship between the city and the foundation clearly defining roles and expectations, maybe giving benchmarks of what needs to be achieved and talking about the flow of money between the two entities. So the lack of the memorandum of understanding I think really played a part in some of the confusion and some of what we're seeing here. But even further than a memorandum of understanding that's agreed upon and signed by both parties having policies and procedures around the interactions between the city and the foundation, I think this is particularly important with regards to the flow of monies from one to the other and how related parties and employees between one and the other are paid and things like that. So having a memorandum of understanding I think we think is very important, having policies and procedures as well. I think when it comes to a return on investment calculation that's very important for the city to have and to see and to understand but that should be computed and the matrices should be measured in a defined way that everybody understands what the inputs of that and whether or not and how it makes sense. It needs to accurately reflect the investment by the city that they're making and the benefits that they're receiving from the arrangement. And define a reporting mechanism for the executive director of the foundation to report to somebody at the city perhaps outside of directly the parks director to provide some sort of control and accountability. For the youth enhancement fees the payments really should be remitted to the city rather than to the foundation so the city would then be responsible to administer those funds and to see the request from the youth sports association to release those funds. Alternatively it could be terminated the agreement that's currently in place with the youth sports association could be terminated and you can develop a new arrangement where the funds do go to the foundation and if that's how you all decide to do that. We do think that the city should request the foundation do it provide its own accounting of the funds that were collected and disperse for the history of those funds. That was outside of the scope of what our time period scope and outside of the scope of what we were hired to do but we feel it is appropriate that you all ask the foundation to provide a full accounting of those funds since they were by contract supposed to be sent to you all rather than to the foundation. One of the things that we have on city operations is to implement a code of conduct policy. We haven't seen that in the parks foundation or parks department or really citywide so maybe we didn't have our hands on the right thing but if there's a code of conducts policy in place we didn't see it and I think that's very very common to have and something that's important to have. Also performing an annual conflicts of interest disclosure for city council and the department heads I think that is something that we see and we recommend to many municipalities and it identifies business relationships of themselves and of their direct family members and it's really focused on transparency with regard to the whom the city does business with and actually having pen on paper and signing on a yearly basis I have disclosed all my conflicts of interest I think as something that we find would be important. Required that the receipt of money donated to the city for the use of the parks be there be donor agreements set up with that so it can be clearly defined what that money was supposed to be for and some accountability to the donor of how that is spent. Our recommendations for the foundation are to implement control processes around the cash handling and procurement. Similar to what they already have in place for the receipt of money and for the spending of money they have some policies in place but I think they need to expand them to envelop all the different parts of the accounting process. I think this would reduce we think this would reduce tempt ations for individuals to direct activities towards a certain vendor and put some controls in place. We believe that the foundation should also develop a conflict of interest policy and a code of conduct that will help them identify formally conflicts of interest. More timely entry of financial transactions we think this should be done within one to two weeks of the transaction taking place. Our analysis showed that it was kind of sporadic but close to a month to two months after a transaction took place in the formal book keeping records of the foundation during the scope period that we analyzed. This will help the reports to both the city and to their own board be more accurate and timely. Set up procedures around the recording and tracking of pled ges. Their financial system can be used for that and so we suggest that they utilize the financial software package they already have in place to record when something is pledged to the foundation and then they can record how that is actually received and they can track that better and know kind of who they need to follow up with and that type of thing. And then enter the addresses of the vendors. There are significant amounts of vendors within their general address system that didn't have any addresses for to further identify conflicts of interest that potentially could be there. Okay. So that does wrap up our main section of our presentation on the finding of our report and we will turn it over for questions. Mayor Pro Tem. Can you pull the report up on the big screen? I don't know. Okay. One of the BKD report or? Thanks. Particular page? 22. 22 of the PDF? Yeah. Well, 22 of your report. Okay. Let me see where you're at. Right in here? Yes. I'm trying to figure out how much Eureka cost and I spent quite a bit of time looking at the various numbers for 2015, which is when the Eureka expenditures happened. If I'm mistaken here as far as when Eureka expenditures happened, let me know. But 2015 was the year that there were the largest number of fundraising funds provided to the Parks Foundation. So on this page it says the breakdown of the foundation's program expenses by year for 2015 was 492,600. And then the last paragraph says based on the data entered into the QuickBooks, the revenue raised was 434,000 and the expenditures were actually 392,000. On the Guide Star for the 2015 tax reports, the Form 990, it says that the Parks Foundation raised $589,978 in 2015. And that number actually matches much more closely to the informal staff report that Emerson Vorall provided to council in which he claimed that $552,000 had been raised and provided to the city in 2015. So I'm really just trying to figure out did the city get 500,000? Did we get 392,000? How much money did we get for Eureka? Because in 2015 absolutely none of the numbers are matching from the Parks Foundation taxes to our IFS to QuickBooks. There's not one matching number. Okay. So you're quoting the 492,000 that's on the top of that and that is program expenses. So that would be all of the programs that they have, including the scholarships that they paid out for Juneteenth and on all those other programs that the Park Foundation had during that year. Okay. So the scholarships, in another part of the report it said the scholarships totaled $60,000 for five years, if I remember correctly. Was that not accounting for everything? Well, I mean there's many things that go into that number. I mean all of the different programs that they have. So Eureka 2 is one of many that they have. But if we break down that 492,000 to specifically what they categorize within their QuickBooks system as Eureka 2, that was 392, but I'm not sure which year that is. So we can slice and dice the QuickBooks number in a lot of different ways. So we hadn't intended for the chart at the beginning up here to match what Eureka 2 program expenses were. And I agree that it wasn't that far off of the 990s, but what we had to work with was what they had in their QuickBooks, which we could have possibly gotten some clarification on that having talked to the treasurer. Okay, so when you say it wasn't that far off, the 990 for 2015 said that it was $589,000. I want to make sure that we're talking about the same. Yeah, me too, because I'm trying to figure out where the numbers, you know. When you say that the 990 for 2015 said $590,000 or $89,000 , are you looking at the program expense line item? I'm looking at public support, which would include gifts, grants, contributions. So that's the line item is gifts, grants, contributions. So that's revenue. That's money that they raised, not money that they expended . So this down here program expenses is money that they exp ended during that year. Okay, so there's a difference of $100,000 between money raised in 2015 and money expended in 2015. Am I getting that right? Yeah, that very well could have been, yes. Okay, so why was the city asked to spend $180,000 for the E ureka Park? I wasn't here, so I just, I don't know. I don't know that we know our understanding from our interviews, which they just didn't have the cash for Eureka too. So part of the money that you're seeing, $100,000, I mean, part of that was the city's support of $77,000 to them would have been in that. So that couldn't have been used for Eureka too. Well, $77,000 didn't start in 2015. Okay, so the $35,000 and the other things that they had received. So I mean, just from the interviews that we had seen it and the numbers, they have some money actually left and remaining $35,000. So the numbers that they had raised, $343,000 and they had expended almost $400,000 specifically for Eureka too is the numbers that we were provided within the bookkeeping. So okay, so I have another question. You mentioned, you know, I think Councilmember Gregory might be able to give you some clarity on I think you asked a question about why they need them. Is that the question you said? If you're open to that, if not, okay. What I remember and we could go back and people could go back and look at the tape, but a representative from the Parks Foundation board came and said, while we've raised this money, not all of it is in cash, part of it is in pledges and it's coming in over time. Some people wanted to give, but they didn't have a lot that they could give at any one time so they pledged it out. And so because the playground was under construction and it needed to be completed, the idea was for the city to go ahead and make those purchases to get the rest of the equipment to finish building the playground and as the foundation collected those funds that they would reimburse. So that's my understanding of the answer to your question of why they didn't do it all at one time and why they needed to ask for that from the city to finish building the playground. Let me ask an accounting question then. So when their 990s say that they received gifts, grants, contributions and the amount of $589,978, would that include pledged amounts or is that hard cash amounts? I think that may depend on whether they're using a cash or a accrual. They're using a accrual. Then it would include pledges. Okay. Well then that makes sense. The other question I had was regarding the procurement issue that you brought up. So I'm assuming that all of the things that the Parks Foundation paid for were not done through the Texas Purchasing Act, putting out bids for the lowest bidder, correct? That's our understanding, yes. Okay. So then I guess what I'm trying to get at is when we paid $ 95,000 for a playground or we paid $85,000 for the poor and play, because they were emergency purchases, we wouldn't have put it out for a bid for the lowest bidder either if I 'm understanding it correctly. That could be a legal question. Joya, jump in. But for the $95,000, that was not an emergency. My recollection is that wasn't an emergency purchase, but that that was as part of the contractor installing all of those things. But the poor and play was an emergency, but they did get three bids. The agenda paperwork backs up the three bids. So they did get the lowest responsible bidder on that one. Okay. So that was my question regarding procurement. I guess they're just not bound to it, but it sounds like on part of it, they actually did follow some bidding processes. Well, the city did because we were paying for the poor and play directly. I see. So we did that to make sure that we got the lowest responsible bidder. I echo what Joya Mass says and Todd, we did not see any procurement policies in place for the Parks Foundation. Well, for me, that's really troublesome because I mean, part of the whole purpose of the Taxes Purchasing Act is to make sure that taxpayers are getting the best deal for public structures or public benefit. And by virtue of going through a nonprofit, basically, you don't have to do that. So I think it presents something that's worth considering in the future at the very least. One more about the ROI calculation, which was on page 15, on the PDF 15. Okay. So let's see. I'm sorry, 16. It's the graph. Okay. Not the staff graph, which is garbage, but this graph. Yep. 2015 approximate city investment. Okay. So we're using what number for 2015 again? So is it the 500,000 or is the 400,000 number of DPF funds raised? Okay. I think it appears that it is the, from the graph, it looks like it would have been the full amount, not just Eureka 2, it was just the full amount . Okay. That was raised. So then if we're breaking down the city portion of this, we have the ED salary, which was 35,000 that year. Then we have invoices and is that the 180,000 for the emergency purchases? Yes. And then you have staff time and that's the accounted for staff time that you were able to trace or is that more than just that? No, that is more. It is an estimate that's down there, the footnote on page 15 that we estimated. It had the 173 that we know about and then we just estimated, I think up to 300,000. So not quite double that, but we know that the marketing personnel were working full time on Eureka 2 during that year. Okay, so you're not just including the parks employees that we have actual trace time for? That's correct. It does have an estimate in there. Okay. And then the unpaid rent obviously is just the historical agreement that there had been between the city and Parks Foundation. Correct. So what is that number? I mean, is it par, is it higher? I can't tell by the graph. I don't think it is in the footnote and we didn't actually provide those specific numbers. We can provide them to you, but it just basically trying to visually show the difference between what was in the parks director staff report and what I think the actual, you know, visually what it should have been closer looking like. Can you scroll to 15 so that people that are watching can see it as well? The parks department represented to council that the return on investment was almost 15 to one if I remember correctly, because there was only a $ 35,000 investment and we received $552,000, which we know now that we didn't receive that much money. So that's the difference that you're trying to delineate in the report. Am I understanding that correctly? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions on the report? Yes, Councilmember Briggs. I have a question on the sports fee, the $5 fee that went to the parks foundation, which is a nonprofit. For those of us who have paid that fee, unknowingly that that's where it was going is, did the city need to go back and issue the people who I guess paid that to the parks department a tax form of some sort? Like a tax donation? I was going to point to her and say that was more her decision. The parks foundation did collect it and I think that it would be a matter of measuring that out because the city took it and remitted it to the foundation. So we need to get an accounting from the foundation, I would think, as far as a charitable contribution receipt. Right. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Gregory? Well, for accuracy, I don't think the city took the money. The parks, we're talking about the field assessment fee and field enhancement assessment fee that was collected not by the parks foundation. It wasn't collected by the city. It was collected by the sports associations when the kids signed up when they registered, right? And then they remitted it to the city. Which? No, they didn't remit it to the city. They wrote the checks to the foundation. So let's talk, if I could ask a couple of questions on that . Because I think accuracy here is important because, you know, I read in the paper that it was the parks foundation that was collecting the fee and they weren't collecting the fee. And then here it says that a conclusion is that the city had not authorized assessment of the field enhancement fees. But I'd heard somebody say that this has been going on for 15 or 20 years. So did anybody go back and look 15 or 20 years ago to see if there was ever a resolution or an ordinance passed authorizing the fee? I did not. Okay. So and it could very well be that there was or it could be that there wasn't. And I unfortunately I left a folder at home that had all of my notes for this. But it seems that in the last couple of weeks we got a copy of a contract between the city and the youth sports association. And in that contract isn't there some reference to the field enhancement fee? The newer one? Yeah. Oh, that would be a question for staff. I haven't seen any of the new ones. The one that's currently in place. Is there a reference to the field enhancement fee in the current contract? I recall seeing that there was and it seemed like there was a $5 fee that should have been payable to the foundation. That's my recollection, but do you have any more specifics? The previous agreements did reference the fee enhancement or the enhancement fee. The 2018, the new contract removes that language. But those previous to 2018 did have that reference. So the ones previous to 2018. So that, can you just sort of summarize what we said in that contract between the city and the sports associations? Just based on the information that I'm aware of and the history on that had been that that particular funding was used towards field enhancements for the sports fields specifically. The three associations would determine how that money would be spent. So in those previous contracts, it actually outlined that those three associations would vote on how that money would be spent, a purchase or so forth, whether it was an enhancement in terms of a purchase or a field enhancement in terms of turf. But then that had to be approved by the parks department. So they couldn't, you know, they couldn't vote to, let's say, install a neon sign without having had that approval or discussion first with the parks department. So that agreement between the city and the youth sports association actually mentions the parks enhancement fee, right? It mentions it. So that agreement was ultimately attached to a resolution or an ordinance that was approved by city council. Is that right? The 2018 is the one. What about the 2017? I mean, aren't all of those? No, sir. Those contracts aren't approved by the council? No, sir. That the ones that we, the one that we brought to you for resolution and approval was the 2018. So we're now changing a practice so that so that that comes . Well, that that practice could continue. It's just removed from the agreement that we have specifically and directly with the sports association. Okay, I just wanted to make sure I was really understanding what was going on. Thank you. I might I might close a loop on the original, maybe one of the original questions from council member Briggs about the contribution receding of these fees . I want to say that if a nonprofit organization receives a $ 500 contribution or more, believe it's I believe that's the accurate amount that then that the nonprofit organization is more or less obligated to provide a receipt because the taxpayer has to provide a written correspondence from the the charitable organization that the taxpayer gave to if the IRS was to question the deductibility of that contribution. When you're talking about smaller contributions, less than $500. Oftentimes charitable organizations may not provide a detailed receipt for those because the taxpayer doesn't have to have a receipt from the organization, but the taxpayer just has to show like their cancel check to to the IRS. Does that make sense? So when you're talking about requirements for receding, I didn't want to overstate that. Any other questions? One more. Yes. One of the slides said that there was an ongoing disagreement between the city and the foundation regarding payments for the Eureka to playground. Yes, sir. What's that based on? What is based on that the city the city ordinances neither one of those ordinances in the ordinance itself had language that had a reimbursing mechanism in those ordinances. However, the agenda information sheets in the backup, which is so quote unquote legislative history for what the council took action and reflects that you would be that the council you would be reimbursed for those funds. However, after speaking with Mr. Culp and reviewing parks minutes that were made available to us, there's been no formal action on the part of the parks foundation to agree to reimburse those. So it's it it it is styled an ongoing disagreement because it could easily. Well, when I think of a disagreement, I think of I that there's some minutes from the parks foundation that says we will not pay any more money to the city for Eureka, even though we collected it. And there's nothing like that is there. No, there's no minutes from that I was basing that on or I would think that if there was a disagreement, this agreement might be that the city says puts an invoice out saying we've paid this amount you said you would pay it back. Will you pay some of it? And they say no. Has that happened? We have not tendered an invoice correct. So then again, what's the basis for saying that there's a dis ongoing disagreement about about reimbursement? Because, well, I used I used those words. I selected disagreement based on my understanding of what there's been no legal exchange between the two entities as a whole. But my understanding was that there were certain certain individuals believe that they are entitled to reimbursement. The City Council is based on the representations made to them. Then then the Parks Foundation through its board president told us that there is no formal action authorizing reimbursement. So their position is they would not reimbursement, although not stated through the Parks Foundation minutes. Well, I just caution on that because I think just like no one council member can speak for all of council, no one member of the Parks Board Foundation can speak for all of the parks board on that particular thing. And my understanding is that they have money in their account specifically earmarked for Eureka and, you know, we've asked them to suspend their operations. So suspending their operations mean they are not collecting money and they're not writing checks for any money. So, you know, I would think that that probably after this is all done, we could say, you know, invoice them for those differences and they could pay us as those contributions continue to come in. Yes, sir, that would certainly. But that wouldn't constitute necessarily a disagreement. If they say no, then yeah, there's going to be a disagreement. Well, there might be a disagreement. I think that it is just that the party's positions on that don't seem to be aligned. So that was. Sure. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem. A couple things when I wanted to clarify something you said about, you know, one member of the board not speaking for the entire board. I seem to recall an email exchange where the parks foundation did authorize Mr. Culp to speak on behalf of the board. Am I am miss remembering that or I mean, I have a pretty clear recollection of he is authorized to speak on behalf of the board. Why I don't believe I reviewed any council parks foundation board minutes that would say that there weren't any board minutes. It was a copied email to everybody that's on the parks foundation board and it was to you and us. And it's basically authorized him to speak on behalf of the board. And my understanding for that was not to bind them contract ually, but to be the point person for the contact of that. But but you are correct if he did designate. That's kind of what I'm trying to clarify because I mean, you're right, one member can't speak for the board. But in that context, my understanding was that he was speaking for the board. But I just wanted to clarify that. The other thing I wanted to go over perhaps with the manager is the conclusion section. I know that in our agenda, we're authorized to we reserve the right to provide general direction to city staff regarding next steps and future funding and operations of the parks department. And so I wanted to get your feedback in terms of your opinion as to whether these recommendations for cleaning up the relationship and providing a level of accountability that the taxpayers deserve with this relationship is actually something that is feasible. The I think it's feasible. I have not had any conversations with representatives of the park foundation in terms of continuing the relationship and items that need to be worked out at the request of council while we let our team do their research and interviewing unobst ructed. So I'd need to reach out to that to members and just discuss their willingness to work through some of the things that clearly affect both parties . I will tell you on the on the recommendation, the conclusion side of items that we fully control. Those are pretty easy cleanups in my mind. So it really gets down to whether the council believes there's a desire and value in continuing that relationship and whether the park foundation believes there's value in continuing that relationship and addressing some of the recommendations that are made. But I would never say never simply because I haven't had those conversations. So is the idea that the park that the city would continue to provide in kind support in terms of staff time and resources to the parks foundation to buttress their mission? I think that would not be my intention going in. But again, if should the conversation get restarted about how we would kickstart that relationship again, we'd need to go through methodically all the recommendations that are made here. And I think what we're hearing from our our experts who've analyzed the agreement is that there's a number of basically rules of engagement that need to be very clearly laid out, which would address the question you're asking and how we you know what we would pay for, how that would be accounted for, how that would be recognized in any discussion of ROI, that sort of thing. So really the breakdown, I think that something that need to be fixed is is specifying what our relative roles and responsibilities are much more clearly. My intention would be there would be no just like any other agreement with an outside agency, no services provided to on city staffs behalf unless the council is aware of it and authorize it up front. So here's one thing that I'm getting caught up on, which is if the relationship with the parks foundation continues, are we essentially going to be in a situation where we don't have access to their treasurer, and we don't have access to their accounting protocols in the future because it seems from Mr. Coleman's legal counsel that that seems to be the case that there's not a wide scope of authority for the parks foundation to cooperate with us on a financial manner. I think we can I think we can address that if you have two willing parties. I think we can certainly address that in terms of exactly what requirements that the city council would be wanting to have embedded into any relationship and and we would manage those requirements. So obviously it would take a willingness on both parties to agree to that. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs and then Councilmember Ryan. So I have a question also for city manager. According to the report, there were some definite issues where the city department was at fault and needed to correct something. So have they been corrected or are they currently in the process of being fixed? We're basically building a list of items that need to be corrected. We've already started as the council is aware with the recent revision of the policy with the youth sports associations. But to be honest, we have not moved too much further other than halting any any of these practices with the foundation until we got the city council 's direction on whether you accepted the report, we're comfortable with it. At that point, we'll put together a sheet that a matrix and we'll start knocking these issues out. And we also need your advice and eventually on reaching out to the foundation. But these are fairly easy cleanup issues. And I don't think in this current environment with our current management structure, you would see authorizations of the use of city personnel and policies like have been pointed out in this chart. We're not going to do something that's on our radar and we just would not tolerate. That's my ride on the issue of selling the signage. Was there anything that you found in the board minutes that indicated they felt like they had the right to sell signage on city property? No, no, there was I did not see a lot of discussion about SMB visionary at the board level at all. The only discussion that I saw from the parks foundation board minute review was when they were talking about signage in general and how some board members felt that that the parks foundation was part of the city. That's why I mentioned the particular issues they said, well, DME gets a deep the police department get signage, but those are entities of the city while the parks foundation again is is something that assists the city. They are not the city. And so they were discussing how whatever they needed to have input into the rules and the signage aspects of it, those types of things. But the SMB visionary contract I did not see. I have not seen the contract. I've not been provided a copy of that contract nor am I aware that it was discussed at a board meeting. And if I remember right, I couldn't quote what page in the report was, but I thought that part of that or somewhere in what we've seen some of the signage was sold through the company, but some of it was sold prior to that. Yes. Directly. Well, some of the some of some there had been some corporate sponsors that had been dealt with directly. And I know that one referenced an email by the former parks director when when an employee had asked about particular signage, they said I'd ask for forgiveness rather than permission. So there had been certain particular corporate sponsors on some things and particularly Eureka to there were there were folks that had signed up and purchased that equipment. So that that explains why those things were on that but other city equipment and particularly the signage at at different city locations was was called into question about that. Okay, so the blurred lines there was some history in there that that was created by the parks director to to that extent that will ask for forgiveness kind of creates that blurred line of. It seemed to me after what I reviewed in the interviews that I that I conducted that he believed he was working in the best interests of the city, but that he did not have authorization to do the things that he did. And he did not he did not seek that in this in this entity, of course, is the policymaking body and you all didn't know anything about that. Thank you. Any other comments? I've got just some comments. Yeah, yeah, because I want to make sure everybody else. Yeah, we don't we don't have this isn't I mean we've got some speakers citizen reports in the regular council meeting addressing the report and just, you know, being addressed from people of the parks foundation board but for most int ents and purposes this if you're going to make comments. This is probably one of the better times to do it as far as just a reflection or whatever your comments may be. So certainly want to give counsel the opportunity to do that because I certainly have some so anybody know customer greater you had customer. We'd heard that that some of the cost of this study. By the way, you wouldn't be surprised to hear that that in the community there are some people that are criticizing the city council for spending this much money for the study but my personal feeling was is that once the the review or the investigation got started it had to be completed, so that everybody could be satisfied that that it was thoroughly done and that that if there were issues found they were properly dealt with. When did you guys finish all of the interviews that you were doing with city staff and with parks foundation board members? The formal interviews were concluded on December 21st and then there was ongoing discussion with certain personnel trying to seek additional follow-up information through January 16th. But sometime in January I remember us getting an estimate of what the whole investigation was going to be and it was going to be about $91,000. This is this is roundabout and this was in January. Then on February the 6th we got a revised estimate that it was going to be no more than 115 again around a number and then the following week on February the 13th we got a revised estimate of about 141. So that's about $50,000 more from January to now. That's 55% of the total amount. Well 55% increase from January to now. So some early reports had it that that that that these additional costs were because of a lack of cooperation on the part of some people on the parks foundation but but all of this 55,000 that's happened since January is none of that could be attributed to the parks foundation. It's basically council asking for more information or to to to redo a report or something like that isn't it? It's I think the $91,000 was based on an assumption that we would and correct me if I'm wrong y'all jump in but that we would the BKD would present a written report and that would be it and then I my involvement would be done and I think after further discussion it was decided that there needed to be additional follow-up and additional questions. So that additional money is because we've asked you all to come back for for public presentations in addition to the written reports. And respond to follow-up questions just because we wanted to be accurate. All right thank you. We have Councilmember Ryan then Councilmember Hudsworth. Well I just just want to kind of make a little statement I don't have any further questions on it it's more I really see this as the blurred lines. I see that you know over the course of the last few years we've really worked on transparency within the city and this was something that you know whether it had more to do with the fact that our internal auditor left abruptly without any notice how it would have transpired you know did that drag this process out longer and make it seem like it was more of an issue than what it truly was. And it's just it's something that need to be cleaned up it 's something that now we can work move forward on cleaning it up and I hope that our relationship with the Parks Foundation can be recreated and come back stronger than ever. Councilmember Hudsworth. So Miss Skinnerway I just want to belabor one point and that is if I take the opposite of what the city manager laid out the two parties don't agree. If we have a contract if it's cleaned up if we adhere to every step laid out if we make every change laid out and then some if the two parties don 't agree there's nothing outside of lawsuit that can mandate cooperation. Well I think to the extent we're engaging in hypotheticals because I can't legal advice in a public forum hypothetically I'll ask I'll phrase that hypothetically. So I believe that if there's if the two parties don't come to an agreement right now then there's nothing and what what is it that you want to. So my point is there's no contract that could be papered up there's no wording if a party because they don't work for the city because they're their own entity if they decide not to cooperate and ignore the contract that's their right to do so. Oh so if if we engage in a contract and if the an outside entity didn't comply with their contractual obligations that would be either the right remedies under the contract arbitration mediation or litigation yes sir. Right so there's nothing to compel them by just words alone and agreements if one of the parties changes their mind. No they would just pursue the remedies under the contract. Outstanding yeah and that's that's simply my point that I don't I don't see a path forward as a cohesive unit I see a path forward as two separate entities and I I've asked before and I'll ask someone again what what precludes them from proceeding as their own entity and contributing and helping the parks as a separate entity that just donates money to a particular project or to a particular cause. I just don't understand any preclusion there that allows them to operate autonomously and and not have to deal with the same regulations that we do they can still raise money they can still do all those things unless I'm missing something. So again I asked that question openly if someone can tell me something that they're concluded from doing if they operate as their own entity then then I 'm all ears. Councilmember Duff. Yeah I kind of mirror what what Councilman Ryan said. I kind of I'm sitting here and kind of feeling somebody from the outside coming in looking at this. And I hate to be a money morning quarterback but if I look at this I always spent a lot of money you know going through all of this. It's really really a shame that both sides didn't sit down and get in a room and resolve this thing and you know I and I say that it's that's in hindsight and I'm not meaning that to be critical. Okay but you know there's not any wrongdoing the parks foundation is being doing a lot of good stuff in this city and I think it needs to be continued but we need to kind of I guess push the reset button is that a good word and and and move forward. Yes Mayor Pro Tem. Can you can somebody scroll up to the next page. I think it was 16. I'm sorry other way. Yep for me that's the most informative graph in the in the report. I mean I'm with Councilman Hutzpeth there's nothing stopping anybody from donating to a cause that they deem worthy but the idea that somehow we 're getting a good return on our investment by virtue of our relationship I think is has been patently disproved at this point and I would have liked to not spend that much money to to actually have the data to prove it but unfortunately we didn't have the level of cooperation that we needed and we didn't have the level of record keeping that we needed and accountability that we needed at the city so we weren't able to get there without spending quite a lot of money which is what happens when your auditor gets run off. So I I'm not really interested in moving forward in a financial sense I mean I don't think the city's I voted against the the seventy seven thousand anyway because I wasn't comfortable with it then and I had one iota of information that I do now now that I have all this information I'm I mean there's no way that I can get behind the parks foundation or contract with the parks foundation there's it just doesn't make financial sense at all even putting aside you know the transparency issues accountability issues it makes absolutely no financial sense and frankly supporting the parks should be our function as the city I mean there's it bothers me to think that you know an accessible parking or accessible accessibility at the parks is dependent on public donations that should be something that we allocate in our general fund every year you know that's on us if we're not funding the parks that's on us but there's not a good reason to move forward with a financial arrangement that's not working so that we can absolve ourselves of the need to support our parks so I say we support our parks and they can get the donations that they need but I don't think that there should be money changing hands between us anybody else I just have a couple of comments before I forget them because a couple of you said comments that I'm I know that you were taking editorial license like auditor getting run off I don't I personally don't know why the auditor left I mean if somebody does know I certainly would encourage them to at least let me know because I sure have tried to determine that but and councilmember Duff I certainly understand what you're saying about you know getting into a room to resolve these things and for the most part that's how issues get resolved here we had a process that this council put in place and that was the fraud waste and abuse hotline it was a new process for us it is a new process for us and we put it in place and we hired our second I believe internal auditor before hiring the most recent one and you know so they are looking at the things that come in on that that's the process and I think councilmember Ryan I haven't thought about it in this way but I think you 're really right in the sense of if that hadn't have happened if we hadn't had that break in continuity what would have been you know the time or some of these more I'm going to say informal meetings but in other words we'd have had a continuity of review and personnel instead of hiring you know outside firms not that there's anything wrong with hiring outside firms but I think the council was committed to maintaining the process in other words if we'd have said oh the internal auditor left we're done we got to scrap this that would not have been a good precedent for anybody for the city for the parks foundation for any other people in the city that might you know fall into this kind of situation so that was the process that we put forward and if there's some different process or twe aking of that process we certainly have the opportunity to do that and let's let's just address the the the article in the paper that came out with a letter to the foundation which nobody knows how it got there and I'm not saying it should or shouldn't have and I'm not blaming the media for putting out what it did but let's just talk about that I mean the the mark of a good organization is to be able to admit when we could do some things differently we can make some changes and I've always said had a professor in law school all contracts are scar tissue in other words we do things differently because something happened probably in our past that causes us to make a change and it was unfortunate that that occurred it was unfortunate with what that created in the community it's unfortunate with that created you know with the with the board members of the parks foundation because they've been committed to the quality of life for our parks in this community for a long time I gotta tell you like any relationship you gotta go back and look at it it doesn't matter what's personal or business or what you spend 15 20 years on something sometimes you gotta go back but so we sent out a press release and I want to I want to read it just one sentence of it because we sent it out one week later I believe after that and the very reason we did was to try to at least clarify that we're not sure exactly what's going on but here's here's what and here's what the press release says and I don't remember getting a whole lot of pushback from anybody on the release of this it says as the investigation has progressed the reviews focus has centered on the historical informality of the parks and recreations department operations policies and procedures if you could sum up this report in one sentence that's what it is and it does have some things that you know from the foundation's perspective as we're looking at this you know maybe there's some things you could do different but that's up to them to decide we can only decide what the city does and we could have done some things differently and I think as we've seen over the last year there's been many situations not just this one where we could have done some things differently and we are doing them differently as far as where this relationship goes moving forward you know the contract ual arrangement primarily stems from any type of funding that's being placed any type of office space that's being utilized or all those kind of things so that's a decision for this body to make what I am I certainly Mayor Pro Tem I appreciate your sentiment of notwithstanding what we do with the relationship with the parks found this city this council needs to be committed to its parks and we did we need to make sure that we understand that and I fully believe that the parks foundation is fully committed to their mission of ensuring that hey how can we enhance the quality of life of our community through our parks that's a that's a very relevant lofty and admirable goal for any organization because it's not about what we do for the city it's what they do for our community so as far as moving forward I mean I'm open to discussion what I don't want to do is what I'm trying to do and I hope that what we can do today and in the in the coming weeks is we 've got our report the press release says what it's focused on that's exactly what it was focused on how do we move forward and from here and and create an environment that is better than what it was before and that it allows the parks foundation to do what they do best it allows the city to do what we do best and we got some things that we need to do differently to do best and I believe this body and this and city management is committed to that so I'm glad that this process at least at this stage has come to a conclusion because I think it's time to to really put it behind us move forward I will certainly sit here and say as mayor of this city that if I had to do this all over again I would certainly want to do some things differently but that's how you learn and that's not admitting that somehow we've we've all sort of made some deliberate intentional things but we all find situations we're in that once the process starts it dictates where we go so my pronouncement of we're going to finish this investigation wasn't me pounding the table saying we 're going to find you know the skeletons in the closet it was saying we've committed to this process and we're going to see it through and I don't think anybody in here can say that I'm not a person who trusts the process and sometimes it needs to be changed so I feel confident moving forward we're going to find a way to resolve all these questions whether we have a formal relationship or not that remains to be seen because the parks foundation board also has to make some decisions but I do know one thing I truly believe that the commitment that the parks foundation board has to the quality of life of the citizens through through the parks I think that will continue and I think the commitment with the that the city has and this body has to making sure that the citizens money is managed efficiently and effectively that there's transparency and accountability and that also we spend our money in a way that maximizes the quality of life for our citizens I think those two things have existed and I think they will continue to exist and in this process we've seen that you know sometimes we have to go back and look at things and I appreciate your work of course nobody wants to spend this kind of money but I think that in the end the money spent on this will not only impact us where we move forward in this specific instance I think it will help us be more cognizant in other situations in our city and in other relationships that we have to avoid the blurred lines and just to make sure that we all understand what is going on so thank everybody for their patience and Councilmember Duff I'll recognize you but thank you for your patience thank you for everybody's commitment to reasonableness and trying to see it through to the end because this process could have blown up you know pretty easily and it didn't because I think people on all sides were committed to moving forward in a way that meets the needs of the community so I really do appreciate everybody's disposition in that regard Councilmember Duff. Well I pretty well agree with everything you said but I think there is a... Can I throw in a couple more things that you... no I'm just kidding I'm just playing with you. No no no no I totally agree with you. No no I think I think there there really is an overall lesson here for the council and everybody is that anybody that we deal with we've got to have good communication between us and them and I think the communication was not here and you know anytime anytime that happens there are potential problems that will pop up. Okay any more questions comments? If not we'll stand adjourned on this work session item and then we 'll let us take a 10 minute break and we'll come back to our agenda item. All right wanted to welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday February 20th 2018 we're back in session going back over our work session reports we are now moving on to work session oh it's two o'clock we're moving on to work session report 4B which is received report and whole discussion of staff direction regarding the development of an ethics ordinance. Welcome back. Mayor, council, hello good to see you again Alan Bor quez. We're here to cover module number four which is the last substantive set of questions and choices for you to make before you see a draft ordinance presented to you and sorry to hit you cold I wish we could have given you a better transition on topics like transparency accountability conflicts of interest and those sorts of things but I think you're ready to go and you see our list of discussion items for today. The first thing is a question regarding complaints. Complaints are what will trigger the enforcement aspect of your new ethics ordinance and you'll see from some of the samples provided to you in your packet different cities vary on who is allowed to come in and file a complaint thus triggering the process of perhaps preliminary review investigation hearing and adjudication. These are a couple of the samples that we have do you have any thoughts or questions about who's eligible to file complaints? Any comments? Yes, Councilmember Dutt. I think the first two up there I would agree to any member of the public outside of a resident here or somebody that owns property here I don't think should be able to and the reason I say that there are packs out there that go after people and I don't think we should let them involve our city politics. Yes, Councilmember Briggs. I would question that because we do we have contracts with lots of people that aren't necessarily either one or two of those that you mentioned that may have an issue that they need to bring to our attention so that would be my question to you and how would you handle that? Yes, Councilmember Dutt. I agree with that part of it if somebody doing business here and it's related to that business yeah they should be able to file a complaint. Well and I think you raise a good question that that is part of when I'm looking at the language and that is what if anything do you do to put into the process that really requires that that complaint have some validity I mean you've got a couple of languages examples where it has to be a sworn complaint in other words somebody's got to notarize they've got to attest to all that attesting language and how does that impact that and if it's found to not be as the complaint was presented so your point is well taken as how do we keep this ethics ordinance from being a tool to do something other than to provide an avenue for people to express or to file a complaint when they think something unethical has occurred is that so and so what has been your experience on you've heard sort of the framing of the issue at least how does what do you what do you think? You know nothing we do should be construed as an effort to curtail criticism of those of us that work with City Hall volunteer to City Hall as if we could it's going to happen one way or the other is it going to happen in person people standing at the podium is there going to be letters social media Twitter they're going to have their say the question before us today is who has the authority the ability to standing to to file some piece of paper at City Hall that triggers the mechanisms of our ethics ordinance and I would think that normally residents perhaps business owners perhaps contractors or any member of the city's family whether that's employees volunteers or elected officials some way to to narrow it to those that have an interest here within the city limits doesn't mean those folks that had their interest residences businesses are outside so doesn't mean they can't write a letter they can 't make an appearance they can't go to the newspaper it just means they're they don't have the power to trigger trigger the wheels turning on our Board of Ethics review that's the question okay so I'll repeat my question to you so given sorry no no no given that question what have you seen is the more used or accepted parameter to answer your question I mean I think the most common is any person okay all right that there is no limitation I 'm gonna go with Councilmember thank you and I got all my legal training by watching Bull and Matlock and all of those other shows but it seems to me that sometimes there's when you file a suit you have to have I think the legal term is standing yes sir and I think that means that somehow you're involved that that that you know you what does it mean well it would usually mean some statutes specify what standing is but I think generally it means you are aggrieved by this action you have some personal stake in this where you are harmed beyond just the harm to the general public and I think that's what would be more common when you look at issues of standing in terms of ethics it's usually interpreted much more broadly sure because if a person is not conducting themselves with integrity the organization has an issue right not just that member of the public but when I see the the examples of one of the one of the ordinances is any person who is a resident or who owns real property taxable real property within the corporate limits I mean that that includes a lot of people who would that include who would that exclude that might have a reason to file I use the example of a business owner who doesn't live here okay I mean they made they made they made lease property they don't own it the operative business and I think they have an interest in what's going on it's yeah they do yeah they do okay so that that would probably be too exclusive okay yes and I think I like the fourth example the best in that it doesn 't say who can file the complaint it just explains how to file that complaint because that complaint may be something that's witnessed by someone who is not a resident is not but has has knowledge of something that went on that was unethical and and so when you start excluding those you start excluding the ability for someone who may not even do business here but does business with somebody let's take the buying dinner over $50 the gift over $50 they might not have been party to that they might have witnessed it happen and if they aren't a resident or they don't own real property we start limiting that when we start listing who can and can't are you talking about example for worth or the other example yeah because Fort Worth says to example two in an example for example for okay the San Mar oh I'm sorry yeah I was I'm this mark I missed that too yeah five five yeah example five is the one that I just don't think that addressing who should be able to I think it should be open to pretty much anyone who would have knowledge that an ethical violation took place yeah because example five is about the sworn nature of the right right and I'm I'm I'm missed when I was looking back through it that that there was a you're saying anybody can file based upon whatever we choose as sworn or not sworn right I think it's more important that's the sworn statement than that it is a resident or a taxpayer okay Councilmember Br iggs I'm sorry right yes I I'm in agreement any member of the public should be able to to file I don't want to get into that start excluding people right off the bat especially if they have something of importance for any member of the public we're not limiting it am I is that what I'm hearing property owners or residents sorry Councilmember husband any member along with the with the first hand knowledge component yes and I would almost add a second wr inkle that they not that they be willing to are that there's a requirement for them to testify right because I think what you have is they're willing to stipulate to it in an affidavit but then if they don't follow that through with their testimony at some point if it's called upon then you've gone through all that for not because you're one person that witnessed it has refused to close the loop so I mean that's a that's a thought I have I mean even if we don't have traction for that as is but I think my concern is you get all the way down the road and that person says well I don't want to come forward then you've done all that for not because you don't have that eyewitness okay so go ahead so I would say I think what we're saying is we like example one about who can file which is basically anybody but we also like example five that if you're going to file you have to you have to swear to it and and say here are the details and I'm and I'm swearing that this is true okay so we have consensus for it to be any person with first hand knowledge the complaint must be in writing and it must be sworn is that accurate okay a key question that comes up every time we go through an exercise like this is is there some sort of limitations period is there a deadline by which people must bring a complaint or they've foregone their opportunity to do so and I don't have a recommendation regarding how long that should be but I do recommend that you pick something I think we should be able to put some some closure to require people to provide evidence and testify long after the activity took place is a little bit difficult and I question the validity of what you're going to get at that point so here's some options six months twelve months two years from the date the activity occurred is a common place to draw the line sometimes an ethics ordinance will go further and say well six months from the date that it became known that the thing occurred which I think is fine it gets more difficult to prove at that point I would prefer a discovery requirement because if you don't find out about something then you may have told your time period already okay I would go with twelve months as well twelve months of learning within twelve months of learning of the act or omission someone must file a complaint or they forego it I'm gonna struggle with that but I'll say my reasons why later councilmember Riggs that's good for me so the the event could have happened say six months prior but if somebody knew about our process and then wanted to file a complaint it would trigger that day from twelve months of finding out about the the issue is that what we're saying that's what's on the table right now okay that's my good well if we're gonna say it's within knowing then I would say it has to be a good bit shorter because it could have happened three years ago and and now I think I know that something happened and I'm gonna wait a whole another year and now it's four years after it happened I think that would put anybody in a real bind of trying to go back and recreate trying to at least people of my age to remember what happened four years ago 24 years ago I can but not four years ago so if it's gonna be from the time that one knew about it then I would want it to be six months why not what why couldn't if you think that there's something that happened why wouldn't you report it within six months councilmember Duff councilman Gregory just spoke my words I think that's scary that is getting scary because I you know I can see something happening three four five years ago and you just now discover it you know do you want to bring that up in here yeah I'm just gonna base it on something right because I think there's a lot of arbitrary numbers but I'll just base it on something just for for the heck of it but I lean on the the two years two years of prior election two years I get there because that's the time frame for a car wreck case to file a lawsuit so that's kind of you know step par for the course in my world and that's that's something to base it on so that you don't just pick an arbitrary number and then to I'll base it on the prior election because I think at that point it's actionable the person still in office it kind of has that component to it and so I that kind of appeals to me but I don't think two years is egregious because there's I'm assuming millions of car wrecks and in the state of Texas somehow that's that's worked this long so seems seems reasonable are you are you saying two years from the time someone knew about it or two years from the time it allegedly occurred two years from the time they knew about it so then it could be six years eight years could be you you could not be in office I mean I don't think that's a good number I think prior election is probably a more accurate number but if I had to choose a physical number than two for that reason but I think the more punitive is prior to the prior to the election it's more relevant because even if six months if if I'm going to be out of council in six months are then I get car watched to you know it just seems kind of at some point you could get hard to get to someone and make an action so I want to make sure I'm clear because I thought where you were going with it originally was two years from the alleged activity that would give rise to the ethics complaint when you mentioned the car wreck that car wreck happens you got two years to take care of that and then when you answer council members Gregory's question you said two years from when you should have known about it so if I did something three years later you find out about or you discover it or whatever and use and and when you find out about it then you have I'm going to say two years that's what two years from that so that means you've got a five- year kind of clawback or reach back or however you want to term it so just want to make sure you're saying sort of like what council member Gary said is from the time you learn about the allegation not when it allegedly occurred yes sir yeah I think that's okay good all right yeah I struggle with that you know not struggle with what you said but I struggle with the concept in general of you know when you should have known about it because then you've got to go through that whole process of how do you determine when you should have known about it or if it's just when you knew about it that really can that thing can drag this these things out so far and I thought is if we have an ethics ordinance that has teeth and if we do what we said we were going to do early on and that is make sure we educate the public make sure we educate the council make sure we educate the board members I think usually if people think somebody's done something wrong I don't think they wait too long to bring it up if they know that there's an avenue so I struggle with the discovery rule to be quite honest and and saying that that means if I'm saying from the time it's alleged that I'm okay with a longer time frame but I and I could get on board for a discovery rule if it had some maximum time from the time that quote- unquote the alleged event occurred I don't know I've just thought about that so you know well within six months of discovery but in no case longer than two years from the date of the incident yes that would be an example something along something along those lines or or even yeah two years or three years from the date of the incident because if someone's off of council and and so they somebody brings an allegation does that takes the there's no jurisdiction for the ethics board is that I'm trying to remember back what we decided who's subject to this so if I'm on council I do something I'm not reelected six eight months later somebody brings a complaint what happens where you left it when we discussed that was you wanted this ordinance to apply to the City Council to the city manager city attorney city secretary department heads and to the planning and zoning commission and board of adjustment okay and then we discussed a a parallel set of rules that you adopt that will be put into the HR world to cover all other employees that's where you left it all right so I'm okay with what you said about six months if you you know you got six months to bring it after you know about it now you said two years you know no more than two years after the fact you know I could you know I'm not sold on that I mean I would agree to two years but if somebody said two and a half or three I'm okay with that but I'm gonna really struggle going past that so that means you've got at least a time frame that says okay if you're gonna bring something bring it I mean we don't want there's a lot of strategic reasons for people to wait till the end of a tolling period or a discovery period to file lawsuits we don't want that to become part of this process where it becomes a strategic kind of decision I mean if somebody's done something that's on that's for their claim it is let's deal with it let's address it and if not okay let's move on so yes councilmember Duff well prior to election I mean what does that mean does that mean a month two months I would say two months I don't even know what it means this is this is kind of a minority rule you don't see it as often but the thought is once somebody is elected or reelected you can't bring ethics charges against them for things they did prior to that election oh yeah when someone's alleged it's an old common law rule that you see sometimes in ethics ordinances that basically says when voters elect someone they're charged with knowing what this person has done and that election wipes the slate clean it sounds familiar to some things that have been stated in other arenas so okay I'm good with I'm good with what you said the six months the two years I am now I don't know everybody else we can start with that yeah somebody okay yes well I was I was thinking that prior to election the other way is that somebody comes in you know just in about the time about right now and follows the complaint okay where where the there's no way that the complaint is going to be adjudicated but they're going to use it against the person that's on the council now did Alan didn't you say or maybe I'm just maybe had a dream about ethics ordinance and I just some came to me but didn't you say that some people that's what it is never mind I know you I thought I'd heard that Councilman Duff Councilman Duff led us led us to question number three that's his way of getting us out of this discussion he knew I was coming up yeah he's not that he won't ever use ethics as a political weapon and didn't but it does happen elsewhere what I would say to that is yes but that that that shouldn't count against the the the time frame the time frame the time delay now I don't know I think I think I like that maybe I don't think so how does that even work like during the election because is that from filing date from when they when they from when they file or because people start filing in January and so I mean I don't understand the timing of it it could be like six months period where no one can file a complaint is that what you guys are saying like I'm not in agreement with that yes that you do understand that's exactly what this is some cities will have in their ethics policy a blackout period so from the time someone files until the election has been canvassed you the Board of Ethics will not accept or entertain any ethics complaints against a candidate those can come afterwards but not during the process and of course the purpose of that is meant to cut down on just filing complaints as a political weapon during that highly charged period did we cover candidates in our ordinance they have not been listed as subject to this so far right so then why would this even apply incumbents it gives you a second chance to look at that question from this angle so you're you're you're running for reelection and and somebody thinks well what I can do to hurt your chances is to file an ethics complaint and now every piece of literature that comes out during the election cycle says Councilmember Briggs is is it has had an ethics violation filed against him well if it's a sworn affidavit it's something they have to prove no they don't have to prove it they just have to swear it well there are lots of people that swear and lie at the same time but what it also does is it allows a candidate or somebody running to to do whatever they want during that period and say that you know I mean I guess then after if they're elected then is that what you're saying that they can file the complaint sure I mean okay anybody any other comment on that yes I'm gonna say no blackout period only because again this is it becomes an enforceability question for me and I don't think you can just because this says you can't file an ethics complaint isn't gonna stop whatever they're gonna do right they're gonna raise those issues in a flyer in a in a mailer in whatever they want to do they're gonna it doesn't preclude them from doing it you know so for me it just doesn't it doesn't have teeth to to accomplish what I'd like for it to because I mean it's part of the process I mean our mailbox are full of it right now I mean you're not getting around that the practical part of it is is that there are some cities where most of the ethics complaints are filed against council members during an election cycle and it becomes a tool and and by not having a blackout period you're making that you're making that available just be aware of the consequences that's what you want and then that's what you get one other angle I'll contribute to the dialogue is that black out periods are not necessarily solely for the protection of the candidate the incumbent seeking re-election to an extent it's also for the protection of city staff the board of ethics the people that are involved in managing the complaint process you can imagine basically by filing complaints against candidates you're marshaling the city's resources your ethics infrastructure to go through this process the motivation may be purely politics and less integrity so there's there's there's different reasons why cities adopt blackout periods that's a couple of them have you have you I'm sorry council member Duff go ahead well you know if you allow the complaints to come in and go to start in the process whether they're true or false you're still validating that there is a complaint out there you know I don't think I just really don't think we we should allow during a blackout period of having complaints go into our process and council member Husbeth you I mean practically speaking I don't disagree with you that when we look at the mailers that we've received and all these kind of things the only difference is that in some ways and we are thinking about the darkest I mean let's face it we're talking about impugning upon someone's motive you know that dark heart so to speak of hey I don't care about whether you did anything right or wrong I 'm gonna use this process to harm you and get what I want it does happen all the time my hesitancy and I'm not even saying I'm for against this but as I'm thinking through it how can we mitigate if we do have a if we don't have a blackout period how can we mitigate the those who want to do it because then they're utilizing city resources then they're utilizing city staff they're utilizing the volunteers who are on the ethics board and all that sort of to do something that absolutely you're correct that otherwise they would have to do on their own dime using their own resources and their own people so I'm okay with not having a blackout period but I certainly would like to brainstorm a little bit about how we can really reduce the opportunity for abuse in that regard because it can be abused at no matter what time I mean somebody can do it just but when this first came up this this and you know people you know we're talking about the San Antonio ordinance as a as a as a template not as a hey but you know it's just something to get the conversation started you Google San Antonio an ethics complaint and I knew the mayor at the time and I think nearly every mayoral candidate had an ethics complaint filed against him during the election which okay if it was bad it was bad so I don't know if I'm opposed to it but how do are there can you think of things that that can be put in place I don't know if it's well if it's if it's during election cycle and it's proven to be in bad faith or you can't attest or you don't come testify that somehow is what's the consequence because we haven't really gotten to that point and what what is the consequence for someone who just by all intents and because if you file something for the wrong reason it will be found out it I don't know how you could do it or if you're just filing it to get attention and then all of a sudden we go down through this whole process and in the end you don't testify oh no we got to figure out a way to bring the hammer down on that because I don't think that's right I don't think it's fair I mean if you're going to accuse somebody of something you need to be able to stand in front of them and accuse them of that and they need to have the right to be able to quote unquote cross examine you as is a fundamental right within our juris jurisprudence so I'm okay with not having a blackout period and maybe it's just something we build in in general so if somebody files something bad this maybe it's not just specific to the blackout period but if you file a sworn complaint and it's deemed to be in bad faith and you literally have no whatever standard of evidence you want to put in there how do we you know that's just not fair and so that those are my thoughts let me have him respond and then I'll okay then you can later in this afternoon's session we will be getting to some questions I have for you regarding preliminary inquiries pre-screening opportunities to kick out complaints that don't merit going forward maybe that's where we can so if we're going to do that at this point do you want to say we'll leave the blackout well there won't be a blackout period and we'll address that maybe yes yeah yeah yes I happen to totally disagree okay and and the reason is you know if you put it in there where I don't know two months before the election or you know some some period of time that you have a black out there there's just not time you know to go through the process and ring everything out and there will be people that will file them and it gives some validity to them to use as you know attacks on somebody and they can be totally totally irrelevant so let me let me ask you about what you said that's coming up that may address some of that so you said that we're going to talk about procedures for filing and so forth and so on so at some point there comes a time frame or specific action or point of time where it's declared that we have a valid ethics complaint for x over if something comes in that is on its face false that's on its face has no substance behind the accusation you're saying you might could build in something that kicks that out before it even rises to quote-unquote we've accepted an ethics complaint or when it's filed with the city secretary or whoever it's filed with then it becomes a formal ethics complaint yes okay I'll be addressing some of those questions okay you have some options that I've identified okay now we'll be recommending all right so your opposition and points are noted and maybe we can figure out some things later on to help with that maybe I can give you an example sure you know Kaylee when you're you're sitting here running and is during the campaign and somebody comes in and files a a sexual harassment against you do you want to you want that to go to the go through the process well I think I guess I don't really understand the the question if I've done something wrong I want somebody to have the ability to be able to come and file a complaint I wasn't saying that you did anything wrong I just said that somebody comes in files a complaint like that I guess I have a better view of people maybe I'm a bit naive but I like to live day to day not thinking people have a plan to cut out to get out I guess so is that what you're saying I mean I'm not really I'm not that worried about it no maybe if you ask me again in a year or two I may change my mind but currently that's very answer that's very answer okay if I can I'll restate councilman Duff's concern if I understand it correctly one of your concerns is that if someone files an ethics complaint during a campaign cycle the process may not be such that you can adequately defend yourself and be absolved of that how the complaint dismissed or whatnot in time to keep the voters from voting based solely on the fact that a complaint was filed against you right and and if that is a concern that the council shares but we're not in favor of having a black out period then I think our discussion about pre-screening preliminary reviews is going to become more important okay that's one way to address okay so on a very fundamental level I assume you would want the city to put together a form for ethics complaints and require the complaints beyond that form people can obviously supplement but I think if we want to force people to ask answer certain questions and be clear a form is a good idea is it okay to say that yes the city will promulgate one all right who do you want your complaints to go to we discussed having your city auditor be the staff department that is supportive of the Board of Ethics that was a choice y'all made at our first work session and of course y'all can revisit that later but where do you want these things to be filed I think the most common place in ethics ordinances to be filed with the city secretary because city secretaries are very good about receiving and stamping paper but you can choose well that's like a zinger out there I don't know what that what I'm just kidding it was a compliment it's on the business card did you file it I don't know the city secretary tell me that you filed it so council comments yes council member Huss band I think as before I'd lean to the auditor's office just because it's the smallest so if it gets out of there we know who did it so there's no I mean there's no statutory I mean because I know the city secretary has certain statutory duties and you know things certainly have a legal effect when they reach you know the city secretary stamps it but in this case we don't have that we can simply say and but we have to put in processes and mechanisms whereby we can keep track of that we can use those kind of things I don't have a strong preference as to to whom these go I'm just recommending that you do designate an office otherwise anyone with an email address is receiving ethics complaints I would be dangerous I'm okay with the auditor that's where we said we wanted to sort of have them placed in the beginning anyway now I think I know the answer to this one based on our earlier conversations by one to put it to you directly this goes toward that the the the jurisdiction of the complaints you've indicated before that the board of ethics will have jurisdiction over the code of ethics so it's not just any complaint based on any source outside of that piece of law do you want to require that a complainant when they 're actually filing something say this person broke this rule and gives you a section number for me it may seem like a no-brainer that may be obvious because if you can't point to a rule that was broken does the board of ethics have any jurisdiction do we have any reason going through this exercise but I've actually been a special advisor outside counsel to boards of ethics before that say we don't care if we can't put our finger on a number what this person did was wrong what this person did stinks or it was suspect we need to go through the hearing process we need to hear from people we need to give the the complainant their day in court and if that's where we want to take our ordinance that's your choice I usually you know of course I'm a lawyer so I'm biased in favor of rules I usually say that the better ordinance are those that require a complainant to point to a particular rule and then go on to provide evidence that someone deviated from that rule yes is there something possibly that someone can do that our ordinance will be leaving out absolutely yes and no matter how hard I try or how diligently you work with me we will leave things out and sometimes you have to ask yourself if maybe your board of ethics is not the appropriate tribunal for certain things and someone else is one of the concerns that I have on a growing level these days is board of ethics being used as a one-stop all comprehensive complaint department right now and if ever someone's agreed by they didn't get what they wanted from board of adjustment or from P&Z or from some staff member well they're going to go file a complaint at board of ethics hoping to bring pressure get a do-over get some revenge they're not really concerned about unethical conduct so if you're going to go through the steps of defining what is ethical conduct what are the rules you must follow and what you must do or not do I would say someone needs to point to a section in the code an example I've seen in three cities in the last 12 months is I think the mayor and two or three council members have violated the open meetings act and yeah the these Texas Rangers are sniffing around and yeah the DA is pondering it but we don't trust either one of those groups to actually throw the no good bums in jail so I'm filing ethics complaints saying by violating the open meetings act you acted unethically and the wheels get set in motion the TV cameras show up the satellite towers go up and the city goes through the process of viewing people talking outside of a meeting as an ethics violation that's the kind of thing that can happen if you're not making people tie the conduct to a section in our code yes that actually is a section in the code open meetings I mean that is a section but say people think it's unethical for you to wear a t-shirt with a certain message on it at a council meeting or at a campaign function or at a city function and they file an ethics ordinance there's nothing in the code that says that you can't do that and so but you have offended their sensibilities by doing so so then they could they could file complaints for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with the code and and some people might do that I know I know you think that we want to believe the best in everybody but some people don't always have the best intentions okay is there anybody I mean I'm in favor of I mean this is all about just the simple due process of notice in other words what what am I being accused of what what have I got to be prepared for so I don't have a problem with pointing to that doesn't mean you got to point to section a to a triple IC but you want some level of notice of this is the code this section or whatever we want to say but I just think it's important because I think that will go to the the nature of helping discover this person's motive I mean if they because it's not going to be that hard to understand and it's not going to be that everything's clear-cut you just if this is the code well then there's going to be an ethic say did it violate this code or not but if you just say hey this happened where do you start I mean what starting point do you have so I'm in favor of I mean good grief if you're gonna file a complaint when you file a lawsuit you have to tell exactly what you're filing the lawsuit on or you'll get a motion saying hey there's one a prosecution or stating a claim is there anybody that's opposed to that just I mean I mean you can be opposed to it but is it is it an opposition that is just just go ahead no I'd like some clarification on it so and this is a this is a sad day for me because I don't like to compare but I'm gonna look I'm looking at we are rolling the cameras are rolling I'm sorry but so I look at San Antonio's ethics as just a a launch pad and so they have divisions and then they have subsections I'm assuming our ethic code vectors will have some sort of index in the front of it yes okay so then I envision that to say generally get close but to Mayor Watts point not section line because I think maybe someone doesn't exactly know where it is but it's this kind of category so I'm okay with categories to kind of put some put a point to it generally but I don't know that we should have them bird dogged specifically to say this sentence of this line because I think that's a matter of interpretation but if they're willing to say this is what I saw which they have to do and this is what I think it violates in this section I think you have the specificity and you have a general category where they think that falls well and if and if what you're saying is because I know we'll have we'll have it I don't know how you're gonna craft it organizationally structurally but you know you can have conflict of interest and you got several things within that conflict of interest that you know it might be this this this or this I just want us to be able to have some clarity on what the complaint is so if that's just take it up at a chapter level or a sub chapter level you don't have to I don't know I mean I don't it doesn't have to be that deep of a dive but I at least want there to be notice that this is this chapter or however it's structured and I think maybe we can just rely on you to bring back some options some specific kind of language options on to sort of look at what Councilmember Hussbett is saying and then go to the other part of yes Councilmember well I think until I think we can say yes we do want them to specify what that it's something in the code but as far as what section until we see that code in front of us right that's what I'm sure it's very difficult to understand whether or not it's going to be easy to pick it out yeah yeah I agree yeah we can do that I assume this one's already been answered by some of the responses you've given you want them not to just make an allegation in the complaint you want the complaint itself to include some evidence statements documents those sorts of things and when you say state so let's say there's no paper documents you're saying because if it's sworn they have to give a statement of this is what I know based upon I have first hand knowledge yes those sorts of things that comes with the affidavit a threshold question this is not going to the merits this is just do you want a provision in the code where someone says this is administratively complete or not someone has filled out the boxes they've checked the right boxes they've they've provided the sworn affidavit and until something's administratively complete it goes no further in the process I assume you do want that we would want that for the most basic of building permits so if that's true then whom I would suggest the auditor's office yeah it sounds like that's going to be the clearinghouse for this process this one gets sticky I I know firsthand that the city of Denton is committed to the principle of transparency I know that is something that's been worked on but when you get into the ethics world it becomes kind of a delicate dance to dance we're talking about people's reputations we're talking about people's good names an accusation is just an accusation until there's some sort of due process provided and a finding and so having to balance your desire to achieve ethical behavior and enforce your rules with the other side of the equation which is protecting people's good names what do you want to do with the confidentiality of information it's hard to say we want to be more transparent more ethical so we're adopting an ethics ordinance we're going to keep the entire thing quiet and hidden from public view if we go down that path I don't think you're going to achieve your goal no no yeah we're not going to do that I mean you 're basically saying this question is the person filing the complaint do we set up an ethical ordinance that says that person's name shall stay confidential until some step in the process in other words and I guess my next question my question before I can even answer that is where does the request was called open records request where does that fall into this in other words because we've had I mean look we've had I'm gonna call them investigations personnel investigations in the past where people gave statements but somehow they were able to be obtained by a open records request so how does this and let's just expand the scope anything regarding an ethics complaint claim its name the application any documents that submitted or is this is this a process that's subject to the open records request or and if not why not and if so when it is subject to the open records act so we have to treat it accordingly that being said there are some exceptions most of them that would apply are discretionary not mandatory so for example the name of complainants is something we can normally withhold in a criminal context and I think we have some wiggle room to do that in the civil context as well we have some if we have some exceptions under HR personnel rules that were allowed to do both of those are temporary and what some cities have done is they've come out and said until this goes to public hearing until there's a vote to release this whatever trigger they build in their ordinance the city shall treat this as confidential city staff is prohibited from answering outside questions about this and they close off by saying and all documents shall be managed in accordance with the public information act which means if a city wants to try to enforce the confidentiality of it using its ordinance as the basis of that confidentiality then you file a brief with the Attorney General's office and you make your arguments the AG's has 45 days to give an answer and they often take those 45 days that is how it is normally handled the flip side of it aside from records is the deliberations and it's rather common to see ethics ordinances where you have a board of ethics where the deliberations are confidential their executive session they're treated just like an HR inquiry would be I don't know how if a board of ethics is the final decider on whatever the punishment may be perhaps it 's a letter of reprimand a letter of admonition or something else I have concerns as a lawyer that the board of ethics is itself a governing body that's subject to the open meetings act well if we want to have some measure of confidentiality in the preliminary stages of this process then my recommendations are going to be that our ordinance try to achieve that at least in the early stages and we get to the section where I'm asking you questions about preliminary screening or pre-screening that's done by a group that's less than a quorum because a group of less than a quorum is a subcommittee they're allowed to get at a document and look at it and decide is there anything to this or is there not anything to this and that's that's a legal thing to do another option that we're going to discuss it's listed in here is not to have the preliminary screening done by a subcommittee of the board but to have it done by someone else is it somebody in the auditor's office is it an independent outside lawyer that you have on retainer someone else who's not subject to the open meetings act look at this on its face and say if everything in here is taken as true and it may not be true but if we assume the facts are true would this add up to a violation of our ethics ordinance and if the answer is yes well then it goes forward for a hearing which would be public the answer is no then something else happens and we can discuss those other options I guess when I think about my first blush on this was no I mean I don't know why would you I mean if somebody's gonna make a complaint the the person you're making the complaint about it's not confidential or it could be I guess so I don't think that I mean if if somebody's gonna be willing to file a complaint they should be willing to to know to let the public know who they are or in the alternative as long as the complainants identity stays confidential then what's the opposite of the person being complaining accused accused then they stay confidential and the application and all that stays in other words let's if it's if it's going to be fair let's let it be fair because to say that the accused will be known from the day it's filed but the person who filed it doesn't have to worry about that man I just I think that's just that's not equitable and and so if if we're wanting confidentiality because we think it's going to be more it's going to be more of a motivator for people to file complaints this is something if we're going to put it in the light of the whole purpose of this discussion is to put things and to give things an opportunity to be seen in the light of day in other words these things that may be happening that are are potentially unethical and that we don't have we don't have an ethics ordinance basically so we're going to say we're going to put this code in place so that puts everybody on notice or these are the things that you that we expect public officials all these people we name can do and can't do based upon how we want to garner trust and create trust in our community I think it goes both ways so if if based on councilmember Briggs assessment then if people are not operating with that unpeer motive why would they have an issue with their and I understand I've got the argument for that as well I do but again so if we want to say that the complainants is confidential to the extent that that's confidential I think the accused should be confidential as well and if not just let them and maybe it all stays confidential until it actually becomes a complaint in other words you're saying there's going to be some sort of pre-screening that that certainly should be confidential until it becomes a full-fledged complaint that is going to be reviewed by the ethics board and once that happens I think it's I think it should should all be known if it's not all known where do you draw the line on what should and shouldn't be known publicly I mean I'm all for making sure that people's reputations are protected but and if you're going to have hearings in confident you know if you're going to have hearings in executive session so I have a question remember we've got something in our personnel policy that if something happens that somebody can ask for a public hearing an employee can ask for a public hearing I think there's something in that that if there's a complaint filed that that employee if it's something that they can say I want a public hearing on this so we may take some some guidance from that but on first blush I think it if it 's going to be for one it should be for the other I'm going to go with councilmember Duff and then councilmember did you have a question oh no no okay I agree with what you 're saying but my question that comes from what all you're saying is who is reviewing this to see if it becomes public if they if they accept it as a complaint and is that review done confidentially can it be I'm not according to who it is is reviewing it I'm not sure that it can be and I'm not sure that we want to put I think it would be very awkward for example to put that on the auditor to decide whether the complaint is legit or not if the complaint is against the councilmember who does a review of the auditors salary and contract so I'm not sure how that we can we're probably going to talk about that and we are and the grimaces on your faces are well-earned this is this is meant to be painful because if you were telling me you really want a high level of confidentiality I've given you some language but you know my work is cut out for me to try and bring you back language that does it if you tell me you want a high level of confidentiality but only at the preliminary stage well that gives us a different set of options if you tell me that you 're confident that your system can weigh the countervailing pressures of enforcing your ethics ordinance but preserving the rights of the accused without much confidentiality if any well then that's a policy statement that makes drafting a little bit easier but you can see from some of the examples other cities have wrestled with this exact thing it's a difficult thing to do where where are Denton's priorities going into this process well if I had to land on one of those three kind of policy general policy statements it would be the last one and that is if we're going to have this and if it's going to be open if this is to create an open and if we're going to be committed to openness and transparency then you know there's there's consequences on all sides of the confidentiality question so you know yeah if somebody steps up makes a complaint that is unfounded and I mean people know and this is now the flip side is somebody makes a complaint that's unfounded and the accused has been accused but then we I have to trust sort of almost like councilmember Briggs said that in the end if we say someone is exonerated that the complaint was not it was unfounded or it was not dismissed but you had a hearing that say and it's like nope nothing happened well then people just have to understand that nothing happened that everybody had their opportunity and that person was exonerated well you know we want to have a high level of confidentiality to protect people city officials from frivolous complaints baseless complaints unfounded complaints right well if we end up not having a high level of confidentiality there are other mechanisms to try to get to there and now we talked about those toward the end today which are building into our ordinance that there's going to be punishment for things like perjury which is criminal there's going to be a civil tort action for abuse of process there are cities that impose fines and even try to tag the complainant with the accused legal fees in their ordinance those are all meant there not to punish or deter complaints but to try to make sure that complaints actually have some merit okay so I've talked too much where is everybody else stand on this issue I mean I'm not going to be the only one answering this question I think much like the blackout period this question to me is out of order I think once we answer some of the future questions that we can come back to this one and have a better talk about frivolous complaints and those types of things are going to help us understand at what point we have that confidentiality so you're you're okay with some given what we may hear later correct I mean I think we need to answer the future the questions that come further in this presentation before we can answer these questions yes I'm going to miss I'm not going to even attempt to summarize it but I think what Alan touched on works for me I think this confidentiality is maintained and then triggered once it's formally accepted reviewed that sort of thing like when it's when it's qualified triggers it being accepted quote unquote then subject to open records requests that sort of thing so it kind of gives it a certainty to win versus trying to interpret it it's like hey we've ironed out whatever level of questions qualifications etc now we 're ready to move forward and now it's subject to be you know you know and I spoke earlier about people making mistakes and you know what I totally misread this whole thing I read confidentiality of the complainant instead of the complaint in general so so everything I just said let's roll back time so I'm in agreement that until something is formally accepted as a complaint then it I would like to see it maintain confidentiality for everybody until it's actually stamped as a complaint so I apologize for that that's my mistake that's my breaks can you remind me or bring clarification to me and who is validating the complaint at this point is it the ethics board or the auditor we've said so far that the auditor will look at the document just to see have all the lines been filled out the box is checked they're not making any determination about whether or not the merits of the complaint justify going forward we're going to reach that question here in a little bit okay thank you okay yes I'm sorry I'm okay so for clarification the confidentiality is not when the when the complaint is validated on merits it's just when it's validated on its four corners that's what I'm understanding so far okay yep okay so moving on I know we'll probably revisit this a common element of many ethics codes is a prohibition on ex parte communications and we can discuss how broad that is basically a rule that says once a complaint has been filed and in this case it's been accepted it's been stamped as a complaint then what the the complainant cannot speak to members of the board of ethics the accused can't speak to the board of ethics all communications must flow through something like the auditor's office we need to designate someone to receive information and to provide communication on notices of hearings and those sorts of things this is typically a good rule in the court system as many of you know we can't have parties to a lawsuit meeting with a judge outside of hearings outside of outside of chambers it's not fair I when I'm in I'm gonna have my city attorney hat on I would like to have a rule against ex parte communications for all sorts of groups planning and zoning the board of adjustment and all sorts of groups not all my clients follow me that far in this case we have consensus to outlaw ex parte communications and formalize these these sorts of conversations and document exchanges yeah I have a question that will help me answer that question so when you I thought it was better said in my perfect world we wouldn't know who makes up the particular ethics board there'd be a pool to pull from and so in that instance I I think once that board is set and they have met once but other than that I envision someone that would be talking and and they may continue to talk and they may dig themselves their own hole talking to someone because it allows that anonymity that you don't know who's going to be pulled in to sit there's a pool of people but you don't know who they you know the pool obviously like a jury pool but but kind of you don't know who's actually going to sit so you don't know actually you can't target whomever and that and so I that's how I envision it working a level of you have no idea who's going to sit on a particular board so you can't affect them so it just kind of cleans that up a bit for me so in that instance once if in that scenario once the board is set and there's a hearing and you kind of now I see who's going to be making decisions at that point there's a prohibition on communication that that's how I see it so can I ask you a question real quick yes I've been just asking real quick question so because we I don't think we've talked about we haven't determined what the makeup of the board would be so let's say for instance we know that you're saying if there's a pool that people get chosen from how you would answer this question but let's say the consensus of the council is we're going to have a seven member board of ethics board that will that people will know who they are and that once they get named to that board where they've had a hearing or not here is the ethics board for the city of Denton if that's the case then you're saying if you know who the board is then any ex parte would be prohibited yes and then but that changes in that scenario then I don't see how you could have anyone associated with the city because we all have to work with different departments in the city so then it gets kind of tricky are you talking to them about I-35 are you talking to them about the pending hearing and how do we how do we sort that out you know so they're not going to be on the board I'm talking the board it may be citizens from the city of Denton I doubt it's going to be any employee from the city or any council member or anything like that but okay I just I just wanted the clarification of that specificity yeah council member Briggs yes no communication anybody I'm sorry yeah same no communication with anybody that could potentially be on the board either I mean if I'm if I'm gonna file a lawsuit technically I can go talk to any of the judges I don't know who's gonna get appointed but it violates the spirit of the ex parte rule so yes I have a question though then how do you police that because if it's a citizen I'm busy that day I don't have time to follow you around and see you know if you're going wherever if you're meeting with how do you police that it's this honor system in the sense of the board takes their position seriously that says hey I can't talk I mean attorneys and judges have to I'm sure you don't think some judges try attorneys try to talk to judges yeah no they're trained and that's their job this is not there this is not gonna be this is I just I mean I just I grew up in a different world I guess it's it's yeah it's great I want to live in y'all's world oh well I don't know about that so so so yes on this and you may want to revisit some some choices you've already made can I get a clarification from you when you said it becomes an ethics complaint that means after it's passed the administrative review not necessary and it's or you talking about once it's gone through the pre-screening review and it's stamped as okay this is a valid complaint then it's barred ex parte or is it once it passes the administration review that no ex parte I think once we once it's been determined that we have an an ethics complaint valid because all the forms have been filled out in the boxes have been checked okay that's the logical place to trigger the ex parte okay all right okay Councilmember Gregory if we are to decided what makes it a valid complaint just that the requirements the contents name address affidavit those sorts of things so I fill out everything on the paper right I swear before a notary and that makes it a valid complaint is that the word that I used is administratively complete well I which is the same terms like y'all probably use for building permits and plats I heard pre-screening that's this question here we're moving to this this next part which is once someone's got the document they filled out all the blanks they have to it's signed it's notarized they check the box they've cited a section number then what happens and what I'm suggesting is that we have some sort of inquiry I use the word investigation here some sort of preliminary screening prior to the full-blown public hearing because in my mind I don't know where your boards and commissions meet whether it's council chambers or a room like this but the Board of Eth ics could be sitting around a table like this you've got the complainant you've got the accused you've got people presenting evidence you've got PowerPoint it could be on your video feed a lot of work goes into that a lot of scheduling goes into that possibly some expenditures on attorney's fees and those sorts of things before you get to that point do you want to have someone look at the merits of this do you want to have somebody ask some questions outside of a hearing look at some documents perhaps consult with the city attorney or whoever is advising the board at that point and I would if so I'd like to check that box and move on to the next few questions I think it's a good idea I think it 's warranted to have someone look at the merits whether that is an employee a outside lawyer that you have on a rotating basis on retainer or the city attorney or two members of the Board of Ethics a subcommittee someone look at this and say yeah there's enough here to go forward to the next step is that something you want to have or do you want to go straight to a formal hearing could you explain it I don't know that I can answer that question until I have a better notion as to what that looks like what some of the options would be well this is an option on some of what some of the people would be and some of the language you know in your in your packet gives you a little sampling of that in some cities here in DFW they have four lawyers on retainer retainer at any given time who on a rotating basis will look at an ethics complaint look at the code and gosh yes if everything in here is true this this would be a violation of our code and that lawyer gives a report to the City Council because the City Council is the Board of Ethics in that town in other cities if it's regarding the City Council or the City Manager or the City Attorney they outsource it to a private lawyer and that lawyer takes a look at it but otherwise the City Attorney is the one charged by ordinance to read the complaint read the code and decide number one do we kick this back to the complainant and say you you fell short you want to amend or supplement do they dismiss it do they refer it to a panel of the Board of Ethics do they refer it to the full-blown Board of Ethics and so you have several options based on other and other codes that we have to draw from my only recommendation at this point is that you do strongly consider putting in some sort of mechanism for a pre-screening on the merits to where if something is completely frivolous and there's some factors you can we can build in here and I provide them later in your worksheet for today on how cities define frivolous what factors they look at but if it's frivolous it's baseless it's just politics it's the rants of a crazy person it's neighbor on neighbor violence it's council member on council member violence is there a process to kick it out based on that pre-screening and not go through the full public drama or are we committed that every complaint or someone fills out the boxes goes to the full public drama I wanted to try to explain I know what Alan is trying to get at and I'm going to try to give a different way to for y'all to understand what exactly Alan is getting at in a criminal world let's say the municipal court prosecutor somebody will file a complaint alleging a classy violation and they'll write down on the affidavit this is what happened on such date and I believe that this penal code violation or city ordinance was violated that affidavit would then be presented to the prosecutor who will then determine do the facts as alleged by the complainant meet the elements of violation or in this case do they meet the elements of the specific ethics provision they claim to be violated and if they believe that there is presented sufficient facts they've determined probable cause and they move it on to be heard before the judge or a jury which would be the same as the ethics commission so maybe that's a different example of what maybe you might be used to seeing on how this can be done a way down is trying to explain to you that that's an excellent example thank you so to go back to your previous question let's say for instance just for discussion that we decide we want an investigation or we want somebody to look at it to determine if on its face maybe there's a couple questions that it's a violation we talked about as the question before about when is a complaint a complaint so what I'm hearing you say is once let's say it passes this pre-screening whatever that looks like I was they say yep you know what they've alleged we've looked at it and this is this meets the criteria that's when it becomes this quote non it's becomes more than administrative satisfaction it's become an actual full-blown complaint whereas if they say this has been dismissed or this is not a complaint then you don't really have a complaint is that it can yeah that's a different point in time than what we were discussing in the last segment but we can choose to draw the line yes mayor protein if we end up going this route where we have a kind of pre- screening process then what I would ask is that if a complaint is dismissed or recommended to be dismissed that it's in writing whatever reasons there are for dismissing it or for recommending to dismiss it and I would go to the next step which is to only have that person recommend dismissal by the Board of Ethics so at least there's a second level of inquiry it's a recommendation if they see things differently they can proceed okay so you 're saying almost give like a finding a factor conclusion of laws if it's dismissed this is why we're dismissing it if that's yeah I would I would just say a recommendation of dismissal and I'm comfortable with either an independent person a board chair or a subcommittee of the board being the inquiry folks but probably would work best with a panel but what I hear you saying is that if there is a recommendation for dismissal that that recommendation go to the full board so that the full board has a chance that if they disagree they can move forward on it okay and what that what that agenda would look like for the Board of Ethics would be agenda item number seven dismissal of Brown complaint against Smith because they would be taking action on it the Open Meetings Act requires some level of specificity if I were Mr. Smith I would be peeved that darn it I'm a volunteer here for the city someone filed a bas eless complaint against me and now my name is on an agenda at a Board of Ethics yes it's going to be dismissed but the fact that I had to go through that just because this person didn't like the fact they didn't get their variance that is the kind of thing you can anticipate if the full board's going to take action because it couldn't the full board is subject to the Open Meetings Act and I don't think there's a way to avoid that any so you okay with that all right Councilmember Briggs I thought did you have a question I'm not just calling on you I thought you had a question it's just you know you're my go-to gal any comments on this I mean Mayor Pro-Tim has sort of thrown something out there so let's he needs some direction and if he doesn't get any more direction then we're gonna go with what she said okay let me go with Councilmember Hudson because yeah yeah no I think there needs to be an early out for sure or early valuation again it goes to I guess a difference of how it's the group's made up so whatever the the majority opinion is but yes there should be this should be a component but again in my mind a pool of people you can then you can then select you know it's a random selection hey we need you to evaluate this and it's not the same person I don't I don't see how you I don't see how it functions otherwise I'm just missing it so I'll wait to see how it shapes up but yes I think there needs to be some some mechanism by which to evaluate quickly and dismiss I I have a given the open meetings issue I don't think I understand the merits behind the full full board hearing it but based on the world y'all represented that everyone does the right thing because the right thing to do I don't you know I think we're okay in that world just saying hey this one person's gonna hear it and they're you know they walk on cloud so it can't go wrong okay all right customer bridge did you have a comment I did a couple on the ethics committee currently that's kind of when we had a complaint filed we did go in with it with a legal opinion and then we went to open meetings to a regular meeting and then had our our open session there whether or not the person was it wasn't dismissed ahead of time it went into the public and I thought that was fine because each person got to come and state their case to the public one way or the other if we did do it as a pre-screening what is the recommendation of this council that that it go to I do believe that eventually the the panel should get it and make a decision one way or the other would it be an outside council special counsel attorney who would be doing that validity of the complaint may mayor I'm trying to restate what our mayor pro tem suggested and see if we want to work off that I believe she was showing a preference for a panel of the Board of Ethics which would be a subcommittee and that they would recommend whether to move forward with the hearing or recommend dismissal that it be in writing and that the ultimate determination be made by the full Board of Ethics did I restate that correctly so is there consensus for that or do you want to discuss elements of that more go to councilmember Ryan and then we'll jump over here did you have a question come to member okay yeah I think we're gonna cover frivolous here in a few minutes and I think that it's important that we have a layer in there at some point to knock out those frivolous issues and that might be a rotating you know we've got three attorneys on retainer that you don't know who it's going to go to so there's no you know you're not going to end up with a preference issue is very important but to have them check to make sure it's not frivolous again what you were talking about earlier about Smith is going to be upset because we know there are a few people out there that will file paperwork just to file paperwork it's not the perfect world we have to be cautious on that point and it might be that that attorney it can can stamp it as frivolous and the subcommittee kicks it out before it goes public or it might yeah I just I'm just feeling like there needs to be something to handle those frivolous issues so on its face I'm sorry we got Duffin and Gregory I'm just sort of jumping in here man you know sorry yeah go ahead councilmember Duffin yeah I guess I'm good with you know a subcommittee of the board you know to let them get you know basically take out the frivolous stuff okay I can't see if they turn it down I really can't see going to the full board I don't think we need to do that okay all right I thought I heard that the recommendation was it goes to the subcommittee and then it automatically goes ahead and goes to the full board and if that's the case I don't see any reason for the subcommittee what's the point if it's going to go to the full board anyhow then we're just wasting people's time and we're we you know we're drawing it out if it goes to the subcommittee and the subcommittee says you said that there was a violation you know you know there was a code violation of the ethics code but you didn't point to anything and and you know you said he he was treating his dog badly but there's nothing in the code about treating your dogs one way or the other so it's not an ethics violation it's frivolous it doesn't need to go to the board you're wasting time if you do that so so but but if everything's going to go to the board then there doesn't need to be a subcommittee yes well let's say that it doesn't go to the board at what point is are the findings of this independent functionary public or known to anybody there's I mean there's no it's kind of like a little secret thing that you can do to circumvent that goes back to the confidentiality question for me is if it's if they're if you like because if there's if there's confidentiality but I'm gonna say for example the panel subcommittee of the board is who determines this pre-screening so let's say just for discussion purposes confidentiality applies up to and including the board's recommendation of either dismissal or moving forward so if confidentiality applies up to that and it's dismissed well then my concern is so then you're going to put make all that information that was confidential non-confidential is you're gonna make it public by the time you get it on the agenda for the full board yes go ahead I guess I'm not I'm not tracking the harm aspect of having it go in front of the full board because of the idea is that it's insufficient facts to support an ethics claim and there's nothing damaging in there I mean it's an accusation that's unfounded so I don't see I guess I just don't see the harm in it being public because it's an unfounded accusation right so and for me I don't have a problem with it necessarily going to the full board for dismissal but if that's the case then I would almost want it to be because even though it's coming for dismissal even though it's coming for dismissal that's not necessarily mean I mean I don't know if I would say that I have the same belief of there's as little harm as you as you do but so I mean in the end this all this is going to somehow get out anyway somewhere down the line I'm almost certain of that I mean it you know it typically does so I'm okay with the pre-screening going before a sub panel of the board I mean I don't think I need somebody we don't but as far as what happens to it after that I'm ambivalent I mean I don't really have an objection going to the full board I understand about the time situation but if the subcommittee is just looking at it's basically to determine is there enough basis is I'm gonna say probable cause for this to move forward to the full board that's not a whole full-blown investigation is what I 'm understanding is that correct down yeah so it's just trying to determine is there enough probable cause to move this thing forward and so I I mean it could be time-consuming but as long as we let our people know that up front when they're getting involved then that 's an expectation they'll have and some people enjoy this kind of stuff so well they do so I mean I'm if everybody else is on board with mayor pro tem's recommendation I can do that unless I'm just hearing people standing up on the table screaming we don't want to do that Councilmember Duff and husband right sorry I'm having a little trouble understanding this if we're talking about bringing it in safer two members of this board okay and if they reject it then we're gonna bring it to all seven and what I'm understanding is if we if they determine there is cause we're probably going to have maybe three or four adjudicate the thing right three or four off the board the entire boards not gonna is gonna look at they gonna the entire board gonna look at one that is passed on to them oh yeah the whole board the whole board the whole board will consider an ethics component that's what's on the table right now yeah no okay somehow there was it I was thinking that we'd you know maybe pick three or four out of it to do that for the pre-screening I think that's what the panel would be all right and all PSI committee I see husband and Ryan yeah I'd stand on the table and say I don't want both I mean I just don't okay I don't think that's a good process I just I think I could be swayed if you make it an appellate process if this early group kicks it and that individual that brought the complaint it's so passionate that they request an appeal to the full board okay I can be sold on that but just automatically just everything runs through there I just again I just think why not just take it all to them because you've been eliminated the value of that pre-screening you know and so you might as well just hear everything right well I still go back to the frivolous argument and that's what pre-screening is supposed to be about to get those kicked out and so if we're allowing those to get all the way up to the to the full board or even the sub panel to a public discussion we're not really handling frivolous the way I feel frivolous should be it's you know we see plenty of fliers going around right now that have half truths and a half truth is they you know they've had seven complaints filed against well they might have all been frivolous and all thrown out but you know that's that's the issue that's what people are going to do the the not so nice people out there that Keely doesn't know are going to file those frivolous just to get that count up there to be able to use something against you that you've had those filed so you're using the term frivolous right now in legal terminology that means something very different than it lacks probable cause or it lacks some good faith meeting of the merits it do we have is there something I mean do you have something here Alan that can distinguish between those things or in this ethics sort of paradigm there's really not a distinguishment between a frivolous I'm gonna say bad faith but that's even still another term of art and just something that just doesn't state a claim I mean because John what I'm hearing you say is failing to state a claim that there's not enough facts to state the claim that that might be synonymous with fr ivolous where the person may have had a good faith effort to state a claim they just didn't state it and that's really getting in the weeds and I know that but I mean if we want to try to make that kind of fine line distinction okay but if not if you're saying that if it doesn't go to the full board period that it's not a complaint that if the complaint doesn't rise to the level of going to the full board notwithstanding the reasons that it is sort of deemed as a quote unquote frivolous complaint that's not moving forward or are you saying there 's a distinguishment between I'm saying if it's if it's deemed frivolous and I believe that we do have something coming yeah okay to help determine what frivolous is that at that point it remains confidential until it gets past that checkpoint of is it frivolous or is it not once it gets past that then it becomes okay so Alan we're we're we're you know we 've tasked you with helping us guide us through this process so obviously we seem to be I don't know if stucks the right word but we're sort of going in circles here and so need some help it all it all turns on how long you want these things to go out and we can shorten the time period but how public do you want these things to go if they're they're baseless there's no facts there's no nothing in our code that covers the conduct that's been alleged that I'm calling baseless at this point versus frivolous and you know I drew from the sample of the city of Laredo and they talk about frivolous in the siding if a complaint 's frivolous they look at the timing of the complaint the nature of the publicity surrounding the complaint and the conduct what's the relationship between the complainant and the accused was the the accused a candidate for office is there evidence that the complain ant knew this was groundless when they turned it in and is there any evidence about what the complainants motives would have been and that's all on page 19 of your handout so that's one city that's tried to parse this several cities have in their code some definition of frivol ous and some effort to punish it the question that that I was posing to you before we got to punishment was things like dismissals kicking it out of the process taking it off the agenda before it goes too far or do we think that achieving ethics in Denton and achieving the transparency we want mandates that it goes all the way through the process normally I would give this pre-screening function either a chance to dismiss it themselves and have an appeal like Councilman Hudson mentioned or they're making a recommendation of the main body with the assumption that that the main body is going to usually honor the recommendations of the committee went through we don't know who the players are so it's hard to tell at this point I like the appeal option because it doesn't I mean I like the appeal kind of approach that if it if it gets kicked out of whatever this pre-screening thing is and maybe we can figure out a way to because Councilmember Gary I guess is it Mayor Pro Tem is it your your concern that if somehow it stops at the pre-screening that it's sort of a closed process that it's not really subject to either public observation or scrutiny or anything like that or yep summar izes it pretty well okay all right and I think she's right about that I think once if we have some sort of determination early on then you know a letter will be sent announcing that this panel has reviewed it and decided that it's not going to go further in the process and you have a right to appeal with the next number of days and you appeal to this party the complainant gets it the accused gets it those are public documents that they can do with whatever they want to there's no confidentiality at that at that stage of the process there's just no public deliberation on it around a table like this with an agenda three days in advance minutes being kept and the public allowed to to look and listen that's the difference if you kick it out earlier in the process so question on that are there any other options or alternatives that can meet your interest of sort of public disclosure for better lack of a word like if they're if out of this subcommittee there's a report issued every quarter or every month or or something that just simply says you know that gives a listing of cases that have been dismissed out of this if we have the appeal process in place in other words if somebody thinks hey I got a raw deal at the subcommittee I want to appeal it or is it just that's just the way you want it that's just what you want well if the if what Alan saying happened and there was a written document that stated you know your complaint was kicked out for a B and C reasons you have 10 or 15 days to appeal that's a public document seems to address it I just think everybody will exercise their right to appeal anyway so it is going to the full board so if that's the way it's structured with this written disclosure acknowledgement and there's an appeal process you're you're okay I can get on board with that I just wanted I just don't want every single aspect of a complaint to be in secret that's that's my concern sure absolutely yeah and I don't either that's why we had the comp that's why I wanted some clarification on the confidentiality yes Councilmember Duff and I know if we have an appeal process does it make sense that the person making the appeal has to put some kind of money down on that just a question I don't know do you have I don't know if we have any slides covering I don't have anything with that sort of option there well that let's process through the slides we do have and we'll we'll we'll sort of we've got a little direction on that and that's a question that we might come back and have to address sure going back to the issue of if something is dismissed because it's incomplete they didn't fill out a box they didn't check the right box is it just returned without comment are they allowed to refile it do I am assuming you don't want any staff support and helping them fix their complaint but what happens with a complaint that's just incomplete because it doesn't have the required contents in it is it over is it remain pending I know we've said it's not administratively complete well there be a an area on our website to guide people through this process to make sure that they know how to file a complaint what they need to have and what they can turn in I mean that would seem like a good way to get some form of right right education equipment you know tools yeah that way somebody maybe a voice recording or some video on our website that carries them through the process and so you know if it did they did miss something they could go back in and watch it if we're not going to have somebody a staff walking them through the process there needs to be some kind of direction yes no not a video I mean I'm not for that I mean I think our our forms we have to fill out for the you know even our rest form has a has the steps at these two lines kind of artic ulates that that I'm okay with I'm not I'm not okay with holding someone's hand all the way through this process you know at some point you're going to have to exert some some efforts on your own and so I think some some kind of to answer this question specifically I think it gets kicked if it doesn't have all the prerequisite information gets kicked out they get a letter saying it was incomplete I I'm not okay with pointing out what's incomplete because I think again that that becomes a time issue and I think it's going to be simple form enough and we're going to provide the supporting information that if if you 're you should be able to complete I mean it should not be that onerous and it should not and because what you have is if you help person a and you don't help person B then you get and you know we're subjecting our staff to a whole nother level of scrutiny that we don't want so if we just patently and it may be like most receiving agencies for corporations we're going to take it as he is we're going to evaluate it and so we receive everything but you'll get a letter if we don't if it's not completed properly saying it was not you know it's just rejected so everything gets in we don't turn away anything on its face but once we evaluate it we send you a letter saying hey this was incomplete you know. And I agree in part and disagree in part I'm going to play the fence. To me I envision this is when we have to file out our financial disclosures or things such as that we're given a set of instructions all right and that are pretty specific on this is what you need to do this is what you need to do. Now I don't so I envision this piece of paper in front of me that has these you know here's box one two three four and all these things here's section this and somewhere there's going to be defined what goes in that that that line I mean there should be I mean we if it's our form we need to be able to we can provide some instruction on people how to fill it out. So when we return it I have no problem this goes to you're treating everybody the same I have no problem you know like when you do a computer you're signing on to something online and it won't let you take it won't take it and it says hey this information hadn't been filled out and it highlights it doesn't tell you how to complete it just says this isn't so I don't mind saying this is being returned for incompleteness due to for section three E well they can go back and look at three E see what it is we're not telling them and that way you tell everybody you say hey this is because I don't want to I mean we want to make sure that we give people you know the best opportunity to make a at least a completed complaint whether it's valid or not will be determined later on but so I don't have a problem with having some instructions and when we return it at least saying not this is incomplete this is what you need to put in it but this I mean if you miss a box hey this is incomplete somebody go back oh I got to put this in there you're not telling him the substantive part we're just telling them the form part of it and we can do that with everybody we can say this is what you miss this is what you miss this is what you miss I think that's only fair and I think you probably do that with other applications that are submitted right yes yes give me give me your time estimate for that I mean I guess because that that's why I mean because you're you're tasking the auditors department with stopping reviewing their work and saying you miss box eight sitting there while they fill out box eight and then receiving it versus no no I don't know I mean if I'm yeah if I if they hand it in the file now if they're standing there in person and I'm looking at it and they say well you missed you know you just get I mean the they're gonna have to review it anyway the so whoever's got the intake person has to review are all the boxes checked and so they've got us somehow they're either gonna mail it back to them saying it's incomplete we got to tell them somehow so you're talking about in person and then you're saying will they go and they fill it in request then they hand it back in again and somebody's got to review it again well that's I mean if they think complete I'm not gonna certainly say well you get one shot at the Apple does that make sense I mean yes I do but I think you receive everything as is right and then you have your time set aside so let's say the auditor's office can then set aside 430 to 4 o'clock to 5 I'm gonna review those type things versus someone standing in my office I was in the middle of something I've got a no no you're saying do you have to do you have to review it in real time when they submit it and I'm saying no you can submit it and we might have 10 days to review it yeah you know there's gonna be some review period of this file so they're not gonna certainly review it right I mean Lord we could do our permits like that we'd be we'd have people coming in all over the place I'm sorry I had to get it to permit somehow yeah no so that yeah I'm with you I just wanted to see that yes so in my mind I think that is drop it off and we'll be in touch yeah and we got to figure out how many days and then once they get it back how many days they have to get it back if any or maybe they can so yes councilmember Briggs right I just want to make sure that the the complaints not going to be dismissed because of a formality that they will is that what we're saying that they will have another chance to to fill it out to come back and correct yeah because it's not really a complaint because it's administrative incomplete so it's been right well I mean we've seen people turn in petitions and they just have one little thing off and it's been completely dismissed and so I just want to make sure that with the that there's a process and the process is publicly known and there's there's legitimate instructions and that people know what to do that that's what I want to make sure does anybody disagree with what she just said okay all right so moving on to section four regarding the hearings the most common thing to do is to have a provision in your code of ethics that says that the board of ethics can adopt its own procedural rules for how to conduct its hearings that's punting in a way some ethics codes will actually provide in the ordinance the details regarding how witnesses are presented how evidence is presented is there a right to cross examine how long do people have to speak are there rebuttals those sorts of things that you have in hearings do you want that level of detail for the procedural rules to be in the text of your ordinance if so I'll provide you with some samples or do you prefer to let the board of ethics adopt its own procedural rules I would be okay with it being more general and letting them propose some with just the directions that it needs to be fair and provide for due process okay yes councilmember Hussman I'd like something a little more structured than that going in so I think opening body of the case body of your each side gets 20 minutes in a closing something outlined like that where there is a time set aside that everyone knows it's predictable and you get an opening statement three minutes four minutes so I think all in all you're probably 30 minutes and I'd like to add some kind of process by which any documents are submitted early because I think that complicates things you get document the day of so documents before the hearing structured time for the actual hearing would be my preference leaving it wide open is is not my desire so let me make sure I understood Dalton what you had said you're okay with them setting the general rules but then what was the last part well if we're going to trust the board of ethics to make good decisions then I think that we could trust them with setting up their own procedures and if we just give them directions that those procedures allow for fairness on both sides and for due process then let them do their job or we could spend a couple of other more hours here deciding their procedures for them well I struggle with just saying you guys go make your own rules without us or somebody but some overs not oversight but not blessing but because there's some things that are important I think that we want to make sure that aren't overlooked so they could they could they could propose their their rules and bring it back to us for review and I think and I would be fine with that I mean for for go ahead councilmember husband and then we'll come over here to save time I disagree okay good deal. Cast member Brian I'm okay you could say more time by agreeing. I'm okay with that concept as well or another possibility is to do something that's more of like the by levels level of rules that they can still set their their procedures but we give them some upper guidance on what their procedures can can and cannot contain yeah okay we're going to trust you to draft something that we can you betcha. This may be a question more for the board when they come to formulating their rules it it's always a question and it's usually a question left unanswered in most ethics codes that I've seen whose duty is it to actually bring the case before the board of ethics I wanted to bring this problem to your attention early on to give you all a chance to ponder it if we were in municipal court where you have a prosecutor whose job it is to actually bring the case bring the witnesses bring the documents and try and meet some burden to get a conviction if you were in a civil case it would be the plaintiff's burden to bring that forward if you were in your board of adjustment zoning board of adjustment seeking a variance well normally it's going to be the applicant who has the burden to convince board of adjustment that there's some sort of a hardship most ethics codes don't really talk about what do you do with an ethics complaint I don't know that it's the city's job to prosecute that complaint maybe it is is it the is it the complainants job to push this forward to bring witnesses to bring documents opening closing that sort of thing because what I've seen is if you don't put the burden on someone what you actually have happen on occasion is the chairperson of the board of ethics takes on the role of soliciting and bringing forth testimony I've said through one just recently where a chair of a board of ethics who is a litigator in real life is spending hours and hours asking leading questions of witnesses on both sides as though building a case and I'm sitting back as the advisor to the board wondering why is the board chairperson the one pushing this one way or the other I would rather us and didn't try to avoid that scenario by stating whose burden is it whose job is it to push the case forward it seems to me it's the complainants which all might have some other ideas I would say it's the complainants obligation to bring their case forward and then just giving a head to the next question because I think it's related you ask if the board of ethics will be allowed to ask questions of the witnesses kind of I guess the the European model I'm okay with that as long as the complainant is the person who's obligated to bring their case forward okay anybody have something different than that okay fantastic do you want to provide appeals from your board of ethics and if so who would that appeal be to and sometimes I didn't list it but I'll go ahead and bring it up it's sometimes it's appealing to the City Council more often it's to either an outside administrative hearings officer again you retain another usually a lawyer doesn't have to be a lawyer suppose it could be a professor retired jurors someone else to be an body to hear an appeal from your board others just say they have a right to go file in district court if they don't want if they don't like what the board of ethics has to say and of course your opinion might be influenced by the next section we talk about punishments but the concept of where do they go from here once they file something we say okay yep you checked all the boxes then they go through the panels pre- screening the panel says yep there's enough here to move forward then it goes to the board of ethics the board of ethics conducts a hearing that makes some determination yes there 's a violation of our code no there's not a violation of the code what happens after that do you have any feedback or guidance for me I have a question about one step back when we have the clearing process with the sub panel so if that if that person or persons decide that there isn't a valid claim then you have an appellate level to the actual full panel yes so are we talking about beyond that appellate level that would not substitute for this app ellate level no I'm talking about beyond that once once the board of ethics has ruled on the merits of a complaint okay they've received evidence that we've had testimony they've made a decision perhaps councilmember brown is going to get a letter of reprimand from the board of ethics does councilmember brown have any remedies beyond that or is or is the board of ethics the end of the road on that ethics complaint okay that's what I'm trying to get at yeah I think as far as the city the board of ethics would be the end of the road and then they always have other options outside of that I'm assuming that they could you know pursue but I think that empowers the board of ethics in my mind so I guess Alan I'm not sure I understand exactly the process here I understand some of the judicial appeal process but not so let's take councilmember Hussbuhl's comments and say okay someone has been found to have committed an ethical violation if our code is silent as to what happens next what what the accused or now the perpetrator what what what can they do next do they have an automatic right outside of our code to appeal to a state district court to adjudicate this maybe de novo or just you know or is there something statutorily that provider do we have to provide that in our code that they can go do that if we don't provide it in our code I don't know what authority okay there would there would exist and even if we do provide it in our code I don't know the any district judge is going to to agree with that so what I'm hearing you say is if we provide it there's it's like saying well you're going to go into somewhere that we don't know if it's available so if it's the end of the road it's the end of the road from the front for the ethics I mean for all practical purposes what you just said okay so then we get to sanctions which is our final our final section for today what you see listed on the screen and in your packet are the most common sanctions and they they are very similar and that you're talking about a letter it's about the level of severity looking for example I think this is the city of San Marcos is the first example that I give a letter of notification is something that's unintentional and relatively minor a letter of admonition is minor because for more substantial response a reprimand is is minor but was done knowingly or was serious and unintention al and then you get to recommendations about things like suspension now a key thing to talk about which I think we talked about in our very first training session is when it comes to members of the City Council we the Board of Ethics cannot remove a City Council member from their elected seat because our charter doesn't provide for such the election code determines when someone is qualified to hold office and we can't deviate from that unless it's something that's specific in our charter so we're really talking about our reprimands otherwise called censure there's different names for them but that's the most common thing obviously if someone is serving on P&Z or Board of Adjustment which is subject to our code there can be a recommendation for removal if it's a department head that is subject to this City Manager City Attorney City Secretary and department heads are subject to this then obviously the council can take employment action accordingly those are those are the sanctions that we have at this point do you all want to stick with these for for drafting purposes or are we missing the mark somewhere yeah we've seen this play out in Plano this week and that that's an excellent example of kind of I don't hold I mean I want to hear and I 'm asking legitimately because I don't we started here I don't hold any of these in high regard because you can't take someone out of office and that's the ultimate goal is that 's the punitive part of it right I mean so that councilman in the news gets censured and they have to proceed it's going on and so I think that's the difficult part for me to see the the teeth in it so I really want to just kind of hear where I'm missing that and kind of understand the value better but ultimately yes I mean I think you go letter of censure but on the boards I guess my question to you and just kind of how it's been dealt with I'd I'd want that to be managed if I appointed someone to a board and they made a mistake or they you know there's an ethics violation I want to have more control over that than just a vote of the entire body and I'll give you an example that that's we had a well qualified person for board that got voted no and and and I just don't think that's right right if someone's qualified you don't like it but it's my appointee that's my right to appoint that person what's that it's not your appointee it's a nomination well it's my nominee that and so I don't I don't think I just think there's some professional courtesy there that should be respected and I could be absolutely alone in that but I just pointed in a specific example that happened if we're going to start evaluating appointees at a micro level which we hadn't done in the past then then that concerns me and so I guess all I'm saying is if I make an appointee if I designate someone I want to have that control over that individual and then the voters can then take that out on me if I leave someone in office that they disagree with or I leave someone in service that they disagree with so it's a direct correlation to me and I don't have to then answer to the council members I just that's my personal preference anybody on this side anybody on this side I did not look up in preparation for today I apologize I didn't look up to see how does someone get removed from P NZ or Board of Adjustment right now I assume that's a City Council vote because it's a it's a nominee from the individual council members but it's a vote by the body so I think the way this bullet would work right now if you were to adopt it is if Board of Ethics finds that a member of one of those two boards committed a violation of your code of ethics and it was so egregious that they want to make a recommendation to City Council that person be removed from that board it would then come to the City Council and there would be another opportunity to talk about it and if that case had happened to be your appointee and you want to speak in their defense you would have the opportunity to do that but the council appointed them as a whole the council would be able to remove them as a whole but you would have your say at City Council in addition to whatever happens at Board of Ethics that's how I think this would play out as I intended it. Go ahead go ahead. Then does that set a precedent? So is there a is that is that built upon so for it is in that exact scenario you laid out then the next case similar to that is it based on that precedent or it starts anew and even though you made one decision a month ago you're you're free to make a polar opposite decision you know a month later. I would hope that the City Council would be consistent in that regard but with the players changing as elections change I have no idea what would happen. Thank you. Councilmember Gregory. There's been an expression a term of art and I think that has to do with legal language that has different meanings so are there different meanings meanings between a letter of notification admonition, reprimand or censure or they all basically the same kind of thing? They get their increasing seriousness and if we were to find them the way San Marcos defined them things that you that the Board of Ethics would be looking at and deciding which one to choose from is did you do it by accident or did you know what you were doing there's evidence that you knew this you broke the rule anyway. Is this a serious offense or is it relatively minor and then it goes from there and I and I would recommend we follow something kind of like what San Marcos has done to give the Board of Ethics guidance on which to choose once they've made the determination that a violation occurred. Well what if and if they determine that a violation did not occur they just make a statement that they would dismiss the complaint. Okay okay so so that's just different levels of yes expression of how seriously they felt about the nature of the violation yes nature of the behavior. And they would be making findings and as they make findings depending on how severe it is the level of knowledge that sort of thing it would lean toward one of these one of these actions versus another. I'm okay with when you talked about with San Marcos you know if I read it just the different levels of severity that these represent a different level of severity and then we'd have to work out if there's removal because I don't think our ordinances I mean our ordinances right now you know don't provide for I mean there's certain rules that would provide for removal and there's there's not that many actually. Yes I think that our ordinance provides that the city council can remove anyone that we appoint to a board of commission. It does but there's but you can't there's I don't think it 's just for no cause. I think you have to I don't I don't think it's it's yeah because we've talked about that because I think from what I'm understanding is if somebody appoints someone if the council appoints someone like Councilmember Hussbets one of your nominees gets appointed but then you decide not to run and somebody else gets elected then right now as it stands the person who would then sit in your seat if their term is unexpired then they serve out that term so yeah we might need to get some information from legal on what does our current ordinance is saying if we were to go with this what do we need to modify if anything to accommodate that. The next thing is do you want to provide for some level of disqualification for future service? So there's one that was disqualification from future and then okay this is a little bit different than what's in our background. Yeah it is a little bit there's a typo of some sort. If someone is found to be have violated a code are they dis qualified from future appointment either to a future board or a future commission and we didn 't really touch on right now I don't believe that vendors are subject to our code. That was not a choice that you all selected early on. Some cities have said well if you violate the gift rules or the entertainment rules and those sorts of things then you're disqualified from future contracts for a period of time do you want to get into the issue of disqualification in the future or does each each ethics complaint and the determination stand alone? Mayor Prutin? Well I would like to include disqualification from future appointments if there is a finding that rises to the level of a recommendation for removal because I think that was the most severe finding that was available but I just wanted to clarify I thought that we agreed that vendors would be subject to this ordinance. I'll double check my notes but in going through it earlier this week I didn't see where there was consensus on that point. I'm sure we're gonna have to circle back around on. I'll flag that Mayor Prutin to make sure that it's flagged for the future discussion. So I'm okay with some of that. I'm not okay because to me isn't there a prohibition against and I know it's financially probably is what I'm thinking but I think to set regulations that for future boards I understand we do it but I just think that that becomes a little tricky you know to say that this person's barred in perpetuity from serving in the city because of what happened you know March 2018 that to me seems a little overreaching. I'm open to a period in there a year or two something but I think to say no more is a bit much. Let me ask Mayor Prutin a clarifying question. Mayor Prutin what was your recommendation a lifetime bar or do you have a time frame? I didn't think of a time frame when I first brought it up so I don't know. Allen do you have other examples as far as how long people might be barred? What I've seen is that the two-year window which is very similar to the revolving door window and that sort of thing. I think I'm okay with the two years. Mayor Ryan? I think the fact that we would vote to take them off of that board would be a recommendation to remove so the council would vote. You automatically would probably have a two-year period that council is probably not going to vote to put them back on so that's that would be an automatic and just put this thought in your head if you remove them from planning and zoning to run for council they're only subject to what our charter has so they could still run for council even though they couldn't be appointed to a board. So I don't think that it's necessary to have a disqual ification. I think that's an automatic because the council's if the council decides not to remove them where the council decides to remove them that council is going to have to change enough before they could ever end up being back on the board. I hear that I guess it's there's a big difference as we've heard earlier that the election code determines who can run and so obviously if somebody I like the idea if we vote to knock somebody to remove somebody from a board to say that they are you know not eligible to be reappointed for two years if they go run for council they certainly have the legal right to do that we can't keep them from running for council but my hunch is that it will you know and then the voters are going to decide I mean that's that's the way it is I mean so but I think that if somebody's done something to rise to the level which it's got to be pretty egregious I would think to get to the level of where the ethics committee is going to recommend you be removed to recommend make a recommendation to council that you be removed from that board I mean I don't have a I don't have an issue with the with the two years so is that a is that an okay I mean is there a consensus on that I'm not seeing anybody shaking their heads one way or the other okay I'm seeing heads I'm seeing heads okay yes Keely council member Briggs you okay with that okay this brings us to our final question for this work session on the ethics code which is on the issue of punishment for frivolous claims and do you want to have some form of punishment for that I've given you a few examples in here ranging from from referring to criminal prosecution for perjury to authorizing civil action for the tort of abuse of process I would recommend that we do put something in here if only as a deterrent from frivolous complaints and communicating to the folks that we will take those seriously yes I wouldn't be in favor of a punishment but I would be in favor of something where at some point the the board could determine that an individual is something similar to what a judge decides when they decide that somebody is a I'll probably mispronounce as vexatious litigant because there's we've had folks here in Denton that have made a side career of suing people and not getting a lawyer just filing the claims themselves but but becoming a big distraction for people and having to hire lawyers and fight off these frivolous lawsuits and at some point the judge said no more you can't file a complaint you can't file a lawsuit anymore unless you get the permission from a district judge and that seems reasonable at some point if somebody just continues to file frivolous complaints you know one frivolous complaint no two but at some point the board could say enough is enough you're wasting everyone's time and that person you know and there's always that possibility that that after they they got all the joy out of you know filing frivolous complaints in the past now they find a really serious one they're just going to need to find somebody else with a better reputation to file it so that's that's my comment on all of it councilmember hussbett and then mayor pro tem i'd like to see a letter that we that the city produces that i mean and so alan you 'll have to educate me on the elements of a of a defamation or libel lawsuit but i'm assuming it's some whatever those elements are there's some level of proof required that you know there was deformation there was libel whatever that terminology is i'd like to equip that individual with the letter that kind of stipulates those facts and then where where i 'm going with that is then that equips that person if they feel strong enough about it they can take that letter and go file and in court and say here's my proof of this one element and then they can prove damages or whatever on their own but at least we're equ ipping them with a letter that says in our estimation here's what's happened you know and so if it speaks to that element that would be my preference i don't know if there's any traction for that but i think that's that's kind of anything short of that isn't really actionable for the person that's been been been harmed and i think that serves as enough of a motiv ator for people to be generally cautious about how they how to file the cases and then it doesn't complete the loop for the person that would be harmed it just kind of sets them on the right path so so one option i suppose councilman hudspeth would be to put a provision in our code that just basically says it is not the city council's attention in adopting the code to provide a vehicle for defamation and give some explanation as to what that is and that's in the code people can refer to it if you're wanting me to actually provide the city council with a separate briefing on what the elements are of defamation against a public official in texas i i can do that i i'm going to shy away from writing a tutorial on how to bring a defamation lawsuit by some individual against another individual i don't think that's what you're asking for no i'm just asking for something that has value outside of if i give them a letter of censure i don't know that that has value i don't know if that's enough if that's punitive enough for someone that would provide you know false information but i think if there's if there's because ultimately i think everything that happens next will be out of our out of our control and so when i look at that next step i you know it's almost equipping them with a way to to kind of make themselves whole and i'll give you an example maybe maybe council member ryan will have a statement on this but i mean he during his campaign he got i mean someone just flat out lied and sent a video out that was that was not true you know and they knew it not to be true and there and there's damages that come with that and i think that needs to be i use that as an example of someone being impugned and and trying to make it right best we can by setting that person up to to kind of clear their name mayor pro tem do you have any comments okay so we're talking about frivolous complaints and if there's going to be a punishment for frivolous complaints correct yes all right i was i was a little bit off because i was getting sidetracked on the defamation side of things which by the way i would like to not use alan services for any type of defamation briefing we can get that in house no offense alan none taken so with respect to the frivolous complaints i'm not comfortable attaching a criminal penalty to it i think it's fair to have a fine associated with it especially if there's a cost to the city but i guess my question is every all of the examples have the example of a frivolous statement either in the complaint or in proceedings before the ethics review commission so going back to that clearing house step with the subcommittee or the panel how how would a frivolous complaint be addressed at that sub at the subcommittee level well it could be what i envisioned early on was that it would be a basis for dismissal not something that was actionable at that stage no no punishment would be assessed at that stage so the punishment would attach only if the complaint cleared the first hurdle which is the subcommittee and i'm asking as a question yes well see i that's that seems sticky to me because if a subcommittee is saying that the claim has merit on its face as a probable cause matter then we're saying okay well if it gets to the board it can be deemed frivolous i don't know it doesn 't make sense to me i i get the tension the thought would be that at the board there's there's more evidence presented you have the you have the benefit of testimony and those sorts of things and if it just doesn't materialize as it was attested to then you have more to act on than you would at the preliminary phase okay i can see that but then going back to the preliminary phase i mean couldn't you say that that the preliminary phase there 's not enough information to say if something's frivolous or not because you haven't done a full factual inquiry no i think that's a fair point it is a fair point which is why i go back to if you're having the clearinghouse to begin with you're having an action that happens outside of the board i think it presents some issues can i can i yeah if i could comment on that because that that's a very good point that's a very good point and so the question becomes because when i'm looking at the examples that you gave i mean it's crazy it's probably because i'm a lawyer but when i look at question when i look at the example from laredo is it laredo yeah l aredo very very detailed on what defines a frivolous complaint and not only is it detailed it's a very high threshold i mean you're not going to get your case declared frivolous i mean it's talking about baseless groundless brought for the purpose of harassment and these kind of things and within that particular example it says that if and this is talking about the full board so if the full board believed by two-thirds votes in other words it took more than a majority to even get to the question of being frivolous if they could have had a hearing to have a show cause hearing i think it was what it was called i mean it's pretty but i think in some ways you want to make sure that if people and and it talks about the factors that they're looking at the timing of the complaint with respect to when the supporting facts became known publicity surrounding it when should you you know in other words for it to be frivolous based on laredo you're going to have to i mean it's going to be pretty clear there's not going to be this question of of it being frivolous if those factors are truly applied so the question becomes and i think it's a good question because the subcommittee i don't think is going to be tasked nor will they have the process to determine quote unquote if there's a frivolous complaint that's what i'm saying i think that's a very that's a very strong i mean there's there's a lot of things in the law that define a frivolous complaint i mean it has to be so clear on its face or a bad faith purpose for harassment that there's no clear evidence that you you know so how do we i mean because if somebody brings something frivolous i don't think they're going to figure it out at the sub at the at the panel level i don't think they're going to have enough process to do that so i think it can get past the panel and still become a you know if the if the board by two-thirds say we want to have a show cause hearing to determine if we think this is frivolous and then if they do then by majority of the vote according to laredo there's certain sanctions which i don't agree with criminal process either either so i can see an example where it could but what you're saying mayor pro tem is that doesn't seem fair i mean how can you get past the subcommittee that's supposed to be screening these things and then you get before the full board and then the full board can have a finding of that the the complaint is frivolous so it's sort of a double bind yeah yes ma'am well the other thing i was thinking i mean i can see how somebody would get past the subcommittee not with any patently false statements but as the facts are developed i could see that however i guess with the subcommittee okay so basically we're saying that somebody could continually file complaints that don't get past the subcommittee and those would never be deemed frivolous because they would never go before a full board am i understanding that correctly yes but maybe there's something that we could put in there that if the if if it was a unanimous because to me a subcommittee if you got seven board members is our three still i mean could you have three sub subcommittee members you could okay so if you had three and all three of them recommended to the full board that we believe this is frivolous and then let the board decide on the two-thirds majority of the show cause hearing and go through that whole in other words because it's going to be pretty i mean if you're three people sitting there and you look at this and you go wow this isn't just we just should dismiss this this is this person is trying to do harm i mean this person is is acting in bad faith and for the purpose of harassment they've got to make some pretty clear hard kind of conclusions and so maybe if you said well the only way it's going to be looked at for frivolous ness is if the entire panel sub panel instead of just dismissing it they say you know we're going to send this to the board and let them determine if they want to you know what they think about it because i really don't think you're going to get too many quote unquote frivolous complaints i mean that just is something that who would want to subject themselves to that and that's why i like laredo is because it's saying we don't want to put an impediment of or scare you not to file a complaint we just want you to when you file a complaint know what happened know what code it violated and you're going to you're going to get past it but when you read laredo i mean it's pretty strong about the hurdles that a board has to jump to get to be now it talks about the consequences of that and says civil penalty not more than five hundred dollars imposition of attorney's fees incurred by respondent but if it's at the if it's at the pre-dismissal stage it probably won't be any and or other sanction i don't know about the and or and then it talks about may appropriate regulatory authority supervisor i don't know if we need to do that but i think we've got to have something that says gosh if you keep filing or if you file a frivolous complaint and he gets to the point where he gets to the full board because if it's on an agenda it's even if it's a frivolous complaint it's no does that make sense it's a tricky it's a tricky issue yes i think this dialogue has given us a good direction and i've written all that part down in an awful lot of this whole discussion the big discussion is about accountability and it's about holding staff accountable and it's about holding the council and boards and commissions members accountable but at some point if somebody is going to file a complaint there needs to be a certain level of accountability there not not to not to make people reluctant to file a complaint if they think that there's a legitimate complaint but but on the other hand if if they just made a hobby of it and and and or if it if it if it's for purposes of harassment or trying to somehow subdue a council member or a staff member or you know that that continues to say you know well you're you're filing for this zoning change but it you can't do that it's not right at some point the person who's filing that needs to be held to accountability in some way or another i mean that's that's what we call fairness is when there's accountability on all sides i agree this is your last section is that right okay any any comments on this or i mean so we 're going to wrap this up you've got enough at least dialogue i got enough i'll raise something that was not on my agenda but i have to because you kept bringing it up looking at my notes the only consensus number that i had from our previous meeting on the size of your board of ethics was five five plus two alternates there were some that wanted seven but that was not the consensus of the city council at the time so what i've drafted thus far is five plus two alternates to cover if someone is there absent or is abstaining from deliberations on a complaint do you wish me to go back and change five to seven or are you comfortable with five well the question i have is did we make a decision about are those just nominated by council members and voted on by the council or this is this a group that has specialized training um it was um voted on by a majority of the council there was no indication of individual appoint appointees by council members because the number was so low is five there was a preference stated for professionals with licenses such as lawyers jurists professional therapists but also tradesmen that had a high level of training and experience and so i have all those notes written down but right now it's five plus two based upon our conversation today especially if we 're going to go with the sub panel for looking at i mean i don't want just two people on that sub panel and if we have five then you're going to get two yes so i'd rather have seven with three on the sub panel because um you know this is i mean five is i think i'm okay with seven i see lots of heads nodding yes i don't see any nos i'll make that adjustment that's easy all right the next time i see you uh you all have been given in advance a rough draft of the ordinance reflecting the choices you've made so far all right thank you very much appreciate it thank you mayor thank you all right let's take a 10 minute break then we'll come back to our next agenda item welcome back to this meeting of the denton city council we are reconvening on tuesday february the 20th 2018 it is 4 35 we're moving on to our last work session item which is a work session item 4 c which is receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the solid waste department's landfill vegetative buffer and maximum landfill height proposed and permit amendment good afternoon mr mayor members of the council pleasure to be here with you this afternoon we do have a presentation that's going to talk a little bit about the proposed landfill height and a permit that the department has with tcq that's currently pending and we're also going to be addressing some issues with our our vegetative buffer that we're running into right now and give you an idea of what our media our mitigation plan is for some of those challenges with us today is frank pugsley he's with park hill smith and cooper uh he's uh kind of the architect for a lot of the stuff that we do at the landfill in terms of landfill height he's been deeply involved in the permit so i'm going to save the hard questions for him if you guys lob any at me today so without further ado a little bit of background on both of these issues both concerns have been voiced on numerous occasions with the council during the open mic portion of the council meetings over the last few months and so i think really the the purpose today is to just give you some information we're not necessarily asking for direction on either of these items at this stage we want to talk a little bit about what the proposed landfill height is and what that means for you and and kind of the stops along the way in which we can make some decisions i'll also talk about the lack of trees in the buffer zone just a little bit more background on each of these issues uh landfill expansion this is a topic that came up as i understand it in about the 2006 2007 time frame and at that time the council that was in place provided direction to increase the landfill site life of about 50 plus years and so typically when you look at landfill expansion you're looking at not just virgin land development and additional land you're looking at additional airspace which is vertical expansion and so staff began planning that process in 2008 with with both of those arrows kind of in their qu iver and land acquisitions occurred at various points over the last few years and then starting last year in the about the january time frame the department actually submitted an application with the tcq that permit is is basically named 1590b our existing permit is 1598 to kind of keep those separate in regards to the buffer zone this is something that hasn't had as many discussions over the years but it is something we provided a staff report to council in september 2017 got a real quick question from council member just for the the permit she said currently there's 1590a yes this is what we have and so 1590b just started last year or in 2008 the the planning portion of this land acquisition and a lot of that started in 2008 but the official application for the permit frank crimp if i'm wrong it was january 2017 when we submitted that to the tceq do you know how much we have paid or invested in the process of the permit up until till today i do not know off the top of my head but i can circle back with council on that answer okay thank you needless to say it is a very expensive proposition and it's a multi-year process that and i'll talk about this in a slide or or two further on is we are approaching kind of the end of this process we only have about four or five months to go to get the permit in hand okay so i'm going to take these in order the first thing i want to address is is landfill height and there's there's a few different heights that are going to be in play here so i'm going to try to keep these straight for everyone first and foremost is the existing height which is where we 're operating at today in the landfill our our highest operational point right now is 53 feet above ground level and some of the permit documents you won't see necessarily ground level you'll see mean sea level for simplicity sake i'm just keeping it to ground level today but if you need that translation let me know in addition to that we have some limitations either through our existing permit as well as the sqp and we also have a settlement agreement with some of the surrounding property owners so the specific use permit that was put into place in 1995 and an amended provision of the permit 1598 that limits our height to 80 feet so we're operating underneath that restriction today we really don't have any operational plans to go up to that height in the near future we still have some some new cells that are being developed in fact i think council approved one of those a few months ago in addition to that restriction if we wanted to go above 80 feet understand that the settlement agreement with the area landowners we cannot exceed 95 feet in operating height until at least 2028 that's when that agreement would expire so regardless of changes to sup to 1590a or the new permit that we're putting forward we need to stay below 95 feet until at least that time frame does that make sense all right so now we get to the tceq permit that's currently being considered by the the agency the proposed maximum height on that is 213.5 feet above ground level which is a significant increase over what we have now and i'll provide a little bit of flavor to what that looks like as we move to the next slide hang on with this could you go back to the slide absolutely okay i'm confused about an sup that limits the height to 80 feet and a settlement agreement that limits the height to 95 feet until 2028 if the sup limits the height to 80 feet then how is there anything else that supersedes that we could always go back with a specific use permit that increases above 80 feet however until 2028 we can't go go above the 95 feet i guess the simplest way to explain that would be that the sup can be more restrictive than what the agency approves than what we have in terms of a settlement agreement with a different party that's that's really the council's pleasure as to what you want to let us and is the settlement agreement something that happened in a district court or something else someplace else i'm not quite sure on the history of that i think that was part of the the last permit that was kind of a mediated settlement agreement with the parties as we work through the agency to get the last 1598 and and just just in terms of of the way that that landf ills work the the technical aspects of them is it possible that the landfills certain cells that are say closer to arterial roads could be limited to 80 feet and cells you know a quarter mile back could be 95 feet and cells a half a mile back be 213 feet can it be built that way i don't see why not and i think you know some of those are probably more operational decisions that we could look at but the council could also come by and memorialize that in a specific use permit typically the agency the tceq is not going to look at cell by cell they're going to permit us on a site-wide basis so that would be something that typically we'd want to do in a specific use permit would be my understanding okay council member riggs so just for clarification for myself um so we're at 53 now and the permit 1590b allows us to go up to 95 feet until 20 28 and then after that it can go all the way up to 213 feet without any other perm itting or anything like that so we're planning if if 1590b is approved as submitted that would be correct but there is a potential that this height that's being proposed through the perm itting process gets decreased as we work with the agency there's also going to be some public notice that i'm going to talk about in a few slides that it's not unusual for the agency to come back and say let's reduce that down 40 50 60 feet that could certainly happen so there's an opportunity for the the public to um talk to tceq yes that process yeah there's been one round of mailing so far and there's going to be a second round of mailings and notices that go out following a couple of steps that i'll hit in a slide or two but that's that's certainly a potential there and then once the the permitting process with the agency is completed then our intention would be to allow council to weigh in on here's what we are approved for by the tceq do you want to make adjustments to that at a local level okay understand that the council cannot go above what tceq permits us to do but you can always bring us lower in terms of high if you choose to do so and just answer council member bregery's question typically cities will put the sup restrictions they'll be more restrictive in a permit just to ensure that there's a belt suspenders opportunity for the residents to come in and make sure that their concerns are addressed because memories fade given these permits being 20 30 years old age so it forces staff to come back with a plan that addresses traffic issues screening that sort of thing so that's typically why you'll see the sup be that restrictive is they clearly wanted staff coming back if it ever went from 80 to 95 feet with the mitigation plan so and the same thing will happen with the tceq permit even though it was proposed at 213 feet you're going to have public input and you're also going to have the ability for the pb and the city council to weigh in as well and they could put another restriction like that on a couple of other questions sure and then that's tceq if a person wants to um argue against 213 feet where are they going to go to make that argument i'm gonna i'm gonna ask frank pugsley he's kind of our guide through some of this uh in addition to him we also have been consulting with our legal department as well as outside legal council so frank i think can kind of answer that he's been through a few of these battles and again i'm frank pugsley with parkill smith and cooper i'm the engineer of record for the the landfill permit amendment and to answer your question the public input process begins in a few months when the tceq declares our permit technically complete that means we have covered all their technical aspects and the regulations we will send a round of mail ings to the surrounding landowners and anyone else who's electively on the contact list as well as published notice in the newspaper that gives the potentially affected parties the opportunity to first comment and or request a public meeting in addition they can also request a public hearing so there are basically the three escalating levels uh that occur after the permit is declared technically complete then if i may remember thank you and and if they requested a public meeting or a public hearing where would those take place those would be locally um the public meetings the tceq organizes it they're typically either at a you know city hall where we have available space or at a you know elementary school gymnasium or somewhere where we can fit the interested people to ask questions of the tceq so they can get their technical answers and um where would tceq then make their determination about the height depending upon the comments that are are or not received um they would discuss that with uh the permit team in the city to identify things that uh that they know that the public has a significant issue with and then there would be a negotiation process where they're not those changes are implemented and how they're implemented and typically they won't award the permit until all those issues between the the public and the city and the tceq are resolved and and well there's a possibility that there's not a resolution right that the city needs it okay we we put in a bid for 213 you figuring that it would be knocked down i'm just guessing this is the way that things happen and uh uh and so we're hoping for uh you know 95 feet or 80 feet to be approved but but the question is tceq is a group i mean that's a body and and and they make their decision somewhere and my guess is they make their final decisions not in dentin well that what the tceq is going to rule on is the technical accuracy and then if there is a public meeting address those comments and if the public or the comments aren't fully um uh you know realized or rectified through that public meeting process then the affected parties can ask for a uh public hearing which goes to the state office of administrative hearings it's basically like a court trial where they assign a uh so a judge and then the both sides have the opportunity to present their case on why or why not their their request should be met okay and we'd like to avoid that if if possible okay thanks so i'd like to no i don't have a question um we've got about 15 slides let's get through the presentation and save the questions for the end because yeah i think the 10 minute limbo we have one minute left and so i'll make the rest of these go really quickly right on through yeah let's hold the questions and then we can ask them all at once and i think some of these will be a little bit repeated as we go through the next few slides and so we did want to provide a few visual representations of what that max height would look like and so with with frank and his firm's assistance um this is a a photo taken of the north side of the landfill facing south down mayhill road if you can just kind of follow my mouse here a few landmarks we've got our recycling or home chemical collection center here you've got some some garbage trucks here that provide a little bit of sense of scale this bright green section is actually a visual depiction of where our existing height is right now that's the 53 feet above ground level and so this darker shaded in area up here is basically digitally added to give you a sense of how much additional height would be added on top of that if we were to hit the 213 feet so it is it is a significant increase if we were to go to that maximum height a few things that i would say in terms of the council's role in this is number one if tcq approves this at 213 feet there's no obligation by the city to ever extend expand beyond even our existing operating height that's something that the council could to to the city manager's earlier point adopt via a specific use permit and limit us there the other thing that i would say is we do have some operational flexibility if you will given how the permit is being processed right now we have 11 additional new cells that are going to be filled in up here and into the north of our existing operation those cells would essentially give us about 30 additional years of waste capacity on their own at our existing height limits and so essentially we could decide let's wait to determine if we want to increase our height and allow that decision to be made by future councils future citizens if we chose to do so another visual for you this is the one that kind of jumps out at you this is our existing height over here the limitation at 95 feet there's a couple of other local area landfills that we've included you've got city of dallas city of irving that are already taller than our existing height then you have the twu buildings that have been provided as a little bit of scale and then this was what the maximum proposed height would look like in terms of man-made structures and so it would be a significant again increase if we were to ever achieve that maximum height i'd be about the fourth largest man-made structure in the city tried to get tada let me put a picture of a t-rex in here but it didn't happen so that would have really helped i thought so too eating the eating the trash yes exactly right i'm just kidding a t-rex is our our you know mascot out there so try to remind everybody that so aside from the visuals i do want to give the council again we're not asking for a decision on this today we still got to work through the process with tcq however you know this is always kind of comes with the trade-off is what is the waste capacity the the benefit of this asset for waste disposal in the future versus what are the aesthetics and the impact of properties in the surrounding areas and so again with psc's assistance we've put together this table kind of gives you a sense of what we're looking at so at the maximum height we've rounded this off to about 200 feet above ground level we have about this much waste capacity and cubic yardage and what that gives us is an estimated landfill closure of about 2087 so above and beyond the 50 plus years that council asked for back in 2006 you drop about 40 feet off of that then you lose about 11 of your capacity and seven years of landfill height because these are sloped the deeper you cut in terms of height loss the more pronounced the loss of airspace and landfill life becomes and so you could lose 26 by going to 120 feet that's 19 years of capacity lost and if we just maintain our existing height of 80 feet that's our existing sup limit again we said that that gives you about 30 years which takes us out to about 2048 and so we would lose potentially 39 years of life if we go from 200 to all the way down to 80 so again no decisions are required today if we really wanted to push this out as far as we wanted to we probably want to circle back in 2040 20 45 or so to start making some of those decisions the remaining permitting process frank alluded to some of this a little bit earlier we have about four to five months left in this process the the next step that's going to happen is tceq will likely declare us technically uh technically complete which essentially what that means is they don't have any defects that are of a technical nature we've cured all that and then we move on to the public comment period that frank discussed a moment ago uh he walked through the process so i'm not going to repeat that but essentially that's the public's opportunity weighing in on high noise odor traffic concerns that kind of impact the neighborhood or the community in general would be the order of the day once those are resolved uh to the the tceq satisfaction the permit will be issued and then after that our recommendation would be that we'd like to circle back with council uh give you a read of what we've been permitted to do and then allow you to make adjustments with the new sup if you you chose to do so and that's that's pretty much it in terms of what i have for the landfill height so i'll stand for any questions on the landfill yes not really a question just a comment it just goes to show how important recycling and reuse is in our city to avoid this type of height in our landfill so the question i have is you'd mention that we could stay at the 53 foot height and maintain the the life for 30 years but on your chart you had 80 feet i may have misspoke on the 53 it's actually the 80 feet is okay okay all right i apologize no no i just want to make sure i understood okay thank you for catching that all right so if there's no questions on landfill height i 'll move on to the uh the buffer zone a little bit of definition work here uh buffer may mean a number of things but in terms of tcq solid waste permits that's basically just the distance between our permit or property boundary and the foot of our waste disposal operation right now i believe that's at about 115 to 125 feet is what's defined as our buffer zone according to our existing permit with the agency there's no landscaping requirements associated with that buffer zone it just means that there's got to be that physical separation in terms of square footage that separates the permit from or the boundary from the waste however the specific use permit that was adopted in 1995 does have some prescriptive elements on vegetation in the buffer zone and it calls out sufficient landscaping and screening to ensure harmony and compatibility with adjacent property that was what was codified codified by this ordinance uh this listed here and in addition to that there is also this visual that was provided as accompanying backup this may be something that's been presented to council previously i think i provided that as part of the the staff report that i sent in september this is what was included with that it's basically the typical landscape buffer as it's described it has the width of the buffer zone detailed here and it also has the the linear or the length of the buffer zone and i'll show you a visual representation of this in a moment it basically prescribes 20 trees per 100 linear feet planning should look somewhat like this and then it has 30 recommended as evergreen so that's that's typically what we had tried to do in years past my understanding is that's actually the planning that occurred whenever this was approved question about council member breaks do you want us to hold our questions until the end or can can i ask along with some of these how many sides you got well just can i have one for clarification for this process because um for the sup you said there was a settlement agreement are we talking about the same settlement agreement for the buffer that's included in there as well yes okay thank you just want to make sure and and in my understanding is some of these prescriptive elements are also in that settlement agreement as well okay so my understanding is that the planning did occur following the permit approval however over the years we've lost a number of trees either to development and activity along mayhill road but it may be as well as to drought and disease today we have about 217 of the 780 trees that should be planted in the ground and i want to kind of go through on these next couple of slides with some of the recent and current challenges that we're facing and i've just kind of identified these here and i'll call them out on the next slide you have some utility infrastructure there's a wall that was constructed that separates the landfill from the right of way out there on mayhill you've got drainage and you also have all the activity along mayhill road so we had the building inspections and our urban forester come out last fall and provide a survey of what our buffer zone is looking like and so right here on the left-hand side you have an aerial view of our landfill operation in the surrounding area so this is the landfill right here mayhill if you follow my mouse running south to north runs right along here and all these little colored boxes right here represent 100 linear feet as prescribed by that typical landscape buffer so what building inspections provided us is kind of a color code entry here that says are you either at standard below standard or approaching standard and so i 'll walk through a few of these and reference these photos up here on the slide so number one here you have a mix of yellow and red yellow means what we have is a substandard buffer and so as you see right here on this visual number one is we do have some trees here in the right of way you also see the the buffer zone wall right here as well some overhead utility work the analysis here is basically that we don't have the tree the 20 trees that are required per 100 linear feet where we have a substandard buffer in that area same thing in number four here this is along edwards road that borders the trailer park to our south there's trees right here in this photo but just not the prescribed amount of 20 trees per 100 linear feet you also have sections in red here where we have essentially no buffer in place this is number two if you follow this over here you kind of see the restraints that we're dealing with or constraints is the the buffer zone wall juts out you have overhead utility lines some drainage here and then mayhill road over here on the left hand side so there's just not much in the way of room to plant trees if we chose to do so that being said we do have opportunities because it's technically in the buffer zone to plant trees behind the wall and so there are a few trees up here as you can see and then finally we do have some areas in the buffer zone that are approaching standard meaning that we're pretty close if not at the 20 trees per 100 linear feet so this is number three right here and you see we have a number of new plantings that are right here along the wall and then you have some established trees as well so armed with this information we engaged freezing nickels to perform some landscape architect work for us and we understood that in addition to some of these existing challenges that there 's also a lot of development that's happening along that mayhill area that could potentially impact the tree planting and so i want to go into a little bit of that as well namely the the two biggest things are going to impact us moving forward our overhead transmission lines for electric projects there's a potential that those are going to remove additional trees from the buffer zone and then we also as i'm sure council is well aware we have the mayhill construction that uh it kind of has uh both a positive and a negative effect on this is i don't know that it's going to remove trees from our buffer zone but it could certainly delay some of our planting is something we got to work around so with this visual i want to zoom into these two little boxes here because i know this is a little bit hard to see so you know back out of powerpoint just briefly i'll call those challenges out as you see the visual here all right so this is the section that was labeled number one this is uh basically a straight shot along our buffer zone you can kind of see here if you follow my mouse this is the top of our buffer zone wall and this pink shaded area right here are what will be future transmission lines for a dme project this little black dot represents what i would assume to be a utility pole and you can kind of see trees if you follow my mouse right in that easement area and so we suspect that there's going to be additional trees removed from that and so our plan with freeze and nickels is we need to have a plan to to mitigate the loss of those trees in addition to the trees that we may have already lost due to drought disease etc. this little strip right here the 60 foot wide strip is actually going to be what we have for future buffer because on the other side of this is going to be the future mayhill expansion and so what we've asked freeze and nickels to do is provide us a plan that we can plant trees along behind the wall here we plan to do that immediately and then circle back as construction finishes to plant in the new buffer area right out here give you one more visual with some of the same explanation this is kind of a busy corner at the bottom or the south area of the landfill again you can kind of pick out the buffer zone wall here you can see that it juts out the transmission lines here are actually going to go right over that wall and cut across it so we may have less opportunities to plant trees behind the buffer zone wall we also have a distribution project that's going to be running lines right here in this yellow shaded area and then you have an existing at most gas line that's running right here and so really what we're left with in terms of options to plant trees is very limited behind the wall we've got a 40 foot strip here a 31 foot strip here and maybe some additional buffer here depending on how this project moves along i will just kind of put this caveat out there that all of this is planned and i'm assuming plans could change potentially on this and that's why what we've asked freezing nickels to do is this will be kind of a phase two planting phase one will be behind the wall if that makes sense okay whoops i don't want to pull up my email just yet so just to kind of summarize where we are in space and time with the buffer zone again we've engaged the architect for landscaping freezing nickels their charge basically we know that this situation is not ideal we know that we're not where we need to be with the typical design that was provided back in 1995 really our goal is to mitigate all 700 trees if it's possible to do so and that's the charge we've given freezing nickels it may not look exactly as it was designed 20 years ago but we want to get as close as we can we also want to make sure that we have the right species of tree the location the right planning schedule to ensure that we're not planting a tree only to come by three or five years later to find it has died or that has to be removed for something else and so we want to make sure that we're taking the right approach to this to maximize the survivability of the trees and that they're there for for the long term as a result the project timeline that we've asked freezing nickels to help us with is planning behind the wall we'd like to hit this next planning season on that that would be fall of 2018 so we'd have design work whatever earthwork is necessary an irrigation system in and then trees in the ground by fall 2018 and like i said phase two is going to be out on the outside of the wall which is really going to be contingent on some of those construction plans that are out there today what we've heard from the folks that we visited with is we could probably look at planning about two years later than that fall 2018 so that would put us fall 2020 2021 somewhere in that time frame for the second phase with that that is my presentation i'm happy to stand for questions so the sup contemplates that there would be a buffer behind the wall the wall was a new addition i believe that was added three to four years ago uh that was not something that was contemplated in the original sup just seems kind of odd to me because typically when you think about a buffer it's a visual a visual buffer so if it's behind the wall it has a limited ability to visually buffer so so our thinking there is that because the landfill is a vertical uh construction as well is that if we build up the earth behind the wall we can plant trees on there and it does provide a visual buffer to the height of the landfill if that makes sense right okay so then with the respect to the transmission lines i'm not clear on why we can't plant underneath the transmission lines if they're the large lines if they're the metal i don't i forget what volt that is what was that 135 135 i'm assuming it's a 135 upgrade 338 okay so do we know what the upgrade is for the transmission lines um i don't know that right off the top of my head but what i would say is there is a possibility that we can do some plantings uh that would fit that what you're describing um i think the immediate concern is that there will probably be additional trees removed before they're planted and so we want to make sure that that construction is complete and that freezing nickels has a full understanding of what we're dealing with before we start moving forward with those plans and so the transmission line has to go exactly where it's placed on the map that's my understanding we're going to circle back with the council and the public utilities board regarding a substation that's out in the mayhill area there's a couple of options that we're exploring on that with dme but my understanding is both of those options would require the transmission lines to run right up the buffer zone as displayed here okay so i mean i guess usually when we have transmission line upgrades come to us you know it's on private property and there needs to be an easement of some kind but in this case we own all of the property so i'm just that's kind of perplexing why we couldn't move it a certain amount yeah i think some of those questions may be better posed to dme as we talk about the substation but that's certainly something that if there's an opportunity there we 'd be more than willing to take a look at it thanks i have a few but going back to the the mayhill project and you said it's going to delay planting um is it over 100 feet west of the buffer i mean why is it going to delay planting when the road's not going to come up is it the transmission line and what specifically is it that's gonna i mean we could certainly plant sooner i think the the plans for mayhill as i understand it are still somewhat up in the air in certain sections and our primary concern is this is what we dealt with with the buffer zone previously is we don't want to plant trees and implement an irrigation system only to have that torn up or damaged as construction work is going on in fact i'll try to zoom in on a couple of these is there there may be a need to actually mill up some of old mayhill to maximize buffer i'm not sure if that's an option or not but i know we've looked at this a few different ways as you can kind of see here as i zoom in part of that 40 feet wide right there is actually part of existing mayhill and so we may have a decision on our hands is do we want to maximize buffer space by milling that road up if these distribution lines go there it will probably need to be milled anyway and so i think there's just a number of variables there that as this starts to clear up for us and construction starts to move along we may have some opportunities to address it a little bit sooner but again i think the the biggest thing is we want to ensure the the survivability of the trees and we don't want to have to come back and redo or remove and replant if we can avoid it okay can you go to back to the current state the the slides with the picture okay so it is the the buffer survey is that the actual buffer boundary that we're looking at for for the buffer that borders mayhill and edwards yes technically the buffer goes all the way around our property but this is really the separation of public property and private property right here so the what 's included in the sup just what we're seeing right here that's my understanding is that the separation of or actually the vegetative buffer is prescribed for mayhill and long edwards road okay and number four that is on edwards road that's part of our buffer it is correct it's this area right down here okay um see i have to kind of go back in my notes because i couldn't ask questions um so we can go back to the challenges i'm uh so the recent and current current challenges did were these all in place ahead of time do you um before the trees i mean is it um is there anything that we could have done ahead of time i think so number one i i'm not quite sure on the chron ology of all these events but i think there's definitely things that we could have done differently to avoid some of this i think the buffer wall is one that that was not in place so there's a lot of those trees were there previously my understanding what the buffer wall is it did provide kind of a visual separation of mayhill and our operation but again that wasn't something that was contemplated back in 1995 and so i think with all of this the coordination could have been better and i think we could have been a bit more transparent with how these decisions were made with utility work the drainage the mayhill road i think those are things that require coordination with other departments and frankly i think we could have done a better job on that too okay so i have a question about the sup because my only other experience with an sup was a towing company a long time ago and they weren't in compliance and they were being we were threatening to remove the sup because they weren't in compliance so how does that affect us as a city if we have an sup and we're not in compliance with it i may have to defer that question to our city attorney it looks like he's ready to answer this that would be a very complicated proceeding to remove it considering that you're both acting in a regulatory role and as a private or a public property owner role as well it can be done it's just going to be a complicated or complex proceeding so the best thing for us to do is to get in compliance yes the point of this is we're definitely going to need to amend the sup at some point and we've spent several months trying to just put together the history of how this how this happened how so much infrastructure and conflicts we got in that buffer zone we're trying to be as transparent as possible and basically you know let you know we're trying to do the right thing we need to do the right thing but i think as it was contemplated back in 95 it's just not possible today or feasible from an investment perspective and and you know so we're continuing to work through and get you those landscape plans and we'll try to do the best we can and try to try to get as much of that buffer build as we possibly can there's going to be some areas once the the design is finalized that we can come back and talk to the council about such as moving or milling the road and possibly enhancing the buffer but this is really where we are today and the set of facts that we have and there's no question that sup may have to be amended okay thank you and if i might i think if if we time that with the the tceq proceedings we have our permit in hand that would really be how we would want to time all this up is to tie all that together again so that we can kind of hit it with one sup just to it's just a follow-up because i got okay go ahead yeah and so when that sup comes back to us the landscape plan all of that will be included so we'll have a visual of types of trees and everything that that would be our goal again i think the the construction is the one thing is if if these plans have been finalized in terms of the alignment of mayhill excuse me and all that is is on fairly firm footing then we can definitely have those plans from freezing nickels and we can incorporate what the recommendations are into the sup oh thank you so does the sup stipulate because i share your concern i mean i think there's there's more concern at this point for me than you see it all the time in the media and someone will plant a tree and come rip it back out i mean that that to me is more egregious than than just trying to own up to it and be open and honest so i'd prefer the latter and then my question though is the the stipulations in the sup how detailed is it is it real trees fake trees is it planted trees you know i mean really i mean because ultimately if you're talking about a screener and we can put a a realish tree there then let's put a realish tree there that we don't you know or if it's potted you know if it doesn't have to be in the ground if it doesn't specify then let's put a bunch of potted plants out there that we can move around as construction goes and and be you know so i think i'm willing to get outside of the box and i may be alone in that but if it doesn't stipulate you know i'm willing to consider a lot of different things to to you know onward upward i'm not sure about the uh the the potted or fake trees we 'll check if michaels is having a sale or something but i think uh i think you know we're willing to think outside the box on this too i think the the point is is that we don't want to plant a tree and and repeat i guess the sins of the past has had that tree have to be dug up uh replanted ultimately it dies as a result of us not planning ahead and so i think what we have out in front of us is we we have a number of things that have to fall into place and and i think it really demands us exercise a little bit of patience on at least part of the planting here and so i mean we're certainly open to recommendations on improving the buffer um given the constraints that we're dealing with today as well as over the next couple of years any other questions all right fantastic thank you very much you bet that concludes our work session reports we'll now convene closed session at 5 16 on february 20th 2018 we will consider the following items deliberations regarding personnel matter under text government code section 551.074 and also uh is the other one the these two yes and then the one with the real estate the house the pulled consent agenda item yes these are both related to the atmosphere okay but but but also on e do we have it e the house consent agenda item e i think it's real property matter it 's the idris track yeah it's the it's the it's this one so i need to do one for the real property we 're also going to do deliberations regarding certain public power utility competitive matters under text government code section 551.086 consultation under attorney with attorneys under texas government code section 551.071 and what's the one for uh real estate um top my head i'll give you the end i don't know the end do i need to do i need to state it right now to the real estate exception or the okay all right and then we're going to do a consultation regarding real estate matters with the exception with the exception as noted under the texas open meetings act and we 'll provide that texas government code section as well so am i good on that yes okay all right all right so we will uh we're now in closed session so everybody to this meeting of the denton city council it is february the 20th 2018 here on tuesday we do have a quorum so i'll call the meeting to order if you would i've got we've got troop 65 here whoever wants to come down and lead us in the pledge of allegiance to both the united states and texas flag come on down but we're going to have have them help us lead so if you'll stand with me if you're able to pledge allegiance to the flags i pledge allegiance okay the this proclamation is music city friendly so who's going to be coming down to receive that and anybody that wants to join julie come on down and get you introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the official music friendly city community designation that we received come on don't be shy thank you gentlemen hi i'm julie gliver i'm with the city's economic development department kim phillips i'm with discover denton the denton convention and visitors bureau i 'm molly campbell i'm with d mac i'm nick bargapour with d mac the denton music and arts collaborative i'm andy nappick i'm with the denton music and arts collaborative kj jones with d mac matt mars d mac christine gossett denton main street association so tell us a little bit about this designation uh this is a new designation through the governor's office of texas governor's office uh there's a certain process that we go through to become a music friendly community we uh got a resolution and we're going to exchange information with their office and with our office uh music is a big economic development factor in the city of denton we're going to start tracking uh studios and the other things that go along you think about music you think about a guy standing on stage and playing but there's so much more to this industry than just the people that are standing on stage playing there's recording studios there's people making cds and albums and i guess records again teachers a lot of different economic development activities with this well thank you so much everybody that's worked on this because i know it's a lot of work and it's just another designation that the city has to draw people to us and just to really accent what we what we have here in this city we all know we've got it and we enjoy it but it helps the rest of the community in the state know that so thank you all so much for doing that got a proclamation here uh greetings whereas denton's creative and intelligent wealth fueled by two 100 plus year old universities the university of north texas and texas women's university attracts musicians and artists of all medians to become part of the denton community and whereas the university of north texas college of music is the choice of more than 1500 music majors from the nations around the world the largest number of music majors of any university in the united states and whereas the careers of internationally acclaimed music artists including don henley norah jones pat been pat boone excuse me ray w iley hubbard louis merino roy orbison midlake steven fromholst and many more were launched in denton's music scene and whereas denton is the hometown of two grammy award-winning bands brave combo six-time grammy award nominated one o'clock lab band and hundreds of bands of myriad genres recording under independent labels and whereas denton boasts more than a dozen independent recording studios showcases musical talent through festivals such as the nationally renowned denton arts and jazz festival and possesses numerous music venues more than 25 of which are within walking distance of denton's vibrant downtown square now therefore i chris watts mayor of the city of denton texas do hereby declare and proclaim denton as an official music friendly community through the texas governor's music office and encourage all citizens to recognize this achievement thank you all so much for helping us do this just just okay just one more thing uh we are going to have a celebration friday afternoon at five o'clock at down's dan silverleaf down at industrial we'll have live music some some great local bands and come down and celebrate with us from five to seven uh brendan anthony from the texas music office will be with us and we're going to reread the pro clamation but keely gets to do it next time all right thank you all so much thank you you bet thank you thank you you bet yes thank you all so much for your work you bet good to see you good to see you thank you okay the next one is an iHOP's national pancake day and sch reiner's hospitals day for children day i don't believe anybody's here to receive this so i'll just read the proclamation whereas schreiner's hospital for children is a national non -profit organization committed to giving children the opportunity to live a more normal life and whereas schreiner's hospitals for children give children the opportunity to receive treatment for orthopedic problems severe burns and spinal cord injuries and provides them with a head start in developing a normal life regardless of the patient's ability to pay that is essential to becoming successful and contributing adults and whereas on february 27th 2018 schreiner's hospital for children and iHOP will join together to encourage people to donate to schreiner's hospital for children's activities in our city now therefore i chris watts mayor of the city of denton texas in recognition of this important event do hereby proclaim february the 27th 2018 in denton as iHOP national pancake day and schreiner's hospital for children day in the city of denton texas and encourage all citizens to recognize this important event and encourage the citizens to donate to this national cause so you've got an excuse now to go to iHOP and eat as many pancakes as you want but thank you all so much for that now this is an interesting one to follow iHOP pancake day which is the american heart month so neil if you'll come on something to come on down and y'all come on down and tell us a little bit about you're not going to be telling us to go to iHOP are you okay all right there you go if you could just tell us a little bit introduce yourself i'm ellen painter i'm chair for the american heart association go red for women heart luncheon and i'm carolyn simmons committee member miss jenica and trust and committee member leo bright that to credit union committee member tanya park er denton depot and committee member i'm taryn houghton the university north texas alumni association and committee member and i'm dia mitchell i get to work with this group of lovely ladies i'm with the american heart association no you're good you're good i want to read the proclamation and give you an opportunity just to share with us about what you guys are doing whereas cardiovascular disease is the nation's leading cause of death with direct and indirect costs estimated to be 432 billion dollars in 2017 432 billion dollars in 2017 and whereas cardiovascular disease accounts for over 36 percent of all deaths nationwide and whereas nearly 2400 americans die of cardiovascular disease every day an average of one death every 36 seconds and where an estimated 700 000 americans nationwide will have a new coronary attack and an additional 500 000 americans will have a reoccurring attack for a total of 1.2 million attacks this year whereas the research is clear that there are tools available to increase survival rates from cardiovascular disease and whereas efforts of the american heart association encourages citizens to help save lives by calling 911 if symptoms occur become trained in cpr and encourage comprehensive automated external defibrillator programs in their communities whereas the american heart association is celebrating february 2018 as american heart month and promoting education and awareness by encouraging citizens to learn the warning signs of heart attack and stroke now therefore i chris watts mayor of the city of denton texas to hereby declare and proclaim the month of february 2018 as american heart month in denton and urge all citizens to recognize the critical importance of tools and skills that will increase survival rates from cardiac arrest by incorporating these tools into aggressive programs we can save thousands of lives each year and thank you so much for bringing that to our attention that's something we need to be reminded of not just in february but all the time so tell us a little bit about what's going on this month well this friday february 23rd we are hosting our 14th annual american heart association go red for women luncheon it's an opportunity for us to be able to educate women and men if they come to the luncheon it's a fashion show also that university of north texas and texas women university fashion design students come and present their fashions one thing that's really struck me and i've been telling people over and over again we're concerned about women's health and i heard a statistic that said one woman dies every 80 seconds every 80 seconds and when you stop and think about that that to me is just astounding that's that women are dying every 80 seconds because as women we don't take care of ourselves we take care of our families and so i think we need to be aware um and my husband's constant are you okay are you okay i'm fine if i don't feel good but we really do need to take care of our women and make sure that they're aware of all the um the warning signals and everything that's going on with heart disease so we try to educate them and that's what our luncheon is all about we have a few members that weren't here tonight but they had other responsibilities but we thank y'all thank you mayor for doing this every year to us because it's really important because it does raise the awareness so give us the date one more time it's friday february 23rd and it's at the new embassy suite stinton convention center and you've got a few tickets i think and lee so we're doing really good so we'd love to have you just get in touch with uh lee albright or um i told them to make sure i remember michelle barber so thank you so much we appreciate you thank you okay boy scout troop 65 who wants to come down you can all come down if you want whoever's coming down to receive this proclamation all right so what a fine group of young men thank you all so much for coming and i'm going to go ahead and start we're going to let each person introduce themselves so uh y'all came down and you're here so i'm i want you i want everybody to know who's here so we're going to start who wants to stand right here in front to start it okay you can start just give us your name i'm bob eastman i 'm the scout master thank you lee hughes i'm the troop committee chair i'm zack salter grant emory nick chapman and colman steve salter i'm an assistant scout master i'm carter price david brumah well mcgee jacob brushigam jacob douglas aiden morrison pj navadie dra ke keffer tanner peterson matt cannon ben johnson walter johnson ethan cochran char les our assistant scout master scott sims i am a coordinator between first methodist church and the troop for 100 years we've been together hugh colman i'm an assistant scout master crank cannon assistant scout master my name is todd price i'm the advancement coordinator and the treasure phil navadie assistant scout master andrew chapman assistant scout master gary brumbau assistant scout master michael johnson assistant scout master jason brushingham assistant scout master andrew molodjano got everybody great well thank you all so much for coming i certainly if you're going to come i want you to be able to introduce yourself and let the community know that you're here and thank you so much for the adults who who lead these young men and they 're training them and thank you young men for being involved in in boy scouts and all the values that it teaches you so it's my honor to read this proclamation for troop 65 whereas the boy scouts of america is one of the nation's largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations the bsa provides a program for young people that builds character trains them in the responsibility of citizenship citizenship participation as we see here and develops personal fitness and whereas boy scout troop 65 was charted in 1918 has the distinction of being the oldest continuously chartered troop in the longhorn council and will celebrate its 100th anniversary on march the 3rd 2018 and whereas boy scout troop was the only local troop to survive the move from old city park in 1967 to the evers boy scout park and whereas boy scout troop 65 has given over 1500 scouts an opportunity to learn many skills they might not otherwise have learned and to grow into responsible adults and whereas boy scout troop 65 has the honor of awarding 182 young men earning the rank of eagle scout the fact that a young man is an eagle scout carries it with a special significance not only in scouting but also as he enters higher education business or industry and community service whereas boy scout troop 65 has taken part in many community projects for the betterment of the dentin community such as food and clothing collections and assisting with medical clinics in the early years more recent years projects have included water conservation cemetery repair and placement of historical markers now therefore i chris watts mayor of the city of denton do hereby proclaim march the 3rd 2018 as boy scout troop 65 day here in the city of denton and urge all citizens of the city of denton to join with me in recognizing the contributions that boy scout troop 65 has made to our community and throughout the last century the last hundred years thank you all so much so yeah chris our celebration on on march 3rd is at the scout hut at evers park it's on the southwest corner of windsor and locusts it's open to the public we're gonna have uh hopefully we're gonna have a you know helicopter out there and care flight and we got some bounce houses for the kids we'll have a catered catered meal and we'd love for anybody in denton is more than welcome to come in that hut um you know they moved it up there in the 60s but it was built in the 40s so it's got a lot of history in it and stuff and it's pretty pretty neat setup up there so yeah it was right here yeah yeah yeah and what are the times uh it begins at 11 and goes till four uh the uh meal will be right around 12 30 ish i think we actually got a uh a iwo jima vet is going to come and be the keynote speaker and uh so we're excited about it we'd love for everybody in the city that can come to come so what a great milestone for the city thank you for the voice thank you so much i appreciate it thank you so much for your leadership thank you if we could go ahead and roll review of procedures for addressing the city council please the dinton city council has adopted rules of procedure including a code of conduct that applies to citizens as well as council members these rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizen reports citizens will have three minutes to give a scheduled citizen report and four minutes to give an open mic report there will be an electronic bell when time has expired if the remarks are not concluded by that time the citizen will be asked to stop speaking if the citizen does not cease and a second request is made the mayor will request to have the citizen removed from the council chamber citizens are asked not to approach the dais if a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to the council please let the city secretary know and she will have a staff member distribute the materials to the council for scheduled citizen reports the council has enacted a temporary pilot program whereby additional council discussion or questions are allowed but limited to two minutes for non-scheduled open mic citizen reports the council may listen to citizens speak however because no notice of the subject of the open mic report has been provided to the public in advance the texas open meetings act limits any deliberation or decision by the council to a proposal to place the item on a future agenda the council will be asked to make a statement of factual policy a statement of factual policy or a recitation of existing policy when speaking to the council citizens are asked to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member please refrain from making abusive personal impertinent profane or slanderous remarks anyone who violates this council rule of chamber thank you in advance adherence to these rules will help make an effective presentation and will preserve the order and decorum of our proceedings copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary okay the first scheduled citizen report we have is mr tim crouch regarding the park foundation report if you'll state your name and address your time will begin my name is tim crouch i live at 3800 lariat here in denton mayor and members of the council standing here behind me are members of the denton parks foundation i think it's important for you to see the faces of this organization because sometimes it's easy to see a foundation as some sort of monolith and not the people behind the foundation these are people who have given their heart and their soul to parks and recreation in denton they believe in what it means to the quality of life in our community we wanted you to see those faces because these are people who have been hurt by what has occurred over the course of the last five months i want to give you a little bit of background on the parks foundation i think one of the first things to know is the parks foundation was established in 1987 to support parks and recreation in our community in a lot of ways it's like a pta supports a school and oftentimes the principal will say to the pta you could help us by doing this and that's kind of how the parks foundation has functioned over the course of the last 31 years i want to address a couple of key points there was a question about youth sports enhancement fees and i want to tell you that those youth sports enhancement fees the park foundation doesn't collect those we receive those they are collected by those youth organizations we hold them for them until they're ready to spend them and then we spend it we're a 501c3 that supports important programs in our community and programs like june teeth cinco de mayo the denton senior center all of which are using our fiduciary body our 501c3 as a place to park money so that they can then spend it but we do more than that we have raised money for very important projects within this community scholarships for kids that couldn't participate in our programs if not for those scholarships they'd be home latchkey children during the summers the advertising that was raised as a question that went to providing scholarships we raised money for the waterworks park to build the waterworks park in at the time that it was built we raised over 270 000 to build the waterworks park we've done enhancements to the park cab anas for shade structures because it's a little hot out there if you've been there at times during the summer we raised money for eureka park rebuilding a park that is greatly loved in this community that had issues with arsenic and was needing to be replaced because of its age we raised over 500 000 in cash and in kind contributions those funds built that park along with volunteers there's no accounting for the volunteers who drove the nails those are not numbers that you have but i tell you what it did do it created ownership in that park it created a love for parks and recreation in our community when we hired molly tampke as our executive director i was told let me just say that's what the love is about i'll tell you more about molly tampke's hiring and what city staff told us at that time at some point but it is love for our parks that drives the denton parks foundation thank you the next speaker will be mr tim smith regarding the relationship between the denton parks foundation and denton parks and recreation department ladies on the council my name is tim smith i reside at 3833 waterford way denton texas i am blessed to have been a resident and involved leader and volunteer in both the city and the business community since 2004 this includes my time as a financial planner the president and young professionals my current service is a planning and zoning commissioner as well as my service on the board for the denton parks foundation since 2015 appreciate mr crouch and all the words that he said uh really speaks to the history of uh of what we have and what we've done i want to go in and talk about what our future as a foundation uh what at least i think it could or should be first and foremost we plan to discuss this upcoming th ursday at our first board meetings is the report about election of new slate of officers and after that we plan to restart our operations at the very least our pass-through efforts for the many programs that mr crouch has already mentioned after this first meeting the foundation plans to take it one step at a time we have a number of community supporters and members of the board who are skilled in strategic planning and i've offered their assistance over the next six to 12 months to build us a step-by-step plan to get back to where we were in mid 2017 before this report and this investigation began now as far as internal matters go we're excited to get started again but we acknowledge that we have a lot of work ahead of us externally from a community relations standpoint uh we know that we have a lot to do to begin mending the long-standing relationships that we have had with the dent community and that has certainly been damaged during this process by sensational front page headlines and unevidenced accusations with our past track record of success and our determination to keep pushing forward we certainly welcome the ability to begin serving our community once again now in regards to these external matters as a board member and as a resident i would encourage what the city and the parks foundation to review together the recommendations that are put forth in this report and that we saw today at work session i personally am a large proponent for the types of relationships that the city and the foundation have had for the last 31 years i know there are some on council who don't agree but i would ask them to consider especially in light of mr crouch's words what kind of void would be created if our relationship was to cease i know there are council members today who spoke and addressed that question a little bit saying the city should take on a larger responsibility in parks development but i would ask without our relationship can the city create the type of ownership in a project like mr crouch as previously mentioned i know we can we have the past tracker to success for that now telling what we plan to do and what we hope you do as a council is about as worth the hill of beans without knowing where you guys publicly stand do you want a relationship with an organization like us do you see the value and what we provided to the city in the past and going forward can we be a value -added organization again with this city and please understand i don't ask that question out loud just in the ether i really hope that you guys in the two minutes afterwards that are allotted that you can give me an indication of what you think because frankly after the disrespect we felt the last five months we want to know where you guys stand it's important last thing i'll say is this um at the end of the day this is not a you or them or their issue this is an us issue let us solve it together that's why the foundation was created and that's why we want to work with the benton parks foundation from the very beginning thank you all very much thank you mr smith any questions or comments seeing none uh you know i certainly share some comments within the work session which i would simply echo those again in in this session council member g regory yes well i appreciate your comments i certainly think that there's a lot of interest in the community and on the part of at least several council members to continue the relationship we value that relationship we know that there have been some issues that have happened in some erroneous comments made that have hurt the the that have called into question the integrity of the board members and that was never intended and and i'm sorry that that happened and and i think it's a great idea for the city and the board to work together to uh find a way forward so that you guys can continue to support uh the parks the park users those who use the recreation programs thanks may address a comment yeah we got it we got a two minute time limit so sure sure uh we i think both of us uh both the city council and the parks foundation we both understand that especially from work session and the reports that was given by bkd that there were blurred lines um they were there were things that were undefined and we as a parks foundation fully accept that and really are looking forward to and excited to working with board leadership council support city management's office help to clear those up those need to be defined you know fact of the matter so council member big air mayor pro tem but gary well mr smith since you asked i thought i would take the opportunity to address you because i think that you deserve that having come up here thank you um from my perspective i'm open to a discussion with the parks foundation which i think is what i mentioned in the work session as well however i do think the attitude needs to change on both ends but in particular when you know when parks foundation members come up here and talk about the damage and being hurt and all that um i can certainly understand how language might have caused that but at the end of the day we're all fiduciaries of the taxpayers and we have to investigate things that are brought to our attention so i i have a little bit of a problem with that particular type of attitude i think going forward it's not going to be helpful um we just have to put it behind us and see what happens going forward if their recommendations are accepted then i think you'll have some success can agree more thank you thank you and and i i'm going to just take a just a moment just to say just a couple words to echo what i did in work session um obviously in new processes mistakes will be made and the city i think could do things differently and we'll be doing things differently as mayor you know the buck stops here so i'll certainly take the responsibility of how do we move forward to heal some of the relationships and how that progresses forward you know time will tell but we have enjoyed a long-term relationship with the parks foundation and i would echo the sentiments that i think everybody up here on the city council dais and every member of the parks foundation those involved with that organization we all have a common goal and that is to improve the quality of life for our citizens through the parks and we had a new process we had some things occur that we tried to make sure that we mitigated that and try to communicate more clearly so we certainly wanted to make sure that we did our part and the process i believed worked itself out does that mean we got to look at some things and make some corrections absolutely i mean to me the success uh the mark of a successful organization is what do you do when you've probably not done your best you try to figure out what the what the problems were what the pitfalls were and do it and i believe that city management the city council i myself certainly personally are committed to that and i believe strongly that we can move beyond this i believe strongly that we can find a way to reconnect to do and to move towards that mission that i stated earlier that we that we both have just as the the common goal and the common interest so i feel confident about that the conversations will take place and it'll be good to sit down across the table and talk about these things and figure out how can we make it better how can we make sure that we improve the parks for everybody beyond what we've been doing and that's a common goal and mission that we both have so thank you so much for coming down and sharing i appreciate that i know that it's been difficult it's i think it's been difficult for a lot of people and and that's unfortunate i can only say i hope that i'm committed to beginning the healing process and how we do that so time will tell how we move forward but i'm confident we will find something that will come out of this that will be better than than what we had before and and i appreciate your commitment to the citizens of denton i appreciate your commitment to the parks foundation and to the mission that it has for these many 30 or 40 years so i look forward to the conversation moving forward anybody else have any comments wanted to give you that opportunity since i sort of took i know i'm past time i first i guess the mayor should ask the mayor to police officer remove me from the from the chambers probably some people would like that especially up here council member ryan just very brief but we have a first monday luncheon every month and i'd like to ask that at the first opportunity that we maybe have a joint meeting with the parks foundation and the council i think that would be a good step moving forward to get things worked out all right okay any other comments all right thank you thank you all very much thank you for coming out and speaking all right we'll move on to our next item on the agenda which is the consent agenda chair would entertain action on the consent agenda council member briggs i recommend approval oh i can't i don't have the items hold on except e o f and g okay so what you're saying is your your motion is approval of the consent agenda save for consent agenda items e f g and o which will be then taken up under items for individual consideration all right if he's right yes a second okay we have a motion and a second with those items that are being pulled as stated earlier let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero we will now take up the items for individual consideration that have been pulled from the consent agenda the first one is considered option of an ordinance of the city of dent texas authorizing the city manager's designee to execute a contract of sale buy-in between james l richards and michelle marie sellers richards and the city of dentin good evening mayor and council members my name is laura barons and i'm with the department of parks and recreation and tonight you have before you the purchase of a piece of property that is approximately 0.320 acres it's located at the northwest corner of mac park and it's part of an assemblage of a larger piece that was purchased in 2009 that was just under 17 acres this additional lot gives us secondary access that is going to be essential for any future development of that park area and the council was briefed on this item back in september with a direction given on the parameters for that purchase the objective of this purchase is to complete the mac park property acquisition project that is a capital improvement project that is funded primarily through our park dedication funding and some potential uses that have been discussed previously are a possible new senior center site a concrete skate park or other amenities that may be identified through our master plan update this is a little bit better picture of the property that's in question it's this little piece right here this is the property that was purchased in 2009 and this was the previous piece of mac park there where the baseball field is i'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have anybody have any questions saying none thank you oh so did i hear you say that you that senior centers are going to use a concrete skate park out there that's exactly what you're okay that's what that's let's make sure we increase our liability yes okay council member hudspeth move approval council member briggs second we have a motion to second let 's vote on the board please okay motion carries seven zero thank you thank you agenda item f consider approval of a resolution of the city council of the city of dent texas approving the 2017 tax increment financing reinvestment zone good evening i am julie glover i'm economic development program administrator for the city so this is our what we call the tiff number one which is the downtown tiff we are required each year to make an annual report to the comptroller the state comptroller i thought i just for the public i might go through this slide about how what this is this is a tool that's used by local governments to publicly finance improvements and infrastructure within this zone so on the baseline property this was 2010 for downtown at that point we assessed all the value within the zone that was our baseline any improvements that happen after that the increment increase goes into into this fund to be used within the map so this is our area right here the property descriptions this took effect on january 1st 2011 it's going to termin ate on december 31st 2041 or or when we reach a budget of 24.8 million the city's participation was years one through five at 100 we just started year six and six through ten would be 95 11 through 20 at 90 and 21 through 30 at 85 our original finance plan is was expected to produce 24.8 million over the 30 years and they're divided into these categories where we can spend the money parking and transportation of eight million complete streets of 7.9 support for downtown projects 4.9 and utility and drainage four million we do have one project that we have given an incentive to out of the tiff fund the rail yard partners which is a mixed use transit oriented development by the train down by the train station it renovated an existing 28 000 square foot building as part of this catalyst project that includes office retail restaurant space along with multifamily housing the agreement gives them an annual grant in the amount of 76 000 for five years for a total of 380 000 we did make the second annual payment this this year this past year sorry we also discussed excuse me at the december meeting some projects that had been suggested to improve sidewalks and ada ramps and pedestrian skilled lighting so project a was north locust going north of the square sidewalks on both sides with ramps and lighting from west oak to mckinney project b is north elm north of the square both sides from oak street to parkway the reason the map kind of makes a curve at that point that's why we go a little bit further on north elm and then c and d are pedestrian skilled lighting and sidewalk i'm sorry just lighting on west oak and west hickory going west of the square to carol boulevard council did ask staff to move forward with that and we are making progress on that part on those projects we are required to give this annual report to the comptroller and detailing the previous year's tours activities that includes the base and appra ised value the revenue and the tax increment fund the purpose of the expenditures and the amount of principal and any outstanding bought and indebtedness at the interest do does anyone have any questions any questions for staff all right saying none mayor pro tem move for approval of this item council member hudspeth second we have a motion second let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero we'll move on now to agenda item g which is consider approval of a resolution of the city council of the city of denton texas approving the 2017 tax increment reinvestment zone number two good evening mayor and council members i'm caroline booth the director of economic development and i'm going to quickly go through a little bit of information some of which julie covered so it's not the same presentation mr mayor we're talking in this instance about the west park tours which is also called tours number two it was adopted by council in 2012 and this is a broader map of the city and you see the outline of the west park tours there in black and this is a closer up look of it but it's essentially comprised of about 800 acres north of airport road in the city's largest industrially zoned area and the intention of the west park tours is to provide a source of public funding for infrastructure to encourage development in the area in this particular tours there is participation by both the city and the county at the rate of 40 of the revenue that's generated within the tours zone and it is contemplated to last for 25 years so there's the breakdown from the finance plan of what the anticipated years and tax rate and then there's the 40 revenue going into the fund as far as the projects they break down under three categories of street improvements for eight million dollars utilities and drainage for five million and then industrial projects for 1.2 and as julie glover mentioned we are required to submit a tur's annual report to the state comptroller's office these are due to the comptroller by april 1 each year and they do require certain specific information to be included in the report which you have received in your backup and i'll be glad to take any questions if you have them i see no questions council member ryan i'll move approval council member gregory second we have a motion to second let's vote on the board please motion carries unanimously we'll now move on to our last item of individual consideration pulled from the consent agenda which is uh agenda item 4-0 consider approval of a resolution authorizing election day polling locations for the city council elections to be held on may 5th 2018 and we do have two cards wishing to speak once we are finished with staff presentation thank you mayor and council everybody always introduces themselves when they come up here and i just realized i never introduced myself so all my public out there they don't know who i am so i have to correct that i'm jennifer walders the city secretary and at your meeting last week we discussed um alternate an additional polling location in each of the city council districts and i have um the proposed locations for you to view there oh that's really small i'll be all let me see if i can get that up there bigger for you there so in district one the main polling location will be the mlk recreation center and then we have added the bacon creek elementary school and um you can see the various breakdown of the county precincts which will be voting at each location and this is for election day only during early voting a resident who's a qualified voter of the city of denton can vote at any of the polling locations throughout denton county but on election day these will be the breakdowns of where the different precincts will be voting for district two the main polling location is the north branch library and we have added billy ryan high school and these are the breakdown of the precincts for that location district three the main polling location is north lakes recreation center and we've added fire station number seven with these precincts and district four the main polling location is a junior recreation center and the additional site will be la nelson elementary school and i did contact the school district and confirmed through them that each of the campus the principals are allowing us to use those locations and the superintendent has also given his blessing so as far as i know we're set to go for these locations any questions for staff before public comment seeing none thank you jennifer thank you j ennifer waltzers okay we got haven't been here very long you know they have to know we have a couple of cards wishing to speak paxton swisher you'll come down and state your name and address and your time will begin and how much time is it on these item for individual consideration three minutes three oh yes okay um hi i'm paxton swisher i live at 200 south bonnie bray uh and i'm a student at university north texas and vice president for the college democrats um club um i'm here mostly because the president uh or club which wanted to be here but i'm coming here and he said jordan filareal basically i'm here to advocate for more voting locations uh on or within feasible walking distance from the unt campus and i assume also the tw campus although i'm not student there um even though i'm from the college democrats club this is a non-partisan issue and as it stands it's really uh difficult for students to go out to vote so on that on that list i i think we need to add um places that students especially students without cars can go to as it stands um the nearest voting location for a student without a car that's a one hour walk it's a 30 minute bike ride or a oh excuse me a 38 minute bike ride and a 30 minute bus ride that uses two buses um if uh you know and if it's a today if it's a day like today really really cold and rainy um which today is you know start early voting um you know it's it's just it's you know it's that you're taking an hour and a half out of your day to go to go vote and and it just doesn't need to be that way uh we do have some suggested locations the denton westley foundation it's just right on campus and they actually have already proved that they're ready to do it because they're having a voting location there though uh for the march 6 primary and they have a parking lot um so that's our number one suggestion but uh there's also the village church which is just off fry street and if you're looking to have it in a government building there's the texas department of public safety or the denton county area engineer and mechanics building which really should get a shorter name um but uh there are a lot of politically aware students who would be voting and participating in in the process were not such an astonishingly and like needlessly a huge time commitment so i'm just here to have you for that sure we had a question council member gregory well we should have spoken uh when we were talking about this earlier before we had settled on these sites but i'm wondering um it seems in past years that early voting uh that there has been a site on campuses do you know if that's the case this year or does our city secretary know if we have early voting um or currently uh early voting is not on campus but the primary day will be well primary is different yeah well it's just early voting i think we just have to go to the uh the kimberly drive one or the civic center those are our two and again those are like really far um you know basically like i have a car i'm very blessed um which i usually just carpool people um but uh it's kind of left up to the political clubs to kind of organize that and and uh and you know okay all right thank you council member briggs i'm sorry yeah oh you okay you were true okay all right the next speaker is is it shane warren okay all right that's okay i'm the same way state your name and address and your time will begin my name is shane warren i live at 1815 maple street it's like ralph's hall and unt i'm here with my friend paxton to also advocate for polling location on campus he gave a lot of the facts and figures but i have a story that can put it in perspective so i was organizing a food drive for the cumberland presby terian children's home right for an assignment and i needed a box to collect all the things and so i go to the post office to get a recycled box at like five in the afternoon and then i realized oh my god i left my charger at my friend's house and they're an 18 minute walk away but i don't want to take another trip all the way back to rollins from the student union because that 's in the opposite direction so in in the suit that i'm in because i'm presenting for class i take i take the box which is like this big but it's empty it's not that heavy i carry it like this and i have to walk all the way to my friend's house to get my charger and i gotta get my charger i can't live without my phone and so i go there and just as i get there and i think all is good it's a little bit hot but it's okay it starts raining and so i'm in my suit carrying my box and my electronic charger and it's raining but i gotta go back home so i run back home as quickly as possible and the whole process took about 40 minutes i only did that because of a series of unfortunate events but if i tried to sell to the fellow students of which 30 i have registered in my own dorm hey you should take an hour out of your day to go walk and vote and there's no series of unfortunate events i'm just asking you to do this and selling this to you they wouldn't be very responsive to that i don't believe so but they are responsive to walk into the wesley foundation on march 6th then casting their vote in the primary there and i've registered you know both democrats and republicans you know in a non-partisan effort and so i think that it's essentially important that there be polling location within walking distance of campus because the majority of people that registered don't have cars and i hope that there's something we can do within this limited time span to get that done so thank you we do have a question mayor pro tem well are you are you familiar with taylor willis she's the unt student government government affairs liaison i'm not familiar with her yeah i would suggest maybe getting with her um because you know if i have concerns with unt or unt has issues that they think the city should be involved in typically would go through student government at least i have in the past so that's a resource that's available to you your fees pay for it um taylor dot willis at unt dot edu and then my second question would be for our city secretary in terms of the feasibility of adding another polling site it would be for district three yep that would be for district three timing issues feas ibility logistics etc of course that would be up to council if they want to add another location i'd have to check with denton county um it may be that they could add an early voting location which is really a lot more convenient the hours are greater there's a whole week of voting eight to five there 's two days of voting seven to seven so it adds additional flexibility especially for the students instead of having just one day where they have to maybe try to cram it into their schedules so it's um i guess however the council feels if they want to put another location in district three so if we were to approve this resolution that would not foreclose us later adding another um polling location it would not because we contract with the county and we can just include it in the contract with the county is there a time frame for it we have to let the county know by monday if what additional locations that we're going to be adding and we would need a resolution by when for that i don't know the you would have to have a resolution um to add that extra location but um okay you wouldn't make that time frame we can we can look at that and see yes council member grager well and i think that we would want to contact the school district also because i think we 're going to be sharing in the cost for those uh but i suspect that would be a workable plan and apparently we have a couple of locations that could work right we'd have to look at then the prec incts that you'd want to carve out yeah that's because it's very it's it's specific to the precinct s early voting for early voting you don't call out precincts and that that would and it's more convenient early voting absolutely councilmember riggs yeah i would i would be in favor of adding a polling location for early voting for the campus well we'll yeah we'll we'll talk about that we've got a little bit of time yeah that's the but those are determined by the county yeah in all fairness i think we need to contact twu and see if that's something that they have an interest in because i mean i would want to do that unilaterally and somehow give the impression that they were left out so if they don't want that that's fine but we certainly need to give them an option if we move forward with this particular option all right councilmember gregory i'm approval of item o mayor pro tem well i'd like to offer a friendly amendment just that we um the council is agreeing to make every effort to add polling locations for early voting um for both both walking distance to unt and walking distance to twu all right so we have a motion and a second let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero all right we're moving on to our now items um we don't have any agenda item five agenda item five items items for individual consideration for the use of eminent domain so we'll go on to agenda item six which is items for individual consideration number six a consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of dent texas authorizing a pilot bicycle share permit program good evening mayor members of council mark nelson director of transportation here with the city of denton excited to visit with you this evening a little bit about bike share as you you may recall a couple of weeks ago staff brought forward a draft ordinance or a draft policy for discussion as part of a work session and so really what this presentation is this evening is essentially a follow-up to that discussion as well as formal consideration of a draft ordinance that has been included in the backup so really what we're talking about this evening just goals of the ordinance key elements of said ordinance some of the draft policy revisions made from the work session that we held or the staff brought forward to you a couple weeks ago and then a summation and next step so again what we're talking about really was with this particular policy was to ensure that operators work with the community in a partnership really we wanted to ensure the safety of the community ensure that bikes weren 't left in sidewalks or pathways or other locations that may create a trip hazard or other safety issue certainly we wanted to ensure that the again the bikes are are orderly and then take a look at the different ways that we could ensure that vendors are responsive to the requests of both the citizens property owners and certainly as well as staff when requested to relocate bicycles and then also address liability yes sir you had my quest to speak well we're going to save questions for the end of the presentation so i just wanted to let the council members know that very well so and then we also wanted to one of the goals was to certainly establish insurance requirements since they since these operators would be using a public right of way we want to ensure that they have the the requisite insurance in place and then really the overall goal one of the overall goals associated with the policy as we understood coming out of the work session would be to establish some information that we could wrap then into an RFP process somewhere down line dependent now this is a what we've submitted is essentially as a nine month pilot program here again pulling that information in see how things work again what's working what's not working how we might be able to improve that with additional statements or or just working with those operators on how to improve service so again key elements of the draft policy nine month pilot program good neighbor policy we want to ensure that they're working with us establishing the p fee for permit and then one of the things we looked at was capping the total number of bikes deployed that an operator might have in our community and then as we move on down looking at the rebalancing program fines what's the fee for the permit and then back to that other issue with respect to the goal of the RFP in the future looking at that data how can we pull that data out of out of the pilot program working with those operators to ensure that one when we go out to plan bike and pedestrian infrastructure we can use that that that data as well as using that data to help us craft our RFP in the future so key policy revisions from the presentation on February 6th or so revisions to that draft we initially had a number of 150 bikes per operator we understood that wanted to pull that number back down to 100 per operator also wanted to take a look at how we might structure or better regulate parking locations within the community essentially establishing virtual bike racks and then implementing these robust balancing programs back to the virtual bike racks one of the things that we included in the permit process or in this particular ordinance is that as part of the submittal on the permit a bike operator would submit those locations within the community where they wish to have that that virtual bike rack and then what that would what that permit policy would do it would push it through to our capital projects division our engineering department to clear each of those virtual bike racks again to ensure that where they're suggesting they may have a virtual bike rack that it's not not obstructing sidewalks walkways not obstructing line of sites issues or in in front of bus stops or other transit locations with respect to working with the transit agency one of the clauses was added in here as well as each of these bike operators or permit holders would need to work directly with DCTA and staffs reached out and visited with DCTA on this here again what we want to ensure is that that the bikes work in unison with with the last mile connectivity for DCTA but at the same time they don't create a hazard in terms of bikes being parked perpendicular or across sidewalks inside bus shelters against bus benches those sorts of things so again I want to make sure that the the bike operators work with the DCTA and staff to ensure that they're locating those bikes in proper location and then one of the other things that we heard from council that we the staff heard from council and and drafted into the draft ordinance was reducing the number of days that a particular bike may stay on a stay on location so again you may recall that one of these one of the flexibility issues associated with dockless bike share is that these bikes may get taken to specific locations and in the past if there's no policy in place they may stay at a particular location for three five six seven days some days longer than that so what we understood is that we'd like to reduce or that the the community wanted a reduced number of days where a particular bike may be stationed at a location and so we dialed in a three-day time limit on that and essentially staff would work with with the bike operators through their software as well as any type of complaints that we may receive either through citizens property owners or just visual inspection to ensure that those bikes are reloc ated are moved within the said time frame one of the things that we had considered putting into the draft ordinance or discussing was working with our partners over at the university of north texas and texas women's university both of those entities had communicated with city staff that they've entered into mo us to initiate a bike share program on their respective campuses university of north texas had a one that was a little bit larger starting out with a roll out of potentially 100 bikes moving up to 200 to 250 bikes texas women's university had one a little bit smaller in the neighborhood of about 25 bikes the primary issue that university north texas was trying to take a look at as their campus continues to grow is providing opportunities for the students to commute from the outer parking lots into the central part of the campus and so that was one of the things they were trying to to address with the bike share program as well as taking a look at the number of abandoned bikes that they have to address on an annual basis on their campus where students essentially just leave the bikes on their campus they would like to see if there was a program a bike share program that might be able to be put in play that could reduce the number of those bikes that that eventually get left at the end of the spring semester by various students i will tell you that in a conversation that i had late this afternoon university of north texas has indicated that rather than moving forward with their mou they are indicating that they would like to wait to see what the council's pleasure is with respect to this particular ordinance we do have a meeting with their senior administration on march 1 we've included on that agenda bike share dockless bike share program so we anticipate that this would be a an item of discussion at that meeting and determine how we might be able to the two agencies might be able to work together to find a common ground this draft clause was simply an option should should the council want to consider that just some language that may have worked if if there was any interest in the move move forward with that so in summary again where we are at this point in time we understand there may be an interest by council at least staff understands there may be an interest by council to establish a license or permit process for bike sure so if that's if that is the case then is council okay with these particular provisions as submitted to council this evening or do you wish to revise any of those i stand for questions several questions thank you mark council member gregory thank you uh thank you mr nelson first of all what i remember hearing last week when we had our visit was that the majority of council was interested in finding a way to have make bike share work in denton we had looked for ways to do that in the past and even willing to expend some money and here's a way to do it without expending money we wanted to have an ordinance that that made that possible but also protected the the made sure that the the vendors of the duckless bike share programs were good neighbors and i think that that we've crafted you guys have crafted an ordinance that mostly does that i'm concerned with a couple of things section eight paragraph i says that we will work with dcta to help make that first mile last mile connection work that's particularly important especially about the downtown transit center because that's what can get people from the a train station to downtown or to which section did you say where are you talking about it's section eight eight of the proposal and it's paragraph i it says that we'll work with uh okay gotcha dcta okay but my problem comes in section six paragraph b small six item b which says that bicycles shall not be parked adjacent to or within transit zones so it seems like that by saying that you can't park within transit zones we're making it we're riding into the ordinance something that contradicts another part of the ordinance so i i think for this time period for this 90-day trial it would be best if we deleted item sub paragraph b transit zones including bus stops and shelters because that's going to work against the other paragraph the the other concern that i have about the ordinance as it's written is the original proposal came to us with 150 bikes per vendor and in talking with some of the vendors and talking with staff they said that that that the number of bikes has a direct impact on the amount of revenue and the amount of revenue has direct impact on the money that they have to hire staff and that it seems that if we went below 150 bikes per vendor that the vendors may not be able to have staffing adequate enough in order to meet another provision in the ordinance which is to move a bike where there has been a complaint within two hours so i i'm i'm fearful that that we by by lowering it to 100 bikes per vendor that we've created a barrier that's going to make it impossible for the the vendors to actually do business here in town and do it in a way that that helps us by getting bikes moved when they need to get moved so so the other request i would i would want my colleagues to consider is moving that number back to 150 and i think that that number to 150 would also probably accommodate the effort by the two universities to work with spin for that arrangement thank you mayor you bet council member riggs could you address where geof encing went that was in the presentation that we received last time and it was very impressive and one of the reasons why i was looking forward to this ordinance but it's not in there i didn't see it is that something that the bikes have on them are currently or was that just an idea of something that could be done so it's certainly an idea that could be done it was an idea that was brought up and discussed the way that we approached that was taking a look at establishing virtual bike racks where where those bikes would be located and then essentially with the gps unit that they would be parked within or you know within those virtual bike within those virtual bike racks but in terms of establishing a a geofence around say the university of north texas or tex as women's university we do not take it as far as to implement at those particular institutions okay on the the virtual racks so the applicant will turn in where they want their virtual rack to be and then the city will approve that so that will still be on city property they'll just find a spot that is open and out of the way correct what they would do is that they would submit as part of their application those locations in the public right of way where they wish to place these virtual bike racks you know again abide and by and ensuring that they're they're not blocking sidewalks nor are they blocking line of sites at intersections and then that those would then be vetted by the engineering staff that's going to be managing the program so it'll be one virtual rack per company and they'll be in separate areas or no ma'am they would they would be allowed to identify numerous locations they're not limited on the total number of virtual bike racks they just need to establish where those virtual bike racks are within the right of way and then have those approved by our engineering staff will there be a total number of bikes allowed within that virtual bike rack it's a very good question at this point in time we have not we did not include that in the in the specific language what we did put into the language is that the city would reserve the right so if you take a look at section six paragraph b sub paragraph stand corrected okay so section six paragraph b sub paragraph four does allow the city to reserve the right to restrict the number of bikes at a particular location okay can i mayor sure okay so on that will the um will the bike companies be leasing the ground property from us for those virtual racks or is that supposedly covered in the yearly permit fee that would be covered in the yearly permit fee the understanding the fact that the total number of bikes would be limited to 100 at least as it's currently written that those virtual bike racks would most likely not have more than two to three maybe four at the most and some of the more i guess the the more utilized locations that may see more volume it may have been in here do we know how many or do you have an idea of how many virtual bike racks around the city there will be no ma'am not until they not until the not until the individual bike operator submit their application well i'm okay with 100 bikes per vendor and i'm anxious to see what happens in nine months and i'm wondering if the staff and or this council have a goal for what we would like to see at the end of the pilot program councilman were you okay councilman ryan thank you very um i have a question regarding section eight subsection or paragraph j because we require a 2500 deposit but in paragraph j we're allowing that to drop all the way down to 500 before they have to replenish it or you know reimburse the account where did that process come from to allow it to go down that low set of 50 impound fee that only allows 10 bicycles which is if they in another section if they have 10 impounded they they lose their ability to in one month's time that they lose their ability to be here so we just established that as being essentially a threshold roughly at 20 20 percent of the total amount that they initially submitted as far as the 2500 level okay i think i would prefer that that be something that they're giving a 30-day period to replenish it when it falls below the 2500 period so that they maintain that escrow account at 2500 okay all right so so you're asking that every 30 days it be reviewed or that they bring it up to 2500 dollars well the way that i'm understanding this is that when they cause the city to expend funds which may be an impound is most likely that that's that's deducted from their account if they don't pay it within or i believe they even have 30 days to pay that then we deduct it from that account and we're allowing them to drop all the way down to 500 the way this is worded well i'm saying basically i'm giving them 60 days to pay that impound fee instead of the after 30 days it's going to come out of the the deposit and then if they don't reimburse it within 30 days i think we need to start looking at another 30 days that we need to start looking at removing them from the program what if because it seems like your five the 500 is sort of the the the concern you're having what if that were to be a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars in other words if it's a thousand dollars or fifteen hundred you got to get it back up to the 2500 and then if you don't then after a certain amount of time you start looking at the the program well and i guess i would say maybe we need to look at reducing the initial deposit if that's if that's the council's pleasure is that i think whatever we set as a deposit level needs to be what they need to maintain as opposed to allowing it to sure so to drop way down to then what what interval would you say for replenishment like okay i mean in a week let's say it's been drawn down to you say look at it every week and and well i mean if 30 days every if they're drawing that down in a week they obviously are going to violate one of the other sections of the code that says if you have five bicycles at any one time or 10 bicycles in a month that you're removed from the program that you'd have to you know pull your bikes from the city so in order to use up two thousand dollars you're probably already kicked out so so it it just doesn't make sense to have a deposit program that you're allowed to use it to to pay off it's not really deposit it's almost like a prepaid fees as opposed to deposit in my mind okay so what is your suggestion uh i would probably reduce the deposit to two thousand dollars per you know per hundred uh and and then require that they replenish that account within 30 days at any time that it's debited okay all right okay councilor i'm sorry was that it yes you sure yeah well and i am fine with moving up to the 150 bikes okay all right council member duff yeah i assume we're we're not limiting uh where these virtual bike racks are i mean they could be an apartment or businesses or anybody that the bike company can uh these make a make a arrangements with right this ordinance is uh specific to use of the city of city's right of way so it would be any public public right of way that the city owns not necessarily public property like out in front of city hall per se but along sidewalks street corners um public plazas around uh the community okay but you're i mean if if a apartment wants to put a virtual bike rack in there that's fine right that is fine there is a there is a requirement in the in the draft ordinance that the request require that the bike operators get that permission to work with with that private property owner yeah council member hudspeth thank you i noticed the draft ordinance kind of where uh council member ryan left office is silent on what we do to remove the bikes from absent someone picking them up from impound if you will there's no it doesn't speak to selling the bikes how long we hold the bikes that sort of thing so there needs to be some sort of method to get rid of them if they don't come get them if they're not responsive timely um i shared this with staff already but just to put it on the record here i get hung up on i think some of the bikes use cellular signal and you triangulate from the towers to locate it which is less accurate than a actual gps on the bike so i i just think if it doesn't make this document i just i struggle with that a bit just and i've shared this with them i just want to make sure that i don't know why we wouldn't qualify them early to make sure they can find it uh versus hey they find out a month in they can't find their bikes um i don't know why we i just asked staff to press uh people at the point of application to to just nail down that fact that yes each individual bike has a gps device that if it's in the middle of the field someplace you know exactly where it is not generally the block um because otherwise we're allowing them we're setting them up to fail because they're not going to be able to isolate the bikes um and i would ask staff i guess after this kind of draft runs to continue to drill down into some uh the details because i think that really does separate the bike companies can the parts be disassembled easily and sold and that becomes a problem they become uh um uh targets that way uh one of the companies doesn't have they have all rubber tires that matters to me i don't have a bunch of flat bikes around so i think there's some nuances uh that add value uh or or distinguish the the companies and so i kind of want to know what those are i mean if you're if we're talking about bikes that are flat all the time versus that's not an issue then then that to me puts that particular vendor uh in a safer category uh as far as management so some of those details as we kind of get into this draft but in this draft i'd i really would pull for some kind of exit strategy and some and just and it doesn't have to be in the draft but just a note when they're applying that we really press them and make sure their technology allows them to go anywhere and ping it and find it get it picked up otherwise we're kind of allowing them to to fail and and i'll leave you with one thing i don't know if you've seen the the temporary there's a the i saw it on the news today i guess there's a temporary shelter that holds about 10 bikes there's a there's a a group it's a dallas non-profit shared i docs for neighborhood not and i will um i'll send i'll email you the the hyperlink and you can take a look at it but it's something that i think it holds about 10 or so relatively small space relatively inexpensive so thank you council member duff let me see if i understand this well this will operate okay the bikes will be in a virtual rack okay you come you have you take a bike out you unlock it and if you take that thing and you set it down somewhere and you don't put it back in clock still running on your credit card and if they they just leave it there and we pick it up and impound it those people are gonna get nailed for that 50 bucks too right right what would happen what would happen is is that the user would be unable to re lock the bike that's right and they would have a notice on their their device indicating that that's an improper location and they'd be noticed with um you know directions to to to relocate it to another location so that that should take care of basically the problem of these bikes getting left all over the place that is the intent yes sir okay to establish to establish one of the goals is to establish some order to to how these bikes are um placed in our community okay well that that also means that they probably they need to have a lot of virtual bike racks around the city for it to work for them correct and that's a great segue into my comment um i really i mean i'm going to support i think what may come out of this ordinance based upon some of the amendments but very seldom do i want to make a decision that has this kind of impact with no data there's no data we have no data so when i start hearing that there's virtual bike racks all over the city and the city's right of way that a for-profit company is using and i think about how hard it is and how much effort we have to take to get a bus shelter at a right of way for people who are waiting on a bus stop that frustrates me that frustrates me i mean you know i want to help provide transportation as well but let's be reasonable about this i mean so we're going to have virtual bike racks all over the city and city right of way and they're paying 500 dollars i think we have utilities that are occupying right away do we not they pay a franchise fee of a percentage of their sales now i know we're forced to put cellular towers on our poles but they're paying i think the legislation was 250 dollars per pole attachment or something something similar so how much up to 500 so i'm all for trying to figure this out but i'm not for creating a place all over the city where you've got five different bike companies with 100 150 bikes that have right of way reserved for these virtual bike racks all over the city when by golly we have talked about shelters for bus stops for years and so we're just all the sudden and the hassle of getting shelters was dealing with right of way dealing with handicap accessibility and all the nuances to that so we've got to figure this out because i am not i'm just uncategorically going to be struggling with we've got to find a limitation on these virtual bike racks because i from what i'm hearing so you can correct me if i'm wrong we've got some gps location cord coordinates that is in city right away that people have to place their bikes in once they get through or the meter runs correct and i'm assuming which it may not be the case because if some of them that means all of them will have to have gps at some point all of them will have to have gps cellular bikes won't work unless there's some technology i 'm unaware of so then i'm assuming that if we have multiple bike companies that they will all be on the same system where they share these virtual bike racks so you've got v bike you've got what is it lime bike you've got orange bike then or are all those going to have separate virtual bike racks on city right of way that city maintains and that the city charges quite a substantial sum of money to a lot of other companies who use our wide away now they're regulated by utilities but it's i'm just talking about the principle of the matter so i'm not against a program like this but we have no data on how many people are using it we have no data on how much virtual how many virtual bike racks we're going to have i'm i'm real okay with staying with 100 bikes because nobody can show me the data that it i mean you're talking about a revenue argument on more bikes i'm real open to that discussion i have no data and in the data section which is um which data section is that that's it's 10 no yeah 10 section 10 now i'm assuming that 10 c double i which is two i guess says origin and destination trip data i know that means where you started and where you stopped but i'm assuming it doesn't say it but i think we ought to put it in other words that'll give us we need to have the distance and that 's probably built in there but i think i'd probably like to have that more hard coded just so that so that we understand that i would like to know because i'm assuming each one of these bikes will have a certain electronic identity like this bike is bike 0253 and people will know what that bike is and each bike will have a separate identity i'd like to know the details of that individual bike you know how many times is it being used because if a bike is not being used or if a route or an area is not being used and if we got a bunch of virtual bike racks over there we've got to that's the real that's my hardest struggle here is the right of way and the use of the right of way and not knowing what that's going to look like because if you so somebody uses a bike and we're going to have virtual bike racks probably in the popular places around schools maybe shopping centers sporting events those kind of things but when you talk about the first mile and the last mile if you're talking about that you're going to have to have these things all over the city which so instead of having these bikes sort of congregated i think somebody said that there 'll be two or three or four bikes in these sort of bike you know what do they call them virtual bike racks so now i see because if you don't want somebody to have to walk a half a mile or a mile to find a virtual bike rack do you know how many of those things are going to have to be around the city so that if i'm stopping somewhere like oh you know where's the nearest virtual bike rack oh it's a quarter mile down here or it's a half mile here holy toledo i mean that 's when my mind starts thinking like that no data you know if somebody could show me a map of the city and say if we have a virtual bike rack every quarter of a mile in popular areas based upon data which we don't have this is what it would look like so even if we implement it so this this ordinance is being implemented without virtual bike racks am i am i correct are they in here they 're not specifically called out what they're what would be required is whenever you submit whenever bike operator submits they would submit where those locations would be and those would be so we don't regulate those how do we regulate those would then be vetted by our capital projects our engineering department to ensure that they're not obstructing or creating a hazard of sort but as far as but as far as the number in other words if it meets that criteria that it doesn't create an obstruction or a problem with the capital project or improvement or so forth and so on it 's okay where they propose it so this is where i'm struggling i mean i don't i don't and and i'm struggling because i don't have the data i don't have i don't have any idea this may just be a non-iss ue i mean it really may just be a non-issue i don't know if it's a non-issue so i i think i'm okay with the hundred bikes i think i want to reduce this pilot length of time i mean nine months is that what we're talking about nine months that's correct yes sir i don't think it's going to take us nine months to figure this out i really don't think it's going to take us nine months not not given what i'm hearing because number one i don't even know if the bike company that's here do they have the capability to provide us the data that we're asking for so i i'm anyway i've said enough i've just i struggle with uh i struggle with this sorry about the filibuster ladies if i can just kind of clarify yes we completely agree with you but i think we you know in part of get part of bringing an ordinance to the city council is you know we had a we had one company just come and drop the bikes no no plan no data i understand and you know so we're so we've heard the council loud and clear if there's a way to make this work let's try to find it this is an important asset to us i think the whole point of the test period is to to take that six months and get the data i think the thing that you know we've been talking internally as a staff is going to be you know we've tried to be flexible enough to allow our city engineer and traffic engineers to work with a bike company my guess is right now they're going to be triangulating where their market is anyway so you know we may set up some of these approve some of these bike racks and working with them and they're going to move them around because they don't know where the market is and with the exception of possibly some of the conversations have been going on with spin and unt and twu i'm not sure it's as strategic as is what we're we think it may be we hope it is but i think at the end of the six months we'll be able to tell you a are they being good neighbors b can they answer questions about where their market's coming from and and you know and maybe even give us some data on where we might need to plan some additional bike facilities but you are absolutely right i think we tried to build a an ordinance that was flexible and mobile and something that we can at least bring you back some rationale and logic here in six months sure and i'm okay with six months you've just changed it from six nine months to six months i'm okay with six months but but again but because what i've heard as a an interest in this policy one of the interests we're trying to achieve is the public transportation component which is the last mile first mile i can tell you right now that the last mile first mile i mean that's just a phrase it might be the last two miles the first two miles many of those are not going to be concentrated in markets where everybody's going to be going so that's going to be the issue is all right well uh so if if this so this is it we have an interest of creating this sort of link or this missing link to public transportation which we know public transportation is a subsidized commodity in the public life so we're going to ask a for-profit business to maybe place assets where it's not quote unquote profitable for them to help us promote our public transportation connectivity i want to see how that works because that will be very challenging so i i'm going to support this if there's some amendments made to it or some things not changed i just share these concerns because i can just see it so uh council member gregory i agree with you very much on the issue of data but it's passing an ordinance like this for a trial period of time that's going to help us collect the data sure and i think that that as time goes on i mean what we're dealing with right now is something very interesting and it's something that i think city councils all over the country are going to be dealing with where where as technology moves ahead we're going to have more and more disruptive kinds of businesses that we're not accustomed to that come in and that that that in some way fill a niche but at the other time create some disruption that's very disturbing for some folks in the community and how can we respond in a way to to allow for new businesses to happen and to protect the the neighborhoods and things like that and and so i i think that this is not going to be the last time that that city councils have to deal with things like this because this was just technology that happened so quickly and and cities all over the country are having to deal with it but i think that we're going to get good data from it that we can use to adjust the the ordinance down the road so so i would hope that we could we could find something that could work and work well enough that we don't run all of the vendors off because if we run all of the vendors off then then we're not anywhere councilmember rates i would like to speak with our director of engineering mr todd estes because on the application i do see where the um there is a detailed implementation plan with map showing locations of virtual bike corrals can you walk me through the process of um maybe how when you get this what happens next and what would be an acceptable location maybe but i think the variety is what we were trying to accommodate but one of the things that we're looking at is as we go into more of a complete streets methodology as we plan our community and we put together a true master thoroughfare plan a bicycle plan a pedestrian plan we're looking at where all those routes might interconnect but we're also trying to be as accommodating as possible for the accessibility issues to the handicapped or disabled which drives some of these locations if i have a primary pedestrian route that's either driven by the accessible route itself being able to get into businesses get out of parking or i'm dealing with a say hickory street where i do want to make it as walkable as possible i may not want to have very many virtual racks so it's up to them to come to us and say here's our plan here's where we want to go and put these things and then we would help facilitate that as best we can and show them what alternatives and options there are but it's going to be on a case-by-case basis until we really know what their viability in the market is do you see um some of these affecting neighborhoods potentially but i don't know that that's really their target okay the majority of what really draws them here from what i've seen is you have a and i'm doing a little bit extrapolating here just on some conversations you have a large crowd of or a larger population of students that utilize bicycles anyway so the thought process is is there going to be a natural customer the other side to this and when you get into the last mile connectivity issue one of the areas we've really seen this fly is or content as we've tagged it to or heard it tagged on to is more towards the railroad which is very limited in its transportation stops once you get into the downtown area and the people who are commuting into downtown and using the train they might be more willing to put the money and effort into the bicycle to get to downtown or to the universities as opposed to somebody who's willing to drive to downtown and then try to find one or take a bus to downtown it's not really where we're going with that but some of the thought has been if you do have a bus stop and you do put a bus shelter there tends to be a little bit more space in the right away and it's a natural thought process to try to put that as a stop now that doesn't really lend itself to a neighborhood okay thank you council member duff okay when they come in with you know wanting a permit yes okay they need to i think they need to come in with where their virtual bias back wrecks are yes sir okay and once they come in with all of those and they're operating and they they want to add one or move one they need to come back to you for just for permission i would agree they also need to be able to tell us how big that virtual bike rack is so we can see how it does impact the absolutely all traffic i mean and that way and that way you'll have total control on on where where the bike racks are yes sir and i think you know especially within the first six months uh you're going to know where the traffic is yes sir you're going to know how many of those bikes are being used and i think i think it'll all work out and you know and you don't know going in because you don't have the data yes sir but in six months you'll have it council member ryan thank you i think it's probably more for mark uh have we discussed with the bike companies because we've only got the virtual bike racks on on public property is the only place that we're saying that they would be locked up or that they're thinking they would be locked up what about mainly commercial property or multi-family who have bike racks on their property how are those how is that going to happen that if you can only lock up if you're at this virtual bike rack and they forgot to put the the walmart bike rack on their their list you go in there somebody else takes your bike and they're on your credit card riding the bike down the street the ordinance the ordinance would require that they that the bike operators work with those private property owners to establish the use of their private property to to park those those bikes okay so so they they would be would they have to report where those are to the city no not if it's in a not if it's on the public i mean i'm just on the private only if it's in within the uh public ride of one okay council member gregory so let me test this out see if i'm understanding imagine my daughter and granddaughter ride the train up get off at the train station and they get on the bikes and they ride their bikes these these dockless bikes and they ride over to scrap it's a great place to go shopping kids have a lot of fun there so they ride over to scrap and they spend 30 minutes does that have to be uh they have a parking lot off the street do they have to have a registered with the city because then after my daughter and granddaughter goes there they're going to ride back over to boca 31 and they're going to have lunch they're going to park not on the city street do they have to have a registered bike there but then they're going to go up to the courthouse for dessert and go to beth marie's and have ice cream then they're going to go back to the train station go home and they're going to be in trouble because they didn't visit me and giggy but but but if they do that would they have to have park the bikes in some kind of registered bike rack at scrap and at boca 31 so a lot of that's just going to depend on where you have the room in the place i mean the way those bikes actually work is you it's kind of like a lift or an uber you recognize that it's when you take it the first time that's one way unless you're willing to let the meter run right now if it's off on private property this not what this is in in regard to if it's in the public right away then yes it would actually i think what we've talked about and correct me where i'm wrong mark is it would the way the system would work is it would ping somebody within the city that says it's been here too long it's not in a bike rack which seals it up neatly we're done right you're outside of that so i lean it up against the building i'm still in the public right away and i'm having a good time at scrap because it's an awesome place to be thank you yep i've heard that before but it's one of those things where you're taking the risk on your own sure you've locked it up because you're you're no longer getting charged for it right but the bike company does have a problem because if it doesn't get moved by some other vendor we're gonna get a ping that says it's in the right away it's not in an accept in a place that it's designated to be but that's that's after two hours or longer and a complaint right right well two hours i believe it's just after two hours whether we get a complaint or not it should be getting that ping to us that says yes it's outside of an ab ounded area okay all right thank you council member duff yeah i'm having a little trouble figuring out why we're worrying about the virtual bike racks being on you know city right away or whatever or on private to me i think they need to tell you both they need to let you know where they are and you know and that'll help us you know we'll want that tracking information anyway and they yeah they're going to have to go and make a deal with somebody on on their own private property yes to put that virtual rack in there okay but you got i think i think the city needs to know where those are also yes and as i understand it from what we've heard from the companies they know where they are at all times because they are linked into their system so they will know that yes they will but you know it doesn't make any difference probably to them whether where that virtual back rack is sure and and i still think the city needs to know where all of them are okay no more i see no more questions and if i did i wouldn 't recognize you i'm just teasing i'm just kidding i'm teasing uh all right mayor pro tem my turn already okay yeah you've been waiting very patiently very kindly um one of the let me see if i got the proposed amendments right but i did want to say that i'm not going to be adding the amendment to reduce from 150 to 100 i think section 8g addresses that because the 100 bike limit can be reassessed by staff upon a demonstrated need and i don't think that's going to happen considering we only have 62 line bikes in town so i mean that's that's my reasoning for skipping that particular amendment the other amendments and if i don't get them i'll just tell me but um section 10c 2i should include explicitly a distance measurement section 8 item j is amended to add a new requirement that the escrow or is the escrow requirement is amended to two thousand dollars from 2500 and it's to be replenished within 30 days of the debit and i believe there's another section maybe that is the same section i would say wherever that 2500 dollar amount is in the ordinance should be amended to reflect the 2000 dollar change i think that's those were the two amendments were there more six the nine to six months for the program oh i'm sorry yeah and the program is amended the pilot length is amended from nine months to six months council member gregory has a question or comment so are you interested in the suggestion that i had made to amend section six paragraph b some section six item b b to strike transit zones including bus stops and shelters and set conflicts with section eight i i didn't see it the first time i couldn't find it tell me again section six b section six paragraph b then uh little letters vi and item b that says transit zone so it's that they cannot be parked within these transit zones yeah and um yes i am interested in that so it would strike strike that section six capital v vi little v thank you okay um we've got a couple of so before i recognize the second i want to go ahead and address some of the council comments uh council member husbeth you had a request to speak yeah martin did you want to speak to that because in my email you explained there's something changed that i miss it a lot was going on and so i don't know that i caught he he mentioned the shelter issue being a conflict but in my email you addressed that i wasn't sure if you if striking that language would work both ways okay got it okay then i'm good thank you council member riggs well that's what i was going to ask the the engineer to come in and um speak to that amendment too when it said transit zones and how that would affect if we got that um since he would be their department is looking at the applications that's i think the requirement that it has to come to the public works capital projects division so that we can evaluate those locations on a case-by-case basis works just as well as whether you strike her or not okay it gives us the flexibility to say where they go where they don't go for what reason they don't okay thank you okay has someone i know you've made your amendments and legal you've gotten your list of amendments i just want to make sure when we make the motion that everybody's clear on what the amendments are you're comfortable with that and we can always go back and look at the record okay so i'll recognize the seconder council member briggs okay okay we have a motion and a second on the board for approval of agenda item what is this 6a with associated amendments as recorded by legal staff and enumerated by the movement let's vote on the board please did i miss the motion six seven did i has it has the vote come up oh yes there it is uh vote carries unanimously seven zero let's take about a five or ten minute break all right welcome uh we're reconvening this meeting of the dent city council on tuesday february the 20th 2018 and it is 8 32 pm so we'll move on to our next item for individual consideration is item 6b considered option of ordinance of the city council of the city of denton providing for authorizing improving the execution about the city manager's designate a pipeline transportation agreement good evening mr mayor members of the city council it's a little bit of history on this item this is actually for a compressed natural gas fueling station located at the landfill there's been a number of discussions over the years with the council regarding this item i'll just summarize those briefly is the solid waste department invested in compressed natural gas as a fueling platform a few years ago right about the time that diesel prices were peaking we did an analysis of this with the council in the pb in the summer and found that uh that investment was not paying off and so we presented to the council some options to try to extract ourselves from the situation financially and it was ultimately recommended by the pb and council that we finished the construction of a compressed natural gas fueling station there's a few different agreements that that we've had to undertake in order to make that station a reality the first one was actually approved back in 2016 that's an agreement with zyde energy for the construction of the station as well as ongoing maintenance that construction has been underway for a few months and we're looking to have the station completed on march 14th the item before you tonight is is a transportation agreement for natural gas with atmost pipeline that's the only line that feeds our facility out there so that's posted for consideration once you do the conversion over to diesel gallon equivalent which is basically just a fancy way of saying what's our cost per gallon it comes out at about 16 cents per gallon for transportation contingent on tonight's vote will also be bringing back an item for the purchase of natural gas hopefully that will be back in front of you next week and our projected cost there is about 50 cents per gallon and so our all-in cost on a per gallon basis for natural gas is about 66 cents how that compares to what we're using currently is we are actually using a mobile fueling platform that brings out the natural gas to us our cost on a per gallon basis right now is about 3.75 the annual fuel usage that you have there is actually for all 24 vehicles in our fleet and our annual cost is about five hundred four thousand dollars under the new agreement if the prices play out the way we think they will we'll be saving in excess of four hundred thousand dollars on an annual basis over our current option that is pretty much it for my presentation i'll be happy to stand for any questions that you might have real quick question i know that we terminated a project to sort of it was the fueling station or something like that if i'm correct is it we're moving forward with the fueling station but we will be aging out our fleet because the capital investments aren't we're not going to get a payback on that with the cost that goes into trucks all right all right i'm thinking of something else okay well that's great savings thank you i appreciate that council member ryan uh just for clarification sake and so the public knows the atmas agreement the redacted agreement the name for notification that has been corrected so that we no longer have our former solid waste i have ass urances from one of our lawyers that that's been corrected so thank you council member hussbeth i move approval council member ryan i'll second let's vote on the board please motion carries six to one moving on to our public hearings we'll go with agenda item a which is seven a which is hold a public hearing considered option of an ordinance to rezone approximately 11.42 acres for community mixed use general district to a neighborhood council member ryan thank you before we have staff presentation i think you had some comments before we open public yes as i understand it and staff may want to comment on this but once uh the public hearing c goes into effect the need for rezoning on this would not be necessary because but they're the reason that the rezoning is to in in item a the reason that the rezoning is to get out from underneath the requirement that we're going to remove in public hearing is that correct that is correct and um with the applicant was made aware of the proposal for staff's amendment that is item c on the agenda tonight before this went to p and z they've kind of run concurrently um through the public hearing process and at that time they decided to move ahead with their request um since you know the work was already done for it and the sqp was reviewed under um this being an nrmu zoning once the sqp goes into a place rather than a cmg district so the analysis might be slightly different there um so they they are aware of this and chose to move forward okay if if we were to uh so we would have to go back through p and z in order to do a an sqp based on the change that will be made if if item c passes this evening let me recognize the city attorney i think he's got some comment even if the limitation was amended and they wanted to keep the current cmg zoning if um i was speaking with the staff earlier they would still be have to come forward with an sup and that would delay their process they'd have to go back redo their uh sup application to conform to cmg rather than an or mu um it's my understanding that the applicant wants to proceed forward as is and they've been advised of that this potential change on item c okay fine customer very well and along with that i was concerned that if we if we tried to circumvent that that we would not be able to approve these recommendations with the conditions as presented and i would like to be able to do it with the conditions so all right okay so then we'll uh i'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing so i don't forget to do that so we're going to go ahead and open the public hearing for agenda item 7a and now we'll move forward with staff presentation all right and just so you're aware i prepared one presentation for both a and b to kind of consolidate it then let me go ahead and call that and open that public hearing as well is that correct mr student attorney that is correct all right all right we'll hold a public hearing considered option of orders for a specific use permit to allow for multi-family residential use on 10.68 acres and that is agenda item 7b and i will also open the public hearing for agenda item 7b so we will hear the presentation for 7a and 7b concurrently and we'll hold the public hearing concurrently but we will vote separately all right staff may proceed all right so yes this is uh two requests a rezoning and an sup for the coventry two apartments so as you mentioned the first request is for a rezoning from cmg district to nrmu district the boundary for that request is outlined in red on the map it is for approximately 11.4 acres the sup request is for a multi-family use on the portion of the property that's outlined in yellow the difference being there is an existing medical office here at the southeast corner that will stay in place as you can see here the property is generally located along both sam bass here on the western boundary and london area on the south just south of the i-35 service road here to the north looking at the first request for the rezoning you can see the existing zoning map on the left and then the proposed zoning map here on the right for a rezoning we do have two criteria for approval in the denton development code the first being conformance with the future land use element of our denton plan 2030 and the second being the facil itation of infrastructure looking at the first aspect there the future land use for the property is community mixed use the intent of this district being to provide a mixture of commercial higher density residential and service uses we did find that the nrmu district meets the intent of this designation nrmu provides for that mixture of uses and it is at a similar scale to what cmg permits looking at the second aspect of their or the second criteria for approval infrastructure is available to the property you see water lines in blue on the map sewer lines are in red and then both of the adjoining streets are classified as collectors they're currently developed as two lane undivided roads that is their intent to be two line two lane undivided with parking and sidewalks on either side digging a little further into the compatibility here nrmu is generally consistent with cmg they're very similar in terms of lot coverage landscaping requirements and dimensional requirements and as we've discussed briefly the the use is permitted under the current zoning with those limitations it would also add to that a requirement for ground floor commercial along both sand bass and london dairy based upon the very established development pattern here with multifamily on almost all sides and then commercial uses to the north and the acme brick plant here across sand bass staff found it unlikely that ground floor commercial would be supported in this area it's a very established development pattern that's not likely to change in the near future to create that typical urban walkable environment where ground floor commercial would be supported so staff is recommending approval of the rezoning we found it to be consistent with the goals and objectives of the dentin plan 2030 the pnz commission also recommended approval of this request question if you could go back to the original zoning map and then the proposed so there's a lot of discussion on many times when we've come before when applicants have come before the council for rezoning where we always hear about either spot zoning or something like that so this is an nr mu right in the middle of cmg is it cmg and then there's really nothing really either nr and nrmu typically is a is a buffer also for maybe some residential so i'm not really i'm just sort of stating a comment because i think that's why we're trying to pass the general amendment to cmg is to avoid these kind of things so i just wanted to point that out that when i looked at that i thought wow this is right in the middle of and do and so in the sup presentation is your site plan there is a site plan associated with that because i saw it on the back of okay all right so staff is okay with it being like this just because it's got so many other similarities to cmg outside of the first floor requirement and cmg for multifamily of commercial and retail exactly they are very comparable districts and this still meets the intent of our future land use plan so it's not spot zoning in the sense that we would no no i understand i wasn't saying that just when you look up there's like oh there's a little bit of red right there you can see of everything so certainly okay council member ryan has a question thank you man we're right now in the process of redoing the the development code and at that time we're going to reduce the number of zoning districts that we already have because these are basically the same use is what is next door to this as we do that rezoning to match the new the new code will these all end up in the same type of zoning at that point that is very likely yeah we'll be looking at what's on the ground as well as our comprehensive plan and trying to align all of that so it is likely that this whole area would would have a continuous zoning across it okay thank you and now we're going on to the sup yes sir presentation thank you all right so the second aspect of the request as i mentioned is the specific use permit to allow multifamily for sups there are several criteria that were enumerated in your backup just in summary of those it's generally a compatibility analysis looking to see that the use would not impede normally an orderly development on surrounding properties it wouldn't generate nuisances and would be generally compatible with the area in terms of use landscaping architecture that sort of thing so the main aspect of this request is outlined here on their site plan so to walk through this a little bit this would be the second phase of the existing coventry apartments to orient yourself north on this map is the left side of the screen so the phase one of coventry is here and what would be the top of the screen there would be a drive connection here you can see that drive would extend from sand bass all the way over to the adjoining property what they're proposing is six buildings they'd be a mixture of three and four stories in height the site plan as it shown has 283 units on it a mixture of one two and three bedroom units and one of the the kind of the key features of this site is they've developed all of these buildings so that they each have their own courtyard to provide a a little bit different feel than we typically see at apartments and that is getting them to about 38 landscaping overall which is above and beyond what would be required so staff did find that this request was consistent with the dentin plan 2030 and that future land use of community mixed use one of the key aspects of that district is is that it does call for higher density housing in areas that don't impact existing single-family neighborhoods this request would certainly meet that being that all the surrounding uses are either commercial or multi- family so it is very consistent with the existing development pattern the site would be required to comply with all other aspects of the ddc in terms of parking landscaping tree preservation and we did find that given the compatibility with the neighboring properties in terms of use it'd be unlikely that there'd be any special nuisances generated by this development notifications were sent about this request i apologize there is one correction we received two responses in favor one of them came in towards the tail end here it was from a property here just north of this along i-35 so in addition to one of the former property owners one of the neighbors also supports the request and the applicant did hold a neighborhood meeting on february 5th a few of the neighboring property owners came over no strong opinions stated either way but they were just curious about the type of product that would be developed on the site there is a proposed condition for this approval and that be that a full site plan submittal still be required to ensure compliance with all aspects of the dentin development code but in addition to that we would require that that site plan be in substantial conformance with the concept plan as submitted tonight so staff is recommending approval of the request with that condition and pnz also recommended approval with the same condition in place okay any questions for staff before the public hearing all right seeing none thank you this is a public hearing anybody wishing to speak come down state your name and address your time will begin my chair is falling down anybody wishing to speak one more time so that was this is the public hearing for either the zoning or the case or the sup case one more time anybody wishing to speak i'm looking out around the audience i don't see anybody moving real quickly to get up here so we'll call we will now close the public hearing and of course if there's a question that uh if there's anybody here that can answer it besides staff i do have a question is the courtyard i mean there's some pretty large tree stands on this site and is there an attempt or desire based upon the site plan and the courtyard to try to preserve as many of those as possible or is it going to be we're going to sort of clear cut them and then we'll mitigate them with either tree plantings or money into the tree fund or has that even been discussed it was discussed at pnz so along with having to meet the standard tree preservation requirements for the city the applicant did express an intent to save as many of the the large trees on the site as they could to provide more shade and landscaping for those courtyards okay all right any other questions we'll take these any other questions for staff all right we'll take these up individually we will now consider agenda item 7a as far as the vote councilmember h udspeth uh move approval mayor pro tem second councilmember grager is that a moving approval with the conditions am i wrong do the conditions apply to be sup yeah yeah we 're doing the zoning well i think there were conditions on the zoning were there conditions on the zoning there weren't no okay i beg your pardon yeah that's epi yeah okay all right so we have a motion and a second for approval for agenda item 7a let's vote on the board please motion carries uh seven zero we will now have a uh take up action on agenda item 7b councilmember gregory move approval with conditions councilmember ryan a second all right let's vote on the board please motion carries six to one all right we'll move on to agenda item seven c which is hold a public hold a public hearing considered option of norm in its regard a proposed revision of the dent development code all right so a very closely related topic this is a proposed amendment to the dent development code as it relates to mixed use and multifamily development so the request is for an amendment to the limitations in sub chapter five relating to mixed use development requirements for multifamily currently in our code we have two limitations that apply to multifamily in our mixed use districts the first being limitation four where multifamilies only permitted with either a specific use permit or as part of a mixed use development or one of three other criteria that we don't typically see that being that it's part of a master plan development it was previously approved prior to 2005 or that it's part of a small area plan so one and two would be the two typical conditions we would see with l4 the second limitation is l6 requires or only permits multifamily on the second story and above when there's office retail or other commercial development on the ground floor along any avenue collector or arterial street if you're familiar with our street classifications pretty much the only other type would be our neighborhood residential streets so almost anywhere that multifamily is likely to develop this would apply looking at how these apply across our mixed use zoning districts l4 applies in all of them neighborhood residential community mixed use in our regional center districts l6 only applies in the community mixed use districts and in the regional center commercial neighborhood and downtown districts what staff is proposing is to remove l6 from all districts where it applies so that would strike it from the cmg cme rccn and rccd districts just within 2016 and 2017 we had five rezoning cases just because of the need to remove l6 many other projects that have come forward as pre-development meetings or as other types of proposals just haven't moved forward at all because of this requirement to look at how l6 applies on the map here it would be in all of the districts that are in the pink color fuchsia and then in the lighter pink color so primarily along the loop i-35 and then our larger arterial streets university mckinney street such as that denton does have a need for strong diversity of housing options as we've seen in many requests and this ground floor commercial kind of stands as a barrier to that in many of these locations because ground floor commercial it works better in compact walkable environments than it does on these main thoroughfares such as the inter states in the loop so to look at that a little more closely we do see this type of development that the code's trying to encourage in districts where it doesn't apply in downtown we have no requirement for this but you can see here from a couple of examples on the right that this type of development occurs naturally where the market finds it feasible such as downtown it doesn't occur as naturally in auto-oriented areas on the bottom of the screen here we have two examples of sites where this requirement would be in place on brinker and then out on loop 288 and duchess those aren't areas where we would typically see people walking to you know neighborhood coffee shops or other retail uses limitation four would still apply in all of these districts as well as the other mixed use districts it does as we've seen here require either an sup or a mixed use development that complies with our definition for mixed use which is simply three or more mutually supporting land uses that are integrated either vertically or horizontally with some other conditions based on the definition but since all four would still be in place we would still see a higher level of scrutiny required with any mix or with any multi-family development that occurred in any of these districts it would either come before you as an sup or be scrutinized more heavily by staff to make sure it meets our mixed use requirements a notification was published about this case we received no responses and the pnz did recommend approval of this request and staff is also recommending approval i could stand for any questions any questions for staff before we open the public hearing seeing none we will now open the public hearing anybody wishing to speak to agenda item 7c please come down state your name and address your time will begin anybody wishing to speak one more time all right we will now close the public hearing council member husbeth i'm going to move approval council member ryan i will second we have a motion and a second for 7c let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero we're now moving to concluding items any well i thought i saw mayor mayor pro tem but i'll go ahead and take council member we're going to take mayor pro tem she signed up and then she turned it off so go ahead i didn 't do it on purpose it just happened so i wanted to first of all thank staff for fixing the brush situation over on westgate neighbors are happy it looks much better appreciate it the dcta ifs was very helpful i'd like to have a work session on dcta specifically regarding board composition and the council's position on what the board composition should be and with the posting broad enough to allow discussion for goals that we might have for dcta as well and then also along the lines of transportation several months ago i reached out to dcta because there were some requests for additional train service during the arts and jazz festival and i found out today that the contact for the arts and jazz foundation has not returned the emails or responded to dcta the jazz festival is coming up and i really i mean to the extent that we can push this idea of having increased mobility options for people during the arts and jazz festival i think it may just need an additional hand from city staff i wasn't able to find any arts and jazz foundation emails or names of people so i'm worried that we're getting very close to the festival and we have no way of knowing if that's going to happen or not so if i could just ask for staff assistance on that council member breaks i would like for the update on the tree code to come to council i know that i've asked for it and we've talked about it again and i looked in the backup and it's not on the agenda anymore so we're seeing a lot of development coming through and the sooner we can talk about the tree code if i could that right now the intention is to fold that into the ddc update and run those together are you saying that you'd like to have them separated i would like to get an update on the tree code where we stand and where it is i know that it had gone through pnz and there were some issues there right and that it was kind of held up there and so i'd like for it to come back to council so that we can discuss what issues they're having trouble with and maybe um maybe we can work them out okay and and also i was happy to hear in the work session the mayor and mayor pro tem said we need to take responsibility for our parks and i completely agree with that and i would like for staff to um put a report together or give us an update on the inclusive play park it was the ada accessible special needs playground i think that we were working on and i'd like to get an update on that and if that's something we can move forward with that's it that's great thank you mayor just one thing and i spoke with uh our city attorney about it i'd like to have a presentation from staff regarding uh adding the council person's name and potentially a vote to ordinances uh specifically the names uh on each ordinance so when you go back and look at those legacy ordinances and you don't know who the council members were and then you got to go back and and research that separately i'd like to try to begin a process where everyone's name's on there so that we can kind of track that when we're looking at those legacy ordinances so all right just got a couple anybody else i received a letter i think from the texas historic commission or agency associated thereof that roman mcallan apparently submitted a grant request for 20 000 and i think it was awarded just to help with you know some historic either policy making and things such as that but i really wanted to give a shout out to him i think that was a good job on that and i and i've got a presentation i've got to give thursday to the i think it's dow's builders home builders association just a brief thing about you know touting our city and tell them about the good things that are happening here and so some of the data that i've received i just want to share this one piece of data with you and with the community via this public presentation for one family dwellings single-family homes permits year to date in 2017 last year was 117 permits up to this point in 2018 we've already had up to this point 358 single- family permits i was stunned at that i mean uh because even in 2007 permits were about 12 or 1300 at the peak before the recession and so just one other piece of data and it's just it's just a concluding item it's not discussing anything and that is that so the corresponding value back in 2017 at this time for those 117 permits was 35 million 16 thousand 714 dollars is what the estimated value was in 17 for those 117 permits which was 283 thousand dollars per permit per home this year with the 358 the value uh to date based upon the permits is 106 million 514 thousand 218 which is an average of basically 300 thousand that's almost a tripling actually it is a tripling of the value from year to date last year to here just in single-family permits so i thought that was a real eye-opener to me there is a tremendous amount of single-family development going on in this community so council member gregory and you know one of the good news about that is that a lot of those new homes are in-field there's a lot of infill going on that we've been hoping for for years been part of our comprehensive plan um well since it's raining tonight it reminded me that um back in 2007 we had our hundred-year flood and there were a lot of areas of town uh and some homes that were flooded and i know that since 2007 the city has done several things to add detention ponds on several of the the um waterways and what i would like to see in the next month or so is maybe a report on how much area has been moved out of the floodplain since 2007 or floodway i'm sure i'm not using the word words exactly correctly but i think it would be a good thing it's it's um 11 years since the flood uh to so we could see what it was where we were having some significant problems and how much we've improved and and then maybe a look ahead to what we need to do to finish addressing some of the issues that that are possible to address okay any others all right if not uh we will stand adjourned thank you you