Apr 10, 2018 City Council on 2018-04-10 11:30 AM

to this meeting of the Dent City Council on Tuesday, April the 10th, 2018. We do have a quorum, so I will call this meeting to order. Our first item on the agenda is citizen comments on consent agenda items. Have we had any blue cards filled out for consent agenda items? I see none. We'll move on to request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda for April 10th, 2018. Let me go ahead and start this one out. I'm going to request that we pull closed session item 1A. I believe there's been some discussion about the specific nature of this. So I think the agenda committee will take a look at this and whether it's going to be general or specific. And so we'll reschedule this. If it's a general discussion about NDAs, we'll talk to council about the open session nature of that , which I prefer. And then if it's about specific names or terms or things such as that. So I think there was just some confusion about that, so I want to pull agenda item 1A. Yes . Do we know if it is a specific or this particular item, was it supposed to be for a specific NDA? There was a couple out there that we wanted to discuss, but there was also a policy discussion involving these themselves as well as the legal issues involved and related to this. The policy discussion, of course, would be in the open session, but internal would be discussing some of the legal revocations of these NDAs. Okay. So I guess, well, I agree with you that we can't have the policy discussion in a closed session, but I'm not clear on why we would not have the individual NDA discussion. Is it because it's not clearly posted for the individual NDAs? Let me share my thought. Yes, from my perspective, because even on a general policy discussion of NDAs, if there are general issues of a legal nature that aren't specific to any one particular specific NDA, I personally don't see necessarily the harm in talking about just what is breach. You can have a breach and that's pretty common knowledge. But if you're talking about specifics and because this wasn't posted to talk about specifics, it doesn't seem to me if there were specific NDAs that we were going to consider either naming the company or the, you know, city department or not, I still thought it needed to be more specific because the posting to me indicated more of a general discussion. Okay. Yes, Council Member Ryan. Question on consent to item 1A. I don't know if we need to pull that or trying to figure out how we would conduct the second of two readings on a consent agenda. If I can get some explanation on how that takes place. This is on 1A? Yeah, consent agenda 1A. My recommendation is that this get pulled off and is considered as an individual consideration item and not a consent agenda item. You are correct on that. Okay. To follow up on that, are these readings public hearings? I mean, are they -- do they need to be posted as public hearings or individual items are okay? The individual consideration is okay. This is the process we use after the public hearings once we have the first and second readings. We have a charter requirement that requires the two reading requirements, so we're just satisfying the charter. We typically do them as individual considerations. Okay. And so that's -- my recommendation is to move it to that. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else on consent agenda items? All right. Seeing none, we will now move into the work session reports, work session 3A, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the city guidelines for public improvement districts. Good morning, mayor and council members. I am going to go through the first part of this presentation fairly quickly since you've recently heard much of the same information, but obviously feel free to slow me down if there's something that you have a question about or would like to discuss further. I will do a quick overview of PIDS as an economic development tool and review our recent work sessions with both this group and the Economic Development Partnership Board. We'll go ahead and talk about some options that the city can use to mitigate risk and maximize benefits to the city when considering PID projects, and we'll revisit the draft PID guidelines that you discussed a few weeks ago. So as we're all familiar, PIDS are an economic development tool that is used to fund public improvements that benefit a specifically defined area, and property owners within that defined area are assessed fees for the benefits that they receive as property owners in that area. There are some benefits to cities in terms of increasing the quality of development through improved amenities, and there are also some benefits to developers via the use of tax-exempt debt to reduce their capital requirements and increase their rate of return on projects. There are different types of PIDS, both pay-as-you-go and debt. Some pay-as-you-go PIDS can be used for maintenance and operation of things like landscaping and roads. Capital pay-as-you-go PIDS can reimburse developers for public improvements using only the assessment fees over time. And there are several different types of debt PIDS, including the colorfully named dirt bonds which happen before a project is started or at the outset of a project, concurrent project finance bonds which happen as the project develops, and then reimbursement bonds which fund the public improvement or reimbursements to the developer for the public improvements after they're accepted by the city. Councilman Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. I don't ever recall hearing about pay-as- you-go PIDS for maintenance and operation. Maybe that's because we've not discussed them. Every time we've heard about a PID, it's been for a limited period of time. Would a pay-as-you-go for maintenance and operation be ongoing? One good example that's close to us is the harvest development that's off of I-35 South. It has an ongoing pay-as-you-go maintenance PID just as described here, and that's just an assessment that will be continuing for the homeowners that own homes within that development. And it is related to their landscaping maintenance. Thank you. Caroline. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. That's okay. At the time of the PID request, do those have to be identified? In other words, if it's a pay-as-you-go, they can't change based upon what they've originally asked for. Is that correct? Right. We would have to understand what type of PID they were asking for in order to do the appropriate analysis on it and to write the developer agreement. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Cities around the state do use PIDs to encourage development. There's a list of some cities in our vicinity that have used them, either in the past or currently using them. And the specifics surrounding PID usage vary according to the city 's policy goals. We've talked to various representatives, both at the staff and elected official level, and we have definitely confirmed that to be true. Different communities have different goals and objectives, and they use PIDs to further whatever their specific situation is. I wanted to compile this chart for you. It was in the backup. I'm not going to spend too much time talking about it unless there are questions. But this is just an example of recent PID bond sales within the last, either within this year or last year, what the development is called, what city it's in, how much the authorized improvements are, and then what the authorized improvements are, as well as the value to lien ratio, which is something that we would use to assess the benefit of a P ID to the city of Denton. Thank you, Mayor. I was very interested in, I'd like for you to once again explain the value to lien ratio. And I think it's instructive. You all are recommending a three to one. And yet in these that we see, we don't see anything that really approaches that. So can you talk about that a little bit? Sure. So again, in doing research and preparing the presentation, I spoke with First Southwest, which I think is called Hilltop Securities now. I still want to call them First Southwest. But just discuss with them what are some of the basic criteria that they would use to perform an analysis for us. And that three to one value to lien ratio, that's the assessed value of the completed properties versus the amount of debt that's being requested to be issued. And three to one is sort of an ideal industry wide ratio to strive for, for projects. They did say that, you know, frequently cities say we want to set three to one as a goal, but then depending on the project specifics and what that community's current situation is and what policy goals they want to achieve, they could be comfortable with doing these lower value to lien ratios. And that's a decision of the elected officials at the time that the PID is approved. So three to one is kind of the gold standard on which these types of projects are judged. And it's a gold standard for what reason? I guess because that is a level that the companies, maybe Brian wants to come and talk to me or talk to you all about that. So he knows more about finance. Well, I think there's a couple reasons. It's if you're issuing debt, the bondholders, the investors, they want that security that if you valued it at a three to one ratio and then another 2008 situation were developed and you lost 40% of the value that you still have the ability to pay those bonds because ultimately PID bonds are payable by those assessments or foreclosing on that property to pay that debt if you had to sell it. And so particularly some projects have a lot more volatility in the pricing retail projects, commercial projects, they were to lose significant amount of the value, you want that value to be there sufficient enough to still pay the bond. So that's why the three to one is kind of generally considered to be a good number. It's also an investor number that they want to see for security. Thank you. That helps. All right. You're welcome. So if it goes south. Council Member Briggs has a question. Just to that statement, like on little L where the valuing ratio is that it's not a very good ratio there. Okay. Well, you know, it's definitely lower than three, but they have been able to sell the bonds regardless of the ratio. So that's it's, it's very situational is kind of my main takeaway from a lot of this is situational. So everybody okay with moving on? Okay. Okay. And to refresh us on where we currently stand as far as PID guidelines, Denton's guidelines were first approved in 2007 and then amended in 2014. We do have one existing PID, which is the razor ranch PID number one that was established in March of 2014. The reimbursement agreement for phase one of that PID infrastructure was approved by council in March, 2016. The service and assessment plan and finance plan have not yet been submitted for that PID and no assessments have been levied or bonds have been issued related to that project. So following direction that was given in prior work, work sessions with the EDP board and the council, we staff has revised the existing PID guidelines to do a number of things. First, to exclude PIDs for residential development. Second, to require a developer funded city administered fiscal impact analysis, as well as draft service and assessment plans at the time the PID is requested, as well as a finance plan. And we have established a multi-departmental review committee as part of the review process to vet the project and work with the outside firm that's engaged to administer the fiscal impact analysis. So when we had the discussion with council and received the direction to exclude residential PIDs, we presented the draft guidelines to the economic development partnership board because they are required under the ordinance that forms their board to review and recommend PID guideline changes to the council. So we presented those to the EDP board. Some of those board members did express concern with the exclusion of residential PIDs and then subsequently we had a couple of council members who requested another work session to just discuss this one more time. So that's why we're here today with you. >> Thank you. Did members of the EDP offer an alternative suggestion? >> They did not. They just expressed concern about the blanket exclusion. And they -- I think there was some discussion around, well, you know, how -- what would we use to judge whether a residential project would be a good one or not. And that is in line with, again, these projects are situational. They're unique. But we put the process in place to hire a firm to help us with the analysis and then require certain types of documentation and agreements on the developer's side that would help us make that judgment. So they acknowledged that there needs to be some kind of mechanism to do the analysis and make the right decision. But there wasn't a lot of specifics about how they wanted to see that rollout. >> Got a couple of questions. Council Member Duff and Council Member Briggs. >> Yeah, what I don't understand is why we want to take this off -- take for residential, take it off the table. Because I think -- I mean, we can leave it in there. This council is going to make a decision if somebody comes in with a residential that wants to have peds. So why would we exclude that? >> Okay. Council Member Br iggs. >> Yeah, back to the board. As I recall, we discussed it a little and then acknowledged that council wanted to discuss it again. And so we were going to wait for this work session to take place before we brought it back up on the board to see -- before we talked about it anymore. Because if this is the last conversation, then we didn't need to talk about it anymore. So -- >> Council Member Briggs. >> I think Council Member Duff asked a good question. I don 't know if you want to have that discussion now or wait until the presentation. >> She 's on nine slide of 11. Let's go ahead and defer that until we get through the presentation. Obviously that would be a question that we need to take up. >> That is the exact direction that we will be asking for. >> Okay. You bet. >> Wonderful. >> It ties in well. Okay. So to review some of the best practices with peds, establishing local guidelines is helpful. Those guidelines can take many different formats. They can be short. They can be long. But having some guidelines on the books that lets people know what the expectations are is generally helpful in guiding the discussions and setting up the expectations. Requiring that independent assessment of a PED project, formation documents and finance plan as well as other relevant project information like the public benefits, what kind of amenities would be included. And then requiring a development agreement with a scope that covers the land development component, including the infrastructure improvements that would be required as well as vertical improvements. And that's where you would document and hold the developer accountable to what they put forth as far as how the development is going to roll out. And then of course we would require developer reimbursement for our costs in establishing and administering a PED. There are also some specific tactics that can be used to reduce risk and maximize benefits and ensure performance. This is kind of a menu of options that other cities have done that, you know, the consultants' advice can be a good idea. So I won't talk through every single one of them. If there are any specific ones that you all would like to discuss, be glad to do that. But otherwise this is just kind of a list that can be used. Any questions about that one? No? Okay. So now for the direction. You have a copy of the draft guidelines in your backup. Currently they exclude the residential PEDs based on the direction that we received earlier. So option one is to consider moving forward with the draft guidelines as they are presented to you today. Option two would be adding back in the consideration of residential PEDs along with the commercial PEDs. And then option three could be no PEDs for either residential or commercial projects would be considered. And just to follow along with what Councilmember Briggs said, we do have an EDP board meeting tomorrow morning. And this is on their agenda so that we can go ahead and keep it moving with them. We'll present to you or to them the direction that we received from you today. And should they choose to make a recommendation at that time, they will be able to do that. And then we can bring this back for your vote. I'm going to look over here to the right side of the room. I must be left eye dominate. So Mayor Pro Tem. Trying to understand the process. So first we had a discussion about the PEDs and then we gave direction that we didn't want any residential PEDs. Then it went to EDP. And then they made a recommendation that they would like residential PEDs. They didn't make a recommendation. They didn't want to make a recommendation because they wanted the Council to reconsider the exclusion of residential PEDs. So they could have said we don't recommend this policy, but they chose to table that item pending further discussion of the Council. Okay. So now it's back to us. And I don't know what we'll decide. But then following this, it's going to go back to EDP? Yes, to see if they want to make a recommendation. Well, okay. So I mean, can't they just not ever make a recommendation and then we would just keep going back and forth? My staff opinion is that I would like them to make a recommendation one way or another tomorrow so that we can have this come to you all for action and you can take into account whatever their recommendation or not is. So can we not take any action? I guess this is kind of a legal question regarding our, is it the charter or is it the ordinance? It's yeah, it would be an ordinance. Okay. So are we not permitted to take legal action if we don't have a recommendation from EDP? Not for this type of a project or type of matter. There are in some other areas of law like your zoning matters, but not this. Okay. It is a resolution. I'm sorry. Oh, okay. Perfect. So yeah, if it's a resolution, then. All right. I just, I mean, I don't know how many times we're going to talk about this, but I could see it kind of continuing just as a permanent thing that we do. I would not prefer that. Council member Gregory. To council member Duff's question. I'm not completely against PIDs for residential, but here's some reasons why I think that they are, that there's some problems with them. Number one, it's likely that a homeowner will not know about the PID when they purchase the home, especially if they're a second buyer. The first time that they would probably discover it is when they get their tax statement from the tax assessor's office and they're going to see this PID on there and they're going to wonder what it is. They're going to regard it as a tax. And so that concerns me. And I think another thing is that, that because they're paying more in what they see as property taxes than other folks, they would be quite possibly less likely to support a vote coming, like we're having coming up for the, for the school district for a bond election or a city bond vote . So I think that those are some issues with it that I find problematic. And ideally, yeah, people would know about it before they buy it. And it's probably in the closing papers. But after folks, can I finish or do you want? So, so, so folks, you know, they 're anticipating buying the house. They finally get to closing. They've, they've done the negotiations. They've seen the inspection of the house and, and now they're excited about it and they see that big stack of papers and you've sat in some of those closings and seen how folks, you know, handed a number of papers and they just sign, but they don't really look at them that carefully and they won't know until it's until it's maybe too late. And, and that additional 40% of the $100 valuation could be a factor that really knocks them for a loop in terms of that. So, so that's why I think that there are some issues with residential pits. I think that there are some residential pits that I could support. But, but they would have to be in line with our comprehensive growth plan that we have. And they would have to be bringing some unusual amenities and things to the table that, that make it, that make it seem worthwhile to, to, to go that extra step. Otherwise I would have some problems with them. But that's my answer to your question. Go ahead. Well, I, I, I don't see that being that big a problem when somebody buys a property. Generally they're going through a realtor and they're going to be telling them about those pits. I've sold, I think I've only sold one in Trophy Club. It seems to work pretty well over there. I guess I'm not, I'm not really a great advocate of pits. I really not. Before we give, you know, give a developer, you know, a pit, he got to have a lot of skin in the game. You know, I think we need to look at that on an individual basis. I mean, we have a lot of vacant land in the southwest corner of this city. And you know, if that's the only way we can get that, that, get that developed, you know, we may want to consider that. I'm not saying that I would even vote for it, but, but we need to consider it. Don't take it off the table. That's all I'm saying. Anybody else? Yes. Councilmember Ryan. I've got a question because you mentioned the one pit that we do have at Razor Ranch and they are, well, they haven't developed their residential component. They are, when they're fully developed out, they 'll have both residential and commercial. Is the pit strictly on their commercial? Yes. Okay. It's strictly on the commercial. And so pit would cover things like waterline and sewer that they had to run to that development that in a roundabout way will help their residential because they're not going to have to put in new waterline just within the development itself, but getting the line there itself. That was all covered by that. And that's where, to me, having a commercial, when you do a lease on a commercial property, it's normally a gross lease . You know what your other costs are going to be. And for residential, and especially when we allow up to 40 cents was what our current was, that, you know, I might be able to say yes to residential if that number was much lower. That's, that's my biggest concern is that 40 cents. But if you're doing a large development, you're going to have some commercial space. And so that's what you do your pit on and it will help bring some of the other aspects some of the other infrastructure into place that's going to help your residential in a roundabout way. Anybody else? I've got a couple of comments but wanted to. Yes, go ahead. No, I mean, I went back and watched the last discussion and I was pretty succinct that I was to quote, Keely, I'd been here last week, she pointed out that she was static on a position and we came back around. I think I've been where we need to consider those. I mean, I think I've been resolute in that. Hopefully. So I 'm just listening to see where we stand. So your position is you're okay with residential peds given the demonstrable public benefit. Yes, I think to open to reviewing them. And I think that, you know, and that's bolstered by some conversations we'll have later as far as the traffic on I-35W and the increase thereof and I think I made that point before as well, but it's been there's numbers to support that now. Anybody else? Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. Well, I think last time we already had four when we had the discussion so I kind of didn't participate leading up to that. But my position is that residential pits give us some leverage in negotiating what the design and layout of these big projects are. So I'm not really in favor of the pits in general, but what I've seen is that they allow the cities a lot more power over the actual development than our normal design standards. So I would be in favor of a pit if we had an ordinance, residential pits, if we had an ordinance requiring additional notification to the landowner or to the potential landowner which would require, you know, like a City of Denton, you know, notice of some kind with all of their documentation not ifying them of the pit existence. Yeah, I can't remember exactly. I think I was the no residential pit, but I think having thought about this and met with some some other people and talked with some different some different groups, you can always if you if you allow it, you can still always say no. So it does provide some flexibility but I think I'm with I certainly agree with both commercial and residential that there's a demonstrable public benefit. I mean, now that's what that means in each person's eyes is different as far as to what level of benefit that is. So I don't think we're putting too much definition on the word demonstrable. But I'm okay with residential pits with the demonstrable public benefit and I sort of am in agreement with Councilmember Ryan that, you know, I wouldn't mind having a conversation about, okay, do we want to have a is that 40 cent maximum something that we 're okay with? I mean, we can always settle on something less. So it's sort of along those same lines of do you want that flexibility to go up to that depending on what it is or so I get a little but with Mayor Pro Tem, I agree that it does give you an opportunity to leverage the city's position with developers coming in on residential on what they need to provide additionally to what is already in the city. The average residential permit right now for new construction is $300,000. That's with nothing from the city or I mean, that's no pit. That's that's pretty substantial. So single family permit, the average permit for new homes is running about the value of the home, not the permit cost. Come on, come on. I mean, $ 300,000 permit. Come on. Yeah, no, no, that the permit, I might have said it wrong. But so I apologize. The value of the house represented by the permit, which is probably about $100 or something is so I can be okay with with residential PID. I don't know if we , you know, maybe make the language stronger or define demonstrable public benefit somehow. I mean, that that's very open ended. But I guess count, you know, future councils are going to have to be subject to this ordinance. And I would rather give them more flexibility than than less because obviously things change, ideas change, direction changes. And I trust that whoever comes before us or after us to sit in these seats will, you know, have the best interest of the city at heart and will probably consider all the questions that we've raised here today. So I can be okay with allowing them. And if with the demonstrable public benefit value 40 cents or not, I could go either way on that. But but I'm okay with that. The notice I guess I struggle with the notice in the sense of if you're saying it's a city of it's a city of Denton notice that we issue. When you when is that notice issued? Is it at I mean, how are we going to know who's buying selling? I'm not familiar with the entire property code. So I would have to rely on our legal counsel to tell me to tell us what is within our parameters in terms of what we could require. Yeah. The other thing I wanted to mention was that so I think that I initially requested the residential PID discussion, maybe like eight months ago or something like that. And the reason I brought it up was because we didn't have specific guidelines for residential PIDs. So my position was okay, well, if we're going to have residential PIDs, then we should have almost a checklist of things that we're requiring before we have before we allow these things. So my concern now is that if we're moving in the direction of having residential PIDs, I mean, I'm only in favor of it in the context of it needs to be specific as opposed to lot size larger than average, or I think it's very vague, our current PID policy is so vague. So I would just really like more detail. That was that was the reason I initially brought it up. Yes, Council member Gregory, you know, when we had the specific discussion about the request for PID, the developers were refreshingly open in their conversations about it. And they said, part of the reason they needed it is because they were so far out. And they were going to have to extend utilities, do significant infrastructure extension, which is exactly what we want to discourage. We want to see incremental growth going from the inside out. And you see you see neighborhoods being developed right now, in several parts of town, that are doing it without the benefit of PIDs because they don't have that same pressure of the added infrastructure cost because they're not having to extend lines for a mile or two miles in order to do that. So they're able to they're able to afford to do that. The developer also said that, you know, in the discussion, you know, comparing it with another development in far southwest Denton, that they paid an awful lot more for the land. It was sort of like, okay, I'm going to do this. But that doesn't seem to be a very good under demonstrable public benefit. It doesn't seem to click on any of those. So I would love to see if something comes back some some a little bit more fleshed out of what we mean by demonstrable public benefit. So to go to count, Mayor Pro Tem's point, if it means that that that we have the opportunity to negotiate for substantially bigger amenity packages that are available, not only to that neighborhood, but to the rest of the community. Those kinds of things. And we've been for a long time in our master plan and said that we would prefer to focus on infill development. And I think by not awarding pids to areas that that promote sprawl, that we are as a policy encouraging infill to happen and it's happening. And I think we want to continue to see that infill fixed because that doesn't put as much a strain on public services. It means that the library that's close by can still serve them . It means that the fire station that's close by can still serve them. So so if y'all could flesh out if you bring something back with with something more specific than just that that broad statement of what demonstrable public benefit means. Councilmember Duff. Yeah. There was a proposal I think about a year and a half two years ago for coal ranch that came up. Did they ask for pids? Yes, we went through three or four different iterations with them. And the pids were so large that the the assessments were they were getting close to what the city's tax bill would be. Well, they were bad. I think they were biting off more than they could chew to start with. And I guess that's what you sent them back. I talked with those guys and I think they kind of went away because I don't think they had the money to to me. They didn't have enough skin in the game. So I would I wouldn't have been for that one anyway. And I would just say having been worked for cities where we foreclosed pids, I've seen muds fail, which are very similar to a PID, except they don't have the control of the council. We'd be able to exercise here. There's still risk involved. You know, in tries we might if one of these fails, you're not going to get out of the middle of it in terms of facilitating it. I think Councilmember Gregory is absolutely right in terms of the impact on urban sprawl. It wouldn't take too much really fast development in some of these more real parts of Denton to force us into a, you know, 50 to 100 million dollar worth of upgrades to water and wastewater treatment plants. So these are all things that are important. And really, we've got to remember why these are done is to protect bottom lines of developers. The last the last request we had coming in, and they all that all every developer, they're very creative, which is why they're successful, and they will have a creative definition of their demonstrable public benefit. And I think that is so we can we can go ahead and put the checklist in place, but it's how it works. But that the last one we saw was so the developer could protect what, you know, very you came out as a 20 or 25% profit margin. And you're sitting here going, I just think it's something the council needs to think through. Because if these assessments start getting that high, and you start building in sections of folks that are angry about the assessments down the road, maybe the pro form is off a little bit, they will vote against everything. And, and I really like if you're if you want to move forward and keep this as a tool, I think Councilmember Ryan is exactly on the right path in terms of limiting the dollar amount. But when you start seeing special assessments nearing the city's tax levy, that's something you need to think about, because they're going to say, why would I vote for something else? I'm already getting hit with two tax bills for the city. That's how they will interpret it. In my experience. It's just things to think about. See, customer break, I think. So yes, so when we discussed this before, I was against residential pits and I still am. For those reasons. And also, I think developers should have the money to develop. And so that's my my reason there. But if it was to come back to us or the development board, I would like to see guidelines, the defined demonstrable public benefit and also the limit percentage as my fellow council members have have said. But again, was not in favor and still really am not. Yes, Councilmember Duff. Well, I think the direction we need to go is we need to have, you know, things defined as well as we can. Absolutely. And, you know, before we ever give out any pids or any big residential, we have to have a very good assessment. Because we're, we do not want to get one of these things back in bankruptcy. Okay, so yes, customer Gregory, you have a question with the last thing I'll say is, I still lean towards option one. I could live with option two, but I'm probably not going to be here to live with that. You know, you all have that discussion without me. I'll say one more time that I think that one of the things that some of the big residential developments are using a pit for is to hide some of the cost of development. Most most development when you're buying a home, all of the costs are rolled into the purchase of the property in the house. When you when you have a pit that covers a lot of the development cost, it's really hidden from the homeowner. And they and they really discover it over the next 20 years, when they're getting dinged every year for that for that pit fee in their tax bill. So that's one of the things that causes me the most grief and the most concern about allowing them at all because I think it's a way for the developers to simply hide the cost from the buyer. Okay, so what I'm hearing is I don 't hear necessarily. I mean, if I had to think that what's the consensus, it would probably be option two, but I don't hear really consensus because there's also some conting encies upon that with guidelines, you know, definition of demonstrable public benefit, a reduction in the maximum amount that the the pit can levy. If I recall on the kids that have come before us on residential, the thing that concerned me was basically the pit is to get them reimbursement for all, mostly all of their development costs, which includes interior water and sewer lines for the development itself for each residential lot. And and that's, that's certainly a major deviation from, you know, how we've done business in the past. So I look forward to EDPs deliberations and what if any thoughts or recommendations or things that they have because no, we don't want to keep batting this back and forth. But we do need them to make a recommendation based upon, you know, the further discussion here, and then it will come back and we'll the council, whoever's here will make a decision on how to move forward on this issue. That is that succinct enough direction is that? Yes. Well, so that I'm clear, what's going back to the EDP is that we have a consensus that we if there are to be residential pits, they will have to be capped for the tax rate, there will have to be explicit guidelines. And it sounds like also, there would be restrictions on what type of development improvements could be reimbursed. And so that those three contingencies are also going to the EDP. And exploring a way to ensure notification to home to purchase before properties purchase, you know, the maximum whatever we're allowed under the law in terms of legal notifications of our own. So it's not so much that we're sending the discussion back to them, we have some clear Yes, parameters and they can just vote it up or down and then it'll come back to us is what I'm getting. I think that's I think that's what you 're hearing. Okay, I just want to understand. Yes, thank you. Good. Good summary. Councilmember Hudson. Yeah, I would just understanding there's a consensus I dissent from the detailed aspect of it, as I recall, and I could go back and watch the meeting, we had that conversation, and it became inputs kind of all over the place. And then I think your point was, let's back that out and just keep it plain, so that it can be crafted as is because we couldn't pinpoint it to your point earlier, everyone has kind of preferences and what they consider to be valuable. So it became to a point where, hey, I don't want to add any of it because you can't nail it down. And so I think that's still the case. I think no matter, I have an answer. I just asked, hey, what's the scenario? And so I can use that as a launching point. If a residential pit or a commercial pit came to this council, I could use the that scenario and have a launching path point and kind of evaluate it that way. But to craft something succinct enough, I think the example given to us before was Fort Worth or someone that had it really drill down. I just don't think, I mean, again , I don't need to say it how much I don't like that. I just don't like, we did it because Fort Worth did it. You know, I just don't like any of it. And so I think if we're going to craft something that's truly unique to Denton, it's going to be so convoluted, some so all over the place, and it requires us to predict the future. Why not have a blank slate and say, yes, we're open to it, bring it to your project, and we'll evaluate it on its face. So that's that's why I'm so I understand if that's not the direction, I just wanted to have a clear record where I stood. Absolutely. Thank you. Anybody else? Seeing that, do you want to summarize the direction? Yes. So there was direction to include more detail on what constitutes demonstrable public benefit to include specifics about an assessment cap, as well as a checklist on what would be the expectations for residential PID development. And to to bring those specific things back to the EDP board, which I'll be frank, that's going to be a little since we've got it scheduled for tomorrow. Turning that information around in a way that I feel comfortable that would be acceptable to the council because that's very general. And again, we've got an assessment cap currently that's 40 cents, but less than 40 cents could mean a lot of different things. So I would want to make sure that I was representing appropriately what you all were comfortable with to the EDP board. And I'm not sure if we're going to be able to turn that around for them tomorrow. Happy to present them the general information. But I feel like maybe I'm missing exactly like what what you guys expect for them to do and how specific you want me to get with them for tomorrow. Well, first of all, additional one is the notice issue. Yeah, the notice issue of what? Oh, right. Yeah, I'm sorry, I have that written in another place. I just want to make sure we had a complete list. Councilman Ryan has a question. Well, I just like to say on the as far as reducing from the 40 cent, what do we go to? I'd like to see that disappear the 40 cent and we base it on the three to one ratio that we base it on what infrastructure is allowed to be included. And then we can take a look and approve or disapprove based on where it comes out. But I can tell you if anything comes before me that's 40 cents, I'm not going to vote for it. And in but once you set a cap, everybody's going to try and get as close to that cap as possible. So you should take the cap off, take the cap out completely and limit it based on your ratios and in what is allowed, right in the cap is not in the draft revised ordinance. It just makes a reference that in the development agreement, which will be required for every project, there will be an assessment cap, but it doesn't specifically say what it is. That's that's why we built in the best practices and these potential options to protect the city and maximize our benefit without detailing what the specifics of all those things are. It's like this list of things must be addressed in the agreement and it will be project specific. Councilmember Gregory. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I think when you talk to the EDP board tomorrow, what I would want from them is if they have a recommendation, make it. Let them know generally what the what the current members of the council are sort of interested in. But if they have a different recommendation, they should make it and and give their give their rationale for it, lobby for it if they want to. If they feel that strongly about it once they've crafted a recommendation. But but it would it would probably be beneficial for them to know some of the concerns that are being raised as they as they as they address that. But they shouldn't have to wait for us to say it's okay for you to make a recommendation. It's on the agenda. Make it. Okay. Okay. Well, I've I've got the list of what the concerns are and I will share that with them tomorrow. Any other questions, comments? Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to agenda item B. Make sure I'm looking at the right one. See report whole discussion give staff direction regarding the potential sale of city property on Highway 77 adjacent to North Lakes Park. Mayor, City Council Gary Packin, new parks and recreation directors. Excited to be here. Today we're going to talk to you about the highway property, Highway 77 property adjacent adjacent to North Lakes Park. Outline of the presentation cover a number of things that includes overview of the history of the project, layout of the property, a few scenarios to generate some discussion, options or processes to sell the land if council desires to move in that direction, and then some land value assumptions. Some general history property was purchased in September of 2008 from razor investments, total acreage of 20.5 acres, 14.7 of that is currently general municipal purpose and 5.8 is municipal park. Cost of the land was approximately $1.3 million, $960,000 approximately from the COs, $385,000 from the 2005 CIP parks project and about $65,000 an acre. Proposed uses at the time was for an animal care and adoption center which was built in 2012 and at the time it was considered for the expansion of North Lakes Park specifically for soccer complex. That complex has been relocated to another location and during this process it's been identified as a potential site for Northern Dog Park although no funds have been specifically dedicated for that. An overview of the property, again it's 20.6 acres as a whole and that's the entire yellow area on your map. 4.4 was used for the animal adoption center, 10.3 is currently general municipal purpose and 5.9 is municipal park. Of that 10.3 there's two parcels, the majority of it is 9.6 which is zoned NRMU 12 and the .7 acre is NR2 where there used to be a house located on that property prior to the city purchasing that. Some general characteristics of the GMP tract is there's an unfinished curb cut that will have potential access to that lot. There is a Textot grant funded trail which you can see kind of on the right side of that drawing that was finished in 2017, we're still going through the reimbursement process for that, as well as there's an easement along 77 for water infrastructure. Here's a satellite image to kind of give you an idea of that from a pictorial standpoint. The blue areas are items that are currently the animal shelter and then the park specific track which if there was decision to sell that, that would have to go to the public vote. But the specific area that we're talking about, the 10.3 acres, is the item in yellow. Yes, go ahead. Council Member Fuzb ill. Just, how you doing? Good, how are you? Very well, thank you. Thank you for helping me out on Easter. He took a picture for me. Outstanding. He's working overtime. So my question is, the backside of the shelter there, that entire area that's not marked, is that park as well or no? That is my rendering with the lines. That is all park space down in this area? Yes. Okay, thank you. These lines aren't specific to the exact plot of the maps. I drew them hand drawn so they're not. No, I just wanted to make sure that that entire open area is park as well. Yes, all of this down here? Yes. Is all parkland? Thank you. That's correct. And then here's a view from the road just to give you an idea what that property looks like. All right, from general zoning NRMU 12, you can do up to 12 units per acre from a residential standpoint. From commercial retail sales, 5,000 gross square foot per lot, professional services, laundry, from institutional perspective, a park or a church , and a school or an adult daycare or child daycare. NR2 standpoint, single family homes, which it was a home at one point in time. From a commercial relationship, outdoor recreation or an equestrian facility with an SUP. And then again, institutional park, church or a school. Council Member Ryan has a question. Do we know what it was identified as in the 2030 plan as far as future land use? Because zoning can change quickly and both those zoning districts are going away when we adopt the new DDC and this could end up getting put into PF, public facility zoning. So it's more what we had envisioned than what it's actually currently zoned. That's important. We can certainly check on that and get back to it. Okay. We created a few development scenarios for you guys to consider as options and if there was interest to move forward by City Council. A potential use if you use the whole 10.3 acreage for multifamily residential. Again, the zoning allows for 12 units, the current zoning allows for 12 units per acre up to 124 units based on the size. There are buffer requirements for both the animal care at 15 feet, the residential property at 10 feet, and then 10 feet for either side of the trail. And then obviously a required detention area. Primary access would be off a highway 77 from a residential standpoint, there would be a secondary access that could come off of the road that's dead ended on the south side of the animal care center. Parking based on 124 units is 217 parking spaces. And then we'd also have to retain easements for the existing water line, which is along 77, a potential additional utility line of 20 feet, and then the park trail minimum that I had mentioned earlier. This is that 10.3 acreage area. This is the road that's currently dead ended behind the animal adoption center. Here's the detention area and here 's that small parcel at 0.7 acres. Scenario number two could be a potentially mixed use development at a smaller amount of 6.5 acres. Retail on the ground floor, residential on the upper floor. Again, retail sales at 5,000 square feet or gross square foot, professional services, same buffer requirements. Again, the detention area, primary access off a highway 77. Parking would be determined by the development. And then retaining of easements as mentioned earlier. But what this scenario in option three provides, it does provide the opportunity to build the dog park on that same land if we wanted to incorporate that into this land that we originally purchased, where option one utilizes the whole 10.3 acreage. And here 's a map of that. Here's the detention area. Here's the road that's dead ended behind the animal care center. So this could be used for the dog park. And then this would be a development opportunity at 6.5 acres. Scenario number three is a retail use of five acres, again, leaving some additional acreage of 5.3 for potential dog park if city council decided to move in that direction. And this is pretty much the same as the scenario as option number two, again, except for the dog park, just having a little bit more acreage that we could utilize for future facilities for our residents. And then here's the map. Larger area back here, 5.3 acres with the five acres in yellow. Some considerations when discussing this opportunity. The funding that was utilized to purchase the land must be reallocated back to the soccer complex. And that was $384,000. So that's one thing. Compatibility with surrounding land use and what council's desired development at the end of the day would be. Zoning criteria and requirements, limited uses under the current zoning and potential changes down the road. Traffic access, the primary access is off of 77. Secondary access would be determined by the development. The trail itself, as I mentioned earlier, was installed in 2017. We're still going through the reimbursement process. So that does create a little bit of an obstacle for development because it bisects a portion of the property. So that really creates more of a net benefit unless they can work around it. Depending on what the development is, it could be an asset. If it was a mixed use component or a residential component, they may look at that as a benefit from an apartment complex where they have dogs and they want to jump on the trail. And then if there 's a dog park built right there, that could be an access opportunity for them. And then the existing water line easement and the additional utility line easement are something to consider. Quick question on that. On the trail, so that is because that was TextDOT funded, we either have to do that or refund the money. What are the, I mean, to have a trail bisect a piece of land tremendously diminishes it even if it's a multifamily use, you might could utilize it, but depending on where it is and how it lays out, it could really provide an impediment on that. It could be an obstacle. So I've asked for that contract to be pulled so we could review it to see what the reimbursement requirements are, if we had to refund the money, or if that could be relocated, whether if it was the city or the developer would move that trail so we could open up more space. But the trail comes from the park property down, what is that, south or southwest? And then it just connects up to the animal adoption centers. Where does the trail? It comes from the park up along 77 up in front of the animal adoption center. Okay, so it's along the, is it along the road frontage? Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes, go ahead. Okay. In our agenda committee meeting, we talked about re imbursing funding for a trail build. I think it was 250,000 of bond money. Is that a different trail than this? Because my understanding was that the trail was text dot funded, but then in agenda we talked about the bond funding for the trail. Or maybe it was Tony. Tony appointed director of finance. There was $250,000 from the 2005 bond program that was used to match as matching funds for that Northwest trail. This trail? Yes, it should be that trail. Correct. Okay, so it was 250, I guess, from text dot and 250 from the bond sale. Yeah, I'm not sure what the match, I don't know if it was an 80/20 match or a 90/20 match. Thank you. Okay, some land sale processes that could be considered. There's three here and then obviously option number four would just use it as park property or general municipal property. But number one is an as is sale of the raw land. That would basically work through an RFP process. City council would accept those and review and approve or disapprove the proposals. There would be potentially no zoning changes or improvements to the land with an estimated fee of around $10,000 in cost. That is staff costs, surveys, those types of activities just to kind of get things through the RFP process. Option two is engagement of a real estate broker. We could select a broker through the VIP or the RFP process and market the raw land to developers. City council review and approve the proposals with an estimated fee of about 6% of the land sale, which would be your brokerage sale. And then overall development of the plot, which is a little bit more riskier and a little bit more entailed with getting the property ready for sale is contract an engineering firm or a planning firm to develop the plot. City council determines the development opportunities, develop a performer to identify market demand and maximize return, consider recommendation for the site improvements. The investment could be about $150,000 plus. That includes the 6% for the brokerage. You would end up with a marketable build ready pad site. You'd select the developer through the RFP process. And again, this entails risk. It's a little bit more lengthy in its process. The turnaround isn't as quick. And so those are your three options. Option number four is just to retain the property for its intended use. So summarizing kind of a few of the slides, on your far left side over here is your property size and the three scenarios that we provided. The value at the time of purchase based on that acreage and our original land cost. And then our three as is hiring a broker or a broker and plotting in its kind of effort being a low, a medium and a significant effort. And then some anticipated or assumed net sale, potential net sales that Paul Williamson from Real Estate provided us for some guidance. And you could see the basically that as is isn't as valuable as the broker and plotting stage, but the risk goes up as well as you move from as is to the significant effort process, there's more risk entailed to that. But then there's more potential more reward as well. And then from a timeline standpoint, as is can be turned around much quicker as opposed to the broker and plotting version which may take up to two years. We got a couple questions. Councilmember Hussbuth and it was that the that was okay. Well, first let me first of all welcome you. This is your first presentation as the new director of Parks and Recreation. So thank you so much. And we will go on to questions. Councilmember Hussbuth. Thank you. So your last slide. You said that was net the 800,000 in that initial and that's fine. Right? Yeah, hold on. That's the wrong one . Yeah, you need that. I didn't see it back there. Sorry. Okay. Okay. There you go. Okay. So as is low effort at the top there the whole the entire two 10.3 that 800,000 is that gross? That's net. That's net after you back out the gross was provided in your exhibit. Yeah, in your packet. Okay, great. Just one ago. So if I may, sure. Yeah. So I asked, I specifically was looking at this and understanding that dynamic for me. I think the prudent thing to do is option one, the entire tract. And as is, I think there is an entire swath of land behind there for the dog park. I think North Lakes is one of our largest parks in the city with an abundant amount of land to for growth. And to have that street freight frontage, even trail withstanding, I think a developer could fold that in and make great value of that. And that's a great value for whomever would purchase it to be near this this part. So that that's kind of understanding the numbers understanding. I overlay the math that we saw in previous meetings on how to fund the soccer facility. And I just think before we raid every mattress we have to get the park done, I think we should not reserve something that's available to us that helps contribute. I mean, you're looking at that's the exact generally number for the pavilion, restroom, whatever you want to call it. That's the number. And so before we talk about scaling back or Robin Peter to pay Paul, why not take advantage of this property that we happen to have an abundance and this would be a great location for a business partner in our city, I believe. So that's that's where I'm okay. Thank you. That's my breaks. So I'm going to say something different. I am much more in favor of leaving the back part of the property for the dog park. And I think in our previous conversations, three to five acres was our general three acres is a good size for a dark park, three to five, I think it was, we already have the land. And if we were to try to relocate a dog park somewhere else, we would spend at least that much trying to buy another three to five acres somewhere in the city that we don't already own. So that's what I'm saying and how we go about selling it quick, slow, it doesn't matter to me really, probably the quicker the better, because the funds are going towards the $7 million soccer park. That's my great week. The land that was purchased, including the land that's in yellow was purchased with city funds only or was it purchased with text on or state funds that that restrict the use of parkland that was purchased from CEOs and CIP. So there are times on occasion when we discovered that that we have to or we need to convert something that is parkland, maybe take a section of it and build a fire station, or maybe it would be better to be a library. But if it's built, if that land was purchased with funds, Texas Parks and Wildlife funds or something like that, then we have to trade, we have to get permission, but it generally involves a land swap where we have to say, well, we're going to add this piece of property to the park inventory to offset that removing the other part. Is that correct? To my understanding, that is correct, from my experience, but this is a text on grant for the actual trail for the land. So, what I'm saying is if we ended up at some time needing to put a public facility on parkland, we could use this track as a trade for a parkland trade. Is that correct? I'm not talking about the trail, but I'm talking about the rest of the land. I'd have to double check, but that could be an option. I think that's the case. We also have, and we're having this discussion again, it seems like we've had this discussion before in the past year, and we're having it again because we're talking about trying to find money to fund the soccer field. But we've also had a discussion about selling off some excess inventory of land. Have we already identified what the funds from that property would go to? No. And I think Paul has actually listed the first five properties, but there's been no discussion about where that money would go. So we could very possibly use those funds and direct them towards the soccer field. I'm just opposed to selling that. I don't know about you, sir, but I have never heard anybody say, "I wish we had less open space. I wish we'd sold off that property so we could have less open space." I've never heard anybody say, "I wish we had bought less parkland or that we had less." And if we sell that off for apartments or for commercial, that's exactly what we're going to be doing. We're going to be taking land away from potentially adding to that value of the open space that we have there. Nobody is ever going to, and I've just never heard anybody want to do that. I'm surprised that we 're wanting to do that now when there are so many other options in order to fund the soccer fields. Mayor Pro Tem. John, did you have something? You can go first. Okay. All right. Tell me again how much, I guess I'm trying to understand what the reimbursement to TxDOT would be. Do we know? For me, that's kind of a deciding factor. Councilmember, can you repeat your question? Yeah. What would the reimbursement to TxDOT be for that portion of the trail that goes through potentially one or two, three tracks? I guess it would just be the match. Laura, do you know what that amount was? Is it delineated just for the amount of square feet or distance? No. We're actually going back and pulling the original grant so that we could see exactly what that impact would be. But I can tell you that the entire trail project was just over two million and TxDOT's portion was 1.3. That was the grant amount from TxDOT. We would have to, depending on exactly what portion of the trail is impacted by any one of the three scenarios, we'd have to then, based on that, assess what a reimbursement would be, whether or not we could relocate it without any penalties or reimbursements. The other thing is that this is just a portion of the trail . That grant, because it sounds like a lot, 1.3 million, it included a light here. The connectivity. Right. It goes all the way up to the new neighborhood that 's just right across and connects to Evers. This was a comprehensive trail project, a connector project . I remember all of those details about the project. I guess my question is, I think you answered it, but basically we don't know what the reimburse ment would be because we need to see the contract. We need to know what the impact is. We don't know the distance, the amount of distance that would have to be reimbursed, like if it's a small portion of it or if it's the entire. I think that in any part of a land sale, we could reserve our easement. Could we not? We would request that, and that is in the presentation, 10 foot buffer on either side of the trail in this case, if we reserved an easement. There's not going to be any moving of the trail. It could be an option. But if we were reserving the easement. If it's seen as any kind of impediment to the development of that land. Well I guess I'm not following on that because if we reserve an easement, I mean that's our property and we're keeping it intact. So maybe I'm not following. It's fairly common if a development comes in and there's infrastructure that's easy to relocate. It could be water mains, sewer mains trails that they would pay to actually move that infrastructure in order to provide a more feasible development. So those kind of trade-offs go on all the time. Now you're right, we could basically say we're selling the property and you'll honor the existing pathways. So we have either option to pursue. Just depends on what's going to generate the best sale of the property. So okay, that helps. Thank you. From my perspective, when we brought this up last time, my interest was in the frontage on Elm Street. Because I mean, I agree with you Council Member Gregory. Most people don't want to get rid of open space, but I use that park a lot and I never go by Elm Street. You know, that's not really a part of the park experience just from my own perspective. So that's why I was open to the idea of selling the front age, which would be option three only. But option three nets us like $450,000. If our reimbursement to TextDOT is $300,000, this is a really fruitless exercise. So I would like to know, you know, what that actually the true net position is of a sale of that kind. I wouldn't be in favor of selling the entire parcel because I think we need that back portion for the actual park area. So that's my direction. So just to follow up on the trail, the trail is two miles in length. And the area that's impacted is really this section right here. So I can't tell you exactly what the linear feed of that is , but we'll definitely get a feedback. And for option three, it would only be that top right corner because that indentation is where the mileage or the tract ends. Yeah, right there. So yeah, that'd be just this section here. I just want to make sure it's not a $300,000 reimbursement or something of that nature because that just seems foolish. We will double check. Councilmember Ryan. Thank you, Eric. I agree with everything Councilman Gregory had to say on it . I'm for option four. You know, to put a commercial development up on the front age blocks the park's view or the view of the park is from a major roadway. And so it's kind of like public art. You know, you want to be able to see that parkland from a major thoroughfare so that people understand what's available to them as citizens. I also think we definitely need to put the dog park, a dog park next to the animal shelter from a standpoint of right now, if you want to adopt a dog, you go down and you've already got dogs and you need to find out whether that dog is compatible or cat, whatever. There's no way to really have them meet somewhere. And to have a dog park, that's something that we can work out into our standards, our policies that people could take their dog to the dog park and then take a dog over front to see if they're going to work out well. And again, it's just you don't sell land that's connected to something as big as what we've already got there. You sell off your small parcels here and there that really don't have any use down the road in the future. There's no telling what the future use could be on this. I did look it up and it is governmental is what our 2030 plan has. So whether it's, you know, we're close with the fire station, but with the police department, library, other types of parks facilities, any of those could go in there and if we sell this off, we lose that opportunity down the road. Any other? I know Council Member Hussbett does. I want to check. Okay, go ahead, Council Member. I've got a few comments, but I'll wait till the end. So help me understand. This dog park could go here or no? It could. I think there was some community concern with birding in that section of the park. That's correct. That's all natural preserve. Yeah. Okay, got it. And so my quick Google search says North Lakes Park is 351 acres. 351 acres. And I'm all for, I guess that's my frustration is this. To say that this segment, however you slice it, is going to take away from 351 acres significantly is I disagree. Then it becomes a matter of I would challenge how many people make it to this side of the park. The predominant use of North Lake Parks is the soccer fields, the playgrounds around the lake, around Monibre. And understanding the trail usage, I'm not discounting that . I'm saying it's a segment of that trail usage. And I'm saying that's a very busy road, if I'm not mistaken . I've driven it recently. And so I guess that's my point that it's just there is, if we're looking for a dog park, there's abundant land in the 351 acres for the dog park. If we're looking for dog park near the animal shelter, I think there's abundant land that we could find around the shelter. I think the access to this area is, I just think that there 's ways to achieve both and to say that we're never going to consider selling it. And to list, I mean I've heard, I won't list them all, but I've heard absolutely every suggestion predicated with an if. If we need a fire department, we can put it there. If we need a police station, we can put it there. If we need a library, we can put it there. Well, obviously, I could give you a number of lists of ifs to go there as well. So I think it's a practical application of what we have now and a portion of 351 acres that I don't think adversely affects. I think if you're talking about underutilized where the city of Denton has the property where the YMCA used to be, is a far more usable tract of land. It's near the airport, the little radio playing airport. It's a much calmer street. There's a lot of opportunities there. It's closer to the neighborhoods. And so I think we're missing an opportunity here if we don 't take advantage. And again, I don't think there's anything wrong with exploring options. So if there's a developer that comes by and it meets the neighborhood and it meets a need, again, you're talking about from there you have the one gas station down here by the townhomes apartments, but that's it. I mean, you're absolutely on an island right there where I think you could utilize some different options, maybe mixed use, maybe not apartments, maybe just commercial offices. I don't know, I would like to at least get far enough to explore what a developer could do there. So that's my thought. Mary Pro Tem, did you have a question or? No, I already spoke. So I want to make sure where Council Member Briggs, I'm sorry. So I was going to say, I think was it, I would prefer not to sell it as Council Member McGregory and Council Member Ryan as well. But if we were, I would like to do the minimum and keep the , I already said this, the last for the dog park. It makes really good sense to have a dog park next to the animal shelter to help with the socialization of animals so that we can keep them, keep getting them adopted. I was there yesterday and it would be a very good benefit to that area to have a dog park. And you can't just, I'm sorry, Council Member Hatsbeth, you can't just go into Parkland or any other spot back there and plop a fence around and put a parking lot in. It just doesn't work. That's what this area was designed for, it's flat space, and it was, that's what the community has been thinking it was going to be for a long time. I have thought it was going to be a dog park for a really long time. If we want to sell the, I mean, I'm okay with the frontage, I would prefer not to. I would like to just keep it for as is. We have a lot of development going in around there currently with multi-family and homes and open space and park is very important and it's going to be vital to this area once all the concrete starts going in. So that's all I have to say. If I can just reply real quick to succinctly. Succinctly, yes. Yes. Succinctly, and maybe you can give me, someone give me the history. Why isn't the dog park finished? There was an issue with the parking lot. Okay. So, there's no answer to why that? Well, our former parks director is not here anymore and I'm sure he maybe would be able to tell you, but from what I can recall, it had something to do with the parking lot being built and that's the last I know. Okay. So, if someone could give me that answer, because two questions that I'd like to have answered. One, is it fully funded and ready to go? And if so, why isn't it built yet? And I can tell you, I'm going to predict the answer. The answer is we don't have the money. And so, it goes back to square one. We're holding out for a rainy day moving money around and we could actually do stuff, right? And that's my, that's my consternation. We're talking about it. We're going to build up, sure, let's do the dog park, but if we don't have the money, let's make decisions that can then afford maybe a smaller dog park, but it's in action. You know, we can activate it. But if we don't have the money, we're holding out and next thing you know, we're looking at a six million dollar dog park because we didn't act, because we didn't take advantages. And so, that's my thing. It's like we're holding out for things and we're not making tough decisions. So, because we want to save all 351 acres versus activating four acres, five acres tomorrow. Let's start tomorrow. If it's funded and all we're waiting on is a parking lot, let's fund it and get it done. If not, let's make decisions so we can start activating some of these hopes, wishes and dreams before they turn into six million dollar projects. Council Member Duff, any comments? Haven't heard from you on this, so just checking. Okay. Just trying to get some idea direction. I guess I would tend to say that, you know, let's don't sell any of them at this point. Okay. All right. Because, you know, we still have the option later on. Okay. All right. Council Member Gregory. Oh, I just read a great quote this weekend and it may have to do with that in terms of selling that in order to get the money, you know, because we don't have the money to buy a dog park right now or build the dog park right now. And I read a thing that said you don't sell the mule in order to buy the plow that you're going to use to pull, you know, then you don't have anything to pull the plow with and you don't sell that land if you need it for the dog park or other park purposes. So let me make -- yeah, we're going to sort of wrap this up because I think we've got everybody's ideas here. So what I'm hearing -- so correct me if I'm wrong. Obviously, Council Member Hussbett, you want to sell the whole track. I think that's clear. Yes. That's -- or portion -- so sell, yes. Whatever portioning -- Okay. All right. So you're open to that. All right. Okay. That's beneficial. I didn't know that there was that kind of flexibility. So Council Member Duff, your preference is just sort of keep it in track for now and then if we need to work on funding for the dog park, let's take a look at it and those kinds of things. Council Member Briggs, your preference is to hold on to all of it. You would be -- if the council direction was to sell part of it, you'd be open to just the frontage on a very limited basis. Council Member Ryan, if I remember, you wanted to hold the whole thing. Council Member Gregory, Mayor Pro Tem, you said depending on the answer to the question of reimbursement, you would -- if the reimbursement is -- you didn't say a percentage, but if we're going to net $400,000 without the reimbursement, if we're getting only $300,000 or even if it's $100,000 or something like that, you'd struggle with that. Okay. And I probably share that sentiment. I mean, this -- I would certainly not be in favor of selling all of it at all. For me, it's been brought up that there's not that much use in the park, the trail is not there. I think once the trail -- I don't think the trail is there. It is there. So people will be using that trail. And then when we get the signal light that's there, then you've got much more activity. So I probably tend to lean on to retain the property if we -- because really, if you sell off five acres, by the time you do the reimbursement, especially on the as is, I mean, we're not going to plat it. We're not going to do all those things because we don't know who's going to want it. Then it really begins, is it -- and I understand about if you don't have the money and you can allocate that money to other places. I certainly understand that. We want to make sure that we're efficient in our assets. Do we manage our assets in a way that's the most efficient? So that's certainly -- I really agree with that perspective . So my preference would be let's hold it to 10 acres, but with a caveat. If we're going to all sit here and talk about, you know, that it's good for park property, dog park and the like, then we need to figure out where that project is in the pipeline, where's the funding for it, what's the timeline for it, and then we've got a list of all these properties that seem to be surplus -- I say all -- a list of properties that are surplus properties. What's the status of those? When are we going to really start beginning to make some decisions on liquidating those? And if so, do we need to also talk about where that funding may go to? So it seems that for now, and I think this discussion is probably going to be continued, which I -- in fact, I'll just say that I would like to have it continued to the answer of those questions of the dog park, when's it funded, when's it scheduled to be funded, what's the timeline, because this may be something we want to revisit on a limited sale, and also the outstanding question of the text dot reimbursement . Because if the text dot reimbursement is minimal, that may change some ideas here, at least may change, Councilmember -- I mean, Mayor Pro Tem's sentence on it. Go ahead. I mean, I think we already have a consensus that there's not to be a sale, though, right? Well, we do, but I think those questions, though, are important to be answered. I don't know if I want to just say, well, we've got four or five, and therefore we move on. I think those questions are important to be answered in the context of the whole discussion. Okay. I wanted to mention, back in October of 2016, I asked our former parks director when the dog park would be ready, and I was given an ETA of six to nine months, and I put it on Facebook, so that makes me look dumb. That's all. Okay. So, yeah, and if we can maybe get the answer to that question, you know, within a couple weeks, just an informal staff report on that gives us some direction. Because this area, this is the part of Denton right now that is exploding. The northern part is exploding with residential permits, you know, subdivisions and things such as that. So we need to certainly take that into mind. This is an area of town that is like the southern part of the city used to be a few years back, where all the development was going on in the south. It's all really happening in the north. I mean, it's just, it is. So it helps us understand what we need to do to maximize this. Feel like you got your direction? Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. You bet. Let's just take a five minute break before we get started on the tree code, because that may be a little long. All right. Welcome everybody back. We're reconvening this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, April 10th, 2018. It is 1 10. Moving on through our work session reports agenda item 3 C, receive report and hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the tree code policy. Good afternoon. Thank you, Mayor, Council. I have the privilege of being able to have a discussion about our tree code policy and how it is that we attempt to craft a vision, submission and some objectives for staff to move forward with. I would like to say that, you know, ultimately your input here today will help us on a multitude of fronts that we're working through as we rewrite the development code. And it's necessary and essential so that we have clear guidance on the direction to go. The benefit of trees ultimately garners a great deal of interest and even passion from many. It's relatively simple to understand the fact that the aesthetics, the appearance, as well as where it is that we have the benefit of increasing property values and the ecological and environmental qualities to trees is a help with generating oxygen, helping with our storm water and ultimately just the environment overall . That interest and importance garnered some support to the point where we enlisted the Services of Prevention Tree Services, Inc. to provide for us a State of Denton's urban forest in October of 2017, which was included in your packets. And really just a summary of that is that they came out with some initial recommendations. In that I found that it was interesting that, you know, ultimately Denton has approximately 30% tree canopy today. It actually is an increase of 2.2% from 2008 through 2014. It provides about 3.4 million trees, which they've assigned a value of about $2.6 billion, excuse me. 46% of that tree canopy is on undeveloped land. With that being said, well, and let me I think back up, my apologies, to talk about those recommendations briefly. And ultimately their recommendations were that we preserve and promote the urban tree canopy, that we perform further assessment off of this analysis and look at where it is we need to go. Utilize that assessment tool to drive policy. And part of that conversation today is really what that policy and those management decisions should be. And then develop a strategic planting initiative. So how is it that we're going to do the things we're going to do moving forward? And utilize trees and other green infrastructure to offset the urban island or the heat transfer that we see in many urban areas. Correct. I'm getting the light. So let me start over. My mic was not on. So I want to make sure we got 30% tree canopy citywide. 46% of that is located on undeveloped land and 54% then would be on developed land? Is that what you're saying? Correct. And that would be where it is that the report indicated that there's a 2% increase in the tree canopy from 2008 to 2014. Many of those illustrations would be in the fact where it is that we've put in development and required tree islands or planting of trees. You can see the difference between where it may have been a piece of ground that didn't have tree development on it or as the development occurred the trees were not in place or were not matured. So that tree canopy is then expanding. So I think that's -- I mean, I don't want to belabor it. And so if I'm seeing this wrong, I certainly would welcome any comment to this. But I find that an interesting statistic because you would think that as you develop more that there's this thought that as development occurs we're wiping out tree canopy. That doesn't mean that there aren't parcels of property that we need to make sure we don't just have this wholesale clearcutting. But the majority of our tree canopy still lies within properties that have been developed. In other words, we are allowing or requiring people to either preserve or increase the tree canopy on developed properties depending on the specific facts and circumstances of those developments. Am I seeing that wrong? Am I somewhere off? >> No, I would agree with that. I think that, of course, the existing tree canopy is at risk and I think that's a very important area that needs to be discussed. But the reality is that -- and that's part of this conversation is how is it that we continue to look at expanding the tree canopy and making certain that we preserve those trees that we can. But overall, yes. >> Okay. All right. Yes. Councilmember Gregory. >> Granted, we've lost some wonderful stands of trees because of development. But I look at the neighborhood where I live, west of Old North Road and east of -- excuse me, north of University Drive on Emerson. When I was a kid, that was an open field. No trees. And they came in and built the streets, built homes and planted trees. Some of those trees were short lived trees, the fruitless mulberries and the ash trees. But they're live oak trees and red oak trees and sycamore trees were also planted that are long lasting trees. So in some cases, development has happened where there weren't a lot of trees and development actually brought trees to the area. That's not always the case. But I think that helps explain part of what you're talking about. >> Yes. Okay. I appreciate that. Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. >> You said between 2008 and 2016, the tree canopy increased by how much? >> Between 2008 and 2014. The assessment report came out in 2016 and it was 2.2%. >> Well, during that time period, how much of the city -- did the city expand in size? Do we know? Because, I mean, the city grew by several hundred square -- well, I want to say square feet because it's 91 square miles. And then in 2008, it was significantly less than 91 square miles. So was the gain in the tree cover because of the expansion of annexation? >> I can confirm that. I believe that they were using like areas and incorporating ETJ in that. But I can confirm that. >> Okay. >> Okay. With that being said, the tree code policy has numerous touch points. And that is our tree preservation, as we were just speaking to. The tree fund that was created in 2004, our landscape standards, as well as our environmentally sensitive areas. The evaluation of our tree code policy really has the ultimate question contained is what is it that we're trying to achieve? Where is it that we want to go? And as we're evaluating our updates to the development code , we're touching a number of these points. The ESAs were recently brought before council. And we have parking standards that we're talking about, landscape standards that will be forthcoming. And as we continue to go down that road, we want to look at this and we want to really get an answer or a clear direction on where is it that council would like to go. Are we preserving existing trees? Are we desiring to plant more or transplant trees? Are we looking at tree mitigation as a tool? Or the use of the tree fund? How is it that that plays into this? Do we have a desire to increase parking lot canopy, the tree canopy in parking lots? And council member, I mean Mayor Pro Tempaguerin. And credit for existing canopy, sorry. I have brain fog sometimes, but I thought we gave direction already about purchasing existing tree stands and that was our direction. I'm having trouble putting it all together. There was certainly discussion last year about purchasing tree stands wasn't eligible use of the tree fund. Was, yes. And it currently still is. There was a tree stand I think we were looking at last year and ultimately the council, there was a discussion whether or not that was a solid use of the funds and council ultimately decided not to acquire the tree stand that we were looking at that time. There's been additional evaluation of another tree stand over near Brinker I believe and I'm not sure where that stands, although we did have an assessment done of the trees that would have to be replaced. But it is an eligible use of the fund as it stands today. The only thing during my tenure, we've had one item come up and council decided not to acquire that tree stand. Yeah, I think it was before your tenure, we had a closed session. We had a list of probably 25 different parcels that could potentially be purchased and we directed I think it was like three or four parcels, just an inquiry into those parcels. And I think Haywood was there, so he might be a good person to have as a part of this conversation. But I guess my understanding was that we had already directed on the issue of how to utilize the tree funds. I thought we had already had the discussion. So that was my comment. And I think some of that discussion has taken place and because there's been a number of changes within the city and the department is to kind of flush that out. Certainly we're prepared to bring back any number of draft ordinances or resolutions coming out of this. It really is just to get clear direction for me as we go through the development code update and the best steps forward. And I also wanted to offer up some other ideas or concepts and just to make sure that we're evaluating this overall. So I'm not only looking at what the history was here in Denton, but what are other communities doing and another piece that I'll get to a little further into this is that ultimately the governor had proposed some legislation that became law and we have an AG opinion and they're looking at cities that are ultimately being very stringent on their tree code provisions and again how is it that we stay within those confines and manage this. So just trying to take a holistic approach of how we do this and where we go and again looking for that direction and as I say staff is prepared to come back expeditiously with whatever it is that council would like to come forward. Just want to make sure that it's in the context of all of the elements rather than doing this in small components. Council Member Braetz. So to that note on the governor and the tree code, we back in 2015 were working on some things the key task and milestones were completed and we had made it through research and benchmark analysis, city staff work sessions, P&Z briefing, external stakeholder meetings, community survey and the P&Z presentation and so there were the things in the tree code and I have a draft here that we were going to see and I remember specifically messaging staff and saying well are any of these things that we're proposing for an update on our ordinance contradictory or conflicting with the tree code legislation and the answer was no. So the way that we were heading and the things that we were talking about in 2015 are still okay. And I believe that to be accurate. I don't know that we're necessarily suggesting anything different other than offering up some options and making certain as we look at our landscape standards that they're tied to the tree code. We've treated these as separate items within the code and so again just for a point of clarity and not trying to drag this out but certainly trying to make sure that we're taking all components into this, we can bring that forward. We've looked at that, legal has reviewed that and we feel confident in where we're at. There is a little bit of complexity to it again if we can bring it and simplify that ordinance to make sure that we're consistent and that's really the goal of what today is and again we have materials ready that we can bring forward and happy to do that. So just for clarification when I asked because I asked for this work session a few times, that's kind of where I wanted my intention was to pick up were those specific sub chapters where P&Z had met a few times and had thoroughly discussed and I know had gotten hung up on a few issues but I wanted to pick up from there and continue to move forward. So that's and you're saying that that is on down the road a little? Well I'm saying there's a couple other considerations I'd like to offer and just to make sure that we're doing what it is that we're directed to do to have that sense of clarity, not that it necessarily delays the process that much more. It's obviously a delay that it hasn't been before you but the reality is that we want to do this right and as we go through the development code this is an important part of that and it touches those other elements that I was all uding to in the previous slide and just for my sense of clarity to make sure that I'm delivering the product that you would like to have. And that credit being that last bullet just talking about our future, our forward thinking, what we can do and where we're going to go from there. As I mentioned the landscape standards and I think the landscape standards are probably another place that we should look at that we haven't looked to in the past or in the same way. We have our landscape standards and we have parking standards. Within that I think ultimately out of that assessment report as well as what other communities are doing is looking at how it is that we can improve the tree canopy and parking areas. So if we're able to do something with a ratio to the parking spaces so we can take the number of parking spaces ultimately incorporate trees into those designs that really goes back to our parking standards and or our landscape standards and if we include those into that or if council has a desire to do that in a more direct relationship I'm happy to provide that in that. Where it is that we have appropriate tree placement we do have some conflicts as it relates to our streets and how it is that we're doing street trees or streetscape and then how we look at it with developments and whether the development or the developer has those trees planted on the single family lots. So as we review those landscape standards just want to be certain to incorporate those. When we talk about our tree mitigation options again the governor's bill was one of those components that ultimately came into play with this and where it is that we have our greatest concern that we make sure that we continue to manage or stay within the confines of that. There are several items that I think that are at least up for conversation which would be that of whether it's you know tree donation that somebody could ultimately transplant trees off of a developed site or a site to be developed onto another site. Today we don't necessarily have that so the idea of a conservation easement or a tree easement so rather than buying stands of trees is there value in investing in an easement on someone else's property where it is that rather than buying the entire parcel is that we dedicate the trees or the stand to that of an easement so those trees are preserved and we're ultimately achieving the goal of trying to increase or maintain the canopy that exists but in an alternative way so maybe the expenditures would be a little less. How it is that those transplanted trees where we might look to do that if in fact we could get the trees transplanted rather than being just removed because our ordinance allows for that and what credit we could provide and then that last resort being that of a payment in lieu of the replacement of trees. Yes, Mayor Pro Tem. So with tree replacement that's the first time that I've heard of that. Is that I guess where's that suggestion coming from? Ultimately out of the survey as well as some of the other model ordinances that we're reviewing where it is that we currently have some tree for tree replacements and some ratios. So when you when you say tree replacement you don't mean transplanting the tree you mean actually replacing the tree. Replacing the tree and then also that of transplanting the tree so taking the tree off site. Yeah that doesn't work so that's why I'm like really confused I mean nothing I've ever read I did the urban forester training here in this room in 2016 and we had a whole session on why transplanting trees doesn't work and it's very expensive so I'm just surprised that's all just surprised to hear it. Yeah and certainly I want to provide all the options that I think are available to us. It's not an option that was what I'm saying like that's not even an accepted scientific practice of transplanting so if it is somebody clarify but when I did the urban forester program we talked about that the survey and the study I mean I've seen horrible pictures of transplanted trees so I'm just surprised that's all. And are you talking about like large trees because I've transplanted trees before from you know that have grown in forest to get them able to grow bigger from heavily wooded areas back down to open areas. You can transplant babies with like saplings you can do but I mean these were like two or three inch trees as a policy I mean that I don't see that being typically if you would have a sapling on a developed property I just can't see I don't know this is just so unusual it's so different than what we learned in the urban fore ster training it's just surprising to see a tree transplanting as a part of a tree mitigation policy because it would typically only apply to the saplings. The smaller trees yeah sure yes okay. Would you go back one slide? Absolutely. I'm really glad to see the conservation easement on that list I've advocated for that for a while and of using and I'm not using the tree mitigation funds for that purpose. I think that's a case where a developer can you know that's wanting to maximize a piece of property for development purposes can we can provide sort of an incentive to save a stand of trees by using the conservation easement because then then there's some kind of financial reason for not going ahead and take taking every one of them down and I've seen that used these kinds of easements used in other cities to even even going outside the city limits and going into aquifers and watersheds in order to preserve the trees and the the natural development to preserve the the quality of water that either goes into an aquifer or that goes into a stream so but but there are there's certainly we've we've hesitated on some land purchases in order to preserve trees because of some of the issues that face the city then of becoming owners of the property and the li abilities involved in that and not necessarily wanting to develop it into parks but if we could use conservation easements in order to preserve those trees and take pressure off of the landowner to develop it I think that that's a great thing to do and and to do more exploration the details involved in that and some examples of how that's been used successfully in other places I think would be helpful. Thank you. Our existing tree code and the tree fund ultimately the funds are are designed to support several areas one is to purchase plant and maintain trees preserve wooded property to perform and maintain citywide tree inventory educate our citizens and developers on the importance and value of trees and then as approved by council to support programs for the public purpose of increasing the tree canopy just as a reminder ultimately the tree funds are not to be used to ultimately the regulations that we have in place today are to meet any of those standards. Again kind of getting into what what it is that the the potential use of the tree fund is really how it is that we increase tree canopy in our public rights of way I think much of what we've done to the past is we've we've used it in some of our streets we've used it in parkland and so just kind of reinforced the fact that you know if we want to work on aesthetics if we want to increase tree canopy along our right of ways that's a means of doing it ultimately we can continue to do that within parkland and other city owned property the purchase of property with existing tree stands to expand or continue the tree rebate program maintenance of trees so to manage the the tree stock that exists today the administration of the tree fund public education opportunities and as well as the donation of trees Arbor Day etc. and again the conservation easements as well as trees minutes. I guess this would be a city council question and maybe I'm on that maybe it's been considered and kicked back before but most recently I had a individual developer that had a piece of property next to where the trash pickup is and they were willing to participate with the city and purchase trees or help facilitate trees to kind of provide a screening and it was a miss on our side as I understand it as far as the property was the person that developed the property first did not fulfill a screening or when required were not they did either they required and didn't do so or they weren't they should have been required and were not either way it was going back and fixing the issue but it's private property and so this that this current ordinance didn't allow for us to go back and fix that and I want to understand a way to go back and maybe consider that if it's I don't I don't know how that works or what the with the path that is but if assuming we're all human and assume we miss something I'd like for us to be able to go back and say hey that was a failure on our part to follow up and make sure it wasn't was not done can we then participate to help make that right so I don't know if that's an option or what that requires but that is a real example and over in preserves area that it just was frustrating to me that it should it was something that should have been caught on our end and then but it was not and so now looking back there was no remedy for that other than say hey we missed that one you're on your own you know and I don't think that's right so I don't know if there's a fix for that I mean it's especially with the under under understanding we have two million dollars sitting there you know that was that's frustrating. Yeah just question I don't know what what you're referring to. Well no it's a I could I mean obviously I can send you to backup material the emails back and forth the just of it is I want to have a pathway to put trees on private property if approved and so whatever that path is to say hey this is private property but here's the here's the pattern behind it and here's why I want to do it that's that's overarching thing and not specifically this project but specifically an avenue to to address a need on a private on a private piece of property. So what was missed I guess what I'm trying to figure out is what was missed the last time that we could potentially remedy this time if I'm off posting I'm just trying to figure out what we're talking about. Well again overview specifically what's that? No we were just trying to see make sure we're still on posting. Okay. Yeah I think go ahead. Specifically a piece of property was developed they should have had to require screening on the street they did not it was not caught when I raised the issue of hey can we help this developer across the street screen their property the answer was no you can't use a tree fund and yes it should have been done in the first place but it wasn't. You can't so you can't you okay so I think I understand but if I understand the tree fund correctly you cannot use the tree fund for required improvements to screening trees foliage etc. That is correct. We we draft the we draft this tree on we approve so we can add that right that's my point. I can explain the justification why we don't do that is for two reasons there's a practical reason is that earlier developers have contributed into that fund as part of the mitigation requirements for you to use that money to help out later developers whether they the original developers miss something or not you're basically you know funding these later requirements so on a practical level you probably will hear an argument the analogy or the saying you're robbing Peter to pay Paul. But second the legal issue that this raises is the concern that I would have is an unconstitutional gift of funds that is being used to benefit private property and the development of that private property so I wouldn't I don't know all the details of that particular development but what you describe would raise those concerns for me. So I could be absolutely wrong I mean and I and I I hear what you're saying and I and I I appreciate that but I guess for me just my layperson look at that right. I don't I pay my taxes into the city it doesn't come with a steering wheel right I don't get to say I want to pay taxes for this park that rec center you know I mean so I think that's that's just the over over broad non-legal perspective into that that approach right I think as a developer I understand but it's almost just like the hot funds I mean you pay the hot funds in but those two as a hotel you're you don't get to decide why I'm not a fan of this project I don't want my money going to that you know so I think it's to me it's it's it's intent upon planting trees and again I could be just that could be absolutely too broad of a look at it but that's where I come from I come from it's not a misappropriation it's going to trees in the city of Denton it's not like I'm taking a whole bunch of trees and and moving them to Corinth you know so that's how I look at it I could be absolutely wrong that's just the scenario that came up to me and it provided some frustration because to say that we're not going to err again it is not realistic and so I'd like to have a path there but if it's not supported legally or more the legal aspect of it the the developers paying in that I lose that a little bit because of my previous example there's there's a numerous amount of times when a city takes in money and it doesn't come with a ability for that individual or that party to say where it's going we'll certainly take a look at that so we can find out all the details and we have to update you and a legal status report sure thank you it just my breaks is it for the or is it because I think we're we're getting really close to talking about I mean what you're saying is you want to see if the council will consider a policy issue to help your situation as long as it would pass legal muster in a closed session when we when we analyze that that's what you're asking for sure that that's that okay yes so my response is that I would not necessarily be in favor of those covering the required credits but over and above possibly and for the for the required ones to go back in for the the private property after those have been met on down the road in a situation such as councilmember Hesbeth mentioned I think keep it in beautiful has those neighborhood or business grants entry giveaways to give to those private property owners for those types of issues so I would not be in favor of changing our ordinance but maybe allowing something or saying something specific that mentions that so that people know what they could do okay okay and and ultimately looking for the direction and and so we we absolutely want to update the tree code we want to update our landscape standards we we recognize a need for the development of a strategic tree planting and what that initiative looks like and and how best to frame that you know the the questions of conservation easements if if you'd like that explored and to be incorporated within the need for you know if we want to look at our parking standards and if we want to between the parking standards and our landscape standards increase canopy so we can reduce the heat that's created we can improve stormwater retention and treatment and ultimately just you know again cool cooling parking lots and our aesthetics as it relates to the city of Denton and just some of those pieces so that we can craft more of a what the council's vision is the objectives and then really try to try to deliver the mechanisms to get us where it is that we're wanting to go okay we're gonna we're gonna go to councilmember Gregory mayor pro tem and the councilmember breaks thank you mayor well i think one of the things uh for the council to do next next step is to go back and look at the work that was previously done the uh the draft of the tree ordinance that i think got stuck at planning and zoning uh i don't know why it got stuck there uh but um and i suspect that because of our code of ordinances and maybe our our charter that it would ultimately need to go through planning and zoning for approval but but my thought is that if there's some point where planning and zoning was unable to make a recommendation one way or the other okay let the council see it anyway and if i might really that was staff so so staff because of the updates to the development code where we were going with um landscape standards and parking that that really we we just weren't prepared to bring it forward it was um the the draft did stay within the confines um it was somewhat complicated there's been some revisions to it since then um it's less complicated so we can bring that forward well if you do that it might be handy to for the council members to see what was recommended by that that's that citizen group that it was an ad hot group i think it was and then a red line of of what you all recommended in order to make it less complicated i think it's just important there were folks that gave um a lot of hours and and people that it was a very balanced committee of people from the development community and people from tree preservation community that that that participated in that and and i think they were frustrated that um it it just sort of died before it it ever got to council and so i think for us to be able to see the product of their work and then your suggestions for changes and and that's absolutely where we want to go um we we didn't kill that ordinance all it is is that we want to make sure that we're looking at this holistically and absolutely if we need to incorporate more into it or make sure that it's um in harmony with the other ordinance provisions that's that's what we're attempting to do and and just for me i needed that clarity and that guidance um from council to have this conversation mayor pro tem so were there recommendations from pnz no i i think really when we when we were at that point there were so many pieces that were that were moving along with that the esas and and when we talk about landscape standards in the parking um that we didn't we didn't vet that fully um so ultimately did pnz ask for it to come back to them or what i mean what was where did it where was the hold up really with staff ultimately it was staff and and and i'll take responsibility for that again with the with the multiple pieces that were moving it was one it was one component of the development code without necessarily syncing it with the other pieces i think that it was necessary so what would it take for you to feel comfortable that you've received holistic direction because i'm having trouble understanding what we can provide you that's different than what we've already provided in terms of direction again as we just as we talk about what what the strategy is are we are we wanting to preserve the canopy that exists are we wanting to increase the canopy that exists is it the balance in between do we want to modify our parking lot standards that that take into account that tree canopy and and how all of those integral parts work it's not necessarily that um the the draft ordinance that was presented is wrong it's just how is it we look at it comprehensively and and not not to look at individual pieces because that's where it is we cause the the conflicts between esa's the the landscape ordinance the tree ordinance where i think we can do a better job of of incorporating greater tree canopy which i think is what the goal of this is and and i'm looking for that clarity if it 's if it's truly to maintain the tree canopy that we have today we can stay on the path of the draft ordinance if we want to increase that tree canopy then we need to look at our at both the development what that future development looks like as well as that preservation piece and then just some other vehicles to get there i.e. the conservation eas ements or other means of of augmenting um development well i'm i'm with council member gregory we've i believe we've discussed conservation easements as one of the tools in our toolbox so i mean again i guess we can offer that direction again that yes we would like conservation easements um i believe the ordinance the tree ordinance itself has a series of goals for the actual ordinance and that includes um maintenance and increase of the tree canopy but i don't have the ordinance in front of me so i can't speak to it directly do you have it was it in back up draft no no okay i meant the actual tree ordinance like the actual tree ordinance is not in the backup so i can't tell you but my recoll ection is that it maintains the tree canopy and it increases tree canopy and we can use um the funds to purchase tree canopy we can use funds for easements so i would be comfortable maintaining the direction of the tree ordinance that we don't have in front of us okay council member riggs yeah okay so i'm a little upset today i'm sorry um but i just wanted to read this from december um early december 2015 it's a background that that we received and it says between 2007 and 2013 multiple attempts were made to update the section of the code however none were successful due to the lack of consensus on the proposed amendments and so i've i've been trying to work i've been wanting to work on this for three years now and it just keeps getting stalled and i know that it's not not your your fault but i know that p and z has asked for it for over six months to come back to them i don 't really know what the issue is i don't really want to start over i want i want to work on it and i want progress um so that that's my direction can i make a suggestion mayor that i'm wondering about having the committee and i really liked how our update of the the recent code moved forward that miss vera gave last week i'm wondering if we could have the committee of environment and i'll work on the ordinance um and move it through p and z i think that worked well uh we we were able to simultaneously deal with developer concerns while still achieving some of the environmental goals that the council was clearly interested in and i can envision this process uh i think i think that process would would work out very well um one of the things that i was sharing with councilmember briggs this last week one of the things that i've been confused with since i started is i was told that there was significant opposition from some of the development community that stalled the uh the tree ordinance uh proposed tree ordinances it was going through p and z finding out that may or may not have been um to that level and i really like the idea of kind of working jointly through this process if council as well i think it's a it's an important policy question there's some um and i think scott's we're both trying to get our hands around what where the council left off and what you want um because none of the staff is really here that was working on it at the time um but i think it would be helpful to us to kind of sync up both p and z and committee and the environment kind of chapter by chapter and work our way through this it's more complex than it would seem and i'd just like to throw that out there and see if the council would be okay with that i'm gonna go to councilmember mcgregory then ryan and then hudspeth yes i wouldn't mind it going to the committee on the environment for some preliminary work but i will tell you that my memory is is that the committee on the environment met 16 different times with miss viera on uh environmentally sensitive areas so that we're talking about a year and a half and and i'm sensing that there's a little enough frustration that maybe taking a year and a half before it comes back to council would would not be a good idea i'm certainly not suggesting that i think it sounds like there's been a lot more work done and we're a lot closer than we were there um my concern is moving it through p and z and having a disconnect with council and then being right back here down the road where we just kind of dual path if there's a few issues that council clear we could certainly review the um the last iteration the ordinance review your as you stated the uh the citizen committee's recommendation and just make sure we're on the same page working in these changes through the council would like to see and sync up p and z i think it can be done fairly quickly um i'm just concerned about this kind of this continual whipsaw effect because i keep getting so many different responses back to me as to what happened and i just like the idea that internal continuity between our the council and p and z it's just an idea but i think it might be the most efficient way there and if i and if i might i don't i don't know why they they couldn't run as parallel tracks if if council member ryan and then council member posthum well if i'm not mistaken next week we'll get module three on the ddc that handles your second bullet point up there the update of the landscape standards and i would think that they're both going to tie landscape standards and tree code are going to have to be balanced within one another um and i i would think that the ddc is where people would where you handle platting to some degree to some extent where we could do some of that mitigation offering like what we did with the essays uh to allow them at the time of plat ting to you know to work out a conservation easement in their platting to get the mitigation as part of that whole process and so i think that it's it's a combination of the two and i think until we get to the landscape standards being coming out to us i don't know how much we can do and again it's only one week away but i think that they they go hand in hand with each other that venue works fine and both you and i think council member brings are on that group so it accomplishes what i'm trying to get accomplished thank you yeah did we has it been formalized the establishment from caliper inch to canopy as far as the measuring is that formalized in in the current ordinance no okay that's in that's in draft right yeah and so because i remember that from from my time on p and z and so i think um my my key direction thoughts are one just like in the the conversation last week regarding uh the the city of denton and the municipal lines i i just want to make sure that the city of denton doesn't have a carve out uh to avoid this the tree ordinance that's just my personal preference and i may not have any traction for that but i just i have a hard time holding the community to a standard and then the city says hey we can we can circum vent that because we're the city you know and so um that's one key thing that i'll look for straight away and so uh understanding the city has a duty to do and it may not be it may be cost prohibitive but the the results should be the same as what we're holding the developers to um my i think you're i think you're spot on um in trying to find a way to work side by side just because having spent time on on p and z and understanding the makeup of that board currently uh we're not there are two different two different bodies if you will two different i think uh approaches and everyone's different in their approach priorities better said and so i think as a whole they may be more uh one side of the equation than we are and so i think it is good to kind of move those parallel because you will uh flush out a lot of those differences and those are just policy decisions we'll have to make but i think to to run them back to back thinking you're going to line them up afterwards i don't think that's realistic so i think that that approach of kind of i think it does speed things up um and so yeah that's that's my my key point is that i want to make sure the city is accountable and i think that that pathing uh probably would work best to get something uh done faster but but i think it's um it's important to kind of note that that change in measurement and and kind of at least get that solidified uh it maybe maybe it's something where we take bits and pieces of it um that we can act on sooner than later while we're finalizing the the document but i mean right now we're still like our developer still going out and measuring caliper inch or is it kind of like an unwritten rule that we yeah see that that's something we should come back with sooner than later just to kind of let's let's get that done especially with drone technology and just all that's available that seems like a pretty quick and easy transition while we're we're working out the rest but i'll see what everyone else thinks it's a simple fix if council wants us to hold ourselves to the same standards then that's how we we do it i thought that i mean at least my understanding is we've moved through projects that count that the city has held itself to some of those same standards but i could be wrong on certain specific projects but i know that's been the the uh aspiration so i guess i i'm a little confused here um because i see these as sort of different components because i hear you talking about we 're updating the ddc which has landscape standards which those do tie into if there's a separate tree code as far as you know how do we mesh those together not make them separate because sometimes it makes conflict sometimes i mean how do we make them more seamless then we have the tree mitigation fund which is a different discussion that's where the conservation easement sort of discussion has come from you know do we have conservation easements do we purchase tracts of land we've planted trees in parks and then we have the tree code and i say that to refer to that as this discussion about i'm a developer i've got a piece of property i want to develop it i've got some trees on it what do i do i mean that's that has nothing to do with the tree mitigation funds that's something we do i mean they can pay into it but as far as the disposition of those funds that's what council decides so i guess i'm sort of not i mean i know that we had the committee after 2015 work on the tree code meaning how do we do this caliper wrench do we want to increase you know that you got to preserve so many trees as far instead of just yeah if you take down a legacy tree you've got to pay this or you can't do it those kind of updates then you have the tree mitigation fund of what are we doing with those funds that 's a whole different issue that's a whole different issue then the code for the landscape standards parking lots yeah do you want to have them required to plant more trees in parking lots i mean what you can tell whenever you in the hot summer which are the parking spaces that get that get filled first are the ones that have trees not just because you know they're great and they 're aesthetic and all that but they provide shade you get in your car afterwards and it's not 150 degrees it's you know 90 degrees or something like that so all these are so are what you're saying is how do we i'm hearing the frustration of the tree code which was the committee and all that was charged with updating but there that's not i don't recall that part of that was the tree the use of the tree mitigation funds i don't recall that they were deciding those kind of issues i don't think they were talking about the landscape standards in the ddc am i missing something on that i mean council member briggs so can i just say i have the what they were working on in front of me please yes because that was a couple years yes staff identified and reviewed five core components of the ordinance number of established tree designations minimum preservation percentage tree mitigation ratios tree fund payments and preservation incentives okay and so i know that we were going to try to move from caliber inch to the canopy and that was something that was pretty significant and can really help because a lot of the older trees are really small and so even though they they're only like 500 to remove but they do provide a lot more and they're part of our historic areas so moving from the caliber inch to the canopy is really significant and so i know that was part of this process right as well right and that's what staff identified as components for the tree committee to discuss and decide make recommendations is that what you're saying yes yes and and had already gotten um draft and red lines and that yeah okay and that's where it got bogged down somewhere somewhere right yeah and they're all touch points so it is it is complicated meaning to write a tree code when you're saying that that you're going to mitigate or how is it that you're going to what's the ratio of trees or what's it going to cost and then how is it those funds are used if we 're writing a tree code and we're continuing on the path that we are i don't know that it necessarily addresses the conservation or or a tree easement and so just making certain that i have a good understanding of all of these components as we move forward that truly is is the intent okay councilman grag you have a question well i i'm okay with it coming to the committee on the environment we don't have to spread it out that many um i mean we could we can start and we can look and go from there i don't feel comfortable doing it in the ddc meetings um i that's just me um so i mean well i'm i'm okay either way i'm just looking at the landscape standards will come before ddc and since we're both on both committees we'll obviously have the knowledge of what goes on from both sides so it doesn't matter which committee it goes before but since we 're already looking at one and there will be some obviously there are areas of the tree code that have nothing to do with landscape standards but there are a lot that do we need to make sure that they that they're not over here and over here that they're you know matched i think there's so much going on in the in the land in the ddc that if we need to give ourselves a few meetings with the committee environment to sync up landscape standards i don't think it will put us back appreciably but i do like having the people that are the most interested in the issue working through us on this and syncing it up to the ddc is pretty simple because really the community community environments deal with the overarching policy issue ddc is going to deal with how do you implement it so i i think it's i think it's a fairly simple fix once once we have that policy direction that sc ott's asking for and that philosophy i guess more than anything yes mayor so with respect to i guess the conflict between perhaps the landscape standards and the tree ordinance i'm i'm not following that either because wouldn't every landscape standard have to follow the tree ordinance i mean that would just be it's a one line and an ordinance all standards shall comply with the tree ordinance and i think i mean really what he's what he was saying with the landscape standards is it's just another way to improve your your tree canopy or you know the greening is if you will of denton so it's more of a tool in my mind than the overarching philosophy but it 's just a way that you implement the philosophy and we weave in and out between practical tools code enforcement and general tree philosophy here which is why it is a large conversation to try to manage so i guess how could how would you have a different if your overarching philosophy is outlined by the tree ordinance which is to maintain and grow the tree canopy then how is that i'm trying to understand how that's different from any new landscape standard you would go you would go right in on landscape standards you could require additional coverage of parking lots for example you could you could all the tools that he just implemented in terms of what counts as landscape you know in order to continue meeting those expanded goals they're just simply tools with the landscape standards it's subtle what it adds up is really the philosophy between between landscape standards you actually start getting more conservative in terms of what you're requiring and and then there's going to be trade-offs then potentially with parking standards so just a quick example but i think i think we can pick up the ordinance where it was left off get everybody on the same page you know and get it back into pmz and sync up any of the spillover policy tie-ins with the ddc at that point and i don't think it should take 15 meetings um it's just one more ask i think that it's at least i personally hear a lot it's the i'm encouraged to see the fund going down you know at least because that was a concern that it's hey we're paying in and nothing's being done at least that's a concern being raised uh to me and so i think that's a valid concern in that we should be able to speak to this this fund balance and how we're allocating it and that we're not just saving it and that we are putting it to use uh because they're paying in actively so we need to actively be utilizing those in my opinion so i don't i don't i don't know that that's so much as a a policy direction as more of a just sharing i do share that that consternation that if you're if you're paying into to the roads and no roads are being built that then begs extra questions that we could avoid by just saying hey we we are activating and i think it it saves a lot of headache and i think again uh that's already happening so part of that is a messaging issue because you should we show that the the the numbers have you know what's been paid in has been diminished because we are utilizing it so i think part of that is a messaging on me even other part of that is i'd like to see us continue that trend to activating those funds uh to to so that those paying in see activity and and i think that'll alleviate a lot of that that consternation of hey you're just taking it and not doing anything with it you know that sort of thing so thank you okay uh any more questions or comments seems like that the majority of the comments are how do we get this thing back on the rails moving both from the tree code perspective and also from the tree mitigation fund and its uses uh and i guess i would throw out there um because i know the uses have come back to the entire council as far as staff recommendations and things such as that i guess does the committee on the environment have y'all uh do y'all see recommendations of use of the tree mitigation funds or i guess i would i would say that i think that would be a good place for those kinds of discussions to originate um as far as the use of the tree mitigation funds this committee on the environment to to bring forth some recommendations uh several opportunities or possibilities and then the whole council can decide you know what do you want to do with that i don't know we've planted a lot of park trees um and want to make sure that those are continuing to survive uh through the last couple seasons that we've had them so i think if if the committee on the environment would be open to that to to be sort of the the source of maybe some of those tree mitigation fund kind of uh options but uh yeah i mean there's obviously there's enough frustration to go around staff council p and z the community and we're just trying to figure out a way how do we get it back on track and make it as consistent and efficient and as uh efficient as possible yeah well i appreciate the opportunity i and i appreciate the input and certainly bring back some some recommendations and some drafts okay good all right thank you thank you you bet okay we'll move on to our next session which is uh work session 3d receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding goals and objectives of the denton county transportation authority good afternoon mayor members of council um my pleasure to come before you this afternoon to visit with you a little bit about uh dcta uh as uh as the mayor stated this is a there's an opportunity to review some of the goals and objectives of uh dcta and the past dcta does present on typically on a quarterly basis to the mobility committee but this is a opportunity for dcta to come before the council as a whole and and visit with you uh individual individually on on those goals and objectives excuse me um there was some information that was sent out to to council in terms of requests for information and so dcta has provided responses to some of those questions uh as part of the backup that's been included in the backup material that's been sent out to you mr jim klein our the president of dcta is here this afternoon to to walk through and facilitate the presentation of the city of denton uh representative to dcta richard huckabee is also here so without any uh further ado let me introduce jim klein to to present thanks mark mario's gonna hand out a copy of our strategic planning guidance that the board of direction our port the dcta board of directors put together and i wanted to got a presentation to go through i've got about 20 slides and i know we got a lot of questions beforehand i'd be happy to discuss any of those that y'all have um and i really wanted to start off let me give you kind of the this is the overview and i think it's uh it's important that one of the things that we do when we begin um at our church when we uh chair a group or did for a while for a couple years where before we got to the business we talked about why are we here what do we do and what is the objective of what we're really trying to achieve you know at the basis and then get to the business of where and how and what we do and if you look at the people we serve with the commuters um the elderly and disabled i asked for a number in that we have 935 registered access users they're eligible to use paratransit 550 of them have an address in denton so we serve a very vulnerable population and that on top of the transit dependent those that can't drive or have the don't have the means to drive that we can serve them through the a train and through our buses we have a link to the region how do we tie denton into the bigger dallas fort worth area and how do we tie our service areas together the jobs and link all the things that need to be linked and also the linked education we've seen a lot of success in development we should look for more that may be an area where we want to cope we're not want to need to cooperate with the city to see the economic development potential that we've already started seeing you 'll see some information here on that so i i'm for the for the purposes of time i'll tell you we 're participating with the thin line film festival and there's a 32nd video clip that one of our interns a student unt did for us it goes back and shows a lot of the the people that need us the most and use us the most and so that's something that not only we want to participate in the community we we operate in but i think it's also a way to get our message out and so the value proposition that we bring is many-faceted and we want to make sure we talk about that so just a little bit of background some some of our successes and if i said we didn't have challenges you know i wouldn't be saying the truth we do have some challenges that we're trying to address and we're working through those we have guidance that says how to go through those things talk about a few current issues that y'all have identified and then look for a plan for the future and then specifically talk about the value proposition now at the end i'll be happy to go through this 20 slides 19 more or 18 more than this if you let me go through them i think i'll answer a lot of questions and i'll be happy to take any questions you have i think we have a great story to tell and a lot of good things happening so dcta established 2003 were separate political subdiv ision of the state we took over the bus service in 2005 that included the link service that the city of denton was operating one of the things that's really important about that too is that when the when our urbanized area reached 200,000 the funds from the state through the federal government are no longer eligible for operations so in order to continue the operations without directly funding it by the city that's one of the things that dcta provided we have 22 bus routes the comm uter rail demand response services paratransit service one thing i would add on the paratrans it service is that we provide service far beyond the ada requirements which is within only trips with only within three quarters of a mile of a fixed route service we have a blanket service in our communities in our member cities the commuter vanpools and then probably one of the i think one of our biggest growth areas is the the transportation network companies and uh taxis we're doing that in some areas tncs i'll talk about that in a minute but that's one of the areas that we see is a potential to that's a big growth area in the transportation arena and it's something that we as an agency have chosen not to fight but to embrace and we have contract with lift now talk about that in a minute again supported by half cent sales tax in three communities as well as federal funds and farebox revenue and contract revenue particularly from the university of north texas and i might add that when we talk about the university of north texas the riders hip that unt contributes to our system begets another million in federal funds through formulas because of that additional ridership so there's a great value add to having them there we've talked before about our board of directors and i believe one of the items is a list of the board of directors and their their bylaws and so i've provided that and we can talk about any questions you have with that and mr huckabee who's here today is your representative on the dcta board and he's a vice chair so uh we've spent a lot of it we sent a lot of information about the budget this is overview on where our sources and uses are sales taxes of primary revenue although we do get a lot of federal operating grants that are more for capital and preventive maintenance purposes than traditional paying of bus drivers and train operators passenger fares are fairly small and state operating grants again probably more in that area is when we talk about the trails and then the split between general bus and rail now we have had a lot of success in terms of how we run the agency the bus service 94 on time performance this is an fy 17 rail is 98 we continue to meet or exceed the industry standards and our contract standards audits have been very strong you and we'll talk about transparency in a minute but we have no management comments it's one of those great boring conversations to have with your auditor when they come in and have that very really have nothing to say other than thanks for the good job positive train control this is the system that's mandated by the federal government that requires us we have to have implemented and in operation by december of this year and we're on track to do that we're 100 install of testings underway this is the system that if you read in the news some of the m track and some of the other collisions where a train has been over speed and has run off the tracks this is a system that provides a positive stop for the train if you're is over speed you're in danger of a train to train collision a misaligned switch or you're violating a work zone or temporary speed restriction requirement we 've been working closely with the federal the fra and our peers to make that happen i talked earlier about the transportation network companies we currently we had done some work with uber we 're now working with lift and currently that system would be where we use them a couple of different ways one of them we're currently in operations in in highland village an area that's very difficult to serve with public transportation with a discount program that has about a 10 to 1 return on investment the university of north texas wants us to provide their late night 2 a.m to 7 a.m service with lift that's in our upcoming contract with the university of north texas that's engaged as our as an ongoing basis and also looking at how can we fill in some gaps and we'll uh and particularly and how do we maybe match up our first and last mile and bring in people service areas where maybe work doing shift work and things where it's very difficult again to run efficiently run a bus service but we still need to move people we've got a lot of success with grants and continued success with the unt ridership and 35 bus service we added some we had some numbers on that in our our our responses and we've also i shared with you a full report from the antero group on the business side of transit and what we're doing for those who provide uh who in our development community what we're able to achieve or be a part of in terms of development in the corridor one of the things that's i'm going to note here on the lower right hand corner of the screen is if you look at the ridership it's you know one of the things we've had is overall total system ridership has peaked at about 2.9 million boardings per year now that's we're working to grow that but that's we've had that's been the increase since we started in fy 2004 question on that when you say boardings per year so i get on a bus is that one board that's one boarding i get off the bus that's not a boarding that's not a boarding that's a that's that's a lighting yes so get on the train get off the train is one board i mean you get on the train it's one board you get off it's not correct you get back on it's another board yes okay all right so a person who commutes on the train right is two boardings okay in the morning and evening okay all right transportation oriented development we've seen a lot of success in this and this has been you know we this is some numbers that came again from the entero group and through the a&m research center and we 're starting to see between east end lofts and what's happening at the huffines development that the private investment is closing in on the construction costs for the a train a very positive take on that it's been a little bit heavier towards the uh towards the huffines development near the hebron station and we want to see more uh both at the ddtc and at med park and so in concert with the new development code and the new zoning clearly got to do that it's got to be hand in glove with the city but we think there's things that can happen at those two locations we start leveraging what we need in terms of parking was what we can provide the development community two things here the two thoughts i want to just point out on the left side is a screenshot from our website that a lot of the information is requested is available on our website every day our check register our caffer our budget everything that you might want to i hope everything you'd want to know about dcta is on that website and we want to be as transparent as we can be for y'all for the public and for anyone else who wishes to see that on the right side if you look one of the things that i place particular strength i want to see particularly strong is we have to have good financials in terms of our and take care of the money that we're entrusted with on behalf of the citizens so solid reserves where we have 90 days of operating reserve in the bank every year sales tax stabilization to weather through a dip in sales tax since it's such a big part of our income stream fuel that's another volatile area that's been an area where we've been saving some money because of the low cost but we got to make sure the only thing we know about that is it probably will go up someday and then when you have a 350 million dollar program you need to have some capital reserves our coverage ratio for debt is 2.41 and and the other basics we've got here we've already talked about the clean audits cash flow model and our our finance department is recognized every year for the budget award our caffer as well as excellence in procurement so we're quite pleased with that all right we have challenges too talked about that earlier ridership is a nationwide trend ours was delayed somewhat it's hitting us now that's really been punctuated by the completion of the i-35 e construction low gas prices on employment have sustained that and it has hit the a train the hardest now i want to make sure i make one point very clear i don't find this acceptable nor accept it's not something we see as good there's reasons we got here in this environment we still have to respond and do some different things and our board has asked us to do that we're doing those things and moving forward yes sir i'm trying to figure out how low unemployment decreases ridership because wouldn't you have more people going to work no the more the more people that have jobs and have money can afford to buy a car and buy cheap gas and and choose to use our competition for most of our ridership is the automobile okay and so if more people have jobs and gas is cheap then that's again we've seen a nationwide trend so that's consistent around did that answer your question i don't mean that yeah i mean i understand i just don't think that's the the proper phrasing of it because it makes it sound like it's unemployed people who ride your your train well so if unemployment is lower than you're going to have i truly noted yes maybe a better way to put it that it's a lot of people have the money to buy cars and so they're choosing to drive versus take transit yeah that's been an issue some communities have found a the lift in ubers of the world are competing with their new york city in particular on weekends and at night has taken a really big hit on their ridership because of that service for short trips so um again our take on that is embrace the change don't fight the change and see how we can incorporate that yes sir i read somewhere that that the ridership depth that we're experiencing with dcta is not different from what most transit organizations are seeing around the country do they uh offer the same explanations or there's some other explanations in different regions some of it is consistent i mean we've got a particular issue with the 35e construction being completed um that's generally been the same you know analysis that's happened every location is a little bit different but this is the nationwide trend uh with the um the particular gas prices and if i could follow up there are a couple of transit systems around the country that have not experienced that have you looked at those and seen what what situations are different that has caused them to buck that trend we've we've looked at some of those i can't speak to those exactly i mean i know we've been looking at what our take is on that and where we are um we're looking to one of the things that we want to make sure that and we'll talk about the the how to increase ridership because we we've got a we've got some steps we want to take um we want to make you know we're challenged a little bit to in this area because it is you know we're a suburban area so the densities that's where the development around stations really comes in are challenging in terms of getting people to make the choice to ride transit um and over time that will occur um but in the short term when some folks have an option they choose the other way well i would just ask that when you do your next presentation to the mobility committee that maybe you could you could look at if there are some lessons to be learned from some of those uh systems that have not experienced the dip yes sir thank you we'll do that all right so um the uh dcta board meets um well we meet every month but they meet every month but there is a particular uh all-day retreat or strategic planning session that occurs um typically in february we'll talk about the i 'll show you the cycle that we go through and this strategic planning guidance is updated every year um this is the second year we've done this um adopted by resolution gives the staff guidance that's what we handed you a minute ago that's the document that's out there i just put the cover up here it gave a clear this document gives a clear priority of supporting our member cities and taking care of business with the again dancing with who brung us um ridership focus um want to continue to bring added value those are the things that people who don't necessarily ride the transit benefit from our efforts um gave some specific guidance uh it's adopted by resolution we do have some background information in there to make this a complete document and so that it can be handed out and used as part of our communication effort and this is something we look at the board looks at every year and gives us guidance now we talked a little bit before about who we serve and when you look at the disabled um and how do we manage that as we look to how do we solve our issues um how do we manage aging in place maintaining independent mobility providing comprehensive access to services for those that uh that are transit dependent and access to employment our biggest challenge is choice riders those are the ones that if they're choosing to use the car or not and that's where we see the that's going to be one of the hardest things to pull back in but we're that's part of what we're working through and we want to look deeper into obstacles we see one of the biggest obstacles that we have is managing the first and last mile connection and um making that consistent in terms of how we bring people to the train and finish the delivery you know get make looking at the entire trip a little bit more closely and then uh you know university students that's certainly a growth area for us we've seen growth in that component and then our community at large how do we benefit from our uh beyond our direct services the trail when we're finishing the 20-mile trail that will go from denton all the way to hebron and coordinating with the council of governments and dart to extend it to tide into dallas so you'll have that complete thread just like the train you have the complete thread that goes through and again serving a broad variety variety a broad spectrum of our community now this is kind of busy but i wanted to go back through and talk about where we talk about ridership and services um one of the things that we've looked at i'm going to go down each of these is fair strategy how can we make is our fares a limiter to people riding could we encourage more people to ride if we had different fares um we're challenged a little bit with our regional partners is that some of the the what is phrased as a regional fair is there they want to increase it we've been talking to them about that um we're i'm a little bit drawn on that one because we have the potential to make it more convenient for customers but we've also looking at we're getting some feedback we're having a public meeting next week by the way to tell you about that but get some feedback on how maybe we could have local and combination of local passes that may be more successful any service gaps we have particularly first and last mile and we want to talk about development near stations and we've already been doing that and working with the cities to to make that happen the residential the education piece nctc is a big part of that they've approached us about putting a technical facility in at the old town station that partnered with the their campus in downtown denton linking those together will be important and potentially tying into the Corinth campus as well we want to continue to leverage the transportation network companies and look at a lot of expanded job access in parking and one of the biggest challenges that we have is parking at the downtown denton transit center and how can we do that in a way that contributes to the community and at the same time contributes to development and that's a couple of watchwords we're looking at with that and then look at unserved areas we asked a question was asked about ropes and ranch and is there a way that that could happen that came up in one of the questions previously about how how that could be addressed and we've got that on our list to talk about at our public meetings now we talk about the service so that's a cost side how do we are the demand side how do we look at i mean supply side how we look at the demand and how do we look at the efficiency how do we do a better job about that and so a couple of things that we've we've nailed down that have been significant in terms of cost savings on the rail side we implemented single car operation once we did some signal improvements we're able to save about half a million dollars a year we're moving a lot of our buses that are operating in howland village and lewis ville down to the rail operations facility and doing minor maintenance down there still doing heavy maintenance up here in denton but being able to save the deadhead time and making that come together we work a lot with federal grants and tdcs which are transportation development credits which can be used offset matching funds that's we've got we received five million in those and just last week we rewarded 2.6 million in a bus and bus facilities grant we want to use smaller buses in the right locations routes one through four appear to make sense for that and then how do we schedule paratransit to get more people on our on our paratransit instead of just having one person going can we pick up somebody along the way and we're trying to partner with lift on that less for providing the service than providing us helping them with their scheduling software why i don't see why we should develop our own software when there are people that are really really smart at this and continued updated all the time that if we can leverage that that'd be a lot smarter in april we're going to bring to the board a benchmarking study that we had tti do the texas a&m transportation institute to compare us to our peers and we've had some critique in the past and here of recent we've addressed that but we wanted to you know one of the first things that you do when you get a critique and someone criticizes you is that you go back and look in the mirror first and so by looking at that having an outside person look at that professionally that'll be a good thing we'll again we'll bring more back at the mobility committee but i want to bring that to the board first and then by we originally went into a rail operations contract procurement with dart and the fort worth t by going to a separate contracted arrangement we saved separating from that agreement it saved us well over a million dollars a year in rail operating cost so by doing a separate all-in turnkey procurement and then we talked about an industry change there's clearly a shift towards uh we're seeing towards these transportation network companies and autonomous vehicles we're going to be ready for that we do get we've been able to to go forward whether it's at fta or the usdot and in apta and recognized for our leadership in this area and then as we see moving forward with california mandating electric buses 100 electric buses it's going to change the market quite a bit in terms of what's feasible for us to implement as we go down the road so our philosophy on buses is stay with diesel bypass cng and go straight to electric now the timing of that depends on when the costs get right and how we can manage that so that's our philosophy on that we talked to just so you know our was in terms of implementing this is our annual decision cycle if you look in the upper right hand corner where the board retreat fits in that's also when we find out december sales tax that sets the number for what we'll have is to know what we can do for planning we typically have two change cycles that will do in august and in january that links up to the start of school it also links up with our and our the collective bargaining agreement with our drivers with their bidding of jobs we can make changes at other times that's we wanted to set a regular pattern for that so we could then have our public meetings and look at the budget adoption feed the budget process and make sure that comes together we are having a meeting on the 18th of april here in denton at the ddtc we'll be there quite a bit from like three to seven to take input from from passengers that's where we have so many people coming through it's the most logical place to be and we'll talk about some proposed service changes which i'll review fairs a program of projects which is how we use our federal funds a brownfield project that we're executing in lewisville how to get the better job access in our trail project oh let me back up one one thing that's important when we talk about making changes to the service title six of the civil rights act requires that we be very careful about how we actually implement those changes there'll be some things we talk about doing in terms of promotions that's probably how we'll manage a lot of the fair discussion versus a total change in the fairs so that's it's a nuance but it's it's important a couple of things that you'll see at the public meeting if you come is we're looking at modifying route eight to be a little bit more direct service for staff students and faculty with the ddtc and links into the south end of campus takes a shortens that path quite a bit continual to have 15 minute frequency we talked about on oak street near the campus we've talked before and taking public feedback on these ideas is how to best serve the airport zone and that's near the denton municipal airport and or dent enterprise airport and how to connect at fouts field to the the the trip the 35 w service eagle point main green route seven seven and eight and do a demand responsive service in this area to bring people back to the buses so we can draw them in again kind of a hard area to serve but one that we need to address and we want to get feedback from the public on that and one that we're particularly excited about is the idea of you know we're struggling a little bit we've been working with our with our friends at the fort work transfer now it's called trinity metro west fort work t serving a route that runs down 35 w and one of the challenges we've had is that a lot of the jobs there's a bunch of work down there we're having trouble getting people to how do we get them to those shifts how do we match that up so we're looking at backing up our service on 35 w about an hour and then working with lift now it says e-bike zone here okay that's one of those big issue with bikes that's your as i say when i have people over for the holidays it's my my kitchen my rules those are your rules your kitchen right in terms of how the bike sharing goes but we see an area of the town of town that could draw a lot of employees for these areas and so that answers the first and last mile connection particularly when we're not before we start bus service we get those get folks in that area and then there's a partnership with toyota and alliance area to get them to the final jobs so it's really pretty exciting deal in terms of how we can make that happen so this is a uh again leveraging that 35 w service and partnering with our friends in fort worth at the alliance airport current issues um i know these are things that have been that have come up arts and jazz festivals coming up here at the end of the month we've partnered with them we will have 30 minute bus frequency running between the med park station friday sat urday and sunday to provide a remote parking lot we do have a great benefit of a large parking lot there we're going to add a train trip on friday have regular train service on saturday and we got to be careful because our positive train control testing will dictate adding a lot more service and this will be complementary for the event attendees and we'll watch the demand and we can adjust if necessary if they're overloaded we've had a lot of discussions with the monsignor king outreach center the site the location is actually within the normal parameters for being served in terms of it's about four tenths of a mile away but as we learn more and more about it there's some specific issues with that location and there's a bigger broader issue from a holistic standpoint about folks that are the non-profits help with and how they can do that and so what we've talked about right now is two things is two areas on the first is that can we bring a bus coming out of service to go by that location during uh extreme weather events and coordinate with the monsignor king outreach center to do that and roy messer and i have talked about looking at a grant discussion that he wants to do as well so we'll coordinate with him on that in the bigger picture right now we offer a 25 discount or promotion for sales of tickets to our non-profits and we're looking at increasing that to make to make it to where those would be more available and we can serve more people through the agencies of serve dentin and other locations throughout our service area i'm sorry councilmember riggs i think to that point i 'm really glad to see that um i gave somebody the other day um 30 to go buy a bus pass for a month so that you could get to work and he messaged me back and said well it's 45 for a month and there's no special discount for somebody who is low income or you know homeless at the moment i was like oh well i thought that there was and so you're saying that you have programs now through the non-profit so that if he approached the non-profit they would be able to give him that discounted yes well what we do is one of the it's pretty easy to when you talk about someone who's eligible for access service either it's based on your age or medical you know a disability right yeah the disability yeah there's he said there is one for disabled is for disabled yes um who is and i'm sorry well and if you're not then if you know how do you decide who's who is needy and who's not right so so what we do is if the non-profits who know the folks and deal with that on a regular basis we take our tickets and discount them today for salvation army monsignor king served in any of the non-profits they wish to buy passes in bulk will discount to them and then they can either sell those or distribute those as they see fit and so yes so that's how we manage that and we're look i want to look at increase in the discount because i think that we could get broader coverage with that okay and so can you can you name those um organizations for me again so that i can refer i i him i don't know every one of them that's out there typically it's been under the umbrella of serf denton a salvation army um i've talked to monsignor you know roy metzler monsignor king um and he would that would be an eligible group we don't have a set list oh okay there's not a we haven't decided who is and who's not it's basically a non- profit that serves the needy in our community that will provide those passes or sell in those passes so those those non-profits can reach out to you yes okay and we'll do be happy to do that and we sell them in bulk you get a stack of passes and then if they want to help people out then they can help them out and we've talked to we've met with serf denton and talked to them about that so um we've been you know we've leaned forward on that to tell them about that okay thank you it's 25 discount it 's 25 now um we're we're we're toy we're looking at the idea we see the the impact of maybe going to 50 okay you talk to the board about that but that's the kind of the angle that we 're looking right now okay um probably won't cost us anymore and they're already riding the bus is already out there anyway so i think we should be okay with that thank you uh passenger amenities i gave a very detailed report um in your backup material as well as for community engagement um we are engaged a lot in the community here i don't know i work on the as an example uh i've worked with uh the planning staff and the oak oaks gateway study we've got folks who rep on the d on the development committee of the development ordinance um volunteer efforts the whole thing so um we actually have uh one of one of my vps is on on the cvb board our advisory board and so that helps us get an idea of when big events are coming and how we can help out yes sir quick question on the arts and jazz festival uh so that the festival committee the arts and jazz organization they 're not paying for or are they paying for that so that's something that you're doing we do no no so that y'all are providing that service for free to the the city and to the patrons who need to ride that yes yes what we typically what we try to do every year is participate in big events in each one of our member in which one of our contributing member cities so we have the balloon festival in holland village western days and lewisville and the arts and jazz festival in denton do you all uh keep records of the ridership during those special events yes sir we do okay so on this one we'll be able to get sort of the oh no we'll have a number i mean we during the highland village when we carried about 800 people back and forth to parking it really worked out well okay great so it's a win yeah so on this one we'll be able to have that same data yeah we'll be tracking that okay yes sir we want to know if we're successful right because either we don't have enough buses or we put too many or we need another plan if it doesn't work or it says to sustain this right and so we'll go forward with that okay mayor pro tem um so on the arts and jazz fest i mean just so everybody's clear this is a citizen initiated request vis-a -vis me and not through the arts and jazz committee or through the festival or dcta it's just me pestering people for 12 months um we're supposed to have two park and ride stations so i'm wondering what happened to the north park and ride when we talked to the organizers of the festival um we were we looked at uh they when we proposed a level of service in this way they they felt this would answer the question so the the organizers did not want a north park and ride that's what they they said this would be sufficient and you know we that we were happy they were good with this so okay that's something different than at least miss short told me but that's okay um passenger amenities in the backup i didn't see anything regarding the bus stops and the kind of improvements to the bus stop i may have missed it but if you can direct well if you i'll be happy to i've got that memo here on my medial i can pull that up and show you what we have okay so we're going to get to it basically yeah i can i've got it in the backup material that i'll be happy to pull up and show you okay great no worries thank you and uh okay kind of wrap up stuff uh transportation continue to grow we're seeing a lot of capacity on 35e i don't think that's going to last forever and so when we look at some of the obstacles we're having i think we can make that uh clearly there's a need for us to continue our role in maintaining that service to the the growth of our community um you know we do a lot i mean i know uh y'all have been represented on the regional transportation council we are as well um and we work very closely with the council governments on lots of things not the least of which is to find more money to serve you better um air quality roadway congestion and you know we are engaged the as an agency regional state national level i sit on the rail safety advisory committee with the fra and dc as well as the public transportation advisory committee with tex dot we're represented on a drmc terrent regional coalition and certainly in terms of delivering demand responsive service planning the future we 've already talked about ridership jobs really embracing change this is what needs to we think is key to our future we want to tailor our solution a specific problem and again the taxi cnc's automated vehicle autonomous vehicles and then improving our demand responsive dispatch do you want to talk about the value proposition you know the citizens of denton county and denton and other member cities made a really a really long-term decision it's a long game to prove the approval of dcta and there's a challenge to growth we'll be part of that solution and i think we have a great part in that and we'll continue to do so we have a broader variety broad array of services it covers the entire spectrum of your community and those we serve it's a new system and it links it's that linkage within denton other cities and the region jobs education opportunity and it has spurred new development there's specific needs here in the city of dent on that have driven a larger need for transit commute transit services in contrast to the member cities i was asked specifically to say how can we quantify the share and how it goes and it's a little bit tilted towards denton's favor based on that need so denton contributes about 46 percent of the total denton regional retail sales contributes 46 percent of the sales taxes collected receives 69 percent of the total service and 62 percent of the atrium boardings occur that occur in member cities occur in the city of denton question yes sir i appreciate that what i'd like to know is because we have the university of north texas plays a major part in the number of riders for uh the bus service and probably for the train as well we suspect so i appreciate that statistic i think it's skewed uh i mean i think it's that way because of to some degree the large contribution that the university of north texas and then nctc will play in the future and potentially tw so i would be interested if it's able to be further clarified on if if you didn't have because i forgot how many buses you have for north texas is it how many buses 27 27 buses for north operation in operation so and how many other than north texas buses are operating in denton i'd have to go find the exact number but it's about the same okay so not counting the ada and we have of course yeah yeah so i think that those statistics i mean obviously they're correct but i think if you dive down into them there's some some rationale for that and i know that north texas does pay considerable amount of money for that uh contracted work so um i'd like to i'd like to break that down a little more just in some kind of we can and that's not a problem and we're about we're re negotiating our contract right now should be approved in may um i'd like to share with you a thought though that i think is really important there's a demand for transit service in denton based on people that live here work here and go to school here they're all denton they're all demands in this area we're fortunate in that we get about three million dollars a year a little bit more than that from the university through transportation fees to help supplement that service one of the things that's really important to note is that every unt bus is a dcta bus i understand anybody who buys a fare can ride the dct can ride that service and so it is broad service that is available across the board and so now you may not choose to and some not you i mean a person who choose not to but that is out there and that's an essential element of what we do and i think more and more as we see this new contract coming up it's going to integrate more and more into our service and be more and more of one service not appear to be two separate okay right but i'll be happy to answer i mean we can answer those questions it's not a i mean it but it is there is a great deal of service in here in the city of denton we want to continue to grow that and make it better okay all right and i think miss baguerre you had a question if i could pardon um so let me if y'all don't mind i'm going to y'all can queue up however questions we have and i answered that had a number of questions nope it was the first one this was the total number of bus stops in each of our member cities there is one shelter one location that has two shelters and the location it's not heritage oaks it's hudson oaks sorry i got my cities mixed up that's supposed to go under we've had trouble it's supposed to go under so you're supposed to start construction on that tomorrow we've executed the contract given notice to proceed but we apparently like the cities having trouble with some utility locates so we're just held up a little bit on that but as promised we're moving forward with that and this is the level of commitment all of this includes funds we expect to expend in 18 so i hope that answers your question so one of the the reasons that i asked this was because i was trying to figure out the process for i mean how much is allocated each year for shelter improvements how it's determined what shelter improvements take place and where you know the ada accessibility how does it determine which sites get those ada amenities the other thing i wanted to know was you know i wanted an annual breakdown obviously if we don't have an allocated amount budgeted for the next five years i'm not clear on how i i guess how do we determine who gets budget budgeted i mean it's not budgeted but no let's go let's roll through that because i think it's important to kind of go through the process of how we think through this is that as a as a guidance as a guide not an absolute rule shelters are placed where we have 25 or more boardings in a day that's we want to put them where they have the most impact we have 300 stops we can't put the one in every place but that would be where we would start the second answer question that comes in is it physically possible to put it there there's some stop locations that may have a lot of people that get on board that do not have the space to put up a shelter or for that matter for a bench and so we have to find out is it is it physically possible and then does it have ada accessibility meaning there are things that we do to improve that long stretches of sidewalks has not been the best way to leverage our funding and so we've that's we partner with the city to look at those things now in terms of future years right now we've got quite a bit on the table as we go forward to look at these things we'll be happy to look at the city staff we get a certain amount of federal funds it's half a percent or one percent that we allocate for passenger amenities and improvements and so my anticipation and the response i had in the in the to this was to in the written response we had was here below that we'll continue to to fund these things as we go forward so our level of commitment will remain the same we are in the budget process right now or beginning the budget process at dcta and as that goes forward we will incorporate into our budget improvements for passenger amenities as we proceed into that budget process so the 300 000 with a four asterisks is for fiscal year 18 no that's been the question was raised was what in the last five years have we done so i i was specifically i was addressing what we've done really in the last in the last five years for all three member cities got it and then so that that number at the bottom expenditures represents the half of one percent that's well there's there's a lot that goes into that could be signing it could be some of that's safety and security also it's passing i believe the coding comes in with safety and passenger amenities so what i would like to know is and what we work through is if there is a demand i'll give you an example today we have shelters we have available we have an available stock of shelters that are already paid for we have a contractor to put them in if we have locations where they make sense and we can make that happen we have the means to do that without a specific large capital budget item to make that happen i mean it's a matter of getting permits and answering those three questions you know we try to get those locations that have the most riders is it physically possible and can we reasonably meet the ada requirements for that location so the question i was getting at was this this bottom line amount that reflects a mix of federal funds and general funds or is it all the half of one percent it's going to be it's going to be a mix of local and you know some of those things if you're you know one of the things that was we we tried we've done recently is we're able to get a construction contractor to meet all the federal requirements so we can actually use the federal dollars for the construction piece it was only for the shelters that we bought use those funds for we've opened up a lot of more possibilities now that we've got that in place and that just was approved last month okay so is there then a way to have an actual schedule set up for or present that to the board or if that's our direction that we would like to see some type of i would be happy to look at that i think part of it is that i'd like to ask is that we will be happy to coordinate with the staff city of denton staff if and i'm gonna make sure it's okay is coordinate with the staff to find those locations that make the most sense see which ones we get permitted and then build a queue of those as we go forward okay um the 50 planned and funded for fiscal year 18 that is those are mainly stop pad improvements so we have places for people to stand that are not necessarily locations that have uh shelters or benches so but it's the asterisks are by the 71 so i'm trying to that's a total number of stop improvements other than shelters or benches that we've done in the last five years so in this year you're going to add 50 that's 50 that includes so it was my 21 beforehand now there's 50 um that we're putting in we received some special we had some federal funds that came through from the cog that allow us to do that okay so there 's 21 right now 50 in the works and we're got a bunch more in the works so i hope i was clear on that i mean we're you know that's that's the a little bit of that's catch up and making sure that we do there you know we we now have the funds and so if we've got it we're going to use it we have the means to which to do that so how many shelters do you all have in storage uh probably 10 15 something like that i don't know exactly how many we have there's a stack up here in denton sure okay thank you and so the bigger limiter has been what we can provide ada for that's been the you get ada access for the locations not the want not not for lack of funding to put them in it has been do we have eligible locations that we can make work okay that's a partnership with the city on sidewalks how does that how does that get prioritized and we've talked about that before and we and we've had cooperation from the city and we've had cooperation with the city on the staff on part on the permitting so it's been positive council member breaks so i also asked staff um i wanted to know how many stops that we had along with the seating and in protected areas as well and so thank you for this information so out of the 300 we still have about 264 stops um that that really don't have um seating or shelter and so what you're saying is that there's 71 of those that have something coming the the something coming right now in that area is a place for people to stand so not staying in the dirt i mean or there so they can get to the sidewalk from the bus so i heard you mention that as a um standing a concrete it's a concrete pad right some sort of standing it 's like sidewalk okay so my next question was um i thought that was maybe a step before a bench comes but that's not necessarily it could be it again the bench is i think it's 10 10 boardings a day at that location is typically a threshold we have for that and so my question came from driving by several stops and seeing either people sitting on the ground or makeshift kind of seating um and from that my question of the nine with benches are those dcta installed benches are those the ones that you could get like from lows that once that we've installed okay so that doesn't include the ones that no not if someone's put a chair out there no it doesn't include that okay good okay no we try to we gotta do it right okay thank you quick question yeah yeah i have a lot so go ahead okay all right i'm ready yeah uh on the where you talk about for the shelters it takes uh boardings of 25 or more to sort of begin to to then to answer you've got to get to that threshold before you get to the other questions is what i'm hearing if it's something that's close and it's a need and it's the desire of the city well i mean like i said that that's a guide no no i understand that so how do you measure that i mean so when people you the counter on the bus or the bus driver i mean how do you determine we do counts occasionally that look at how many people aboard and uh and we then we just look at that data so i'm assuming um because i know when you're driving around town you see you know some of these larger apartment buildings obviously because of the student population they're there and and so some of these shelters obviously they may generate more than 25 boardings and if those other two factors are present and do you know about approximately how many of these shelters are located at the larger apartment buildings that primarily cater to the student population most of these are not there most of them are not okay all right so okay uh anybody else before council member husbets dots on his filibuster question presentation i do yes go ahead just on on that note on the um the 25 plus stops is is it possible for you to send to us afterwards of those 264 how many of those have 20 average 25 plus stops average 25 plus stops we can sort of maybe that might help us help you figure out let us i think is let if i could request this is that as part of our budget process let us go back through and look at that look at the demand we've got and we've got to look beyond just didn't i mean we've got to look at willisville and halloween village and make sure we we do the right thing across the service area and um so but we happy to do that okay thank you now i'm done okay follow-up so the pads the concrete pads are a precursor to the benches can be yes there's a it's a the ones we're putting out there are stand alones why would there not be benches with the concrete pads it depends on how much space there is and i believe our number is we try to hit the again the higher level boarding locations typically you have a stop about every quarter mile to a half mile so we have a lot of stops where we have accessibility but we don't have a lot of people that stop there are they actually people bored did you think maybe perhaps they don't board because they have to sit on the grass that's i mean i mean it could be a part of people's experience on dcta is getting chinger bites while they're waiting well we and we work with our again that's part of what we hold our public meetings for us to see if there's locations where we have specific questions how much does a bench cost just in general probably a thousand dollars a couple thousand and then how much does the improvement the concrete improvement about i think it's about a thousand went all in typically so i mean i guess we're talking about 50 25 000 was 50 000 here for benches like that's it it's i 'm having trouble wrapping my head around why the concrete would be planned but not the bench we plan the concrete so that the locations are more accessible for our riders that have i get that ability devices i understand that part but the bench part i'm having trouble with we'd be happy to look at that i would appreciate that that's that's fine yeah we'll be happy to your turn okay yeah no so thank you uh so i think for me i i i'm gonna zero in on the train because that to me is the biggest expense that i have to be accountable tax dollars wise to bring value i'll tell you part of my adding to my consternation and i don't know that we're looking at it um i would sell you and looking at it from a sales approach right it's like hey i've got a i i'm on a commission basis better said i'll put it how i look at i look at a commission basis i've got to get people on that train because that's that's where i get the bang for the buck and so just succinctly to start you put up the present the the potential um route change in oh eight uh pardon me route eight and if i'm not mistaken if i'm looking at it wrong you correct me but current route eight takes you generally a block away from the convention center hotel i'd have to we've got now keep in mind route seven is also serving that same area so it's not if we're if we are moving away from that i think eight continues to be near that area so it's it should this is i show that to be that's oak oh i 'm so sorry and that's i-35 and that up there is scripture right there so that'd be a block away that's that's rooms to go right there and we're carving and we're carving that back to here where it's not even in that general area and and if you're saying route seven is is more direct i'll look at that but my understanding was seven is more direct on that okay so we 're still having the same coverage when we make this change okay i'll take a look at that and so can you tell me what's the cost currently to commute to dallas by car we usually well we use a number of ten thousand dollars a year to own a car in dfw so that's again looking at its sales approach my competition is i-35 and we don't know what our competition is paying you may know you may not have it readily available but for me that's a sort of content that's a source of contention if you can 't i just think that's important right i think that's important to know for this presentation because you using your words that's our competition and we don't know what our competition is doing and and so it's a i just don't know that the organization is hungry enough for me that's not to say that it's not hungry that's to say maybe i'm just greedy and so i just i just want more bang for the buck and so i look at that and and so my other question to that kind of focusing in is what time what are what are the times i can leave denton let's say i work in dallas at nine the times i can leave denton to get there uh do we know that's the same i mean i have the i have the i have that schedule here i'm just curious if that's top of mind for you we have we have our travel planners that can do that yeah i mean not people i mean the online you go to google transit it will calculate that and tell you exactly how long and what you need to do from any any particular location right no i i have it here and i and i've done it but again for this presentation if that's my competition then i want to be able to highlight that in the in a presentation i want to say that you can leave denton from five to eight a.m nine a.m and get to dallas by this time you know because that's if we're looking for commuters in the morning that's what they're going by and so that's kind of the the information i would like that i was hoping to see today is because i'll tell you where i really get hung up a couple of things i ask you for the train schedule changes so understanding your your presentation said primary competition i-35 i looked up online just the google search 2013 is when i-35 construction project started so round numbers 2013 that's four years to get someone indoctrinated before the highways finish to hey this product is great and somehow to say that now that it's finished we're realizing that we missed the boat or that ridership has dropped we knew that in 2013 at some point they're going to finish the project and at some point i mean it takes me it and so for me to we've the i ask you your answer i ask you how many times the train schedule change you told me once in 2015 so 2013 the construction starts 2015 we changed the route once 2018 you're telling me we missed the boat and more people ride not 35 the gas prices are cheap and it's affected our ridership well the rest of the answer i gave you was that keep in mind that there are very limited opportunities to change the train schedule we have a single track railroad that has to be choreographed between all of our passing movements that occur in at each station or in the limited areas of dual track that we have so there is a limited set of opportunities on what we can add now we can subtract if you pull a train out there are four trains that can operate during peak period two northbound two southbound that's the physical limitation of our system right now and we're able to achieve 22 minute headways which is pretty good and that's compared to dart running about 15 sometimes 10 sometimes 20 kind of depends on how their schedule is so for us to go back to and double track the entire railroad to be able to increase that number dramatically would i believe and we built this railroad for 18 million dollars a mile compared to about 80 and what is costing for light rail so in terms of efficiency of construction i think we've got a whole lot that's out there that's really good for us to change the service the real options we have are to fill in a gap midday to add service earlier or to add service later or conversely to subtract any train out of the system now from a cost perspective there's another element that comes into this you have to look at the crew's assignment to the training because you don't put a crew on a train and just go one direction you're going to run them for eight hours or you're going to pay them for eight hours or four hours whatever and we i look at the contract but we pay them for a certain amount of service so there's an efficiency in how we operate the system that goes with that so i understand the logic where you're coming but and i i see where you're coming from because we we looked at that and but i also want to make sure it's very clear that to do significant changes to the timing of the trains is there's a physical limitation and how we do that in terms of again subtracting is pretty is is possible adding other than when we have gaps like midday or later at night or early in the morning and and i what i would ask if you can make a note i would ask for a if you can provide me some sort of graphic that helps me understand that that that flow pattern but i'll also tell you that it really really it's a rock and hard place for me because i i represent people that say 12 million dollars went to this institution in 2017 and my answer is yes and yes i understand it's underutilized but we're limited in what we can do to change the schedule right i mean that that really if if that's if i'm missing something to help me but but really i i have to my answer has to be either here's the things we 're doing to try to get more ridership to to play with the schedule or hey we're just hoping it works out some years down the road and the latter won't work well hope is not a method i agree and so i'm not i'm not proposing that we do certainly think that there's some needs some fundamental changes that will occur over time they're not occurring in the timeline that we need to operate in okay and i did just to make sure i'm clear we we were in the materials that we put forth we added all the different things that the board has asked us to do that we have generated to improve ridership and i think where the the thing that we've got to do is it is not as much wherein the trains are operating or if we need to shift the schedule it's how do you deal with the entire trip and that's where you know when we talk about first mile last mile how do we get people you know you don't take a trip from ddtc to trinney mills you take a trip from your house or your where your trip point of origin to the train station you ride the train you're off the train you go somewhere else unless there's something right where you are that's one of the reasons development on station helps us a great deal because that takes a portion of that trip when you look port to port you know as you look at the whole trip that's where we think that that's where we need to focus our attention and have been or will be and are right so i'm going to disagree i think your analysis is right but i'll tell you from a person that has that commuted i reversed it right so i drive down monday parked my car at the burbank station because it's next to a police subst ation so i could leave it overnight and and be okay with it uh and then i'd ride commute back and forth the rest of the week and so i'd catch your train on let's say six o'clock in the evening and commute back to denton it's a one minute i mean an eight minute walk from the downtown station to my home so what i'll represent to you though is in kind of where i was going if i look at this schedule and i look at the times you leave the green line because i've sat in the green lines they that they're the in carolton for a very long time and so i think that's part of because dart runs to your to your point a little more frequent but if if i miss that so there's a 512 uh going north there's a 512 there's a make sure yes northbound so there's a 512 there's a 529 and then there's a 30 minute gap to that if you miss that one you're there till six and then you're 614 and then uh there's another 20 minute gap and then it drops off there's an hour gap you know and so if i work in dallas at six and i leave dallas at six in essence i can get to that carolton station and have to sit for almost an hour and and so that's where it's i i i would like to see someone and i know you have the community events and i know they're not very well attended i think the last one there was there was only when i talked to your employees they said there was three four people there um well i don't know i talked to them i talked to them in the parking lot so let me i'm gonna try to narrow this you said you had a lot of questions so if we could because i don't want there to necessarily be a debate going on i mean here i mean we've got some other opportunities to discuss some of these more technical aspects but yeah if you've got some some questions regarding just just your questions so at least you can get those answered yeah yeah so thank you on the toll my tollway question is i ask if you have an association you said yes but i'm asking if you have an a account do we have can our buses travel in the new tarrant county tollway i know we don't go that far i'm just asking for example we have we have toll tags on the buses that that operate on toll roads all right so we we have those we have that capability got it and then just to confirm so you sent the the number you sent the past year the highest sales was in december 27th that was the highest user okay and then um but you listed i can't find the document now i made it in my notes earlier there's a taxi service provided by irving holiday erving holdings what is that it 's yellow cab it's a yellow cab service in dallas area it's owned by a company called irving holdings they run all the yellow cabs in the dallas area got it and then and then the the and and so that's how does that fall into dcta's budget what's the connection the right now what we have we've looked at a broad array of alternatives we were asked to um and you know we we've we provide service for them in this case it's for the there are two reasons we use irving holdings today and it may have a need inside the service area mckinney urban transit district which includes five communities around mckinney asked us to see if if we could do a taxi voucher program that's one way we do it and so the way it works is that you have um say you buy if you're an eligible in this case it's for elderly and disabled service it's a lifeline service we were asked to help with um that they pay for and so the rider contributes 50 onto a debit card that irving holdings manages we don't touch it then they credit that for then that becomes a 200 card and then that individual can use the the cabs they have disabled service that they can provide as well as those for elderly folks as well now we dispatch some cabs in some areas that's an option we can do as well that's part of the this again the service in frisco that again is fully compensated back to us to provide again elderly and disabled and medical trips uh lifeline service in that community okay and then help me understand the the board so there's other cities that aren't member cities do they have the the board members associated with non-member cities are they able to vote or do they just sit in on the meetings they're able to vote now what's really important is the way the bylaws are set up and i put a copy of the bylaws which transmitted that a couple of times and so but the way it really boils down to is that the member cities have any significant vote service change service you know service plan changes budget there's several things on the list but put it this way a big decision made by the dcta board requires at least 50 of the entire board not those in present the entire board plus two of the three member cities must vote for it 14 member board a 12 to 2 vote can fail it's the right to say it's howland village and denton vote against it it will not pass now what we've seen in our organization is that the leadership of the board our executive committee is made up of has all three member cities lewisville denton howland village and two other reps the the history of this goes back to the foundation of the agency and the funding for the a train keep in mind that the entire county funded took 250 million dollars to fund the a train so the county rtr funds were used to fund a big portion of the 350 million dollars construction so it was not funded by debt from the member cities for the with except for a minimal portion and was funded by that and so the entire county spoke for that and that's the way it was set up in the legislation what we've seen is that the the member the needs of the member city have been member cities the financially participating member cities have been protected by the entire board and so and there's a check in the system with essentially a veto by the member cities over anything significant okay well i guess the rest of it is i'd be happy to sit i mean if you like we'll be happy to visit anytime with you or the mobility committee mayor i mean please we'll sure i'll be here anytime a little more warning on some of the questions would be appreciated yeah just so we can be better prepared yeah um you know we got a lot of stuff i mean we 'll we're here we got every every question i believe every question that was answered even as late as yesterday was included in our emails well and so for me for staff one i'd like as we're coming back with a the homelessness conversation i think those bus routes and that component has to be folded in i mean i continue to to stress that we've got to continue to work kind of if we 're i just my concern is if this information's rolled out and it's miscommunicated that could alarm people unnecessarily so or bring concern or it's just a conversation to be had so i i think when we're talking about that bus route and those discounted tickets what does that look like what are those routes what is that you know just so i can be informed and disseminate information for again my for staff i would think that um i'd like to see economic development at some point tie into dcta i don't know if that i mean i'm sure they stretch thin but if there's any way to kind of have um some meetings of the minds or are trying to uh bring at least make council aware of opportunities that they see fresh eyes whatever that could be i don't again if they're stretched in then obviously we can't do it but i would think there's there's something there um and then uh i'll leave you with this mr klein i i would tell you just again from someone that parked the car overnight um at the facilities i would i would encourage you to invest and i think it would help in your ridership if you added security some sort of security at night because i'll tell you the the carolton trinity mill station has more car break-ins than my understanding than most of the others and it's because that area is not developed and it's dark overnight and so when you're talking about people leaving their car and trying to trust the the riders hip i think there's some security elements that may enhance ridership just uh by proxy so i i appreciate you being here today and and answering a couple of questions any uh comments from this is a councilman ryan this sort of direction for staff and those kind of things well i'll just make it brief and in some of what council member husbeth already brought up but i'm going to do it in 30 seconds instead of five minutes five man i must have been in time more each segment each segment um i want to echo that the scheduling and when you change schedules really affects people and and not being able to i mean uh you know i'm gonna give an actual true story that's happening right now uh my wife has to go to a meeting on thursday in dallas i've got to go to arlington so she checked taking the bus because it's uh she could take the bus route and it would take her two and a half hours to get there she can uber in 45 minutes and it's twice the price it's eleven dollars or eleven dollars by the time she ubers over to the station then takes the train or 23 dollars to take uber all the way so that's what people people that time is valuable to them and so that becomes the issue and i know it's an issue of you 've only got so much money so you can only run so often so it's but every time it changes it realigns their schedule um and i've said this before as 24.99 is is finished up uh having a route down 24 .99 that goes airport to med park i think would be very beneficial for you for for uh to me there seems to be a when i saw that low unemployment and so if people people have a good job and they can afford a car they're not going to take public transportation anymore is not the attitude that is going to promote us to develop more ridership it's it's got to be that please don't i mean i i i hope you didn't take that as our our approach it's we have to do analysis and try to figure out why um so that's we can we'll work on our message and make sure that's better okay councilmember gregory thank you mayor it looked like when you were talking about uh impact of transit oriented development that you were mainly looking at the apartments uh that were recently built in order that development east of the downtown transit center uh i would say that that i've talked to the owner of victoria station apartments on bell who indicated that he regarded that as transit oriented development also so i think maybe uh don't think too narrowly when you're thinking about uh the impact of the station downtown in terms of overall transit oriented development also i don't know what the current information is but a few years ago i was surprised to hear that there were as many people that commuted to denton for employment as the number that commuted from denton for employment so um i think it would be interesting to to get an update on that from our uh staff uh but also to you know when you're considering as mr hudspeth was talking about commuting uh from denton to dallas just that reminder that that that we have a lot of folks that are commuting to denton students and uh uh people that are employed in town at the universities or not yes sir anybody else yeah i'm sorry i'm gonna pretend forgot yep um so i had a question about well two questions but first regarding the voting we 've talked about you know the the fact that the member cities can veto if there are two of them so and that that has to do with fiscal decisions or major fiscal decisions so let's say for instance that um our board member brought forth a proposal to increase the amenities funding from sixty thousand dollars per year to two hundred fifty thousand dollars per year in denton that could that decision be vetoed by highland village and lewisville or could the proposal when taken for a vote be vetoed it's it's really the it's that would be in the entire budget let 's say it's i understand the budget process but let's say it's an amendment it doesn't make it in the budget for whatever reason and it's something that's a standalone um in an extreme case that's possible that has not been the history okay so basically you're saying that things are going to get put in the budget and pass that way that's typically how it's been done i mean it's it's a board much like the city council you you go through the the whole process and we look at how much i mean it's the same drill you look at how much money you have what your demands are and what you can you know what priorities we want to apply to those things and then push those things out well i guess my concern is because in the past the amenities haven't been a part of the budget they're are specified in the budget allocated as a line item um so i mean i can certainly see everybody agreeing to an increase but the denton share of those amenities that you put up was significantly higher than the other cities are getting so i mean if i'm representing the other cities i might balk at that that's one of the reasons i'm asking about kind of the voting process and if that could be vetoed it's the way here's how i would let me give you the process how i see going forward with this because this is one of the items that i've got on my list of things to to take forward as we go into the next budget cycle and we're in it now is that um we do we have had it in the budget in the capital item it has not been as clearly designated as maybe it should be so um as when we bring forward a recommendation to the board of direction we will then bring forward we'll take a look at the question that miss brig's brought up in terms of how many we have what the need is what the demand is across the area and look at where what we think the potential is and then we'll put those things and we'll budget as we can to be to add those things in more clearly and then push push those things out so the other thing that is mentioned in exhibit three in the backup is that when the mayor talked about this you talked about it that we dentin represents 69 percent of total service and 62 percent of all the a train boardings that occurred in the member cities occurred in dentin so we're contributing 46 percent of our sales tax or the total sales tax however we tend to utilize the train more i think is what we're getting at with this statistic is that it's being used more here yes i i mean i was asked to try to find a way to show how the split was and these are the things that in response to that that i came up with okay so i just and i'll blame no one else for that because i know well you know when because when you talk about we contribute x amount of dollars we should get this much back you also have to look at the fares how much people are actually utilizing the service so that's why i'm just kind of honing in on that the other thing i wanted to mention was that i know that there's some talk with cvb and the convention center to create a shuttle of some kind and i'm wondering if anybody's reached out to dcta they this is the leadership dentin group yes but also cvb and as a whole i mean leadership dentin does projects that cvb wants to do that's how leadership dentin works well i i met with them this fall okay um and we're certainly happy to i mean we're happy to work with them on those things we've got to be very careful though that that when we have a specific charter type service and it gets a little it's uh that's one of the reasons we don't charge for like the arts and jazz festival that's why it's a complementary we do that as part of what we do for our member cities but it's also to the under the federal guidelines for us to be doing charter service in competition with the private sector it it's against the rules in terms of our federal dollars everything we do particularly the bus like the bus facility the buses were purchased with federal dollars so the idea is that not having a um using federal money to basically undercut a charter operation is why they have us not do that now question clarification so a charter a charter operation which would be considered a private operation what if they're funded with hot funds for instance if it's funded with public money is it still considered a public it's private operation we we'd have to look at the specifics of how that goes my conversation with the i'm sorry this is where i was going with this is that my conversation with the leadership dentin group which included cvb was that if you look at a convention typically the way this is my experience being at a convention is they typically want to go from their hotel to whatever site they want to go to load back on that same bus and go right back that's where we get into the challenge is this public service could anybody ride it typically it's i mean they they go it's a public safety issue so that no one's drinking and driving things like that i mean those are reasonable things and good things to do but my recommendation to them was that that the event organizer would be and this is what i did when i organized meetings for the traffic engineers group when i was working for the city of dentin and the city of i'm sorry the city of irving and the city of Beaumont is that we would then hire a bus to come in even though in Beaumont i was responsible for the buses but we still hired an outside bus to come in because of these regulations and so that's been my experience and i hope i'm telling that story i'm making sense well my takeaway is that you don't feel that dcta can provide the shuttle service because it's competing with private industry according to federal rules that's that's that's yes ma'am okay thank you so the the last comment question i have in this is you can just answer this later on as far as in a email or just yes sir council or staff uh already asked about um how many uh you know the bus service how much of that is you know the passengers are associated with the universities uh and then also then on the train how did y'all measure that in 2018 uh i mean last month i guess a couple months ago did you have somebody the conductors on the train count every boarding and alighting okay so we've got i mean that's part of their job okay just to count passengers all right coming on and off the train um and so my curiosity and i don't know how you would figure that out is of that 62 percent how many of those are students as well and you may not be able to you and that's okay that's all right other than an observation right an assumption yeah you don't necessarily want to do that so then but on your second bullet point where it says that the sales tax was 12.4 million uh from denton okay i get that and represents 46 46 percent but then with 69 percent of the total bus service uh hours but if we add i'm assuming that the north texas contribution of funds is not included in that 12.4 million that's just the sales tax no that's so yeah sales tax so if they're at two or three million dollars let 's say or three million then um that adds about another uh probably 10 percent of the total revenue that dcta receives from primarily the denton area just not which gets it almost a little bit more in period by that by that those two facts it seems there's a big disparity of wait a minute we're spending a bunch of money in denton that you know they're getting they're only paying half of they're getting most of the services whereas if you add some of these other contractual it evens it out a little bit well and there's the other part that i brought up too is that the ridership at the for the university of north texas because of our formula funds and the formulas they used to calculate that and we check with the cog on that because there's some magic that happens in washington and sure an apportionment comes out it amounted to about a million dollars a year so it adds even more i mean their contract even adds more so that would increase okay so that it's going to even add by the time you include all the revenues it's i just want to say that just so that we 're not under the impression that somehow denton is getting a greater share without paying little i was very careful on how i talk to every one of my member cities is my favorite when i'm there certainly um first bullet is probably the most important bullet on there okay is that there are specific needs in this community that drive why the service is being provided it is not i mean to be to be blunt it is not because someone's fussing at us it's because there's a need and there's a need there's that that need drives the level of service we provide now the funding that comes in say from the university helps dictate some of that that whole picture that paints is how we deliver the service we're not depriving someone in louisville as an example of service no i understand that no no no i'm not this isn't an explanation for y'all this is an explanation for the next meeting i gotta go to right okay so i mean i mean this is i serve many masters as you might well imagine um and so with that there's i think that that that again that's why we do what we do and we where do we put benches where do we put shelters where do we run trains where do we run buses where do we pick up ada folk people in paratransit we do it based on the demand and there's again 935 people registered 550 of them are in dent so that drives that demand for that uh yes council member breaks so before i asked for um the the bus and train passes for student versus non-student and i think was that what you were asking for just then with the ridership percentage because it's in the backup and i was wondering if you could show that chart because i'm trying to understand it actually and this is a we've run into the same here we go right there yeah we run into a very difficult and and because if you take these numbers and you take the budget you're going to see that the numbers don't match it's because of the accruals and how these numbers are shown as being earned in different periods because they're say a monthly pass or an annual pass so you allocate certain funds over a period of time um there's a couple of things that that happen in terms of ticket sales versus ridership that is very it's the same problem we just talked about with the mayor on that i just spoke to him about regarding who's on the train and who's not we know how many university passes we've sold we don't know how many students have bought tickets and rid den and so this reflects the university passes now the struggle too comes in on the bus side because on the bus side the university pays us 49 000 as part of our contract part of the bigger three million dollar contract so that a unt pass is good on the buses and then one of the things we found is that while our unt services up our connect service is down we think what happens because we rearrange some service on unt that we made that much more efficient people riding that instead of the connect the students and so that's where our total bus is about right about the same but we've seen a difference in which grouping of services are being provided so it really goes to say it is really hard for us to break out exactly what the difference is between students and not the students drive a big portion of what we do i mean let there be no doubt that they make great bus riders great transit riders they've got a little bit of money and they have very fixed schedules so it's really they make really awesome transit riders okay anything else any other comments questions yes mayor pro 10 i don't have any questions for mr klein but i i did have some direction just as a group whenever we're ready to have i think we're ready any more questions for mary if i if i could just maybe make sure i've captured what you've asked of me sure um the trying to get a handle on the commute split that may be more something that comes from the council of governments than from our our counts um the cost of our competition and the time mr husbeth i believe you asked me that the graphics on train ops and how that works we can show that that's that's probably easier to talk about across the table than it is from a podium i'd be happy to do that though the economic development side i would like to answer that question i can tell you that it's not this is not the forum but we are working that right now so there 's another place in another time that the answer to your question is yes and beyond what's already happening right now so that's a again that's a conversation that we have i think it's best offline because of purchasing requirements security at night yes we'll we'll achieve that looking at cameras right now we're hooking up our stations to uh there are internet i mean our fiber optic line so we can make that happen and so security has been a big deal the bus benches and shelters bigger picture right we've talked about that how do we get more of that what makes sense and how do we do that in our budget process um there was a question about schedule changes using great caution with that yes sir 24.99 airport to med park is the possibilities and that's what i have in terms of my feedback from y'all and um certainly all the questions we got i got it and we'll i hear those things and we'll continue to i mean work those okay and we're here to serve our communities councilmember gragery and then yeah he had you had a comment for mr okay thank you very much for the presentation and thank you for being so responsive uh and getting answers to a lot of questions that came in fairly late i appreciate it appreciate the work that you're doing and for your overall responsiveness to the city of vinton thank you happy to do it councilmember breaks i echo that thank you very much um and on your list if you could um with the increase in percentage for the discounts to the non-profits if that conversation comes up would you please let us know so that we could either be there or if you um when that happens believe me the optics are we're going to be telling everybody about it okay thank you no we will that's part of the plan believe me thank you and i will make sure any other comments for mr kline thank you sir appreciate it appreciate the information thank you so much yep mayor pro tem well in terms of direction going forward i have two main points first is that i think as a council we can certainly have a resolution or direction that we can give requesting a specific amount of money be spent on the amenities we by my calculation we have 15 about 15 and a half million dollars of direct and leverage funds that come from denton ridership and in the past five years we've had approximately 60 000 a year spent on amenities for our riders being benches pad sites shelters etc so what i'd like to see is a discussion about you know a fixed amount of money that we're saying look every year we need to see x amount whether it's a half a percent or quarter of a percent of what we send you to come back to the riders in the terms of making their lives more comfortable and making the ability for them to ride the buses more palatable and more desirable so that's my first request is that we have a fixed number and i understand the budgeting process that might not go through and you know people may not be in favor of that on the board i understand that but i feel that we should make a decision about that and have some clear expectations of what we would like to see for our riders in denton the second quest the second point i have is in regards to the board composition so this was a really eye-opening presentation just for the idea that we're essentially funding this operation at more than half when you take the tax sales tax and the contracts which i'm going to include unt's contract and ours and hopefully that's okay yet on the board we have one seat out of is it 13 seats for 14 seats and i understand the history i understand the vetoing position and how that provides us some protection however what i've learned in politics is that you kind of need one of these a lot of times not just one vote out of 14 you need a little bit of amplification if you were going to get your point across i thought you were going to demonstrate that no i'm not sparing you i'm sparing you the demonstration i was looking forward to that but we're donating donating we're giving 50 let's call it 50 percent of the operating costs and we have one seat out of 14 to represent our interests so i think what i would like to see is that we put our lobby ists to work create a policy statement or resolution or whatever that says look we want representation on this board commensurate with how much money we put in to the board we think that that's a fair way to have taxation with representation and see if our representatives will acquiesce you know that 's i don't see a way to push denton forward in terms of getting us services that match our level of use and funding without a greater voice without the bullhorn on on the board so that would be those are my two requests okay all right uh anyone else i guess my my request for staff would be to continue to work with the dct i mean we attended a uh or i attended a presentation at city of arlington regarding their sort of mass transit or their pilot program which i believe dcta had also seen as well and i'm just going to put it out there i mean my goal eventually because i think technology is changing i think the uh the paradigm for public transportation is changing you know light rail i mean you look all across the nation um there's things that are changing so i'm hoping that as we move forward if we're able to find cost efficiencies in the city of denton if we're able to do things differently through dcta and our partnership with dcta that those cost efficiencies that somehow those can endure to the benefit of the dent community even through even possibly through you know a reduction in our allocation or something that will allow us to maximize that particular funding that we're that we're receiving because uh i mean i know as a pilot program in arlington but i was just totally surprised at what they're able to do with with some of that especially with the the para transits that people just needing to ride and the and the uh you know the ride share so um i'm always i think we're all including dcta trying to find a way how do we maximize our assets and our service with the funding that we're receiving and so that's really my goal not just for the city of denton but i think it and i think dcta based upon its presentation is trying to find that out as well through some of these partnerships they're entering into so that's what i would encourage is continue to look at those innovative ways that the city and the and dcta can work together to maximize the services and that honestly that's the emphasis i have we do need transportation for our students i mean there's no question about it i mean we talk about parking and but that's one of the great things that happens is when they're at a apartment complex they're there the buses can pick them up they transport them that's a great great service absolutely but i want to understand too that with us providing that level of funding through sales tax that somehow you know the university is not subsidizing a public transportation for the city and is and the city is not subsidizing a public transportation for the universities and sometimes those questions get a little confusing so that's why i really asked about that data because i think it's only data that really helps you provide answers to policy questions and and direction so um i i've enjoyed the conversation what i've enjoyed about it is the information that's been conveyed but also just the the the directness of the questions and the answers and that hey we're here to work together to figure out how can we make this work i didn't hear anything at this table saying we don't we don't appreciate the partnership we don't want the partnership it's like how can we make it work to better meet the needs of our community and and i think we all have that question we all have that goal so uh i've been i've enjoyed this i've enjoyed the information and i look forward to the additional information that's going to come yes council member hutchford yeah and i'll add to that i echo that and and i'll ask uh staff to add this i think this is my third running issue with stuff so i'm not a big proponent of cameras i mean we have camera images of the people that rob the jewelry store we just got to find them right i think i think i'm bigger into deterrent so if there 's a way for the city to participate or reach out or communicate with uh dcta on the security front if there's maybe it's officers that are um uh if it's over time if it's if it's you know whatever that is i don't know what that looks like but i think a presence goes a lot further than a camera you know you see it and you see it downtown dallas they have camera images of all the fights but you know my point is hey let's let's empower some of our officers that are maybe want shifts or if there's an opportunity to to to uh activate that component or you know let's do that you know and i know there's some it's out of our our city so i know there's some uh some different challenges there but whatever is available to us i'd like to explore that and see if maybe we can partner with with some of those other cities and and have a showing there that would that may be helping that component so thank you okay any other comments thank you all for coming i know it's a long uh meeting but i appreciate that thank you so much what is the direction for staff uh i believe you'd ask for some some has anybody opposed to any direction that was stated from the council yes i'm opposed to everything no no okay all right yeah so yeah yeah yeah usually if there's not an objection then i i consider it sort of acqu iesced all right okay let's take about a five or ten minute break we've been okay welcome back to the meeting of denton city council april 10th 2018 it is almost four o'clock moving back through our work session items agenda items three e receive report hold discussion give staff direction regard an amendment to section two dash two nine of the city of denton code of ordinances relating to et cetera recording of votes to include the recording of votes for each council member within all city ordinances and resolutions mayor council members uh victor flutters deputy city attorney uh just give a short presentation this um item comes uh following or during the concluding items in the previous council regular meeting uh staff was requested to draft a provision um to require in addition to recording in the meeting minutes uh also in the ordinances and resolutions that would come up the recording of the votes and so this new section that will be included proposed in the draft will include the council member making the motion um second and then the roll call of the votes and this is actually exhibit one is the proposed uh resolution itself with this incorporated i just put this up as an example um again taking feedback um because this amends um our council rules of uh two dash two nine um that's required to be first introduced here and then adopted a subsequent reading which will be april 17th and uh i'll take any questions at this time and i'll go back to see if you want to see that any questions comments i'm not sure we're oh oh yes council member no i ask for it i think it'll be i think this uh layout works well for me i mean to go back and have that legacy data would be great okay all right yes yes just just for clarification we already post on the website how each council member votes correct councilman break yeah that's right i believe that uh mayor pro temba gary asked for that a while ago and that change was made this is on the website this is on the website yeah i think they made a change and jane jump in because i don't know how granicus works exactly but i think there was some type of add-on where you can now search the vote but it doesn't have the layout like this it's just a searchable feature okay that's what i remember my understanding is less it's like a pdf document and it just um says how each council member voted on each item but it's like a vote voting record and then it links through the granicus program i'm not sure about that jennifer prepares it so i'm not sure what the whole process is but i can find out and let you all know okay all right okay yes customer husband yeah for me i don 't if you go back and source an old ordinance i don't know that it's it's tied to that i mean maybe it is maybe but but i i don't think that's the case i think it's separate right they didn't start they didn't go back for the old ordinances if i remember correctly it only started from the time that was that we requested it so they didn't go back and do the old ones but i guess my question is so even a vote last week if i go back and pull up that ordinance on the pdf i think it just has the city attorneys the mayors and secretary signature on it am i am i wrong on the ordinance itself no you're right about the actual ordinance okay then that's that's what i'm saying when if i if you source the old ordinance to have this legacy information so this would be attached to the ordinance it would be incorporated into the ordinance itself yes about the signature lines i think the intent for this is that as these ordinances start accumulating in the city secretary's official files if somebody goes back and actually wants to find the particular ordinance to actually look at the the the recital section what was actually uh passed as conditions in connection with that action this would also assist that person who's reviewing it to determine where each council member basically voted on that particular ordinance so this this is something in addition to what it's been offered through the online voting record okay all right so um you're just one direction yes um we have a plan to come up at the on the 17th okay um and there's any changes any objections uh or questions for staff okay all right thank you going to agenda item 3f review report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the creation of an ad hoc development code review committee to consider and advise the city council whether and in what manner to amend the current dentin development code welcome back thank you i don't know if that's good or bad but go ahead it's scott mcdonald director development services just certainly like to discuss uh as we move forward with the dentin development code we have an ad hoc committee that was created um some time ago we have before you a draft of an ordinance that we'll be considering this evening that is for the creation of a an actual the establishment of that development committee and the number of members and really the scope of the review for that committee and certainly would like to have that discussion regarding that membership when we had met with the council committee the ad hoc committee there was some conversation as it related to whether that would be the three council members or to include the three p and z members the draft the draft ordinance a resolution excuse me would be that of that it would be a vote of the entire committee that committee makeup would be the potential for six members three members from council three members from p and z the purpose in this committee is ultimately to to have an in-depth and detailed review of the development code draft and that to expedite the review and ultimately reporting back to council and the p and z commission did you have a question council member i was just gonna say i don't i'm on that committee and i don't recall us deciding to go that way that we said it would be the three council members would make up the committee and that the p and z would be able to participate in the discussion and and so forth but would not be voting members of that because for and there were several factors involved in that that depending on the direction we go i can go into the detail on that okay all right yeah yeah council member yeah i just wanted to clarify that it was p and z who stated the p and z members who stated that they did not want to have a vote on the committee that they wanted to participate but that only the city council members would have the votes on the committee okay so that was their direction and and ultimately we can amend this however it is that you know council would like that was heard both sides of that where it is that if they were going to be present to be able to vote if council's desire is it for the three members absolutely fine and we can have that adjusted for ultimately for council's action this evening that's the direction that i'm seeking council member i i thought that the the p and z members decided that if they were going to be there that they would like to be able to to weigh in i don't really recall the the voting or not but i do know that they wanted to be able to have some sort of be able to participate in the discussion and what i recall mostly is that from that there will more than likely not be any votes per se in that it would just generally be um discussing anyway so it would be more of just making recommendations or moving forward to council not necessarily voting right is that the understanding of the other two committee members on yeah i think that was the kind of the gist of the conversation was that they wanted to participate but if the reason the voting came up if i remember correctly was because of the quorum issue so in terms of the actual membership they were comfortable with the three voting members for purposes of quorum being the council members that's how i recall it and i don't disagree just this is this is a means of formal izing that and i know you know through city legal staff that there was concern with how that makeup so if i understand this correctly your discussion was that a quorum would actually be just the three council members even though there's six more or less three actual members and just for the sake of simplicity three ex-official members which would be the pnz members okay that's good in go ahead a little further along that lines is we knew that there would probably be some items that pnz did not really have any need to weigh in on that the council members would but we would still always have to have four people there if we had six on the body to to be a quorum so somebody from pnz would always have to be there whereas if you only have the three council members you need two council members you've got your quorum and anything anything from pnz is just whether they show up or not didn't matter you know that they didn't have to be there to facilitate us having the meeting and then i guess one other question for me then it would be then just a chair chair and a vice chair for this and they would come from council i would assume yes i would say i'm saying head shaking so yes council member so i have the agenda from the development the development code review committee that we met last time from november 21st 21st 2016 and we did consider and appoint a member of the committee chair and vice chair position that time and so i'm wondering if we have minutes for that meeting so that we may already have a vice chair i know that we could start over but if we do have minutes from this meeting i'd like to see them so so this is a an action item tonight did you want to see it 's not an action item yes it is yes did you want to see the minutes before that or do you want to do you want to if you can't get them do you want to postpone the vote then no i guess so i just i know that we've met we have an agenda and we have it was the same thing we were we were discussing clarion and the code amendments we were doing kind of the exact same thing we're doing now and so if we had something standing and we have minutes and it was all working out i'm just trying to figure out what sure what we're talking about sure and why we're talking about it so would you like to maybe postpone the action item until you can get that information then we can have another discussion at council is that is that would well i'm not sure because i want our committee to be able to meet and and do the things that we need to do but this is just for for me i kind of i want to know all right fantastic okay yes may i from what i can tell the request is that we change the name of the committee to instead of the city council committee to the dentin development code committee that's what it is it's already the dentin development it's called development code review committee okay um all right and then the second thing would be to add the ex officio members the three ex officio members so that's i mean i unless there's some some other change that i'm missing that's all i see in terms of a difference yep well and the one other item that i noticed on there is that this has a sunset clause in it so that the committee dissolves december 31st of this year unless we decide to renew it and that was kind of or from the history that i've heard committee was first put together in 2004 or five and then was reestab lished in 2015 and it's just as we needed that sunset clause in there so that once we're done with the development code that we can you know not have a a committee that's just sitting there not doing anything all right fantastic and and when and that was really my my last point in this system yes mr city attorney i just wanted to direct the council's attention to section four we threw that in there i don't know if your intent is to actually create subcomm ittees during this process so we went ahead just included in that just in case you did create one do you all wish to continue to have that in there or just strike it out strike it okay okay all right so we'll get a revised ordinance on that before we vote on it okay any other questions comments thank you appreciate it all right moving on to agenda item 3g receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the development of an ethics policy for all of city of denton employees good afternoon i am cassie augden the director of procurement and compliance i'm here to talk about the employee ethics policy that we have been working on in conjunction with your ethics ordinance that you've been drafting quick overview of the things we're going to discuss the just some background information the need for an ethics policy some of the the differences between the policy for employees and then the ethics ordinance and and then some of the major highlights of the policy and then next steps quick background as you know a charter election was held on november 7th 2017 proposition d was approved with approved the adoption of an ethics ordinance um since that time you all have been working with attorney alan borquez to draft the ethics ordinance which is scheduled to be adopted in upcoming weeks during the same time that you were drafting the ethics ordinance employees have been working on an ethics policy for employees we are asking for your feedback and direction today and um seeking direction so why do we need an ethics policy well we have personnel policies and our procurement manual that currently act as our code of conduct for all employees most ethical behaviors are addressed between these two but not all not everything is addressed so one overarching policy um will clearly define expectations and acts as a resource for our employees we've also taken this opportunity to condense and revise a few existing personnel policies into the ethics policy to make it more comprehensive we also want to reflect our core values of integrity fiscal responsibility transparency and outstanding customer service some of the main differences between the ethics policy for employees and the ethics ordinance um we have made every effort to mirror the ethics ordinance where applicable however there's still some differences the gift policy for example is more restrictive we have tried to make a few exceptions to that which i'll talk about in upcoming slide we've also included some social media use and political activity sections and the ethics ordinance that you've drafted prohibits harassment and discrimination for employees those are included in a step in separate personnel policies so we have a harassment prevention policy and equal employment opportunity policy already and the ethics ordinance also establishes a board of ethics to review complaints for employees reports of unethical conduct will be reviewed and processed by human resources and city manager's office so conflicts of interest as you know are challenging for any organization conflicts of interest are situations where personal and professional lives intersect creating the potential to sway decisions there are limits limitless situations that can create a conflict while we can never draft a policy that will address every single one of these situations it does give the policy does help us give us a process as to how to recognize and identify the conflicts as well as how to work through these conflicts the goal of our policy is to address conflicts or potential conflicts through disclosure and rec usal disclosure creates awareness of the conflict and allows for transparency and remediation the compliance department has created disclosure forms that will be made available to all employees on our city's intranet site and the policy encourages employees to be proactive in reporting conflicts of interest as soon as they are aware of the conflict so conflicts of interest can happen in procurement and non-procurement matters so we've specifically identified some a new process for procurement that deals with conflicts of interest we know that conflicts of interest will arise especially with the size of the city and how much we we purchase so we've implemented a new practice in purchasing that actually requires employees to disclose any conflicts or potential conflicts before they evaluate solicitations we are asking that they disclose any personal or financial relationships that would influence their ability to be objective during the solicitation process we want to make sure that the solicitation process is fair and equitable for all bidders as i mentioned earlier the ethics policy is different from the ethics ordinance with regards to gifts specifically we have included gifts meals and entertainment as one as part of the the definition of gifts but we are purposely more restrictive and do not have a dollar value listed for gifts of any amount because they are prohibited we do have a few limited exceptions in the next slide i'll go over if employees receive food food from vendors that they are unable to return the food will be donated to charity for our policy a definition of a gift is it includes but not limited to cash cash equivalents merchandise food baskets trays meals transportation lodging entertainment use of facilities or property and discounts so we have we're already working to communicate this to our vendors many departments have already reached out and let their vendors know of this change if this policy is adopted purchasing will include information about our new gift policy in their solicitation award letters the policy is aimed to address gifts from vendors and contractors the city does business with but in reviewing this policy with employees we did have some concerns and we've tried to address those through the exceptions so the policy was drafted with the intention of prohibiting the types of items like meals provided by vendors attending hospitality events at conferences that are hosted by vendors cash and gift cards from any source those are prohibited tickets for entertainment and raffle items at conferences but after reviewing with employees and discussing the policy we wanted to specifically identify and exempt some items so meals is part of a community event where attendance by the employee is required as part of their essential duties this for instance national night out this is what we've tried to exempt this in our policy and then items received at city sponsored events for employees like the items received at benefits and wellness fair we've identified that as an exemption perishable items given by public expressing general appreciation to the entire department this was an item that we received several a lot of feedback about because several departments receive meals and things provided by churches and civic organizations and appreciation to their entire department and we didn't want to lose that so we were trying to exempt it in our policy that the departments could still receive that as an appreciation from their from the citizens so another exemption is transportation registration meals or lodging provided due to a speech or service the employee rendered at an event this is in conjunction with honorariums which i'll discuss with a later slide and then conference swag bags this was initially identified as something that would have been exempt or i'm sorry that would have been prohibited and we've tried to exempt that based on feedback from employees question yes on the attending hospitality events at conferences so let me think of an example you're at a heck i don't know tml conference or national league of cities or if staff's at a tml conference yes and so uh tml hosts a reception for i guess member cities so does that mean that if your staff if they're having if they have orderers there that you can't go into the event or you can't go in and eat the food or what is exactly the implication of that so what we have been um telling all of our employees is that if it's included in your conference registration if it's part of the conference itinerary that's available to all conference attendees then that's acceptable if it's an item that's outside of the conference scope like a lot of times vendors will host um events like you know appetizers and drinks after the conference events and that would be prohibited okay um yeah i'm trying to run through my list of examples because i mean tml might have been a bit let's say you're at the tml conference and there's who i don't know somebody's there as a booth person or something and they hold something during the conference time it's during the days of the conference i just don't want to create an untenable situation for the employees where you know if it's if you're at a conference and people you know there's places because part of that also is the networking and the being able to interact and so it's a it's a it's a fine line and i'm not quite sure where that is and so anyway that's i just sort of bring that up council member gregor well another example it would be at national league of cities conference and there is a texas delegation gathering all of the cities from texas are invited but it's being hosted by an engineering firm that does business all over the state but they're hosting it they're paying for it and uh but that's a chance for for our council members and our staff to attend and visit with other folks from other cities it sounds to me like i'm not sure because that's not open to everybody at the the national league of cities but it's open to everybody it's it's a texas city so is it prohibited or is it allowed well if it's um if it's something like that that you're paying for it with your conference registration then it would be allowed if not then no it would not be allowed under our policy okay as it's currently drafted yeah i think i think with the professional associations that are more specific to vocations and not necessarily on the broader scale that you're discussing when you go to these conferences many of these vendors it's basic you will see them in the exhibit halls but there will also be rooms set up with drinks with food that sort of thing basically trying to lobby you for your business i think the question is at what point is that line where you're providing a safe playing field for everyone and that that is oftentimes how these issues happen with engineers city managers um you know planners that sort of thing and you know the line right now we're trying to make it a little darker in terms of where that line is and being fair in evaluating vendors that submit proposals to us and you know i think that i think this is going to be something we're going to have to come back and visit from time to time there's going to be scenarios that don't come up but right now with 1500 employees we're trying to make it as easy as possible to understand and that really is the difference with this one is many vendors are not necessarily that careful or subtle about you know trying to to work their way around a process that sort of thing so that's why we're taking a two-prong attack with cassie's group informing them of what our new ethics ordin ances state as well as letting our employees know this is where we see the line this is where it can get across quickly and become an issue so i i appreciate that and i think the example you give is one that probably uh is is one where we would not want our staff to attend but i think the one that i described is one where i think that we would probably um benefit from staff and council attending an event like that so i don't know how you how you and i may be the only one that feels that that's an acceptable activity but if it is i i think it would still be an interesting job for you guys to craft wording that would allow one and not the other well and that's part of what we want to do address with the disclosure um piece because if there is something like that that the employee feels strongly is necessary for their job functions then we want to give them the opportunity but it needs to be disclosed and approved ahead of time council member breaks so i think the event that uh council member gregory was talking about was more of a ticketed event and it was for all of um texas staff and council and it wasn't it was hosted by um some kind of firm but they weren't trying to sell their product specifically it was just more of a kind of a networking and although their name was attached to it they didn't have representatives specifically talking about projects in the city or at least that approach to me um my question is that is there and i think you kind of answered it a special permission like say if a staff is going and they say well this is happening may i or you know would this be appropriate is there an outlet for that type of yes yes there is so we're we're just asking for disclosure and they get approval ahead of time so yes we're trying to we're trying not to just prohibit everything um because we do know things come up but yes it would be disclosure and approval be the route and i think you mentioned it earlier but um one of my questions was if that you met with um a large group of staff or if you had surveys or how did you get feedback so we um we've actually conducted two training sessions with supervisors um we've consulted with hr legal city manager's office um and we have we've been working on this for several months so we have we have v etted a lot of things through employees but we're constantly getting questions and and trying to think through scenarios that um we we receive comments on so okay it's one of those things we're probably better taking i think we've determined we're probably better off taking a little bit more restrictive viewpoint if there if there are networking opportunities we can work through that it's been eye-opening to us um the number of vendors that attempt to take our staff out for lunch and throw private parties for them or whatever and it's it's just one of those things the awareness in the organization is growing but i think we feel like we have to start somewhere and if we need to make some alterations which i'm sure we will uh through experience it's kind of the approach we're taking at this point but it's been interesting what some of the things we've learned okay go ahead council member i i guess one question i have is where do things like chamber of commerce events fall in in play here if it's the the monthly chamber mixer and they've got our girls there is that it is it's it's almost identical to a council's position that if it's a if it's required part of your job and you're representing the city um there's an exception will be an exception for that is it's a normal course of your duties yeah well you shouldn't have eaten that three musketeers bar before talking well and so when you say it's in the normal course of your duties are part of your job i mean so i'm trying to understand that line let's use the chamber of commerce is a good example and let's say it's the economic development staff because i don't know are you saying because we have a partnership with them that there's some kind of formal arrangement that you could say i mean i don't know if going to a mixer is part of your duty of your job but because of that relationship is that is that what i'm i get stuck on that it's part of your job because yeah the staff would be required to work with with them um to make sure that the partnership is successful so that's part of that that's exactly how we would take a look okay so then on this disclosure piece that if let's say somebody's going to a conference and they see the agenda they get these invitations so uh number one um they can obviously fill out a disclosure form to seek i almost call it an advisory opinion you can either say yeah you can do that or no you can't but let's say they're at the conference and something comes up how timely are those able to be turned around and can they is it a formal completion of a form that has to be stamped or is it an email i mean what what exactly form does that take and how's the timeliness of that or is that even something that's been talked about well up to this point it's been very informal um we do have a a formal form and process that it will go through but up to this point we've just been receiving email questions and people have reached out and said hey is this is this okay to attend or should i should i decline well but there but there is a memorialization of the yes the request and the answer via the email so that's really what i mean whether it's a formal form that's right there is a there is a memorialization of that in some kind of and we are trying to keep a log of all of the questions and answers that we that we receive and then provide to make sure that we're being consistent across the organization and that it's documented okay great so memberships on boards commissions and associations that have business with the city will require disclosure and approval through the department the employees department head the intention is to protect the employee and the city from conflicts of interests conflicts can arise when an employee is serving on a board that receives funding from the city or that closely or that works closely with the department which the employee works department heads will consider the employee's job and duties their role in funding decisions as a board or commission member and any conflicts or potential conflicts of interest for both the employee and the city and then disagreements with denials will go through the city manager's office question yeah just just to that so so there's an employee that sits on say a university board or some sort and then that department is looking at a a contract or some kind of payment to that university is this is what this is addressing correct okay yes we're just trying to trying to be transparent in our in our disclosure and be proactive in reporting that and if there is a conflict then it'll be you know either the employee will be asked to be recused from the board or for that particular instance but it will at least it will be vetted through the department head and city manager's office so real quick on that i know with the council with the ethics ordinance or policy we distinguished between governing board that was sort of in some language that was helpful based upon some of it is is that sort of implied in this or no i mean it doesn't matter whether you have any board or not if you're on the board you need to you need to do this we want to see that disclosure a lot and there's a lot of times funding decisions and and with the with the staff member it's a little different than a council member because you're facilitating funding okay right where you're approving it and so that i mean those are the things we're looking for at this point we've had several staff members that um you know we we certainly encourage that participation with you know united way for instance we've got several employees actually they're involved in united way but none of them make funding determination decisions that's okay my role and so these these are the things that we we're weighing and just trying to make sure that that we're vetting out and that we're aware of okay so go ahead council member gregory so i just want to make sure because i think it would be valuable if we had city staff members who were free to and willing to serve as members of service organizations whether it's the koanas club or rudory club or lions or optimist would this prohibit them from being members of those organizations not at all would it prohibit them from being officers in those organizations no um i will tell you to your point we've had a we've had a couple of higher level employees though that have been members of some of our local uh charities who have been requesting funding from the city and after discussing the the repeated recusal one of them i can think of in general that i'm staring at right now um you know um you know he ultimately decided not to continue on because of the perception of where his position ranked and the recommendations being made to you and these are important decisions to make sure that we've got an equal playing field out there i mean again the facilitation of funding versus your ultimate approval they're just different issues to deal with and think about you know and and i understand the you know the thing with the vendors is probably more important to me right now i i have had calls from vendors i can think of a couple of engineering firms that had seen uh you know a staff member or two in the past out at lunch with another one and say you know do we should really even bid on this i've seen so and so having lunch with a different vendor and you know do i even have a shot i mean these these are things that vendors and in the public they make their own minds up about and we're well we're never going to solve all those issues the whole goal is to make sure that our employees are insulated to the extent we can insulate them and be that every but both vendors and the employees are thinking about the importance of a level playing field um yeah but in terms of the service organizations it really is an issue to me of policy requests by the council are where we're facilitating those and those aren't always money but if they are financial we for sure want to know that and make sure that you don't feel like there was an unbalanced recommendation put your way so a couple of clarifying questions on that um on this one let's say there's somebody from the street department who's on the board of uh giving hope inc but the committees that decide the funding recommendation and all that have nothing to do with the street department right are you saying that they would or would not have to disclose there's a does there have to be a nexus between their uh participation on that board commissioner association and the the business that they have with the city yeah we would want to know about it and that's what we're encouraging is let us know about it but would it necessarily impact our we would probably we probably counsel that employee that you know to go ahead and fulfill their their duties but because they have absolutely no control at all in terms of how whether that position's vetted and funded through my office finance or the council um if it was brian i'd have a big problem with that so it just depends again your organization is so vast what is your role right and then on your example of a staff member let's say going to lunch with a vendor now what i've seen in the policy is they cannot accept gifts meals or blah blah blah of that so if they're eating lunch and they're paying for their own lunch you're not saying you're prohibited from socializing with or are you saying that no i'm not okay yeah go on go on your own dime okay gotcha all right yep okay so the city already has a social media policy but it only deals with how the city's social media accounts are should be handled and we wanted to make sure that we included social media use because there are it can have a reflection on the city and employees need to be aware that there are potential conflicts of interest through social media so we have worked closely with the city's attorney's office in drafting this section as to not violate employees rights but we have included it as part of our ethics policy political activity i'm sorry can you go back one slide yes so could a city employee then comment about something pertaining to their own job like an opinion related to their own position at the city as long as they state that i guess i'm trying to draw the line between a personal opinion about your position at the city or something that includes your position versus what your actual role and your advocacy of that yes that's very difficult it's been very difficult to craft this section specifically but no we're not saying that they can't make comments just being aware of what they're communicating and being make sure that they're being truthful and we didn't want to prohibit their ability to you know raise public concern legitimate concerns if there was something that needed to be raised a city attorney had a comment on that as well one of the biggest concerns that we have with trying to and how we draft a social media policy is is even within the federal court system in various states including our own the the case law as to social media and public employees and first amendment rights is still fluid and and changing you know every every day or every year and so we do know that for you know employees do not lose their first amendment rights even if they're commenting on something that involves their work if it is a legitimate public concern so those are the those kind of analysis we need to do and so we were very careful in drafting this and we did leave an out inside the policy that if they feel that one of these restrictions is impacting on their first amendment right of free speech there is a opportunity to bring to raise that and have a hearing or a review by the city manager's office in our office to determine that question because this is a a new a relatively new area of legal jurisprud ence that is still developing council member hussman question for for staff did you consider adding a paragraph regarding an account being hacked or something like that that there's a disclosure requirement because that if putting on your black hat right that's your first go-to oh my account was hat you know and so if there's a way to require disclosure once they know obviously can't disclose if you didn't know but a disclosure to kind of close that loophole seems like it would be effective but i don't know and i would hope that employees who have their social media accounts hacked which does happen especially on the facebook that they would at least report that to us and and in something that if they if they didn't do it but all these messages are being posted it's something the city manager's office would take into consideration on on whether the policy has been violated or not yeah that i mean i agree with you if some if it was genuine but if it was disingenuous that's my concern that it that it be it's it's an out you know at least the first time so it's like hey i'm going to post it if i get called to the carpet you know but if there's something that said you have a if you know you have a duty to disclose that then all of a sudden it closes that loophole let's say uh if you you know you knew wednesday but you didn't say anything until you were called on it i mean it's it's up to you but that that i see that as a if it were me you know type approach i would see that as you that's a loophole that's a good point we you know we'll certainly take a look at that both cassie and city manager's office and review that and try to address it as best as we can political activity has been addressed in several existing personnel policies and the solicitation policy absence for voting policy and email use policy all speak to political activity but we thought it was appropriate to fold it into the proposed ethics policy employees are prohibited from engaging in political activity while on duty and we've also added while in city uniform to this to this section as well the nepotism policy was previously a freestanding policy personnel policy but in order to align with the ethics ordinance we have included nepotism as part of this these proposed ethics policy so we are proposing to redact the current nepotism policy as part of the adoption of this ethics policy the policy mirrors your ethics ordinance prohibiting employment by any person related to council within the third degree of affinity or consanguinity we do have a provision similar to yours that talks about employees already employed for at least six months they're not required to transfer or resign if a relative is appointed to council city manager or department head however the employee may not report directly to their relative the secondary employment policy is currently called an outside employment policy this will also be we're proposing to redact as part of the adoption of the proposed ethics policy the name of this policy was changed to emphasize that the city is the primary employer so this policy from the current form is changing in that we are requiring disclosure and approval of any out secondary employment by employees just to ensure that we do not we're not creating a conflict of interest there are some the police department already has a requirement so we have we've drafted language that's similar to to what they already have but the intention is to protect the employee and the city from unintended consequences of secondary employment and then some other items that we've included in our policy honorariums they were were were prohibited in accordance with state law this was not previously mentioned in any of our personnel policies so we wanted to include it in our ethics policy games of chance at conferences have been have been prohibited including raffles prizes and drawings at conferences since these events are usually sponsored by vendors use of city resources should be used for city business only no private purposes we have also included an annual training requirement similar to the ethics ordinance and then reports of unethical conduct by city employees will be reviewed by hr and city manager's office so the next steps we are proposing the adoption of this of the resolution approving the employee ethics policy for next council meeting on april 17th as part of that will redact the current nepotism policy and outside employment because we're including them in the ethics policy we've scheduled informational sessions for all employees in the next few weeks after the adoption of the policy these will be facilitated i'm sorry the ethics training classes will also be facilitated by compliance and hr staff to to meet the requirements of the annual training component in the policy the procurement manual and the personnel policies will be revised and brought to you at a future date for consideration and that is all that i have for you councilmember breads i have a question if you could go back to the the slide so the games of chance yes um raffles what have you um so i just immediately went to the mayor's breakfast when um people put their business cards in a hat and are given little bags and stuff so you're saying that if we have a city employee that attends that they're not allowed to participate in that giveaway right so we're saying if they're representing the city at an event um or the that's paid for by the city so at a conference that we've paid the registration they are not allowed to participate in those raffles and drawings um we had some conference we found out that some conferences were giving away cars and ipads and things like that that the employees were allowed to participate so um we've we've chosen to prohibit that even if if you pay for the the raffle ticket with your own money that's something that we have we've gotten some feedback from employees and we've said that if they've paid for the the ticket with their own money then they can participate but if the city is paying the dime if it's included in the conference and you know you go to a booth and they just have put your business card in then no that's prohibited oh okay mayor pro tem so cars i can understand that but a lot of times they'll just give you like kind of trinket type things or i don't know call it like it's a minimus like a notepad or something like that as an as a gift for the game of chance are those included as well like if you get a water bottle for instance so the game of chance would be prohibited but we have addressed marketing items of nominal value that are widely distributed at events as an exception in the gifts section of the policy does separate from like the swag bags correct but if if it's a reward or a prize as a game of chance then it's not allowed correct okay on the uh second secondary employment second job because that's it's my understanding that because of the scheduling that many of our fire personnel may have second second jobs have you had discussions with them not just maybe administrative staff you know management staff but with the fire fighters association the rank and file about that and have has there been discussion with them because they i know that a lot of them do engage in in second jobs because of their work schedule so have we had any conversations with them to sort of we have not met with the rank and file but we did talk to the chief and several and the assistant chief to see what their take on this was and they were in the the discussions as far as the policy review i'm looking at carla because she she had headed that up um spearheaded this policy change so we did include them in all of our conversations okay so let me make sure so they disclose their second job whoever and then you're saying that management i guess you or whoever makes these decisions can say you can or cannot have that job is that understanding correct if it if it has a a conflict of interest with your primary position of the city so if they were volunteering let's say a fire person that was volunteering as an emt or somebody who was a volunteer fire person for their local community they would and got some kind of remuneration for it i said volunteer let me back that up it's some kind of remuneration for that then there would be a decision on whether they could continue to do that whether or not it caused a conflict in their current position correct okay all right um i would suggest that you might have some conversation with the rank and file on that maybe as well as what the police officers were were they was it the same you talked with management not sort of we've included them in our conversations but they are already do this okay they already have that yes they already have an approval process that they have to go to for secondary employment all right good okay thanks that's right you said that i appreciate that okay yes follow up on that the uh the county uses the same building code as the city of denton and as a result there are some people that are building outside the city that are required to meet uh you know have inspections and uh the some of our city building inspectors inspect on saturdays or after hours uh these properties outside the city is that a conflict we would have to look at it i don't i don't think so but we have had situations we're building inspectors we're working with builders outside of the city um after hours on weekends and that would be a problem so you know it i don't think it would be a problem uh as you 're describing it um we're really looking for those things that are just obvious in terms of potentially impairing judgment or questioning calls they're making especially in these cases where there there could be money involved or permits issued that sort of thing all right any other oh next steps i'm sorry oh i've already i've already you talked about that yeah i'm done any other questions comments okay thank you very much i appreciate it thank you do you have a question oh yes councilmember breaks i'm sorry you may have brought it up and i just didn 't but we do have non-discrimination and harassment policies yes are those going to be included in this or are they going to stay separate um so we've included some language in the social media section but they will stay separate because they're pretty comprehensive policies already so we felt like they needed to be standalone okay thank you yes mayor pro tem not on this item okay um i think we're we're moving into our closed session is that what you had a question well i was wondering if we could briefly really briefly reopen the dcta item i don't know if that's possible because i just remembered after we went to break that i had requested a dollar amount for our suggestion to dcta and we never discussed that on the resolution yeah uh is that appropriate sure sure uh based upon mayor pro tem's request we will now go back and reopen uh work session item three which one was that b d d 3d yes all right mayor pro tem thank you i appreciate it i just wanted to get input on what the actual dollar amount would be for a suggestion for an annual expenditure on improvements um taking into consideration that they've spent about 60 000 per year over the last five years we give them one 15 million um and a bench cost 10 000 or 1000 is what they said so just kind of give people a number frame of references you it's your um sort of request what would you suggest i'd say 250 would be my starting point for just saying that this is what we expect every year in terms of amenities and that's strictly to the city of den yes yes all right because i think the 300 000 you mentioned was across was that sit was that just for the city it was for the city of den but it was over the course of six years right yeah five years so are you saying to 250 000 per year yes for amenities at bus stops yeah so benches um ada improvements shelters pavement all right question that's uh she's got a sort of a suggestion on the floor council member husband yeah i just so work me through the math just i mean i just want to have supporting question comes up i want to be able to support it so if you can just work me through how you got there i mean i think that's it's i mean of 12 million dollars that's only going to go up i think i mean the number doesn't shock me i just want to make sure i understand the methodology behind it i might have got the math wrong but i was trying to do like point oh half percent of what we give them but that's probably even somebody help me with the math 15 million point oh five percent so that'd be point oh five right point oh five right yeah so half of it yeah and i didn't use my calculator at seventy five thousand dollars okay that's if i'm right unless i've got an extra decimal what i remember is him saying that this feds give them a half percent a half of one percent so that would be the 75 well that would be 100 yeah based upon what half a percent of what one percent of our money oh okay okay yeah so the feds are giving them 150 000 i would say that we should get more than that okay that's my guess okay all right any comments questions uh if i don't hear a lot of objections then we'll say that that would be what we would put in our resolution and then of course the the dct board could act on it as they see fit yeah i'm good with that all right any okay all right you bet so we will close out that agenda item 3d we will now convene in closed session at 4 46 p.m on april the 10th 2018 and we will consider we will convene to consider the following items deliber ations regarding a personnel matter under texas government code section 551.074 this whole room had miked up hey welcome everybody back to this meeting of the dent city council it is we are now in our special called session for april april the 10th 2017 18 i'm all discombobulated now it is seven not it's 758 and we'll move through our agenda our first item on the agenda is the consent agenda council member ryan i will move approval of consent agenda items b and c and are we we are pulling pulling a pulling individual all right consideration council member gregory second we have a motion and second for approval of consent agenda items b and c for pulling agenda item a for an item for individual consideration all in favor please signify by raising your right hand passage unanimously we will now take a consent agenda item 1a as an item for individual consideration i will read the caption conduct the second of two readings and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton for a voluntary annexation of approximately 0.30 acres thank you mayor council this is the second and final reading of the annexation for a 17-0006 the property is located as you recall on the east side of old altman road just south of teesley the applicant is proposing commercial development and uh the adjacent zoning for the property was approved in october 29 2017 once this property is annexed they are also going to rezone to cmg and um for the purpose of a automobile repair facility if you'll recall this is actually part of this adjacent lot right here this is the final reading of the ordinance and since it is the final reading of the ordinance i'll read the caption of the ordinance to you an ordinance of the city of denton texas voluntarily annex ing approximately 0.3 acres of land generally located on the east side of old alton road south of the intersection of old alton road and teesley lane by the city of denton denton county texas more specifically described in exhibit a and illustrated in exhibit b providing for a correction to the city map to include the annexed lands providing for a savings clause and an effective date and that concludes my presentation staff recommends approval councilmember gregory thank you mayor i move approval of the ordinance as presented council member ryan i'll second we have a motion to second just want to make a just a clarification that i know in both presentations it's talked about the zoning that they will uh then try to seek or that will will apply for but in no way is that does this annexation guarantee them the right of that rezoning that they've spoken of they in fact there if this is approved their first hearing before the planning and zoning commission for that zoning is tomorrow night okay all right well there you go uh okay we have a motion and a second for agenda item 1a all in the favor please signify by raising your right hand all right passes unanimously thank you very much we'll go on to then uh our items for individual consideration under category agenda item 2 which is 2a consider adoption of an ordinance author izing the settlement of litigation style city of denton texas versus rts and m mayor and council uh trey lanceford deputy city attorney what you have before you tonight is a proposed uh ordinance for the approval of a settlement of the rts and m condemnation case this follows on the closed session that we had two weeks ago the agreed final judgment and condemnation that is attached to the ordinance rolls in all that was discussed two weeks ago and was within the authority granted by council at that time so staff recommends approval all right just for uh just additional clarification so this 2.5 is all in no prejudgment interest that's it outside of maybe some uh attorney's fees we may have to pay outside of this particular settlement for for if any that we might have incurred as for our own attorney's fees yes that's correct that's correct as far as paying any of theirs it's not no this is all inclusive okay all right okay council member gregory thank you mayor i move approval of item 2a council member duff a second yes mayor protein can you just provide a tiny bit of background on the case in terms of you know when the condemnation started the phase of the project things of that nature just for the public certainly um the case itself was filed back in june of 2014 it's a condemnation case for the mayhill road widening project the city was looking to acquire three different interests from this particular property one was a municipal use tract in fee of right at about four and a half acres the other was the actual right of way for the road the wider road part itself that was roughly 7.4 acres also in fee and a slope easement to the inside of the tract of that of roughly 0.8 of an acre and so it went through the special commissioner's hearing and then proceeded on through litigation um following much negotiations it was set for trial currently in may okay so 2014 special commissioners was i guess 2013 or 2014 2014 and the road plan is i guess currently in progress right right after the special commissioner's hearing the city deposited the award amount into the registry of the court allowing the city to take possession at that time so this part of the road project is currently underway thank you yes ma'am any other questions or discussions for this particular agenda item all right um let's see we had a motion and a second i believe council member grager made the motion and council member duff seconded uh all in favor of agenda item 2a please signify by raising your right hand all opposed all opposed by like sign so motion carries five to two agenda item 2b uh consider approval of a resolution of the city council the city of texas creating the ad hoc development code review committee to consider and advise the city council whether and what manner to revise the current development code is that yeah yes thank you mayor council scott mcdonnell development services um you have before you is a a copy of resolution it is an amended resolution what was presented earlier this is to consider the approval of this resolution creating an ad hoc committee the differences in the resolution that was proposed earlier to this is that um you 'll notice in section three that the committee will be composed of three city council members three planning and zoning commissioners they will commit or participate in the committee um as non- voting ex officio members uh the city city council members will um ultimately be two of the three to make a quorum and they will serve in the role of chair and vice chair for the committee section four was deleted in the earlier which made reference to subcommittees and uh ultimately section eight is still in there which contains the sunset provision meaning that this committee shall terminate in december 31st of 2018 or the council may reconsider doing that action okay any questions for staff chair would entertain a motion or action council member r yan i'll move approval we have a motion for approval council member gregory second we have a motion and a second all in favor of agenda item 2b let's signify by raising your right hand motion carries unanimously we'll go on to agenda item 2c consider an appointed member to replace mayor protem sarah bagheri on the development code review committee who's handling that yes well so now is it still called the development review committee or it says development code review committee is that the ordinance we just passed is that is that still what it's called uh yes it's the the development code review committee okay yes just want to make sure it's going to be the same yes yeah yeah well i i asked this item to come up because i figure it would be better to have consistency on the revisions um we've had two meetings already but i think the next one is the one where we're actually going to get into the meat of the items in the code so um i think it would be best for somebody to take my spot since i'm going to be off on may when is the next meeting we don't have one yet okay all right there's definitely one on the 17th though if i'm remembering correctly or the 18th 18th yes the next the next scheduled with clarion is on the 18th is that the one you asked me about i don't know about being taking your place yeah i mean yeah i'm i can nominate somebody well i mean nominations i don't see anybody scram one over the table to to be on it so unless unless there's somebody else that wants to i mean i'll i'll certainly step up unless somebody 's really got a burning desire to do it i can't i advocated against it so that would probably be confusing potentially okay yes i nominate the mayor okay well dies for no i'm just kidding council member gra ger i second all right all in favor signify by raising your right hand passage unanimously okay that leads us to concluding items concluding items just one yes i have a district two conversation coming up on sunday at north branch library um on human trafficking from two to four for the the public and citizens if they're interested great okay fantastic thank you yes council member hussle thank you so a few things so um going to be on the on the 12th and i thank staff and mr city manager for helping me on the 12th going to be at betty meyers they're having a um um what is it a college day or professionals day there that evening so we'll be out there with staff uh its assistant kind of have a table booth that sort of thing so i think that'll be great uh interaction with the kids there um and then i wanted to on a saturn note so there's two instances so there's former council member mark chew passed away it's past friday um so they hadn't and i've not seen anything for services yet but um that led me to thinking i i wonder if there's something we could do as a council kind of going forward kind of a process to honor former uh people that served i don't know what that would look like but just wanted to uh put that forward and and um condolences to his family and then it just kind of struck me um having a dad that has two kids college age the so there's the other family the vandergrift family that trials going forward in tarrant county and and young lady that was a student at tw so uh just uh condolences to her family kind of and i hope um closure comes this week whatever form that takes but just wanted to let them know uh that family know they were top of mind and it takes a lot to to have your kid uh trust your kid with the to go off to college and so just whatever that kind of translates to be it just kind of stuck out to me so i wanted to at least let that family know they were top of mind so thank you good thank you very much thank you anybody else and and i do believe the uh i either saw an email or something about i think the the time for the services have been set for mr chew um but so i think it's uh either on the website or um but thank you for that i appreciate you bringing that up any other concluding items fantastic then we will stand adjourned at 8 10