Jun 19, 2018 City Council on 2018-06-19 2:00 PM

Welcome, everybody, to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. I'm going to call this meeting to order. We do have a quorum. Everyone's present. It is 2.01 p.m. We'll move down through our agenda items for this work session. The first item is citizen comments on consent agenda items. Do we have any blue cards for consent agenda items? Seeing none. Okay. Move on to agenda item number two, request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda for June 19, 2018. Any clarification? Yes, Councilmember Briggs. So consent agenda item A, just to confirm that this was one of the properties that was we were asked that was asked to sell in correlation with the conversation about the North Dog Park as funds that would go towards that. Is that am I remembering that correctly or is that something different? The consent agenda A, that has to do with the number of we were actually authorized to and directed to sell a number of properties that the city owned and we're not currently using. So I believe that is one of those properties that we have been taking bids on. I'm looking for my consent agenda. Yeah. Paul, Mike. Okay. Thank you. The track was purchased by DME funds and so the funds for that one actually go back to the account that you came out of. So that's not that part. I just remember there was a conversation about selling some property to fund the dog park so that's not that. Okay. Yeah, well, I mean, surely that's the for DME. Okay. Thank you. I would like to pull item B, please, for B as in boy. And are you going to want a staff report on that? Yeah, just a just a presentation, please. And also item H, just a question. I know that we are reappointing someone who has been on this and before we did that, before we had the ethics ordinance, I'm not sure I just want to make sure that there's not any any conflicts with our nominee now that we have an ethics ordinance and I'm going to be asking the same question a little bit later. Is this the one for Mr. G? Okay. All right. So your question is, are we pulling that or you just have a question? It's just a question. I'm not pulling it. I just want to know. I mean, and if there is I guess obviously we should but is anyone is each staff aware of any potential conflict pursuant to the new ethics ordinance regarding that appointment? I see no one approaching the podium. So okay. Thank you. All right. You bet. Anyone else clarification of agenda items? Okay, so I want to make sure I understand it's it's the only one that we're pulling is item B as in Baker. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. We'll move into our work session reports. Report hold discussion give staff direction regarding capital improvements to downtown Muse streets. This is agenda item 3a. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Brian Langley, Deputy City Manager. I want to visit with you today about streets around the square. This is just off the square commonly known as the Muse streets. And I'll show you a map here in just a moment of some of those. So be a little clearer. A few months ago, the council requested that we come back with some options of how we can improve these particular areas. So we want to come back and talk to you specifically about how to improve the pedestrian accessibility beautification of these areas, the dumpsters and so forth of this area of downtown. And then we're going to be seeking some direction of how you want to proceed on those what we call the Muse streets again, which is Walnut, Austin, Pecan and Cedar streets. So here's a map of that area. Hopefully you can see my cursor here. This is the downtown courthouse. And then the streets we're talking about are highlighted here in the purple color, Pecan, Austin, Walnut and Cedar. Again, collectively we refer to those as the Muse streets. So some of the issues that are present in that area is a lack of walkable sidewalks. And I will have some photos. I know a lot of you know the area very well. We all know the area very well. But sometimes when you drive through it, you don't quite notice some of the issues. So I'll show you some photos here in a moment so you can see a little bit more clearly some of the issues that we're talking about. But lack of walkable sidewalks that are connected in that area. There's a lack of ADA accessibility. Some of the ramps need work. Parking is certainly an issue. You'll see examples of dumpsters in the streets of these particular streets that we have. Electric transformers where we have some electric infrastructure that's also there that needs to be corrected. And just in general, a lack of landscaping, a lack of beaut ification to really complement the square of the issues that we see. One of the other points I want to make to you is that really to do any kind of major improvements to these areas, we're going to have to look at narrowing the streets. And we think that that would be a one-way access around those new streets to get the type of right of way you would need to have larger sidewalk s and green space change, really fundamentally change how the parking and the dumpsters are placed in those particular areas. So I'll show you that in just a moment. So just some photos. Again, I know everyone's familiar with the area, but I do think it's helpful to look at these in isolation. Sometimes, again, you just don't catch all this when you drive through or walk through. But this is Walnut looking west. You can see the building which goes right up next to the sidewalk. There's not much room here. And all of the dumpsters that are out for all the businesses in that area, all on the right of way. And then you can see here some of the pedestrians that are walking basically just through the street because that's the only real accessible areas that we have. >> Brian, could you give me some -- is this -- do you know what building this is that we're looking at the back of? >> That's the blue building. Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick. >> Okay. So -- >> Augra Dulce is down here. Or on this side right here. >> Okay. >> Back on this side. >> So then the square -- the back of the buildings to the square are this -- >> Back up here. Right. >> Where's the cursor? >> Sorry. Back up that direction. >> No, it's right here where those people are walking. >> Oh, excuse me. Yes, I'm sorry. >> All right. So that's the back of the buildings that are facing the square on Hickory, I believe. Is that right? Okay. All right. I just took all these photos. I want to make sure I'm -- >> Okay. I just want to make sure I'm sort of oriented. >> Yes, sir. Again, some other pictures of Walnut. So this is on the other side of the dumpsters looking west as well. So you can see how the sidewalk is positioned right next to the building. Some of the debris and issues that we have with the dump sters. This is on the north side. I think it's interesting here because you can see how some of the parking goes up right into where the sidewalks are. Some of the wooden staircases that are here. You have electric transformers that are right here in the middle of the walkway. Similar kinds of issues on Walnut looking east. I believe this is a grease trap that's here. And we also have some electric transformer infrastructure here. Again, some of the parking you can see behind here with the dumpsters. Mixed mash of all these types of things that you see on these corridors that really needs to be addressed in some kind of systematic way is what we 're looking at. Yes, sir. So most of the parking on that street is on the north side back behind the buildings on the square. That's right. Yes, sir. And do you have a slide that tells how many parking spots there are on that side? I don't think we have that. We can certainly get it for you. Okay. Just curious. All right. So this is Walnut at Cedar looking east. There's Algo Dolce there. You can see again some of the parking issues here and then dumpster, grease trap, electric infrastructure all put together which kind of really interferes with all those uses. Do you have a comment or keep going? I'm just curious if we know how many grease traps are around in these areas. I mean in this area you're talking about. Quite a few. Probably five to seven or maybe more than that. Ten to twelve is the answer I'm getting. Okay. So there's more than that. Thank you. Here is Austin Street. You can see. I'm sorry, my husband has it. Yes sir. Question for city manager. This street specifically, have we had any movement in that request that we discussed? No. We have met with a developer who is interested in possibly developing this particular area and is also needing an easement from the city or to acquire some of this property to facilitate the development. So we met with them about a month ago and asked them to red raw the plans and get back to us. DME in particular had some concerns about relocation of transformers. So still waiting to hear back. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So that raises a question for me. And that is, I mean we're having this presentation and we 're going to be asked to give some direction and so I want to, I need to know what's happening maybe. I mean just so that I think that, I think that figures into what's happening here. In this particular area we've got a developer that is interested in potentially connecting the buildings that front Hickory Street with this particular lot and the concept that we've seen and this has been on the books for two or three years in various iterations would be to connect a building that includes this particular parcel. Walnut Street here may or may not play a role in that in terms of either building over Walnut Street or actually you take some of Walnut Street easement in order to facilitate a parking deck and relocate some of the transformers. We've had a number of conversations and this plan has been in at least two or three different iterations I can think of since I've been here but we've not had a firm plan right now. It's an idea and no movement, nothing really hard that we can come to the council with and say this either makes sense, it doesn't make sense and because it hasn't been able to pencil out for him. And you're only talking about the portion of Walnut Street that is, it looks like it's west of what is that Elm Street and towards Carroll? It's between Elm and Austin. So it's that portion of Elm and Cedar I'm sorry and it's that portion of Walnut. This is the parking lot over here in this area. That's the proposed area. I just want to make sure that I have all the landscape. That's a good point. Alright just a few more photos. Again here's Austin Street you can see here this great shot of some of the electric infrastructure that we have, parking, dumpsters that are there. This is another view of that just some of the steps, the difficulties and kind of walking through this area. A lot of people end up just walking into the street. So I see that on the right I see the Methodist Church so that gives me an orientation there. So then Austin Street these businesses that are here is this the side of the square that had the fire or no? Yes. It is. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well no no no I just want and so then on the other side that's the other side of Austin. Oh it's the same side just further down the street. Oh. Those are both photos of the west side of Austin. Okay gotcha. Yeah. Okay gotcha. One looking south and one looking north. Gotcha okay. Right. Pecan Street again this is another grease trap that you can see here. Here in this location again some of the parking challenges that you see with some of the infrastructure that's there. Mayor. Yes. I might point out that those grease traps smell an awful lot worse than they look. They don't look very nice either so. I'm sure they smell bad. They just smell that much worse. Okay. Cedar Street as you know we did do some improvements on C edar Street so you can see a lot of the paving has been improved here much nicer appearance with some of the amenities here but we still do have the the dumpster issue that's right in the middle of the street in some cases and you can see another one under this location here. So the options that we want to talk to the council about today are looking at some comprehensive improvements for those areas. Again improving walkability, landscaping, beautification, waste management, ADA, all of that all those issues that we looked at. We do believe that would require an engineering study to come in and take a look at that look at those options give us some conceptual plans that we could consider with some cost and I'll talk to you more specifically about what that would look like. Another potential option would be just looking at solid waste improvements trying to to change how waste is handled in the square area looking at reducing the number of dumpsters looking at compactors some of those kinds of issues maybe going to a bag service. It's my understanding those have been talked on and off again for 10, 15, 20 years and then but we could look at that and come back with a solution or certainly retain the status quo. So I'll go through a little bit of details of each of these with you. Again the comprehensive improvements, the walkability to us that means pedestrian scale lighting in this whole area we've already done some of that out of the TIF that the council authorized recently. This would begin looking at ADA ramps, sidewalk repairs and replacement, crosswalks and some traffic calming types of artwork that could be put in these intersections and I'll show you an example of that in a moment. Beautification just in general would be landscaping improvements so you might have some meandering sidewalks and green some grass, trees, shrubs those kinds of things which would complement the area with benches those kinds of things. Waste management improvements again looking at all the dump sters in the area trying to get those out of the right of way or put them in areas with revetments around them to conceal the appearance. Prove parking, striping so again comprehensive looking at all those things together and coming back with a plan. So we had one of our internal staff members look at just a conceptual rendering of what this might look like. This is certainly not a final plan just something to give you an idea of what something like this might look like from a comprehensive evaluation. Again this does shrink the width of the street as I mentioned to you a lot of these streets or sidewalks are right up next to the buildings. The buildings certainly aren't going to go anywhere so to make room for some of those kinds of improvements you've got to shrink the width of the street. In this case it's gone to one way looking at some of these trees that we've placed here into the landscaping areas some pavers decorative pavers of enhanced parking. You'd have some revetments down here for the dumpsters. This is an example of some of the traffic calming art that could be here. This is again just a concept. It could be any pattern any kind of example of something that you think would make sense. The idea would be as people drive into these intersections it causes you to slow down as you're coming into a more pedestrian oriented area as you get into the square. Yes Councilmember Gregory. A couple of years ago at the National League of Cities conference in Nashville we were walking several blocks from the hotel to the convention center and we were noticing that there were no trash bags on the street and that there were no big dumpsters on the street and we started trying to figure out where the trash is and realized that there were several buildings that had little garage doors and the trash was being held in there and completely out of sight and then looking around now paying attention to other cities. More urban centers that seems to be a fairly common thing. Have we done any investigation as to how that's done? Does the city just require the businesses to construct those containment center areas? Does the city come to some kind of a contract with the building owner to build those and provide those as available? Do we have any idea about that in terms of a to me it seems like the most unsightly way and the most secure way to hold trash in a way that doesn't let barments and stuff get in there. I haven't personally done any of that research and we can certainly look into this further. I know a lot of the new developments that are going in those can be requirements that you have as the private developers to construct those kinds of improvements so they can hide the waste. I guess the question would be for an existing building or something in the square that's got a lot of history and where would you actually put something like that? That would be the question. I'm not sure if they're really an available location on a private property to do that. We can certainly look at it. It looked to me like Nashville is an older town than Denton and some of those buildings might have been built in the last 20 years but some of them have been around for a long time and they figured out how to retrofit those. I would just encourage all to at least look at that and consider it. Good point. I just want to make sure I understand what's intended by the illustration. Where you've got the dark and light patterns, is that just intended to be pattern stone or some of those functional structures? I think at this point it's just patterns. Something to be more decorative, interesting walk spaces. It could be something that would be functional at some point. Again, just a concept to get you thinking about possibilities. I just want to make sure I understand what the concept was and what's intended by the white three dimensional structure on the left. This is meant to show where a wall might be for a building that's there now, how you could kind of design something to go adjacent to a building, how that would look. It's not a particular design ready for construction or anything like that. Oh, of course. Do you see anything that would prevent in this kind of a streetscape freestanding shade structures? The outdoor space always looks really attractive on drawings but not so much many of the weeks in Denton where it's super hot. I think that's a great point. Certainly if we wanted to proceed further that would be a design element we could look at as periodically having some shade structures that could be an area where people could sit and gather. Those could be an element we could certainly add. Certainly in June, July, August, those are great things to have. If you could go back to the previous slide, please. Yes, sir. So and I'm just going to say it's the top is north and the bottom south. Sure. So you've got all the businesses that back up that their back of their buildings that face the square are on that side. Yes, sir. As far as loading and unloading, you've got trucks coming in, you've got catering services back there, you've got one that probably has delivers goods to other retail outlets. What is the concept of because if they can't I mean with this configuration you can't have a truck back there delivering. So that means they're going to be on the square which we've had some issues about how do we monitor that because they just stop and depending on what time of day it really creates a really -- Yeah, you're right. If you're wanting to load your business, if you're doing something from your business, you can't load it in the back anymore or unload in the back . I think what we'd like to look at is options as we bring forward. If the council did want to proceed in this direction, how could you design some of those loading zones on each one of these streets that might work? I'm not sure I know the answer to that but those are obviously an element that has to be looked at. But you're right, this concept does not show that. And as far as the -- You know what one of the solutions would be? I'm afraid to even ask. Well, yeah, you should be. Because it would be instead of front end angled parking, it would be back end angled parking. Okay, I'm not going to ask. And then they could load and unload very easily. Because nobody's going to park there. So on the dumpster issue. Yes, sir. Because I know we've looked at -- not we, but there's been people who have asked us and there's technology out there that have trash recept acles, dumpster receptacles that are in the ground and that trucks come up, pull them out, dump them and they put them back down in. Has that been something that's been considered for this? I mean, I know we've got a lot of utilities under there, but if the dumpster's sitting there, I mean -- Yeah, we've looked at those. They're fairly expensive. They require specialized equipment to pull them out. And so that's why we feel like we really need a comprehensive solution that would address that. It could be a component of that of where you locate those and how you locate them. Maybe there's a cluster of them in one particular location. That's where you put them. But that's certainly an option that needs to be considered. And I think -- and I appreciate that. Because I think if that got started in the city -- and so I know there's a high capital investment, initial capital investment of the vehicles. But some developers may appreciate that instead of having a dumpster. Because the worst thing that happens is people see a dump ster and it's all their grass clippings, all their fence panels, all their furniture, their couches, their chairs. And so that would provide an alternative. And from my understanding, it's really a hole in the ground that's got the -- and then the equipment primarily is, I think, the major capital expenditure. Okay. So that would be something that would be looked at more than just from the square area. It could be something that provides either a requirement or some alternative types of trash collecting for private developers. And certainly as we kind of talk through this, I mean, one of the things we could do is a phased approach to these where we do -- rather than doing all of the streets at once, you could do one street at a time, try some maybe technologies out like that, see how it works, see how you like it, and then expand that as you go into other areas. Those are things we could do. I think it's unclear to us exactly how they would work, how the equipment would work and how reliable it would be. It reminds me when we dedicated Cedar Street. Anyway, I won't go back into that story. Yeah. Yeah. I'll keep going then. Yes, please. Again, just some different images you can see of those drawings I showed you. So you have -- these were the revetments. You could have some decorative artistic kinds of styles around those to kind of shield those areas, make them look a little bit more attractive with the landscaping that you'd have. Again, just concepts at this point. Again, this is another piece of the traffic calming art that I was mentioning to you before. I know we've had some discussions with the Public Art Committee about this in the past, and bond committees, and the question was, what does that really mean? Where would it be? How would it work? Again, just a concept to think about, but that could be at those particular points as you're getting into the square, more pedestrian-oriented, slows people down, that kind of thing. Whatever the particular design is, that's up for debate, but just an option for you to think about in that area. So the comprehensive improvement option, again, as I mentioned before, we believe we do need to have an engineering study look at this particular area. There's a lot of interplay between the electric infrastructure, parking requirements, loading zones, size of the streets, the traffic impact analysis that would need to be done for not only the roads, but potential pedestrians and bicycles that might be in those areas and how they interconnect with the whole area. That needs to be done. We'd obviously want to have some community engagement done on this as well to get some feedback from the people that work there, go there for entertainment and so forth. We'd come up with some conceptual designs, bring those back to you, have some estimated costs with them, and some execution strategies as well. We think the cost for that study would be approximately $80 ,000 to do something like that. The solid waste option would be to look at changing how we collect the waste in that area. Here's an example of a revetment where you could have a cluster of dumpsters all in one particular location. This is a large compactor that you could have where you could have small carts that could be around the square. Certainly bag service is something that could be looked at. As I mentioned to you, this has been, for those of you who have been in the community a long time, an ongoing concern, ongoing discussion for really around 20 years or so. We discussed previously with options with stakeholders and no solutions were really agreed upon. Any solution that you come up with, there's going to be some people that like it and some people that don't. It's going to cause issues for others. I think that's really been the reason why some of these plans haven't moved forward over the last several years. Just options for revetment locations. We did map out where some of these might be. If we were going to have some of these larger revetments with several different dumpsters, we could have these here. Again, some people would like where these might be because they might be close to their businesses. Others would be complaining that they might have to walk a long way to take their garbage to that particular area. Again, it's an option for you to consider. You could have the compactors at just two locations where we could have and some screening around those. Again, you're going to have many of the businesses that have to walk a long ways and may be concerned about that. The options, again, just a summary of those and the direction that we're looking for the council to give us today is how do you want to proceed? Option one would be status quo. Obviously, no dollars associated with that. Keep it as is. Look at the solid waste and recycling improvements. Just some preliminary costs on that is about $50,000 per compactor or revetment to do some kinds of improvements with that. That's again just a rough cost based on not doing an engineering design, but just kind of what we see those cost. Or looking at the comprehensive improvements, the study would be about $80,000. We'd request that that would be as part of the upcoming budget. It could be part of the TIF or it could be part of the general fund at your discretion. And then each street we estimate, and this is a rough estimate, about $1.5 million to make all those improvements around each street. That's again a rough estimate. We need that engineering study to give us those concepts and the more detailed drawings so we could look at that. It would be maybe higher than $1.5 million. We only have three streets. So one, Cedar has already been done. It would be the Cedar is done, but there would be some improvements that would need to be made there for the dumpsters, the revetments and those kinds of things, depending on what we did with it exactly. So you're probably looking in the $6 million range to do all four. Yes, Councilmember Briggs. So in the pictures, I saw the grease traps and saw that it was an issue, but I don't see it included here unless that's under solid waste. I mean, will that be included in the study? Because it seemed to be a pretty big problem. Yes, I should have included that on the slide. That's clearly something that needs to be addressed. That's how we have some pictures of those. They look unsightly and apparently smell worse than the site. So we certainly need to look at that as well. Okay. Thank you. Yes, Paul. Councilmember Nelson. I just offer the opinion that this could double, moving toward triple, the muse-facing retail possibilities. And I think it would certainly partially pay back. I don't know if it would be possible to do the analysis in sales tax and in property values, and I would make downtown better. I think doing the study at a minimum is a no-brainer to me. Councilmember Briggs and then Councilmember Ryan. I'm also in favor of the study with the different options. You mentioned the TIF fund as a funding source. I was glad to hear you say that. But I would like to make sure that we address what the mayor said with the loading and unloading zones. I would also like to know old parking numbers versus new parking numbers to make sure that we're expanding the parking. Number of spaces. Yes, please. And include the underground storage of the dumpsters as part of that. And also just to address Councilmember Meltzer, the trees that you see there are the shade structures. That's so big. Yeah. Yeah. Councilmember Ryan. When it comes to the solid waste issue on this, have we looked at what we have in the Williams Square, how far the people who use that now travel and how that would compare if we went to two compactors or one on each street? And what's the frequency? Do we know the frequency on those dumpsters? I don't know that off the top of my head. I can certainly get you that information. Unless Julie, you happen to know, I think Julie Glover, if you know the information, she can give up and answer that real quickly. The people that are using the ones at Williams Square right now include the people on Hickory. So there's like Rusty Taco, Hickory Street Lounge, Hoochies , the Pizza Place, and around the corner all the way back to Eastside Oak. So the people from Eastside have to go pretty far to get up there. I think they're emptying those six days a week right now. The recycle not as often, maybe twice a week. But most of them, especially on Walnut Street, are being picked up six days a week. And by Monday, we still have a mess, especially on Walnut. Okay. So they are all shared and they are all? Everything downtown is shared. We went to a shared system about five or six years ago. But believe it or not, we consolidated them at that time. Yeah, that's the scary part. And on the grease containers, they are actually that might be something we can handle by ordinance, because they are privately owned. And they are they are a source of revenue for the restaurants that sell that grease back or sell that grease to biodiesel and other types of reuse sources. There is money for them, but it's not something that is owned by the city or or currently controlled evidently. Well, to that to that point, and Councilmember Briggs earlier, we can come back with a solution for that, whether it's an ordinance or planning options for how we how we locate them there. Yeah, I I'm certainly in favor of the engineering study. I think I hope that it also begins to think outside the box . I know sometimes that gets challenging for engineering studies sometimes. But any couple of examples? We love our engineers. They're great. I mean, gosh, I'm just saying that sometimes like for instance, we know what you're saying. Number one. Okay. All right. You want to go down? Okay. I mean, for example, the TIF funding, I mean, this this I mean, the TIF was created to really provide some long term comprehensive improvements that to burden the general fund and things such as that would would seem challenging just because of the amount of money targeted for one very specific area. So this I think that would be a good source of funding or part of it. And I think we need to rethink also our trash collection out there. Because when you look at the really high density cities like New York City and all that, now they put them out in bags, which I wouldn't I wouldn't promote that. But they pick up every day because they just there's just too much trash. And so, you know, we're saying we've got to consolidate all these things. We're making all these people walk and we've got these big pieces of equipment. But if people were setting out, let's say those little, you know, green carts every night, if they would hold that much and they're just you just you empty it every night. I would like to see what the cost of that is, because if we 're really wanting to make sure that the downtown continues to improve and become that special place that we want it to, then what we're also saying, which we've also shown by example, is that we're willing to spend the money in order to maintain that and to achieve that goal. And obviously, trash collection has been one of the biggest challenges that we haven't been able to get our hands around. And I think it's because we're still thinking in that mod ality of, you know, sort of collection sites that can hold a lot. The truck can come up, pull it off. And so I just would like to see part of that expanded to what if, you know, the trash was picked up every night and that might be a little extra cost , but they can find a place to store those carts. Or even if you had some underground, I don't know about the underground situation, but I think we need to begin to think outside of our normal kind of paradigm for doing trash collection, quite frankly. And it would be interesting to see what the analysis of those numbers is. So that's what I'm talking about, thinking outside the box. Yeah, because we're telling them we want revetments, we want compactors, and they're going to create a plan with those kind of ideas. And I'm saying let's expand the ideas. I mean, if we get a chance to look at this, let's throw the ideas out on the table and see what we can do that might really solve this problem. May cost a little money. Maybe you have to add a shift just for night that people, but okay. What's it going to run? Councilmember Gregory. Mayor, I think you're exactly right. And I think that if we don't. Wow. I'm sorry I haven't said that enough to you either. Because you are right so often. Thank you. Okay, let's not go overboard. Okay. Because if we, you know, we've tried to build trash collection down there around the equipment that we already have, which means a lot of those big can isters sitting out in the street. And yet nobody likes it. But I think that it's clear that any other option is going to add some expense. But as also the right Mr. Councilmember Meltzer said that that extra expense on the part of the city is probably going to see a quick return in terms of the business activity and the value of property. Which is to the tiff. Yeah, that increased value goes to the tip. Which can be used to fund it. Right. Right. Yep. Well, we can certainly look at all those things and bring you back lots of different options to consider. And it may be a combination of things. It may be some dumpster, some revetment, some other kinds of things to really address it. I think we need to throw that in the mix as far as cost analysis. Because it's, I mean, this is, if you're still having collection points and now people are having to walk further, there's got to be a different solution for that. But maybe not. Maybe not. Yes, Councilmember Hudspeth. So I'll start with this. I do agree. Do we have flashcards now? Yes, it's my super-needle from the last night's town hall. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's fantastic. So anyway, so I agree with the study. I do have some caveats that I'd like to see. I'd like to see if, in the study, that they analyze the new space available. Right? I mean, I think there's a distance between the enhanced sidewalk to the existing building to explore if there is an opportunity for new retail or if it's just enhanced walk space. That's great too. Just want to understand what that looks like or what we could do. Maybe that's little artist stations that we could provide for street artists, that sort of thing, or whatever. I just want to understand if they're going to do the analysis, what is that distance from where the feature stops to the existing building and whose property is that, those types of things. In other words, how could it improve retail business opportunities? Yes, because if we think it is, then we need to vet that to say, "Sure, this is private property from here to here, and how much space is that?" The other thing that I would like to see included in that study would be, I count three meetings with the general public, and that's one initially, so that we're not coming top down. So, "Hey, citizens, what do you think?" And then go back, do their analysis, and come back about midway. Here's the path we're going on, kind of a touch point, and then ultimately, I think there's a conclusion to say, "Here's what we've based on those two meetings. Here's our presentation." So, those two components I'd like to see. Then with regard to the funding, I'm absolutely fine with the TIF funds being used for the initial study. I would have to see going forward, because how we got here is, I have a whole problem with the whole stretch of Hickory Street. How long it took, the strain we put on the businesses, and then looking at the backup that we robbed Peter to pay Paul. So, we've paid for this once, right? And so, if you look at it holistically, we paid for it once , we tortured the businesses on Hickory Street for an extended amount of time, because whatever reason, we didn't know the pipe was down there, whatever. I'm sure they're all justifiable reasons, but the fact of the matter is, the money was allocated for these other streets, we stole it, and put it over here to this street that was problematic. And on that same street, everyone has a back end, which everyone hates it, and didn't get a chance to say something. And so, really, to then take that further to say, oh, by the way, all these bad things associated with this street, and we're going to take any additional revenue from the enhancements and pull that out of this TIF funds. I just have a, it's a little problematic for me, not saying I can't get there, but I do want to at least have some historical context to it. I think at least we need to touch on that and say, hey, we understand there was a miss, we're trying to fix that, whatever that looks like, but I think it is sensitive. And I think, you know, I think, John, you had your business around that time during the construction, I'm not sure, down there, and so I'd love to visit with you and kind of understand that, I mean, because I'm sensitive to that. And I think it's important to at least have that history behind our decision and not feign as if that went all smooth and that's great. I understand. So those three kind of things, so absolutely TIF initially funding and then the touch point with citizens and then analysis of how much space between public and private property. Okay. Thank you, sir. Those are great comments and I agree, we certainly had some challenges in the last project, we're going to do this the right way. You get a lot of input, make sure everybody knows what's going on, come back with options and get you a good plan. This is one of those things that you don't have these opportunities a lot to do something truly transformative and I think this is something if it's done the right way, it could be just a great thing for downtown and so we want to do it the right way. So I'll take those to heart and make sure we don't have the same issues. Any other comments, questions, observations? Yes, Councilman Graver. So when we did Cedar Street, that was supposed to be the example of how we were going to do the other new streets but we didn't quite finish all of the things that we had intended to do on Cedar Street because we didn't put the revetments in for the trash collection and I think that's because we ran out of money or what? I assume so, I don't know on the answer to that. I think that's correct. Yes, it was a funding question. I would think that as we do the study, we might save ourselves a little time and a little money by going back and looking at the previous plan for the new streets and I would hate to see this new plan come up with something that was quite similar but had a different artistic color palette or something which meant that we had to go and redo Cedar Street unnecessarily. Hopefully that... Complement it. That what's done on those other streets would be done with the design vernacular that we already have established on Cedar Street. I think that could save a good bit of money and yet move towards the ultimate goal. Okay, we'll definitely try to do that. Anything else? Okay, I think I have my direction. We'll proceed down that path with the study and I appreciate your time today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great presentation. Moving on to work session item 3B, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the city's guidelines for public improvement districts. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members. I'm Caroline Booth, Director of Economic Development and I 'm going to be walking you through a review of council requested changes to the draft revised P ID guidelines and ask you for your direction regarding next steps in the process. To touch on the background quickly about PIDs, they are an economic development tool that's used to fund public improvements that benefit a specific defined area. Property owners within a PID boundary are assessed fees for the benefits that they receive. They can be used for both commercial and residential developments and for new construction or redevelopment projects. There are several benefits of PIDs to both cities and developers, in particular the potential for cities to increase the quality or the pace of development. And for developers, PIDs allow them to use tax exempt debt to fund public infrastructure and can reduce their capital requirements and increase their ultimate rate of return on a project. Cities around the state use PIDs to encourage development and there's a list there that you can see of some of the North Texas cities that use them . The specific surrounding PID use do vary according to the city's policy goals. So while one city might want to use them as a tool to encourage annexation of property, another city might use them to create a different class of residential development within its city limits. There has been quite a bit of prior action on the discussion of revising the PID guidelines. Starting back in January, we've presented to both the Economic Development Partnership Board and the City Council several different times and taken in the direction and made revisions based on that. In May of this year, the EDP Board did decide to recommend approval of the draft PID guideline revisions that are included in your backup packet and that was a unanimous vote from the EDP Board to recommend that to you. To quickly go over the last direction that we received from this body and incorporate it into the revisions that you have, when we were here on April 10th, the discussion came around to making sure that we did include the possibility of residential PIDs in the guidelines. The council wanted to require enhanced notice by developers to residential purchasers in particular regarding PID assessments, wanted an opportunity to stipulate to developers that the development standards for a residential PID in particular will exceed the city's minimum. We were asked to expand on demonstrable public benefit and how it can be determined and to include an assessment cap. And in order to respond to that direction, we did of course include the language to consider residential PIDs. We addressed the enhanced notice requirements as well as the exceeding the minimum development standards in the vehicle of a development agreement that would be drafted and entered into on a project by project basis because each of these projects that you would consider would be very different from the prior one or the next one. And so a development agreement would allow the flexibility for negotiating and securing terms around the particulars of any given project. Demonstrable public benefit, it's a difficult thing to define and so what we did was instead of trying to define it -- >> Caroline. >> Yes. >> I'm sorry. Councilmember Briggs had a question. I'm sorry to interrupt you. >> Just really to clarify because there was some conversation in the EDP report about the requirement of the -- and that onus would be on the developers. >> Yes, correct. >> So I just wanted to clarify that for anyone that was curious. >> Right. There is a minimum statutory requirement for notification and the discussion revolved around what could we do to enhance that and require more notice by the developer while still, you know, not overstepping the city's bounds in requiring something like that. I'm sorry I didn't see you. Okay. So back to the demonstrable public benefit item, what we did instead of defining more closely there is a definition but what we decided would be the better option is to require that to demonstrate public benefit a project would have to meet one or more of a set of criteria that are outlined in the guidelines. And then we did include the assessment cap -- sorry, I see a typo there, assessment cap, a 40 cents per $100 valuation with a statement that preference will be given to lower assessments. To continue the changes, we did include -- and this has been included from the beginning when we've been discussing these revisions but to include a developer funded city administered fiscal impact analysis prior to PID approval to ensure that the project is fiscally feasible. PIDs and PID bonds will not exceed a term of 30 years. Any debt that's requested related to a PID would be for project cost reimbursement only and the value to lien ratio of a project would be required to be 3 to 1 unless the project is so unique that it can justify and support a lower ratio and that would be demonstrated via the fiscal impact analysis. >> Question on that. Just so that we have an understanding of -- so let's say for instance, I don't know, you've got a project where when you say the lien, the value to lien ratio, just to go into a little bit about what you mean by that. What is the lien? What's it on? Just those kind of things. >> The value to lien ratio, it represents the degree of leverage in the bond financing of a project and basically a 3 to 1 ratio would mean that the property value is at least three times that of the principal amount of the bonds that would be sold plus any other bond debt. >> For the PID? >> Yes. >> Okay. So -- and that's the value of the property. Is there a certain snapshot that you have to take that value? Because you start out maybe with raw land, then you've got public improvements. At what point is that value calculated? >> I'm getting told that it's raw land. >> Okay. The raw land. All right. And does the -- if there's additional liens on the land outside of the PID lien, is that all aggregated to be 3 to 1 or is it just you got your value of your property, you got the value of the PID lien and that has to be a 3 to 1 regardless of any other types of -- and it may be superior liens. Is a PID a superior lien or is it an inferior lien to -- is a PID subject to the currently existing liens when it's formed? >> Going to phone a friend, Brian Langley. >> Mayor, I think it is a superior lien but I need to double check on that. I think that's the design to protect those bondholders is to -- >> They get paid first. >> That's right. >> All right. So that's -- so the value to lien ratio of 3 to 1 means that they will get their -- if it's a $6 million debt of the PID, the value has got to be at least $18 million. >> That's the idea. Also the idea, as you mentioned, once you have public improvements, you have structures, it should theoretically be worth more as well, which is an additional protection, but if there were to be some catastrophic event, a market correction or something, that you have that flexibility to still pay the debt. >> So the lien then, it starts out on raw land, but if it's in place for 10 or 15, 20 years, it's whatever the value that's generated on that, public -- or not public improvements, private improvements, real property improvements, all of it combined. >> Right. Ultimately, if the PID assessment wasn't paid, you would foreclose on the property to get the assessment paid. >> All right. >> Okay. >> Anything else on this one? >> No. >> Okay. >> Not for me. Anybody else have a question on this one? Don't see any. >> No. >> Yes, Councilmember Gregory. >> Do you happen to have a slide that shows the page that we have in our backup where the EDP board defined demonstrable public benefit? >> I don't have a slide that has that, but are you talking about the proposed revised guidelines? >> It's the six items that they have listed. >> Mm-hmm. >> Then I'm just going to go from my page in the backup. >> What page is that? >> It's in Exhibit A. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> And it's the -- I think it's the third page. Because I'm comparing that list with the discussion that we had on the coal ranch request. And I actually don't see everything in here that was on the coal ranch request in terms of our deliberations. At least the things that, you know, higher quality, yes. Because one of the things that we said was we didn't see that the average home price was really significantly higher than the average home price of any other development that's going in. I'm concerned about the development if the development is in the ETJ and the owner is willing to voluntarily annex the land. Of course, I think that's a good idea. If it is in there, that they should voluntarily annex it. But I would be more inclined for that to be exercised if it was in an area where we still have some donut holes, where we still have some land where it's not in the city limits but the city surrounds it. Because I think one of the big concerns among a lot of the council members on the coal ranch issue was that it did not comply with or meet our comprehensive plan. The plan that says we need to grow out and that we don't need to encourage sprawl. Because they were going way out and one of the reasons it was costing them so much to put the infrastructure in the water and utilities in the sewer lines is because it was out so far and they were going to have to extend lines so far just to get it out there and get the waste back to the facilities. So I'm really concerned I think somewhere in the document we need to say that any PID is going to have to meet or exceed the guidelines set forth in the city's comprehensive plan. And if it does not, then that pretty much negates the whole thing. Because we've had a lot of new development coming into the city. Interestingly with home values at the same price that the coal ranch people were talking about and I'm not re litigating the coal ranch thing. But they didn't ask for a PID and they didn't have to because their development was just on the edge of everything else. They were just having to extend 50 feet to connect to the current lines or 100 feet. And so I think that we need to really keep that in mind because I don't want to -- I would hate to see PIDs be used to encourage development that actually works against the goals in the comprehensive plan. So I don't know how you fit it in there but I don't see it in the current guidelines that are recommended to us. >> So I think -- I appreciate the comment. And I think that part of, you know, when we were thinking through this and requiring a development agreement to be crafted specific to each PID project request, in my mind what I'm hearing you describe, I could see that being a component of the development agreement for a project that might be farther out or, you know, we could even include the component of just simply stating that the project has to meet or exceed the guidelines in the comprehensive plan within the development agreement. And that would be another way to get at it using a tool that we've included in this particular draft to allow you all the flexibility to address these as they come forward in a specific sense while providing a good solid general best practices framework with the guidelines. >> But hopefully that could be somehow memorialized in some documents so that as staff begins working with the developer on something, you know, you could point out to the developer that this -- your proposal may be problematic given the guidelines we have because we're not trying to encourage sprawl. >> I think I know just the place where we can slip that in here. >> It needs to go in the policy statement of the PID guidelines. I mean, that's really where I think what you're talking about because that's just a policy statement and if -- I mean, we had that in our zoning, DDC, of hey, you know, part of one of the factors is does it conform to the 2030 comprehensive plan? So I think it probably just should go in the policy statement somewhere in that way. >> Well, and I think that when they're doing that, they're simply looking at land use. You know, is that what we're suggesting for future land use ? But it doesn't necessarily answer the question about leapf rogging over a lot of undeveloped land just because somebody was able to buy land way out on the edge at a much cheaper price and they want to develop it out there because, you know, that not only adds to their cost that they're going to try to recover through a PID, through property owners that don't necessarily know that they're going to be paying into a PID, but it also adds significantly to the cost of the city to provide services like fire stations. >> Sure. But does the 2030 plan have a policy statement about trying to avoid sprawl? >> I'll have to look into that. I'm guessing from what I'm hearing it does. >> I think you can craft something that I think you're right will fit into that policy statement. Was that -- okay. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Councilmember Meltzer? >> I'm looking for a little education on the public benefit aspect. I understand the -- what might be corner cases or maybe they're more common than I think of using the opportunity for PID to incentivize voluntary self-annexation, you know, in an emergency. I get that one. I understand the case where there might be an undeveloped mud that they'd be willing to let go of in exchange for having a PID. But in the sort of what I take to be the more general case that doesn't have those attributes, I don't really understand what the purported benefit to the city is. It sounds to me just on my, you know, shallow understanding as a subsidy to the developer because it enables them to use tax-free debt financing. But there are lots of people that we could subsidize. I just don't understand what's in it for the city to give this subsidy. >> Well, it could be, as we've said, higher quality development that would be -- you know, we would recognize that by greater amenities, larger lot sizes, higher home values in the development. So I take your point, absolutely. And I think that what the general -- the general idea behind revising this is to allow the council to have the flexibility to consider these projects within a framework, but they all come forward in such a different way, it's very hard to pin down the project would have to have X, Y, and Z attributes to make it a project that our council would want to participate in. And I don't know if I'm answering your question correctly, but it's very hard to be specific about this without an actual project that's saying we're bringing this to you. Is this something that you would consider worthy of a PID investment by the city of London? >> Sure. >> Let's just take the example of that might allow sort of greater amenities or something like that. Why would a PID allow that? What would prevent a developer from making properties with the amenities that they think the market will clear without the PID? I just don't get it. >> Well, the answer is they could. But they're seeing this is a financing tool for them. It's a debt financing tool. And that's a decision that the city has to make or the council must make at a policy level. Do we want to allow developers to use this tool to produce the project that they're putting forward? So it's the project could add, you know, all this additional value to the tax rolls, but you would have to weigh that against the cost of service for residential homes. That's why we would have to do a lot of analysis through third parties to make sure that we had all of the data that we need to make the right -- to help you guys make the right decision. >> I'm going to go -- Council Member Ryan, do you have a comment? And Council Member Briggs and Council Member Gregory. >> Yeah. I believe when this came back -- came to us the first go around or a couple times back, I had questioned whether or not we wanted to leave the 40 cents per hundred in there. And when you've got a 3 to 1 ratio already built in, as soon as you put that 40 on there, somebody's going to say I've got 100 acres and I've got NR4 zoning. How can I fit 400 lots on here? So by removing that 40 cents, you're letting -- and just say preference would go to the lower. You are not setting it up that everyone that's going to come to us is going to be 38, 39, or 40 cents. >> Right. >> And I'd like to know what my fellow council members think about that, just dropping that 40 cent requirement. I mean, that's something we can do as they come in. But you are pretty much setting them up that they're all going to try and come in at that rate. >> Council Member Briggs and Council Member Gregory. Oh, okay. Council Member Gregory. >> I would say leave the cap at 40 cents, and we're saying that if you come in lower, you're going to be looked at more favorably. To Mr. Meltzer's question, the background slide -- slide 3 talks about the benefits of the PED. And one of them is that developers use tax-exempt debt to provide funding for a public infrastructure so it can reduce capital requirements and increase their rate of return. That's what it's for. And so -- and one of the real issues regarding PEDs for residential development is that a home buyer may not realize that they're in a PED, especially if they're buying the home the second time. You know, they're not buying from the original builder. So the building -- the house may be five years old, and now they're buying into it when they get their tax bill. We were looking at a $325,000 home with 40 cents per $100 put a tax bill, an additional tax on that property of about $1,400. And one of the concerns is if you have a whole neighborhood , 20,000 homes maybe that have that, you have 20,000 people that feel like they're being taxed at a whole extra level than anybody else in town, and it makes them more reluctant to consider voting for a bond program for the city or a bond program for the school district. And so that's why there was reluctance -- why I've not voted for any PEDs for residential developments, but I have for commercial developments. It's a different story, and they understand it. So it would -- you know, so I was looking for if there was a residential development, I think we're going to have to provide a lot of extra amenities and see home value significantly higher than the current properties being developed so that it could justify that kind of an investment. Just a bit of history. We had this conversation several months back, and so then council wasn't in favor of residential PEDs, just commercial PEDs, and that was kind of where we left it, and then a council member brought it back and said they'd like to re-discuss it, and so it came back, and then this is kind of the outcome of that. Well, let's just have the opportunity if one presents itself. So just a bit of history there. So that's how we ended up back here. Thank you. Yes? Well, I've been static on it being there, so I was the one that was for him straight through, but it did get brought back up, which I was happy to say. And so you've heard all the negative. I'll give you one positive for certain to me. I think the negative and the downsides are true and correct . I don't disagree with those, but I think an upside would be if you have a coal ranch or a hunter's ranch and they finance that infrastructure, now you have a gap between the city and this development, but everyone that taps into that now doesn't absorb that cost, which then would spur growth to close that gap because you're now utilizing infrastructure that's already there, and we also are looking at ways to enhance the infrastructure to Roberson Ranch as it grows. And so for me, having that stretch out there furthers that, whereas we're trying to bolster that system as is because initially it started with them managing their own. Now we're in conjunction with that, and I think that's going to continue to grow. So for me, there's an opportunity to lessen that cost or at least reroute some of that to better support that community that's kind of distant now . And so for me, that is one positive that you can have other businesses, other housing, other development tap into that and not have to absorb that infrastructure cost to close that gap. I'm not sure that that's accurate. I think that other developments that tap into it do have to absorb that cost, don't they? They would certainly require a development agreement and they would want to recover any tap fees onto that line that they're extending. So that's something you have to think about when you're drafting that agreement. It's true that the infrastructure is out there, but they're going to certainly want a provision in that particular case, and I don't want to pick on Coler ange, but that anyone tapping that and receiving the benefit of that infrastructure pays their fair share. Well when I sat down individually with the developer, I asked that specific question and I got a specific answer. I mean, again, you can, we can all, so do we start lumping everybody in the same, right? So all council members are the same, all management the same, or do we ask a question, get an answer and give up somebody opportunity to prove themselves , right? Lots of giggles, I get it, but at the same time, I want to give somebody an opportunity. If someone comes to me and answers me and woe and behold, they live up to their word, then all the giggles would subside a bit, I would think. So giggle now, but I asked a specific succinct question and got a specific succinct answer and I believe them. Well, can I follow up? Yeah, sure. Well, the city would, if a developer is coming in and wanting to put in 10,000 homes, then the city requires that they provide the infrastructure that we charge them for the cost for what it takes to deliver water for 10,000 homes and sewer for 10 ,000 homes. Then we might, because it's extended out, we might have to bear the cost to upsize it in order for the developments between the city and there to tag on and to, and then we charge them for the cost that we put into it. But I mean, I've talked with developers also that have promised things like that also, but when it came down to time to write the checks, that often didn't happen. And maybe this developer would do that. I don't doubt that, but I've just had some experiences, several experiences where what they originally came and requested was not what we ended up , what they proposed in the written documents that they wanted us to sign. So just. Okay. Council Member Duff and then Council Member Riggs. Yeah, I definitely think that we need to have residential p eds in our policy. I mean, the city councils can make a decision of whether it makes sense for a PED. And for me, I want to have that developer with a whole lot of skin in the game. I think that is a requirement. As far as tap fees, I've been paying tap fees down in South Texas. I guarantee you, they it adds on. Some of the cities, they had I ended up with one that I had to pay all the tap fees upfront on all the lots. Most of the cities, they collect the tap fees when somebody pulls a permit to build on it. Council Member Riggs. Just a question and I have absolutely no idea, but we've talking that talked about using these to get greater home value, homes of great value, expensive homes. Could they be used to incentivize developers to build homes under 200,000 to help expand that because that is actually something we lack in our community. So I mean, just kind of as a reversal as more of an incentive to get something that's lacking. Some communities that we've looked into make affordable housing a component of PED projects. And that's the best answer I can give right now is that we have seen in some communities of Austin in particular, make that a part of a PED project. So like single family homes is what I'm talking about. Yes, okay, right. Thank you. Okay, so I've just got a few comments. I want to make sure where we are. Your direction that you're asking for. Is this an action item tonight? It's not an action item today. But we have the draft guidelines. Correct. And I heard one piece of direction to make a tie back to the comprehensive plan. Probably the best spot for that was going to be in the policy statement at the beginning. That was the one concrete piece that I heard. So is there anyone that is wholly against the guidelines and the PED policy altogether? Councilmember Ryan, you're shaking in your chair. The way you put that completely against, I just want to reiterate on the 40 cents that if something comes before us and it's got 38, 39, 40 cents on it, I'm probably going to vote against it. Of course. And so that's why I'd rather leave that as an undetermined amount as opposed to a maximum cap in there. Sure. And my response to that is I understand that. I'm going to sort of take the opposite side of that and say that if there's not a cap, I'm a developer. I'm like, well, there's not a cap. I'm going to come in. So in the end, and this is the great thing about these type of policies or about any policy that we're drafting. Councilmember Duff, you called it. In the end, we, the council, whoever it is at that time gets to make those determinations. I mean, Councilmember Mel's a great question. What's in it? I'm going to say what's in it for us? What is the city or the community at large getting from this development? And that's sort of a case by case analysis for each project . But these guidelines give us an idea of what they need to be. And I'll be honest with you, when I read the guidelines, it says they only -- and these aren't, if you meet these, then you get it. These are just, hey, this is one of the things we're going to be looking at. Because some of those six, they can meet pretty easily. So it says one or more, so you don't have to come up with one. But I think that -- I think it's good to have a policy, because we all have one. And I think it is one less arrow in our quiver to try to determine how, you know -- and you're right, the developers use it for reimbursement of infrastructure, debt financing. And we're saying if you're wanting us to -- now, the city isn't at risk financially except for some administrative costs and things such as that, unless there's a foreclosure. But if you have a three to one property value, you're not going to worry about that. It gives us a chance to look at each project on a case by case basis. In response to the affordable housing component, I can understand that. The sort of flip side of that is that the PIT assessment goes against the homeowners. So the homeowners are the ones that would be paying for the -- they're paying for it anyway, but then they would get that additional assessment above and beyond what their current taxes are. So, you know, Austin and them may have some way that they 've structured that or maybe they're exempting some of those affordable housing components in a development from that additional assessment, which probably could be done in a development agreement. So that's a good observation. I mean, that could be an incentive in the -- and part of the historical context was why would we -- and your question was a good one -- why would we provide this type of -- I'm going to say windfall to a developer who's just bringing to our community what everybody else is bringing without that incentive? And so that's why a higher standard or something else that 's not coming, i.e., affordable housing and things such as that. So I'm okay with the guidelines. I'm okay with the policy statement. I'm sort of okay with the cap. I mean, I don't -- I understand what you're saying, but again, the good thing is people can always say no. And it gives them some guidance. I mean, if anything, I would say lower the cap. I mean, if you're concerned about them coming in with a high dollar, high, you know, reimbursement rate of infrastructure costs, lower it to where you're really sending them a message of, you know, this isn't to be to reimburse you and put on the backs of all the people who are going to be in that PID your costs that you typically should bear. But so that would -- mine would sort of be the opposite of, hey, don't necessarily remove it but knock it down some if that were the case. But I don't have any heartburn on that. Yes, Councilmember Duff and then Councilmember Meltzer, do you have a comment? Yeah, okay. >> Yeah, I guess for me, you know, if you look at some of the large projects that we're probably going to have in coal ranch, hunter ranch and some of those, you're talking about a huge amount of money to put in that infrastructure. And I think it's a decision for the City Council to look at that and say, okay, if we put -- if we do this PID and everything, is it going to make sense for the return that we get for the city? You know, if we don't get the return from the city, we don 't prove it. >> Right. >> Councilmember Meltzer? >> I'd like to make a couple points just based on what I've heard, and I appreciate how much you've been informing me in this discussion. I understand the idea of using a kind of exceptional tool, you know, to reach a strategic goal. I haven't heard that we have a strategic goal of trying to, you know, incentivize more expensive homes. I just think that's kind of coming out of left field to me, whereas I hear about the need for affordable housing all the time. So if there are models that actually encourage that, you know, I'd certainly be interested, although it is a little odd that this particular tool means you have to pay higher taxes, you know, in order to get the affordability. So I'd be interested in hearing about it. But the second point is we saw in your earlier slide how many other communities around the area do use PIDs. So I'd be very interested to learn from their track records what public benefits were achieved, what horror stories occurred. You know, we sort of know their examples out there, but it 's not, you know, maybe you all have learned from them, but, you know, I haven't seen what those lessons are. >> Yep. Yep. So it sounds like the direction is bring it back as an action item, and then each council member will be able to vote their sentiments on it and with the changes of -- we really didn't get much clarity on the change of the cap. I mean, Councilmember Ryan presented that. Are people -- what's the consensus of the council? You want to remove the cap or just leave it as is? Anybody? Okay. >> Yeah. >> Okay. You know, as presented by staff on the cap? Okay. >> Yeah. >> So I'm going to leave at least some dialogue on that. Okay. >> Okay. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> We'll move on to probably the next item, which will be the shortest of these work session presentations, which is agenda item 3C. I'm just kidding you, Tony. I'm just teasing you. I'm sorry. I'm trying to bring a little levity to the -- yeah. Receive report -- this is very important, actual discussion . Receive departmental presentations in preparation for the FY 2018-19 proposed budget capital improvement program and five-year financial forecast. >> Good afternoon, Mayor, Councilmembers. I'm Nancy Tall. I'm the budget manager. We'll continue with our department presentations today. Today we have economic development, the chamber, police and animal services, municipal judge, and municipal court. So Caroline's back up here, so hope she'll keep this one short. >> Oh, no. I'm just -- I thought this was the budget. Huh? Department. Well, he's got it in there, but I thought it was not this general. Okay. Yep. >> Hello again. >> Hello. >> Caroline Booth, director of economic development. And I am very happy to be speaking with you again this afternoon regarding our economic development department budget presentation. So we will start with a quick overview of our department's accomplishments so far during this current fiscal year. First on the list is that we transition the management of the Stoke Entrepreneur Center to Hickory and Rail Ventures, which is a Denton-owned company that has deep ties to our tech community here in town. And you guys did receive a report about their operations to date in your Friday report last week, so I hope that was informative for you. We have also participated in the location of U.S. cold storage and expansion of Fisher 59, two projects which are expected to add about $40 million in new value and 100 new jobs that are benefits eligible in our community. And the U.S. cold storage project was an excellent example of collaboration between the city's department of economic development and the chamber of commerce's department of economic development in the form of the economic development partnership. We have also launched a couple of new outreach programs, including the Denton development business video series that we work on with the folks in our public communications office, and we did get a suggestion that we might want to add a link to those to our departmental web page, so we're working on that right now. Thank you, Councilmember Briggs, for that suggestion. And then we have, as you are familiar with, revised the city's policy for tax abatement and incentives. And we have also implemented new departmental performance measures. Some of those key performance metrics that we are using this year are here on this slide for your reference. The first two lines, the RFPs returned in target industry sectors. We do respond to the RFPs that come from the governor's office of economic development at the state level and from the Dallas regional chamber at our regional level. We have a target of 20 responses in that category, and to date we have prepared and returned seven RFP responses. We have also been tracking our direct leads that we work, and this is the first year that we're keeping track of that so we can get a good baseline to set a goal for next year. We've had 16 so far in the first two quarters, and between the RFPs that we've returned and the direct leads that we've worked, we have had four site visits as an outcome of those activities, and we're pleased with that so far and hope to have a couple more before the fiscal year is over. One of the things that I do definitely want to point out is the workforce development activities or grants that we've facilitated. We have a target of 12, but what we decided to do was make workforce development a component of all of our business retention visits, so when we're going out and speaking to our businesses as part of that program that we're implementing, we are either talking with them about programs that might be available or bringing representatives from the Texas Workforce Commission with us to have those discussions. So we are going to be adjusting our workforce development activities target upward for the coming fiscal year based on that. Okay, Councilmember Husspeth and Councilmember Briggs. I just want to say I've been to a few of those presentations, and if you've not sat in on those, it's pretty dynamic. It's amazing what's available and the reaction you get from the business owners to understand and learn kind of those opportunities, so it's been a great experience for me personally to kind of see how we can further assist our business owners, local business owners, and it's interesting. Each business owner has something kind of on that menu, if you will, that is appealing and they find very helpful and did not know about. I mean, it could be businesses have been here as long as I can remember and still just not aware, so I think that number is going to continue to increase. Thank you for that comment. Sometimes we run into the misconception that these grants are only for large companies that employ a large number of people, but that is absolutely not the case. There are two different types of grants that are available even for some of our smaller businesses. So folks like Sleeping Lizards and Tommy's High Tech Auto, which are smaller but important business contributors to our community, have applied for these grants because of those conversations, so thank you for bringing that up. Councilmember Briggs had a question. Do these grants include like employee training, extra employee training, and is it any higher education, things like that? It's additional training. That's what the grants are geared toward. That's good. Thank you. You're welcome. The final thing I'd like to highlight on this slide is the business assistance provided. We have in the first two quarters taken almost 240 either walk-ins, emails, or calls for business assistance, and that number, that's been a little bit surprising to me now that we've paid attention to tracking it. I think it's great that we're able to connect and help that many folks directly out of our office. Moving on to the goals that we have for the upcoming fiscal year, the first one there is to revise public improvement district guidelines, but we might knock that one out before the new fiscal year starts, so we'll come up with another thing to add as a goal for that. But we do want to leverage our new designations as an official music-friendly community and film-friendly community. What we're looking at there is bringing more film and television production into Denton by responding to these RFPs that come out at a state level. And I've been having some conversations with the governor's office of music regarding job and workforce development, specifically in the music industry. So we're going to be talking with them and working with them more on that. Any questions about this one? Yes, Councilmember Riggs. Just more of a comment that I'm really excited to see in the goals of more public art and film and just the cultural district, because that's another whole aspect of economic development in our city I think that we can reach out to. Thank you. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. Just on goals, aren't there sort of specific economic outcomes that we're targeting for the city to achieve by doing this activity, whether it's growth in certain types of jobs or diversifying the tax base and so on? And shouldn't we be measuring those along with our activity so we can see, you know, are we moving the needle or not? Yes, and we are. Those outcomes are called strategic initiatives in the city 's strategic plan, and our department does have four of them currently for this fiscal year, and they are related to certain types of job growth, those jobs that pay salaries over $75, 000, for example, and we want to see a certain percentage increase in that currently by the year 2020. So those longer-term outcomes are being documented in the city's strategic plan, and then are kind of more of our daily work plan and these metrics that we use are how we make sure that we're staying on track to achieve those things that are the longer-term outcomes. Mr. City Manager, would you agree that it would be helpful to view them alongside the activity just so that we know that whether we're doing the right things or enough of the right things just to know, you know, just in the same conversation, otherwise, you know, how do we know if we're being effective or not? Yeah, I think we can certainly track those. The one thing with economic development, it is somewhat challenging to measure some of these. I see a lot of interesting goals from other cities around the country as we study economic development in particular, and I say they're interesting because so many of them are out of control, and they're just forces of the economy, forces of external decisions that people are measuring, taking credit for, or dropped when they don't look so good. So I do think that your point is a good one in terms of are we making progress, what direct impact are we having, can we track them, as long as they're specific enough and not overly reliant and tied to just general economic indicators that we really don't have anything to do with by ourselves? So yeah. Anybody else? Okay. The budget emphasis for the Department of Economic Development is to support shared prosperity and economic vitality in our community, and we do that primarily by working in six areas which are depicted up here in this graphic. I'm not going to read them all to you, but we've put the broad areas up there for you to see and then out to the side some of the more specific things that fall within those broad categories, and I'm glad to answer any questions about any of this. Councilmember Gregory. At one time I think that we were doing something to help underwrite small business consulting startups. Through the Small Business Development Center? Yes. Okay. Yes. That's still a part of the Economic Development Department 's budget, but the Small Business Development Center is housed in the Chamber of Commerce, and they're going to be speaking to you directly after I'm finished, and I'm sure they would be happy to elaborate on the SBDC and its activities if you need more specifics about that. Thank you. Moving on into FTEs, we do have 5.75 FTEs in our department . There was an additional FTE shown in fiscal years '15 and ' 16 and '17. That position was never filled, and so we have readjusted down to an accurate FTE count in the current budget year, and we'll keep that moving forward. As far as staffing, these are the specific positions within my department, and I believe most of you are familiar with all of my staff members, and I definitely want to take a minute to commend them for their hard work and dedication to what they do to help the citizens and businesses here in our community. If any of you have any questions about any of this, I'm glad to answer those. Seeing none. Okay. Tax containment strategies for the department. These are similar to what we've been doing all year long this year, and in the prior fiscal year, we have been having monthly meetings among economic development, finance, and legal departments, and we have recently added engineering as an attendee to those meetings. This just really, really boosts interdepartmental coordination and communication, and it's been incredibly effective in identifying and heading off potential issues on projects that we're working. We do cross-train between economic development and finance, and that's been, again, very helpful to have folks over in finance who can back us up, who we can run ideas and projects and thoughts by, and get feedback there. We've done a lot of intentional internal cross-training in the department so that everyone has a backup person for their essential functions, and then we obviously pay attention to the division of labor and workload among the existing staff and making sure that everybody is working to their full capacity, and we feel like that's working out very well at this point in time. Process improvements. We have completed and are currently using an Access database system to track our performance measures, and that was developed by one of our in-house staff members, and that's been great for generating reports and making sure that we're staying on top of all of our metrics. For the future, we're going to be documenting standard operating procedures for critical departmental functions. What I've found is that we have a lot of that information written down, but it's not standardized and compiled, so we'll be working on completing that. Continue and expenditure highlights here. We did have three Chapter 380 agreements that were term inated this current fiscal year, so those have fallen off and are not reflected in the fiscal year '18-'19 budget. The second, third, and fourth bullets there where we're talking about budgeted increases. There are different reasons for the increases. ENCO is related to the fact that the property has been fully valued for the first time, and so the incentive amount is going to be increasing on that. This is the first year for Razor Ranch's south side Chapter 380 initiation. In fact, they met their 300,000 square foot minimum threshold just at the end of last week, and last night I received their initiation letter to start the documentation process for the south side. Then on O'Reilly, you see a $1.3 million budgeted increase. That's related to the fact that this upcoming fiscal year will be the first year for rebates to O'Reilly on their sales and ad valorem taxes. Then, of course, it's going to be the first year for the B uc-Ease incentive. I always try to point out what our operations budget is minus our Chapter 380 rebates. It's just over $100,000. State law does require a specific place for Chapter 380 reb ates to be budgeted. It falls in our budget, and that's why it's large. - Councilmember Briggs. - Can you remind me on the O'Reillys, because there is a restaurant in that hotel. Is that restaurant also included in that number that we see there? - It is. - The rebate, so it's together. - Yes, ma'am. - Okay. Thank you. - So, you're talking about the 380s that fell off? - Yes. - Victor, that fell off because of... Did it expire, or...? - No, sir. They were terminated because they didn't meet their minimum valuation threshold. - Okay. All right. - All three of them. - Okay. All right. Did Victor's provide the jobs... Because I know they expanded. Did they provide the jobs? Did the jobs materialize? - Well, I think that the jobs weren't the issue with Victor . It was simply the valuation of the property. - Oh, no, I understand that. I just... Yeah. - They did. Yes, they did do their hiring. - All right. Good. All right. Okay. Thanks. - Okay. Budget highlights. Bottom line, over there, $5.95 million total baseline budget for fiscal year '18-'19. Does anybody have any questions about that? - Anybody got any questions, comments? - Okay. - Go ahead. - Just... - Just my comment was that during the economic development presentation, when I originally was going through it and saw the $5 million, I wasn't sure, but that is the incentives coming back. And you said it has to be shown in some budget, right? - Yes. - And so this is just the one that we use it for. - Right. Because we do the administration of the incentives and do the forecasting for them in conjunction with finance. But yes, this is...they show up here in our budget. Yes. Okay. We like to show a little bit of detail about those Chapter 380 rebates. So this is what that is. And I won't read off all the numbers to you, but again, these are the numbers that we are budgeting for these Chapter 380 incentives for the upcoming fiscal year. And I'm glad to answer any questions about that. - Now which one of these are sales tax 380 agreements? In other words, we're getting a percentage...we're rebating a percentage of the sales tax. I think Golden Triangle Mall is, Denton Crossing, Razor Ranch. Is that right? - Unicorn Lake. - Unicorn Lake. But Mayday and Slumberge are more based on valuations and other things. Westgate, Bixons Park, St. Buckeyes is sales tax. What is that? - Buckeyes is sales tax, yes. - Okay. Even though they have no sales, that's what you're budgeting for. - Correct. Yes. - And O'Reilly is a combination of sales tax and property tax. And Wynco is...Sally Beauty's...those first two are non-s ales tax. - Correct. Yes, they're property tax. - All right. Yes, Council Member Melzer. Do you think that you can give us some idea of jobs created , jobs retained, with some confidence, incremental sales tax revenue generated, which would be those kind of high-level outcomes from projects that you clearly had direct impact on, just as a way to put the budget in context. Also, I know we're going to be having a conversation later about tax relief, right? So I think we need to know, and voters need to know, is this a must-have because of what it's generating, or is it just an activity that we think sounds good, that we like to have? Or if it's really generating economic development, we probably would look at it differently. So do we have some idea? - Yes, I can follow up with you regarding cumulative jobs created or retained. And then the following slide does show the net revenue from active Chapter 380s. So I think that speaks to the other part of your question. We do track the net revenue from projects. So happy to talk through this with you, and happy to follow up with some more detailed information. - I'm presuming that's of interest to the rest of Council, too, not just for me. - Yeah, well, I think we've seen that. I think they present that regularly through different presentations, as far as when the incentives come before us is when a lot of those questions are sort of vetted, as far as how many jobs. For sales tax rebates, it's more of, okay, what would be here if they weren't here? What kind of sales tax projections are there? They're doing a lot of it's infrastructure reimbursement. So yeah, I mean, certainly those items are of an interest. I think they're probably vetted and answered as the projects come forward. - That's a great point, yes. That's always a part of our analysis when an incentive is requested. What value are they bringing? And we ask a defined set of questions to help us bring that information forward to you. And then when it comes time to initiate and make payments every year, we require them to document what they have done. When possible, we do third party documentation of all of that. So there's a constant checking up to make sure that obligations are being fulfilled. - Yes, Council Member Gregory. So for example, the Razor Ranch, that says in 2017 that the city received, is that revenue from sales tax and property tax? - That is correct. For the incentives that are based on sales tax, the net revenue includes their property tax as well, because it is revenue. - So 2.2 million, go back a slide then. And then 2017 Razor Ranch, oh, that's 2018. Oh, that's your projection. - Yes, this is the budget. - But that's sales tax only. - Sales tax only. - Okay, so when you do those return on investment reports, is where we see all of the information that Council Member Meltzer is asking for. - Okay so this includes their ad valorem taxes? - Yes, sir. - Okay, all right. So the total net revenue from these incentivized projects, both ad valorem and sales tax when applicable is slightly over $51 million down there in the bottom. - Is that since its inception? - Yes, these are since the inception, the years are noted. - 17 is the yearly amount. - Right. - Okay. Did you have a question, Council Member Briggs? - I can ask it offline. It's more about the Buc-E's. - Okay. That concludes my presentation and I'm glad to answer any further questions you have. - Any further questions? All right, thank you. Let's go ahead and take about a five or 10 minute break before we go into the next presentation. We've been going for about an hour and 45 minutes. Welcome everybody, excuse me, welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council Tuesday June the 19th, 2018. It is 3.55 and we are proceeding back with our work session reports agenda item 3C and we're in the middle of a budget presentation. So Ms. Booth? - Thank you, Chair and Council Members, I would like to introduce our next presenter, Adam Gavoreski, the Vice President of Economic Development from the Denton Chamber of Commerce is going to be making a presentation and taking your questions. Also with us this afternoon, we have Eric Clark who is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce as well as Chuck Carpenter who is the President of the Chamber of Commerce. - Thank you. - So I'll turn it over to Adam. - Thank you, Caroline. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. At the Chamber's Economic Development Office, we have two full-time employees, a Vice President and one Administrative Assistant. We ultimately answer to the President of the Chamber, Chuck Carpenter and the Board of Directors. It's important to note that we operate on a completely separate budget than the Chamber operates on. So the budget that we're costing here today is what pays the salaries for the two full-time employees and handles all operations. We also have a private budget that comes from our private investors that handles all marketing as well. - Okay. Yes, Council Member Reed? - Is that the budget where the hot funds go? - No, ma'am, that's completely separate. That's the CVB budget and they are housed under the Chamber as well, but completely separate. Separate bank accounts and everything. - And so that will come to us through them? - Yes. - Okay, thank you. - Correct. Goals and accomplishments. Fulfilled all the deliverables in the City Chamber Economic Development Contract for 2017 and '18. Cultivated 29 prospects and leads with a response rate of 93.1%. Out of those 29 prospects, to this point in the fiscal year , we have six site visits from six different companies. The goal for the full year is seven site visits and we have three months left in the fiscal year. Out of those six, we did land United States Cold Storage and Fisher 59. You're all familiar with United States Cold Storage. That's a long process. That started in the Chamber. We present them with a package and a site with basic information. They come in, they do site visits, site visit number one, and then we host them on several site visits. At some point during that point in time, there's a handoff between the Chamber and the City to where they take over and then the incentive process starts in the full prospect closing. Moving on, recently I've accepted a board position on the Team Texas board. Team Texas, it's a membership-driven marketing approach through the state. There's about 104 communities that we, it's kind of a pay- to-play approach where we can go do marketing activities with the state group as well. Also accepted a position on TDC's Workforce Development Committee. We conducted target marketing forums, conferences, events, and professional development activities. We've raised the number of private investors this year by four and private investment by 3,500. I'll get more into that as this presentation goes on, but right now we're at 66 current investors. Started the year at 62, and I think in terms of the City Chamber contract, we have to maintain a level. I don't believe there's a level on the number of investors, but there is a level that we have to maintain on the private investment dollars, and that's $64,000. Increased involvement in website and social media activities. I have a whole separate slide on that coming up. Continued networking, chamber events, economic development partnership events, community involvement, and professional development. We completed the redesign and updating of the Denton Economic Development Partnership website at DentonADP.com. - Council Member Riggs. - So all these goals and accomplishments, do you feel like with the city goals that we set in place for you last year that this helped you accomplish more than you have in the past? - I do. It's very valuable that we set those goals. In years past, I don't believe we had the goals and metrics all lined out. I think it was, I personally think, I feel it was great having those, so it gave us a benchmark to set and a position to move forward. Thank you. Also under goals and accomplishments, on the comprehensive marketing plan, we presented that to the EDP Board on November 8th, as far as our marketing plan for the next year going forward. Monthly activity in cities, director of economic development reports, we do turn those into the director of economic development at the city every month before the first Thursday. And quarterly budget performance statements, we do turn those in quarterly as well. Prospect leads, the goal for the year in the city chamber contract is 42. We're currently at 29, sitting at 2/3 through the fiscal year. Site visits, the goal was six. We are, I'm sorry, I believe the goal was seven. We've accomplished six out of the seven, 2/3 through the fiscal year. Out of those six site visits, once again, we did locate United States cold storage over in West Park Industrial Park. And there is potential out of those for a new industrial speculative space that will be coming online very soon. We are working several projects right now where developers are gonna be building, it will be industrial speculative space. So it'll be great to have those products on the ground. We'll still have to in turn go market those existing buildings rather than marketing just raw land. - We have a question, Council Member Meltzer. - Yes sir. - Forgive me, I think I actually was here when the goals were established in those seats, but I don't recall hearing what the rationale was for these particular goals. Why were these the right numbers? Or do they tie to a particular outcome that you're ultimately trying to achieve as far as economic development? Is it that in order to hit this many jobs, we think we need to hit that many employers of X size and it filters down to 42 and six? Or where do the numbers come from? - Well, in previous years, there were no specific metrics on specific site visits and number of leads generated and things like that. Under new leadership, it was determined that we needed to have some type of metrics and goals. So based on years past and what we had done in past years, we worked with the city and we kind of developed those goals and things that we feel like we could accomplish. - So it's just about trying to do it historically or do somewhat more but not tied to a particular outcome that, well, I guess you've answered. Okay, thank you. - Okay. - Thank you. - Yep. - Okay. - Moving on with goals and accomplishments. There were benchmarks set on website development presence and the goal was to increase website hits and presence by 20% increase over the previous year at 2016 and 17. Moving down the line, those were separated into page views and unique users. So 20% across the board, but the page views, we have increased it by 23.6% and unique users by 33.1% as you'll see in that right-hand column. So well above the 20% mark and we're maintaining that goal as well. So we will end the year well above that 20% mark. Social media as well. We market on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. There was no specific metric on those. There was line item in the city chamber contract to collect baseline data for setting the goals for this next year. This year for Facebook, we're up 7.1% on Facebook, 16.4% on LinkedIn and 5.7% on Twitter. Any questions? - I don't mean to be like a broken record, but you may know this sort of thing and I just don't. Is there a downstream activity that is driven by page views and unique users that we're trying to generate? Like what determines how much activity we want? What are we trying to get out of it? - Well, we're trying to generate interest and we do most of our marketing and our online presence is mainly geared towards site selection professionals across the country. So trying to get our message in front of them and these site selection professionals are the guys that are working the big projects, Coca-Cola and Frito-Lay and companies like that will contract with them to handle their site selection . So we're trying to market to those guys to let them know what didn't has to offer, what our message is, what our sites are and things like that. So that's our ultimate goal is to get our message in front of them and through C-level executives. - C-levels for 2018 and '19, fulfill the city chamber economic development contract deliverables, maintain constant interaction with site selectors, consultants and brokers. That is an ongoing effort. Continue to conduct target marketing prospect development activities, increase social media activities by 5% and web-based communication by 10% this next year. Increase the private investors by two, maintain economic development partnership, private investor relations. This current year we've retained about 97% of those previous 62. - Council member Briggs, I believe has a question. - Council has in our incentive policy when we updated it, we set pretty specific target industries. Do those overlap when you have here, when you say target marketing or when you're looking to people, do you use the same target industries that we've requested? - We do. We market towards the same exact ones that the city has outlined for us and all of you have outlined for us. We have those set on our website as well. All the site selectors that we gear our message towards are all their working products in those fields. - Thank you. - Some examples of contacts from some of the marketing trips that we take. We do a lot of different marketing trips from trade shows with Team Texas and the state of Texas and Texas One to site selector events and conferences and forums. Some of those contacts I outlined kind of the top five just to kind of give you an outline of some of the people that we meet with and why. Collier's International, they're a site selection group. They've got a Dallas, Atlanta, LA, New York offices. They have towards sites here in Denton this year on three different occasions and they're currently planning a large scale speculative development project. One of those industrial spec products that I mentioned earlier is they are working one of those and they've also been here two other times representing end users, so meaning actual company that would move here as well. CB Richard Ellis, I think you've all heard their name mentioned several times. They're a site selection group with offices across the world. They have represented United States Cold Storage, which we just located here in Denton. They also represented Wynco Foods, which we located two years ago and Sally Beauty projects. Kiki and Associates out of their New York office, I've met them on two different occasions this year and we are working two different projects with them currently. The European American Investment Council, who brought in a German delegation of aviation companies to the DFW region, who all had an expansion interest in the state and then we had the ability to go and present to them Denton and our available real estate and market and location access and things like that. Project WIC, I wanted to give you an example of an end user that we've cultivated through a marketing channel as well, so not just the site selection community, but Project WIC was one that was identified recently and during a marketing trip they were looking to put 400 to 500,000 square feet here in Denton, which the project will create over 100 jobs if located here. Current performance measures, perform the duties of the office per the city chamber contract agreement, act as the gatekeeper with site location consultants and prospect activity, conduct target marketing and prospect development activities, updating and maintaining the EDP website, all the social media accounts, marketing materials and promotional items, maintain economic development partnership, private investor relations. Proposed performance measures, perform the duties of the office per the city chamber contract, attend and participate in activities with local, metro, state, regional and international organizations, continue target marketing activities and attend all site selection and consultant events as the budget allows, raise social media and web- based activities by 5% and raise ED partnership private investor relations by two investors. We currently set it 66% with a 97% retention rate. Councilmember Gregory has a question. Yes, sir. On the ED partnership in private investors, do you have a goal in terms of raising the amount of money that those investors are putting into the program? We do, and for this next year, we've set the goal at two additional. Two additional investors? Two additional investors. Do you have a new goal for the amount of money that all of the investors would be putting in? The overall goal that was set in the contract, the contract ual agreement last year was set at 64,000. I guess to raise that, I'm very confident in saying that we can maintain a level of 75,000. And I have that actually on another slide. I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry. I should have mentioned that before. Any other? Oh, yes. Councilmember Felton. What would you say the ultimate measurable economic development outcome should be? Maybe not in a year, maybe it's over long term. Should we be looking for your activities to generate jobs of a certain type, increase in tax base from certain sectors, or those things as well as something else? What would you say we should be looking for? Well, all of the above. Our first goal is getting the site visits in. We're responding to the prospects, then getting the site visits in. The goal is to generate six site visits through our marketing activities. So while the city's economic development staff responds to all the leads from the Dallas Regional Chamber and the governor's office, we're responding to all the prospects that we generate through our marketing activities. So getting the site visits in town first, landing those prospects, and then I don't know exactly how you put a number on measuring the jobs at the end of the year and the capital investment because one year is going to generate better results over another year. It's hard to measure economic development successes in a given year versus another year. It might be longer term. Exactly, it could be longer term. I think we're fortunate to be in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex region. I think we're all having good successes right now with Wink o Foods and with United States Cold Storage and Fisher 59 expanding locally and things like that. So how to put an exact number on that is tough at the end of the day. But if those are the things we ultimately want to achieve, going back to the theme from before, shouldn't we at least be looking at whether we're impacting those numbers? I mean, do we know that if we would get different results if we did none of this activity? You know what I'm saying? Because again, ultimately we're going to be having discussions about tax relief. If we're not actually able to tell the voters that this is creating the jobs that this community needs, that this is creating the tax base that will ultimately give you relief, if it's just activity and we don't know that we can ever tie it to anything, then why not deal it back to the voter? So I would just suggest that even if we don't expect much in any given year, that we ought to be looking at the outcomes we are trying to achieve in tandem with the activity that is supposed to achieve them. I guess just to kind of touch on that, I guess we can kind of work with the city and possibly come up with something like that. May I ask another one? I'm also curious, just because people ask me and I don't know, is this an unusual arrangement or a common arrangement for the city to fund staff within a chamber? It's not unusual. There's several other communities that do it. I mean, I would say the majority have a, you know, they're funded from type A and type B, you know, sales tax funds, but there's probably, you know, 15 to 20% of us out there that work in this manner. You know, the Dallas Regional Chamber, the Fort Worth Chamber, Abilene, San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, you know, there are several others like us. Thank you. On budget emphasis, our plan and vision actively promote an environment to encourage commercial and industrial development by expanding and diversifying the tax base, creating jobs and improving the quality of life. That's what is driving your need for funding to maintain an Office of Economic Development at the Chamber of Commerce geared towards targeted external marketing efforts and prospect development and keeping the business community and Denton engaged in economic development efforts. A summary of our cost containment strategies and process improvements, cost containment strategies, constant evaluation of forums and conferences, along with all other target marketing tactics. We measure what's working in a given year versus the other year and we replace those if they're, you know, if they're inefficient with new items that are out there. Focusing our staff solely on incoming prospects generated through marketing activities and from site selectors and brokers. Completed projects. Once again, constant evaluation of marketing trips and narrowing down the ones that have provided results in the past, replacing others with newly advertised events. Continuously update and refresh marketing materials and other branding and collateral, updating and maintenance of the DentonEDP.com website and social media with up-to-date information. We have a 60-point checklist that we go through on a month- to-month basis and we're constantly keeping that information up-to-date, you know, population stats and just, you know, every different stat we can possibly have on our website that a site selector or C-level executive would look for at the end of the day to locate a project here. Major improvements, constantly analyze marketing results to make continuous improvements and consistently monitor and update website and social media outlets. For the budget highlights, for a proposed budget, we've asked for the same numbers last year, 238,836, 62,897 coming from the general fund and the rest from the utility fund. To answer your question, Mr. Gregory, on private investment , there's that baseline number at 75,000 for this year, bringing our total budget to 13,836 for the year. >> Council Member Great. >> Thank you. Yes, on the budget, I was looking at the detailed budget and I realized that the salary seemed to be steadily increasing as the years go for just the few employees that are under this department. And it looks like there's a big decrease in marketing and I guess that is to compensate the increase in salaries. And so I'm wondering if you see this as an issue. >> I don't because we've raised the number of private investment dollars steadily each year. And here's the slides you were talking about right here. We added a 3% raise to salaries. At the same time, we have increased our private investment so the marketing is still staying the same. We're still doing the same amount of output as years past. >> Well, I'm actually looking at the detailed budget. It was the other slide and it has a negative on those. So you're saying that those are actually -- let me see if I can find it. It has like all the taxes. >> Is it a slide that was included? >> It's the detailed budget. It's down further. >> Okay. >> The detailed budget. Yeah. And it says that the marketing is -- yeah, that one. Yeah, right here. The total marketing. It says over here in the slide that it's negative. So I'm just curious if that's going to be made up in another area because to me marketing is a big part of what you do. >> Yes, it's all of it. I'm trying to see where you're talking about. You're talking about target marketing, the change? >> Yeah. All the way down on all of those. >> You're talking about the decrease. >> Yes. >> So 14594, it's decreased to 12207. >> Yes, sir. >> Which is a delta 238. >> So this is the budget just requested from the city. So this is -- right. We added an additional 3% to the salaries. But on the private budget is where we've made up the additional funds. So we've added four private investors and additional funds there. So we're still keeping the marketing going. There's still additional marketing dollars being generated. So the city is paying less for marketing and more for salaries and the private investors are making up that marketing delta is what you're saying. >> Yes. >> So there's not going to be any -- >> There's not going to be any lack on marketing efforts. We're still doing the same amount of marketing trips, marketing output, same number of national advertising, national ads. So everything is still the same there. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Councilmember Meltzer and then Councilmember Hussbett. >> Would you mind explaining the whole aspect of private investors? I really didn't understand it from the presentation. How do you work? How does it work? Who are they? What does it mean to pick up two? >> Okay. Well, we have two separate accounts. This account here that we're requesting the money for, funds, operations, salaries, office expenses and things like that, the private investment is the side that covers full marketing. So that fund right now is around $78,000, made up of 66 private investors from different companies across the community. So Peterbilt Motors, different banks, law firms, anybody that could benefit from a project location at the end of the day. >> They're called investors because they expect a return in some way? How does that work? >> They invest in the private investment dollars to help us go and market the community, which will in turn locate projects and create jobs for everybody as a whole for that matter. But they do get things in exchange, so they get website presence. The brokers that are current investors, we do market their properties. So if we're bringing in a prospect or consultant, we're taking them by their facilities and their properties to market those and show them what we have available. The banks have access to these companies because people are going to be -- if we create 100 jobs and 100 people are going to be moving here, then those banks here are going to want access to them. The attorneys are going to want access to them. So it's just keeping the business community apprised of the companies that we're working on, the number of jobs coming in, what kind of jobs, what -- you know, things like that. Does that answer your question? >> So sort of like a very high-level membership? >> You can look at it that way. >> Sure. >> Yeah, exactly. More of an investment in marketing the community, trying to bring in jobs for everybody. >> In exchange for that additional -- those additional dollars paid out above and beyond a regular membership, they get this sort of -- where you guys will help market some of their -- in exchange for that, they'll get some, you know, maybe additional kind of leads or things such as that. As the sites come in, they might look at those properties first. So there's some type of, you know, a win-win on that. >> Sure. >> Yeah. >> You know, Razor Ranch is one of our big investors and we 're obviously marketing all of their sites, especially their sites out at West Park and then the Martino Group who has the West Gate Business Park, they're one of our higher investors as well. So it's anybody that can benefit from a project locating here at the end of the day. >> Okay. Councilmember Briggs, you had a question? I'm sorry. No, husband. >> Say thank you. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. So I'll take -- or open the door for you. Kind of marketing, I think when I look at it just from a -- in a different arena, right? So I look at it in the Hot Funds typically and I'm encouraged by what I see marketing wise because there's a lot of entities that -- in the first year I sat on Hot Funds Committee that increased their marketing and pointed to printed materials, which is a dinosaur, right? And so that to me is a red flag. And so the fact that -- I mean, we can drill down deeper, but I think on its surface level, I think the social media aspect of things is paramount, right? And if I follow your -- kind of your path, it's these high- level meetings that then have this large trickle-down effect, which you don't have to then pay for these individual meetings and we all know it is these locators that ultimately kind of present to the company and the company is going to trust. Coca-Cola is not going to come here and say, hey, what do you think? They're going to confide in their locator to then kind of drive that conversation because that's their compensation and they can show value. And so you're having these high-level meetings that don't require the kind of getting the weeds and some of those low-level things that may become cost prohibitive. And so I think that's encouraging. Again, got to drill down deeper into it, but I think on its face, it doesn't give me heartburn because just the marketing has changed and you see it in businesses. I mean, I think you see different businesses that go out of business that will sell their email list for millions, you know? And so that costs nothing. That's just kind of incentivizing people to provide you data. So that data is highly valuable, but it doesn't cost you anything. You just got to work at it to elicit that information. So that's my look at it just from a Hot Funds experience and just kind of generally understanding marketing has absolutely changed. I would be concerned if you said you're coming in here printing flyers and... Well, we appreciate that. We appreciate that. A lot of our marketing is trying to get out there and have face-to-face interaction with these consultants and these C-level executives. So we're doing a lot of the site selector events, the area development consultants forums, Consultant Connect forums, and marketing ourselves along with the state and Team Texas and going to do these target marketing trade shows that target just these industries that are outlined in the agreement. But yes, it's getting face-to-face, trying to get face-to- face with these people and social media, keeping them apprised of what's going on and things like that versus just running at one or two ads here and there. Thank you. Council Member Briggs. To that point and on this, so the city has been funding the change report for a really long time. My mic isn't on, sorry. Sure, we got the light. I caught that on my own. So I'll just say we've been partners for a really long time . The city has been funding the Chamber. And as I'm looking at the budget highlights, I see that private investments are growing. I mean, every year they grow. And so do you think that the Chamber will ever be self-sust aining on just private investments ever? Do you see that as a possibility? I do not for several different reasons, but I just, you know, it would take, you know, I know the Fort Worth Chamber and the Dallas Regional Chamber, they are funded like that. They're by 100% membership. And I think for us, it would be tough to do that at this time. Okay, thank you. Yeah, go ahead. And that really was my last slide. That concludes everything. Was there any other questions? Yes, Council Member Briggs. I don't really have another question, just more of a comment. I would really like to see the Chamber more engaged with the community, just the community as a whole. For example, when I was at the Combating Hunger Leadership Training, I learned of a city whose Chamber has a partnership with the Salvation Army, and they actually have a grocery store, and it's a reduced-cost grocery store for the community to use, and it's with the Salvation Army. They have a partnership with the Salvation Army and the Chamber, and they do training there for all the people that work there. And so it's actually a benefit to the community, but it also helps. So I would just encourage you guys to think about other ways you can engage with the community. Okay. And the Chamber President is also in here, too, so listening. So we'll discuss. I mean, I know that there's the small business aspect, but there's other ways that we can help. Okay. We'll make note. We will discuss that. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yes, Council Member Hutchins. It's not directly related, but I'll tip my hand early. Regarding CVB, I think that's the right entity for the Welcome Center. Yes. Yes, sir. So just kind of feedback that you, when they come present. I think it was a unique experience. So I was downtown, and a gentleman was in town from Minnesota. And so he's at Holiday Inn Express, and he says, "Hey, they told me to come down here." He's looking for salad or whatever he wants. And so I gave him some different options. But I was standing right in front of the visitor center, and it kind of dawned on me. I didn't even realize it. I mean, it blends in so well that I wonder if there's something we can do different about maybe, I mean, not like someone outside, whatever that looks like. I'm just giving you a heads up that I'm going to have that question when they present. What does that look like? That if it's a busy night and there's people walking back and forth, does that store or does that presence catch your eye? And I'll tell you, I know it's there, and it didn't. It didn't resonate. I mean, because I know they have the kiosk, and there's a lot of great information in there. I just don't know that we're... Right. Oh, am I? And I'll... What happened? You're close. You're close? It's the same... Well, I think there's a separate CBB budget presentation. Yes. There's a separate... Yes, so... CBB does handle that. But I'll definitely make note, and we'll relay the message. You know them, right? You're friends. Oh, absolutely. We're in the same office. We're friends. Yeah, we... I'm just... I'm just making sure... We'll make sure it's noted for you. If you bump into them. I will, absolutely. I'll see her tomorrow. They may be watching. All right. All right, well. Do we have any other questions from anybody? Any other questions on the economic development portion of the chamber budget? All right, well, I appreciate everybody. I'm just teasing. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for your time. All right. You know what? I think we're going to use... I think we're going to utilize those flashcards. I like that. I need one that says, "Doesn't matter. I'm the chair." No, no, no, no, no. We can always throw that at you. Thank you. Thank you guys for coming. You bet. Thank you. Mayor, members, council, are you ready for this one? We're ready, I believe. All right. Lee Howell. You're not talking about the CBB, are you? Please, no. We're talking about my budget. I'm sorry. I just couldn't resist that. No, I'm just going to present to you the police department budget and the animal services budget. Starting off with our goals and accomplishments. We've had this past year implemented our homeless response plan, which included the outreach team combined with its combination of a police officer and mental health case workers that go out and proactively seek some of the homeless that are in need of those kind of services and see what we can get done with them. It's been very successful so far and has become an integral piece of, I think, the community outreach puzzle. We done some little reorganization of the department and re -energized the strategic approach to recruiting and training and the animal shelter out at Linda McNett Animal Care and Adoption Center has continued exceeding their live release rate goals. Let me go back. On these, just some standard performance measures. Priority one calls for service. Those are the emergency response calls. They're trending slightly up in a range. We're expecting this year to hit about very close to the same as 2017. The best part of that is our response time for this year is down considerably from the last two years. I think there's a combination of things from that. One is the addition of some patrol officers on the street. One is the lack of a lot of construction congestion that we 've experienced the last couple of years. And then cases assigned and cases cleared. I had a question, I believe, from Council Member Meltzer about cases cleared. I think it does show a downward trend in that. There's several reasons for that. One is we're feeling a little bit of staffing shortage in the investigative section because we've made a priority emphasis on keeping patrol officers on the street. So we've been running about five or six openings in the investigation area now for several years that we have not filled. Another thing is those cases cleared will continue to go up , sometimes two to even three years or longer after the end of a year because it takes that long for some of those cases to be cleared. And the ones that are open will always have the opportunity to go back sometimes and clear those within the statute of limitations. Before you leave that slide. Thank you. Priority one calls for service. Do you think that we're going to end up with about the same number that we had in 2017 or does it look like that we may be down a little bit? I think we're going to end up about the same. The summertime sometimes can lend to an increase in those and then September is always a really high. Oh, that's right. Something happens in September and doesn't. Yes, it does. Okay. On the response time, to what do you attribute the better response time? Well, I think there's a combination of that, especially in the last two preceding years, we had a tremendous amount of construction congestion to get around, especially the I-35 just was a major roadblock. Some of the other north and south thoroughfares that were under construction, I wouldn't say that's all of it, but we've also over the last 12 months, we've actually added 11 bodies in patrol. So that's distributed out over and a lot of those were people that were in training already and in the six hires that we got last year. So that's distributed out over the shifts, of course, and to one or two people per shift and I would attribute a slight amount of that decrease to that. Well, I was curious if that had had any impact because we were pretty concerned about it last year. Right. Budget time. So glad to hear that. Thank you. Council Member Meltzer has a question. Sorry, I'm getting a little fast here. Yeah. Would it be fair to say then that those are kind of complementary effects that we bought better response time on priority one calls to some extent at the cost of clearing fewer cases and if that's correct, investigative cases, do you think that that's a good tradeoff? It is a good tradeoff for a while. We will have to catch up with the staff in investigations. A couple of other reasons that I didn't mention for those cases cleared numbers, especially in 2017, we had a number of fairly serious long-term, highly complicated investigations on some serial sexual assault cases and robberies and we had to kind of redevote or redeploy manpower to those which left a few cases that we perhaps normally would have assigned that went unassigned. Normally we can kind of go back and catch up on that some, but again, that takes a while. And some of the cases that went unassigned may not fit our assignment criteria. We may have just assigned them, maybe some that we would assign just for customer service purposes or hoping to find something. A lot of times those cases can kind of linger on open for a while and are not closed. So there's a lot of different dynamics to the cases cleared number, but I would say those are the main reasons why it looks down. And again, probably the better way to illustrate that is to have illustrated it by percentages of cases cleared by assigned and when you see that, it still is trending down a little bit, but it illustrates a little bit better look than just raw numbers. Any other questions on that? Our goals and accomplishments for next year, we have a lot of really good positive things in motion right now, including some, a community response plan that we're developing. We have our strategic plan update, five-year strategic plan that's in progress. And then the police executive research forum assessment that has been commissioned when we're hoping that all those things together will result in a good business process review that gives us some better processes and procedures and then a revamping of our operating policies and procedures. Overall, I think by this time next year, you'll see things in a little bit better shape. And we'd also like to, I'd also like to note that we're hitting all of our animal service goals for the year and that one down there is about, is another one that we're going to continue about having community outreach events each month. For over six years now, I've stressed the idea of excellence and excellence customer service and then for longer than that, we have had our published core values that we, we, that drives everything we do. Some of the current challenges for the last three years or so, there, we have definitely met with an increase in competition in a very competitive hiring and recruiting market for police officers especially and also for dispatchers. We kind of re-initiated some, a little better measures in our recruiting efforts and it paid off almost immediately with 33% increase in applicants in a May civil service exam. We gave an extra test this year and we, that's worked out well to keep a good fresh applicant pool and I'm going to predict by the end of the year that we will have closed all our openings hopefully or getting gotten pretty close to that. We've had just a series of retirements again by notice here in the last few weeks so it's going to kind of reset, set us back just a hair on that goal but I'm going to guess it will be pretty close. So do you have a slide on turnover rate? No we don't. I can tell you that turnover rate varies, it's probably going to be somewhere around 6% a year. And now we have, you know, a true absentee rate if you count vacations, sick time, injuries and things like that is probably two to three times that high. Okay. Well I was curious about that because one of the, you're talking about having to, the hiring seems to be harder because there's more competition. Are we in our exit interviews for people that are turning over that are leaving, are we have a percentage of those that are leaving definitely go to other police forces for better pay or? There are some that have noted that. There's others that are going into the private sector, there's others that have family members who've gotten a better job somewhere out of in another city or another state. So it's a variety of reasons. Well then let me be more direct. At this particular point, do you see any trends that suggest that we need to adjust our pay? Well I think what we're seeing and we saw this especially in immediate change when we changed the way we advertise for dispatchers. We advertised a while back about for a hiring range with experience, which immediately paid off with a higher number of applicants that we got with experience. I would say that the job market right now is so competitive that people are paying a lot of attention to pay and benefits and that's one of the driving forces that they're shopping around a little bit more and they're being more selective to apply with agencies that have good pay and benefits. So yes, I would say that that's something that we need to pay attention to in the next few years. Thank you. Let me just add to Chief's comments that we just had this discussion this morning actually about the pay and we're seeing some of our competing cities that are topping folks out significantly quicker than we are. As early as five years next door in Lewisville for instance , which was interesting to see that so I think it's just something that we're going to have to keep our eyes on over the next year. It's something that I've asked our HR director to take a look into and one of the other items that Chief and I have been talking about is potentially increasing the eligible hiring list over what we currently budget. They've got a fairly strict policy where we can't exceed the number. You've got to authorize their annual hiring process and given the fact that he's constantly down five to seven officers between injury time, military leave, those sorts of things, we'll be talking to you a little bit more about should we be moving that number, that cap up a little bit this year as well. But we seem to be doing a better job of getting more interest in both dispatch and police right now. But the pay is definitely something we need to focus on. If I may, I wasn't sure because I know that our meet and confer agreement as far as pay says that we're going to be five or 10% above the average. It's the median, it's the entry and minimum maximum basically is what it says. I know that my experience over the years in the school district is when we got unemployment percentages down to where they are right now, that especially at the entry level jobs and a lot of categories, we were having a great deal of difficulty filling them and we had to adjust pay scales. It's something that we're going to be talking to you about for sure in the next year or so. I've asked that more data be gathered and brought back. But in addition to just the low unemployment rate, you've got Dallas, which doesn't have the, I don't think they can match us on pay, but you've got another several hundred openings there. There's several hundred openings across the Metroplex. I think you're right. We're going to have to take a look at every tool we possibly can to retain and recruit. I would definitely agree with that. And I'd say we're losing some candidates to some of the other cities that are rapidly growing, especially to the east, the Collin County cities and northern Dallas cities like Frisco, Allen, McKinney. You'll see a lot of dual applications in process when people come to us. We get a lot of cost containment out of our volunteer services and our online reporting. Online reporting is up just a little bit and it shows an estimated cost saving for the year. Our volunteers, our Citizens Police Academy alumni volunteers are everywhere. We have four or five of them that are very dedicated, that are almost indistinguishable from full-time paid employees that are here every day doing something. And then our police reserve unit accounts for over one FTE every year in hours. On the last slide, regarding online reporting, because I know that several people have used that especially when they find out that their cars have been broken into and it's really a non-emergency. How are those followed up with? Are they consistent? Do you manage that in timing? How long can they be online without being responded to? And then if an officer needs to go out or not, how long that takes from the moment an online report is filled out? Yeah, the latter part of your question, that would vary pretty greatly really. They're reviewed periodically quite frequently, I would say almost daily. If we know that one is coming that was something that's reported online, they'll go in and grab it and assign it very quickly. Most of the online reports are fairly minor cases, and so they're not going to meet an assignment criteria as much as the ones where officers are actually sent out to the scene initially. But they're reviewed pretty quickly and assigned out as needed. And if we get a follow-up call from somebody that's reported one, certainly we usually bring that to the top and make it a priority to get it assigned. But if an online report is filed, there is somebody that responds back to that individual and acknowledges that report? I would say that's not always the case, but it's generally done. Okay. Thank you. Some of them are just reports that they're not expecting a callback, they're just for insurance documentation or just sort of letting us know about a particular incident or suspicion of something. As you're aware, we used to have three deputy chief positions, and we took some resources from one of those positions and helped create our administrative manager who's with us here today. If you haven't met Shanika Mayo, she's on the back row there and kind of in the corner. She's already making an impact with us and is going to be taking over some of the budget duties from here on out. And so our organizational chart, I don't know if that, well , you can see that, but it's a significant reorganization with a lot more duties under the operations chief where there's probably, well, there will be some additional changes in this, tweaking just a few of those assignments in the coming year. Performance measures, again, our response time is improving over the last two years. We're already one call response time. We're continuing a pretty consistent ratio of compliments, unsolicited compliments from citizens as opposed to complaints, and it's about four to one. And we've had for many years have been in the top 10 in cities our size in the nation in Twitter followers and Facebook followers or likes. This is the overall budget highlights. The decrease on the baseline there is due primarily to the transfer of the communications operation from PD budget to tech services. That's how many FTEs? >> Two, four right now. And they're hiring additional ones in progress too. So that will bring us to the actual current FTE count to 22 5.73. The fraction there comes in from school crossing guards that are part time. And I'll be glad to ask any questions more about the PD budget before I start into animal services. >> Councilmember Meltzer and then Councilmember Husserl. >> I seem to remember reading in the version of the presentation or maybe the backup that you're contemplating adding or proposing adding four officers, and I guess that will be in the supplementals. But where -- is it okay to ask about it now or should we wait until we talk about the supplementals? Just curious where it was identified that they were needed and how they would be deployed. >> Yes, we updated this past spring we updated a staffing study that we had initiated before that was through -- done by the criminal justice program, Dr. Eric Frisch at UNT. He uses a 32-point criteria formula to formulate a sworn and non-sworn staffing levels based on just all those criteria. Anyway, his staffing study indicates that to be where we need to be in the sworn ranks that we need to continue to add about four to five people a year for the next five years to keep up with growth and maintain the kind of service levels that we want to maintain. And some of those folks at some point in time would again be -- would be assigned out of patrol to other support groups to improve some of those other measures we showed you earlier. >> Councilmember Husserl. >> Thank you. Do you think those four will help kind of stem and I mentioned earlier that, you know, my concern are like the -- I mean, the robberies on the square at 10 in the morning, I mean, that's kind of concerning. The other two robberies, one more recent than the other where they waited for the safe to untimelock, I mean, that's concerning. Do you think those four kind of help manage those type crimes or do you think there's more needed as far as to kind of have more coverage? What are your thoughts on those type where more brazen approaches? >> Yes, sir. I think definitely any -- you know, I'm not going to tell you that manpower is not going to help us in a lot of ways and going to contribute to solving some of those crimes. However, when you asked that question earlier, I looked all that up and verified that the only robberies of major robberies like you're describing that we have open are the last two, the Wells Fargo bank robbery and the other one where they had the safe lock. The other one -- the others and we may not be doing a good job of marketing ourselves with our accomplishments on some of that, but we've arrested a series of robbers over the past six to eight months that contributed to -- one individual had done I think 14 different robberies and confessed to them. Then there was another pair that were doing -- they did about five or six and then two more that had a series of robberies. So we actually had quite a good success with that. Robberies are up generally all over the Metroplex and some robberies of individuals like you're talking about in places where normally we wouldn't expect them to happen. Those were happening more often all over, but we've had some really good success in investigating and tracking down some of those folks. I think we have confessions actually from about six different people over the past several months that contributed to a number of those robberies, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 or 25 of them. So -- >> Yeah, no, I think if I may -- >> Sure. >> Yeah, I would like to maybe visit how we can better get that messaging out, you know, because the one guy is the Dollar General there by the mall . He walked him back in and waited and it sounds like maybe that one's resolved. I don't know, but either way I think, yes, if there's a way that I can better, one, be educated myself and, two, get that messaging out. I'd love to do that. Again, I think your Twitter approach and Facebook approach works well. And then another question, if I may. What have you seen percentage-wise, the cases you build and turn over to the DA's office being indicted, do you track that kind of progress and how your officers are building their cases? >> We have from time to time done some quality checks on that. Again, it's difficult because a lot of those cases tend to go right to the limit of the limitations of them sometimes in prosecution or disposition . So it's always behind. I mean, you're talking about, I mean, even misdemeanor cases can sit in queue for a year after we file them and more, and felonies are even longer than that. So it's difficult to come up with a really good accurate assessment of that that's anything close to real time. >> Okay. And then two other things, if I may. So just curious, if you're tracking homeless calls, I know there was that one fight at -- I forget the location. Maybe I forget where it was. So are you tracking those calls? And then if you could speak on your look into space needs, more space. So more officers, you're already tight in the offices, your hats. So just kind of if you can communicate what you see going forward. And I'll give you credit, when we sat on the bond before when we were deciding the new lobby, I was amazed at how much you were able to get done, you know, at a very small ask. You were able to get a lot done in the building. So I appreciate your efficient look at things. >> Well, thank you. To your first question, yes, we do track homeless calls. And I can run those numbers for you pretty accurately up to a day, you know, within a day, if you'd like, I can get that for you and email that out. I can tell you that they have been trending up and we -- for a number of years. And last year we implemented a special tracking mechanism to be able to search by. So actually we have a very accurate account, I think, on those. So I can get that for you. >> One of the things that the bond committee that you served on set motion for us is about to kick off in terms of space needs and that's a remodel inside the police department that's going to allow for an expansion of a lot of office space. Most of that's in the investigative area. And so we have people packed into kind of the corners and the hallways and, you know, places like that right now. That's going to help considerably on that. And that's going to actually leave us under the roof of City Hall a little bit more space, I think, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 to 10,000 square feet, depending on how we were to use it. It's still left for expansion and just needs to be finished out at some time. So we're okay long term -- in the short run, I think, on that. And then depending on what happens long term on the facility plan with other departments potentially moving out of City Hall East, we should still be in good shape for a while. >> And then lastly, Mr. City Manager, a request for you, can you send me the dollar figure per officer generally? You know, so when we're talking about rebating tax dollars or applying them to something else, I'd like to understand what that number is. Per officer on average, you're looking at X amount over a year, that sort of thing. >> Sure. I'm just looking at the supplementals right now. And you're looking at roughly $120,000 per time we outfit them, hire them, train them, and benefits all in. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions for the chief? >> I'll get to the animal services here real quick. Again, if you play stump the chief on any animal services question, I have our shelter supervisor Paul O'Neill here to help me answer any questions on that. He's doing a great job, by the way. Outstanding job. We've had a major turnaround in Linda McNatt there since he 's been on board now for a couple of years. Our release rate is exceeding 85%. We're set a goal for volunteers hours. As you know, the animal shelter has begun -- has become over the years to rely heavily on volunteers. So that 4,000 hours was just kind of an equivalence of two full-time people with minus about 80 hours, rounding it down to 4,000. Right now we're exceeding that for this year and should hit that benchmark. >> Chief got a question from Councilmember Briggs. >> There are some people that still think our animal shelter is a no-kill shelter. Can you -- on the live release rate, for those that don't make it out, there are special circumstances, right, for those that are euthanized? >> Well, the ones that are euthanized are only animals that are just not adoptable. And there's -- some animals come in in such bad health that it's just the most humane thing to do. And others may be deemed as dangerous animals. So there's two or three reasons why they're euthanized, and it's strictly for humane and safety reasons. And so that's actually what affects that number, that percentage. So is it -- yeah. >> Yes. And, you know, Paul can correct me, but the term no-kill shelter is really a misnomer. There's really not one that is truly -- where there's no e uthanasia that occurs. >> Right. Okay. Thank you. The mission statement, I believe that the staff out there does a great job in achieving this. And they're very in touch and aware of the community needs. Cost-containment strategies. Paul has done a great job getting some people trained up. We had a lot of the new employees that had come on had been -- had not been certified in the state certification. And he's got that training going on that and has been able to do that in-house and very -- and locally at a reduced cost from normal. And I would have to get him to explain to you exactly what these chemical compounds here are. But we do take a look periodically at medical supplies and the medical procedures in the vet clinic and make sure that we're using the most cost- effective and also humane products that we can. Again, the -- getting people certified up is a big thing. And one of our officers was able to move up in a reclass to an ACO2 position after some training. And the -- there's -- the community events, you may have seen, I think I sent everybody out the videos from the fashion show recently, which was a first-time event that I'm sure we're going to try to repeat every year at least. And it was a huge success. Of course, Denton Animals Support Foundation plays a big role in supporting and marketing the adoption of animals. And these budget highlights here indicate a little bit of an increase. We're not asking for any additional personnel this year at the shelter. And this increase is reflected by that just percentage raises and the ACO promotion to an ACO2. And I think this past year we brought in a couple of people with experience and we're able to bring them in at a little higher than entry level. And that's your position count. And I'll be glad to ask for any questions that I can on the animals. >> Just one thing. So I do want to plug the new app because it has the pictures up there. So I think that's fantastic. There's one -- so Rosebud is on there. He has different colored eyes just in case there's anybody that wants a cattle dog mix. But I think that's really neat that you can have that. You know, the opportunities, you don't have to drive out there or if you're driving out there, it's express purpose and kind of, you know, or kids can take a look in advance, that sort of thing, and efficiently go out there. So I think that's -- that will be a tremendous addition to all the kind of approach to get the animals adopted. So that's fantastic. >> All right. Thank you. >> Yeah, I just want to say that I consistently get compliments and positive comments about Paul's work and just over the last two years, the turnaround and the continued relationship with the Dental Support Foundation and the volunteers. It's just -- they're just -- you guys are just doing a great job out there. And I thank you and I thank the staff for just all the creativity. I did see the video on the fashion show. It was quite remarkable. So hats off to you. I think you're doing a great job out there and it really shows. Everybody goes to Paul and his staff and that fashion show was an idea of one of the staff members. So anything else? >> Anything else? Yes, Council Member Briggs. >> I just want to echo that. We've actually been out there as a family a few times because we're looking to add to our family. And the staff has just been extremely helpful and very honest about the animals that are there and they're not just trying to adopt. They want to make sure that the animal is right for the family and I appreciate that for sure. Thank you. >> Fantastic. Thank you. Appreciate it, Chief. >> Thank you. >> Who's next? >> I'm going to have the Chief do it for me. >> Yes, you're going to have to do it. >> All right. My name is Robert Ramsey. I'm the presiding judge for the Deputy Municipal Court. Accomplishments this year, actually we've had several. It's been kind of an evolving process. Primarily we have implemented over the last two years, but particularly in the last year, a number of I called them freedom initiatives last time. It sounded a little bit flowery. But there were attempts to try to make sure that we didn't throw people in jail, that people had a chance to come in, take care of the cases without having to post a bond. We really, really lightened up the process for people who had missed the gate. So I think we've achieved most of those. And I think that there's even been a financial benefit from that. I think we're seeing more people paying them perhaps over time instead of going to jail and getting jail credit. Because that doesn't -- no one wins in that particular situation. We have created some companion jail processes for release of individuals from jail without posting bond or with a promise to appear. And we've established payment compliance dockets. I kind of left that word off the screen. But it allows people to come in and request additional time . We have also embraced the concept of alternative payments. And by that I mean not just community service. There are people that may have community service, an inability to perform community service, particularly in the case of mental health issues. We've had some people come in or alcohol or substance abuse . And I will give them credit toward the fine for every AA class they attend or NA class or in certain cases they will appear with their MHMR case worker. As long as they're attending their sessions and taking care of their obligations in MHMR, I also give them credit for each hour that they attend that . So that's not a direct monetary benefit to the city, but it does dispose of cases. It keeps people out of jail. And I think if the justice is our goal, and it is certainly my goal, then I think it achieves that. So we're also looking at just reevaluating the collection processes, tightening them up. And my personal belief is there was a program that had been somewhat imposed upon us by Office of Court Administration, which was called a collections program. They've now kind of recanted that and taken the position that they're not trying to collect anything. They were simply trying to help people that couldn't pay. I'll go with that. It seemed to meet our goals. So at any rate, we are kind of revamping that process or will revamp that process. I'd also like to develop, and the court clerk and staff, we 've talked about revamping our community service to maybe use it as a community outreach so that we go out and advertise, or maybe that's not an appropriate word, but we reach out to different community assets and community groups that have opportunities for community service. And we developed a liaison or relationship with those groups so that they can notify us of opportunities that they have and so that we can get people signed up and verify that the work has been done. I really have no direct revenue or expenditures ethically or judicially that I can speak of. My office doesn't account for it in that sense, nor would it be appropriate, but of course the court clerks, there is a revenue component of their operation. Our total office has been for the last 22 years, 2.5 positions, still 2.5 positions, two full time, and I have a group of five appointed judges that you appointed that is alternate judges who comprise all of one half of one position or FTE. So I use them to supplement the time, but no one has any guaranteed time, hours, or schedule. In fact, it really looks a little bit busy, organizational chart. I put this in at the last, well, at the last minute before this presentation went up, and since that time, you'll notice it has a .10 FTE for four of those positions, or actually all five positions. So what I do is that the one half part, the part time position, the one half of an FTE is broken up, and to be honest with you, I don't think in the last 20 years we've even used fully that one half time position, because I use it as a, if one can't do it, I use the other. I've created that because I don't want to create an entit lement for one thing, but on the other side of that, I'm dealing with people who are licensed attorneys, and they need the flexibility. It's just impossible to ask them to put down their practice . Instead, you know, if I can't use one, then I'll go to the other, to the other, to the other. So that's why you have so many positions, but all still just one half of an FTE. The budget remains identical to what it has in the past years, with the exception of increases for merit and so forth, and our tech services component went up, I think. But other than that, it's remained the same. Almost all of my budget is comprised of personnel cost, really not anything else to it. Oh, here we go. Council Member Riggs. I remember last year in our discussion, there was an issue of places that participate in community service, and there was an issue there. Has that been resolved? I mean, it has. To be really honest, we have so many students here, and they're using, I guess they're not enough community service hours to go around, in our current context. Because right now what we do is we tell people if they need to go find, they need to make the contact, we give them a sheet to fill out and bring back to us, and then we will confirm the work has been done. But what I'm proposing, what I think we're going to move forward this next year, is take one of our collections positions and actually re-task that position to where they are in charge of going to meetings such as Lions Club, Rotary, groups like that, making a presentation, seeing whether or not they have any opportunities for community service and setting up a network. The other part of it is it sure would be nice to have a direct communication, so I'd like to have that person develop an email connection. So we're working on that, and that's in answer yet. We're moving forward with a little bit more high tech and a little bit more of a community outreach approach. May I follow up? May I? Yes, of course. I think that sounds great, because some of that, it's hard to navigate that community service for the people, and so having someone there to help through that process, I think, would be beneficial. Not only that, but also to know what those groups expect before they go there. Because one of the problems now is they will go out and they'll contact these groups, and they'll go, "I'm sorry, but we don't accept people who are under the age of 18. I'm sorry, we don't accept people unless they do have particular skills." So they will know in advance, so instead of letting them go find it, we will have the list and we will create the connection there. Be more efficient. And it will be more efficient for us, because then we'll be getting an email verification without having to call and do that. Okay. Thank you. Anybody have questions? Yes. Judge, you mentioned that you never even really use the full half an FTE. I'm just curious, where does the excess go? It usually goes back into the general fund. Again, I had that buffer and I realize that that sounds a little extravagant, but the reason I do that is because I usually absorb all the hours under my full-time salary position, and I only have that in the event that I actually decide to take vacation or something like that, and that's rare. I really don't take vacation. I don't have a life. Okay. Anybody else? Thank you, Judge. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir. I believe this is our last one for the budget. Yeah, we'll grab dinner after this. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Tiffany Thompson, Customer Service Manager, here to go over the municipal court's budget presentation. The mission of the municipal court is to provide fair and courteous administration of justice. In addition, we want to support Judge Ramsey's policies, processes, and his direction in the court, and we also want to ensure that we educate defendants on all of their options pertinent to their case and provide them with dignity in respect of their cases. So there's 14.5 FTEs in the municipal court. Currently, we do have one vacant part-time position, and we eliminated one FTE this fiscal year. So a little bit more detail on the position summary. Last fiscal year, at this time, we had 16.5 FTEs proposed, but at the very end of last fiscal year, through natural attrition, we did eliminate a full-time equivalent with that. And then over the course of the last six months, we've been assessing positions and what's appropriate, and so we did do a reclass and then another elimination of a position. And so currently, we're proposing 14.5 FTEs, and we're going to see the cost reduction that we saw over on the budget coming up. So the goals and accomplishments for '17 and '18, we added a central court email address so defendants can email the court their documents related to their case. We also assisted the judge with the creation of new dockets designed to increase defendant service options for their court cases. We increased the court notify courtesy calls to advise defendants if there's a large docket and that they could anticipate higher wait times. We provided proactive call to them to let them know about that. And then in January, we updated phone prompts to reduce the time it takes for defendants to get to clerks. Previously, you would select the prompt and it would give you about five minutes worth of verbiage. And so we reduced that down. It takes about 45 seconds versus that five minutes now. And then again, over the last several months, we've assessed positions for efficiency and made those proactive changes. So our goals for '18-'19 is continue to explore, like Judge Ramsey had mentioned, additional ways that we can have online presence for increased service options to the defendants. We're currently developing a quality assurance program to improve defendant experience. We want to continue to review paper heavy processes and transition to paper lot. For example, being able to email receipts at the windows versus handing them paper. And then we're also going to be launching an after call satisfaction survey. So after they speak with the court clerk, they'll be able to take a three question survey based off of the experience that they received. I think I probably should have asked this question when we had the judge up. But it may impact your area as well. With the flexibility that there might be in staffing funds, is it out of the realm of possibility that we might have some night court available for people who work for a living during the day? Historically, we had many, many years ago we did. Judge, if you maybe could step a little bit closer to the mic. Thank you. We have years ago, but I suppose it's been more than 15 years. We cut back on that partly because of staffing. It does expand the timeframe which we have to provide staff . To be honest with you, we had a number of people that simply didn't like if we scheduled them for after that hours. So if we have an increase in caseload come up, and I don't see that happening right away, but if we do have an increase in caseload, then I think that would be appropriate. I'm also not beyond considering allowing that for certain particular kinds of cases. If we ever go to a community court aspect, sometimes with homeless situations like in Austin they have a community court that has to be pretty flexible. I think we could do that, but on a limited docket basis at that point. Currently, I don't see the need, and most people feel as if it's an impediment to their daytime. So they usually don't. But we can. We have, and it's just a matter of seeing the need for it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it. Thank you. So our cost containment strategy is that we have changed to a paper-like court over the last several years. For example, in fiscal year '11 and '12, a jacket like this was printed for every single case and all the documents were put into it, and there was approximately 40,000 cases. So that fiscal year 40,000 of these was printed and all the documents inside of that. Now you only see about a little over 900 of these are printed a year. So that transition to a paper-like court has been a great cost containment strategy on staff's part. And then implementing a quality assurance program, so making sure that the defendants, again, are aware of all the options and that we're meeting those KPIs. A quicker call routing to the court clerks, like I had advised, from 5 minutes to 45 seconds. And then new performance metrics that I'm going to discuss that we're introducing, and then leveraging the feedback that we're going to gain from that survey data. And then just looking at the positions, again, what Judge Ramsey said, what is appropriate now for the court and how do we assess that now? And then we have the elimination of the FT and the reclass. And so for municipal court cases, overall the last three years we've maintained a little over 30,000 cases for the last, again, three years. That's a 36.9% decrease from 10 years ago. And from just statewide averages, that's right in line with what's going on just statewide with that. And so again, the emphasis on the court has been with working on defendants, providing more options, that open court that Judge Ramsey has. So we'll reset their court date, provide payment options to them. So really the focus is helping the defendants more through their case. And so most of these performance metrics and measures are new in municipal court. So financial accuracy, anytime you have an operation that's taking any type of money, you want to have a financial accuracy component so we know what to expect. We actually launched that this month with the court clerks. A quality assurance program to know that we're meeting the key performance indicators and we're working with the judge on what the appropriate KPIs are. One thing would be case management. Do we document the case appropriately? Do we give the defendant all appropriate options for their case? With that, again, all the options. And then how quickly we're answering that phone call with the defendants. And then the survey results on the defendant satisfaction. Are we meeting, are they satisfied off of the services that they received from the court clerks? And so overall for budget highlights, we do have an approximately 7.3% decrease and that's directly related to the FTE elimination and then just some cost savings with materials and supplies. And so with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. Any questions? Seeing none. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you all very much. Okay. I think that's it for agenda item C. Is that correct? Okay. All right. We've got one more agenda item. Do you all want to just plow through that and then get dinner? What do you want to do? We've been going for about an hour and a half. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, let's do that. All right. Yep. Okay. I want to welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council Tuesday, June 19th, 2018. It is 532 and we'll move on to our next work session agenda item, which is 3D, receive report and hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the preliminary FY 2018-19 budget, including potential changes to the Homestead Ex emption. Mayor City Council, Tony Puente, Director of Finance, thank you for having me tonight. I was before you last week and we discussed the preliminary budget and the forecast and provide a number of assumptions for you. I'm just going to kind of hit those again really quickly for you just as a reminder, but we're back here at your request to discuss the Homest ead Exemption. There was a number of questions that came up and so we wanted to try to address your questions and then ask for your direction. So just very quickly, again, I'm going to walk through the assumptions, talk a little bit about supplemental requests, talk to you a little bit about where we are with the Over 65 and disabled tax limitation or, you know, what everyone calls the freeze. And then we can discuss the Homestead Exemption and ask for your direction on anything that the council is needing or wanting to do. So just really quickly, again, these are the assumptions that have gone into our preliminary forecast. As I mentioned to you last week, we continuously receive on a weekly basis updated preliminary value information. The final certified value will be delivered to the city. Usually it's on July 25th, sometimes it comes in a day early, but we anticipate that that'll be July 25th. And then we'll be working to have the proposed budget ready for you to be delivered to you by July 31st. So the total effective rate that we've calculated, let me go back 10% certified value increase assumption, rough estimate on the effective tax rate is about 61 cents, that's about 2.7 cents below our current rate. There are some very specific items related to the truth and taxation calculation that we'll need to kind of work through as a result of this first year impact of the Over65 limitation. And so we'll have that discussion with you on August 2nd when we present to you the proposed budget. Sales tax assumptions, you know, we discussed these the last time, 5% above the revised estimate and then as you see here, the assumptions that we have kind of going forward in that five year forecast. And then finally, we continue based on direction from council to shift an additional $622,000 of franchise fees to the street improvement fund. So just really quickly, here is the kind of preliminary forecast that we showed to you last week. I do want to point out to you here in this new recurring expenses, this is kind of a placeholder that we've traditionally had for new programs, supplemental requests. This will be an area that I'll come back to you as that may be impacted, you know, based on whatever decision the council makes today. So just quickly, some of the, you know, these are totals, we're going to come back to you, you know, in July, certainly in August and talk to you a little bit about what we're seeing as far as supplemental requests, you know, a little bit in excess of $47 million worth of requests. The majority of them, 41 million is capital related. And then as you see here, the recurring and one time operational expenses that are being requested, personnel, material equipment are included within those numbers and we'll have the detail for you. So I just want to quickly kind of go over one of the requests and let me go back to address a question that we have from the council members as to why we hadn't come back sooner than now to talk about the Homestead Exemption. We really wanted to give the council an opportunity to look at that item, at that consideration within the context of a five year preliminary forecast. You know, that was really the only reason. Again, we felt that there was time for the council to hopefully to have ample discussion, provide direction so that we can submit that, any changes to the appraisal district before July 1st. So the other, one of the other questions that came up was regarding the over 65 and disabled. Where do we think we were and where are we? And so this is all preliminary data. I will tell you that we received last Friday additional numbers of preliminary data and some of these numbers have changed a little bit, you know, and so they'll continue to move as a protest period. It's still kind of underway, there's an ARB process and so there might be some movement. We don't anticipate large movements in this area, but there could be some. And so as of June 8th, we showed 7,146 accounts that were eligible for this tax freeze. Of those, 6,914 were over 65 and 232 were disabled persons. The assessed value before exemptions, so those properties will continue to be appraised on an annual basis, even though they will not pay additional taxes more than what the tax that the base year was. And for these 7,146 properties, the base year was 2017. And so these properties, there are some cases in which they may pay additional money if they've made certain improvements to their home, but by and far, it'll be the same amount that they paid in 2017 is what they'll pay in 2018. So the assessed value before exemptions is $1.6 billion. After exemptions, after any eligible exemptions like the homestead exemption, over 65 exemption, there might be some other minor exemptions. There's some partial exemptions that may be applicable depending on when that person kind of moved into the house and there's adjustments. The net or the taxable value of those properties would have been $1.2 billion. At the current tax rate, that would have been a little bit over $8 million in taxes that would have come to the city. Now, as I mentioned, just a question of clarification. So when you were talking about accounts, the first one is just the over 65 and disabled. The assessed value before exemptions, that's the total value of all exemptions, not just over 65. Are you saying that's just the over 65 and disabled? That's just the over 65 and disabled. Gotcha. Okay. So these properties, the total actual tax that will be due from these properties to the city will be $7.2 million. So what that equates to is about a $1.1 billion worth of net taxable value. And so that difference, that differential is what is the tax loss or the tax that's being foregone as a result of the tax freeze and that's about $115 million worth of value at the current tax rate of 63 cents that equates to about $ 733,000 worth of taxes that will not be coming to the city that are being foregone as a result of the senior tax freeze. Council Member Meltzer. If you can help me out a little bit. Last year, we went out at the effective rate, right? So the purpose of which is at least by and large for people 's tax bills to be the same as it was in prior year sort of anyway. So in that year, how would we have missed taxes? Is it because of the effect of the exemptions? It won't be in that year, Council Member. It'll be in this year. For the '28 tax year, those properties will only pay $7.2 million. Now let me just kind of speed up just really quickly just so the council also is aware. All these properties currently and going into the future because of state law are able to defer their taxes. And so some of these properties and some of these taxes could potentially be deferred. Council Member Meltzer. I just want to make sure I'm following that. This year is the base. So you're talking about- Council Member Meltzer. 2017 was the base. This is the first year of the freeze. And so whatever they paid last year will be the same amount that they paid this year with some minor potential adjustments related to improvements that they may make in their home. Okay. And the effective tax rate experience was one year before that. Correct. Okay. Now certainly if the council elects to adopt a lower tax rate than the 63 cents, which is our current tax rate, that is kind of the rough estimate that we've put out there. And if that results in a lower tax levy to those individual tax homeowners, they will pay the lesser amount. So it's either the freeze amount or the lesser of the calculated amount if it results in a lower tax levy to them. I do have a question on that. Yes, sir. So let's take- let's just give an example. The valuation at the freeze was $400,000 for tax calculation purposes. Somebody's house is $400,000. I'll just make it $100,000. And their taxes were $680 or $630. So their valuation, let's say, goes up to $110,000. What I'm hearing you say is you apply the tax rate to the assessed value, the current- the adopted one to the assessed value, and then you look at the lesser of the tax freeze amount that they- or the tax rate applied to their new valuation. Correct. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure I understand how that process works. And whichever is the lesser of the two, that's what the- That's what they pay. Yeah. Gotcha. All right. So as I mentioned, I wanted to be clear with the council that there is an unknown risk there and the unknown risk is that some of these properties could elect to defer their taxes. And so now the history that the city has is that about $200 ,000 worth of deferrals is what we've seen historically over the last five years. I will tell you that last year for 2017, we did see a bump up in that, about $600,000. But by and large, the majority of those deferrals are on mortgages, and so the mortgage companies do require them to pay their taxes. And so by and large, the majority of those are paid. And so we think that the risk of deferrals having some type of negative impact on the amount of revenue that the city will receive from these properties is pretty minor. But it is something to be aware of. And this is a legal question, I guess, or maybe not. So if you elect a deferral, and if this is off posting, you can answer this offline. So if you elect a deferral, that's allowed by state law. But if you have a mortgage, your mortgage documents override state law as far as in the deed of trust, your obligation to pay taxes? That just I suppose that that'd be great. I just would. Yeah. Because when you say that it's like, well, what's the point of it? I understand the state law, but otherwise, you'd have to have it paid off. Yes, Councilmember Duff. The mortgage company wouldn't allow it. I don't think. Yeah, that's that. I think it's. Yeah, we'll get a we'll get a some research on that. Just well, the other the other thing about deferring it like that was about 8% interest tied to it. So I know some people that have done that. And just one other point on that. The majority of individuals that that do defer their property taxes do pay them. But what they do is they pay them in installments, you know , so they'll pay on monthly basis, quarterly basis. So they would pay it all by the end of that year. Very small amount that's that's unpaid at the end of the year. I need to say I've got to step out to just get something else to eat. So I have to say that you're going to that Councilmember Gregory will handle the duties of the chair. I have to do that because they don't have to. I'll be right back. There's a chance. Go nuts. Power for 20 seconds. OK. So one of the questions that came up with the council requested was what did we project last year and what was ultimately what we're seeing. And I won't spend too much time on this slide because I wasn't the one that prepared it. That's kind of my out right. But what I will tell you is that based based on what we were projecting even last year, what we anticipated that we would see as far as revenue loss to the city as a result of the tax freeze was approximately two hundred and eleven thousand dollars. As I've already communicated to you, what we actually saw, we're actually seeing currently based on preliminary values is that that amount is actually seven hundred and thirty three thousand dollars. And so so going forward, this slide, this this projection, I've modified it based on the information that we have now. Certainly last year we didn't have all the information. We were trying to come up with an educated guess as to where we thought that we would be. And so based on where we are today now, I will tell you that seven thousand one hundred and forty six accounts is what we're seeing today. I've projected a three percent increase in those accounts going forward. I will tell you, though, that there's about six hundred and forty additional accounts that are currently on the appraised role that are going to be eligible for over sixty five and disabled persons exemptions. I think that three percent might be somewhat conservative based on those numbers. There are a lot of factors as to why some over sixty five exemption and disabled persons accounts don't always necessarily translate into a freeze. And so so that's I'm a little cautious from that front, but there is, as I mentioned, about six hundred and forty additional accounts that are going to come on the books for those accounts. The twenty eighteen tax year will be their first their base year. And so then going forward, we'll see those kinds of increases. The average assessed value of these properties again is two hundred and thirty four thousand dollars. Average taxable is one seventy five. Again, I've projected going forward that these would increase approximately two percent. Again, you know, likely somewhat conservative projection. But what what I'm anticipating is that next year, this seven hundred and thirty three thousand dollars will turn into approximately nine hundred thousand dollars. And by twenty twenty seven, there'll be an excess of, you know, almost three million dollars worth of deferred property taxes as a result of the freeze. Yes, Councilmember Dock. Yeah. Are you taking into account that some of these houses that people are over sixty five will be sold and some people will die? Correct. And that's and that's why I projected a three percent, a two percent. Yeah, that's that's kind of hard to figure out. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And I'll definitely be able to tell you what that what that percentage is next year. OK. Yeah. That's my bridge. Yeah. So I was out of the room. I apologize. So last year when we were talking about potential effects, this council, it was I think a little over two hundred thousand. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. And so actuality is the the next which is over seven hundred thousand. So that's the difference in the and that has to do with the evaluations as well. To some extent, yes, ma'am. OK. So we were just under evaluating last year. What we what we over projected last year was the amount of taxes that these properties would be paying as part of the freeze. And so so that was really that was really the difference. So we over projected that. And so as a result, that differential wasn't as big last year as it is this year. And so up until the freeze, there was a fifty thousand dollar exemption. Right. Is that right? On these properties as well. So that exemption is included in this. That exemption didn't fall off first. And then the freeze that exemption is not part of the seven hundred and thirty three thousand dollars. So that's that's separate from that, but that still exists for both for both over sixty five and disabled persons. So both of those are currently at fifty thousand. OK. So that's not fitting into this number here. No, ma'am. Well, excuse me. Yes. Yes, they are. Excuse me. Yes, they are. OK. They're the difference between the assessed and the average taxable is those exemptions. Is that OK? Thank you very much. That really concludes my you know, the slides that I had for the over sixty five and disabled persons limitation impact. Again, seven hundred thirty three thousand dollars is is what we're seeing would be the impact this year. There was a number of questions that the council had had related to to the distribution of where values are in the city. And this is this is fifteen billion dollars worth of assessed or market value before exemptions and where they're split. You can see that by far the largest piece of the pie, almost 43 percent of that is single family residences followed by commercial industrial properties, about 27 percent. Healthy family also, you know, pretty, pretty significant here, about 13 percent. There is a large piece that I'll talk to you a little bit when we talk about exemptions exempted properties. But we do have about seven percent of our total market value and likely it's larger than that simply because some of those properties aren't necessarily reappraised on an annual basis. We're talking about, you know, county property, school district properties, properties from the federal government, state agencies and what have you. And so so those properties, while they do get assessed, they may not be accessed as regularly as some of the other properties. So they might be somewhat undervalued. Councilmember Gregory has a I would be curious to see that figure instead of valuation because I don't trust those numbers at all. I'd rather see it in terms of maybe percentage of actual acreage. If that's possible, because I've heard I've heard percentages that are significantly higher than that seven percent. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. I just didn't hear you say it's on double checking. The exempt property would include UNT and TWU. Yes, sir. Yeah. OK. And I feel like I've heard a number like 30 percent based on acreage. If we could stay on that slide, just so I make sure I've got my numbers correct or my what I'm thinking are the facts here. So exempt property and we'll just go with that number. I mean, it may be higher. We just don't know. But let's just go with that is one point one billion. And if I apply the. Did I apply sixty three or sixty anyway? I think I applied the sixty three sixty three cents. That's six point eight million dollars in taxes. Correct. But that's all of it. That's all the exemption. So part of that is your over sixty five exemption. Some of that is the homestead exemption that we're going to be talking about. Some of it is disabled. I think there's veterans. So this exempt property that includes the totality or is that just this is just nonprofit. This is just the market value on nonprofits, state property , other other tax exempt properties. Gotcha. I was mixing up the terms. We'll cover it. You'll cover the. I appreciate that. We'll cover the exemptions. Gotcha. All right. Gotcha. So my apologies. So I believe someone had requested a history. And so this is this is a history of kind of the last two certified values where we are the preliminary value of exemptions. So these are the current exemptions that are that are on on the city's books. You can see here that for twenty eighteen about seven hundred ninety one million dollars is being a value is being exempted. And these are considered local exemptions. I will tell you that the pollution control and the personal property vehicle I was told today by the Prezl district that they're really state exemptions. So the city has no control of those. So I do need to move them to to the state piece. But by far the state exempted properties values. These are the disabled veterans that are that are provided by state law. The city has no control. And then the exempted properties is one point one billion dollars. So the total the total amount of exemptions from our certified value for twenty eighteen preliminarily is one point nine billion dollars. What that translates to and this is based on the on the rough sixty one cent tax rate is about eleven million dollars at the sixty three cents. That goes up to about thirteen million. I have to say that one more time. At the sixty one cents it's about eleven. It's eleven point nine million at the sixty three cents. It would be an additional two point seven million roughly. This is kind of a bonus slide if you will. Just want to just let you know that by far Denton as a county seat certainly we have a lot of state agencies federal agencies here just compared to Louisville. You can kind of see the magnitude of the state exemptions that are have you know they have you know an impact on on the city's ability to raise you know tax revenues compared to Louisville. And so again it's just the only reason we included Louis ville is because that's you know that was the largest other city in in Denton County within one central appraisal district where we can easily gather information. It was just something I want to let you know the kind of magnitude of the amount of exemptions that exist in the city that the city has no no real control over. Would you say and I guess I would that of those state exemptions probably the lion's share of that would be the two local universities is what I 'm thinking based upon just I mean because you got text dot facilities you got supportive housing out there on State School Road. I mean those are at least that I can think of off the top of my head the largest state exemptions outside of you know it's not talking about local school districts and things such as that with is that would that be somewhat reasonable kind of I think I think reasonable assumption especially since Louisville is at four hundred thirty one million so that's a difference of about seven hundred million dollars and they don't really have that kind of presence in their higher education as far as state universities and colleges correct. Okay. The only reason I say that is this gets talked about and bantered around a lot and when you just look at these facts and these numbers yes it's like oh look at all these tax dollars but I'm also going to say if we didn't have those kind of it what is the economic impact of those two universities on this on this city's let's just call it property I mean you know how much of our property is here to support which our city until recently that's really what it consisted of was you know to college town so I just throw that out there because it's just easy to sort of get caught up in that one number of that's eight million dollars that we're not getting. Well I know that on textbook sales I think sales tax at least it used to be on textbook sales would hit close to a million dollars a year and it may not be that much now because of the online presence but I just throw that out there just as a comment. Not that you're criticizing it just I've heard this over the years. No I'm being that serious. I'm meaning that seriously yeah yeah no I understand. Okay so again you know the reason you know we're here is to talk with you a little bit about the the Homestead Exemption just to kind of recap the current Homestead Exemption is you know half percent of the value or five thousand dollars whichever is greater again properties homes within from zero to a million dollars will all get you know five thousand dollars. I will tell you that we I looked at the 2017 data I apologize I didn't provide this here for you but based on the 2017 data we have 20 properties that are you know a million dollars or greater of those I believe there's there's three that are two million and there's one that's four million dollars so I did want to provide that to you. I did also want to I think Councilmember Hutspitt had asked you know the question and so I did a little stratification so properties from zero to a hundred thousand make up about six percent of the homes in the city homes between a hundred thousand two hundred thousand make up about forty percent homes between two hundred thousand and four hundred thousand make up approximately forty nine percent and in properties between four hundred thousand a million is five percent and then you know the other fraction is is properties above a million based on the 2017 certified numbers. I didn't have my pencil ready to write that down but what I think I heard was single family residences under two hundred thousand dollars represent forty six percent of the properties in Denton. Yes. Now let's make sure he's talking about assessed values. These aren't well they're technically market values but those those are the assessed those are the assessed values. Yes. Sure nobody's gonna sell them for that for that price but even if you discounted that forty six percent I mean that that means that it's likely that a third of the housing inventory in in the city is under two hundred thousand dollars so I think when we talk about affordable housing we really have to keep that in mind. I understand that and I don't necessarily disagree except not an except but when you're dealing with the assessed values I mean when because right now the average sale price or median sale price in the city is well that's the average tax list to its 250 or I mean new construction the average sales process over three hundred thousand dollars and the average sale price of an existing home is it's in the mid 250s probably I would think yes councilmember Briggs. There's a house currently in our neighborhood not updated four bedroom on the market for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars. I know yeah I mean that's so I'm just kind of throwing that out there and that's the market. This is a good point though in the sense that I think you will I think if you really were to look at the assessed value increases yes some people have had assessed value increases some not so when you have forty six of your assessed values it's still under two hundred thousand in the city. We'll go on with that. Well let me clarify to mayor that that and you're right you know this is approximately nineteen thousand homesteaded properties there is another approximately ten thousand single family residences that that aren't included in in these numbers those are not homesteaded properties and so those properties do not receive the hom estead exemption so any changes there would not impact those those may likely be you know rental properties. Yeah councilmember Briggs and then councilmember Meltzer. Councilmember Briggs comment. I had a comment just on that conversation but so so for instance what's affecting us in our neighborhood with the with the increases and the assessed the the value increases which reflects back in our taxes is say this house sells for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars say I bought my house for a hundred and ninety. Huh. Nothing I'm just kidding. Okay no I'm I'm saying so those comparables when you get your your tax bill you go and you say that my house isn't worth this much and they say well this house sold for this much and this house sold for this much so yes it is and so you have somebody who just purchased a house which they could afford and all of a sudden now they can't I mean I mean or they they can barely afford it because of the the increase in taxes reflect back so that that was that's an issue that I've heard and that you know I listened to which brought me here discussing this with council so I just kind of wanted to add that in where it was appropriate in the conversation. Councilmember Meltzer and then councilmember Briggs. I had a couple of questions just my own understanding single-family homes that don't have homestead exemption you're starting to describe that you're saying they might be rental houses but it's also just people who don't file for it it's just sort of an ignorance tax. Correct there's some folks that just don't and there's you know there's plenty of companies out there that that send out flyers and mailers and we have you trying to get those individuals to file that for for a fee and so so yeah so so there there could be homes out there that could be homestead just a homeowner has them file for that homestead exemption. And secondly I have also heard a lot of anecdotes about people saying well you know my my assessed value has gone up up up and so have my taxes I know that was true for some years but isn't it true that for the last year it wouldn't have happened because of being at least not on the city portion of the property tax because of going out at the effective rate or sorry long question is does the effective rate sort of get applied unevenly because appraisals go up and down at different rates in different parts of the city. Can I take a stab at that? Yeah go ahead. The answer to the question is it's not a matter of being applied unevenly it's it's it's the measurement and that is the effective rate definitionally is supposed to represent the same amount of taxes property taxes that you collected the year before save some new construction which if all the assessed value stayed the same or they all went up uniformly the same then that's what you would have but some properties might go up 20 percent some might only go up five percent some may go down so from the city's perspective we're keeping that rate at a place where you know we're not collecting more taxes based upon each individual property and the property owner's ability to go down and either protest or comps in the area or things such as that when it gets applied individually it just depends on the assessed value of those properties so yeah it's it's not a it's not saying you're guaranteed to not pay any more property taxes I'm not it's just the city's not collecting that and when it's applied individually there may be some variations and so if your assessed value stayed the same or didn't go up much and you keep an effective rate your taxes may go down so that's that's my understanding of it. As a follow-up and this might be a question for the attorney is that beyond the power of council to instead of saying we're going to set a rate that ought to on average to live as the same revenue if our intention was hold people's bills where they were even though that might mean the rates have actually varied because the assessments have varied you know is that beyond our power to do or must we do it in the form of a uniform rate? It's in the form of uniform rate as the mayor had explained the the tax law is very express explicit on how that process works and there's very little wiggle room for cities to go around that. Part of the reason that folks complain about their taxes continuing to go up and up and up is because the biggest impact on property taxes is school districts and the reason that that's the biggest impact is because of the way our state has decided to fund public schools and in the last legislative session our our bill was passed the budget was passed while people were complaining and trying to freeze property taxes they passed a budget bill that required school districts that collect more than 50 percent of property taxes around the state they required the school districts in 1718 or in 1819 to raise taxes raise revenue by about eight percent a little over seven percent the next year they're requiring them to raise revenue by a little less than seven percent the state's requiring the school districts to raise that that's the way they balanced their budget so the state politicians are leading the charge with complaints about property taxes which filters down to us yet they are the ones that are the biggest culprits in increasing property taxes because they have school the state used to spend a fund about 80 percent of the local school district budget and now they're finding about 30 percent so so most of it is there on the on the issue councilmember riggs about about local the inventory of housing here i don't mean that we don't need affordable housing i'm not trying to make that argument i'm just trying to say that that i think that that that you have to keep the those overall numbers in mind because comparatively speaking we may have a bigger inventory of somewhat affordable housing a lot of that affordable housing those those prices end up being rentals and market is driving up rental rates so so it's a complicated deal and i'm not trying to suggest that that we don't need that but i but i think that in the past what we've done is we've looked at the overall inventory of those 19,123 single-family residences and we've seen that that our average home value is significantly lower than some of the neighbor cities and the reason why is and and they some of the denton county that are using the same appraisal district and the reason why is because we our inventory is weighted a little heavy on less expensive lower valued homes than it is on higher valued homes and one of the reasons that we've talked about those peds encouraging higher valued homes is that that would allow us to reduce the the property tax rate for everyone if you had significantly higher home values because that's what you see in a lot of these other cities where ours are 63 or 61 cents and theirs are you know 40 cents it's because their home values are so much higher they can afford to do that they're still collecting probably more per home than we do the other piece to councilmember melser so a property that does not have a that has a homestead exemption also has a 10% homestead appraisal cap and so while their appraisals may go higher than 10% for tax purposes it will only be up to that 10% a single-family resident does they have that you know for you know because the phone owner has chosen not to file or you know doesn't know wouldn't have that cap so that's another mechanism that's that's part of that assessment process so so councilmember duff had a question or comment well just a comment I think part of the imbalance about whether people 's you know this year and in the next year or they're gonna pay the same amount is the fact that only about 51% of the people actually go up in protest their appraisal and I can guarantee you they're jumping all of them I mean I I lowered most of my properties by going up there by $20,000 and so there is an imbalance here if you don't go up there and protest you know they stick it to you. So, they not us. So, again based on preliminary values, the amount of the homestead exemption that's there now that's approximately $565,000 of revenue that's exempted that's not coming to this to the city. I did mention last time that the the current average home value of a homestead of properties is 234,000 just for some comparison in 2017 that was about 214,000 so it's about a 9% increase in that in that in that value. Based on information from the central appraisal district there's 42 cities that are represented or values are appraised by the appraisal district of those 42 cities 16 cities have a homestead exemption and they range from from the the exemption that we have up to 20% and and $10,000 or $10,000 whichever is greater. So, so this next slide kind of gives you a little bit of feel for for some of the cities within Denton County. Again some of the cities have homestead exemptions you know others don't the over 65 as well you know ranges you know Trophy Club has a $35,000 over 65 exemption but zero for disabled persons. Flyer Mountain on the other hand has 100,000 over 65 and 100,000 disabled persons. Interestingly enough they in Flyer Mountain they do not have a freeze. So and again this is just what the 2017 tax rate was by cities kind of brings me to to the next slide. This was a slide that we showed to the council previously there was a request for us to break out the the M&O the maintenance and operations rate this is what goes into the general fund and in the debt rate the interest in sinking this is what goes to to pay debt those are the breakouts for these sample cities that we provided for you and what amount of of revenue would be would be due to the city based on kind of the average taxable property within within within that within that city and and the number of you know homestead homestead properties within each of those cities. Okay. Yes Council Member Nelson. I'd be curious to know what you know what your thoughts are on seeing this analysis in terms of where we fall versus other cities on the on the total tax as well as on the you know debt you know does that concern you relieve your concerns how do you view this? Well I think certainly you know when you look at the total rate you know certainly you got to look at it within the context of the of the average you know home value you know I will tell you we routinely on an annual basis meet with our rating agencies you know you know certainly you know debt is is a concern but it's but it hasn't impacted our rating as a matter of fact it's been probably three years ago that we saw a rating a rating increase of one notch we went from AA minus AA to AA plus and so that that was in spite of the you know the amount of tax that that the city that the city has. So again this just to be clear this amount of tax this tax rate goes to support general government debt it does not go to pay for debt issued for the utilities those are paid by the revenues of those utility systems okay. So the next couple of slides are just some some history for you again I believe that was that was also requested so this just gives you it's an 11 year kind of history of the over 65 the 65 and older you see back in 2017 18 it was 25,000 we started to increase that incrementally over over several years in $ 5,000 increments up to $50,000 you see the number of accounts that receive that exemption the 10 year average again as I mentioned earlier has been about a 5.4% increase in properties that become eligible for this this exemption again I think that's just kind of a symptom of you know the aging population and the baby boom generation to some extent. Disabled persons exemption again this is an 11 year you know trend for you this you know it's kind of interesting because this this exemption is actually decreased and so I'm not really sure you know the reason for that but over a 10 year average has been an actual decrease about 2% but again just some information for you and in Homestead exemption trend let me let me go back really quickly here for you so in 2017 just a reminder the council opted to increase the exemption from $10,000 to $50,000 and and that's the difference there and so this is just a history for you again of the over 60 the Homestead exemption again modest growth in in this area over 10 years has been about one and a half percent growth in the number of of Homestead properties that are that are coming on onto the city's books. So go through this slide and also mention to you that in consultation with the city attorney's office this was a request that the council had is the council is able to to select a different increment you know we would we would recommend that we keep it at if the council chooses to increase that we keep it at least at a thousand you know if five thousand tends to be kind of norm that cities when cities increase that but certainly if the council's interested in incrementally increasing that you know thousand dollar could be an option for the council there is no necessarily restriction on that the only restriction is that the 20 percent that is capped by by the tax code and so so this chart here as I mentioned last time is really just to show you on what home values would be getting the the the five thousand thousand so at a at a half a percent or five thousand properties from zero to a million would get five thousand a dollar extension across the board if it goes up to ten ten million ten thousand it would be homes between zero to two million would are would get ten thousand dollars and then above that that we get half a percent which would be greater so so the options that that we're presenting here to the council today and asking for your direction is option one is to make no changes to the hurt to the current homestead exemption option two what to would be to gradually increase that does some desired amount the council chooses to do that now we can certainly come back to you at the next council meeting with with an ordinance approving whatever the desired amount if you are wanting to do that incrementally or if the council desires to increase that up to whatever the desired amount was I think last time there was a conversation about going from five thousand to ten thousand you know we could we can bring that back to you at the next council meeting and an option for would be to consider some amount some increase in the context of the eighteen nineteen proposed budget I 'll go back to the the five-year preliminary forecast again what we would be looking at we would likely look at that as a another supplemental to add to provide options to the council's of the council we want to do that within the context of all these supplementals certainly that could be another possibility real quick question before we go to comment does the county have a homestead or homestead exemption do you know I don't know the school district does state I do not believe so mayor I don't think so yeah okay council member breaks we'll open it up for discussion and direction so I just have a clarification first I'm trying to get my numbers straight before I go into my comments because I I do have some can you go back to the three-year history of exemptions so right here yeah I mean because we've seen a lot of really large numbers all the way from the beginning of your presentation to here and that looks you know pretty scary but so what I what I'm asking for what I've been asking for council to consider is just an additional five thousand which would be ten thousand and so that would just be an additional five hundred and sixty five thousand right and so that would be added to that homestead line right there yes I have ninety two thousand and so if you go all the way okay so so like likely this this ninety two if the council chose to go to ten thousand dollars right it turns into value would go probably to about a hundred and eighteen million dollars it would double that's based on five thousand dollars okay so you wouldn't just add the five hundred and sixty five that's that's the amount of taxes that we would that would be deferred from that value right yeah this is this is just the value this isn't this isn't the taxes that are coming okay because I'm because I'm working in actual taxes like okay so because the values is really high numbers so okay so that's good to know all right so I can hold some of my comments if anybody else wants to wants to go okay so I I put on the table a while to increase the homestead exemption to five thousand to ten thousand and and I'm still even after all of this going to continue to ask council to to look at that even with our effective rate we still came I think is four point eight extra surplus than than what we assumed right in revenues in last year it was about three point eight million three point eight okay all right so a surplus is better than a shortfall but at some point I feel like the benefits of the growth should reduce the tax burden on our homeowners and so that that's the place where I sit right now I guess I have a few questions that I would need to get a better handle on to really get direction one would be kind of a judgment question about how much tax relief is enough to make a difference you know I mean I guess every every dollar is good if you can give it but you know what people talk about is making debt more affordable so you know it's thirty dollars a year it's less than a price of a gallon of milk a month you know worth it over say the police officer might prevent a crime against you you know I don't know if that's compelling but I guess that's the question to ask is how much tax relief would make a difference to in somebody's view of their affordability and their ability to stay here and then on the other side I'd say what are the alternatives that that staff or council members might recommend as far as what spending not to do because there's no credit card for for operating expenditures right you can't put any of that on so debt for that so you know we have to really do this with our eyes open and say okay we don't want you know we'd rather have the tax relief than keep them beautiful and economic development or something you know or is there more sheer administrative overhead you know I'd like to know just what we're giving up in order to give the tax relief there's some things that you know we collect taxes to do things that people can't do on their own and if it's police protection you know I and we hear that we actually need four more police officers to stay current and we expect some categories of crime to rise you know I think that might be more important than you know maybe the last dollar of tax relief we also hear you know you can't knock on five doors without hearing about the condition of our roads and it doesn't come for free you know if we want to raise our level of you know of street maintenance which is something we can only do collectively you know that might be more important than a thirty dollar tax cut so I guess that's that's what I'm saying is how much do we need to cut to make a difference for people and what in their taxes and what would we cut in terms of our expenditures to do it you know what at least generate some options first to consider I would ask kind of to that point I did a couple of calculations here and if you didn't want to cut any other services you would have to raise the taxes on everyone so that homeowners would save the thirty dollars and fifty cents well that would be a roughly a fourteen dollar increase for anybody in a two hundred fifty thousand dollar house you know the average the average house price would see a fourteen dollar increase so they're not really saving even thirty they're saving sixteen dollars over the course of a year on their taxes but if you look at the if you had that two hundred and fifty thousand dollar house you've got a six thousand and seventy five dollar tax bill annually that's thirty eight hundred and fifty dollars goes to the school district that's where our problem is fifteen hundred and twenty five comes to the city and seven hundred goes to the county so that thirty dollars is less than one half of a percent in a reduction of their overall tax bill and that's not going to help people at all in in my opinion again a sixteen dollar over the course of a year we're much better off in my personal opinion of doing everything within the budget to remain at the effective rate that helps everyone equally as opposed to trying to adjust and and secondly and I understand councilmember Briggs did bring this up sometime back we've already city staff has already been working on the budget for quite some time and we're getting close to to the point of finalizing that budget so to speak you know obviously we have additional tweaks but this is more a discussion that should take place and I you know I encourage it to come back in October November so that we can figure out all the stuff in advance get additional numbers that we need to get so that we're we 're better prepared and city staff is better prepared as they're trying to put together a budget as opposed to trying to make make a change midstream in in the budget system of this this impact I mean roughly this you know five hundred and sixty four thousand dollars that's approximately what the medic for runs a year you know do we want to say well we're gonna have to cut that you know or do we want to continue our level of service that we have which means that you would just be shifting the burden as opposed to you know really offering any true help to to people and I think it's it's more imperative that we lobby our state legislators to try and fix the school system and we keep our taxes as low as possible for everyone as opposed to doing this at this point. This is to save y'all for me coming back as a citizen and speaking on the budget later y'all don't want to hear that so this is my last shot at the budget regarding John's comment about about shifting yeah what people don't think about is that homestead exemption applies to owner owned property and about half of our single-family homes are renter occupied property they don't get that exemption and the small businesses don't get that exemption larger businesses don't get that exemption and multifamil ies don't get that exemption so what it could very well mean it's an unintended consequence is that if we if we try to keep our revenue at the same level or giving an exemption well you got to make it up somewhere and it may shift it to rental property and and and and the thing that people just don't get a lot of people I don't think anybody at this table doesn't get it is it renters pay property taxes. The landlord collects them and then passes them on to the to the taxing entity but the renter pays the property tax and so so those those those costs are going to be transferred to somebody else. Every city service requires money we know that and no one I 've never talked to anybody that wants to see city services that they use scaled back in fact most of them want the city services that they use to be improved or to have more of them yet most people want to see their taxes lowered they don't expect that anywhere else except government to to pay less and get more and we've got things that still need to be done and this is my last chance so there's there's work that still needs to be done at the cemeteries there's there's monuments that need to be fixed and there's some crypts that if they're not repaired pretty soon it's going to be embarrassing because the bones are going to be showing they're they're falling apart that badly. I the little building at the I double o f cemetery doesn't meet our property maintenance code I'm surprised that that the improvement community improvement services hasn't issued the city manager a citation or a notice of violation for that. You know we're talking about some of the folks here have talked about not funding the executive director for the Denton Parks Foundation and and so if we don't that means you know and people have said but we're going to provide enough money to do the things we don't need to buy to to to rely on people donating money we ought to just step up and do the parks ourselves well I can name you at least five places where we need more splash splash splash pads because Carl Jean Young Park is going to be overrun with folks that we need them in other parts of town too and I can name you at least five locations and there are other projects that need to be done so I just caution y'all to be careful about anything you do that reduces the revenue stream to the city because nobody is asking for a reduction in now somebody will say you can reduce somebody else's services I don't care if you reduce services that somebody else uses but if you'd ask them about services that they want nobody wants those reduced so it's it's a it's a tricky it's a tricky thing to do and granted the thirty dollars really really helped folks that much as opposed to what they might lose in the long run if because I I was on the parks board when we had to cut back rec center hours and when we had to cut back library hours and it was not a pretty thing wasn't at all thanks option one well my question is it due to the time we're gonna cuz I don't want to get I don't get started and get cut off and I'll be as brief as possible but I'm sure it's gonna listen comments elsewhere I mean so that's that's that's where I'm sorry past that time so we need to resolve this issue if it 's gonna change to either option two or three we need to do that because when it needs to be noted the tax present so I've already passed my deadline so go ahead yeah no so I mean succinct succinct yes sir so succinctly I mean I would I don't think the math supports the decision at this point that does not mean I'm not open to the decision at some ph ased approach my concerns are these that the individuals that benefit from the over 65 tax freeze would also benefit from this move we were half a million dollars off on our projections of what that freeze would do to us and so we need to look at that further and then I just kind of as a policy direction I'd like to see some change in this body as a whole being more economic development driven because if you look at the numbers provided you're talking 56 percent of the tax base falls on our residents between single home and apartments so the same body that hammers people about their policies and hey I heard it today quote pass costs to developers right so if we're gonna hammer developers then you're continuing to put the tax burden on the shoulders of the residents so we need to not lower our standards but be conscious that we can benefit our residents by smart growth you know and you know and so I think we need to shift our focus to understand that and be sensitive to that because we got to take a holistic approach to this problem and not it's not a rebate one-off it's a holistic we're gonna increase commercial tax base which takes the burden off our residents so but the numbers that jump out at me are those the the three million dollars later as we get down into the to the tax freeze the Tony points out not everybody's opted in so what do we do if all of a sudden we adjust that number and then people start opting in at a larger rate that's a that's an unintended we don't know how that story ends so that's concerning and so and by then it's too late we can't react to that we 've just got to fund it and so that's where it kind of those unknowns give me pause and I found this presentation very educational when you look at the the the effect you and TTW again benefit they bring but also it's just you just got to factor that in and so I think that was very enlightening for me so I stay at option one understanding we can discuss it going further forward later next year but I'll tell you again tipping my hand if this body is going to continue to pass stuff off on the developer using that that catchphr ase then I'm not going to be it we that that to me is is a disjointed approach we've got to have a united front attacking this problem and part of the problem is we got it we we need to step up our economic development in a intentional way to remove that burden from from our homeowners and I think Dalton hits it spot on I mean you're talking thirteen point one percent is multifamily and then that doesn't account for the renters so let's say you bump that up you know you're around twenty-ish percent of people that don't realize the benefit but then you get those that already benefited by the tax freeze they get an additional benefit and then that's locked in you know so it's just that's a cumulative effect that we need to explore further anybody else it's yes go ahead I'm sorry last few comments because I see where the conversations going so we won't need to cut services that's just a misconception I mean we have growth we have assessed values that accounts for I mean and we're talking about five hundred and sixty five thousand dollars just out of a billion dollar budget we're going to almost rebate five million dollars to your point as incentives to get growth in here so our community our city is growing we're growing in terms of housing we're growing in terms of jobs we're growing in terms of commercial property our sales tax revenues are growing so I just want to leave this council with a question I mean at what point do our homeowners get to see the benefits of growth I mean we're booming and we're growing at what point does that get passed on to them as intended or I mean or else why are we even growing that's that's my question to ponder and I think we have a meeting to go to so well no I mean I'm we're past that time so we're gonna we're gonna see this conversation to its fruition did you have to come in yes spot on to that I mean I think when when you look at it earlier people touched on it we get we get I did the math so we get seven hundred fifty dollars a month as a council stipend you could individually take that and and that's at sixty one dollars eight cents that's doubling the thirty dollars you could go and be a blessing to twelve people a month independent of this body you could just take it upon yourself to say I'm going to absolutely do my part absent this body and so I think there there's other ways to accomplish these these goals and I don't think that we've been I mean it's not a day that doesn't go by that someone is upset about Buc-Kees you know and and that's done it's on its way and it's gonna be the it's twenty dollars it's twenty cents cheaper in gas right now than any other station in town and I have pictures and so what I'm telling you is I don't think people have have locked into that and I don't and I and I wish they would that there there's opportunities commercially that we can take advantage of but but again I disagree with a lot of the assessments it's not just half a million dollars and even if it is just half a million dollars break it down to the households that we're trying to help it's sixty dollars a year and if you break that down further part of that sixty dollars a year goes to five percent is four hundred four hundred thousand dollar households up then you do the math on the the people already getting the other discounts and so it is not hitting its intended target I mean it's just the it's it's too broad of a brush for what we're trying to do in my estimation. Okay go ahead and then I'll comment and then if I'll that might be the last word but we'll see. Well so just to that because I sit here as a representative of district two and I challenge anyone to go and start a conversation with a homeowner in Denton that hasn't felt the stress of a tax bill lately because it is a real issue and so I can as a council member want to spend spend on lots of fun things but I am relaying what I hear from the families and so that's what I'm doing in the seat. What no no go ahead no I'm gonna have the last word that's prerogative of the chair yeah yeah I'm you know I remain open to doing tax relief if we can do it in a meaningful way I think we need to really settle as a fact whether it would require cutting services or not and if so what that's you know wishing we'll make it so if in fact our growth is about three percent a year in revenue and and our costs which are mostly people are also about three percent a year then our growth is funding that now maybe maybe we should be open to looking at no raises for the city that's it's an option I just say you know you can't just pretend we have a choice between a good thing and bad things there are only good things you know and we have to you know choose amongst those so you know I I'm I'm very open to hearing that we could give people meaningful tax relief without cutting services if it's true and and I'd love to see the case all right well it I don't think anybody at this table is saying that they don't care about the taxpayers or their their tax burden and you asked a question when are the taxpayers going to get an opportunity to benefit from this growth and I'm going to say they have but from a very different perspective because what they've benefited from not only just the growth but better management we cut solid waste rates was it 10 percent or 12 percent how many 12 probably may be able to do more than that we held the line if not cut the electric rates holding the tax rate to the effective rate I believe that's part of the advantage of the growth because that means we're trying from a management perspective and from a policy perspective to not to to run the city efficiently so yes we could say let's do five thousand dollars and that'll save the average person thirty dollars a month but to me the greater benefit is to for this body through the help of the citizenry to continue to encourage and and and ask for efficient management of city resources city assets because on one hand we'll say we don't want to raise the water park fees because it affects afford ability but then that may affect how we provide other services to people but then we say and to me this is it's not about singling out these things it's about taking it as a whole so in no way I mean could I go with a thousand dollars increase over five years I could do that but because it would be for me primarily symbolic to say no I want to give them something but my goal still is going to be let's make sure we have the policies in place and the management team in place to continue to cut utility rates to continue to keep taxes low and to provide the quality of services that people need because people are asking for more services they're asking for more police officers they want better amenities down at the downtown square so yes in the five hundred thirty something thousand it's not compared to the billion dollar budget it's which is it's still it's compared to the general fund which is a hundred and nineteen million which it's still what is that a half I don't even know what that is somebody do the math for me so and the city has no control over assessed values none we don't control if somebody sells their house for three hundred twenty thousand dollars that the county appraisal district is going to go back and assess every house in that neighborhood what we do have control over is how we as a city spend the money based on all those valuations all combined and I agree that I think probably our city pays a disproportionate share in residential taxes you look at Frisco and all them their average house value taxable value four hundred and something thousand dollars and I don't know what the number is that a house at a certain value breaks even on the taxes you collect from the services that it that it requires I know it's not two hundred forty thousand dollars or two hundred thirty four or whatever it's getting close but it's probably closer to three hundred or three hundred or something so I hate that this discussion can be couched sometimes and you know if you don't do it this is your sentiment if you do do it this is your sentiment because I think we're all trying to do the best here that we can but I do believe that and it's and it's the worst kind of benefit because you can't quantify it that we dropped the tax rate four cents last year to equal the effective tax rate if we had not done that if we'd have kept that four cents that would have added another let's see two hundred fifty thousand somebody do that what 's four cents divide that to it's almost what a few hundred dollars on onto the tax bill so in some ways the benefit has come from us being able to keep the tax rate in line so that if there is an increase in valuation for the most part we're still collecting the same taxes based upon individual assessments so I'm not opposed to a gradual increase or thinking about an increase next year and that is a conversation we need to have sooner than later because then it allows us to plan for that but what I'm hearing is it doesn't sound like there's consensus to move forward on either option two or three at this particular day that's not saying there's not a desire to maybe look at it at some other time before the next budget cycle but on this particular day for this budget year I'm not hearing that there's a consensus to move forward on that so it seems like option one is the direction so unless I'm seeing that and hearing that wrong because I know I think a couple of you are for option one a couple of you over here for option one you're you're you're still trying to figure it out but you know if you can get some data right right so but I appreciate you bringing it up I mean you're absolutely right you're doing exactly what you were elected to do and that is bring the the needs and the desires and the concerns of your constituents to this body and and I don't think that any of us would send the message well I 'm not sending the message I can't speak for anybody else that thirty dollars is important but it's also important as a symbolic gesture but it's also thirty dollars that somebody could buy a gallon of milk you know what was it a week or something like that every two weeks so I think that unless there's any more comment any other comment I believe that concludes our work session reports welcome this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday June the 19th 2018 it is six fifty seven I apologize for us getting out a little late we had some good robust discussion this afternoon so I appreciate your patience if you would join with me in pledging allegiance to the flag the US and Texas flag and stand if you're able to stand one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all on the Texas side I pledge allegiance to the city of Texas for the safety of our God, the law, and the justice for our agenda item two proclamations and presentations we have none so we'll move on to agenda item number three which is presentation from members of the public if we could review the procedures for addressing the City Council please the Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure including a code of conduct that applies to citizens as well as council members these rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizen reports citizens will have four minutes to give a scheduled citizen report and four minutes to give an open mic report there will be an electronic bell when time has expired if the remarks are not concluded by that time the citizen will be asked to stop speaking if the citizen does not cease and a second request is made the mayor will request to have the citizen removed from the council chamber citizens are asked not to approach the dais if a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to the council please let the city secretary know in advance for scheduled citizen reports the council may initiate discussion or questions following each citizen report for non scheduled open mic citizen reports the council may listen to citizens speak however because no notice of the subject of the open mic report has been provided to the public in advance the Texas open meetings act limits any deliberation or decision by the council to a proposal to place the item on a future agenda a statement of factual policy or a recitation of existing policy citizens are asked to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member please refrain from making abusive personal impertinent profane or slander ous remarks anyone who violates this council rule of procedure may be immediately removed from the council chamber thank you in advance copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary mic on our next agenda item which is received scheduled citizen reports from members of the public we have four the first one is Vicki Oppenheim regarding the Denton community market if you'll state your name and address your time will begin good evening I'm Vicki Oppenheim 600 Winfield Street here in Denton Texas thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight I am here on behalf of the Denton community market and I'm the executive director we're here tonight to give you some updates on recent things that have happened at the market and give you some information for further deliberations on budget items that may come up related to the market I want to also thank Peggy Riddle here with Denton County office history and culture we've been very much working very closely with the county on many partnerships and we will continue to do so I want to point out that our mission statement alludes to economic opportunities for local artists businesses food vendors and food producers to contribute to the vital ity and livability of Denton I feel we are very much meeting our mission I conducted a recent economic impact analysis in conjunction with the University of North Texas economics department and University of Wisconsin and this is an underestimate certainly but 1.5 million dollars in overall economic impact in 2017 estimated sales of 700,000 just on Saturdays I want to emphasize that just on Saturdays we are a very strong business incub ator 23% startups 22% minority owned businesses 63% women owned businesses that's a really stark number there I mean it's hard for me to believe that and I want to also mention that we have generated seven brick and mortars in the downtown but we actually have exciting news there's an eighth that is just going to be opening very soon Salted Sanctuary just signed a lease yesterday so that's our eighth brick and mortar we have many other business success stories I can't even mention them here tonight but it's just amazing what we are doing so this is a map showing the imprint of our brick and mortars in the downtown and as I mentioned there's another one coming along these all either started at the market or significantly expanded as being part of the market two of them here are here tonight Suzy Snack Shop and Juice Lab and you'll be hearing from them shortly we also are a significant contributor to the quality of life community gathering space cultural event every week free activities for families a source of fresh produce and agricultural products source of locally produced items we are a hub of information on city activities county activities organizations also have tables at the market and we also serve the lower income community we have our WIC voucher program that is just for farmers markets where they get produce that is an additional benefit beyond the usual benefit and also our snap token program I want to again emphasize the importance of the market as a quality of life we have again were nominated best of Denton's second place fourth year in the row by the community we hardly solicit those votes at all people really feel it's an institution in the city of Denton and we believe we provide a very positive impact for the for people to live here and work here as well I want to point out that we really are would like further support from the city if possible we have we about 40 percent of our revenue is generated from fees from vendors but the rest must be raised from grants sponsorships and fundraisers so anything that can be done in terms of supporting us is really important to keep this very important institution going on a yearly basis so thank you very much thank you any questions comments councilmember Riggs so you mentioned family activities I think that's really important because then we do have a lot of families but we seem to forget about them sometimes with activities does Explorium still partner with you on that or is it how do you do oh sorry or is it just the market that now does the activities on its own Explor ium came from several years I'd remember the number of years but many years they came when they just had a table and really nothing else a sign and they over the years developed into Explorium Denton but we have other activities every week now a Coyote music studio is offering music activities we have balloon making we have face painting we have all sorts of cultural things that happen at the market I mean I can't enlist them all educational boosts that are join the market Texas parks and wildlife the county has activities I mean it's really there are numerous activities at the market we also have live music every week so when I mentioned that it's very important and we support the local musicians thank you thank you any other questions comments thank you very much appreciate it thank you our next speaker is Katie Portillo you'll come up state your name and address your time will begin hello my name is Katie Portillo 1012 Naylor Road Crossroads Texas and I am the owner of Suzy's Snack Shop as Miss Vicki mentioned I started out as a vendor at the community market I brought five lowly treats and was happy if I made a hundred dollars that was five years ago since then I have left my full-time career I was in the hotel industry left that and have now opened the lovely brick-and-mortar Suzy's Snack Shop again I'm not Su zy that was my dog just if anybody got confused so as you can see there's my booth that was probably from last year like I said we started with five treats on a good Saturday we can have anywhere between 17 to 25 different flavors of treats it just depends on how much I've rained in my mother that week she's the creative one in this business so but yes and speaking of families I'm gonna touch on that as well I feel like we get so many of the families in the in Denton as well because the kids look forward to coming to our booth and getting to pick out their weekly treats for their dogs so our booth is quite family-friendly as well of course as well as pet friendly this is my new snack shop I'm over at 507 South Locust Street and the underneath the adagio apartments as you can see we had our some of our four-legged furry friends there as well as mayor Hayes it was mayor Watts was there and other friends were there and it was a great time and it has been we had our two-month birthday this past Saturday and it has been the best two months of my life again I am also I sit as I am the new one of the new directors on the board of directors for Dent on Animal Support Foundation and I also had this fun article come out in the didn't record Chronicle all of this goes back to the market though none of this I am now getting to do something in my life that is truly fulfilling because of the Denton community market I would have never thought I would make a living off of selling dog treats to people had it not been for the Denton community market over these past five years the following that I have built the phone calls that I would get in December I need chicken feet for my dogs okay I mean and we would have people buy and buy the pounds and freeze them for their dogs and this was all thanks to the community market here are just some photos from our from our little grand opening we had I wanted to specifically point out my friend Declan there who's going for some treats I have watched that kid grow up he was he you know he's born and he started coming to the market probably at months age and he's been coming ever since so again it goes back to that real community family feel that the market gives I've gotten to watch several children grow up over the past couple of years and it has been so much fun that's another thing I would like to point out is that you know I do other festivals I do other markets in the Metroplex but everything else is considered what you would call a farmer's market nobody else calls their market a community market and that's truly what we are we are truly a community I do joke that I know more dog names than I know human names in the city of Denton but that's okay that's my job so but we do we know each other I the people the two employees that I have in my store were regular customers that purely just said you're opening a shop can I come work for you sure so that that is what the community market is that's Simon the shop dog he comes he hangs out with me and that is essentially what it is I mean what I just said I wouldn't be where I am today without the community market and we all need to support it because it is the heart of our community I think I just made it any questions comments I have one oh go ahead I'm sorry who customer husband I just I would like to explore that so the business side of the business right are there lessons associated with the community market or is it just your time on the community market you talk to other people to kind of understand budgeting all that stuff or did you I mean in the hotel industry did you do it just kind of what I guess will tailor it to the community market what in that experience to help you kind of grow the business side of your business well I'll kind of piggyback on what Vicky said about how she was talking about seven hundred thousand on Saturdays when I figured out I can make a living off of just selling snacks on a Saturday I told myself wow what can I do if I sell six days a week so yes definitely the community market gave me that confidence and giving me that background just for budget purposes I mean I've gotten loans already because even though I didn't already have my brick and mortar I already had the background from the community market from my vendor days thank you well I just want to say that are they the turkey rolls the turkeys in a blanket yeah Buster Buster loves the turkey rolls that's what Simon's eating in that picture right now he loves the turkey rolls so thank you and congratulations again I know that's something you've always wanted to do so any other more comments questions all right thank you thank you appreciate it you bet all right the next speaker is Lonnie Puckett if you'll come down state your name and address your time will begin hello my name is Lonnie Puckett my address is 1422 North Locust Street here in Denton I'm the owner and operator of juice lab here in Denton I wanted to talk to you about why the Denton community market is important to our community today we started juice lab at the Denton community market back in 2014 with only a concept and a dream really just to make healthy food taste delicious and to educate the the people of the community on the importance of plant-based nutrition we didn't really know what to expect my formal background is in scientific research so I had never I had never tried to sell anything to anyone I just heard about the community market and had people tell me you know this is a good platform to start on so we did just that we started setting up our tent and tables with just a really small menu of only four organic juices and a few healthy snacks handed out samples to people and you know started talking to people about eating organic and sourcing locally we started to develop a following and a reputation very quick over the course of a year and we were able to open a brick and mortar almost immediately after that less than a year from starting the market and then six months later after that we were able to expand into the the suite next door and add a grill a stage and more seating so since then we've won best of Denton County for best vegan restaurant two years in a row we've also had numerous write-ups and magazines and newspapers all over the DFW Metroplex we currently employ 10 Denton residents as our cooks and staff we also carry many products from other people in the the community market as well as farmers sourcing locally from from them the Dent on community market acted as a platform for us to receive feedback on our products this is usually one of the hardest parts about running a business if you have no formal experience in business Denton community market allowed us to gather market and product research and acted as a proving ground to collect valuable data that we used to create our menu and develop a marketing plan as well as getting a following before we committed to a full store front. Cultivating businesses of the community market allows you to experiment and change week to week and see what does and doesn't work for your business which I think was really important for us without the Denton community market we wouldn't have we wouldn't have been able to effectively adapt a successful business plan or strateg ize opening our store and for that we're ever grateful and thankful for the opportunity that the Denton community market gave us and now we've we've expanded into not just a juice and smoothie bar but we also have a farm to table restaurant a vegan bakery local goods stores a music venue and also a community hub that lots of people like to have meetings for all kinds of different reasons so we're taking what we learned from the community market and expanding on that and like offering our space to the community now so that we can help cultivate other businesses as well. Councilman Gregory. Thank you for your report. Thanks for all of your reports. Keep reminding us on the council or those that are can still be on the council about the importance of the community market as as an incubator for small businesses. We had a pretty good discussion today about economic development and we spent a lot of money on supporting and attracting and keeping some big big big businesses but it's been very very gratifying to be able to be on counseling when people say well what are you doing for the little guys. One of the things that we can say is we support the community market because the community market helps people do business right there and then grow into even bigger businesses and you're certainly an example of that. Keep reminding us of that. Councilmember has a comment a question. Shame on me if I don't point out that the first three presentations have been in district one. It's it's living up to its name and then and then I have a question. Do you have your hole punch with you. I think that might be an ethics violation. Councilmember Briggs. So I just want to confirm to everyone that the fresh juice and vegan muffins are absolutely delicious and extremely healthy but you can't taste that. Councilmember Meltzer I've noticed that you seem to attract really committed employees and I wonder if some of that comes from your the reputation you developed while being in the community market. I think so. Like I said we kind of open up our space to let the community in and I think that that just putting that good energy out into the public brings good people to us too. So we're extremely fortunate that that we've been able to offer a place for people who who love the community just as much as we do and they want to get back in another way and help educate the community on how to be healthy and and there's other bars in this town juice bars you know. So I think that that's a really important you know statement that a lot of people can get behind. Councilmember Gregory. Not only her her muffins good but those those dog treats are good too. My wife bought some and they were not labeled as dog treats . The bacon good good. Any other comments or questions. Thank you very much appreciate it. Thank you. Okay the next speaker is Danielle and I'm probably not going to say this correctly. I'm going to Longaville. Okay. Okay. All right. Simple. Oh. Lani your phone. No it doesn't. You can state your name and your address and then your time will be okay. Good. Hi my name is Danielle Longaville. I live at 904 Greg Street D1 right I think. I hope I know my districts. Let's see here we go. I've been a resident of Denton for the last eight years. I'm a digital marketing coordinator for local software development company just Saudi. We're housed in the Texas building on the square. I'm a supporter of area nonprofits a local performer and member of the creative community as well as supporter of the local business community. DCM has been an integral part of my life and time here in Denton. Since moving here to attend UNT back in 2010 I've always looked forward to my Saturdays at the community market. The local produce the opportunities to engage with others hear local music and sometimes even cure the old fry street hangover with juices from juice lab and related vendors. They've been a big part of my life will say that. When I look at DCM I don't see it just as a weekend activity but something more. It's a startup incubator. It's a giving back opportunity. It's a platform for up and coming musicians to grow and gain opportunities to play elsewhere around town and in DFW. It's a home where creative creativity flourishes and grows like wildfire. A family a chosen family eager to support you and your passions and endeavors. Why because that's what Denton does. We do our best to support each other however we can because at the end of the day we'll need that support too for our own passions later on. DCM embodies all of those things. Today I'm proud to say that I've joined the DCM board of directors as a non-vendor board member thanks to a recommendation made by Julie Glover who I'm sure many of you know. I'm excited and eager to take my love and passion for the market and put it to use providing an outsider's perspective that will hopefully be useful to the market and its needs. It truly is an honor and a privilege to serve on this board . Before coming here I reached out to a few friends and fellow DCM supporters with the hope that they would share their memories and anecdotes surrounding the market with us. I have a few here I'd like to share with you. Katie Johnson of UNT says, "I love running into my friends at the market. It makes me feel that small town vibe in a big city. I also enjoy getting to talk with the vendors and supporting their passion, whatever product or service that may be." Kristen Watson says, "Community market is what made Denton feel like my home when I first moved here for college. I could take my dog every Saturday morning and everyone was so friendly and it gave me a way to meet a wide variety of the community all at once." Leslie LaBarba quoted, "The community market has increased the connection I feel with my community. Having the great options that I do at the market has increased my consumption of local produce." Amber Briggle of Soma Massage Therapy says, "I was there on the very first day of the very first market hundreds of years ago." Of course it was just me back then, but over the years we have had an off and on presence at the market as we have tried to build up our client base. The last couple years though we haven't needed to be there at all and I wanted to open up that vendor space for other new businesses that are trying to get started. Today Amber employs 11 people generating about $25,000 worth of income amongst her team members every month with two locations here in town. If it wasn't for the visibility that the market gave her, she doubts that they would be as successful as they are today. I hope these testimonies may shine a brighter light on the profound impact the community has on this community and that you will consider us and our needs as you move forward in your delegations. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Any questions, comments? Seeing none, thank you very much. Appreciate it. That concludes our portion of agenda item three, which are public comments. We'll move on now to agenda item number four, which is the consent agenda. Chair would entertain action. Council Member Husspeth? I move approval of the consent agenda but for item B as in boy. Okay. Council Member Ryan? I second. Thank you all for coming. So we have a second, a motion by Council Member Husspeth and a second by Council Member Ryan for approval of the consent agenda except for agenda item, consent agenda item B, which we will take up as individual consideration after this action. We have a motion to second. Please cast a vote on the board, please. Motion carries seven zero will now take up agenda item four B. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas, the Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation authorizing the approval of a second amendment to professional services agreement between the City of Denton and D and S engineering labs. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. The item before you this evening is related to a cell construction for a landfill cell that was approved by the Council last summer. There's a couple of components in terms of cell construction that I want to kind of refresh everyone on. Number one, we are constructing what we would call kind of a modern landfill, which requires a number of different components. I have a little graphic here that kind of lays those out. The TCEQ requirements state that we must have onsite monitoring and QAQC by a licensed engineer, an independent engineer at that. In addition, we also require to submit a soils and liner quality control plan. So a lot of the engineer's responsibilities, if you follow my mouse, have to do with not just the excavation, but the construction of all the liners , the compacted clay liners, the geomembrane, and then all the sumps and additional infrastructure that's related to the cell. So along those lines, the city manager executed an agreement with D and S engineering labs last summer as well. The original contract was just over $78,000 to perform those functions that I just laid out. During the construction process, the change orders were necessitated because the issues were identified during the construction process, required reconstruction of some of those elements I just pointed out. So in addition to the reconstruction, we did have to have D and S engineering come back and re-inspect those elements to make sure that they met the TCEQ standards. The first amendment was done on May 1st, 2018 in the amount of $21,590. And the amount that you have here today pushes this over $ 100,000, which is above the city manager's purchasing approval. So that's why it's up for your consideration this evening. And I'll be happy to stand for any questions you might have . Any questions? Staff? Council Member Briggs. Is this part of the cell expansion that we saw previously that we were waiting for the permit? I think it has a certain name to it. Or is this something separate? This is actually something separate. This is in our existing permit, 1998. We do have to interact with TCEQ. That soil minor quality control plan has to be approved by them. But it's currently under the existing permit. We'll be circling back with Council in the next few months once we hear back from TCEQ on the additional permit. Okay. All right. Thank you. You bet. Okay. Any other questions for staff? Seeing none, Council Member Ryan? Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I move approval of Item 4B. Council Member Hudspeth? Second. We have a motion and a second for Agenda Item 4B. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries, 7-0. Moving on to Agenda Items 5, Items for Individual Consider ation. First being Agenda Item 5A, Consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas, home rule municipal corporation authorizing the city manager to execute a professional services agreement with Nelson and Morgan Architects. Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. If you'll give me just a moment to pull this presentation up. I'm here before you this evening to bring up, bring for your consideration a professional services contract for the architectural and design service for the Denton Service Center and Materials Management Transportation Facility. I was going to run through a few slides with you and then at the end I'll certainly answer any questions you may have. To give you some background on this item, a presentation was made to the Council back in February of 2018 along with the PUB in March of 2018 about the needs and concerns that we had, space needs that we had at the service center along with a little bit of history about it, the lack of space that we had at those facilities, some options that we had to utilize existing city owned facilities and some of the financial options that were available to the Council. At the conclusion of both of those meetings, both Council and the PUB gave direction to the staff to go out and seek an RFQ or request for qualifications to select an architectural firm for this process. The next few slides I'm going to cover are just a little bit contextually some history about the service center and also the traffic operations facility. The service center campus is 46 acres in size. It's right off of Mingo Road. It's an industrial area. It houses all of our field operations with the exception of DME. DME has a presence there with Materials Management and some of their materials that are in supplies that are issued from Materials Management or purchasing function, but all their field operations are off of Spencer Road. As mentioned, procurement has a presence there, fleet services, and we also have some dirt and field materials in the presence of the campus. To give you a brief history of some additional information on the service center, the two areas that we're looking at is the actual service center building itself, the traffic operations facility that are noted there with the yellow arrows. The service center was built in 1980 and the traffic operations facility at that time was utilized for animal control facility. It was built in the 1960s. At the time of the construction of the service center, the population of Denton was just under 50,000 people. It's now well over 135,000. The city was approximately just under 33 square miles and just under 100 square miles today. It housed right at 110 employees and now, 2017-2018, it's well over 250 employees that are housed at the service center. Some of the issues that have been raised at the service center through my observation and conversations with staff is it's very cramped. There's no space for growth. Basically, and I'll show you some photos here in a moment, but basically just about every space that we have, closet, restroom facility, well not restroom facility, but break area is being utilized for office space or staff meeting space. One of the other complaints that I've heard is lack of rest rooms. It's not the most user-friendly facility when it comes to interacting with the public. While it's not a facility that the general public comes to, we do have a lot of visitors when it comes to contractors, consultants that want to do business with the city there at the service center. It's not the most conducive space many times to have a business, to conduct business there. To give you some photos, and I won't cover all of these, but basically kind of give you an understanding of some of these spaces and some of the constraints that we have. If you'll follow with my arrow, we have situations where we have bay areas that are being utilized for areas for our employees to have lunch or breaks, so it can't be utilized for vehicles because tables and other equipment's in the way. Same thing here in the middle, this is the parks area where a lot of their supplies are being utilized or housed there and stored there instead of vehicles where they should be. We got locker room areas where, again, employees are coming in changing for the day or changing to leave for the day, and it's also tables and chairs are there so they can have staff meetings because, again, they're limited space. Then the front entry area, as I mentioned, when you have folks come into the facility, there's no one there to greet them, to direct them to the location of the office or the building or the section of the building they want to go to. So it's not the most conducive area there from a public relations perspective. Then lastly, the restroom facilities, which is actually located behind the stairwell. Here this is a men's restroom and where you have the ur inals and the stalls and the lavatory facilities. In the background, you also have shower facilities. So if you have employees that are working in the field, they get into the trenches working in whatever they may be doing and they get dirty, you're mixing the employees who are trying to shower or rinse off from being on the field along with the public restroom facilities. So again, it's just that awkward situation where you have the public and regular employees who are not in the field interacting with employees that may be in the shower situation. So it's not the most ideal situation. So to give you an idea of the footprint of the service center, I'm giving you a side-by-side snapshot of the first and second floor. While I don't want to dwell on all the specific square footage spaces that each department occupies that's there, the area that we're focusing on is materials management, our warehouse facility. They occupy right at 30,000 square feet of space at the service center. So it's right at about 40, 43% of space at the service center. The thought here is if we could move that function out of the service center into another facility that we currently own, and I'll show you some photos of that, we believe that that would certainly open up a lot of available floor space that allows our staff to migrate into that warehouse space and, again, forego the need to either build another facility down the road or add on to the existing facility there at the service center. And that's what the information that was presented to council in PUB earlier this spring, and that's the direction that the staff, excuse me, that the council and the PUB gave staff. From a traffic operations facility, as I mentioned, that facility was built in the 1960s, and the original function of that facility was an animal shelter. Actually, animal shelter has changed locations two times now, and so at this point our staff occupies this original facility that was the animal shelter . It's right at 4,000 square feet. They moved into that space back in the mid-'80s, right at non-full-time equivalence, non-employees operating that facility. While it does have a garage door bay space, there's no space for vehicles to actually occupy that bay space. It's very cramped, and from a new technology perspective, it really gives you very minimal options as far as incorporating new technology into that facility. And like the service center, here's some photos of the traffic operations facility. On the right side, with the cursor, that's that bay area, that garage door area, and as you can see, there's some of our traffic markings trailer that's occupying that space along with supplies and other materials that traffic management uses. It's just a cramped space, and we believe that if we can move them out of this facility to the 651 facility that I'm at the cover, we believe it's a good use of resources and allows our staff to expand and utilize the space that's needed. So the thought process that was brought forward back earlier this spring was to relocate both traffic operations and materials management to a facility that the city owns at 651 Mayhill. This facility is approximately 81,000 square feet in space. It's basically an open building, open shell space building. It's mostly vacant. There are some materials that DME houses there along with solid waste with some of their carts, recycling and trash carts, but for the most part, it 's a blank canvas and can allow for materials management to use that, again, that available space. The other thought, too, was to be able to move traffic operations into a small portion of that space as well to provide them the space that they need to operate. One of the rough sketches that was presented to the council and the PUB back this spring was this. Again, the space is rectangular in size, and so the thought is that materials management will occupy about 61,000 square feet, so they basically double in size. It allows them to store some of the materials that are currently either stored under an awning or outside to be stored indoors, so it gives them a little bit more protection, and allow enough space to have traffic operations move into 10,000 square feet on the opposite side of that facility and still allow about 10,000 square feet for future expansion. Based on those options that were presented, these were the, at the time, estimated project budgets that were presented to both council and the PUB. As you can see, I've broken those down into the three different functions, the materials management, moving them into 651, traffic operations, again , moving them into 651, and then the renovations and expansion at the service center. If we were to do everything, all the entire project with the estimated project budget to do construction, design, furniture and fixtures, any development fees that's required for these projects, it would be just under $14,500,000. That was presented to both, back to you all back this past spring. Based on your direction, you requested that we go out and do an RFQ, and that's what we've done. Again, you all gave us direction to proceed with that. During that time, purchasing that issue in RFQ, we had seven proposals that were submitted, or excuse me, that were received. A review committee was convened to review those proposals, and of that review process, Nelson Morgan Architects of Denton was selected to be the architectural record for the design of these projects. Based on contract negotiations, it was negotiated that Nelson Morgan, based on the design fees for all three facilities, or all three functions, in total, their contract was negotiated at $918,402.53. What I've done is I've broken that down into the different facilities, one for the service center, just under $549,000, and then the design fees for the service center, $549,000, and I have a typo here, the other one for the 651 Mayhill at $365,000 for those two facilities. The other thing too is I've broken down, in addition to those fees, the outside consultants that Nelson Morgan would be using, whether it be a structural engineer, mechanical engineer, civil cost estimators, I've broken those prices down as well. In your council packet, they've included estimation on hours and along with the fees that will be incorporated through these subcontractors, so you have those details in your packet. The last slide here is just discussion and direction. Option one is to consider the contract that's before you. Certainly option two is to do nothing, or option three is to seek additional options as you see fit. With that, I'll answer any questions that you may have and seek direction. - Council Member Meltzer. - Yes, thank you for the presentation. Was this set of projects conceived entirely separately from the effort at designing an expansion to City Hall? Is there some overlap when we look at them together? In other words, if we did this instead of the other, just to take it that way, might that relieve some of the felt urgency on the City Hall expansion? As part of the master plan for whether City Hall or other city facilities, one of the things that was contemplated was a construction of a Southwest Service Center next to Fire Station number seven. What this allowed us to do is to forego that option and utilize this option instead. In regards to any overlap, the only overlap that might occur was if a future City Hall is constructed that we would move City Engineering, the engineering services, a few of their staff members, about 25, 30 of their staff members from the service center to the City Hall facility to create that one-stop shop environment. But the space is needed today, so doing this facility and then doing the City Hall facility, with the exception of the engineering component, they're separate and they're both needed. Council Member Briggs. The almost one million is just for design for these, and then on top of that, the project to be actually built is around 14 million estimated? It's 13, the difference, yes ma'am. How long, if this is approved for the design, how long until the actual renovations and construct, I mean all of that stuff for this project, what is the timeline for that? Alan, can you answer that? We've learned that timing is pretty essential when we're talking about estimations. The primary timing on it, it'll be done in two major phases , the first phase being moving purchasing or materials management out of the service center and into 651 in order to create that space, that vacancy that we need to then do the rest of the reshuffling with all the spaces in the service center. I think right now our plan is to have all the design work and everything prepared so we can start construction on the 651 out at the work out on Mayhill around the first quarter of next year. That way we'd be able to get them in there and get them moved in in a short order. Then we can start the second phase. Now we'll still be doing the planning and all the design work on the service center renovations concurrently. Things will really get ramped up right around the first quarter of next year going forward from there. Thank you. Sure. On the RFQ, I'm looking at the scoring and I don't see pricing. Was that part of the scoring? No ma'am. No? Okay. It's just the qualifications only? Once we staff reviews the qualifications then pricing is negotiated at that point. Pricing is not a factor in the RFQ process. Councilmember Meltzer. In this scenario, what do you contemplate happening with the current traffic operations building? Would that be made redundant, something like the old animal shelter was? It would be demolished. Which is the plan for the old animal shelter as well, right ? The one that became Unsenior King Outreach Center? That was originally planned to be demolished but it wasn't and instead it was used for community purpose? I can't say that for sure because I think there was some discussion about by the time that decision was made to move that somewhere else, I think there was already discussion about utilization of that building in some capacity. I don't recall that it was ever "scheduled" for, that probably was a conversation a while back but I think shortly thereafter once it was going to be vacant as those conversations started coming. I understand your point. My point is rather than demolish it, could it conceivably be used for some other beneficial purpose? If that's the Council's desire, we can start to look at that. Any other questions? You're probably not going to be able to answer this but you had mentioned once you selected the firm that you entered into negotiations on the contract . I would like to get, I don't expect you to tell me now because it's probably more of a closed session item, but just what all that entailed? Was it time frame, was it price, is this a price that was originally submitted? I'm just trying to understand the process on that. For a later time? Yep. Any other questions, comments? I don't see any blue cards so nobody's requested to speak on this. Council Member Ryan. Thank you Mayor, I move approval of agenda item 5A. Council Member Gregory. He put three options up. One option I thought was to approve this contract. Did I second? Okay so it's the second for the agenda item which has approved the design contract before. Okay we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yes, Council Member Riggs. Will we have time to discuss the individual projects and design and the preliminary, I saw the preliminary numbers, all that stuff will come back to us individually so we're just not approving a $15 million. No ma'am, all you're doing is approving the design contract and so certainly just as just we'll be able to bring you some renderings along with some cost estimations and things of that nature and then at that point we would either proceed with going out to the market to do the construction or we could not but all you're doing right now is approving the design contract. And where is this money coming from? The almost million dollars? Right. Was that accounted for in this budget? Yes ma'am. In this here in this section right here we have a 2014 GEO bond funds to there was a an item on the 2014 general obligation bond program for traffic operations facilities so a portion of that would be for design so that's being funded out of that out of those funds. There are some certificates of obligation in solid waste that would fund the materials management design and construction if the council proceeds to do that but for design at this point and then working with finance we've we've been able to identify some revenue funded capital to fund the remainder of the service center for the design of that. Okay so it's accounted for. Yes ma'am. Thank you. Okay any other questions? We believe we have a motion and a second let's vote on the board please. Motion carries 7-0. Thank you. Moving on to agenda item 5B consider nominations for appointment to the city board of ethics. Who handles this? Oh is it? Mayor and council Brian Langley deputy city manager. I want to talk to you tonight briefly about the board of ethics nomination process. I just have a very short presentation on this. As you recall the council adopted the ethics ordinance on May 1st of this year. It requires the formation of a board of ethics appointed by a majority vote of the council. There will be seven regular members to the board and three alternate members. Members will be appointed to two year staggered terms and are limited to three consecutive terms. In the ethics ordinance there are some requirements for the types of individuals that can serve on the board. The preference for appointments would be that they would be given to professionals and here are some of the examples that were included in the ordinance language. We're asking for nominations tonight and then again next week on June 26th and then we'll come back to the council and ask for your formal appointments on July 17th. Following that appointment the board will receive some training. They'll be processing going through a process to draft the rules or procedures which will then come back to the city council for approval before they 're implemented. And then the timeline that we've designed is to try to meet that the deadline of September 1st that the council set through this process that the board of ethics would be formed have the rules or procedure in place and be ready to hear any complaints by September. So we're seeking direction on nominations for appointments tonight. Again we will have another opportunity to do that next week as well and then we come back and ask for your approval on July 17th. So with that I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Any questions? So if we have a nomination do we make it now? Yes ma'am. Okay. So I nominate or like to nominate Laura Tomlin. Okay. Please. Any others for tonight? Oh I'm sorry Council Member Hudspeth? Thank you. Yes in the application Sandy Christophson I've spoken with her and she's agreed to serve. Okay. She's that third page. Yes sir. Yeah thank you. Thank you Council Member. Council Member Meltzer. Yes I nominate Karen McDaniels. Okay so those are three nominations that we have thus far. Any others? Council Member Gregory. I'm going to defer and let the new person make that. Okay. Yes Council Member Meltzer. Just a question maybe for the City Attorney. What is the weight of the language preference shall be given? Is it really just sort of a suggestion or what is, how does that manifest? And I'm going off the conversations that the Council had over the various work sessions especially when they were discussing this. There was a strong sentiment in the Council that because of the nature of this board being kind of a quasi-judicial board and actually determining whether a person had committed a violation or not, the Council wanted to find individuals who possessed these types of credentials or professional trades that are listed here to serve on that because of the nature of this board. It doesn't say that they all have to be but they wanted to try to get as many folks like that that fit one of these descriptions on the board. Yeah I understand the intent. It's really just how much of a practical requirement is it on any Council Member in either nominating or voting to follow those guidelines, what is this preference shall be given? That will be up to each and to the Council as a whole and to each individual Council Member. Thank you. Council Member Briggs. Are we going to just wait and approve these all next week in one or do we make a motion to approve the nominations today or what's the process you would like for us to follow? So it would be the nominations for today and then again another opportunity next week and then we'll ask you to approve the appointments on July 17th . Okay. Yes ma'am. Thank you. So we can approve them today or no? I'm sorry. No it will be an action item. Okay so this is just taking the nominations. This is just the nominations, yes sir, and we'll bring those back next week as well. So if there's no other nominations we can reconvene next week. Fantastic. You bet. All right. Thank you. You bet. All right we'll move on next to agenda item 5C, consider nominations of the Public Art Committee from the Greater Denton Arts Council. Are you presenting that? I can yes. Okay. So Council, the nomination for this position on the Public Art Committee is recommended by the Greater Denton Arts Council. The current member's term has expired and he's been serving until a replacement could be put in place and the GAC has nominated Terry Nobles. Okay. And you're able to vote on this nomination at this meeting should you desire. Okay. Council Member Riggs. So keeping with my theme earlier asking if certain nominations are in conflict with our ethics ordinance since we have one now or if not I know that the nominee works for an architecture firm who has gotten jobs in the past for the Public Art Committee and so my question is would this individual have to recuse himself if say that company was brought up again for an item for the Public Art Committee to do. Say that one more time. Okay. So I know about the what you're saying is there's been work that has been assigned or contracted to the nominee through the Public Art Committee and well to the company to the company of the Public Art Committee or to the company of the nominee. Right. And that I'm sorry. No, no. I'm just trying to summarize it. Okay. And so our ethics ordinance does not apply to the Public Art Committee but would that person still be required to recuse themselves if on an item if that architect were to come up again. Recuse himself from the ethics? From the ethics? No. From what? From voting on the item. On the Public Art Committee? Okay. Or yeah. No, no. That person the ethics ordinance only as we as you all adopted it applies to city officials which is defined in the code. The Public Art Committee is not in the code in the ethics ordinance I should say and so for that person to sit on the Public Art Committee and recommend some type of project to be later forwarded to the council for adoption they're making an advisory recommendation. They're not going to be subject to the ethics ordinance. However, on the other hand if this person is on the ethics board of ethics they are a city official so if it's I can't I'm trying to think of a situation where a complaint would come up where they would have to recuse themselves from the board of ethics because the complaint triggered some business that may have been related to the city contract. No, no. It's not the board of ethics. It's just I'm because there has been some concern because this individual's the company that he works for has already received work from the Public Art Committee and so if he's on there if he approves or recommends his company for certain jobs is that a conflict although it's not covered under our ethics ordinance. Yeah, no. Let me make sure I understand what you're saying. The nominee works for a company that has been afforded work that has been contracted by the Greater Denton Arts Council to do work. No, or public art. By the city. By the city. By the city. By the city. So if that nominee is on the Public Art Committee and a project comes before the Public Art Committee regarding the nominee's company, employer, company, would the nominee be required to recuse themselves? I would think so. If he's if the nominee is being asked to vote for his or her employer, his employer in this case to receive a contract from the city which means revenue from the city. I would think that's I mean what you're asking is did our ethics ordinance is this a potential outside the ethics ordinance I still think that would be still you'd have to recuse yourself as a conflict I would think. Well that was my question because I know it wasn't covered under the ethics ordinance because the Public Art Committee isn't but it would make sense that he would have to but I'm just confirming because if not it would kind of maybe cause issues on that board. Just potentially. Yeah. So. It's going to depend on if is the Public Art Committee making the final decision to award that contract and I'm I don't know exactly what powers and authorization that our committee I don't know if they're making the recommendations to this council to make the final decision on any contract they enter into or whether they are actually doing it because if they are actually doing it then they are going to be picked up by state law. The state the state conflicts of interest statute but still under our city codes still applies to boards that make that final decision making authority. So I hope that helps. Well I'm not sure that was that so what if what I'm hearing you say is if this is simply an advisory decision that the final disposition comes to the council for final contract approval because it's not the last step I guess in the approval process. And that is the weakness in the state statute and so because I would cover our ethics ordinance wouldn't cover that but the state statute unless they're making that final decision it's not going to cover them either but however it does raise an appearance of a conflict and they should recuse themselves for that. We also have a policy that actually can pick up that situation if they're familiar with where they might be able to they could recuse themselves because of the appearance of a conflict. But state law would not cover it our ethics ordinance would not cover it and the policy is there as a guideline for them to follow and end to exercise if they choose to step down. So I hope that was that. Well what you say is we have a gray area. Yes. Okay. All right. All right. Well notwithstanding what happens here that needs to be addressed in general. I mean if we're saying that the advisory boards don't aren 't necessarily subject to our ethics ordinance but can can recommend expenditure city funds to benefit those people within. We just need to think back through that and we're looking in over the next six months a year we're going to find things that we missed and it's not intentional it's not that people are bad people it's not that we're trying to it 's just saying we just need to make sure we've got it cleaned up to where it covers the things that we intended it to cover. So it's a gray area. We've had this discussion here today. So the person who is being nominated certainly is aware of that discussion and we're going to be able to make a decision on that nomination here shortly. Thank you so much. Thank you for bringing that up. It's a very good point and it's I think it's something we need to we need to address. Thank you. Any other discussion. Comment. All right. Councilmember Gregory. Thank you Mayor. I move that we approve the nomination of Terry Nobles to the Public Art Committee. Councilmember Ryan. I'll second. We have a motion and second. Please put on the board please. Motion carries 7-0. Next is agenda item 5D resolution of appreciation for Dal ton Gregory. Do you have that resolution? Yeah. Okay. Councilmember Gregory you can just join me down front. We probably should have moved this to the last one so I could just very casually just escort you out the building. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We've got a resolution and a plaque. We've got a resolution and a plaque. Come on now. Dalton Gregory. Whereas Dalton Gregory has served as a city council member district 2 of the city of Denton from May 2009 to May 2014. As city council member at large place five from May 2014 to May 2018. As mayor pro tem from May 2015 to May 2016. And whereas the city of Denton has been extremely fortunate in having enjoyed the dedicated and outstanding contributions of Dalton Gregory and his efforts to make Denton a better city. I'm going to read that again because I know it's sort of just but I think that's important because that's a we sort of read it casually but that's an important sentence especially as it applies to you. Whereas the city of Denton has been extremely fortunate in having enjoyed the dedicated and outstanding contribution of Dalton Gregory and his efforts to make Denton a better city. And that's not just as a council member either. And whereas Dalton Gregory among his many contributions community community has served. Here we go folks on the council agenda committee council ethics committee committee on citizen engagement council committee event center committee. I didn't even know we had that council pointy performance review committee council committee on the environment convention and visitors bureau city representative hotel occupancy tax committee council mobility committee the Tarrant regional transportation coalition economic development partnership board and the tax increment reinvestment zone to board. Whereas prior to his election to the city of Denton Dalton Gregory served more than 18 years on various city boards and committees. Okay. So that's 18 years plus you've been on city council. Hello. 27 years and you've been active obviously more than that. But 27 years actively visibly serving our community. So he served 18 years on various city boards and committees including 12 years on the parks and recreation advisory board from 1987 through 1993. He didn't have enough of it so he was back on in 1997 and 2003. Three years on the human services advisory committee 2007 to 2009. Three years on the committee that started the clear Creek natural heritage center 2000 and two and what a gift to the city that is the downtown master plan focus group 2003 and chaired the juvenile diversion task force in 1984 that resulted in the formation of teen court. And whereas Dalton Gregory always served above and beyond the efficient discharge of his duties and promoting the welfare and prosperity of the city of Denton and has earned the full respect of his fellow council members colleagues and citizens of Denton and the loss of his services will be keenly felt. Now therefore the city council the city of Denton here by resolves that the sincere warm and appreciation for Dalton Gregory felt by the citizens and staff of the city of Denton be formally conveyed to him in a permanent manner by reading this resolution and to the official minutes of the city of Denton and forward to him a true copy thereof. Be it resolved that the day that the city of Denton does here by officially and sincerely extend its thanks to the honorable Dalton Gregory for his successful career as a council member of the city of Denton this 26th day of June 2018. Congratulations. I'm going to give you a plate. Absolutely. I'm going to read you the plaque. Oh sorry. Yes. No no no no. Very well deserved. And this should be displayed prominently in your home. Yes. City of Denton expresses its gratitude to you Dalton Gregory for your devotion and invaluable service by serving from May 2009 to May 2018 as a member of the Denton City Council and as Mayor Pro Tem from May 2015 to May 2016. Citizens such as you are priceless assets to our community. Your contribution to the city of Denton is most appreciated . Well and most of the time and most of the time I worked for free so it's right. That's right. That's right. Thank you again. You bet. You bet. Thank you. Yes. Oh we also have to do a vote on this. So do I have a motion. I'll make a motion. Councilmember Briggs. Councilmember Ryan. I'll second. All in favor please signify. Can we do it right. Raise your right hand. You're not even going to vote for your own resolution. Okay. All right. All opposed. Okay. All right. Passes 6-0. Have they already taken your picture down. Yes. Okay. All right. It was down a couple of weeks. Yeah. Okay. Next on our agenda is agenda item 6 which are public hearings and agenda item we only have one 6A which is hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance to rezone approximately 1.3 acres from a downtown residential DR1 to downtown commercial general. And I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing just in case I forget to. So public hearing is now open. Good evening. Hey Liz Gershky with the planning department. As you mentioned this is case Z 18-6 for fire station 3. The request before you is a zoning change from downtown residential 1 or DR1 district to downtown commercial general DCG district. You can see on the top map how the current zoning is reflected on our zoning map and then the lower map shows what it would be if the zoning were approved. The subject property is 1.33 acres in size. It's located on the south side of Underwood Street along Avenue A. So the site is currently developed with fire station 3. Under our current zoning code fire stations are considered a community service use which is not actually permitted within the DR1 district. Prior to this the property was zoned SF7 and fire stations were a permitted use. So that makes this existing fire station a special exception. There are plans to expand and improve the fire station onto the adjoining lot to the west. And when the current fire station is voluntarily demolished at that point it would lose that status. So the zoning is required to permit the use to be rebuilt on the property and also to consolidate the zoning across both of these parcels to provide for more cohesive development. Just a closer look at what's on the site today. So the subject property is the eastern piece with the current fire station. The other area in yellow is the adjoining property where they would also plan to construct the fire station. This is the concept plan that's been presented to us at this point. So you can see the fire station itself would sit on that western lot. There would be cross access from Underwood to Avenue A through the building. And then there would also be some parking on the subject property for this. Looking at the criteria for where rezoning is requested, the first one being of course does it comply with the future land use designation for the property. We found that the future land use for this area is a mixture of commercial and neighborhood university compatibility. It's kind of right on that transition zone. But it's primarily commercial. And that commercial designation applies to areas that are intended for auto oriented commercial development. Typically these areas based on their proximity to a freeway or something else are not suitable for residential or even mixed use development. DCG is consistent with this designation. It permits a wide variety of commercial uses. Very intensive in scale up to 100 feet in height for example, 85% lot coverage. So pretty typical standards that we would see along a free way. Looking at some other things, we found that DCG is consistent with the zoning in the area. There's a mixture of downtown districts in this area. We have DCG directly across the street of Underwood, also across what is currently McCormick Street which is to be closed as part of this development. The uses permitted within DCG are generally consistent with what we have in the area today which is a mixture of some commercial. There's fuel stations along the freeway. The existing fire station of course and then a variety of multi-family and other residential development. Looking at a little more specific, you can see here on the map the blue lines being water lines, red being sewer. So there's adequate utilities to serve the site and the expansion. As I mentioned, it will have access off of Underwood and Avenue A. Back in February of this year an ordinance was passed to close McCormick Street indefinitely in between these two streets and that will be formally abandoned as a part of this development as it progresses through the platting process and site planning. Notices were sent about the case. We received one favorable response shown in green on the map and one in opposition didn't state the reasons for the opposition to the request but that's outlined in red on the map. Staff is recommending approval of the request. We found DCG to be consistent with the goals and objectives of the Denton Plan and compatible with the surrounding properties and the Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended approval six to zero and I'd be happy to answer any questions. I need to also make a note that Councilmember Briggs reac cused herself and I believe has filed the proper paperwork for that. See no more questions from staff. I mean, I'm sorry, for staff. All right, thank you. This is a public hearing. Anybody else wishing to speak? Please come down, state your name and address and your time will begin. Where's the Fire Chief? Shouldn't be down here advocating for Denton, crying out loud. Anybody else wishing to speak? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing. Any questions before I recognize the movement? Councilmember Hudspeth? I move approval. Councilmember Meltzer? I second. We have a motion and a second for agenda item 6A. Let's vote on the board, please. Motion carries 6-0. If someone could ask Councilmember Briggs to return. Well, we got concluding items. Maybe we want to wait on that. I'm just kidding. I'm just teasing. All right. We're going to go on now to concluding items. It's upside down. Yeah. I'm sorry. No concluding items. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs, you have concluding items? Okay. Yes, so for me now? Okay. I would like to revive the conversation about the Employee to Empower program. Bring that back either in a work session with what happened , maybe if we need to realign our goals, what the possibilities are. But I feel like it's been successful other places, and so there's opportunity for us there to not give up. The last thing, because there's just two today, there was a lot of talk today about back-end parking on Hickory, and I've actually noticed this, that not many people are doing it. And so I'm wondering, are we enforcing that? Are we just letting it go? And do we need to remove the signs? Do we need to have a conversation about it? I'm just kind of curious about if we're enforcing it, because I have seen more, a large percentage of people, they're just pulling in forward instead of backing in. So I mean, if it's, we've just let it go, that's fine too, but I'm just wondering. All right, great. Council Member Hussbett. Thank you. I was going to ask staff about the intersection of I-35 Service Road and University. There's a southwest corner. It used to be a right turn lane that's kind of been abandoned. I wonder whose property that is. A lot of traffic there obviously would raise a wrench. If there's some opportunities, if any of that belongs to us , it may be a great opportunity to do something with that. Then I was going to ask staff to look at the website, and maybe we have a either citizen engagement fax page or kind of a short list of things. So because I was researching, matter of fact, Vicki from Community Market had asked kind of how the process works to come speak to council. And it was a little more arduous than I would like to kind of look that up for her or send her the links. So I think there's kind of steps that citizens would normally interact with the city council in one location, and that would be great. And then lastly, I'd ask, as we're looking at our ordin ances, there's a home in my neighborhood that was boarded up, and then they began to work on it. You know, it's like abandoned, and so it was boarded, the windows were boarded. But they started to work on it. They worked on it a couple of days, took all the boards down, and now it's just wide open. And so I wonder if there's a way by ordinance to address that until the house has windows and doors, if there's a requirement to put the boards back. So right now, they're not out of -- they boarded it up, so they were in compliance. They now started working on the home, and now it's not boarded up. And I don't know for sure if they're out of compliance, because they're "working on it." But I'd like to see some kind of way where we can force them to close the home back up until such time that its doors and windows are in. And I don't know what that looks like in the ordinance. Thank you. >> Councilmember Meltzer. >> Yeah, thank you. I see that in August we're going to address gas wells in some respect. >> Yes. >> Again, and I would just ask that in that conversation that we, if possible, get an update from staff on any new technical or scientific studies that would give us insight into what safe distances are for living from gas wells, from a point of view of health and safety, and also noise. And also in that conversation, if we end up -- we may end up confirming that we like the reverse setbacks of 250 feet that we have now. We may not. But if we end up having some concern about that, you know, in order to help us judge also the balancing of rights among those who might want to develop that land, could we also look at ordinances maybe from other communities, say around open space, where we might try to trade off density, in other words, allow greater density at safe distances in exchange for voluntary compliance with what we might end up considering safe and healthy distances. Understand what I mean? >> Yes. >> Any others? >> That's it. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Ryan. >> Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to give a shout out to our streets engineering and traffic departments. We finally -- and I know this has been there for a couple of weeks, but the traffic light is in at Robinson and 2499. I figured since I talked about it for four months asking for it, I had to make sure I thanked them for that. But even more importantly, at 530 yesterday, I was going down Shady Oaks by Woodrow and it has made a huge difference adding that right turn light there. I was second at the light as opposed to being backed up all the way to the A train rails. >> Yeah. >> Good. Wonderful. Thank you. Those are good observations and good reports. Councilmember Gregory. >> I didn't know -- >> Wait a minute. Didn't we just read a resolution where you're off the council? You don't get any concluding items. I'm kidding. >> When we had that reception, I didn't realize that it was -- that y'all were going to be talking about me then. So I had to do stuff off the cuff. So I prepared slightly more. >> We can allow that. >> Okay. So it's been an honor to have been elected five times. It's been an honor to work with a great city staff and to see so many people on the staff that have a real heart, the real heart of a public servant. So many of our staff display that every day. It's been an honor to get to know so many citizens that I wouldn't have known otherwise and business people. A great joy to get to learn so much more about how the city operates and to know so much more about businesses and nonprofits that are operating in the city. It's been an honor to work with a variety of council colleagues. 16, actually, since -- because of the runoff, 17 council members, different council members that I've worked with in the nine years. People with different perspectives, different philosophies, different styles, but every one of them working to make Denton, my hometown, your hometown, a better place to live. Now, I have lots of hobbies. People keep saying, what are you going to do? I have plenty to do. Among many of my hobbies, one of them is I'm a barely adequate musician, singer in the church choir, player of the ukulele, and a few years ago, after 35 years of it being in the closet, I pulled out my trombone and playing in a couple of little bands. I didn't know there would be so many gigs available for a barely adequate trombone player, but who knew? Well, I used to be an English teacher, and so I never met a four that I didn't like. And so I think the metaphor of a band is a great metaphor for us. Because in a band, when the band is playing, at times, an instrument is featured. They're doing the melody, and the other instruments kind of sit back, and they are supportive. And they do harmony, or they do a counter melody, or things like that. And then that instrument is done, and another instrument comes to the fore, and they become the featured player, and they're taking the lead, and the others are back. And it's really neat. And I've played times when my section's featured, and the other times when we're just background. And it's fun to do both, because you need to have the harmony to support the melody. And the harmony without the melody seems kind of odd. There are moments in the band, in a piece of music, in a composition, where there are these moments that come up, and there's this, the musical term is suspension, where the chord is not really complete, or maybe it's even, it really doesn't sound right. It sounds incomplete, or something's missing, or there's not harmony. And then all of a sudden, boom, the resolution comes, and the harmony comes back, and the piece is done. That's when it's been most fun working on the council. And we've sat here and struggled on an issue, and really, really toiled trying to get it right. And not everybody in agreement, but there's give and take, and then people do that. And that's when it's been most fun, collaborating, working together, and coming up with solutions that help make them better. So I've appreciated working with you, and with those other folks in that group of 17. It's been a great joy. And I plan not to be back anymore. Standing out there, sitting out there, and I'm not even sure if I'll watch one on TV. Oh, maybe I'll watch one or two. But thank you, thank you for putting up with me, and my sol iloquies. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's, it's been an honor as well. That's, I didn't know it's that many people. I mean, 16 or 17 different council members. That's wonderful. No, I appreciate it. I appreciate your service. And I really did mean what I said down there in the resolution. You contributed a tremendous amount to this community, both on council and off. And you're just, you've been a great lover of Denton and supporting its people and its projects. So thank you so much for doing that. And I suspect that will probably continue just in a different vein. He's not so sure about that. So I have a couple of concluding. It involves meetings. That's right. I've got a couple of just one primary concluding. And then I've got a, I guess a question of clarification on a couple others. It was brought to my attention that that on the website, if people want to get in touch with other board and commission members like PNZ or, you know, the appeal board or public that there's really no way to do that. There's not a central place where people can be contacted and they are a board and commission member. So I don't know if we assign them email addresses, but I think we need to figure out a way to provide some public access to our board and commission members as far as contact. And we can work that out with them. And I think it's important to tell that upfront before our nominations, because in the past, I don't know if they realized that, but they can still be contacted. And so if somebody calls the city of Denton and asks for their contact number, we, I think we pretty much have to give it out if they put it on the application because it's a, it's a public record. So I would want to think that we can provide some central place to where people can have that contact information readily available. So I had a couple of questions of clarification. Or this is concluding. I have to piggyback on Councilmember Briggs about back-end parking on Hickory. I think that's a great conversation, what's happening. And I think, you know, I think it's a worthy conversation of do we need to, if it's not being enforced or if it's really not being utilized except in the time when nobody can find parking, let's revisit those safety features that were proposed for that back-end parking and see if that still applies as far as, because, you know, if we're not enforcing it, I mean, except selectively or just whenever it's convenient, I think we need to really take a look at that. So I appreciate that. And then Councilmember Hutsbeth, on your right-hand turn on 380 and University Drive, I know I've had people ask me about that too. Why did we, why was it taken out? In other words, if it was still there, it would really alleviate that traffic. Is that sort of what you were referring to in your request? Yes. I mean, I could see the value of yes, it being there, but if it's not going to be there, take advantage of, yeah, take advantage of marketing or signage or just beautification opportunity. All right. Thank you. All right. That's all I have. That's all I have. Thank you.