Jun 26, 2018 City Council on 2018-06-26 11:00 AM

Good morning everyone. Welcome to this meeting of the Dent on City Council Tuesday, June 26, 2018. It is about 1101 a.m. We're going to move through, well we do have a quorum present. We're going to move through our first opening session here in City Hall Chambers for agenda item A, which is considered adoption of an ordinance canv assing the returns and declaring the results of the runoff municipal election held in the City of Denton on June 16, 2018. Thank you Mayor and Council. At your seats you have an updated ordinance from the additional votes that were counted by the early voting ballot board with Denton County. Those were votes that were either overseas or perhaps a voter went with no identification and they can cure that before the final tally. So I will read the final votes cast and then you'll consider the ordinance. So 6,507 ballots were cast in this runoff election and for total votes cast, place five, Aaron Fuzzy Newquist 2,989 and Deb Armentor 3,517 and that by passage of this ordinance you will be declaring that Deb Armentor received a majority of the votes cast for place five and that she will assume the duties of her office upon her oath. Okay. All right. I don't believe we have granite up at this time so at least not on my screen. So Council Member Hussbett. Move approval. Sorry. Move approval. Seconded by Council Member Meltzer. So do we just take a hand vote on this? All right. Okay. All in favor of the motion please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. And then we'll move on to our agenda item B which is oath of office administered to the newly elected Council Member. Okay. There's where it is. Okay. All right. All right. Okay. So, I need to present you with your certificate of election. Thank you. And your official certificate. Congratulations. Welcome aboard. Thank you. You bet. You bet. All right. Okay. If you could come a little closer to the mic. Okay. Sorry. There you go. Just so I pick it up for everybody. Okay. So raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Deb Armentor, do solemnly swear. I, Deb Armentor, do solemnly swear. That I will faithfully execute the duties. That I will faithfully execute the duties. Of the Office of Council Member Place Five. Of the Office of Council Member Place Five. Of the City of Denton, Texas. Of the City of Denton, Texas. And will to the best of my ability. And will to the best of my ability. Preserve, protect, and defend. Preserve, protect, and defend. The Constitution and laws of the United States. The Constitution and laws of the United States. And of this state. And of this state. And the charter and ordinances of this city. And the charter and ordinances of this city. Thank you. Thank you. [inaudible] Yeah, I think we had a couple. We'll take them in order. Yeah, that's not a problem. So we're not going to have the screen up for requests to speak and all that? Well, I'm not going to worry about it. We've got several people requesting to speak. Council Members Hussbuss had queued in. Council Member Meltzer and then Council Member Duff. So I'm going to take them in that order. So Council Member Hussb uss, you had asked to speak, do you? Are we at C? Yeah, let me go ahead and call the item. Yeah. Moving on to agenda item C, which is election of Mayor Pro Tem. So yes. So I'm going to nominate, where we left off, I seconded last go around. So I think it's at a consistency to nominate John Ryan now that we're all set. Okay. Do these require a second? They do not. Okay. Then Council Member Meltzer. So out of consistency, the reason that I moved for postponement last time was because we were not all seated and Council Member Briggs is speaking at an event today representing our city. So we're not all seated. So I move that we postpone this vote until we are all seated. Okay. Is that a motion? Yes. Okay. And I second that. Okay. We have a motion to second. Council Member Hussbuss, yours was a motion for nomination of John Ryan. Is that correct? Yes. And I want to ask legal . Sure. I want to fix this time, right? So we spoke in the past. I want to pick up where we left off and not have to reinvent the wheel each time this happens. And so assuming this passes, what is the process, what's the wording to then we just pick up with the nomination and vote? The, you're talking about if the motion to postpone were to be approved today. Yes, sir. What is the impact on your nomination for, in this case, John Ryan to be considered, you know, is it carried over to the next meeting or not? Yes. How do we preserve that? I guess the nomination motion that came or and I would prefer that you second be made to that nomination and I'll explain why. Then the motion to postpone is a parliamentary rule that attaches to the main motion, which is your nomination motion. And if it is successfully approved, then that motion is still pending, carries over to the 17th or I guess it would automatically, you would have to give it a date certain if the 17th is the actual date, then it moves over to that date and when we open up, there is already one pending motion. Now it doesn't mean that other motions can't be made for nominating a second or a third person or council member to serve as mayor pro tem. So I'm hoping that answers the question. It carries over. If you get a second on that motion to nominate John Ryan, the motion to postpone, it passes, it carries over to the 17th and that will be the actual motion pending on the 17th. Okay. So in all fairness, because I was informed it didn't require a motion for the nomination, you're saying we need to have one, so I want to at least give, I mean, council member, the husband had a motion on the table and I was informed that maybe a second wasn't required. If it was required, I would have taken a second if there was one at that time, so I'm going to open the floor up to a second for that nomination, council member Duff. I second the nomination of John Ryan. Okay. So we have a main motion of nomination of John Ryan for mayor pro tem. However, we have a superseding motion to postpone made by council member Meltzer and then seconded by council member Armatart . Is that correct? All right. So we'll vote on the motion to postpone first. Yes, that's correct. And we're going to have a hand vote on this. So all in favor of the motion to postp one, please signify by raising your right hand. All opposed by like sign. Okay. So we have a tie. Now, we do have some rules in our council rules and procedures that address ties , but I think there's some nuances there that if Mr. City Attorney, if you could sort of what happens now that there's been a tie vote on the motion to postpone. The motion to postpone is what's deemed as a parliamentary motion. I mean, and the reason I say that is I, you know, the count this body even under its rules procedure, as well as the Roberts rules of order, when it adopts in any type of contract or ordinance approving a contract or any other act official action, it does so by making a main motion. And so when we look at the actual rule as embedded in our rules procedure, it requires an affirmative vote of four members of this council to repeal any ordinance or take any official action in the name of the city. The official action on this agenda is the actual election of a mayor pro tem. There are other types and that action is usually taken as a main motion, which we just went through the process a short bit ago. There are other types of motions that are parliamentary motions. They are not taking official action on any on the on the actual election . It is actually deferring the official action until a later date. And so in my opinion, there's in with the tie vote provision that is actually in our rules, it does not apply to a parliamentary motion. It just ends. So what happens is the general rule in the Roberts rules of order applies. And since he didn't have a majority, i.e. four people, that three three tie vote equals a failed motion. And so we're left back with the pending motion, which is the main motion made and seconded for the nomination for John Ryan. Okay, Councilmember Meltzer. Someone the person who is not here is not here because she's as she so often does, is representing then I think she's Councilmember Briggs is a very skillful ambassador for City Council, and I nominate her for Mayor Pro Tem. I second that. Okay. Well, I'm going to pontificate for just a second if my colleagues and the people out here don't mind. I'm concerned with I understand what the rules are. All right. But what I'm concerned about is that we've got a set of rules that have never really been into play at this particular juncture, which have not provided the kind of predictability. I mean, the interpretation has always been if a rule ties it's always put on the next agenda item. Well, because of this particular scenario, we've come to understand that there may be some nuances to that particular rule, i.e. between main motions and what did you call them? It's a subsidiary motion, which includes parliamentary. Which one thing I'm a strong advocate for is, at least in our process, how many times have you heard me say, I trust the process, the process needs to be predictable. The process needs to allow everybody an opportunity to understand what the results are, decisions made upon that process. So if the rules are we go ahead and move through this motion, that's fine. I don't necessarily support that. I'm just going to be quite frank. Both of the nominations that are before this council, I can support. I'm not going to hide that. I can support that. And the way that we've handled this in the past is as the nominations come forth, we take them in the linear fashion in which they've come forth. So based upon what you just said, I want to make sure I understood what you said about if that motion to postpone had passed, according to the nuances of our rules, that the underlying motion that would first be considered at the new agenda item would be the motion by Councilmember Hudspeth. Is that correct? That's correct because the motion to postpone is attached to the main motion which was the first nomination motion. Okay. All right. Okay. I think that I mean I certainly as a chair don't have the right to supersede the rules as far as they're defined. And unless we have a council that decides to do that, I'm not going to take that upon myself because I can't. Councilmember Duff, is that correct? And then we'll come over here to this side of the room. Is that correct, Mr. City Attorney? Yes, Mayor. All right. I call for the vote. Okay. Help me understand what that means. What Councilmember Duff is calling for, he's calling for a point of order to get to the first motion and vote upon it. Okay. So does that preclude discussion? There are rules. I want to make sure I give you the right answer. Yes. It does. So you're saying it calls for it terminates discussion? Yes, your Mayor. So a motion to call the vote terminates the discussion. His motion. Yes. We will be voting from what my understanding is from guidance from the City Attorney that the motion there's been a call for the vote, which means that terminates and forecloses any further discussion. And we're now going to take a vote for the current motion. That's correct. Which is the motion for Councilmember Ryan for Mayor Pro Tem. That is correct. Okay. We have a motion and a second by Councilmember Husspeth and seconded by Councilmember Duff, nominating Councilmember Ryan as Mayor Pro Tem. All in favor, please vote by raising your right hand. All opposed by like sign? Was that all opposed by like sign? Okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, right. So 42, before we close this agenda item, I just want to make a comment. I think this was a very unfortunate situation. And you know, as I said in the beginning, my hands were tied on this and I could have, it's unfortunate that in the process we've had politics be sort of injected into this instead of just giving everybody a fair shake and but that 's the rules. And so I'm certainly going to ask that the rules be changed to provide a little bit more predictability. So in the future moving forward, we don't put ourselves as Councilmembers in this position. So I respect the vote. It went according to the process and I have to maintain the integrity of the process. But it's unfortunate that the rules have been such that we got into this. This is a I would call it a case of first impression, as they say in Supreme Court cases when you have a situation happen that you really haven't confronted before. So all right. Next to speak. Yes, yes, go ahead. Councilmember Meltzer. I believe that Councilmember Ryan will be very able Mayor Pro Tem and I congratulate him. Thank you. I agree. Yes, thank you. All right. You bet. Okay. Thank you. And I share that likewise, as I shared, I think, I think either of the two would have would do a stellar job. And I echo that sentiment Councilmember Ryan. I think you will as well. So thank you so much. And thank you all for this has been a very interesting learning process. So appreciate everybody being involved in it. All right, we will now convene to our open session. I believe so. Wait, is that right? Yes, we'll go to our open session, which is meeting in the work session room. Thank you all very much. All right, welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, June 26 2018. We are now moved our to our work session room. It is 1127 am and we're going to move through our work session reports. We have our first agenda item is citizen comments on consent agenda items. Is that what this is? Yep. Okay. Yeah, for this one. All right. We do have one card Mr. Ed Sofe, if you'd like to come, is this where you're wanting to speak is here at the work session room on consent agenda . Okay. If you'll just state your name and address, your time will begin. Yes, sir. My name is Ed Sofe. I live at 1620 Victoria Drive in Denton. You folks were sent an email this morning and from the Texas Campaign for the Environment and this group, let me just get this up, has been very, very busy in Dallas with getting multifamily recycling happening in Dallas. And I urge you to read this email. I'm just going to give you some high points from it. Basically he's saying the city of Denton should not eliminate programs that divert materials from the landfill. We believe that building materials recovery or BMR and rub ble programs are critical in saving landfill airspace and greatly reducing the energy consumption of manufactured building materials. I'm just going to give you some high points in this email. We concur that the enhanced leachate recirculation system should be decreased or discontinued. ELR is producing more methane gas than can be used at the landfill. There's no reason to catalyze decomposition and spur methane production if there's limited capacity to make use of the gas. We strongly recommend that residential recycling collection remain on a weekly collection schedule. Routes should be made more efficient for staffing and cost considerations, but services should remain the same for rate payers. We strongly recommend keeping but making changes to the household chemical collection program. The Blue Ridge Services Group says that this "service is being funded by residents who do not utilize the service." However the same can be said of the bulk trash collection service. We recommend fewer scheduled collections for the bulk trash program and a cost plus pricing structure for residents who need more collections for bulk trash. Household chemical collection should remain as a call ahead program with little to no cost to residents. Bottom line, we shouldn't make it harder for Denton residents to divert toxic and hazardous materials from the landfill. We recommend that Denton leaders continue to pursue expanding the recycling services to more multi-family and commercial properties. These properties are responsible for the majority of waste generation and therefore should also be held to account on participating in diversion programs. Service management and sanitation services are central functions of local governments in Texas. Denton leaders should uphold the city's diversion and recycling goals and always involve citizens and stakeholders before making changes to these critical programs. As I said, this was spoken on behalf of Corey Troiani with the Texas Campaign for the Environment. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. I don't see any more blue cards. All right. Okay. Request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda for June 26, 2018. Yes, Councilmember Amartar. This is the part where we can ask to have items removed from the consent agenda? That's correct. Okay. I would like B and F removed and ideally coupled together if possible because they're both about smoking. I had some concerns about that and would like us to have a discussion about that. Also, item D about the PID. I just had questions about possible amendment to that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. I was going to ask for D as well, but I'd also like to pull out item A just because I think the public would find it interesting to know what developments are happening downtown. Is that the easement? Yeah. Okay. Anybody else? As far as any consent agenda items to pull, if not any clar ifications on agenda items? F has already been pulled. I'd planned on asking that to be pulled as well. Okay. All right. Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to agenda item three, which are work session reports. I do want to let the council know in the public. I will need to be leaving around 430 to go speak at a public hearing at an organization here in town. So Mayor Pro Tem will get his first opportunity to lead the council in further discussion until I return. Agenda item 3A, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the air emissions testing at Denton Energy Intercenter conducted by Black and Beach Corporation. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, George Morrow, DME General Manager. And I'm pleased to be here today to introduce and present the results to you of our emissions testing at the Denton Energy Center. I know that's been an important item for the utility and for the city. I have some special guests here today, Stephen Baker and Paul Lee from Black and Beach. As you may recall, Black and Beach was the owner's engineer for the deck, and they oversaw the testing process and I think you saw them back in November and they made a presentation to you. So I'll introduce Paul and he'll take it away and maybe I 'll have some closing comments. Thank you, George. Pleasure to see you guys again. My name is Paul Lee. I'm an air quality engineer with Black and Beach. And as George said, we were retained by Denton Municipal to oversee the emissions testing as well as be owner's engineer on the project. So quick overview of what I'm going to present. Just provide you guys a testing overview of what we did, the test results, and then George will come up again to talk about the path forward for the deck. So to just go over the entities that were involved here, Black and Beach, we are an international firm that really made our mark, I would say, in the power industry. So with that is emissions testing. We had to demonstrate that what we built has met all the permits and all the contracts that we have signed. For this project, again, Bernard McDonald was the engineer and we were the owner's engineer to help check what they did. And we were also putting our scope was the emissions testing, overviewing it. In order to do the emissions testing, we hired Air Hygiene. Air Hygiene is also one of the nation's leading emissions testers. They're certified by the Source Testing Accreditation Council, or also known as STAC, as an AETB. In order to be that, they had to maintain pretty sturdy QA procedures with all their equipment. They get audited every other year. So in order to be an AETB is a solid accreditation to them. The personnel they brought on site, we had many people on site to do a lot of tests. But within that group, there's something called a QSTI, or Qualified Stack Testing Individual. We were fortunate enough to have five of them on hand. Usually you have about one or two to serve as managers. But here we had five. To be a QSTI, you have to pass multiple tests in order to be certified. So the competency level of the group was pretty good. And Air Hygiene themselves, they have conducted many tests, hundreds of probably near a thousand tests nationwide in their history. But with Warzilla engines, they have 55 and counting projects. Some of them are only one engine at a time. Others are 12, like we have with the deck. So their experience level is pretty good. I was told at the last meeting that you had, there was a discussion about NSPS and NACS. So I just want to take a quick aside to give you a brief overview of that. So NSPS stands for New Source Performance Standards. You'll also hear the term 40 CFR 60. They're the same thing. New Source Performance Standards, or NSPS, is a technology- based federal regulation. So depending if you're a waste incinerator, a medical facility, a reciprocating engine like we are here, a coal-fired power plant, there's a regulation within NSPS that you have to meet. When NSPS was passed in the Appendix A, the EPA also passed a whole gamut of EPA test methods that are used now worldwide, and we did use on this project as well. NACS stands for National Ambient Air Quality Standards. And they're tied because they both deal with emissions, but they're really different. NACS is what EPA has mandated for the ambient levels of various pollutants, seven "criteria pollutants." We actually didn't test for any of the criteria pollutants, but ozone is a criteria pollutant, and NOx and VOCs are precursor to the formation of ozone. So we did test for those here. Next, the states individually have to develop an implementation plan to demonstrate to the federal government how they're going to meet the ambient air quality levels that the EPA has mandated. Within that implementation plan, the states have to consider all the permits that they issue, such as the standard permit does issue to the DEC. So there's two regulations here in play. Hopefully the answers will clarify some of the discussions that happened previously, but just wanted to go over that real quick. Any questions? Yes? Councilmember, I'm talking. And there's no testing for methane required, that's correct ? No, no. Thanks. Anyone else? Okay. So testing occurred May 17th through May 20th. There's 12 engines, we try to do four at a time. The test protocol was submitted by our contractor, Air Hyg iene. Usually it's standard practice 30 days before the testing to submit the test protocol to the state. We did that. TCEQ was notified well in advance and invited to come to the testing themselves. They chose not to participate, which doesn't happen all the time, but it is common. And the table that I'm showing you here is just the pollut ants that we tested and the EPA methods per NSPS appendix A that we chose. The test durations were all one hour for all our pollutants , except for PM. PM, the timing's not really that critical. It's more about the sample volume that you collect. And we made sure that we had the minimum sample volume required. We were well in excess. 60 is the minimum. We are more closer around 100. So I just wanted to give you guys sort of a visual of what was used, since it's probably sort of foreign to you guys. Going to go sort of quickly through it. If you have any questions, please let me know. But this black line is basically our sample umbilical, or our sample line that connects to the probe that's inside the duct to our analyzers. The first analyzer is our FTIR. That was used for ammonia. The next set of gases, we had to split off the flue gas stream. One to go to a flue gas conditioner to drop out water, because water could be interference for our NOx and CO analyzers. However, VOCs could absorb into water, so we don't want to knock it out for VOCs, because then you get a false low reading on your VOCs. So that's why you see a split here of flue gas going to your gas conditioning plate and then to your VOCs. And here's just what they look like. Now's a leading manufacturer of the analyzers. You'll see those often. This right here is actually an oxygen analyzer that we need to have for calculations. And the VOC is right there. PM sample train, it's not used or PM is not measured with analyzers, because it's a mass that we have to collect and send to a laboratory. Here's just a schematic that we have. The only point of entry of flue gas is through our nozzle. It's important that we did pre and post leak checks to make sure there's no leak of ambient air diluting our sample. It's a pretty intricate setup, as you can see. So I won't go through all the details here, but we collected both filterable PM and condensable PM with the setup. Here's just a picture of the probe itself. That is the PM probe. Just right next to it going down is the probe for our gases . Here's an actual setup of the PM sample train. The glassware is pretty common and standard throughout all the testing that you'll see in the EPA test methods. The meter box and the pump. The pump is what actually pulls our sample gas through the sample train. Meter boxes just collect a lot of the information, like temperatures, pressure drops that we need for our calculations to determine how many pounds per hour of PM that we have. Here's some samples. Just wanted to give you an idea of what these look like. These bottles have our back washes. After all of our PM tests, we had to wash the probes to make sure there ain't any filterable PM that got attached to the inside of the probes. We're collecting all of that and scrubbing it out to make sure we have all the mass that is in the flue gas that we're passing through. Any questions so far? Any questions? All right. So, a moment of truth here. Here are the test results. The rows are all the engines across the top are the pollut ants that we tested. In parenthesis are the permit limits in pounds per hour. So NOx was limited to 1.33 pounds per hour in our permit. PM was 3.17. Please note these values are the averages of three runs. You don't do one run because that one run could be higher or lower than what's typical of that system, right? So you always do three test runs in any type of EPA testing . And these are the averages of those three runs. As you can see, based on the numbers in the parenthesis, all of our values were well below what we were permitted to do. Give you a little quick second here to go over these. Councilmember Duff? Yeah, you want to comment on engine one? Some high numbers there. 2.23. I have it on my next slide. Okay. Yeah. Are there any other day points that someone would like for me to talk about? Right now, I was just going to talk about engine one PM 10, where it's 2.23. Yes. I was just going to go over a second. Yes, you did. Go ahead. Sure. I'll explain the 2.23 in my next slide. The VOCs, when you're looking at engine seven, being zeros. I did ask about that. We looked through the data to make sure that the data was correct. The reason for that is because, as you can see, a lot of VO C numbers are pretty low. Before and after each of our analyzer tests, we had to calibrate the analyzers. When we calibrate the analyzers, we use an EPA protocol test gas. Let's say we had 10 ppm of NOx, for example. Our analyzer for NOx has to read close to 10 ppm, or otherwise we have to redo the entire sample. We have to fix that machine in order to make sure it's reading right. If the analyzer, though, is reading 9.98, and we know that the bottle is actually 10.000, then there's a bias of .02. The VOCs, when we use the bias to correct the measurements, it actually came out negative. You can't have negative values, so that turned out zero. The variance, you're going to have variance in all your machines. I guess I can't explain exactly why all the variances, but they still passed. I will say, in all the testing I've done, whether it be five combustion turbines of the same model and build, you always see variance. Were you surprised by the degree of variance? I'm aware that it would be unusual to have completely consistent, but that's a pretty large ... To me, no, because even though you might look at .99 on engine one here, and then look at it at zero, to me, if you look at the magnitude overall, the magnitude still isn't very high. You're still well in the tenths or hundreds of values. To me, based on my experience, no, I've always seen variance within the same type of models of turbines, engines. You're never going to get something that's too ... You're not going to get two exactly same models to act the same, even though you feed it the same type of natural gas. There's always going to be some type of variance. You say later on that it's common for the first run of gas engines to be dirtier due to residuals, so you're saying that that accounts not only for the higher numbers on engine one, but across the board, different variances. Do you attribute it to that as well? Do you have a slide on that? Yeah. Yeah. So, good segue. The wash on PM1, when I was showing you those bottles of the back washes that we did, when we got done with run one on engine one, it looked dirty. We knew that there was going to be a potential problem or at least higher readings for that sample. Sure enough, when we got the lab sample back, it was high. Runs two and three were very clear, and all the other samples were very clear, as we expected on natural gas. On other projects I have done, as well as our hygiene has done, as we were talking about it, yeah, I won't say it's typical, but it is common, unfortunately, for various lubricants or construction greases or whatever contaminants inside of your turbine or your engine to not have burned off completely. When you're going to emissions testing, you unfortunately still have some of that contamination that you're collecting within your PM sample train. You try to account for that by having proper run times before you do your emissions testing, but unfortunately sometimes you don't. Since the runs two and three were so low on PM, and the average, again, was still passing through the enough margin of the permits limits, I'm con jecturing right now that that is probably the reason, based on past experiences, that run one, a lot of times, unfortunately, do have higher PM samples. So that's just conjecture, not sure that that's the cause. It's just a reasonable cause. Yeah, I would say it's a reasonable conjecture based on my past experiences. What was the total run for each of the individual runs of each engine? Number of hours? Oh. Something like 100. I remember one was 116. That I unfortunately don't know. Okay. Yeah. I'll find it as you continue. I will also say that sometimes a number of run hours, just because there's always variance between all engines, even though they're all the same type of model, it would be false to say 50 hours of run time was sufficient on engine one, so therefore 50 hours is sufficient on engine two and three and four and five. Right. Oftentimes you need to have a lot of margin to make sure you cover everything. Okay. Council Member Meltzer. This might be a question for George. We have more than one kind of objective. One is obviously to make sure that we stay within the law, the permitted limits, but is there a difference between permitted levels and desirable levels from a public health point of view, and would we need a different kind of resource to advise us on that? I mean, I just don't know, and I don't know if this firm would have the expertise to know what those sorts of targets ought to be. Yeah, I think -- If they're different at all. Yeah, I think we're going to be doing more analysis on the emissions results, so we got the big fat report, and we're drilling down through that. Everything is well within public health standards, and so there's no concerns from that standpoint. I don't know if there's other policy decisions that would come out of these results, so basically I was going to get back up here and say that I'm very happy with the results that we saw. It was well, well within permit standards for a machine like this, and I think that bodes well for the emissions outcomes going forward. What guides you in saying it's well within public health standards? I believe that's the typical terminology for permits, that the permitted levels are determined to be within health standards. That's kind of the criteria that those who establish permit levels would undertake. I guess that's what I'm really probing, because those are the maximums, but just making sure you're not at the maximum doesn't necessarily mean you're at the desirable. So that seems at least a fair question. Let us ponder the question a little bit further down the road. Again, I'm not an emissions expert. I'm a layperson, but again, with all the power plants that I've been involved with over the years, I'm pretty enamored with these results, and I think they were well less than what we contemplated based on the original permit. Let me recognize you first. Are you through with your questioning? Yes, and I take it that we're going to hear more as you investigate more. That would be my expectation. Councilmember Malauulu. I would be curious, just following up on Councilmember Melt zer's question about public health standards, I'd be interested to see at some future point different kinds of metrics for public health standards. I know that the TCEQ guidelines and EPA guidelines, that's just one standard. It would be interesting to see as a public health concern moving forward, maybe just in staff backup, what different kinds of rubrics and metrics are for pollutants from different kinds of public health organizations. You may proceed. So going past the explanation for the high test on PM, on engine one, as I said, all the analyzers that we're doing, as well as the PM trains, we're constantly doing QA on the sample equipment. Everything passed. I didn't present all the information to you guys because it 's rather thorough, but it is in the test report if you care to see it. So I would say the takeaway statement that I would make on this emissions testing is that all the emissions test results did pass. They met the permit limits, and they suffice to allow this facility to be operational. Thinking ahead, compared to some other projects I've been part of, the DEC does have lower emissions compared to some other departments I have worked on. Definitely qualifier power plants. It is a pretty clean burning facility. With that, I'll hand it back over to George. Yeah, so I'll just reframe what I said earlier that, again, we were pleased with the results, that they were well under the permit levels. We forecasted in the budget presentation that we made to you that the plant would run somewhere between 2,300 and 2,800 hours per year, depending on what year it was. We had a five-year budget plan. With the 2,800 plant hours of operation, you can see what the total emissions would be, which is well under what a standard permit would be, and also well under what I think our specific permit levels are. So we anticipate to be able to run significantly more than that 2,800 hours if we needed to, and I think that could enhance the value of the DEC down the road. The current market conditions don't allow that at the moment, so the plant dispatches as we've talked before based on the market, and the prices are at our cost of that power. So right now 2,800 is the limit under the current forecast of the market, but we could go substantially higher than that based on what you saw today. And we'll be doing more analysis of that, and that would be one of the other items we might come back with you on down the road. Mayor? Yeah, if you could go back to the last slide. So there was an email I saw or something about the percentage of these emissions testing as compared to the permit, and they were fairly low. I mean, some of them were 43%, 18%, whatever that was, which this is a different kind of measurement analysis. So the question I have is here, so I want to make sure I understand what this slide is saying, that for 2,800 hours of plant operations based upon the testing that we just saw, the results, that -- and I don't know what all these stand for, and I'm just going by what's up there. I'm sure Dr. Banks could share with us in detail what these mean. But 19 tons of -- is that NOx? Correct. So what 28 hours of all 12 of those engines running is what 's emitted based upon the 2,800 hours with all the engines running? Correct. All right. And so the permit limit is 100 tons for all the engines running. Right. And I just want to qualify that a little bit. That's the standard permit limit, and so we're under that 100 tons, and so that's a little bit of a qualifier. That gave us the permit that we received for the plant. So I don't know. Chris, did I explain that correctly? Yeah. I didn't quite understand what -- is there a different level for our permit, or is our permit level -- like, if you go back to the readings, the actual numbers of the test results. Right. So is our permits allow us 100 tons of NOx, and if we go over that, we violate it if we're under it, we're okay? I think the 100 tons just determines what kind of permit we got. And I think the actual permit level will be less than the 100 tons. So that's -- we didn't put that on the slide. The folks that prepared this slide were just simply trying to say what qualifies as a standard permit or not. The limit for NOx, based on my read of the permit that we will get as a result of these tests, and that's still in the process, will be about 33.8 tons. So we're going to get a -- we're going to be reduced below the 100 based on the results that you saw today. So they're going to take that into account and reduce our total number. But if you consider that 33.8 tons of NOx and the 2,800 hours, we could operate about 5,000 hours. And that would be our limiting factor. Based on everything we've seen going as far forward as we can, the 5,000 will be well above what we could even consider running based on market value. >> Okay. So if we could -- and we don't have to do it now, but if we could have an email to council that converts what you think -- I mean, this is the standard permit. >> Correct. >> So our permit will be different. What we would have as our permit -- so like what you said, 33.8 tons of the NOx. So we're almost -- we're a little over half of that. >> At the 2,800. >> Yeah, of the 2,800. That's correct. So that means you have some -- >> Krushen. >> Some capacity there. Because it's the tonnage that defines the amount of time that's run. It's not that the permit regulates megawatt hours. It only regulates it indirectly because it regulates the tonnage of emission and you know what your emission rates are. Is that correct? >> Correct. So to calculate our actual tonnage, they will use the numbers that were in the chart that Paul provided to you earlier. Those are locked in for this test period and they're going to multiply that by actual operating hours by each machine for each of those items. But the permit limit is the total, as you said, Mayor. >> Okay. All right. Councilmember Duff and Councilmember Amartor. >> Okay. If we get -- if ERCOT gets in a situation where they -- we 've used -- we've already run it 2,800 hours and they are in desperate need of power, they can turn us on then, right? Even if we go past -- >> Yeah. The answer is yes. That ERCOT has that kind of power and relationship with the CEQ that they could allow some unlimited exceptions to the permit totals if that was necessary. Again, based on what I think our permit limits will be, that will allow us just about 5,000 hours of operation. The limiting factor would be the knocks. Other elements would give us actually more hours. So we're going to -- you know, the likelihood of operating more than 5,000 is probably very, very small. So the likelihood of ERCOT needing to ask for special consideration and to order us basically to run, I think is small. But that power does exist, as I understand it. >> Yes. >> All right. I guess, you know, where we get most of our bad air is from everything that comes from DFW. Is there a way to get some kind of comparison of the same kind of things that we've got here from -- that's blowing from the south into our city compared to this? I think we're talking order of magnitude difference. >> Yeah, I think that -- I think I've seen some type of graph where it shows the levels of different types of pollutants from different sources and the percentage that that makes up in our ozone, like the 77 parts per billion or those kind of things. So I think if staff could maybe do something, look at that compared to this and just give us a white paper on how this affects that. I think that would be good. >> The other interesting thing is all of that stuff that's blowing from DFW and DEC never really add together. They just don't because the way the winds are coming. If they're coming from the west, then DEC is going right over it. DFW, if it comes from the south, you know, they don't add. >> Okay. Councilmember Raumann. >> What would you say is that for this kind of power plant, what would you say is the typical hours of operation yearly and typical capacity? >> So for next year, fiscal year '19, you remember the budget presentation. We looked at every single hour of the year and we forecast ed what the need would be for the DEC in the market that we operate in, aircott market. And that's where the 2800 hours comes in. So that's our calculation. But we looked at every hour to be able to make that determination. >> Sorry, I probably didn't make the question clear. What is the typical for this kind of power plant in the United States, what's the -- of this size, what are the typical hours of operation per year and typical capacity? Say a thousand hours per year, 10% capacity. >> I think it's going to be hard to generalize. I could do some noodling on that to see if maybe we couldn 't figure out in the northeast in their particular marketplace where prices are generally higher than down here, how would that DEC theoretically operate there. We could look at California. That's a whole different marketplace. They have a different portfolio of resources. So the economics would be different for the DEC. >> Maybe Red Gate in Texas. >> And Red Gate I understand can run as long as 8760 if they needed to or that made sense. And they may be in a little bit different situation than we are. So they may want to use this for, you know, for other purposes to hedge their purchase power. So I'd be happy to look at that. I have no problem. >> Just be interesting. >> But I don't have anything off the top of my head. I think the reality, this is what it's going to work here in Denton. >> Thank you. >> Sure. Go ahead. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Also wanted to compliment the city and the utility for its foresight in obtaining an enhanced emission control package, the same that is required by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. This is the best available for this plant. I think that was a smart move and shown that it really works. The SCR system does reduce NOx the way it was supposed to. And you saw some very low NOx levels. And then I quote some numbers here that were about a third of the permit level on a per hour basis for NOx, which is a great outcome. You know, our biggest concerns are NOx and VOC because they relate to an ozone level. And so it's good to see NOx at that level. So how does this fit into our plan? As you know, you've approved a program to move to 100% renewable by 2020. This is sort of part of that plan. It's not necessary for reliability. As we heard our consultants talk about earlier, ERCOT doesn 't require you to have fast start generation even at 100% renewable. It may come to that at some point, but it's not there today . However, the criticality of this unit is when market prices get very high and we're paying that price for our load, a lot of our other resources may not perform. I want to give you an example from two weeks ago I looked at very carefully. Prices went from a typical, let's say $50 per megawatt hour , went to 500 to 3,000 over a period of a couple of hours one afternoon. So we had to pay that $3,000 or the 500 to 3,000 for our load. Our wind dropped to nothing. It had been at 150 megawatts, which is our contract amount during the night and morning. And then by the time it got to that period of time, it went to zero. And that's what happened at ERCOT. That's why the prices went so high because the wind disappeared. So we're not able to hedge our load costs with that wind because we can't control the output of renewables. Renewables are going to operate based on the solar insulation and the wind regime. And we can't make it happen if the wind and the sun is not there. However, the deck we can. So in that circumstance, the deck, we crank it up and we'll have some money that we're going to receive as revenue to offset that $3,000 we would have paid for our load. So it's a financial hedge reality. I think ERCOT will find it to be valuable from a reliability standpoint from time to time. But again, that's their job. And we don't actually have to worry about that in this kind of marketplace. So it's this five-minute startup and stop time is going to be very, very valuable for us to quickly get it online and for it to do whatever it needs to do for ERCOT. So just to clarify for myself also for the public, so these emissions test results don't affect the financial projections made by the enterprise consultants, right? The latest financial projections because those were based on assuming that it's within permit and operational. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Yeah. All our assumptions are still good. Yeah, the latest assumptions, which were different from the earlier assumptions. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Council Member Meltzer. Just as to underscore a point when we look a little further into understanding and mitigating whatever public health impacts there may be from what you just described as far as how we'd operate, we would experience the emissions during times when winds are not blowing, right? So that these emissions would be more likely to stay here. So I'm just sort of underscoring that point that I heard. So when we look into it from a public health point of view, we take that into account. Yeah, tiny exception. There's not many wind turbines in the Dallas area. So when we talk about the wind laying down on us or going away, typically it would be in West Texas where we have our wind or it could be in another location. We have the wind that we visited a couple of weeks ago. So it's hard. It won't be an exact correlation. Correct. Well, that's all I have for today. I hope that was of some value. And I think there'll be a continuing dialogue as we move down the road. We'll be coming back from time to time. These tests will be rerun. I think it's going to be in about three years. And we can kind of see where we go from there. So a couple of quick questions. So when do you anticipate that the deck will be available for ERCOT? I mean, in other words, it's still in the testing phase. They've got to get certification, whatever they do. But where somebody says, OK, you're ready to go. If something happens and prices go to $9,000 a megawatt hour, you can start to run the deck. When do you anticipate it being available for commercial? So ERCOT hasn't officially endorsed the deck yet and accepted it into its profile. But they've winked at us and said, hey, feel free to run it whenever the market conditions allow. So it's available. They have 30 days from when we submitted all of our data to respond. So I think we're still a week or two out from when they're required to respond to us with all of our information. So we're still hoping for July 1. I think that's an expectation we had. And we've kind of moved toward that date. But it may actually be a few days later. It may be a few days sooner. Just for clarification on what I-- make sure I heard what you said. So I thought I heard you say that this July 1 or when they have 30 days to get back with us regarding all the paperwork, and that's when they give us the official nod of, OK, we're going to make it part of our grid analysis, part of our energy portfolio. Correct. But in the meantime, I thought I heard you say that if the commercial environment presents itself that we can run it and produce energy for the ERCOT system and we would still be treated as if with the accounting aspect, payment and those kinds of things. That's correct. Is that right? That's what we're told. Just want to make sure. OK. All right. Any other questions? Fantastic. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next agenda item is receive, report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding review of the Solid Waste Department's landfill and collection operations by Blue Ridge Services Inc. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of City Council. My name is Ethan Cox. I'm the director of Solid Waste. It's a pleasure to present this item to you today. What we have is an operational review and a staffing assessment by a firm called Blue Ridge Services. I'll introduce them in just a moment. Before we get into that, I'd like to give a little bit of background on why we're doing this operational review and kind of what the purpose was of this assessment. As most of you know, we've spent the last 13 or 14 months doing what I would call a series of kind of diagnostic checks on some of our programs and some of our operations in solid waste. Some of those have led to some decisions that the councils made, one regarding landfill mining, compressed natural gas fueling for our vehicles, and a few others. This is very similar in that vein as we're taking a broad look at our operations. We contracted with Blue Ridge Services about four or five months ago and just said, "Hey, come and look at all of our operations. Look at our programs. Look at our staffing. Compare this to what you would normally see in an industry standard environment." That's really what you're going to be receiving today. The report is very dense. There's a lot to digest here. What I would encourage you to do before we go into the presentation, try to compartmentalize, if you will, what is an operational recommendation, what is a program recommendation, and then what is a staffing organizational recommendation for structure. The reason why that's important is because typically for operational recommendations, unless there's objections by the council, we'll go ahead and proceed and implement those. From a program perspective, though, those are very key because those are things that we definitely want to bring forward to the council. Yes, sir? - Just a housekeeping measure. This is probably going to be a longer presentation, I think . And I don't mean that in a critical way, just for housekeeping. Lunch is ready. So if we could maybe take five minutes to grab that, just because I'd hate for us to be getting up right in the middle of this presentation. So I apologize for that. I just didn't realize that lunch was ready. So let's take a five, 10 minute break, grab lunch. Good afternoon. Welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council at 1224 p.m. on Tuesday, June the 26th, 2018. We are in the midst of our work session reports. We are on work session agenda item 3B, which is receive, report, and hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding review of the solid waste department's landfill operations and programs. - Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. My name is Ethan Cox. I'm the director of the solid waste department. We have Blue Ridge services with us this afternoon. They're going to be covering an operational review and staffing assessment in our department. As I stated shortly before the break, we've gone through a series of reviews and diagnostic checks in our department over the last 13 to 14 months. Council's reviewed a number of those results of the analysis and recommendations. This is kind of in that similar vein. The purpose of this assessment is to look at really three things. First is to kind of assess our programs, make sure they're performing, not just from a financial perspective, but they're fulfilling the purpose of each of those programs. Also to look at our operations to make sure we're operating efficiently and effectively. And then lastly, to do a staffing analysis. Breaking that apart is important, number one, because some of the operational steps and recommendations, typically from a staff perspective, we'll implement those unless council has objections. From the program changes, that's key because that's really where we will be leaning on council to provide some direction. I understand that there has been a couple of news stories that have kind of preceded this. There's some information out there I feel like is a little bit premature, is we really are not looking to call back our recycling programs. What we want to do is present all the facts associated with these programs and let council make an educated decision. So with that, I'll be inviting the Blue Ridge folks up to the podium in just a moment. A couple of housekeeping items, I will say that I will be back up to the podium after they're complete with their presentations to provide a little bit of a management response and give you some next steps on what to expect from a staff perspective. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and introduce our speakers. Blue Ridge Services is headed up by Neil Bolton. He's got 40 plus years in the solid waste industry. He's the president of Blue Ridge Services, the author of a number of handbooks, very well renowned for training, safety, and standard operating procedures throughout the industry. He's an instructor at over 200 training classes in the US and abroad. After Neil's finished, you'll be visiting with Ron Proto. Similarly, he has 50 plus years in the solid waste industry , mostly on the collection side. He's the president of RJ Proto Consulting Group, works as an engineering manager in Oakland at a scavenger company, and also is a group manager for Recology San Francisco Operations. So without further ado, I'll call Neil to the podium and allow him to take the presentation over. Thank you, Neil. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Again, my name is Neil Bolton, and we're here to talk today about operational issues for the solid waste systems that you have, landfill collections and all the associated activities that we have going on there. And we're going to be talking about this in three different parts. We're going to start by talking about landfill operations. Then we're going to talk about collections. Ron will handle that part of it. And then we're going to talk about kind of the overall system in general. And this project, which is pretty similar to dozens and dozens of other projects we've done across North America and even some overseas, had several different steps. One was to develop some detailed questionnaires so we could gather as much information as possible about your operations so we could understand what those are. I personally have been to more than 500 landfills around the world, but every landfill is a bit unique. A lot of similarities, but they're all different. So this gave us a chance to get our hands on what your specifics are for your facility. We went through and did some analysis of that data, and then we reviewed all the incentives, and we spent some time on site in late March. Three of us, Ron and I and another one of our associates, Kasem, were here for about a week. We spent almost 100 hours on site. And that's really important for us to get a feel for the personality of the site as well as what the continuity of the system is, how well the process is working from the top down and from the ground up just to make sure that we 're understanding the full operation of the facilities. And then we had some additional analysis with that. Again, the three areas we're going to talk about today are landfill operations, collections, and then sort of an overall view of the system. Your landfill tonnage has increased consistently over the past few years, and that's fairly typical in growing areas. We saw a pretty good dip in 2007, 2008, 2009, and by 2010 and '11 around the country, most facilities started to pick back up as the economy picked back up. If you want to know how well the economy is doing in your area, go to the landfill and watch and see how much material we're throwing away. At the low point, during the recession, most landfills were down about 30 percent. So in addition to the landfill operation, you also have a lot of ancillary or extra operations that are going on at the facility, and those are some of the things we're going to be talking about. Sometimes, and this is kind of a generalization, sometimes when times are good and there's lots of tonnage and there's lots of revenue, we see waste facilities grow and add operations beyond the base operation of running a landfill, and we have certainly done that here. Our first recommendation is that we get a handle on long- term and short-term planning, and the three things that we're going to talk about, development of a soil management plan, of an annual fill sequence plan, and just in a very detailed perspective, development of wet weather tipping areas so that we have some place for vehicles to get in and out without being stuck. Soil management plan, let me see how I jump through here. The soil management plan is really a long-term plan, and it lets us see where we're going next. It's the roadmap for the facility, and in essence, it tells us how to move the pieces of the operation in the most efficient way. For example, you just excavated a massive amount of soil to build a new liner. That soil is in a large stockpile on site, and as we move into the new lined area and start filling there, we're going to be using some of that soil, we're going to be using some rubble, and we're going to, of course, be bringing a lot of waste material. And how we place those materials strategically helps us to avoid having to double handle materials because they're in the wrong place or they're perhaps not in the right place. So there are a lot of considerations there, and when we spoke to folks on the ground at the landfill and asked them where they're going to be filling next week and next month and next year, they did not know. And I'm not saying that no one in the organization has a plan, but there is no plan that's being communicated throughout the system. And so we have a lot of folks with experience working at this facility, and they don't all have their heads together in terms of what the next plan is . It would be like the last play of the game for the Super Bowl, and you get in a huddle and the quarterback says, "Okay, everyone run your best play. The best play you ever saw, just run it. Ready, break." Now, each player, each participant would have a great play in mind, but the cumulative effect would be a disaster. And so what we're having here is we don't have a cumulative system-wide strategic plan for how we're going to move these pieces around throughout the development of the site. That's the big picture. That's what we call a soil management plan. Real quick question on that. Yes, sir. So are you saying that that's not been in place for ... I mean, there's nothing official policy-written operating procedures for that since 10 years , 15 years, since the existence of the ... I don't know what the history is, and I'm not saying there 's not a plan, because your permit and your original landfill design has a plan, but that is a very broad, big-picture plan, and it doesn't tell us piece by piece how we're supposed to move these materials. I understand what you're saying. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. So the next step is what we would call an annual fill sequence plan. It tells us where we're going to be in the next 12 to 18 months. How are we going to prep for the upcoming wet season? Whenever we have the next wet season coming up, how are we prepping for that? What's our access going to be? An example, we have several off-road haul trucks, they're articulated haul trucks. We have three of those on site. I'll talk about those in a bit. Those are using the same access road as our waste vehicles use. So we spend a lot of money, as we'll get into in a bit, creating aggregate to put on these roads, and then we have these articulated haul trucks that drive off into the mud, they get loaded, they drive along our gravel roads, and they contaminate those roads. They're not helping us. They're making a mess. Additionally, it's always a good rule of thumb to not have those big trucks or any heavy equipment on the same road as a pickup or a small truck or a garbage truck, because you just have such a size difference, so there's a safety issue related to that. And so a long-term plan and a short-term plan would help us identify how can we get soil to the active face of the landfill to cover the trash as we need to without putting those folks on the same road as our customers, and how do we set that up so that we can be, again, as efficient as possible. And it's a matter of planning ahead. We'll talk about in a bit the rubble. Ideally, if we knew a year or two in advance where our next wet weather tipping pads would be based on volume and fill sequencing, where are we going to be operating the next time we get into a wet season? And we should set that area up ahead of time so that rubble that comes in goes to that area instead of going to a central area, as we'll talk about in a bit, and being handled multiple times. That increases our cost. So the planning component just helps us get on the same page with the entire team. The wet weather tipping pads, we've talked about that. So those planning components are pretty typical, and it's just the operations implementation of your permit plan. You have a permit plan that shows the limits of the landfill and the heights of the landfill and all of that. Within that limit, these plans give us the details we need to be more efficient. Soil processing, currently, rubble is being over-processed and over-handled and taken well beyond the need that we have. We're creating an aggregate that doesn't meet specific spec to be as marketable as it could be as an aggregate, as a road-based material, as gravel. But we're also creating material that's not ideally set up for landfill operations. So ideally, because we're not building roads on prepared soil sub-base, we're building roads on trash. So to come in and create a road and then put a nice, fine gravel on that that you see in a regular urban area as a road-base, we should be using large chunks of concrete and asphalt rubble because that material is able to create a much stronger road and it's more durable. For example, when we build the wet weather tipping pad, we build a pad, we put gravel on it, and then garbage trucks come in and dump, bulldozers come in and push off of that, and you can imagine how disruptive that is as a bulldozer crosses very fine, well-graded gravel. If we had larger chunks of concrete, we would have a much stronger base and it would be much more durable. So we're taking in rubble, we're processing it, touching it many times to create a product that's not even the best product that we want. Yes, Council Member Omendor. I'm sorry, I have a question about this. I thought the report was very interesting. Can you explain the variations in the size of concrete and asphalt rubble that comes in? Because are they getting, small chunks I can imagine making part of a road, but say you get a big chunk with part of a pipe sticking out of it. There has to be some form of processing. Yeah, that's right. So the ideal scenario is that we regulate what comes in at the gate, at the scale, by our price. If a contractor brings in material that is ideal for us to use directly, we may decrease our price to them, have a lower rate for that material, so that we attract the type and the quantity of material that we need, and then through some good pre-planning, we can direct those vehicles to go put it right where we need it, and we never have to move it again. We just spread it out and use it right there. Materials that we don't want, large columns, concrete with lots of rebar and pipe, curb and gutter, stuff that is very bulky and very hard to manage, we don't want that stuff. I don't think we want to be in the business of doing that. I think that that material does not help us. It costs us a lot to process, and in the processing, we're making a material that's not really useful for us. So I think that by having variable rates. In a typical situation, a landfill would have the ability to lower or raise their rates. They would identify in a year or two in advance how much of this ideal material they need. They would set their rates to be able to attract that, and other materials that are bulky and have pipes and rebar and et cetera in it, that would be classified as a hard to handle material, and it would be a higher price, so that if you take it, you can make some money on it, but ideally, you're pushing it to someone else who maybe is in the business of processing concrete and asphalt. So you're right, there are some materials we don't want. I believe we regulate that through our pricing structure. Yeah, and then follow up question on that, or just a comment and question. Again, I found this part of the report really interesting, especially considering that we're talking about working on our roads citywide, kind of getting up to par with promises we made in bond election on roads. We also as a city have a commitment to reusing and recycling. So I would think that if we're receiving materials that we could actually reuse to build our own roads, that would be something to pursue and take advantage of. And then what I was going to suggest, so that I realized that that's not for you so much as for my colleagues, but I would love to see if there's material being brought in that we can just use right away in our roads, I would like to see that be free. That is no charge for somebody to drop it off because then they're doing us the favor of giving up, if we end up using it for our own roads instead of selling it. Because as you show here, it hasn't really been all that profitable. And that doesn't concern me so much because I'm not so much interested in our landfill making a profit as our landfill being environmentally friendly and serving the city. So in terms of serving the city, if we have charges that would prohibit anybody from bringing us materials we can reuse, I wouldn't want to place that obstacle in their way. Right, I understand. And I think it's a balancing act. Really when you talk about any form of recycling, you have to define what your goals are. Are your goals to divert as much as possible regardless of cost, or your goals to be financially responsible and make money on what you divert? So there are issues with that. I'm not opposed to taking that material in for free if that 's the price point that brings in enough material that you need for your operations. But right now we have about 10 years worth of rubble on site and that's not recycling. That is storage. It's not recycled until it's brought in and used. And if you look at some of the earlier photos, actually on the cover of this report, you'll see off on the left side a big stockpile of soil that came from your liner excavation and that stockpile of soil is drifting and eroding and covering up a pile of concrete rubble that we brought in and already pre-sorted and now we 're covering up with dirt because we're not managing that properly. I think that we need to step back and evaluate the non-core operations. From my perspective, this is a landfill. And so I think we need to regulate prices to bring in materials at a reasonable rate so that the landfill can be solvent because what we're seeing is that there are some costs that we're incurring that are making us not as nearly efficient or maybe as responsible as we could be. And I think that to your point, there's a price point. If that stuff can come in free and we get the right amount free, that's great. If there's more than we need, then we should be generating some revenue and restricting that flow so just enough comes in for us. I think that it doesn't make sense for us to be on a relatively small scale in the aggregate business. I'm sure there are other folks around that are in the aggregate business and we're just not -- we're not as efficient as we could be because that's not our core business. >> Councilmember Husspeth and then Councilmember Nelson. >> Thank you, Mayor. So one comment for staff and then -- I have a question. So the comment is price variances would make me nervous without the proper checks in place. And I don't know what that looks like, but just kind of -- I think it's a great idea. I just would like to see kind of underline how we support that and make sure that everyone's getting the same price, either increase, decrease, that sort of thing. The question, can you help me process what wet tipping is? Just assume I've never worked at a landfill. No, no. >> Okay. >> I just want to try to -- I understand it to be inclement weather or wet weather scenario, but I just -- the tipping part loses me. >> Well, any time we build anything at the landfill, it costs money. So if we build a rubble surfaced road, an access road, and a large turnaround area where trucks can pull in and back over to the edge and dump trash , that's a wet weather tipping pad. Ideally, we have planned far enough ahead so that we have one of those areas set up, so I perch one right here and I can push and fill for an area around that. Ideally, I would use that only during inclement weather. The rest of it -- because this is more costly airspace because I've constructed something here to use, that wet weather tipping pad. On the other side, I have a dry weather area where I'm just working off of dirt, and if the weather's decent, I can drive out here and dump here today and dump here tomorrow, and I can move around easily, and when it rains, I come back and my operation is back on this wet weather tipping area. So it's just having the ability to go to an all weather area because when we were there in late March, we were just on the tail end of a rainy season. In fact, it rained part of the time we were there. We had trucks coming in, and they were backing in and getting stuck, and the bulldozers towing them out with a cable, and that's just -- it's just hard on equipment. It's not very efficient. So having those wet weather tipping areas pre-planned, those are basically all weather roads and pads where we can drive in and work and continue to flow without trucks getting stuck. It just makes a lot cleaner, safer operation. So two different areas. So yeah, so that's very helpful because the tipping is referring to the bucket mechanism, I'm assuming. That's where it gets its name. Where the truck's dumped. Where the truck's dumped, yes. There you go. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Good. Council Member Melton. Just to help us sort of picture the ecosystem for this material, if we were to price to discourage, you know, rubble to come our way, where would it likely go if not to us? Well, generally what happens, and I don't know the local business environment. I am assuming Ethan may be able to speak to that better than I can. Generally there are enough contractors or gravel operations or crushing operations in a region that that's just going to go someplace else where they process that. And the cost, in general, the cost may increase in a local environment. If you're taking that material in for too cheap of a price and you're bringing in too much material and it's hurting your operation, which in this case that's what's happening, maybe the price needs to be a bit higher and that will push it to some other commercial operations. I don't think we're going to see concrete and asphalt dumped in the ditch or contractors being irresponsible, but it may change the business demographic for that material. At the bottom line, from my perspective, evaluating the landfill is we don't need to subsidize that industry because it's going to get diverted at some point. It's just what is that price point and are we responsible to take that in at a loss to create a material that we don't need? I think no. Council Member Ryan and Council Member Amitra. So basically what you're saying is we should price at a point for dirty concrete, so to speak, if it's got rebar metal involved, such that we would encourage them to take it to a different place that does actually manage all those products. That's correct. That's correct. And we price the good material at a price point that attracts enough of it for our own use and sort of discourages the other material to go someplace else. This is probably for staff, so you all can just make note of it and answer this when you come back up. I'm curious to know of the 20,000 plus tons that we sell, if that is sort of an interdepartmental, is that through two other city departments or is that something that other, a contractor can come up? Or like the Dino Dirt that both our parks department use, D ino Dirt, and we sell to the public? I'll go ahead and head this off so I don't forget. So the question is, yes, is the sales for the concrete and aggregate, some of it's used internally, some of it's used with other departments. DME notably has used some of our aggregate for substations. Some of that's sold externally. Now, some of the challenges that we face with selling this to the open market is there are certain specifications that are required for certain road projects. TxDOT has a certain spec that they're looking for. And what we found with some of the folks that have visited our facility and tried to purchase this is we're not meeting spec. And so it really limits the market that we can sell on. And that's something we're going to have to contend with with the stockpile that we have out there. Like Neil said, is the stockpile is a little contaminated right now. We've had some processors come out and take a look at it. And essentially, we're probably in a situation where we want to move that on the market. We're going to have to resort it, perhaps add material, take material out of it to make it a marketable product. Outside of that, it's basically sold to smaller scale operations, maybe folks doing weekend work, that type of thing. But historically, we've been selling predominantly to ourselves and on the off occasion, someone outside the city. Okay. Council Member Lankford. Yeah. Actually, I was my first part of my question was going to be Council Member Ryan's. Question. The you mentioned that for that according to text that that the rubble the big that a lot of the rubble that we have is not up to spec for for text. Now, our city roads and sidewalks are a different matter. So I was going to ask also, have we say you mentioned and that was news to me. I think that's neat that that we have used this material for for substations and other in house projects. Have we used any in road construction or sidewalk construction? I'm not sure specifically. I apologize. I don't have that with us. We can certainly go back and look. The biggest purchases were made either internal to the landfill or they were made to the municipal electric. Okay, so internal within utility. Exactly right. I can certainly go back and look at that, but it doesn't look like we moved a large volume of that material for that purpose. And I'm not quite sure what the specifications are for our city roads. Yeah, certainly. We can certainly we're certainly gonna have to explore that as we look at this material that we have on sign. Yeah, because to me and again, this might turn out to be, you know, the overly optimistic on my part. But as much of this as that we can use on our own roads and sidewalks would cut costs and especially the less processing is needed and would would just would do double duty because the roads and sidewalk constructions are such a need. So that seems to me to be would seem to be to be a path worth pursuing. But it's also less, you know, it's not dependent as much. Of course, the market isn't involved, but not as dependent as much on the on the market as just kind of selling it to people to use for whatever. I think we certainly want to explore, you know, kind of re using this material as we can and making it efficient for not only ourselves, but other operations. I think part of the challenge and I think Neil alluded to this is, are we going to be able to process this and make it into a material we can use as efficiently as maybe an outside contractor or maybe another business can? And I think that's something we're going to have to explore , not just I think from our perspective is we need to really focus on not taking in additional material until we can figure out how we move off the stockpile that we got right now. I'll talk about this a little bit later. I don't want to get too far ahead. But really right now, what we probably don't have is an asset. We actually probably have a liability because, as Neil said , we have tremendous stockpiles around the site. We're going to be incurring expense to move these around, reprocess, and then try to turn it into something that either we can use or that we can sell to the market. And I think as we go through that, we've got to explore all avenues and we'll certainly take that under consideration. Who thought that rubble could be such a complicated topic, huh? We're also going to talk about the Building Material Recovery Facility, the BMR. And that facility is a lot of equipment and a lot of capital, a lot of overhead operational cost compared to what we're getting out of it. That facility, which has a perspective or you kind of have a vision of that facility that's doing these great things, but in fact, most of what it's doing is just processing material and hauling it to the landfill. So most of the material that comes in there, some of it gets sorted. There are some metals and some wood that's pulled out. And then it gets processed from this large stockpile where you see this excavator with an orange peel grapple on it. That material gets picked up and put into a shredder where everything gets shredded up. It runs across a conveyor. And we call that a pick line where we have one person. When we were there, there was one person up there pulling some recyclables off of that. And the lion's share of that material goes to the landfill. And our understanding is one of the original selling points for that shredder and that entire operation was that now we're going to be hauling shredded material to the landfill and we're going to get better compaction. We're going to get a better airspace utilization out of that pre-shredded waste. And that just flat is not true. We'll look at those numbers in a minute. So the BMR is a significant cost without a significant corresponding value. I think we're pulling about 10% of material out with these recycling activities. And that means 90% is going to the landfill. So instead of those vehicles going to the landfill and dumping, and granted some of those small sedans or little pickups might be better served to have some unloading station where that waste can then be consolidated and hauled to the landfill so we don't have little pickups and vehicles going up there. But the bulk of it, the BMR is getting dumped on the ground , it's getting pre-sorted or examined by someone with a small Bobcat loader and a larger loader and it's pushed up into a pile and then this excavator picks it up and puts it on a shredder. It gets shredded, it goes across a conveyor, it goes in a truck and then we haul it to the landfill. So we touch it a whole bunch of times. Each touch costs money. And in the end, we're not getting the diversion that we probably had hoped to get from this facility and we're not getting the increased waste density at the landfill that we had anticipated. It's just a big, it's a big cost. It's not doing what it was set out to do. And as an example, the days we were on site, one of the times when I was watching the BMR, that large excavator with that orange peel grapple came in and picked up a piece of pipe, about one inch pipe, about six feet long, and picked it up, a piece of metal pipe to be recycled and dropped it. And then fished around and finally picked it up again and swung around and dropped it into a recycling bin. That is a very expensive way to recycle one piece of pipe. And so that's kind of the picture that we've got this equipment, we've got this infrastructure set up. We're not getting a lot of good out of it. We're just, we're spending a lot of money for not much benefit. Here's some of the numbers. It's not a financially viable operation. And this comes back to the earlier thing that I said, when we talk about recycling, we get a lot of opinions and a lot of goals out there, but it's really critical that we define what the goals are for this operation, for this city. Is our goal to recycle as much as possible, regardless of cost? Or is our goal to minimize costs wherever we can and be economically viable and sustainable? Or is this somewhere in the middle? So we have a lot of heavy equipment there, grinders and loaders and things like that, that we think could go someplace else. And we could refocus our effort to do a much better job of saving airspace in the landfill. In fact, we think we could probably increase landfill air space utilization and probably gain close to 30% more life in the landfill by not going through this whole shredding process and just doing a much better job at the landfill active face in terms of how we compact trash, and I'll talk about that in a bit. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah, I just want to make sure I'm tracking. In this particular case, there isn't a recycling element. Did I miss something? No, there is a recycling element. Metals are being pulled out. Okay, so this is where it's 10% is being recycled, 90% is going to the landfill, but there isn't a compaction benefit. There's not a benefit. Correct. That is correct. Yes. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. I'm concerned, and I really mean just concerned. I haven't made up my mind because I don't know enough. I'm not in the field, but because so many of these problems that you address in the report seem to me to be related to this crisis in management that are systemic problems in management that you talk about later in the report. It paints a picture of really good employees who are doing their work using your football analogy. They're making their own decisions on plays without the management that we're currently trying to compensate for mismanagement from the past. My concern is because so much of this, according to the picture you paint anyway, seems to stem from past management problems. I would worry that we might be throwing out the baby with the bath water, so to speak, in getting rid of these programs. Even when there are systemic problems in the way that these supplementary programs have been operating. I just wanted to put that out there as a concern of mine because it does seem to me that some of these things, the building material recovery process, are things that are happening wrong that could be made right instead of getting rid of it. I agree with you. I don't think this is an all or nothing kind of thing, just like with the rubble. I don't think we should stop accepting rubble. I think we should be selective and take what we can economically and sustainably receive and use without going all the way into full on rubble grinding aggregate producing business. The same for the BMR. The way that it's set up right now, it is not working. Some of those things could be mitigated perhaps at the scale house when someone comes in and says, "Hey, I've got two bags of trash and a couple of old metal bed springs." Metal, okay, we'll go over here and dump in these bins. There may be some diversion activity that can happen because a lot of the small vehicles coming into the BMR, we may not want to send those all the way to the landfill active face. There may be some interim handoff or kind of a customer convenience centers or drop off facility, something like that. There could be some selective, efficient recycling going on , but the fact that we're taking such a significant part of our waste stream and we're going through this process, you go back so you can see it and visualize that, to get very little out of it, it's as though someone saw an opportunity and said, "Hey, we can do that." Instead of just doing what made sense, they just went all after it. We see this at other facilities. I was in a composting operation just last week where they 're composting green waste and food waste, making beautiful compost. There's no market for it. They're touching this stuff probably 15 times. The time it comes in until it goes out the gate, only it's not going out the gate. It's just piled up and piled up. We're recycling aggregate and concrete and asphalt, but we 're not because we have years of it stockpiled on site and we're losing money on it. We're processing all of this material in a recycling effort , but we're really not doing very much with that. I agree. There may be some hybrid of these things that can work, but the overall system is just not working. It appears to me that we've looked at an opportunity and said, "Wow, we can do that. Let's just spend a whole bunch of money on equipment and labor and facilities and go do it." Well, maybe we should have eased into it a little bit more. Other facilities around the country, around North America are having the same growing pains in terms of having to extend to more recycling or reel some of it back in to meet the realities of the market and cost sustainability. Good point. I agree with you. I think there's some hybrid that can work, but the system we have now is not it. Council Member Meltzer and then Council Member Ryan. I just want to understand the processing that's done now as part of BMR, this shredding and heavy processing, it seems like it's intended to have two benefits. One is making it possible to extract some material for recycling and the other mistakenly is to aid compaction, but it doesn't really do that. This is all to ask you, is the heavy processing and the shredding required to do the extraction part or is there some extraction that can be done without the pointless processing? I think we're not helping ourselves by doing that. There are some materials that come in and as they go through this shredding process and across a conveyor pick line, which is basically a conve yor belt with this shredded trash and people lined up manually pulling things out, in some cases, some materials may be enhanced and freed up so that you can get to them. But in a lot of cases, we could have some large piece of metal like a metal box spring come in or a metal door. We could get that in a bin easily, but we shred it up and put it into a whole bunch of pieces and now we've got to pull it out a piece at a time and it's just so labor intensive that it's not to say that this type of an operation is un heard of, but in this situation, the numbers aren't working for us. Just as a follow up, do you think it's possible or desirable to analyze a component of the waste stream that goes in there now to say, if you looked at it another way, like picking instead of shredding, that we could assess whether you'd get the same amount out of it for recycling anyway? Or perhaps for a lot less cost. I absolutely agree with that and I think those are some of the things I wasn't here when that was implemented, but that would be my recommendation is let's look at what's coming in. Let's look at what the cost is to get to different levels of that recyclable component in there and what makes the most sense. And I think in our work with staff at the facilities, I think that's kind of where we're headed is let's just reevaluate what's working right now. Let's stop some of the bleeding where we're losing a lot of money. Let's step back and reevaluate. No one's questioning that recycling is important. The recycling is important. It's just a matter of finding that balance based on what your specific goals are so that it works for us. Again, just in the interest of clarifying, doesn't it almost just come down to saying what percent by weight or volume of the material is composite versus not composite? Yes, and then it breaks down to beyond that. Let's just suppose that 25% of what comes into the BMR is recyclable. It doesn't mean that we can access all 25% unless we want to spend way more money than we're spending now. So there may be a small percentage of that that's easy to get to, almost voluntary, where people come in and they're small vehicles and we say, "Hey, if you've got metal, dump it in that bin." And we don't have excavators and loaders and grinders and then pick lines. We just simplify it, minimize our costs to do some recycling, and it's possible that our numbers might be just about as good as they are right now for a lot less cost. So these are good points. Yes. - Councilman Ryan and then Councilmember Duff. - And I don't disagree whatsoever about that analysis. What I do question on your next slide where you did the cost analysis, in the report it talks about the fact that you can't include the gate fees as part of revenue on this, if you shouldn't use it to offset that 484,000 or 350,000. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around why if someone brings something and they're paying you to take it off their hands, why that funds can't be considered in this. - Well, I think primarily, that's a good question. I can dig deeper into that. I don't have that information right here in front of me. But we're talking about a marginal cost. For some material to come in the gate, it's already, it's covering the cost of the operation. This is an added cost on top of that. I believe Ethan may speak to this more effectively than I can. But we're talking about a marginal cost. The material comes into the system, it's at the landfill. There's no question that we could landfill material cheaper than we can do anything else. And so this is one of those anything else's, it's another thing that we're processing. So it's kind of a marginal cost with that. - I'll try to do my best to just kind of simplify that. And I agree with Neil's take on this is this is waste that we're gonna be accepting whether it runs through the BMR or not. So there's a gate rate associated with that. And it's typically the disposal rate. So really what you wanna try to do with these processes in the BMR is can I get my diversion in whatever I take to market to pay for itself? So you're really looking at two things. Number one is I pull that metal out. For the effort of pulling out that metal, can I take it to market and sell it and break even? You can also look at the airspace in terms of a diversion. And I'll come up here in a little bit and kind of show that I think Neil included that here. But you're gonna be accepting that gate revenue regardless of whether you divert it or not. And that's why you typically don't include that in this type of analysis. - Council member Duffin and council member Hudspeth. - Okay so we have big piles of rubble and I take that is concrete with probably rebar in it and that kind of thing, right? - It's mixed. Some has rebar. Some has asphalt. Some has dirt or gravel. It's just a mixture of whatever a contractor might bring. - There are companies that take that stuff, right? And reprocess it? - There are, yes. There are companies that only do that. - Is it possible to get them to come in and take it off our hands or? - I don't know if there have been discussions about that happening, but perhaps Ethan at some point could speak to that. But absolutely that is something that is commonly done. The main issue here is that I think at some point someone said, "Hey, there's concrete and asphalt rubble. Can we get into that business?" And so probably it should have been diverting it to someone else or having someone else who's in the business come in and do that rather than us trying to gear up and have some of that equipment to do that in house. So there are companies that do that, yes. - Well, it has no value to us really sitting there other than just occupying space. - Well, I think it has a cost. I think it's a negative value. - It's a negative value. So if you can get somebody to say, "Hey, we'll give this stuff. Come get it." Then we'd be ahead. I suspect that there may be an opportunity to do something like that. Yes. - Council Member Hussbock. - Thank you. I'll tell you, the salesman in me is just giddy at listening to you put a price point on every action. I just love it. But what I'd like to ask you to do is, can you help me quantify, and let's break it down into people and machines and then a value associated with that. So if a person, every time a person is on the landfill executing a project, what is that number associated with that person's activity? So if that's average person is $20 an hour, and maybe you don't have that now, but I'd like to kind of understand that better. And the same with the equipment because that's something I really don't understand. So every time you have to start up an equipment, decent fuel is this much, the equipment generally is this much, maintenance is this much. So I would attribute a dollar figure to each machine. Understanding there's gonna be some variables in there. But just if you can help me understand the averages of kind of people activity and then vehicle activity, and that'll help me for times when you're not here to answer questions, I can generally process and understand those kind of actions at a high level. - Okay. It's very difficult to generalize that, but you're on the right track. If I wanna look at what a bulldozer costs me to operate, I have a labor cost because I have an operator on that bulldozer. So we have to look at what the loaded labor cost is per hour for that person. We also have to look at the owning and operating costs. There's a capital cost to that bulldozer. So the bulldozer you have there, I don't know your exact numbers. I'm assuming that machine probably costs $600,000 to buy that, something in that range. That is about a third of the total cost that you'll spend on that machine when you factor in fuel and repairs and rebuilds and service maintenance and all of those things that go into that. So just as a ballpark, and I don't have your specific numbers at hand, but a bulldozer to landfill probably costs $150 an hour to operate. And that can be plus or minus 20 or 25 bucks depending on the side and fuel costs and things like that, but in that range. So that's only part of the picture. We'll talk about the equipment in just a bit. Part of the economic picture is how much do those operations cost per hour? The other part is what's our production rate? So we can have something, we can work on something and be very efficient at that. We can go push dirt. We're doing that. We're picking rubble up and we're moving it. And we're going to pick it up again and we're going to move it. And we're very efficient at picking up and moving it. But the real question is, do I even want to do that in the first place or do I just want to put it in the right place or not bring it in in the first place so that I don't incur those costs? So we have to look at, we have to build the hourly costs and then we have to look at production rates. How many generally we're talking about tons per hour because we deal in tonnages. And what is our cost per ton to process all of this material? And so each machine is different. If we're talking about a small skid steer, that machine may be 35 or 40 or 50 bucks an hour. If we're talking about a large bulldozer or a compactor, that's a landfill. We may be talking at 150, $170 an hour, somewhere in that range. So the cost is part of it. And then what do we do with it is the other part. And that's one of the reasons we have recommendations on the rubble operation and the BMR operation because we have lots of heavy equipment that is working on those operations. So we may be, we may be got a good deal on the equipment. We're getting a good deal on the fuel. That's good, good, good. But the big question is, should we even be doing that work in the first place? And that's where we're running into the question about does this, does this make sense? So those are the range. I mean, probably all the equipment you have at the site, we 're talking about somewhere between 50 and $200 an hour, somewhere in that range. And it really depends on the size of the machine and all of that. Outstanding. Thank you. You're welcome. So quick question on this slide. When I look at the commodity sale revenue, there's a fairly decent spike from 2015 to 2017. I mean, that's, you know, almost 20. Actually, it's almost 50%. So I'd be curious about that. We don't have to dive into the details of that because I mean, we're really down in the weeds and we need to be that for these. So on this BMR, is the primary thing we're trying to screen out for metal, is that primarily what we're doing? I mean, wood gets shredded, sheetrock gets shredded. I mean, the wood we were pulling out and doing something else with that at one point, some of the wood, but I'd be primarily what we're getting out right now is the metal. So and I don't know the cost of this, but what I'm hearing you say is, yeah, you've got some recommendations discontinued, but you're also saying, hey, there may be some steps in the middle that hit that tipping point between financial stewardship and environmental stewardship. Correct. So that's the ends of the spectrum on that. So if we're really primarily looking for metal, and maybe I don't know much about science, but I know magnets attract metal. So I've seen that all over the place where you have these big, just giant magnets on these pieces of equipment. You know, they're like on a boom and they just go through things and they just pick up metal. I mean, they're not going to pick up anything else. And we're doing that to some degree. So when we put material through the shredder and it goes across the conveyor, there's a magnetic head on the end of that shredder that some of the metals pull back out. Well, that's after it's shredded though. Correct. I mean, I'm talking about you've just got a big thing, you know, I mean, you have to probably spread it around to where the magnet can get to it . But that just throwing that out there. I don't know what that means. But I mean, those things are done. Absolutely. Those things are done. I was at a facility recently where they have similar equipment to that and they've got a massive magnet. It's probably six feet in diameter and that's what it's doing. But you have to come back and look at the whole system because I think that's that's what can get us into trouble. If we go to I agree, I'm just saying to do that, we have to have a place to dump it. We have to have the ability to push it. So we need a loader on the ground to move it. And then we have to extract metal. So we're not trying to get into specific details of that. But you're right. You're on the right track in that there is some combination that's going to work better than what we have. And it's not going to be just shutting down everything. It's going to be running what works. But to find that that balancing that tipping point between financial stewardship and environmental stewardship. That's exactly that's really our question. I mean, that's what we're and I think that's what some of the concern has been from the public initially reading the report without even us having this discussion. There were a lot of assumptions made a lot of kind of thoughts about how this was going to proceed before we even had the discussion. Right. But to me, that's that's that's really the interest. There is that and that's the policy decision in basically this whole that is correct situation comes back to setting specific goals that work for Denton. OK. Yes. Yes. Let's move on to the next slide, please. OK. E.L.R. currently we take leachate produced leachate is the is any liquid that comes out of the landfill and it could be contaminated. So leachate is basically landfill water. And we're pumping that and putting that back in to the landfill. And that does a few things. It gets rid of the leachate, which is a good thing. Reduce that cost. It's also causing the landfill mass, the waste within the landfill to decompose much quicker and it's causing it to settle faster. So take a piece of paper and wad it up, see what size it takes, what volume it consumes and then get that paper wet and see that it consumes a lot less volume. Much of what's in the waste is cellulose fibers, it's wood, it's paper, it's cardboard. So when that gets wet, it it settles faster. That's a good thing. The big thing that we saw is that when you add moisture to waste, it also generates more gas faster. Now, the landfill is going to generate the same amount of landfill gas over time. It's just is it going to generate that over decades or is it going to generate it more quickly? And so by putting leachate back into the landfill, we're introducing bacteria rich liquid, which is part of what has to be in there for decomposition process. We're creating more gas faster than we need. We're accelerating that gas production process just to give you a perspective. If I pulled 100 pounds of trash out of your landfill, it would be a cube about yay big. If we could watch that until all the organics decompose, it would generate about 600 cubic feet of landfill gas. About half of that's methane. So it generates a lot of gas. You have a gas factory at that landfill as all landfills are. One of the problems is along one edge of the landfill, we 're having some gas migration issues where the gas is migrating beyond the edge of the landfill and that can cause us regulatory compliance problems. Because of the contract we have with the energy folks at the landfill who are extracting the gas, they have the authority to pull gas out, but they don 't have the responsibility to control all gas production and gas emissions. So in essence, they're in the energy business. If they can drill gas well and get plenty of good rich gas and they want it for their production, they'll drill it. If you came to them and said, hey, I need some more gas wells along this perimeter because I'm having gas migration, if it's not good gas and it's not high production wells, they can say, well, too bad, but we're not responsible to fix that. And that contract is up, I think, in about five or six years. So that's a common scenario. Current situation is I don't know what you do with that, but I would stop adding liquid to the landfill. I think that's a negative at this point. And at some point you may want to begin to do that. The problem is it's not a valve you can turn on and off. It's creating gas. If you stop the ELR tomorrow, you're not going to see much change in gas production. It would take years and years for that to happen. But in the meantime, we should stop that. >> Councilmember Balser. >> I don't know if this is the right point to bring it up. I was kind of thinking of holding this to the end. I think a lot of this probably ought to get vetted through the environment committee. This is an example of that where I'm very pleased to hear about it kind of cursorily, but I thought they'd want to dig into it more extensively. Might be able to help us. >> Sure. >> Yes. >> I agree with that. I think as we proceed with this, I realize this is just the initial work session, but each of these items, as they come before us in the future, it would be good to have it go before that committee and also our sustainability department as well. >> Okay. So there are benefits to adding leak chape or liquid to the landfill at this point. I think the negatives outweigh the benefits, and we should just pause that for the time being. Let's get through that. Let's talk about heavy equipment at the landfill. We have two primary types of equipment that are working at the landfill. We have a dozer that's primarily pushing trash, and we have compactors that are primarily compacting trash at the landfill. And the primary dozer is a Komatsu D155. That's about a D8 size bulldozer, if you know anything about bulldozers. Last year, it logged about 2,700 hours, and we think that's about twice as many hours as it needs to have. That comes back to the planning thing that we talked about earlier. Currently, we have a very small tipping pad or unloading area for trucks. What that means is that there are just a few slots for trucks to back into and dump, and so the dozer has to be on call. Any time a truck dumps, the dozer needs to get in and push to make room for the next truck. It would be the same story if we all went back in the kitchen in the back and all tried to make lunch at the same time at a small little counter. We're all working hard, but we just can't get it done efficiently. So we're proposing that we widen out the unloading area, the tipping pad, so that more trucks can be in there. And we're also recommending sort of a typewriter system for you younger folks here. Typewriters, we used to type letters on those. But essentially, it's a pattern where trucks dump right to left or left to right, or they may alternate. And by widening that out and giving more room for them to dump, the bulldozer doesn't have to be on the starting block all day long. He can wait until that's almost full, get in and push, push , push, and park, and wait until that fills again. Sometimes there can be a pretty good pause where he could get on the water truck or shut the machine off and do something else for a period of time. So what we've seen at other facilities making that change from a very constrained tipping area to a broader tipping area, we think we're going to cut the dozer hours by about half. Conversely, the compactors that we have, these are sort of mid-sized compactors, Caterpillar 826 compactors. They're not working enough hours. There's a sweet spot. If we have a compactor and we compact too much, we reach the point of diminishing return where we're not packing the trash anymore, but now we're spending a lot of extra equipment cost. If we undercompact, we save on equipment costs, but we're losing airspace because we're not packing the trash as tight. There's a sweet spot in there. For these 826, it's at around 70 tons per hour that they handle, about 70 tons of trash per hour. They're not working at that rate. They're handling too much trash. They're not getting good compaction. They need to put more hours into it. So we're recommending that they increase their hours. Down the road, as these machines are replaced or as there's an equipment replacement fund in the budget to do this, they should be upgraded to larger compactors, which will have a higher production rate and will be able to get a better airspace compaction rate for us. We also have a small D65 dozer. It's a small trim dozer. That machine is great. That's a good machine for placing cover soil and doing lots of odds, and we recommend that that machine continue to be used. -Cat member Hussbett has a question. -Yes, sir. -Can you help me understand? So in this slide here, so you say we have the 826K compact or. Is that one and the same with the Cat 836, or is there a difference between the two? -Well, the 836 is the next size up. That's the big machine that Caterpillar makes, and 826 is sort of a mid-size compactor. We have two of those. -Okay. So explain to me the value of going with the larger one versus the two. -Oh, sure. -I'm assuming you're saying versus the two mid-size. -Yeah. So we'd still have two compactors. So we had one that was primarily one, 836 could handle most of the tonnage during the day, with the second one maybe jumping in during a couple peak hours, but it also provides a backup. So if the component machine goes down, we have a backup machine. So we have currently two 826 compactors, and we're saying we should replace those with a couple of 836 compactors. So we have more compaction. So what happens is there's a certain production curve. There's a production rate that a compactor can achieve, and the bigger the compactor, the better its production rate, the more compaction it can get. It's just that it's a matter of scale and weight and power. Bigger machines just do a better job of packing the trash, and so for the tonnage that you're receiving at your site, the larger machines would just in the end be much more cost-effective. -Okay. If I may? -Sure. -Just real quick. And so give me the, guess, the average weight of an 826 versus the weight of a cat 826. -Sure. -How much size would that be? -826 weighs about 80,000 pounds, about 40 tons. And 836 will weigh about 60 tons, about 120,000 pounds. So yeah, it's half again. It's big. Big machine. It would fill this much of the room. Big machine. -Thank you. -Yes, go ahead. -I had a question about involvement of staff, specifically the workers, drivers who are driving these trucks. I know that from having read the safety part of the report, which I was very grateful for, I mean, it's clear that you spent a lot of time with the drivers looking at the way they use the machines and also talking to them and troubles hooting with them. Did you have the opportunity to run by them your recommendations or thoughts on which machines should be sold back and what kinds of other machines should be purchased? -No, we did get into those details because normally what we find is that folks are used to doing what they're used to doing at their site. And so our perspective comes from being at hundreds of land fills across North America. So we didn't go to this level of detail with those folks. And the reason that we sort of evolved into this is that we saw the tonnage chart where the tonnage has increased at one point several years ago, an 826 compact was the right machine to have. Our tonnage is increasing. We're getting more waste. We've gotten more work that's required. We need to get some bigger machines out there. So it's not to say that the operators are doing anything wrong or that there was a problem in the past. It's just that the site is evolving and it's growing. And so we need to have bigger machines out there. -Yeah. I was just -- and that makes perfect sense. I would just love to -- you know, when we get to the point where decisions are being made on, you know, on purchasing this equipment, it would be nice to have some of those folks here just to -- not even necessarily to say yay or nay, but I'd be curious to know because it's clear from your safety report also talking about troubleshooting, you know, fixing vehicles. You obviously found out a lot about problems that were occurring and, you know, someone would make a complaint that this equipment needs fixing and it wouldn't -- they -- you know, it wouldn't be serviced until a later date. I mean, that's the kind of information that could come up. -And that's not to say we didn't talk to these folks. -Oh, yeah. -We did. And absolutely. And we said, how's this working? And are you -- do you normally have to pull trucks in and out? And do you feel kind of constrained up there? And what we heard was, no, that's kind of the normal way we do it. It's just kind of traditional. No, it's always been like that. So we did talk to them, but we didn't vet these through them. -Oh, yeah. And that makes perfect sense because for the reasons you said, I just mean for council moving forward, you know, when we reach that point, it would be nice to even just have people in the room -- you know, a few people in the room, a few drivers in the room to be called upon if needed. -Mm-hmm. -Yeah. But no, that makes absolute sense because this is what they use. -Yes. -Yeah, but before you -- I mean, I'm not sure where we are in this presentation, but I guess if we're going to be taking major parts of this presentation to the environmental committee, which I don't have an objection to, there's no sense in us -- you know, I mean, all these detailed questions certainly want to go through the presentation, but we're going to be talking about it, then the committee on the environment is going to be talking about it, then it's going to be coming back to us. So I really want to be efficient with our time. I know we've got some management issues to talk about, so I 'm not trying to cut the presentation off. I'm just simply saying we're really in some of the weeds, and if we're going to have this discussion again with the recommendation of the environment committee -- so I don't know what we're sending to them. I guess it's these programs that we're going to maybe have them look at. We just want to be mindful of our time and that we've got some other agenda items that we need to move through. Is this a follow-up, or is this -- okay. >> Can I ask -- I mean, that makes sense. Could we -- I assume that there wouldn't be a problem with us passing on whatever additional comments and questions we have in writing to the environmental committee and to -- >> Oh, of course. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I mean, we're going to go through the presentation, but yeah, I'm just talking about -- we're sort of in a lot of the detail weeds of this. >> Oh, I understand. Yeah, I understand. >> And we're going to be going back over this again. And I think there's some things that -- if you need something strictly from this council, but if this is all going to be vetted again, then I just want to sort of get through the presentation, have those additional questions and comments forward so that they can be addressed, and then, of course, if you have any other questions for staff or the consultants, we can certainly do that. So anyway, go ahead. >> Mr. Mayor, if I might -- >> Yeah, go ahead. >> -- to Councilwoman Armitage's question. So when it comes to equipment and operational issues, most certainly, we do involve our staff. Typically, these are going to be done in a solicitation environment where we actually ask for bids or proposals. Staff are definitely going to be involved in that. And I think at the outset, to the Mayor's point, on issues like this, if there's concerns by the council or the committee, we're certainly happy to bring that back to you. But as it comes to operational replacement of equipment, we go through that solicitation process. That's going to be phased up in our budget and capital improvement program. So council will definitely have an opportunity to see that as those recommendations are brought forward. I think with this right here, what we're trying to do is just give a broad overview of here's some of the challenges that we're facing, not just operationally, organizationally, and then also programmatic, which, to your point, Mr. Mayor , that's when we would bring that back to the committee on the environment. >> Okay. Councilmember Melcher, and then we'll resume the presentation. >> Yeah, thanks. Yeah, this is not an environmental question. Earlier, you showed our trends in waste, but your comment was it's not just sort of growth due to population growth. It's a lot of it is cyclical, that it follows economic cycle. >> It's very related to economics, yes. >> Yeah, so and here you're saying, hey, we're working at a different scale now, so that dictates a larger scale. If it's about economic cycle, though, wouldn't that suggest that we would need kind of almost like a portfolio of equipment, because at some point it's going to come back down again? >> Well, I understand what you're saying, but currently the equipment that we have, the compacts that we have are just undersized for the tonn age that we're receiving. So we either continue to lose money in regard to airspace, that we just aren't compacting the trash as tight as we want it, or we get a larger machine, assuming that the trend we're seeing is going to hold, we could have another recession next year and the tonnage could drop by 30%, and we'll be back to this working. That's a decision you make. Generally we try to look at what the tonnage is today, how it's working today, what's the near-term expectation and size equipment based on that. So certainly we could just wait for the next recession and stand by with what we have, but I think it's costing us a lot of money to do that. >> Yeah, I wasn't clear on my comment. >> Okay. >> I'm suggesting that your comments seem to indicate that you'd want to have a portfolio of equipment, so you've got the stuff that's adequate for when you have high volume, but you don't necessarily sell these off. >> No, we'd want to sell these because these guys are probably $800,000 or $900,000 a piece. We don't want to hold those in reserve, and if we have, if our tonnage varies slightly, we just work the bigger machines a bit less. So that would be the way to go. Articulated haul trucks, I'll move through this fairly quickly. We have three articulated haul trucks, and they're hauling material. They're hauling soil, and they're hauling rubble, and they 're hauling a lot of different materials. They're hauling material up to the top from the BMR, the shredded material. If we look at the amount of soil that's required and the amount of time that takes to haul the soil, one of these trucks working about an hour and a half a day would haul enough soil to cover the trash for that requirement. The additional work is hauling material from the BMR, haul ing rubble, and hauling other peripheral materials. So we don't think there's any scenario where we need to have three of these trucks. We think we could certainly make it with one truck if the concern was that we have a backup, then we could keep two, but we absolutely don't need to have three trucks. And generally, these machines are readily available on the open market from a heavy equipment rental yard or something like that. So if we went down to one truck and it broke down and we needed a truck, we could probably find a replacement in fairly short order. But from a hauling soil standpoint where we have to put soil on the trash periodically on a daily basis to keep the trash covered, by having a good plan, if we're working here today and at the end of the day we have to haul soil and then the next day we have to haul more soil, then that truck needs to be on call every day to haul soil. But if we pre-planned around this little U-shaped table and we said we're going to fill here over the next three months, that truck could pre-haul and place small stockpiles where we're going to need it in the future so that if it goes down for a week, we've already got the soil close by. So there are some improvements we can make in how this works. Part of that whole process is going to be to enhance the tarping mechanism. So subtitled these federal rules and state rules require that trash be covered at the end of every operating day. That's called daily cover. You have to put that soil on. But there's also an allowance to use an alternative to that daily soil. So that might be some other material. You have a tarping machine that can serve that purpose. So we think that we should increase the utilization of that tarping machine by additional tarps and this is a large mechanical device. It's 40 feet wide. It's picked up by a bulldozer or compactor. It has its own engine on it and it unrolls large lengths of tarp like a giant paper towel roller and it just places out on top of the trash. That's an alternative daily cover. We think we should enhance the use of that to minimize the amount of dirt that goes into the landfill as cover because dirt costs us money to move it and it takes up our airspace. Just to give you a perspective, typical landfill, if you look at the cost to place dirt, that's the cost to excavate it and pick it up and transport it and dump it and spread it and the value of the airspace it consumes. Normally, to cover with soil costs somewhere between 50 cents and a dollar a square foot every single day. You could go down to Home Depot and buy cheap carpet and roll it out and you would save money as opposed to using soil. A tarping machine costs somewhere between three and five cents per square foot. So we're 50 cents to a buck for dirt, three to five cents per square foot for tarp. We should really focus on improving and increasing our utilization of the tarps. Yes? But now the dirt causes decomposition, right? No, it doesn't cause decomposition. It'll cause it to settle more because of the weight maybe, but it doesn't affect really the decomposition. Okay, so there's no effect on ... There's no real benefit to using soil in the landfill. There are only generally drawbacks to using soil in the landfill. Rather than rules require that we cover trash every day, so we use typically soil to do that. From every other perspective, soil is a detriment to us. That's interesting. Thanks. Yes. Is the tarp a recyclable tarp or is it you put out and it just stays there? No, you pull it out and roll it back up. With care, we see those last 12 to 18 months. So you use it over and over. That's why it's so inexpensive because it takes up no air space. You just roll it on and roll it off. Actually, we are achieving about 1,100 pounds per cubic yard. That's what I call effective density. If we just look at how many tons of trash into the landfill , how many cubic yards of airspace we consume, we're on average putting about 1,100 pounds of trash in every cubic yard of landfill airspace. That's not a good number. We think that with some improvements in terms of how we use the compactors and how we use the tarps, we can probably get to about 1,400, we see similar landfills pushing 1,600. That means that we could be increasing our landfill life and our airspace utilization 25%, 30%, 40% and get that many more years out of the landfill. It's just a matter of how we operate and take advantage of that and focus on the fact that airspace is our only commodity. When we get down to the core business, we're in the air space business. We want to find ways to save that. Landfill summary, we need a soil management plan. That's the big picture plan. We need an annual fill sequence plan that lets us go 12 to 18 months in advance in a lot of detail. We know where the access roads and tipping pads and a lot of other things come into that. Where we put litter fences, where we put our drainage systems, lots of detail comes into that. The wet weather tipping pads come into that. We think that we should not be processing rubble. We should regulate what comes in and be selective with our gate rates to attract the right amount of the right kind of rubble. We think we should discontinue the BMR operation as it is. Also the same for the ELR, the enhanced leachate recycling. We think we should stop that. We think we can reduce the D155 dose or our big push dose or the landfill. We think we can cut those hours by about 50%. We need to fully utilize, put more hours on the 826 compact ors because they're being underutilized. In other words, we're not compacting the trash to the extent we could because we're not putting enough hours on those mid-size compactors. In time, we think we should exchange those for a larger 836 . I'm using cat numbers because most people are familiar with Caterpillar, but there are other manufacturers that make landfill compactors. We think we should reduce the articulated haul truck numbers of trucks that we have and the hours that they work. And similarly, since we're not going to be using as much soil for cover, we should increase our utilization of the tarps. That will help us increase our effective density 30 to 40%, which translates directly into landfill life. You have heard enough from me. I'm going to let Ron come up and talk about collections, unless you have questions about landfill issues. No, I just want to summarize. If you go back to those last two slides, what my understanding is, and Council, correct me if I'm inaccurate. Go back to that first part of that slide. There you go. Okay. So, the -- where are the ones about the programs? I guess that was on the second one. Those programs, the discontinued processing rubble in-house , you're going to say as is. I think you said that you encourage us to -- if we can find some alternatives that come closer to meeting our balancing of our goals. Don't shut the door entirely. Just regulate it based on what your goals are for financing . So that, the discontinued rubble, discontinued EMR or change, and then the ELR operations, those are the components that will be going back to the environmental committee to take a look at those, to try to assess some goals, reevaluate. Whereas the soil plan, annual field sequence plan, I mean, that's a staff-driven activity that could be flushed through the environmental committee. I don't know what goes where, but those are sort of operational kind of issues. And then if you go to the next slide, yeah, the trucks and the dozers and all that, that will be based upon, you know, this expert consulting report on how do we do this and maybe come back with some recommendations on the possible implementation of some of those operational procedures. Is that my understanding of what we want to do, send those things to the environmental committee? Yes. Council Member Romter. Yeah, and I would also suggest, I mean, we don't really have a committee for it, as I understand it, but put the question of the rubble reuse for roads and sidewalks forward to our staff who are, you know, involved in planning streets and roads, just to kind of, you know, run it by them and have them in on that idea. Sure, to see if that's even viable. I mean, we want to be careful when we're constructing our roads. I mean, landfill roads are different than, you know, asphalt roads here and concrete roads. So yeah, so what you're saying is can staff bring back either, yeah, this may work or not, it really is not going to work, some kind of evaluation. Yep. Okay. All right. Yes, Council Member Hussbett. Can you help me get my head around the value add of sending it to the environmental committee? And this is, let me give you a scenario. So we send it to environmental committee and they say something polar opposite from the consultants. Do we, how do you process that, right? And then do you, you know, how do you evaluate those two, right? So we've invested in having them analyze and then we're going to send it to a city committee to do what? Well I think, I mean, it's, from what my understanding of the environmental committee, they typically will see environmental initiatives and things that affect, you know, the city's sustainability programs and sustainability. They'll look at that and vet that. In your scenario, I mean, there's been some ask for that from a couple of Council Members, and Council Member Briggs, who's on that committee, who's not here today, also asked that that be done just so that she can also have some opportunity to share her thoughts. But if it comes back polar opposite, guess what? This body gets to decide exactly what we do. So I don't know if it's a duplication of services, if you will. I don't know if I... I follow the nuanced view, but I also want to just state clearly that you could be, whomever could be leading themselves down a path where it's now someone feels invalidated, right? You had me look at it and we end up polar opposite from, let's say, the environmental committee. Now we've run it by them and we're not wholesale going in with their recommendation. It then has a potential to flare up versus... These meetings are open and they can... That committee could come sit in and participate in that way and share their thoughts, and it's all kind of concise. There's no misgivings. There's no misleading. To me, it's just a cleaner... I don't mind the information. I just don't want anyone to be disenfranchised if, "Hey, we took our time. We met. We looked at this. We vetted it. We've given you our thoughts and you did nothing with it." And so that's my concern. And so I'd rather invite them in or maybe a co-working session or maybe bring it back and we all sit together versus... that's just my thought. Yes, sir. Council Member Meltzer, I thought you had... To me, the point of that is that this is, I think, a very thorough look from an economic efficiency point of view, but we have more than one objective. We have to put on the big boy and girl pants and weigh those, right? And to evaluate these programs from the pure environmental stewardship point of view probably requires other expert voices just deeper vetting from a perspective that these guys weren't necessarily tasked with. So to me, the value of it is just to have them go over those points in greater depth. I mean, I'm willing to sit through that too, but I would just argue that that's a benefit to all of us if they can vet from that point of view. And then it's up to us. I doubt it's necessarily going to always come to a totally this way or totally that way. I think even in this conversation, we were talking about maybe there are midpoints. It's finding the tipping point. So anyway, that's the value that I see in having them go through it. But yeah, we may in fact be having to find our comfort level between different goals. Let me queue everybody up first. So we're going to go with you. Then we're going to go with Councilmember Ryan, then Councilmember Duff. And did you have any more comments? Okay. All right. Sure. I just, my only stipulation is this, that all that be is accurate. If you'll just agree to me with me that this is an open meeting and then sit in every meeting we have and share that input, just the same. May I respond? Sure. So yeah, I mean, technically true, also true of every other thing we do that has a committee on it. So if committees have a value, you know, I think it would be parallel. Okay. Councilmember Ryan. Well, the council on the committee is made up of three of us. It's Councilmember Briggs, myself, and somebody that will decide later today. And it's really meant to be, I mean, the ESAs that we passed here recently, you know, that went through 15 to 20 hours of committee time that us as a full body council don't need to spend that 15, 20 hours on it. Let a subcommittee take a closer look at all the intricate details and then we bring it back to the full body or staff brings it back to the full body. That's why you want to send it out to the subcommittees when something really needs more time spent on it. We've been close to two hours on this right now and we could go for another four if we try to dig as deep as what no. Well, I'm saying if we dug as deep as what the committee on the environment will end up digging into. Right. So that's what it's about is saving saving everyone some time to allow a small segment of the council to look deeply into the issues. And I'm all for these items coming back back to the council , the committee on the environment. Okay, Councilmember Duff. Nothing. Okay. Anybody else? No. He did say three, right? Three people. Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. I'll just add that I see the wisdom now in Councilman Wills mith supporting our new pro tem for that position. We see the benefit of it already. Gosh, it's only one. It's only one. One forty five. Okay. Thank you very much. So we've got another segment of the presentation. Yes. We're halfway through it. That's I'm sure I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure that we are going to move through these fairly quickly. Yes. Yes. All right. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, members of the council. My name is Ron Proto. I just have a couple of requests. If we start to approach the three three o'clock hour, if we could have red light and siren to the airport, we would appreciate it. If it gets to the four o'clock hour, if we could take a break and we can reschedule our flights. Oh, when do you need to be back to the airport? Well, our flights leave at like five twenty. We'll be your portion will be done in plenty of time. Okay. We'll respect that. I'm just really kidding. I know. I understand. No. My name is Ron Proto and I've been in the business for a very long time. When I started, I walked into your backyard, emptied your can, closed your gate, walked up seven steps and dumped it into the truck. So I've seen a whole lot of change in our industry. I'm not your typical solid waste collection consultant because I've actually worked as a garbage collector. I've worked as a supervisor, a manager and in several positions, I've had bottom line responsibility. And every time I went in there, I do I did pretty much what I do today as a consultant. I went in there and turned the operation. I don't want to say I turned it upside down, but I turned a lot of rocks over to to see what we could improve. I'm all about trying to improve. One of the things and that Neil and I do, I can't say a hundred percent for Neil is when we do these kinds of reports, we don't take politics into into consideration. We just look at it. These are the facts and this is it. There are a lot of of policy decisions that have to be made in order to move forward this. So these are really guidelines for you to as you move forward through the process. Is this so one of the things I look for when I come into a city is all the garbage and recycling and everything getting picked up every day and basically on time. And the answer is for the city of Denton. Yes, it is. That's not the case in a lot of places. If you follow the industry in the newspaper and the trade journals, there are some cities that have problems with their collectors picking up all the material on time every day. But you don't have that problem here. So that's a good thing. You order you you offer a wide variety of services like MSW or as I call it garbage because garbage by any other name is still garbage. Having bulky item collection and household chemical collection. Those are all great services. And on the commercial side, you have garbage recycling and food waste. You're just starting in on the food waste, which is good. Your residential collection routes, they make about 1000 a little more than 1100. They drive by the day. I call them drive bys because that's what they do. They literally drive by the house and collect. But they probably pick up somewhere between 98 95 and 98 percent of the houses because not everybody puts their garbage can out every week. Some people are on vacation. Some people forget to do it, whatever it is. So it's not 100 percent collection. So they drive by they drive by those houses. But let me slow down a little bit. I talk a little bit fast. And the industry standard is about 950 to 1000 houses a day . And that sounds like a very good you're right on target, except for the fact that you work for 10 hour days. And so one of the one of the recommendations that we have is because you work 10 hour days and you're making about 950 to 1000 pickups, it just war rants a closer look to go in there and look to see if it's possible for you to pick up more houses. I don't know. We didn't get into that kind of detail, but it definitely warrants it because you work 10 hours a day. Now the recycling collection, the way you work it is your recycling routes overlap your residential garbage collection routes. So they drive by the same number of houses. But from our experience, recycling this, let me let me explain the difference between the participation rate and the set out rate. The participation rate is one resident puts out their recycling can every week. Another one puts it out every other week and one puts it out once a month. They all participate in the program. But for designing routes, you need to know the set out rate , how many customers set out their can every week to be picking up. Depending on the level, depending on the community, it can run from anywhere from 60 to 70%. Sometimes it goes as high as 80%. And in some cases, it can go as low as 50%. The concern that I have here is that if you take the 60 or 70% rate, those drivers that pick up recycling are picking up between 600 and 700 houses where your garbage drivers are picking up almost 1,000 houses. So they're not getting quite the production per day. So what we recommend is that the department does an audit to determine what your set out rate actually is and the volume in the can. And that's how I came up with the fact that the route aud its may indicate that you can collect every other week. However, there's an alternative to that. And that is just make the routes bigger. Just make them bigger and collect it every week. Actually on second thought, that's probably a better idea because then you don't -- the people don't get out of the habit of putting their cart out with their garbage cart which goes out every week. So that's probably the better alternative is just to expand the routes, make them drive by more houses rather than go every other week. Residential yard waste. This is a -- it's a very slow and it's inefficient. It leaves a mess and quite frankly, I think it's unsafe. There's a two-person crew that drives by almost 2,000 houses a day and they collect about 128 collections. The average is 120 collections over the year. You have spikes. In your spring and your fall, you have big spikes and you might collect 300 or even 400. But when you average it over the year, it's about 128. But they pick up less than four tons of load and that's about 50% of the carrying capacity of the truck. And as you can see in the upper photo, I don't know, this thing -- oh, that little mouse right there. That photo there, that was just one of the piles that we saw. I mean, that is very inefficient to pick up that pile. And I'm sure there's piles like, as you can see in this photo here, that was a big pile down there and they had leaves on it. And I got this off a YouTube video. The driver and the helper were picking it up with their -- you know, you can see the helper has short sleeves on. They can get puncture wounds or lacerations. And they actually leave a mess. They tried. You can see they tried to clean up, but they didn't really clean it up that well. And if you look over at the last picture, you can see that the truck's parked on the wrong side of the road and that one of the crew walked across the street to bring it in. That's very dangerous. And so what we're recommending to go to a cart-based system . Before I go there, in addition to this, you have a grapple truck that's basically on call or is dispatched. There might be some that call in. That if the pile is too big, they send the grapple truck. And I believe, if my memory serves me correct, that grapple truck only makes about 18 picks a day. So it's really not, really not efficient. So going to a cart-based system, be more cost effective. It's fast, it's cleaner, and it's definitely safer for the driver. So our recommendation is to move more with a cart-based program. Bulk item collection. The crews average about 35 collections a day. And it's very low by industry standards. Go anywhere from 100 to 200 collections a day. 200 collections is on the high side. I was just part of a team that analyzed it. And the collector was crying foul with the city that they had to have some relief. So somewhere between 100 and 150 collections, 135 collections a day is probably better off. So we're considering running the, our recommendation is to consider running it every other week or every third week to increase the number of collections to 70 to 100 per day. And the schedule can be seasonally adjusted. Because sometimes, you know, you'd have to just look at your statistics to see which months have more or how many calls you get in. And you can do that on a week by week basis. You can, you know, if you're getting a lot of calls for the next week, you go out and pick it up. If you're not getting a lot of calls, you move it out a week. So you can -- >> We have a couple of questions. Councilmember Melton and councilmember Agnetar. >> I confess that I think I know what you mean by cart- based system, but I'm not 100% sure I'm right. So you're saying that like in addition to our folks having the blue card for recycling and the green for regular trash, there's another -- there's a brown one for yard-based, something like that? >> Yes, exactly. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Alter? >> Yeah, this is -- so first of all, about the recycling, I much prefer the idea and I think the answer to these is getting some -- >> Oh, sorry , from citizens. From what I've seen, people seem to prefer -- seem to not want to give up that weekly recycling. So this idea of a larger route sounds good to me. About the bulk collection, I'm okay with that. That seems reasonable. My one concern -- and this is more for all y'all than consultant concern -- is I'd be concerned that if somebody, say, gets a new sofa, you know, and it's not one of those places where they take your old sofa, right, and you don't have any room to put the sofa, they put it out on the street, and it's not the week that bulk collection is coming and then code enforcement comes and takes a picture and slaps them with the citation. So I would want to, you know, work -- if we move to this, which does sound reasonable, to work with code enforcement to make sure that people aren 't being penalized. >> This is a very vital service -- oh, excuse me. >> Go ahead. >> No, go ahead. You respond and we'll go with Councilmember -- >> Bunky item collection is a very vital service, and it helps with sort of holstering illegal dumping. And the more you have of it, the better. You're going to pick it up one way or another. You're either going to pick it up as a bulky item collection or you're going to pick it up as illegal dumping. So it's better to do it as a bulky item collection. The only thing that we're suggesting is because there's such few collections a day, it's not very cost effective. So maybe one of the ways to do it is to advertise the program more and market the program more to increase the bulky item collection and maybe defray some of the illegal dumping. >> Councilmember Wright. >> On the bulky collection, it's a required call, and you have to call ahead and schedule that you're going to have it set out there. If we went to the same thing on the yard waste, if you've got a large number of branches for the grappling truck to go out there, can that grappling truck be used for the bulky items as well? I thought I've seen that in some other communities. I know I've seen it after a tornado or something goes through that they'll use that type of truck to pick up the large items, that it could make a morning run to do all the bulky items and then an afternoon run to do all the yard waste. >> It's possible. You'd have to look -- you'd have to go out there and assess . I think you'd have to go out there and assess what do your bulky items look like. But it's definitely possible to pick it up with a grapple. I think that's something that, you know, the staff could probably look at as they go forward. >> Anybody else? >> Household chemical collection. I mean, this is a great service. It's a service that's needed in every community. What the city provides what I call valet service. They go to the house to pick it up. It's very expensive. And as you can see, only 12% of the residents use it. Why don't you do the calculation for 38, 3900 collections. It's about 15, 18 collections a day. It's not very -- it's not very effective. So there's a lot of money being spent and it's not cost effective. So what we -- we have another slide. What we're recommending is that the city applied -- we understand that there's grants out there available that the city applied for to make it a regional facility where the customers would come in and drop the material off rather than go out there and pick it up at their homes. >> Yes. >> If we end up moving to that and even if we don't, precisely because the household chemical collection is such an important service, I would like to see more education or advertising, whatever you want to call it, you know, of the public that not only that this is a service we provide, but also the reasons for doing it. And, you know, because when I see that -- and, I mean, of course, it's too low. You know, just 12% more people should be doing it. But at least of that 12%, that's a lot of hazardous materials, however much it is, that that's not going into our drinking water and all that. So I think that just not enough people know about this service. And also in addition to that, the reasons for using it. So regardless of what we decide, I think more advertising and education. >> Commercial garbage collection. The commercial front loaders average is about 102 a day. And that's substantially down from what an industry standard is, 125 to 150 a day. One thing the city of Denton did is they don't have a container of bin with wheels on it. These are all direct drive ins or as I call them stabs. The front loader just goes right in there and stabs the bin , backs out if it's under wires or anything. Occasionally the driver has to get out to close -- open and close a gate for an enclosure. So there's no reason in my mind that I can see why the productivity is not up to at least 125 to 150 a day. In the urban areas, it's not uncommon for the front loader driver to get out and push the bin to the truck 80 to 90% of the time. Even if it's getting out to readjust it, it's at the curb like that to turn it around or to walk behind an apartment building or an industrial complex to push the bin out. Your drivers have the luxury of just driving into every bin , pick it up and dump it. So the way you can get to a higher lift per day is by eliminating one Monday through Friday route and then eliminating -- this change increased it to 120 days a day. But on one Saturday route, that's it. And I say the Saturday route, you have two Saturday routes and they pick up less than 100 bins a day, I believe. And the reason for the second Saturday route was the thinking at the time was that it's better to have two routes out there rather than one in case something happens. However, we believe that if the driver's out there, the driver needs access to a supervisor because a supervisor has more resources at his or her control than another driver does. And so we don't think having two drivers is a benefit if they're having -- they have low production to begin with. So I believe there's 88 Saturday customers that don't really qualify for Saturday service. They have -- some of them have three times a week service, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Some of them have twice a week service. Some of them only have once a week service. Usually the hurdle rate for Saturday service and it varies from community to community is four times a week service, Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. So by moving those customers over and eliminating once Monday through Friday route, you can increase your lifts to about 120 a day, which is more in line with industry standards. The commercial recycling routes are about the same. They only average 68 stops a day and the truck -- the capacity on the truck, they're only using about 50% of the capacity of the trucks. I don't know for sure how much your trucks cost, but they run anywhere from 350 to -- we have estimates in California with some of the air quality stuff in there that run close to $500,000. >> Yes. >> Just a comment about the -- a suggestion about the commercial trash pickup and then a comment about this. If we reduce -- if we eliminate one route, so we're doing less picking up of commercial trash, it would seem to me to be imperative to, you know, make decisions about -- that staff make decisions about which commercial trash is the top priority to take away in terms of, you know, the public safety issues and nuisance issues. So restaurant -- you know, food in the summer, you know, would get really stinky and so you want to make sure to get that. And then there are other kinds of waste that maybe could sit around a little longer. So I would hope that that would be taken into account and that certain neighborhoods wouldn't be prioritized over other neighborhoods. You know, I would want to make sure that the decisions were solely based on the level of disturbance or public health and inconvenience issues and not certain neighborhoods being neglected. That's all about that. >> There's no garbage is going to be left behind. It's just going to be fewer trucks picking it up so they have more lifts per day. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Sorry, I misunderstood. You should have cut me off earlier. >> No, no. >> Now I -- okay. Now I understand. >> Nobody's getting left behind. They're just going to be one less truck so they have more stops to pick up. >> Okay. Apologies. Sorry about that. Sorry. I misunderstood. Commercial recycling is about the same. In fact, it is substantially lower. They make about 68 collections a day and their payload again is about 50% of what the truck carrying capacity could be on that truck. And so to handle this, we're recommending that the department does a complete review of the commercial recycling system. How many customers out there need that many days service? Can we consolidate? Can we make fewer routes out there? Because you have a lot of half-day routes and they're picking up one commodity on the first load and a different commodity on the second load and on a different day. And it just needs to look at that whole thing to sort of organize it so that you can have as few trucks picking up the same number of containers or going out there and publicizing the program to get more customers on there so you can fill your trucks up more. You get more customers out there. And you want to do that again to increase the lift count to about 150 a day. Typically recycling containers don't always get as filled up as garbage containers and they're sometimes they're lighter weight. So you should be able to get 150 lifts a day from those routes. Yes, ma'am. A suggestion about commercial recycling for council. And I like your idea about increasing the education and awareness about our commercial recycling to up the amount that we're doing. I would like for our economic development staff to consider working that into incentives as a possibility that we can incentivize. Now maybe not incentivize in terms of economic development incentives but some form of carrots that we can give to our commercial clients to recycle more. Because we've seen companies like corporations like Walmart have seen they do their own recycling program. It's really good for their branding. And so if we can get other companies to do this too, using incentives or just carrots, that would be great. May I make a comment? May I make a comment? Incentives are great but too big of an incentive is an incentive to contaminate. Because what they'll do is you have say you have a four yard bin, they'll put one yard for garbage and a three yarder for recycling. Well the one yarder for garbage gets filled up and they have no place else to go. So now they start throwing it in the -- it's a good idea but my recommendation is don't be too aggressive on the incentive. Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good point. Multifamily recycling. We understand the city is looking into or is interested in multifamily recycling and based on our experience it's one of the most challenging segments of your service to recycle because it is highly contaminated. And I know there is a lot of interest in doing it. And we can suggest -- I've got to make sure there's -- well , we went to the Pratt Recycling and they were complaining about all the contamination that they have with the regular residential material they have coming in now. But from our experience multifamily recycling has more contamination than residential recycling. So I'd like to make this suggestion. As we say here, we wait until the market is stabilized and to conduct further studies. Let me give you an example. In 2007, 2008 we had the housing crisis and the market collapsed and developers over the next three or four years moved with real caution before they started developing more building. We have this sort of now with China. The market has really collapsed. Now you say, well, we don't bring our stuff to China. We bring it to Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, India. Yes, but guess what? Everybody else now is going to. All the people that were going to China are not going to those other countries. So they're going to eventually get glutted. We have to wait a while while all the dust settles to see how this all plays out. So if you want to move into multifamily recycling, do it. But our suggestion is to do it cautiously. I did some looking into this and heard that there was a I believe 2012 audit done of multifamily recycling at the city level. That would be something would be interesting to look into that to see if we still have that lying around. I might have gotten the year right. Wrong. But apparently there was some study done in solid waste and they went around to different -- I mean, you know, we've only grown -- we've grown significantly since then. But it would just be interesting to see what the results were of that. And again, I think with multifamily recycling to minimize contamination, when we get around to doing this to increase education along with it and to make sure that we've still got an education component to our solid waste department. Because I mean, education is key. I myself -- I needed educating on, you know, to minimize my own contamination when I started recycling as an adult. So we can get those habits in and just to make sure that we still have staff who fill that function. Just to put in perspective, China and the national sword was green sword, I think. National sword is 0.5 percent, half a percent. On a 16-pound bale, that's 80 pounds. That's not very much contamination. It's almost pure material, whether it's cardboard, newspaper, or mixed paper. So the contamination rate that China allows is just -- before there is no question about it, we were dumping garbage in China. I go to plants and I go, "Oh, you bale your trash before you send it to the landfill? Oh, no. We're shipping it out." Yeah, it was a joke. It really was a joke. We brought a lot of this on ourselves. There's no question about it. Fleet maintenance. One of the major complaints that we got from drivers is that it takes so long to get our truck back. We turn it in, it takes too long to get our truck back. So we don't send it in until it's absolutely necessary. Well there is serious safety concerns with that because we had one driver report, "Well, my backup camera doesn't work." Well, that's serious. You should be turning that in. But if you go back 10 or 15 years ago, we didn't have cameras. But the point is they're used to cameras, they need them in there. I don't recall in the state of Texas, but in the state of California, it is required to have a backup camera on every truck, every garbage truck . So backup cameras are very important. That's just a minor one. When we went to the fleet, we met with the fleet maintenance manager and we talked with him and he goes, "Yes, I understand it takes a long time to fix the truck." And there are some structural issues with that. But when we do get a truck in here, so many things need to be fixed that it takes a longer time to fix it because they don't turn them in on time. And we wrote one up in the report where the mechanics are trained to fix everything. When they get a truck in, they fix everything in that truck that they see that needs to be fixed. If the work order just has one line item in it and they find 10, they fix 10. And in the one case that this driver had his truck in there for, it was about 13 days, when they got in there, it went in for an air leak and they found out that it had to go in for a CNG check. And when they checked the CNG, they found that the cowling was damaged and they had to order that part and that part took a very long time. They also found out that the cylinders and the long hydraulic hoses that worked the tarp, it was a roll-off truck, were leaking. And one of the fenders on the front was loose, the bracket had broken and they had to weld it and replace the bolts. Well, those, the cylinders leaking and the fender broken, those are visual things and they should have been picked up in the post trip. But because there's such a time lag for them to get it down , they continue to drive the truck when they should turn it in. And so we recommended a couple of things. One of them is that fleet maintenance needs to go in and set up a meeting with the drivers. And the fleet service manager should go in and they should, he should also bring in one of their technicians. And I'm told the fleet manager, when you go in, wear your flak jacket because there's going to be a lot of angry drivers out there, but you have to explain to them what the situation is, why they need to turn it in on time. And if you bring the technician in with you, they're peer to peer, they can be talking to each other and you develop a better relationship. So and then the fleet manager also told us, because the drivers also said to us, I never know when I'm going to get my truck back. The fleet manager says they can go on to use faster as your fleet maintenance, fleet management software. The drivers can have access to faster and go in there and look at their truck and see what the status of their truck is. I go, wow, that is absolutely terrific. But the drivers will need to be trained on it. And that was one of our recommendations for them to do. Another recommendation was the fleet maintenance has 16, yes. >> I just got a real quick question. >> Yeah, just quick. I want to make sure that I'm understanding. You'd still support the idea that when they are touching the truck that they should gold plate it, you know, cover all the -- touch all the things that are broken when they have it. Just a question of setting the expectations. >> Yeah, absolutely. They should fix everything they find. Some places you go in, if it says one line item and the mechanic happens to see seven line items, the mechanic fixes one. But that's not what your system is. Your technicians are trained, fix everything that you see that needs to be repaired. >> Yeah, and you think that's good. >> Yeah. >> Okay, good. So fleet maintenance has 16 technicians. One is currently vacant. But the city has about 1100 assets. And that includes pickups and cars and everything else. And so that ratio there is about one mechanic for 69 vehicles. I know the pickups and the vans and the little things, they don't take up a lot of time. When you get into garbage trucks and you get into fire trucks and you get into vacuum trucks and all that, they take a lot of maintenance. And in our industry, the ratio is about one technician to seven to ten trucks. And with that, you can turn -- you can repair trucks and get them back out. You can do your preventative maintenance and running an evening shift so you can do your preventative maintenance so your trucks are ready to roll the next morning rather than taking them in during the day and having to wait two days to get it back. So that needs to be -- something needs -- the staff needs to look at that to see how they can get that ratio to one to seven, better than one to seven. >> Yes, Councilmember Robinshire. >> Question. So does this -- our fleet maintenance division with the -- with that ratio of a repair person to truck, does that include our fire vehicles? Yes, it does. So that's -- yeah, that's alarming to me. And so that seems very needed. >> Two vehicles have to get repaired at the same time and one is a fire truck and one is a garbage truck. That fire truck is going to get repaired. >> Sure. >> And it should get repaired. >> Sure. But we need -- yeah. >> That sounds like a urgent need. >> So part of what exacerbates this whole thing is the maintenance facility is four miles away so if a driver has to bring the truck in, someone's got to pick him or her up. If the driver has to go pick the truck up, someone has to bring her or him down to pick up the truck. And during the conversations we found out that the maintenance manager said we're running out of space here, we need to expand our facility. And then we had a separate conversation with the director who said we have a fleet annex project that's on hold by the corporation yard where we park our trucks. And we said, wow, that's great. You need more room, build that fleet -- build that maintenance annex at the corporation yard where the garbage trucks park. That will alleviate a whole lot of issues that go on. So that's something that we would recommend that the department explore with the council. Collection summary. Conduct an objective study of the garbage routes to see that the lifts are appropriate for your 10-hour day. This is not a huge concern. If you were going to prioritize all the things in our report, that wouldn't even be close to the top of the list, but it's something that you could look at. Audit the residential recycling routes for setout rates and cart volume and then adjust the routes accordingly. Consider using a cart-based system for the yard waste. When I say cart-based, just like your recycling or your garbage trucks, you have another colored cart out there for that. And you'll find -- I think you'll find that the customers will even like it more. They don't have to buy the bags. If they have more than goes in their cart, they could buy a paper bag, but they're not going to have to buy those black plastic bags. As you can see, throughout the United States, they're trying to get rid of all single-use plastics. So that would help there. Consider running the bulky collection every other week or third week to increase collections or advertise the program more to see if you can get more collections. Or reconsider the household chemical collection and possibly making it into a regional drop-off facility rather than valet service. >> Yes, Councilmember Hussbett. >> Just on that last suggestion on the hazardous materials, how do you reconcile people having to put that in their car, right? So if it's oil, it's paint, you're saying put it in your car and take it to this facility. Obviously that's problematic most of the time. I mean, there's precious few people that would have a truck that maybe is -- they're okay with it sloshing around in the back, but it just seems like that's going to be a real issue with trying to get behind that. It's something that would have to clear our environmental board, but just assuming -- >> I mean, I do that. I bring it to a regional facility. The first thing you have to do, you can't bring it in any glass container. And I would hope that nobody's putting it in glass containers. You need to make sure the containers are -- don't have any -- they won't leak or anything, but it's possible to bring it down there. Is it as convenient? Absolutely not. It's really a policy decision. >> Well, I would just challenge it. A little bit, saying I'm still willing to get there. I just would like to see -- just like you suggest a bin for the leaves and yard waste, that sort of thing, I'd like to try to ask you to kind of share thoughts. Maybe there's someone that's providing some sort of bin, some sort of -- you can pick this up, drop it off. So now at least you're saying here's this cart, quote, unquote, put your paint in it, bring it back to us, that sort of thing. And so I don't know what that mechanism is. Pick up the cart and then utilize that to make sure things don't slosh around. I'm okay with the concept. I just -- that's an obvious hurdle that has to be cleared. And so I was hoping there would be more, maybe some experience in different areas where people have tried to mitigate that concern. Because it's -- to me, that's going to be very important because now I'm saying bring it to me and if I come across the wrong person and they're just -- I'm going to throw it in the backyard because I don't want to put it in my car, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that. So I've got to try to work against that and incentivize them to dispose of it the right way. >> I really love that idea also because -- and I don't know , of course, if you look into what the cost would be of providing every household with some sort of container. But that would be a terrific way to do double duty and educate people as well. Because if people get on their doorstep, people who didn't know that we have this -- that we provide the service, either pick up or drop off, you get an actual physical thing and it says this is what it's for and this is why we do it. And then you have to put it somewhere, you know, a container. I mean, myself, you know, we deal with very small -- when my household recycles this kind of hazardous materials, it's in very small amounts. So I'm less worried about, as far as residential use is concerned, you know, the hazards of dealing with these chemicals. But for some people, that's a concern. But at the very least, you know, that -- what a great way to let people know that we provide the service. So that would be something I would think at least worth looking into. >> Thank you. >> Continuing with the summary on the front loader garbage routes would be to eliminate a Monday through Friday and one Saturday commercial route to increase the lift counts to about 120 a day. Consider a complete review of the commercial recycling system to increase the lift counts again to about 150 a day. Before expanding the materials recovery -- the multifamily recycling is -- a caution is just wait until the market is stabilized. There's no reason why you can't plan and start thinking about this and how you would implement a program. But you want to be cautious about actually implementing the plan while the markets are as tight as they are right now. Consult a periodic meetings between fleet maintenance services and the drivers. Increase fleet service department staff to a ratio of one to seven vehicles and consider maintaining or building the maintenance shop annex close to the corporation yard where the trucks are parked. >> Yes, Councilmember Melton. Just weighing what you're saying about the multifamily and as I take it, you're really just talking about whether there's a market for this material kind of in general. It's not -- and this is all a question. It's not so much that it comes to multifamily. It's that you're saying multifamily will drastically increase our volume. Is that really the point? That's why we have to consider the markets. >> It's the contamination level. Why is the contamination level there? In my limited experience, it's what we talked about earlier . They give the property owner incentive to recycle. So the property owner drops the size of the garbage container down. >> If you could maybe get a little bit closer to the mic just so we can ensure people can hear you. >> The property owner drops the size of the garbage container down and gets the recycling container. The resident comes out, the garbage container is full. They're not going to bring it back in. They just put it over there. They don't have a choice. They don't have a choice. So it's -- education, lots of education. Lots of education in order to do that. >> Okay, any other questions for this part of the presentation? All right. Thank you. I think we got you out of here before 3 o'clock. >> No, no, we still have more. >> We still have more. >> Oh, well, then let's take a break right quick. Five minutes. We've been going for almost a couple hours. So let's go ahead and move to 3B. So we'll resume. >> Okay. Just so you all know, we're very close to the end. >> You got about 25 minutes. >> Yes, sir. We'll make it. So safety is something that we took a very close look at. And there are specific things that we should do in terms of making sure everyone wears their personal protective equipment, safety vests, et cetera. We need to develop some good standard operating procedures so that everyone runs the same play every time, so to speak. And these are things that just are administrative efforts that staff can be working through. And we've had those discussions. And so there's nothing really looming in that regard. In terms of management, we're top heavy. The facility has been top heavy out there in terms of having, you know, a number of managers to a number of folks on the ground, staff. And so we think that that needs to be repaired. Some of that comes back to some of the operational recommendations we have where we eliminate some of the operations out there, some of the ancillary operations, or at least minimize those. Our recommendations to do that are based on what we saw, kind of what industry standards are, and just our observations working with other similar type of operations in terms of what's industry standard, what's typical for number of workers versus number of managers or supervisors. The collections management positions, so management within collections represents about 16 percent of the staff. Industry standards, about 10 percent. Collection supervisors have six to nine employees that report to them. That's considerably below what the industry standard is, meaning that individual supervisors could have more drivers reporting to them. Part of the issue is that a lot of the supervisors in collections spend a lot of time doing administrative tasks that could be kicked off to a secretary, administrative assistant, or someone else. In other words, they should be spending less time doing paperwork and more time in the field working with their drivers and working on those particular routes. In terms of how we structure that, we've gone back and forth through a few different iterations with staff to figure out what generally makes sense, to try to find things that tie into industry standard and still give us the coverage we need. We think that the special projects that we have going on at the facility and some of the ancillary activities that we developed very rapidly over recent years, we should just back off on that. Again, let's get back to our core operation and focus on what we do, what we're supposed to be doing, before we add other things. So this, I'm going to show you a chart here in a minute, an organizational chart that's impossible to read, so you have it in the report. You can take a look at it. But we're recommending that we reduce three manager and four supervisor positions, and this table summarizes the management changes that we're recommending. Ethan will get into this in a bit more detail, but in essence, we recommend that we just reduce management staff. Again, Ethan can give you details on that, but this is just to come more in line with how the process works. So as we're optimizing what we do at the landfill, we're optimizing what we do on the routes, on the collection part of the business, we're also trying to streamline the communication between workers, drivers, and supervisors and managers, so that there's just a better continuity with that whole process. And this is the unreadable chart. So that is our presentation in terms of what we find and what we recommend for the landfill and collections and just staffing, organization in general. Anybody have questions on that? Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. I assume with the organizational restructuring that that would come along with some role redefinition and training? Ethan is better set to talk about that, but that's my understanding that those roles and job descriptions are being reevaluated as we meet here today. I think that's an ongoing process. Councilmember Abbotov? I would just request that when we do redefine the current positions that we make sure that we've got people in charge with solid waste experience. You know, people might seem obvious, but that people have hands-on experience in solid waste management and also that the people at the top in this organization have a real proven commitment to our city's sustainability goals and environmental goals and that they see that as part and parcel of what we do. Commitment to worker safety, all that. In other words, I wouldn't just want to see us reorganize only for the issue of cutting down on costs. Of course, it's really important to cut down on costs, but we want to make sure that we've got the right people in charge. And also that education doesn't slip through the cracks. The education mission, too. We want to make sure we have education people and our staff . Is there another portion of this presentation outside of this? Did Ethan have a part of the presentation? Ethan's got a presentation to follow up on this, so I think he can address some of the concerns that have been raised. If I could just give a quick summary? Sure. Again, we have visited and worked at hundreds and hundreds of waste facilities around North America and some abroad. Sometimes when we come in, Ron, as a guy who's been on a garbage truck and myself as someone who operated heavy equipment for a long time, we can very quickly get a rapport with the workers because we know what that feels like. We've been there and done that. Often we hear the inside scoop that management doesn't hear where, "Oh, man, you should see my supervisor. Oh, man, my boss. What a jerk." We do not hear that. We felt a pretty good enthusiasm all the way up and down through the organization. That's a good thing. There was no one that pushed back. When we sat down to talk about different programs and responsibilities, everyone we talked about, I think Ron can vouch for that, participated. They were enthused. You have some good core structure here. You've got a good team. It's just a matter of, I think, providing some better planning and some reorganization in terms of what's our goal and where are we headed with this. I just want to commend you. You've got a good structure here to work with. There's just a little bit of work to do with that. Thanks. Before you get started, I guess I would respond to your comments, Council Member Amartar, with I was surprised to see, I mean, I certainly appreciate the emails from the public on upcoming projects, upcoming work sessions, and things such as that. But I guess I was surprised to see some of the, lack of a word, assumptions regarding what we're going to cut, what we're not going to cut, and then also addressing staff and qualifications of staff. I was really concerned about that simply because I think what we've seen in the last year, we've been undoing a lot of things that were done that were inefficient and were costly. We're not talking about the tipping point of inefficiency with financial responsibility and efficiency compared to environmental sustainability. So I get a little concerned when there seems to be a lot swirling before this body has even had a chance to address it. And so I certainly, I personally commend the job that we've been doing in solid waste. I think that Dr. Banks, who is over that department as far as just generally as far as the director, I believe, or I'm not sure exactly the organizational structure, but I have full faith and confidence in our staff from the job that they've done so far of helping us try to figure out what we're doing. So I understand your concerns and I echo those. But if as far as it goes of saying that, I don't think what I'm hearing is you're saying we don't have qualified people. You're just saying that we want to maintain qualified people. Is that my understanding? Is that what you were saying? Yeah. Yes, yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, like his analogy that he used before, the football analogy, you know, it's like we've got all the people. It's just there have been kind of organizational issues at the top and some mismanagement in the past and we're still making up for some of those past mistakes. But yeah, absolutely. I do have to say, you know, I do think that the public concern was warranted based on and seeing this and I think that seeing the presentation hopefully allayed a lot of that concern, but I think it was people who looked at the backup and they saw that it said recommend, of course, you know, end this program and that program, but then listening to the explanation, it was much more nuanced and subtle than that, but I completely understand and empathize when people see that in writing. It is alarming. I was alarmed too. Well, and maybe, and I can understand that as well, but when I read a consultant's report, consultant reports are going to have a lot of recommendations in them and one of the exercises that we've done and that's what we do is to say, hey, let's have somebody look at it knowing that when I read those recommendations, I thought, well, I'm sure we're going to find a different nuanced way to do it. So I just really want to just emphasize again that as we're reading the backup and as we see consultants' recommendations, that in no way implies that this city council is going to automatically kind of, you know, without any kind of, except those. So I mean, the discussion we had today I think is a great example of that. And so I certainly appreciate the public sharing their concerns, sharing their thoughts of we don't want to discontinue this. We don't want to discontinue that. Totally get that. I guess I was just sort of surprised to see that there was on some as an assumption that this council body would just automatically take the recommendations and that's what was sort of surprising to me given the process I think we've had over the last year or so. So I just needed to say that because I think in some ways there's been some comments made that could be misconstrued by our staff and misconstrued by some others that as a lack of confidence and me personally, I can only speak for myself. I have confidence in the staff that we have and the job that they've done up to this point. And I feel confident that based upon this consulting's recommendation with the input from the public and their concerns about environmental sustainability and balancing that with, you know, costs, balancing it, we want to make sure we're using our rate dollars as efficiently as we can to achieve our policy objectives. So I appreciate that and I appreciate your comments and would just say let's move on with the presentation. I just wanted to say that before you started. I appreciate that. So I will try to be brief. I just want to try to provide a little bit of follow up to what Ron and Neil had given to the council and I appreciate their patience, not just working with us on site but also kind of walking through this. It's a very dense report and I know that's a council our citizens have a lot to grapple with. Certainly, I want to echo your comments, Mr. Mayor, is really the purpose of this report in our follow up discussions is going to be let's lay everything out on the table so that this board or that the council and the board and everyone involved can make an informed decision. I think the challenge with some of the stuff with the solid waste department over the past is I'm not sure that all the cards have been laid on the table as succinctly as they needed to be and I think that's really the purpose and I know some of these things are hard to contend with. I certainly empathize with that position. So a few things that I wanted to hit today just to kind of close us out is I do want to address the organizational restructure. As I said at the outset, operational recommendations. It's our intention as staff to go ahead and execute those unless council finds some issues with the plan that we're going to be executing. A few things that came up when Neil was up here. He mentioned reducing manager positions. This is not necessarily a cost saving measure. As you can kind of see from the detailed issues in the report or the items identified, we have some deficiencies in some areas that we need to address, most notably planning, safety, training of our staff, fleet maintenance. And so really what we're going to be doing is adjusting our roles and making sure that we have good staff in the places where we most certainly need them. Being top heavy in management isn't necessarily an issue. It is inefficient though. Communication suffers. Sometimes the bureaucracy can be so dense that communication is not going up and down the chain of command as well as it should. One of the things that's in the report, I'm not going to belabor it here, but we do have kind of supervisor by committee where a lot of our employees don't have a direct supervisor and they maybe report to two or three or four people and that creates a lot of confusion and chaos and with an operation that can be as complex as ours sometimes, that clear communication and clear line of reporting can make all the difference in the world. To Council Member Meltzer's point, we will be thoroughly redefining our job descriptions. We are working through that right now. In a lot of cases, there's significant change there. And so as we work through this process, we want all of our managers and supervisors to enter into the new positions with eyes wide open as, you know, there's going to be some requirements there that may not have been there in the past as we try to work our way through some of this. Some of the new positions that we're proposing are down here at the bottom. You have the Deputy Director that's going to be helping us with planning and operational improvements, a training coordinator that's going to be handling a lot of the coordination for our safety and training and trying to get that culture of safety back up where it needs to be. And then we are going to be working with the fleet department to try to get enough fleet technicians in to meet that ratio that Blue Ridge is recommending. One of the big costs and one of the big challenges from a solid waste department is maintaining an operational fleet. Like Ron said, we do a good job of picking all that up. That is contingent on us having trucks that are in working order. And we're having to jump through a lot of hoops right now because that's not always the case. We don't always have a reliable fleet. I'll just say at the very end is the restructuring, our plan for the management staff is to have the restructuring done by the end of the summer before the turn of the fiscal year. In terms of the program recommendations, I heard earlier that we want to try to take those to the committee on the environment. We can certainly go through that approach. I want to try to provide an overview. I appreciate, number one, all the work that Ron and Neil's team has done. That being said, some of these require a little bit deeper dive. And they covered a tremendous amount of ground in a one- week period. I think for some of this, we want to make sure that we sharpen our pencils, either validate or not validate whatever their findings were in that short period of time. We want to run these out over a longer period of time. So we're going to do additional analysis that's not just financial analysis, it's feasibility, looking at the environmental and the sustainability impacts of all these operations and decisions we're making. We'll bring that back, if I understood the direction correctly, is to the committee on the environment first and then on to the Public Utilities Board and the Council. And then we'll leave those decisions to the Board and the Council to make direction on. Here's kind of our schedule of discussions. I do want to hit on the BMR and rubble processing unless you want to defer that to the committee as well. I have a few slides on that here today. And then this is the schedule of the programs that we're going to be taking a look at. I would just say if we're going to be taking the others to the environment committee on the environment, I would say just take that as well. Because that's going to still be something that we need to go through the PUB as well, I believe, because it's out there. If I might, I would like to go through because we do confirm a lot of the analysis that's been performed. I'll hit that very quickly. Okay, sure. So this is the schedule of events. We'll certainly take recommendations on that. The way we've kind of prioritize these is the biggest impact in terms of operational inefficiencies as well as the biggest impact in the community. In terms of the rubble, you know- I'm sorry. Council Member Hussbett had a quick question. Can we go back to the last slide? I'm sorry. Thank you. But, now, do I understand that, right, that sort of some things that were obviously need to be addressed sooner than later? Are you saying everything gets put off, you're going to maintain the status quo, which is losing money until we get back to the committee to go to P UB to come back to us to act on it? That is a potential for some of these programs. And I'll hit the BMR and the rubble in just a moment so you can kind of see the financial implications of delay. Some of these, it does require a pretty thorough vetting. I think for something like recycling, the Home Chemical Collection, ELR, the reason why those are staggered a little bit further out is the financial picture, number one, hasn't been fully vetted yet or the impact is not that great. Our purpose or our desire to bring some of this stuff forward sooner rather than later. In three weeks, council is going to get a report on our cost of service, which is really a rate study that shows kind of the cost of a lot of these programs. And so, number one, we wanted to make sure that we had those things packaged up so when you receive the rate study, you have good analysis behind it to understand what the value is with the price tag, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, that would be paramount to me is when we, to see some sort of number that says, this is how much meeting time cost, you know, or this is how much we project to lose over a period of time. And in that, again, that's a decision for this body to make , but I would, if those numbers bear out, that would give me pause, or at least to have not to make some sort of action to preempt those losses while we're coming up with a solid plan. I think our plan at this point, the dealing with the vehicle issue is the most costly issue up here by far. And we've got a fleet that back in 2014 was switched over to different technology. It's giving the fleet department fits. And we're probably going to be back to you on July 17th with some recommendations on how we handle the fleet moving forward, as well as the rest ructuring. That's going, you know, and that will directly have a bearing on the budget that's presented for solid waste. There's enough reserves to a lot of council in the Committee on the Environment time to work their way through these other programs. If there's a middle ground, we can find it. There's not a huge rush. The whole point of today was that there's some other ideas out there on how to use our staff more efficiently, how to provide value to the public and use their rate dollars more efficiently. So the restructuring of duties, adding that, I've already authorized Ethan to get moving on adding the safety personnel in and operations manager for the landfill. So that's in process. But the issue with the vehicles and the tremendous downtime , the money that we're spending keeping these vehicles, which are not lasting more than three and a half years on average, that has to be tackled right now. That has a far more exponential loss to us in this operation than these other programs combined. So that's kind of how we plan on attacking this. And big issues in July and allow the Committee on the Environment to tackle the rest of them over the next six months. Excellent. Thank you. So I understand we're not making a decision on BMR and Rebel today. I do want to provide some data points on this, though, to support some of the conversations that Neil had with the Council. One of the big misgivings that we've kind of had, and I had to wrap my head around it when I came on board as the director, is our diversion rate as a community is at 39 percent is what we've been reporting out. Now, that percentage is predicated on all of these amounts down here, all the tonnage accepted over the last five years being counted as diverted . As Neil stated earlier, if it's stockpiled on site and we 're not able to move it off site, is that really diversion? And the answer is absolutely not. It's actually a liability for us that we're going to have to figure out how to get rid of it. So right now, the BMR as well as the Rebel processing, our diversion rate is nine and ten percent respectively on that. And that's actually bringing our community-wide diversion rate down. Our actual diversion rate is in around the 13 to 15 percent range. And so when we look at these programs, we want to make sure that the Council and the board are aware is, number one, the purpose of this is to divert materials away from the landfill to save airspace. In the case of Rebel, understand we're not obligated to take that material. There may be an opportunity for us to take it. It may be beneficial to us in some ways, but not at the volumes that we've accepted over the past few years. As we stand here today, it's actually going to be quite a challenge for us to move that off site. The other thing is you, in addition to the diversion, is these operations are there to initially cover expenses through sales revenue. Councilmember Meltzer has a question or comment. Yeah, if I was tracking correctly, it's with the BMR where we think there's some small now, maybe still always going to be small potential for diversion to actual recycling. With the Rebel, my take on it was it's going to end up -- the material is going to end up having more or less the same fate whether we take it or not. It's going to be either we'll process it or someone else will process it. So if that's all correct, I wouldn't have any heartburn about moving forward on the Rebel recommendation, although the BMR sounds like we might be able to figure out some alternative practices that are more efficient and just as environmentally sound. And if I might, to that point, we can certainly defer this to Committee on the Environment. We did have a recommendation today. Here's the financials on those two operations combined. We do have a net loss over the last five years, about $3.6 million. That includes the gate revenue for our Rebel as well as the commodity sales out of both operations. That includes metal as well as the crushed concrete cells that we're selling both to the market as well as to internal customers. Our expense is about $5.8 million. Those operations right now in our budget are co-mingled. Again, back to the purpose of diverting materials away for savings of airspace, we believe that we've saved about $1.4 million in airspace, but if we cannot move that Rebel off-site, we may be losing much, much more in terms of airspace. And so I think the point that we wanted to try to get some direction on today is let's not make the problem worse in terms of the stockpiles. You know, if we can, whether it's through Blue Ridge's recommendations or we just not accept the material, let's get our feet underneath us in terms of the Rebel that's coming into the site that we currently have and let's figure out a game plan for what to do with that before we accept any more. In terms of the BMR, I don't know that there's an immediate need. I would just say to understand that projected losses on these two programs combined are about $2.4 million for the next budget cycle. Basically at a 10% diversion rate, that's about $323 per ton cost for diversion. The reason why we're bringing that up, and you'll see the rate break down when we come back in about three weeks, is losses require rate subsid ization. It's going to be picked up somewhere else, whether that's a landfill customer or residential and commercial rates. And we want to make sure that everyone's aware of that. In terms of the BMR, we do see that there's an opportunity to reconfigure that operation. I think there are some good ideas that were bandied about at the podium earlier. One of the things that I would state is the public comming les on our working face with a lot of the commercial haulers right now. That's dangerous when you consider the conditions on our working face. That's something we need to address. You do have the opportunity to, like Neil said, divert a lot of material without a lot of effort. You could do a public drop-off site where folks are directed to kind of separate the materials themselves and divert it. That's very limited cost. We could extract ourselves from a number of the pieces of equipment. One of the things that's not necessarily well-known, but if you come out, this was yesterday morning as I drove into work. I'm sorry. Council Member Ryan had a quick question. I know years ago we did have that version where we had several dumpsters set up to sort out. You came in with just a bunch of metal. You could take it straight over. Do we no longer have that option out there? We no longer have that option. The BMR was kind of the replacement of that operation. Like Neil said, a lot of your smaller haulers, like the public, that maybe have a flatbed trailer or something, they're actually dropping off at the BMR if we don't feel comfortable with them going to the working face. The difference now is it's not separated by the folks dropping it off. It's separated by our staff and the big pieces of equipment that you heard about earlier. Again, I think our goal with the BMR is if we're not going to be doing that and stepping away from the big pieces of equipment, there are other issues that we need to address. I mentioned safety. This is our recycling drop-off site at the entrance of our facility. This is yesterday morning. We have a huge problem with illegal dumping right now. I will tell you from a contamination rate like Ron was talking about earlier, this is about 90 to 100% contaminated. The people that are using this site responsibly are basically being overwhelmed. Their efforts are being overwhelmed by the folks that are using it irresponsibly. What we propose to do is move this behind our gate and start trying to convert over to a public drop-off site if we can. Do you have a question? Yes, go ahead. Yes, go ahead. Okay. So again, I understand if Council doesn't want to take action on that today, but I do want to emphasize the reason why we're asking is we have an opportunity to start running some of the financial analysis and start plugging that into the rate discussion that we have in about three weeks. Yes, Councilmember Malzher. Thank you, Mayor. If we're going to have some default way of operating until we refine what better thing we do on the BMR, how hard would it be since I don't think anybody's probably advocating for the status quo, how hard would it be for the way we operate now to go back to what we did before, as Mayor Portem pointed out, where I don't know if we still have those dumpsters, to allow self-separation of metals while we figure out if there's some way to add a magnet to it or something more sophisticated. I think that's exactly what we would be proposing, is let's try to address two or three of these problems with one solution. And certainly, we would monitor that and see if there's opportunities to improve efficiency. Our goal would be that we don't do any worse than the 10% diversion to whatever's crossing there right now. I was going to ask, would we have some way to measure that, to see if during this period, if it turns out about where we were? One of the other things that was talked about is the contamination rate that's hitting Pratt Recycling right now. And these are a couple of images of some of the audits we 've been doing. This is 70% contamination. You've got a lot of plastic bags, Christmas lights, some metal in there that's not going to be recycled. What we're doing right now with Pratt is we're pulling this out and we're auditing this stuff. And we're actually analyzing where's the contamination coming from in terms of our routes in the town. So this is a program we're going to be building on in the next few months. But from a landfill diversion standpoint, the stuff that's happening at the BMR, we can actually start looking at if 90% of what's happening at the drop-off site is contaminated, moving that to a man side where we're assisting the public, we eliminate that almost completely right off the bat. And I think we will improve our diversion rates. Some of the metals may be a little bit of a loss there. People, if they're going to sort and separate their metals, they may prefer to just take it to the scrap yard themselves. I understand that. But I think what we'd like to do is take a two or three- month run at this and see if we can't get close to that 10% diversion rate at a fraction of the cost. Yes, sure. Just to state the obvious, if they take it to the scrap yard themselves, it's diverted. Yeah, well, and the statement that I usually say, staff, is we divert 100% of the material we don't accept. And it doesn't look nice on a statistic for us up here talking, but that's the honest truth. So I want to make sure, Council Member Milser, that I understood what you were talking about as far as the rubble. You're saying to move forward with the recommendations for the rubble program, but what about the BMR? You're saying-- what are you saying? I'm saying for now, to go to-- well, actually, I'm accepting the recommendations, what it amounts to, which is to say, for now, go to sort of self-s orting for metal, which is what we had before, stop needlessly shredding and processing for no benefit, and still be open to seeing how we can improve that operation. But just instead of having our starting point being what we 're doing now, have our starting point be what we used to do. OK. All right. So that's-- Mayor Perkins? I would concur, because I think we can come back and, no matter what on the BMR, we're going to have to come up with a different system than what we're doing right now. So to go back to what we were doing, which potentially had as good or better of a diversion rate, and then see where we can improve once we've got that back in play does make sense. Any other colleagues? Council Member Arbiter? Yeah, I'll just say just about the rubble. Excuse me. So just to be clear, so we're not talking about a consensus to eliminate the rubble operation now, right? We're putting-- we're pausing that. Because what I heard was, if we don't process the rubble, so it'll be some commercial operator will process the rubble. It doesn't seem like it has a different environmental impact, but it has an operational impact. So I'm accepting-- I was proposing accepting the recommendation to stop the rubble operation, as well as-- yeah, I'll just leave it at that, and then BMR , it's a different topic. Well, but I mean, there's also the issue of-- so we've got all that-- we've got this rubble that we have now that we have to deal with. It's not just going to magically go away, right? And then there's the issue about both bringing in new rub ble and what to do with this-- the question of what to do with the rubble that we have. I mean, what-- of course, processing it costs money. But if one way to get rid of at least some of what we have is to use it in our roads and to bring in more-- I mean, I want to make sure that we at least look into this possibility, because that could actually end up being-- maybe not, but it could potentially end up being a money saving-- it could end up saving us money in roads and sidewalks with whoever we're contracting with that. We can certainly have that conversation with our city engineer and see if there's any use for it. I think there's such a huge backlog there. The problem is, is it's-- a lot of it's contaminated. It does have the-- it's the things that the processing plants most likely wouldn't take. But we could always put a moratorium on any future rubble until we can get those answered and kind of stop the bleeding for now, if the council's comfortable with that. And I think it's the same way with the BMR program. If you're comfortable with it, we did not want to push you into a decision today. I mean, the numbers are huge. We see that we understand that, but we also have seen the pressure you're getting. And there are definitely interim steps that we can take here. And if you're comfortable with us putting kind of a mor atorium on the rubble and then going back to the old way that we had collected as an interim on the BMR from now, we can do that while we're working our way through the new budget process. But we want to be sure that you don't feel like your back's to the wall. So that was our only concern. That's my own answer. Maybe jumping a little bit ahead, but just to go a little further, if you're not going to reduce service until there's some further evaluation on the collection side, and you have a way to route trucks so that they're used more efficiently, why wouldn't you? Are you talking on the-- The recycling pickup? The residential? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I just want to take the chance to sort of address that. It was never staff's recommendation to go to every other week recycling pickup. That thing caught fire and just kind of spread as a fact. But I do think our consultants have helped us. It was the reason we brought them in was to have a fresh set of eyes to help us analyze maybe altering the route. So I don't see any change in that service provision. I just see more changes operationally for us in terms of the route, making those a little bit larger. So no change to that service. Okay, so let's sort of rein back in with the two things that are issues there at hand. So what I'm understanding is the recommendation for the rub ble, based upon Council Member Meltzer's comments, is to stop accepting it. And based upon Council Member Amartar's, it's like, okay, well, we've still got that out there. So in the meantime of what we're trying to figure out, whether to do it, whether to have somebody come in who processes this stuff and pick it up and haul it off, in the meantime, we'll be looking at are there ways to utilize this raw material in our roads? And if the decision is made that we can, we've probably got enough out there to last us for a little bit and we can still do analysis of how much is required to incorporate in the roads if that's possible. And then if we need to pick it back up, we can do that. I mean, because what you're saying is people are coming in and just dumping this stuff, and we're accepting it. We want to make the problem worse than it is. This is really the biggest piece of direction we need to get. Is that -- go ahead. Yeah, yeah, that's -- Is that sort of the gist of it? Yeah, pretty much it. And then I would just add to that, I don't see a reason to stop -- for us to stop accepting the rubble that is usable as is, that doesn't require processing at all. So I would say, you know, stop accepting rubble that requires processing. But the stuff that's coming in that is usable as is, why -- Part of the challenge -- I was going to say, I don't know. I'd like to know if what's -- I mean, that's -- those are -- We don't always know what's in the truck until it's on the ground. And I think sometimes someone will come in and say, I've got good, clean product, and it gets out to the rubble pile, and there's rebar and trash and other things in there. We run into that many times. And I think what I would suggest is we don't want to ham string our own city operations is let's provide that service at cost if the streets department needs a place to take millings or asphalt or whatnot. But for outside haulers, there are other opportunities -- options in the market. And I think, to Neil's point, sooner or later, we can get back around to let's start using the rates to determine how much volume can we take in. Understand we're in no obligation to take that stuff from outside haulers, and we don't always know what we're contending with until they've got it in the facility. Not saying that they're all -- they're with malicious intent, but sometimes the hauler doesn't know what they got. >> Right. >> So -- >> Yeah. I'm going to go around the whole -- Councilmember Duff and then -- oh, no, Councilmember Duff and then Councilmember Melter, and then if you -- I don't know if you had a comment or not. Okay. Go ahead, Councilmember Duff. >> I think that's pretty much a complete agreement with what you were just laying out. I think as far as material that we may be able to use, I think we already have an excess of that already. So we don't really need to bring any more in until we get things settled down and figured out exactly how we're going to do things in the long run. >> Councilmember Melter and then -- I didn't know -- did you have -- yeah, I didn't know. I couldn't tell if he's got a comment or not. >> Yeah, mine's pretty general. I'm ready to give direction now, right? So I want to skip all the steps. So that's just generally -- anything that you all fast track, I'm for. Anything you don't want to fast track, I'm for fast tracking it. >> Okay. All right. Go ahead, Councilmember Melter. >> Yeah, just to, you know, say what the consideration is with taking more material that might be usable at some future point. We have finite space, right? I mean, that's ultimately what we're doing is, you know, trying to extend the life of the cubic volume of the landfill. So that's my reason to not take more. If it's from outside sources, we're not obligated to take, we're not serving the community here. You know, that would be my reason. >> Okay. All right. So that's what's on the table. That recommendation, do not take any more new things from outside sources. If we have something that's coming in from our own street department, we have a little bit higher reliability of what that is. That's there. But other than that, no more. And then on the BMRs to move it to the process that it was before sort of self. >> Yeah. And we'd like to move the recycling drop-off site behind the gate to prevent some illegal dumping impossible as well. >> Yes. >> Are we calling this -- I mean, we're not calling this eliminating, right? You mentioned the word moratorium. I mean, is calling it a pause in the operations more accurate? >> That's definitely something I feel more comfortable with . >> You're talking about the -- either the temporariness or the permanency of this. >> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Because I mean, I would hate for this to come out of this that, you know, there being some sort of misunderstanding among people here and the public and people on staff who -- some might come out of this conversation feeling like this is paused and some might feel that it's stopped. >> Okay. I think I would -- and don't put words -- I don't want to put words in your mouth. But for me, whether it's paused temporarily or permanently, I would say let's pause it. It's going to be paused. And if we need to come revisit it at the same time we come back with the recommendations from the committee on the environment with the other ones that, you know, we knew that we weren't going to accept those recommendations of total elimination, then we'll have a chance to revisit that with some additional staff information on the roads and things such as that. So until that point, it's eliminated and then we'll revisit it at that time. Is that -- >> Pause. That sounds good to me. Pause. >> Okay. All right. Quickly, all the operational -- >> Do you have sufficient direction on that? >> I do. >> Okay. >> I think. Essentially the only difference between pausing permanently or temporarily -- and we're in this situation anyways -- we need the equipment out there to deal with the stockpile we have, so it doesn't make that big of a difference to us. We'll prepare a full pro forma as well as kind of a game plan for how we're going to contend with the stockpiles. We'll circle back to the COE with that. In terms of the operational recommendations, I'm not going to belabor those. Our intent is to vet those and try to implement as best we can. If council sees any issues with any of the operational recommendations, please feel free to let us know. With that, I do want to talk a little bit about next steps. We are going to proceed with our reorganization. The operational recommendations, like I said, will provide both the public utilities board and the council with updates as we proceed. And then we'll be seeking direction on the business case analysis and program recommendations as laid out. I mentioned earlier that we do have our cost of service rate discussion that's going to the public utilities board on July 9th. It will be back before you on the 17th. And then our plan is to have our departmental budget discussion with you on July 23rd and July 24th. And with that, I'll stand for any additional questions. >> Are there any other questions? Seeing none. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate that thorough presentation. All right. We're going to move the agenda item D forward because I believe we have some committee members here who we want to make sure we're respectful of their time. So we're going to move at this moment agenda item 3D. We're going to skip over C and come back to it after this. Receive report and hold discussion. Give staff direction regarding update on the progress made by the City Hall West Steering Committee. >> Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council, Mark Nelson, director of transportation. Pleasure to be before you this afternoon to visit a little bit on the status and update on the City Hall West Steering Committee. Before I get too far into the presentation, I would like to introduce Chairman Paul Abbott, committee chair. I think -- did you want to say a few words as an opening? And then after that, I'll pick up with the presentation after that and walk through the status as to where we are. We do have a couple of other members from the steering committee that are here. If you wouldn't mind just standing to be recognized. We had a few others, but they've had some other activities that they had to get to. >> Could you introduce -- I mean, introduce them or just who are they? >> So we have -- >> I mean, I know I just want to do it for the public. >> Jane, do you want to introduce yourself? >> And then Georgina Ngozi who is with GDAC. >> Okay. All right. Great. >> Mayor Watts, members of the council, city officials, good afternoon. My name is Paul Abbott. I'm chairman of the steering committee for the City Hall West. We won't go into how I got to be the chairman, but I won. I think probably I had a long association. My family is three generations into that building over there. My great uncle was city marshal here in 1927 when they built that building. My mother worked there from 1952 until they moved over into this building in 1969. And then I worked in the building from 1983 until 1994. And my department moved to somewhere else, too. So I have an interest in the building. It served the city for 91 years. It's been a faithful servant to the city for that time. And I would like to see it continue to serve the city in some capacity. So that's my attachment to the building. We have a committee of folks that have come up with some wonderful ideas about what to do with this building. Almost too many ideas of what to do with this building. So we've had to sit down and look at what do we want, what do we want to focus on. And there's been some spirited discussions about that. We have some folks working on business plans for us, which I'm not going to get into the presentation. But you'll see that. And you'll see where we are as a committee for that. I want to take the opportunity also to thank Mark Nelson and his staff for the tremendous support that they provided to the committee. Also to Legal for letting us borrow Trey, who keeps me on track and keeps me from committing errors in protocol and probably other legal matters. So he's been a big help to us. My co-chairman and vice chairman, Val Morgan, could not be here. She was here earlier, but she had another appointment. She had to leave. She's been a big help to me also. So I want to thank the entire committee because we, like I said earlier, we've had some wonderful ideas of what to do with this old building. And I hope we will look at these and we can make a good decision on this. There's a lot of issues we have to look at. And we understand that as a committee. But folks have worked very, very hard to put this together for us. So I hope you enjoy the presentation. And if you have any questions of me, I'll be glad to answer those. Any questions at this point? That's real good. Thank you. I'm sure we'll have some. Thank you, chief. So just quickly, a little bit of overview on how we'll walk through the presentation. Short history on it with the project recap and talk a little bit about the committee meetings that each of the committee meetings what took place. Where we are at this point in time and then the next steps and then seek direction from the council. There's a couple of items in terms of direction that we'll be looking for from council, which would be what the current renovation concepts are as well as a potential change or amendment to the resolution that actually created the committee. And I'll get into the reasons on that as we get through the presentation. So project history. The facility was vacated as stated here in 2016. Planning department was actually had last occupied the facility. There's a step in here that really should be mentioned. The issue that really cropped up was staff coming forward with a need to do something with the windows. The windows are in bad shape and because the facility is a registered Texas historical landmark the question was do we just address the windows or do we do something on a much larger scale. We brought some issues forward to council in the August of 17. You may recall there was a high, medium and low option that was discussed at that point in time. And from that particular meeting arose the need to create or desire to create the steering committee which was established then in 2017. There's 24 members on the committee, 21 appointed so each council member appointed three members and then there's three council members that participated on that committee. That would be council member Duff, council member Hudspeth and then council member Ryan. I should say Mayor Pro Tem Ryan. And then we started out with a series of committee meetings . We had hired at the time we had a firm by the name of Arch itexus, we still have Architexus and a gentleman by the name of Craig Meldy. He presented back in August as a part of some of those three options and he's been with us since in terms of moving forward with this particular project. You may recall that he at his firm was involved with the renovation of the 1896 to courthouse on the square back in the 90s. So December 18th meeting in 2017, that was really just to familiarize the committee with the charges, roles, responsibility. They elected a chairman, vice chairman. Again you heard from chairman Paul Abbott, Val Morgan is the vice chair. As part of that meeting then we went and toured the facility, gave the committee members an opportunity to walk through the facility to get a sense of space, see what the facility has to offer in terms of individual rooms, large gathering areas, so on and so forth and just really a general condition of the facility. The second meeting in January of this year, 2018, really kind of started walking through and establishing those goals. I won't walk through each one of these but you can see that there was a desire to preserve the facility starting with the exterior and then try to find a use for the facility for the community whether it's engaging the youth, creating tourism or just an overall effort to restore the facility to its original grandeur. And then the uses as stated there, a number of different uses. One of the issues that has come up is actually storing a fire truck that was once owned by the city of Denton. The county now owns it but it had at one point in time been housed at that facility. For those of you who may not recall the 1927 City Hall West or old City Hall served not only as City Hall but it also had the fire station and police station in that particular facility to include offices for the chamber. So in March of -- at the March meeting, it was the third meeting, as we started to look at the different goals and objectives, started to pull together some of the different thoughts and ideas on how to better program the facility and three options were presented as part of that particular meeting. And option one was really more of a welcome center, housing , keep Denton beautiful offices in there, a public meeting facility as well as a corporate meeting facility and then maybe utilizing the facility for some lease options whether it's to artisan groups or to other commercial activities. And it also included the renovation of the auditorium, the main auditorium and preservation or use for the truck. Options two and three were very similar. They focused more on the performance, the performing arts for the auditorium, also identifying opportunities as an event facility and also included the housing the truck and then city lease of certain components. And so we also got into the discussion on the public versus private funding. And a question was raised by a couple of the committee members in the January meeting. What are the different options? Again, part of the charge of the committee as we understand it as it's outlined in the resolution is to look not only at uses and level of restoration but also the financial components. And so one of the questions was what are some other options out there that have where facilities like this may have been renovated using an RFP process or using the private, doing a public-private operation. And so what came out of that was the Salmon Center out of Dallas. The Salmon Center is a rehabilitated old pump station that was mothballed I believe in the 1930s and sat vacant for decades and then was reprogrammed as more of a performing arts facility back in the late '80s and has served well since then in that same capacity. And then we talked a little bit about the, you know, really what came out of those three options was really focusing on options two and three which were more multi-purpose arts facility and leasing opportunities for artisans for whether it would be artisan space or performing arts rehearsal areas. And then again, looking at how we could refine that particular use and start to program those uses for that. So then, yes sir? >> Just a quick question, so as far as KDB being in there or CVB managing it and being in there, those were just, because what I'm hearing you say is that the focus has been shifted now to some type of either performing arts or arts facility which we have a couple of those. We got the Campus Theater and we got the GDAC building. So how did it sort of switch over to something that, I mean , I know there's more of a need. I mean, there's always going to be a need. But how did those other two just, I mean, do we not see any relevance? Did the committee not see any relevance in, you know, that we've got some city organizations or quasi-city organizations that are in spaces that are off the beaten path that represent the city well? I mean, what -- >> So there was some discussion on that, Mayor, for sure. One of the things that popped up, Mike Barrow, who couldn't be here today, is with the Campus Theater and has been involved with the arts community for years, had indicated that, you know, oftentimes they have to turn away events at their facility because of the lack of, or just, you know, there's no vacancy or -- >> Of course. >> It's scheduled. There's also been -- there was quite a number of the committee members that expressed the need for individual artisan space as well. And so the point was is that they felt that there was a need for additional space, additional event space and opportunities that weren't currently being served. So obviously the auditorium, as it's reconditioned and reinvented, I mean, it's not there now, that would affect the concern that we have to turn people away. And as far as artisan space, I guess my point is I think we can accommodate several of those options. It doesn't mean that you have to accommodate one to the exclusion of the other. So that's really was my point and the question is how do we look at -- I mean, the city of Dent right now is paying $18 a square foot for lease space for KDB and I don't know what we're paying for the chamber. So that's a -- how big is that building? >> It's listed at about 22, 22.5, the usable space is south of that because of the various hallways. >> Yeah, once we get it all redone, it will change. >> Yes, sir, and then you lose some space because the false floor, the additional floor or space that was created in the auditorium. >> So we don't really know once we finish it how much space we'll have. >> Right, it will be something less than 20,000 for sure. But that was -- and I failed to mention in each of these, you know, some of the goals and objectives as we started moving forward were maintaining three or four character defining issues. >> The exterior of the facility because based on it being a registered historic landmark, you've got to restore the exterior so it looks period appropriate. And then the entryway into the facility which is what this picture is here on screen now. You can see some of the art deco globes here and the old wooden entrance doors are still there. The auditorium, the old council chamber community theater room, that would be a character defining space and then the truck bay downstairs which was the previous fire station where the firefighters actually lived as well as kept their equipment in that location. Those are really the three character defining spaces and then the exterior. >> Right, but you'll have more spaces than those. >> Correct. >> You'll have other spaces that are available. >> Correct. Around the exterior, if you recall the layout and we'll get into it here in a moment, the interior of the facility has that truck bay on the basement or ground floor and then the first real floor would be the floor of the auditorium and then so around that is kind of a donut type feature where you have the different offices. >> So you have a slide that shows what we anticipate the newly configured space to be? >> Correct, yes, sir. >> Okay, good. >> So then in April, these two options that came out of the three options were presented and also look as part of that between March and April there was a contingent that went and took a look at the McKinney Performing Arts Facility, very similar facility in terms of period. It was built in the late 1800s but expanded and renovated in 1927 but then it was mothballed for a number of years and then recreated into the McKinney Performing Arts Facility. Again, it was the old Collin County Courthouse on the square. A group of us went over, took a tour of that, visited with their facility manager, learned a little bit about their programming, some of the activities that they have in that facility, how the space is utilized, how it's programmed and from that then a preliminary performer was developed as part of some of the uses out of these two options that were advanced out of the March meeting. At the conclusion of that April meeting, there was a request to further refine those financials. What we were looking at was roughly about 650,000 on an annual basis of which only about 200,000 would be revenue from different or various programming activities and so as the committee was moving forward, there was an interest to try and refine that because that was created or that performer was developed from architects out of the architect's office and part of that presentation, he had recommended Joanna St . Angelo who runs the Salmon Center who has actually did the McKinney Performing Arts Center, has done a facility or provided some work for the Lubbett Performing Arts Center and a number throughout the state and had some expertise in terms of creating these spaces that work well for various communities for various, you know, to meet their various needs. So essentially what happened moving forward to the May 21st , city staff engaged, city staff, yes sir. Yeah, go ahead. I don't recall seeing in the presentation whether you give us an overview of the financials of what the carry cost would be for the building because it has to be about that. Just as asked whether you'll share some of that but the reason for asking is. Oh your mic, get your mic on. Your mic, yes. Can you hear me better now? I got you. He can but the people watching can't. Yeah, okay, sorry. So yeah, my question is about whether you'll share with us some of the highlights of the financial analysis just particularly I'm interested in if we have an idea of what the overall carry costs are of operating the building so that as we evaluate the mix of things that might go in it we have an idea whether, you know, it's how important is it to have revenue generating or cost saving, you know, through relocation elements versus elements that just add to the vitality of the square. And that quite frankly is the purpose of the business plan to go into further analysis just to help identify what those programs are and to work with the architect to better refine and identify those carrying costs, what are they going to be. Initially what he identified was roughly about a $650,000 operating cost but that wasn't necessarily broken out into salaries, into utilities. I don't have that detailed of information and that was part of the request of the, as I understood it, part of the request of the committee was to further refine that and get to those more granular components as we move forward. Council Member Hussman. Yeah, I have the number etched in my brain. It's 400K. So he says once you get to the map and you show all the different uses and the open spaces that you could then rent out, the carry costs for the city is 400 a year till the end of time. There's no recoup, there's no, you max out the space per the architect, not the fine tuning, you know, Mark's absolutely correct, we're going to fine tune that. But per the architect's initial estimation, if you rent the space at X amount, reduce rates, et cetera, et cetera, you end up with 400K that you carry in perpetuity. Wait, 400K is the operating cost or 400K is the net? 650, to your point, 650 was the estimated cost. And then they were identifying in the neighborhood of about 200 to 215,000 in programming revenue. So that kicks out a number somewhere in the 450, 430 number . Net cost. Thanks. Could you send a copy of those estimates? Because it's the first time I've heard those figures and if they haven't broken them down into utilities, maintenance, I mean, that's really what I want to see because that's a lot of money. I mean, what that's saying is if that building was vacant, that it would cost $650,000 to quote unquote operate. Right. Based upon something. $300,000 is the salary for the manager. Yeah. So that's why I just want to see that. So not, we don't need that now. And that's in line, I can tell you from the information that we received from McKinney, they're looking at about 700,000 annual. Of course, they're about 10 to 15% larger in terms of physical space, if you will. And they're roughly, they're roughly 700,000 annual and they've got about 280,000 in programming revenue that they're bringing in. Now they've got an economic development corporation that then subsidize the back end of that. Yeah. If I could just see those, that'd be great. Absolutely. Thanks. So, I'm sorry, Council Member Metz. Mayor, I'm just curious from your experience separating buildings, does that, how does that number strike you? I don't, I have no idea because I don't operate these kinds of buildings. That's why I wanted to see, because I don't know what that includes. I don't know if it means you've got somebody in there that 's saying hello to people. I don't know. I mean, there's obviously a cost to it right now sitting the way it is. So I don't know what those costs, it's just a matter of, I just want to understand where those numbers are coming from, whether they're appropriate or not. I can't say and that's my question isn't to say they're not appropriate. It's just, I just don't know. So staff engaged with Joanna St. Angelo, who was again, who manages the Sammons Arch Center to help facilitate this business plan to further refine. What could the facility be used for to refine those programming needs at this point in time? Sure, there's a group of 21 folks that are 24 folks that are providing input. But the theory was, is to bring her in and work with the community, do some survey work and find out what really is needed in terms of those performing venues, those artists and workspace, so on and so forth. How that then get programmed out, again, to start drilling into that and better position the financials on it as we walk the program forward. Council Member Amato. Yeah, I just want to, so I have been really excited by what I've been hearing indirectly over the course of this, the planning for City Hall West. And I was surprised to find at least what I think I'm hearing that there seems to be this sense that it would be either, either house the fire truck and have Keep Dan Beautiful or be a performing art space. And I would love to see it be all of these things because that is so uniquely Denton. And I know that, you know, that we're using this, or at least I learned through this that there was this consultant who was hired. I hadn't been aware of that. But, you know, we don't, I would assume that we don't just want to make another performing arts center that is like any other performing arts center. We want a uniquely Denton one. And Denton is, Denton Arts and Denton Music is just such an eclectic mix. So I love this idea. I mean, of course, it's a complicated and it's a puzzle, but there are people who know how to do this, to have this mix of having the fire engine, restored fire engine, which fills part of the historic mission, which is part of the intention, historic preservation. And plus, and I love the idea of having this as an arts venue, performing arts and visual arts, plus with Keep Denton Beautiful there, you know, because the idea of Keep Denton Beautiful, it crosses over into both the preservation aspect, the conservation aspect, you know, the keep and Keep Denton Beautiful that goes into the preserving this building and beauty, you know, beauty in the arts and beauty in nature. And so it all comes together in this unique way that you're not going to see replicated in any other city. So I would just, you know, just caution against trying to choose, you know, feeling obliged to choose between these different possibilities. Right, so just one and that was going to be my question. And I appreciate those comments to sort of segue or piggy back on those. So when you say the consultant was hired to sort of analyze the financials from a performing arts sort of arts perspective, was it exclusively that or was it to explore other possibilities on that? I mean, and I don't know the answer to that question. That's the only reason I'm asking. So and then we'll take Mayor Pro Tem. You want to answer you want to chime in on it? Because I had brought forth the idea of having the CVB help manage it because that's as people are trying to organize events that the space has, you've got the auditorium space that will be recreating a boardroom on the on the upper floor and then the lower floor could be an event space as well the old fire truck bay. And those are kind of the hourly short term rental spaces. And that's what CVB would manage as well as now the other office space would be more long term. That's a great location for us to put all of our nonprofit partners that work with the city. Right now CVB is if you've been over to their offices at the chamber, the chamber would love to house them someplace else and not collect any rent from us, because they are smashed into such a small space. And for KDB, we're paying outrageous rates. So as their lease comes up, we move them in there, depending on how negotiations go with the parks foundation, that might be a spot for them that that would be, then you have to see how much space is left after we organize our nonprofits that work with us in that space and that could become whether it's artists, studios or what it is. And until we get down to that, Joanna and Kim Phillips are going to kind of collaborate on getting these numbers put together because Kim's got more of an idea of what Denton can do, how much rental space they can accommodate, how much revenue they can generate. And that's why there most likely is no numbers involved here because right now we've got this basically similar to what we got in August. There's a $4 million plan, a $4.5 million plan and a $5.5 million plan. They're not down to a final note yet. And so this will get us much closer to a reality point once Joanna and Kim do their analysis of what those spaces can do. So what I'm hearing is that analysis is not limited to just a certain type of use. As Councilmember Amartor said, there's an availability to sort of have a mixture in there to sort of represent the uniqueness. Right, you've got a lower level event space, the old fire truck bay. Well, what percentage of the time do facilities like that in Denton currently get rented? Does that include the fire truck in that bay or not? I'm all for the fire truck in that bay. What I'll indicate is that at the conclusion of the April meeting, there was more consensus to move towards a multipurpose arts type facility. And that's more or less what we initially engaged her to look at as well as other uses. And there was other thoughts in terms of having Cape Denton Beautiful similar to the McKinney facility. Their Main Street program is housed there. And actually the Main Street manager is the building and program manager for that facility. Where there's some duplicative roles either through CVB or through Cape Denton Beautiful to serve as the building manager. Those were some of the things that we're going to get looked at. Yes, go ahead. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of refine my comments a bit. I mean, I still, I love the idea of this as a multipurpose arts venue. And so that's kind of, that's what I'm imagining. I wouldn't want to see this just turn into another building in which to house, you know, city departments and partners with the city plus some extra room, you know, leftover to use for the arts. I was kind of, what I was trying to suggest was to see it kind of the other way as a multipurpose arts venue that could also house, you know, Cape Denton Beautiful and could also house the fire truck. But you know, to have it turn into, I wouldn't want to see it go so far on the side of housing just city services and partners with the city that it loses the whole arts venue. Because to me, the arts venue aspect is the most exciting thing about it. And I also wonder, have there been any discussions about GD AC say, helping to, you know, manage the building and that's actually coming to that's actually coming forward here within the last 30 days of met with Georgina. And there's some some interest there. Okay, cool. So, oh, Councilmember has been here. So as you work, I'm gonna I'm gonna fast track to this to the bottom, third slide from the bottom. That to me is the the best idea going. Because the financial component, the community support component that comes with that, to have some sort of Veterans Museum slash Hall of Fame, we heard that presentation. I've been out in contact with those in the community, I can 't find anyone that wouldn't get excited about that you have the different various halls and legions already organized. They've already done the out and they've remodeled the old schoolhouse they they fundraised for that they put in sweat equity for that significant parts of our community are have served and are willing to step up. And so that to me, if I look at it, practically, if I'm on the square in the square proper in the city of Benton, and I'm walking around taking in the sites, does a art studio motivate me to go down to City Hall West, maybe. But at a greater frequency, a Veterans Museum would do that . And we've seen what Gainesville has been able to accomplish with their ceremony for the for those recipients. I just really think it's a under serviced market per se. And it also is a very active group. And so that I've been a boo bird the whole time. But when I heard that, that that transitions me to I can get behind it, and we can do it right away. Right. And the problem I have is when you're talking about multiple uses, and you're talking about KDBG, or whatever, KDV. He didn't be me. Yeah, I had too many. I had CDBG. Maybe we can maybe rob their piggy bank too. But I'm just I might my thought is there's you kind of bottom out in your savings. So we get we get them out of the building, we're paying rent for and we move them here. That's kind of a flat gain. And then there's been conversation about the Welcome Center , which I can get behind because we have tour buses. And it's kind of to me, it's a great entry point into downtown. It's not as great as that driveway between Denton Brewery and the bearded monk. I love that driveway, but it's okay. And so that entry to downtown, more parking, easier seeing that sort of thing I get behind that. But when you start once we get to the map, you start losing square footage, you start losing the ability to recoup cost. And that's where I get back to where I can't I can't go forward without a path to get really close to to even I mean, that's just there's. We're we're too many years behind on road construction to not be closer to even in my opinion. So so I, I would like to hear from others on the Veterans Museum and counting your thoughts. And I would I would ask you to even after this meeting as you're out and about, talk to people about it and you'll see the feedback is pretty dynamic. So Mayor, I'm going to answer a question if you don't mind. Yes, go ahead. Ask earlier about whether the fire truck was in there. So we engaged this consultant, she was focused more on arts type venue. She had met with the architect in the late April, first part of May, I guess it was first part of May, viewed the facility and made some recommendations to him. And so at the May 21st presentation, the fire engine was not necessarily in the plans at that point in time it was had been showed as an outline that that was in the bottom of the truck bay and what the consultant was recommending is if you wanted to generate additional revenue or have a higher revenue generating capacity, you may not wish to have that that particular element in the truck bay down on the bottom floor. And there were some I think as Chief Abbott mentioned, there were some there was some pretty good debate and discussion that took place as as it relates to the fire truck at that point in time. And in fact, there was some conversation to the extent that of the 17 members that were present, they they went around the room expressing whether they were in favor or not in favor or they could accept the fire engine, as long as it didn't impact other programs or activities as to how that as to how it would interface. And so what we've asked what we've asked the consultant to do at this point in time is, and we'd heard from Gary Steele, who's here today, I apologize for not introducing him with the veterans. He had given a presentation on the Veterans Museum and Hall of Fame using that facility for that purpose. And what we've asked the consultant and architects to do is take a look at is there a way to look at this as a as a multipurpose arts facility, primarily on the art side, but then have these options down here and run down the finances and what are the impacts and how does that how would that play into any type of programming moving forward in terms of including the fire including the fire engine in the truck bay or having a component of the facility as a veterans office. One of the thoughts might be to utilize it as provide some some space for the veterans to have an office up there as well as some storage and then allow for a rolling or visiting exhibition until they're able to more as an incubator to kind of get themselves up and rolling and then determine, you know, is that the appropriate place for it or is there another place in town for this Veterans Museum and Hall of Fame. Well, and I think this is one reason why I asked for this update, because I think as you're hearing, we're sort of not all over the place, but there's a lot of different ideas. But I will say this about the fire truck. First of all, the city relinquished it back. I don't even know when it was many, many years ago and this is I don't know what's the age of the 37 at 1937 fire truck that the city let go of somebody purchased it privately, the county bought it. And one person basically, in essence has restored it. Mr. Cavs has restored that fire truck. I mean, it sits out on the square. I mean, I got on it and it's drivable. And so I would just find it interesting how that the and people are going to say, what's his obsession with the fire truck? Well, I got to tell you, all you got to do when we when we did the reopening of fire station number four, if you weren't there, there were probably as many kids there as there were adults because of the fire trucks and the fire personnel and just that whole sort of genre, that whole kind of culture. And so that's my only thought. It's not about I'm obsessed with the fire truck. What I'm saying is this in the picture you showed at the very beginning had three or four fire vehicles out there. It had the base. I think it would be unfortunate if somehow we have that opportunity to to reembrace that part of this city's history without it. And we don't. We did that once. So if we put it over the fire museum, great. I don't think we're going to roll it in there. But that is a piece of Denton's history that is just phenomenal to even have it in the shape that it's in. But that's why I wanted to have this meeting because we're hearing and it allows the committee to hear that, hey, we're all sort of trying to work together to find a way to optimize this space and it's going to take some collaboration and compromise on all of our parts to do that. And people I know what everybody's thinking. I know it. Well, Mayor, you can't have the truck. You got to compromise on that. But so that's why I wanted to have this meeting so that we could hear what's going on instead of two or three, four months down the road, the presentation comes back and we hear Councilmember Husspah's comments and we hear these other comments and we 're all just sort of going, wow, we thought we had some direction, but we're sort of all over the place. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate the committee's work on that to bring forth as many of these ideas as possible. Yes. I just want to just put in a few more words about the fire truck. It's not just you, you know, obsessed with the fire truck and it is precisely it's the kid in me that gets excited about the idea of a building with a giant old restored fire truck in it. And, you know, when I think back to my childhood memories of traveling, I can think of places and remember going to Denmark and being in a museum where there was a giant Viking, restored Viking ship, you know, and just that feeling of this massive, you know, kids love trucks and boats and, you know, and to have that as part of your hometown and how unique that is. And I would challenge, you know, the planners of this project to try to imagine and maybe it turns out to be impossible, but to imagine this as the fire truck as like a tree where you're building the building around this really old tree and whatever you're going to do, you're going to preserve the tree, you know, and to kind of imagine the space around the fire truck even because it's a place for the arts, you know , to really think outside the box and the most creative use of space. What about, you know, having a, the welcoming center space, maybe it's a dumb idea, but welcoming center space in the basement with the fire truck. So you go and your kids play in the, you know, around the fire truck and maybe that would get more traffic into the welcoming center. I know, you know, the basement, I guess the idea was that it was going to be on the first floor when you come in on there, but that's just an idea, you know, just, so I would put that challenge up there because that's the kind of thing that's going to make it extra special and I can imagine it being the fire truck building, you know. And what is the space that that thing would take up one of those bays? What is it? Well, the room itself that they're talking about. Well I understand that and they're trying to say they want that for a big event meeting space and I get that, but if you're- It's 3,200 square feet in there and it's in the truck itself is roughly 35 feet long by let's say it's 10 feet wide. Yeah, it's about, yeah. Right, so you're 350, 400 square feet. Okay. But it'd be right in the middle of the venue. Well, okay. We'll see. Go ahead. Yes, Council Member Mills. Oh, so much to say and ask just on the narrow point though. It drives, right? So you could conceivably pull it out for rental. I think the committee's talked about that as far as is there the right turning radius and all that. I believe there was this discussion about that. On the west side, there was an access door on the west side that they could come in and out. I mean, as I said, it's all open. Yes, go ahead. Just one more. Wow, I don't envy the committee because there is so much to think about here and so many really exciting ideas. As I look at it, the priority of questions that I ask is or I guess kind of missions I could see fulfilling is first adding to the vitality of downtown. So that suggests things that change and are refreshed a lot . So that's why I think the arts angle works well. I'm always for acknowledging our veterans and they need a space and the virtue of that kind of angle is that it's probably an entirely or not entirely but a somewhat different audience that would be additive. My question, I guess for Councilmember Hutz, but then your conversations about that, is there a concept of it that would be refreshed or is it a kind of thing where once you've seen it, you've seen it? The veterans recognition concept? So no, I think it is something that would be refreshed because you would have you could either take it month by month, you could have the Vietnam, World War I, World War II exhibits, that sort of thing. You can kind of take the wars monthly and kind of do it that way. They have the different vehicles that they've refurbished that then also could be in a bay out front, that sort of thing. So I think there's a large pool to pool from that to serve as quote unquote exhibits or that sort of thing or people would, I mean because there's nowhere for them to donate them currently and they kind of have them. So that's my guess just from talking to Gary and going out to the old schoolhouse where they kind of have, that's the Vietnam vets out there, but yeah, seeing kind of how they display things. Lastly, if I may? Yes. Has consideration been given since these are kind of in a way entertainment activities other than the office space parts that would likely be used by the public more on weekends and evenings? Is there consideration given to generating revenue from corporate use or group use of the facility during weekend, daytime kind of? Yes, that was part of the... That's already in the model? Part of the use is in terms of using that reception area downstairs as well as some of the... That's in your 250? Say again? That's in your, whatever it was, 250 revenue? That was in the original 212, yeah. I'm going to move on off the slide, but just to indicate that... Just to indicate that... We're going halfway through. Just to indicate that the direction was to proceed with Joanna to continue to help us with the business plan and then we've established the July meeting for July 16th. So we've got an upcoming meeting with Joanna and with Craig Meldy from Arca Texas that will have some of these models or ideas refined to a certain extent. We can maybe digest that a little bit better in terms of what's offered. What's your average attendance at the meetings? Are you getting pretty good attendance? Yes, sir. We're probably, I would say in the '18, '19, '17, '18, '19. Is that including the three council members? Usually we have two of the three council members that are there. Okay. All right. Thank you. So this is pulled directly from Craig Meldy's presentation. So this is just kind of a roof and overview of the facility . This just shows the use of that north parking area that could be multipurposed into a courtyard as well as a potential parking area. Mayor, this was the west entrance that shows here where the fire engine can come in and out of. This is Cedar Street here. Orientation, this is McKinney and then Elm Street here on the right side. Now I see why. I mean, if you go with that design, I mean, because there's a lot more currently that is a parking lot, I believe, that whole side. Just head in parking, yes, sir. Yeah, just head in parking. So yeah, if you're going to reduce it down to a 15 or 20 foot entrance, then I mean, that's okay. But I understand now, at least if you're limited to that concept, what the issues are. Okay. Thank you. So direct your attention down here. The facility essentially has five levels and they've been categorized levels A through F and so there's split levels in there. This large bay area here is showing where that truck bay is . The original truck bay door is here, here, and here there's three opening to the north. And you can actually see on the west side as well, there was a access door here. As you drive by that facility, if you have cause to, you can see the discoloration and the different bricks that were when it was filled in and renovated or renovated as the police station back in the 80s. Those bay doors were covered up. But again, this is showing that large bay space down on the first floor level A and then there's a kitchen and storage area to facilitate or assist that reception area. And then there's a handful of storage, mechanical and office spaces to allow for support of the facility. This gets to what I would call first floor. This is the walk-up level entrance off of Elm Street. As you can see in this particular proposal, this is the auditorium, former council chamber and firehouse theater, I think which they called it. They've expanded the stage a little bit based on some input and use and needs and that's been supported by several of the committee members, including Mike Barrow with a campus theater indicating that, you know, probably need more backstage space than what was there originally developed if it was taken back to its original size in 1926. So question, when we took a tour of the building, I can't remember when it was, we went up all through the upper part. You could see the arch as it was built in, floors coming in , and then you could see the actually the stairs or the different level of seating. The seating for the balcony, I think, was what you're recalling. Okay. Is that incorporated into this somehow? Yes, sir. So it's the balcony, you got the balcony. We'll get to that. Okay. So you'll show what the seating capacity is. Correct. Okay. Well, what the actual seating capacity is much larger than what they're showing in this 250 seat scenario. And the reason why you could have much more, you could have upwards, in some of the earlier models they were showing upwards to 360 capacity, 360 seat capacity, of which about 100 of that, 160 of that was upstairs in the balcony. But there's some concerns when you get over 299 for some royalty basis with respect to some of the different performances and intellectual property, if you will, in terms of those productions. And so you cap that at 299 or you use some flexible seating . That was a, that was some, there was some discussion there with the flexible seating and that you could have more than 300 when that doesn't apply, but you could also pull it out so that you could get under that number. And the reason that you'd want to go with that flexible is pretty clear and that you have different options as to how you set your facility up and use that facility. I'm not going to go through each of these. These are evident here. I'll show you each of the points here on the right side of the slide. But you can see some larger, larger spaces here that could be used for lease spaces or other type of art studio. This is the level E. So this really shows that open space before you get to the balcony area. Again, circling around here, different studio space, conference space, larger restroom facilities. I forgot to show that here. We got some additional restroom facilities here, larger restroom facilities here than what are there now to support those performing arts activities that may take place in the large auditorium. This shows the balcony area here, Mayor, that you were asking about. This is a, this is the projection room here, which is really tight space to get up into. It's really fixed by design, so there's not much use that you can have there. Council Member Hudspeth had asked us to run that one to ground. Yes, Council Member Hudspeth. Just freewheeling a little bit here. There's so much to think about. But just on the veteran premise, it sounds like a very strong and important programming idea, where you might be able to do, let's say, 20, arguably 25 different things over the course of a year in this flexible space, whether it's performance or static. And if there's like six different things that might be related to different wars, focusing on veterans, I don't see any reason why that couldn't be a critical part of the programming mix, but they wouldn't necessarily have to lock down space for that. I think you could do 100% of what you want to do, you know, in the context of a broader program. So where we are at this point in time, as mentioned, we had identified July 16th as a date. What we were moving towards, and I'm going to jump down to this bottom bullet point here, is the resolution creating the committee has indicated that the committee would either present their findings or recommendations to council, and upon that presentation or recommendation, it would dissolve or it would dissolve or turn out sunset as of August 1. And so we were moving forward with the July 16th date to bring this information back, and have the steering committee have an opportunity to react to the information that's being generated by Miss St. Angelo and Craig Meldy. Again, we talked about primary focus at this point in time based on some of the direction or what I'm hearing from the committee to move forward as an art center with the use as the alternate use or options for including the fire truck as well as some type of a component for the Veterans Museum and Hall of Fame. Again, talk a little bit more as an incubator space for that particular organization to get itself up and running. There's been a desire of the committee to host a public meeting, so to take what they put together and present that. So conceivably that would be at the very tail end of July prior to the August 1 date. And so where we are at this point in time is we're about three quarters, maybe 80% through the discussion with the committee. And so is there an opportunity or is there an interest of council to maybe extend the committee's term either towards whether that's two months or to the end of the calendar year and allow them to complete that work, complete those ideas and present that to council at some point in time after August 1? Yes, Council Member. As for me, I would want to know what the committee's feeling is about this. The committee's been working really hard on this and I've been hearing through the grapevine and reading a little bit about what's going on, but I haven 't been there on all these meetings. So I won't weigh in on that other than to say the opinion of the committee if they feel that they need more time and can make a case for it. I can imagine that there's a case on the other side to stick with the schedule. If I may, I could invite the chairman up if you'd like to hear from the owner. That's fine. I've got to leave at 430 to step out to another meeting real quick. So I just want to share. I'm okay with all this. My only concern is that with the way the plans are drawn, I 'm going to say it again, the fire truck takes up a very small part of that space. I know it seems to cut into that other space, but I think the building has been designed with this sort of art component totally and I think that's where it's going to be a challenge because I do agree that I think the Veterans Museum incub ator space or however that manifests itself is something that's a good idea. I have been to one of those Medal of Honor awards up in G ainesville and it's quite phenomenal to see when you watch them come down the highway and so I think that that indent and has a rich history I think of Veterans in this community. So those are only my thoughts. I mean, I'm not singularly focused. I just think it's very important and I'd like to see if there could be some direction in that. But yeah, we will hear from the chairman and talk about the time and just some overall, you know, you heard some thoughts shared here, just some feedback and the timeframe as far as if there's more time needed. So if I get out, if I get up, don't I'm not just running out on you. So I don't want to be rude, but I will not take it personally. Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you. I can understand and appreciate that. To address the issue of whether or not to continue or not, I don't like to begin a project and then leave it hanging. So my personal view without polling 24 people is to say, let's go forward this we've done a lot of work up to this point. I would hate for an artificial deadline to cancel the work that that's been up to this point. So that's my personal thing. I feel like most of the committee wants to continue to and they want to finish this because they want this project to work out. And in the subject of the Veterans Museum, I think Council member Hudson and I both discussed and agree that it's way past due for some recognition for the Denton County Veterans and I think the idea that Mr. Steele came up with and his group is something we can work with. And from a personal standpoint, I think we could do a lot more for our veterans than we have. Personally, I can speak from personal experience. Having experienced the Welcome Home from Vietnam that I did , that I think we can do more. So I think this museum is a great idea. The arts venue that we've talked about. We were steering that direction, but we always left it open to other things besides that. The fire truck was never really completely written out of the plan. It was just it's there in the room. What do we do with it? Do we leave it? Do we take it out? There's some liability issues I think maybe the legal folks could address about that fire truck sitting there and having a public reception with kids crawling all over a fire truck. Maybe some legal issues involved in that, some liability things. That's things we can look at. But as far as the fire truck being not there, that was never completely off the table. The vote that we took was mostly no, but there were also other folks, as the councilman mentioned, that said they didn't really mind that. We can work around the fire truck. That shouldn't be a deal breaker. So with the arts venue, a lot of really great ideas came forward for that and what we could use that building for and recover some of the cost. We know it's not ever going to be up there, but there were some ways to generate some revenue through those things. So I'd say I think we should go forward with this if you'll ask to. We're going to go with Councilmember Amartor and then Councilmember Nelser. So yeah, I would just be curious to hear from, and there's probably not time now, but at some other point, do you hear from other members of the committee as well and get a sense from a holistic point of view of where things are headed? Because as I mentioned before, I had not actually sat in on a committee meeting, but I had heard from a couple people on that committee about what was going on. And I'm sensing that there are from people who are in the same room as we often get different versions of what the story is. So I would like to hear at some point, have Council hear all of those stories. Well, we would invite you to, if we had the open house in July, we'd invite you to come and talk to, most of the committee is going to attempt to be there for that. I will definitely be there. And also get the public, the people that show up from the public and what their comments are. And like I say, with 24 people, we've got a lot of great ideas. There's no telling what we're going to come up with as citizens start coming in there. So batches of that. Chairman, what are the steps that you would envision happening between now and some extended period of time? And I ask that to see if in fact, you have done most of what you intend to do. You know, kind of what's left to do. Or have we gotten to the point where it's getting down to sort of really the financial and the trade-offs, you know, which might be better handled between staff and Council. So what do you intend to do beyond August? I think once we get the business plan in place and see that , then we're going to be able to, that's a big, that's a large issue with this. And I think once we get the plan, we can start to move forward. As far as who goes in which room and those kind of details, we're not there yet. I don't think we're ready for that. But I think once the business plan is finalized and we get a chance to look at that, then I think that's going to tell us, you know, feasibility of a lot of these issues. Any other questions, comments? Council Member Rice? Just from your standpoint, how much longer do you feel that we would need to continue to meet? I'd say at least October, possibly November, you know, you get into people's schedules and fall and those kind of things. But I think, again, we're going to have to look at the business plan and see where it's going to take us. Yes. Just to say thanks to the committee and I hope, you know, my suggestions about the fire truck, this was, I just, my own sense of, you know, throwing that out there is to, I think this would be nice. I'm not trying to in my first meeting on council to, you know, to over exert, you know, any kind of authority. So I just wanted to be careful. I know that, you know, in a work session we're just throwing ideas out there, but I do, you know, I love fire trucks and my gosh, and I want this to be a, an art space in many different ways and one that just fully serves the public and is uniquely Denton. And, you know, I like, I mean, Paul had mentioned the idea of, well, if the truck can move out, you know, kind of combine that with the idea of flexible seating. That'd be another thing to look into. But even that I'm just throwing that out there. But I trust the process and the committee work that's going on and thank everyone on the committee. I agree. About conversation. So thank you. Thank you all so much for meeting. So you're saying October, November, November, and then if you get done earlier, then you will have a big party to you and you can tell us where to go with that. So, okay. Thank you. You bet. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Not a question. One, I'll just not a question for chief, but I'll commend him for keeping us all. He has a perfect temperament for the job. I'll tell you that he's doing outstanding. And my comment is this on the fire truck. I think that was the issue. It's not so much should it be there. It's it was kind of static, like, hey, it can't move, right ? Because it's old and shouldn't be moved. And that's where you get. I get a little nervous because then you're talking about exactly what the chief touched on. It's like, hey, kids can be here, but don't touch it. And who pays for the rearview mirror when it gets yanked off? You know, it's just not going to it's not going to sit there untouched. It's not a you know, that's not going to work out. And so if it's not kid friendly, which it is not, in my estimation, I know they have it at the square, but it's more controlled environment. But if it's if it's a banquet at night and there's this truck sitting there or a wedding or reception, whatever. I mean, it's just it's going to happen. I mean, gum's going to get stuck to it and just kind of the maintenance and what's going to happen to it in that building. And then you can't pull it out. You can pull it out. What if it's raining? You know, there's because we had some conversations about, hey, we'll build a garage and you've been there. No, it can't be outside because of the wood and this sort of thing. So I think that's where it becomes maybe not the best place for it, because I don't know that you can protect it. And again, I'm sensitive. I mean, to me, I mean, we go back to the landfill conversation. That's so refreshing because you're talking about space, space. We need every bit of space. You don't if someone comes and says, hey, we want to book the the City Hall West for a group of 400. Well, we got a fire truck. Can you cut three people off your you know, can you cut 100 people off your. And yes, we'd love to invite you to it. I mean, it's like I don't want that to be it's got to be all hands on deck. I mean, that that to me is and I've told the committee that 's going to be my biggest thing. If I if I lose out, we move forward. And that's whatever. Let's let's let's say it's it's we cut it in half. That's two hundred thousand a year. We I was upset about 180 going to Stoke for five years. And I'm going to I want to respond to that for our leave. And those are all great points. And I think I think those are worthy of discussion. But I this is not meant from my estimation and from my original. I'm the one that basically said, hey, let's have this discussion. Never once did I imagine that this would be something that would be a moneymaker. Our rec centers aren't moneymakers. Our water parks, not a moneymaker. Our natatorium is not a moneymaker. There's a lot of things that we pay, not because it's we don't analyze everything here from a cost analysis basis. So those points that you made about just the practicality, that's a conversation worth having to see if instead of just throwing it out, are there some solutions? And if there's no solutions, OK. But to me, I just want to because I think if we miss the opportunity to do something with that, we will be guilty of what was people were guilty of many, many years ago that said history doesn't matter in this community. And I will tell you right now, history matters in this community. There's no question about that. So I think it's a worthy discussion and I think those are very, very valid points. We face liabilities all the time. There's liabilities at the water park. There's I mean, there's liabilities at the rec center. There's I mean, we face it. So I want to make sure for me that it's not simply a financial discussion, because if it were a financial discussion, none of us would be spending time that we're doing right now on this project, because this will not most likely carry itself. Just like our other arts institutions. I mean, we you know, we subsidize a lot of these because they're important. That's not a criticism. We do it because it's important. So good. I get to leave on that. No, Councilmember Hussman, I'll give you the last word. Yeah, no, no. Somebody's clapping. I believe it. No, I think I think you're spot on. I absolutely agree. My concern is I don't think you can I mean, you can't it can't be easily replaced. Right. That's my concern. And I think I don't make it a financial decision. I just make it a whatever we do. I want to make sure that we are accountable. Right. I don't want another eight year bond program that runs over . I want if we if we move forward, move forward timely. And if the cost overrun, somebody needs to break out the checkbook. But what I don't want is empty promises or delays. I mean, if we're going to go, then this all hold hands and jump off the cliff. And all together. Sure. OK. Well, I'm being told I need to leave with people clapping when I say I'm through talking. So I mean, I tell you what, what's it come to in this place ? There's no public expressions here. Thank you all so much. So Mayor Pro Tem, you've got that you've got the gavel so you can move forward on this. However you see fit. I shall return to direction direction. So I want to thank I'm here and maybe an interest in extending the committee's work until the October time frame. My opinion would be to my opinion would be to try to wrap sooner if you can. You know, if you're not really you don't really have a plan . Yeah, then maybe some sense of a deadline might help clarify the mind. But but you know, it's not the end of the world if it takes longer. That's nice. Yeah, I want to touch on one thing that was missed. And so when we get the plan is when we get the information, I understand she's going to help us get a questionnaire that would then be circul ated to the community that was next steps to then pick up where we're cheap picked up once we get that we'll get the plan we'll get the questionnaire out, get that feedback from the community and that's going to kind of drive things. So that's that's the ambiguity is what how much the numbers actually are or what the numbers look like truly and then feedback we get from community. What I would tell you is we would have a much better I think we have a much clearer idea on what that term might look like. Once we have the July 16 meeting and we get some of the information that Councilmember Hudson is speaking about and so whether that's a two month or three month extension, I think we'll know better towards the end of end of July. I would agree that once we get those numbers back we look at that and then especially after we do a public open house. I think I understood that that was going to happen towards the end of July after we get this and that's that was based on an August one sunset of the committee. And so we may want to push that into August a little bit to have have that time from July 16 and a couple of weeks then to to to visit with the committee and find out are you comfortable with that? Is there any other refinement before you then present that to the to the general public to the public as a whole? Okay. Looks like it's one conflict. We have ethics training on the 16th. So if the times that's at 6pm and so either I won't be there. I don't know about everybody else but I got to get get that in. But just to let you know there's a conflict there on the 16 th. Yeah we may have to adjust that date. But I think otherwise we have general consensus to extend it to October and hopefully finish up a little quicker than that if possible. Very well. Thank you. Anything else? I think we've been a been two hours close to it without a break. Yeah let's let's go ahead and take a five minute break and welcome back to the City Council work session. We will continue on with work session reports with item 3C it is 442. Item 3C is receive a report hold a discussion and receive departmental presentations in preparation for the 2018-19 proposed budget. Good afternoon council members. I'm Nancy Toll. I'm the budget manager here at the city and we're going to continue with the department presentations. Since it's afternoon has gotten a little long we're going to try and move through these rather quickly. So rather than stopping on every slide during these presentations if you can kind of hold some of your questions so the end of the presentations hopefully we can move through these quickly then. Today we have development services facilities management fleet services airport transportation and legal. And Scott McDonald is up first with development services. Thank you mayor pro tem council. My distinct privilege to to be here today and to walk through what it is that development services has been doing and where we've been going. To talk about our accomplishments our biggest change has been that of a philosophy of continuous improvement. We're very successful in what we're working to do which is to serve our customers serves them and make certain that we're open for business. We've created a one stop shop mission so we're working very diligently to make certain that our customers or citizens recognize that if they need something that's related to the built environment that they can come to development services and we won't point them down the road we'll ultimately get the answer for them and deliver the service that they expect. In doing that we've we've worked very hard to reduce the number of steps that are in the review process. We've cut out applications procedures and any number of things to ultimately expedite service delivery and make certain that we make it as simple as possible. Through this process we've eliminated the site plan process and incorporated it into either whether it's someone doing a zoning application or within the building application so that we're not replicating a step meaning application fees and and alike. We've also taken some steps to evaluate other municipalities across the metroplex and even within Texas that are similar so that we can seek out best practices rather than recreating the wheel we look for for those municipalities that are doing things the right way how we can improve in what we're doing and have been effective in even just some of them being minor tweaks and some being more major changes. Probably the proof in the pudding of our success is really hearing from the development community not only locally but we're hearing it from across the metro plex and even out of the metroplex first coming to Denton because they've heard good things from consultants throughout the state and just that that Denton is open for business and we 're a good place to be. Our goals for 2018-19 is to complete the rewrite of the Denton Development Code. A big piece of what we're doing is changing process and simplifying making it more transparent and predictable. In order to do that we have to have codes that that support what it is that we're attempting to do. So we are evaluating all of the processes, we're evaluating all of the codes, we're managing best practices and ultimately working to do that through that rewrite. We also will be developing implementing a public outreach program so we're going to make certain that our contractors, developers and our citizens as well as our neighboring municipalities that we all speak a common clear concise language that people understand what's expected where to go and how to get it done. We will also be updating our building, fire and food safety codes to the most current additions. We're going to go through the development code process. We should have the complementary codes to make certain that when businesses come to Denton that they have the most current relevant codes to manage and keep up with the technological changes and be certain that what we have is best for all. We also have to complete the Oak Gateway small area plan. We've been working diligently throughout the year. We have expectation of completing that through 18-19 hopefully before we get too far into 19 but overall that is one of our other goals. We have a desire to do design standards for the entirety of the central business district. You've seen in the previous presentation that we had we've identified the square as a design standards and guidelines. We wish to replicate that in the industrial rail area as well as to the north, south, east and west where we have some residential and some other unique uses that we have clear and defined standards that complement each of those other areas throughout the central business district. Some of our good news and more success is the fact of where we're at as of our current state. As of June, our new construction permit values are over $ 130 million more than they were the same period this time last year. That is a significant number. That's 62% more over the previous fiscal year. We're working very diligently to make sure that we're serving our citizens and our customers with this increased workload. We've worked through training and process improvements to make sure that we're improving that service delivery. We're maintaining that level of service utilizing the same or less number of staff with that increased workload. We're using more technology than what we have to the past and certainly we're looking to the future to enhance that technology. We have some older solutions that ultimately need to be streamlined but we'll bring that forward in future point in time. What do you mean by the value of the new construction permit? When it is that someone brings in a project, we get the value of that construction. We report that through to the federal government through census so that those values have increased. Thanks. Very welcome. A good portion of what we've done is really is push decision making down to the lowest level and I think that's helped us to be more effective in really the decision making tree and getting projects completed. Some of our cost containment strategies have been that of eliminating the silos and that cultural change that we need to look at this as that we are the city and it's not a department, it's not a division. As the one stop shop, we're looking to bridge all of the other departments and those pieces and parts that rather than sending someone somewhere else is that we're just taking responsibility and making sure that people understand what it is that they need to do. We haven't asked for additional funds. We've actually reduced the number of FTEs and we're managing the workload just working smarter not harder and really trying to reduce and get rid of the redundancies and duplications that have existed as a result of having multiple forms from multiple departments where it is we can take one application that really is a universal application that answers all the questions for the other departments and routing it through a simple singular point of entry. We continue to evaluate the state of where we're at so again that philosophy of continuous improvement is to make sure that we're managing what our workflows are, what we can do better and certainly not afraid to say why are we doing what we're doing and how can we improve what we're doing. We've realigned duties to be more in line with contemporary practices to the past. We've rejected plans. We've sent them back. We've asked for revisions where it is that some of them are relatively simple and that we can red line the plans or mark the plans, indicate what it is that needs to be corrected and expect that we can field verify whatever that is or as they move through the process or next steps that we can get those corrected or amended plans. That's been very effective at helping our customers as well as helping our staff not to have to replicate work. Once it is they get a resubmittal back in. They're having to review an entire set of construction documents. And again we've worked very hard to flatten out the organizational structure to be aligned with that and I'll talk a little bit more about that. We've seen the values and the number of permits increase really in all areas. So it's not necessarily on residential or commercial. It's just the entirety of the community is growing and growing in about every sector. We've continued to do some things and again consolidating the site plan process was a big component of that. Ultimately we took in an application, we took in a fee, we required a review, a meeting, an issue to permit. So that all took staff time and it took time from our customers and clients that ultimately cost them money. So we've done that to save on both sides of the coin that ultimately turned into financial savings I think on both. We've expanded same day permitting. To the past I think we were doing two same day permits which would be that for fences and for minor demolitions of interior space. And we've expanded that to virtually any type of project that we would deem minor in nature, meaning if someone wanted to put a shed, alter space, put a patio on if they were doing interior alterations, demolitions. Any of those ancillary pieces that don't require a full review we're trying to do as an over-the-counter irrigation systems and the like. So we've expanded that like I say from two permit types to probably well over 12 or 14 permit types in particular. We continue to challenge the status quo and the why. So staff have learned that we just ask why of each other. So why we're doing something, why it is that we have to do something so that we make certain that we have a reason for what we're doing and why we're doing what we're doing so we can in turn be more expeditious in the service delivery. With that being said, we've got some benchmarks that we use . And so as you can see from the metric on our certificate of occupancy is issued and reviewed within 10 days. We've been the last two quarters at 100% within 10 days. Temporaries have been done within '98 and '97. They typically have a few more kinks with them. New commercial permits reviewed within 10 business days. New residential reviews within 14 business days. And then residential alterations within seven days. Now as soon as we can achieve 100% on all of those which we anticipate to do before the years out, we're going to look to reduce those days so that we can improve again the service delivery and have that benchmark to say that we can do it in a lesser timeframe, meaning that certificate of occupancy should be done within three to five business days. So we're going to continue to push those numbers back so that we can be more effective and efficient. Part of that is going to be is to procure and implement a single permitting system and plan review software. We are currently using three different solutions and they 're antiquated enough that we can't really upgrade that without buying an entirely new system even from the vendor that we have. So that's a major component. We really can't look at doing that until we have all of our processes in place. So the update of the code and making certain of all of those pieces are in play will help us to do that. Another piece is to develop and implement a quality assurance program so we can verify and confirm what our staff is performing, the level of the work that they're performing both in the office as well as in the field so we know the quality of the work that's being performed so we're not just counting widgets. We have quality of that work. We're going to establish customer feedback groups as well as surveys. And beginning something as simple as just having a postcard go out with each permit type that we have today. So we give a pre-addressed three by five postcard that just has five simple questions of how they were treated, who treated them, who greeted them, who reviewed their plans, what building inspector, how did he treat you, and again just at least we have benchmarking so we know not only what we're hearing when someone calls on the phone but we actually have some hard data that shows that those that reply to us. And again we're going to continue to reduce the turnaround times and we're going for an average of by 50 percent. So as we look at that 10 days above, 10 days above, expect to cut those numbers in half so that we can be more effective and efficient and again keeping those numbers at a high level of attaining that. Our current organizational chart looks like this. Anyone that was similar or familiar with it to the past, it was a less flat organizational structure. We have ultimately eliminated three management positions, so a director and a couple of planning manager positions. And we have positions that are working staff so we can make sure that any of the supervision staff that we have are working supervisors so we don't have a manager supervising a supervisor which is supervising line staff. So again just a means to be more effective and efficient in what we do. With that being said, you'll notice the '17-'18 budget we reflect 53 positions. '18-'19 budget will be at 50 positions. From our fee standpoint, where we are currently is that we 're doing quite well over budget as indicated with the increase in the construction values and the sheer number of permits that were beyond, construction values are up greater than 50% translates into what the base feeds look like. So we're coming in approximately 130,000 over our budget or we anticipate that we will be and we've upped that for next year recognizing that we're probably going to see a similar growth pattern based upon the applications that we've received in so far. We're also reviewing our fee schedules. We have the Weaver Group looking at our current fees and what our neighboring and similar size communities are doing as far as from a cost recovery standpoint. So at least we have the data that we can bring back to say, you know, are we charging an appropriate fee? Do we want to alter those fees? And again that will come back before this group. Personnel services looks very similar. We again don't expect to be asking for any other positions or increases in those rates. Council Member Armatole. First of all, and thank you for doing all that work to the whole department and cutting all the red tape and bureaucracy and getting multiple permits, you know, down to a single permit and reducing redundancy. All that is wonderful and there's been a big need in that. And I'm glad to see that you're going to be working on the fees because that's another thing that I keep hearing from people in the community, but small business owners, homeowners and nonprofits that part of our bad reputation that we're working on correcting now is not only that we have more bureaucracy and red tape than other cities and more permits, but also that our fees are so high and prohibitively high for a number of people. So I would hope that when the fee assessment is done that we hear from homeowners and small business owners, both people who have businesses in Denton and people who may have wanted to start up a business in Denton, but then couldn't because the fees were so high. So the fees are really a big issue too. So I just wanted to kind of put that out there. And also to say, as far as our local nonprofits go, you know, there are other cities, I know McKinney is one and I actually have their agreement here, that have developer incentives for nonprofits that are making affordable or low income housing where they actually, they waive all fees and permitting costs for anybody making building affordable housing. And that's something that touches on development, but that gets to other departments in the city. But I just wanted to throw that out there. I'll be planning to say something about that and my conclud ing remarks and the need for that. But we see these fees are hurting at a number of different levels, you know, homeowners, small business owners and nonprofits. So we really do need to reevaluate those fees. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Manslow? Scott, I was very pleased to see that you've done this extensive benchmarking exercise. Do you plan to bring that to us in the future in a work session? Or could you? We could in a work session. I think we've got the information ready right now for an informal staff report, but we can always bring it forward in a work session at some point. I think that we can certainly talk to you about where we are going right now. I think part of the update of the DDC is where we could go. So there's going to be multiple iterations of this over the next several months. But yeah, we can do a quick update. It shouldn't take that long if you want. Absolutely happy to. And I guess maybe to piggyback on that is that I'm delighted with the success that we're having. But we're really -- we're handcuffed by virtue of because we have rules that we have to live by. So the updates to the DDC are going to really change that or allow us to be a little bit more free flowing. Or it will legislatively take care of the actions that we can't today. So I think you'll see a significant difference. The other part to that is that it's very challenging when you're -- the data you're not able to pull from your own software versus if we were never counting the correct or measuring the correct things in the first place. So we're trying to go back and grab that data. But happy to share it in whatever context I think it will be most valuable when we get closer to when that DDC is completed. Yeah, that's fine. I'm just very curious to see what you've learned about what best practices are, to see where we stack up. Actually building on Council Member Armentor's comment, I don't know if you captured impact on this, you know, comparatively as well, it would be interesting to see where we line up there. And with your indulgence, may I pretend I have a couple of other questions as well. Curious where you're moving from 10 to five day turnaround on some of those items. I think I know the answer to this, but is that sort of soup to nuts process or in a phase? Because part of the complaints that I hear are that we sort of make people go back iteratively. You know, it's one kind of inspection and another kind of inspection and then each one, each phase has its kind of timetable versus doing them, you know, doing them more at the same time. So when you talk about reducing turnaround, is that kind of per phase or per total project? Let me go back to the city manager's charge to me. And so it was, yes, it's his fault. He indicated it was broken and he asked me to break it. So what we're dealing with is trying to put something back together again. And so it's really a holistic approach. So it's not as simple as saying we're doing pieces and parts. Every opportunity that we have to reduce or enhance service delivery, we are. So with that being said, that where we're going to reduce, we know that we can through training, which we've been doing. So that's happening simultaneously. Changing process is happening simultaneously. And then when we ultimately have the code corrected, we're losing all of the silos and the barriers that existed across the organization. Many of these steps we couldn't control within just the department. It's a division or a department or its departments. Now all of those walls have been removed. And so again, where we have a little bit more control over the other departments and how it is that we're able to process, if that answers that. Yeah, well, yeah, certainly the kind of thing I've certainly heard was needed. Music to my ears. If I can also ask you, I noticed that cost of service and operations are each projected to go down by $200,000. I'm just wondering if there's some substantive change that that is reflecting. Part of it is I think some of the internal service charges, which I will leave to our finance director to address that. And then the other part is again, with changes in FTEs, we 're not necessarily at the same expenditures. Okay. Good enough. And just out of pure curiosity, I noticed that the value per average permit, per average individual permit is falling. Our volume is up, but the value per average permit is falling. I don't know. Is that good or bad? Do you have anything, any observation around that? Why do you think that is? The value of the permits can be driven heavily based on large commercial construction. So those can really sway things. So if you're seeing a lot more residential construction in small businesses, that'll drive down your average permit fee. But some of these big ones will really skew things. A WNCO, embassy suites. I mean, some of those things really skew the... So if you don't have one of those in the mix, then the average is lower. You're probably seeing more of a normalizing of what this is. It's residential too. I don't know if it matters or just interesting. Thanks. Council Member Duff. Yeah, I'd like to actually thank you for turning something that was a liability and didn't to an asset. So I think I've seen the results of what you're doing, getting things turned around much better. And I love the attitude that you're taking. Thank you. It's fun. And I'd like to thank you too for all you've done. And I'm very encouraged by more same day permits. That's been one of the things I've pushed for for a number of years. And as we get further into and get closer to adopting the new DDC, I think it's actually gonna make your department run even more efficiently as you only have one code instead of the current two that you're dealing with. So I look forward to working with you in the future. Any other questions? I will just say two budget related issues. We're gonna be re-budgeting a portion of the software package to make Scott whole. We need to get the process improvements in place before we bought the software, so we'll get that whole. And I think the other thing is in July at some point we're gonna be bringing forth a solution really when people talk about our development processes, there's three aspects to it. There's development review engineering, there's planning, and then there's building inspections. And the development review engineering is something that we 're currently studying right now. We're going through and adopting new criteria manuals, that sort of thing. But that is really, I think, the last place we're kind of getting stuck. And I think it's gonna be critical to not only adopting the DDC but also getting that process updated. So we're gonna be bringing you back probably a different service model in July where we're interviewing companies right now that specialize in just doing that and then repurposing our development engineering staff into the engineering department as project managers and designers at Open FTEs. But I think once we can get that, the backlog in place, and once we get those processes ironed out along with the software solution, I'm hoping we see a very different experience than we have here in many, many years. So just kind of a preview of what you're gonna be seeing in July. And I might also add, to piggyback on that, is that we've received a lot of positive comments from developers outside of our area. You know, a national home builder called weeks ago stating that he wouldn't build in Denton. And he's heard good things over the past six months. And he's ready to come here. Richard had a meeting yesterday with the gentleman that was successful in bringing the Cowboys training facility to Frisco and said that he wants to put a development in Denton. And he said he was opposed to coming to Denton, but he's ready. So we are open for business and it's an exciting time in Denton. So thank you. - Council Member Armitage. - Just one more thing to consider going forward as you review the fees and compare them to other cities. I would like to hear, not now, but as part of that discussion that you have internally and then bringing it forward to council, what you consider the purpose of fees for permits to be, you know, to what extent is the, and it's not necessarily a singular purpose, but to what extent is the purpose revenue for the city? To what extent is the purpose to stimulate economic development? And to what extent is it to simply along those lines just to cover the costs so that our small business owners and new homeowners are not going to be prohibited by the fees and if they do. So and you don't even have to answer that now at all, but just kind of those questions while you're looking at it from the ground up, thinking about what are these fees for anyway and are they helping us towards that end? - I can give you a very quick answer on that because it's really going to be the policy discussion you all have. Really the purpose in these permit fees are we would not be carrying as much staff as we do but for the growth and but for the workload that's created for the most part. So the question, the fundamental policy question you're going to be dealing with is what is an appropriate amount to be built in for carrying costs versus how much should we be recouping to offset the staffing needs that growth causes and the technology needs that growth causes. So that is the fundamental question. How it's apportioned is something I think we can bring back to you and give you some ideas. It's also exactly the same conversation on the impact fees. We know that people don't like the impact fees. However, we would not be incurring new roads, new treatment plants, new water plants, but for the growth. So what is an appropriate amount to be contributed and I think Council Member Meltzer in his first meeting had lots of questions about the way we finance capital improvements and that sort of thing. So again, I think when our transportation fees were set, the policy discussion the Council had was basically to recoup about 20 to 30 percent of the cost of those improvements and that really, it's really a subjective decision from you . At what point do you think you've hit a sweet spot that there's enough contribution to offset the growth, the plans, that sort of thing and what should be built into the rates or into the fees in this particular case of either one of those impact fees or building permit fees and it's really discretionary. We'll let you know how other communities are handling that. I've never seen a community that's willing to recoup 100 percent of the cost of anything from a building permit or an impact fee, but it really gets down to what are our other cities doing, where do you feel comfortable and how do you want to put together a schedule to deal with that. So that is exactly how, to your point, Council Member Armit age, exactly how we're going to be putting that data together for you and then if you want to alter it or change philosophies then that's the seven of you get to give us that direction. Anything else? Thank you, Scott. Thank you very much. Facilities management is up next. Good afternoon. I'm Dean Hartley. I'm the facilities manager and I appreciate the opportunity to go over our proposed 18-19 budget for this year. Basically our accomplishments for 17-18, we completed construction for Fire Station 2, the Carl Young Splash Park, the Water Park Wave Pool, the 9 /11 Memorial. We installed an emergency generator at the service center for the whole facility and we completed remodels at City Hall East in multiple departments, major RTS, parks, and PD lobby. Goals for 18-19, complete construction of Fire Station 4. We are open for business out there. We still have some paperwork and getting our LEED cert ifications because that was our last LEED certified fire station for the time. Begin the construction of Fire Station 3. Of course we've already began the construction of VALA and we're moving forward quickly with that. We want to complete the fencing at IWF and Oakwood Cemetery , complete the fire burn tire training facility, complete our master plan, which I've had some dealings with on whether it's a new City Hall, where that would be located, items like that. We want to implement a new department work order system and I'm going to kind of go into some more detail with that. Then we're bringing eight more buildings under our maintenance umbrella, which is seven at solid waste and we're going to take the administration area of the new Denton Energy Center. Our budget emphasis this year, again, we've got prevent ative maintenance and care, 49 buildings, eight more coming on. We've got all vertical construction renovations, the city- owned facilities. We do all the card access systems in 23 buildings and all of the ID cards for every employee in the City of Denton. We've got janitorial services we supervise for 32 buildings , supervision of architects, consultants and contractors for renovations, remodels, and new construction. Then we have a facilities maintenance program, which is basically our preventative maintenance on our replacement of our capital improvements, which are H VC, roofs and flooring. We do that so we continue to move those out and we can schedule the replacement and it's not on an emergency basis. Some of our cost containment strategies we're working on is we're trying to bundle more of our projects like the parking lots that we just had. We had like five or six of those. We tried to bundle together. We just bundled three roof replacements and that allows a couple of things. It allows us to more vendors to be interested that comes in and wants to bid on our projects because it's a larger size. Little larger scale material purchase might get us some discounted rates. It reduces our staff time by combining multiple bid solic itations, evaluations, and council reviews and it reduces our architect engineer time on the production of the bid documents. One other cost containment we have is the possibility of just doing some warehousing of small parts, which is our stuff that's used every day, lights, ballast, slown parts for plumbing, filters, certain things like that. Councilmember Arbator? I would advise or ask staff to look into the possibility of when you do have to replace roofs and are bundling a roof replacement investment that you consider the possibility of solar panels on roofs where that would be appropriate, which of course reduces electricity costs and carbon footprint as well. When it's time to replace a roof anyway, that's a good time to consider that. Thanks. Some of one of our future recommended process improvements. Again, I wanted to go in the work order system. I'm just going to touch briefly with it. The one we have was put in place in 1999. It's antiquated. We can't even get upgrades for it. We want to be more efficient because of the mobile application where our tax are able to actually do the work orders in the field while they're doing it. It's real time. We get feedback directly back from them as it's being completed. Basically our budget highlights 2017-18 versus 18-19. We've only got two pieces that are increasing. Basically it's personal services and that's because we upgraded one of our technical positions to another project manager because of the load that we've got in project management coming on the horizon. Summary position. Summary. We're basically staying, we are staying the same on FTEs. You can see that the only difference is that we now have two of the construction managers, the project managers, and down here we've reduced one of those down to one. We just upgraded one of them, same FTEs for next year. Here's our organizational chart. Next down basically it just tells how many of who and what that we have. Don't think there's much explanation needed in that unless you all have some questions with it. Our current performance measures, our percentage of work orders completed within seven business day, percentage of preventative maintenance completed on schedule, number of work order requests entered and requested, and the square footage maintained per technician. We've got a couple of graphs of those. You can kind of see the percentage of work orders completed in seven business days. We're basically easily running, but our goal is 95%. We're basically running 100 sometimes down to that 95. You can see the first quarter of this year we started at 75 . That's because we've had some reduction or some staff changeover and we're getting people employed and back ramped up. It's the same thing you're seeing in the percentage of preventative maintenance completed on schedule. Same thing, it was the workload that's caused us not to be where we normally are. Number of work requests entered. You can see we're on target this year to exceed what we have. We're usually in about the 3,200 work orders per quarter. You can see we're well above the 3,500 already for the first couple of quarters in this year. Square footage maintained per technician. The yellow is our industry standard, which is the IFMA. It says 70,000 per technician. You can see we're well above that. We're roughly about 90,000, 95,000 per technician that we 're maintaining. These are just basically, and I'm going to run through these really fast. These are our HVC roof flooring replacement programs. These are for two years. We're typically funded at 1.5 million on those. When I get to the end of this for the two years, you're going to see it's going to ramp up to about $3 million for it. A couple of that you might have a question on this first one. We've got the American Legion South that had some repl acements in there and in some maintenance. If we demo that building, then those go away, we just move the next one up in priority. Again, this is just the secondary year of it. These are for '19, and it gets us to the $3.2 million, which is about the 1.5 we're budgeted for. I'm sorry, I just missed that point. You get to 1.5 million, so that's how you get to the 3.2. I just didn't understand that. We get one point, we're usually funded 1.5 per year. This is a two year program. So that we're just showing 3 million out. Understood. Thank you. These are just projects that we're in our daily queue where we're touching on every day right now, which are just items. Some of the statuses have changed since this slide was done . For instance, the airport restrooms, we've just about got them to the point we can bid them. Of course, Fire Station 4, we're in, and it's operational. Vela Complex, it was discussing scope. You know we're in full blown construction on it. Our five year forecast, we looked at just to see how many projects are on the radar for five year forecast that we think is coming down for us to project management. Again, you can see there's about 16 million in the first year. 18. And then, yes, it's the one we just finished up. Actually, you did. You understood that correctly. This was an old number that was floating around out there. I can tell you exactly because of Councilman Husspitz's request today that we were about 834,000 in construction and we were about 72,000 in design. So that's what that number should be in there. Yes, it should be 904. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, we caught that, but not in time to get it changed. In the second year, which is 2019, there's about 9 million possible on the radar. It's the Tennis Center 651 Mayhill Remodel and of course our HVAC, that 1.5 million that we do in replacement. And we're just kind of building on these, but this gets us out for the full five years. You can basically see that if you add all these together, you're at about $62 million over the next five years of projects that facilities are going to be main project managing. Of that, let me make sure I didn't miss it on here. I don't remember seeing it. Of that, how much do you have funding for? Because I see the City Hall West is in there, but that's we 've not really funded. So how much of that amount is there actual funding for? I don't have that answer for you. We can get back to you on it. Yeah, that's fine. That'd be great. Thank you. Appreciate that. I was just going to say, Dean, I think we've got everything funded up there with the exception of the HVAC roofing. It's just a number we build into the budget each year in the Bay. So the service center construction would be, we'll be talking to you later in July about that for that. And the City Hall construction is the other one that's not funded. So everything else is funded. Okay. Thank you. Questions? Comments? We tried to make it as brief as possible. Wonderful. Thank you. Yes. Council Member Melzer. Just slightly curious. Is it that the 17 buildings don't have janitorial service? A lot of them are like fire stations and, you know, they take care of their own. Some of them are warehousing operations, which is taken care of by staff. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. I was informed that the dinner, which is pizza, is in the back. So if you guys want to grab pizza right quick before we get started in the next presentation or -- welcome, everyone. Welcome everyone back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, June 26, 2018. It is 537 p.m. We are proceeding through our work session reports. We are on work session report item 3C. We received a board hold discussion and received department al presentations. So we are on our next departmental presentation, which I believe is fleet services. Yes, sir. Mayor, members of council, thank you so much for your time this afternoon. It's certainly a privilege to present the fleet plan. Before I get started, though, just briefly, fleet services as mentioned earlier, and I wanted to let you know that we are working with the solid waste department, with Ethan and his group, to come up with options to address those issues that were brought up in the Blue Ridge study. Thank you. It started out a little different with the org chart as opposed to some of the other presentations, but I think the main takeaway here is we've been tweaking this for a little bit of time now, and we continue to make little adjustments to our org chart. I think the main thing I'd like you to see here is that I have an awesome staff, and I'm really proud of the people that I work with in fleet, and I can't say enough about them in terms of their abilities and my confidence in them to move our program forward. Some of the accomplishments from 17 and 18, you know, the green fleet and auto reduction policies and ordinances that were put in place, I think, are pretty important. Also wanted to mention a couple that are not on here, and that is that we did receive an award for 100 best fleets of the Americas. We ranked 26th this year, and I think the city manager was pretty proud of that as well in this fleet, so I wanted to make sure I mentioned that. Also, we did receive our ASE Blue Seal of Excellence, and that's based on the fact that we have 75% of our technicians are ASE certified in the shop, and that says a lot about the technical staff we have as well as, you know, our customer service abilities that goes towards that as well. Some of the goals for 18-19 coming up, we are focusing on customer service and particularly educating, education with the customer's communication. We want to make sure that we can work with them in helping us to maintain their vehicles. Part of that education, of course, is the importance of PM compliance, and that's a number that we track. We have been working with that this year, and I really appreciate the support I have had from upper management with the city, and we are really getting that under control. It's just an important part of the maintenance process, and we are hoping to improve that by another 5% this year. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, I'm sorry, I just don't know what customer PM is. PM compliance is we schedule preventative maintenance on every piece of equipment, so it's the -- I'm sorry. Our budget emphasis is going to be on customer service. You're going to hear that repeatedly here, but internal efficiencies is something that we've concentrated on and will continue to concentrate on. How can we become better internally, improve our operations from within, and all these things kind of go hand in hand. The very bottom one is one that's probably one of the most important things we need to address in case you haven't heard. We do have -- we are low on shop space, we're just about out of space to work on vehicles, and so we're going to be working diligently to try to add additional shop space, and you'll hear about more of that in the future as well. Our cost containment strategies include watching our FTE count. We were able to eliminate an admin two position simply through some efficiencies and some job responsibility reorganization. And that's really where the cost savings is for fleet. Our technical staff are actually -- we bill for their time, so that's not as much of a cost saving. We did reduce our technical staff by a temporary position. And then the heavy equipment technician was added this year . It was appropriated due to the solid waste mining operation , but we didn't fill that position based on their study and the reorganization efforts. Externally, you know, we plan on reducing our shop fees this year by $71,500. Our parts markup, 2%, that's a $52,000 net to our customers . Elimination of the vehicle admin fee is an important one. It's kind of been an area of contention for several years. So we're going to propose eliminating that entire fee. What is that exactly? That is the per vehicle fee that we charge our customers, and it's basically in the past has been for complete management of that asset. So when an asset comes into the fleet and it's over $5,000 value, we charge them a fee of $246, and that's to manage the life of that asset, basically. It helps cover our staffing overhead. Is that per vehicle? Per vehicle. Per year? Yes. So if you're going to eliminate that, where are you going to make up that? We are going to make that up in some efficiency, some productivity improvements in our technical staff because they're going to be the ones that cover this amount. So it will come from our technicians, actually, the hourly rate that we charge. We're not increasing that hourly rate, but we're going to make it up with that. It gives us a total of about $369,000 this year that we're planning on. So some of the solutions, just basically use of technology, process improvements, optimization, those type things, and time management, how we manage our technicians' time, basically. So one question that will follow sort of dovetail with the conversation this afternoon with the solid waste issue. So those cost improvements and the reduction of FTEs, that 's not going to impact your ability to continue to provide efficient, productive maintenance and repair to the fleet? I just don't want us to... No, these changes here will not do that. Those suggestions or recommendations were not addressed in this presentation. So those additional technicians are not included in this presentation. So even if we set them aside, even just in the normal course of your business, it won't have that impact of affecting service. No, sir. We plan to maintain our current service levels. Yeah, and just to answer your question more specifically, we have budgeted for at least six heavy duty equipment operators for a solid waste. The discussion we're having right now is the labor market is so tight that, Terry, and we'll be back to you later in July to discuss this, but we 're really looking at a couple options. We just lease part of our fleet for the next year until we can get the new ones in and save them all the time of chasing around some of the maintenance issues that they're having. We're doing the cost analysis right now and it surprisingly may be pretty even to do that until we get the new vehicles in. The other thing that we're potentially looking at doing is if we can't fill those positions, bringing somebody on site that specializes in heavy equipment as well. So we'll have a pro forma cost recommendation for you in July while we're working on getting that solid waste budget put together. But those costs right now we've held in the solid waste budget. We can either transfer them over to fleet or just keep them there, but the money will be there. Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Some of the process improvements that we've looked at so far are our work order process. We've looked at that from the customer standpoint and we've made some changes in how that, based on their feedback to us and how they come into the shop, initiate a work order. We've made some major changes there. We're still looking at the rest of the process in terms of how often each staff member has to touch that work order before it's closed out. Of course, we want to improve the preventative maintenance scheduling and the customer notification process so that everybody's on the same page in terms of the importance of that and that they're notified properly. And then some of the future things that we're going to be working on is warranty tracking and recovery and that's both for parts and labor. Typically fleets don't do a very good job of that. We're no exceptions. We think there's a lot of improvement that can be made there. Every piece of equipment comes in with a warranty. Parts have a warranty. We want to be sure that we're in a place and have processes in place to recover that. And then always working on new equipment, bid and RP processes. We work closely with the purchasing department to get those scheduled in a timely manner and this year we're going to focus on that. Councilmember Amatuer has a question. About the preventative maintenance scheduling and customer notification, I don't remember if you heard the solid waste consultant report, but it seemed, I mean, what they were saying about improvements needed for solid waste, as far as preventative maintenance and customer notification, I take it that's across the board that doesn 't only apply to solid waste, right? We certainly haven't heard that from other departments with solid waste. We've got, again, we'll be back to you in a few weeks on this, but we've got an issue with some of these newer vehicles. They switched the body style in 2014 and these trucks are, we're getting about what, three and a half years, Terry, out of them on average. So that's just not acceptable. So one of the things that we're doing is Terry's working with purchasing and with Ethan to see if there's a different body style that's out there that obviously we can get some more time out of, we're looking at and beefing up the mechanics time as well. And we may be back to you with a recommendation to lease 10 or 15 vehicles until we can get the new ones ordered in here, because it's about a year lead time on those. So those are the things that we're doing to try to address that issue and give his technicians a chance to catch up because there's so much going wrong with these vehicles from the last few years that they're just not keeping up from what I understand. And why they... Is that fair? That's fair. Why are they, they're a year lead time? Are they made overseas or...? No, they're made in, the bodies are made in Arizona and this company has went through some major changes since we first started using that particular body. In the first three years we used them, they were great. They did a fine job. They were easy to maintain. The company changed hands. They had some quality control issues that we're actually working through with them now currently. We had a meeting this morning with their group and with their local supplier. And we think there's some things, processes we can put in place to improve our situation. Certainly we need to do that. We're looking at all aspects of how to do that. Yes, Council Member Meltzer? Yeah. I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Council Member Armintorpe , but were you asking about the software that would alert the user of the vehicle about the status of the vehicle and also the need to educate the users of the fleet about how they're going to kind of holistically check out the vehicle and repair everything maybe beyond just the one little thing that they found bad, that business? That was part of it. All of that bundled in. All of those recommendations seem like they could apply more broadly to possibly the whole fleet. They do. Yeah, is that- Yeah, it's going to be across the board. It's not just solely concentrated at solid waste, although that's one of the discussions we've certainly had. Some of the performance measures that we track, some of these are put on a dashboard and promoted monthly. The bottom four, some of those are new performance measures and we report on those quarterly. So I just wanted to draw your attention to the PM compliance. That's one we think we can get better. We've made some improvements. The trend now is that it's moving up towards that targeted 95%, which is good. The waste idle report is a new report and we're really just trying to develop some baseline numbers for that. It's basically the number of hours that the vehicle sits id ling or a piece of construction equipment where it's not doing useful work. So part of that will be educating our customers on what's a proper idle time and what isn't. And then we're always looking at asset utilization and how we can be more fiscally responsible in terms of the number of pieces of equipment that we have and making sure that each one of those pieces gets utilized properly and adequately rather than have them as spares or just in case. Just a question of curiosity on the waste idle hours. How do you measure that? So there's something in the vehicle that can tell if the engine is idling and keeps a record? We have a couple of different ways. The engine ECM tracks some of that for us, but we also have another piece of equipment, GPS through global positioning unit that monitors that and we get that information through our fuel system currently. So when you say idle, you mean actually not just sitting still, but sitting still with the engine running? Correct. Okay. In park and in neutral sitting still, stop light. So not producing work. So we'll take a look at the revenue and expenditure side. Basically we just made a couple of changes on the revenue side. We wanted to adjust the fuel sales for accuracy. Of course prices are going up, so we made a little bit of change there. But the big thing is that we're proposing to remove the contingency fee. There's a $1.25 million contingency that has always been added into our fuel and that's just to give us the authority in case there was emergency so that we'd have authority to purchase fuel. But it's always made our budget kind of confusing when you take a look at it. So we're looking at doing that. We talked about some of these other items earlier. Our productivity estimates and our parts markup being reduced by 2%, those kind of things. So on the expenditure side, there's a little bit of increase in insurance. We've got some additional money in our baseline for diagnostic software and we have increased our parts line item. A lot of that is due to the refuse truck fleet that we know we need to get up and running better. Our capital projects are a new vehicle for the rental fleet , for motor pool to be shared by departments. We're looking at another electric vehicle, whether that's a bolt or whether that's whatever manufacturer it is. Just a comment. I had a meeting down in Arlington and we took the bolt. So we took one of the new vehicles down there, electric vehicles. Wonderful experience. So very, I think that's a very good purchase. Comfortable ride. Quiet. Quiet. Very quiet. So hats off to you guys. I think that's a good addition. You didn't have to stop and refill, correct? No, no. We had to worry about avoiding speeding tickets because the driver, which wasn't me, and he will remain unnamed but he's in this room. No, I'm kidding. I'm teasing. Obviously that's not true. But anyway, it was, that's right. But I really appreciate, Mark, you bringing that to use as that trip because I think it's a great addition and certainly promotes our sustainability and fuel efficiency and the like. So thank you so much. Our hope is that the total cost of ownership of that unit is going to be really low because of the very, very little maintenance. Great. Great. So on the revenue budget highlights, basically you'll see an adjustment there in the fuel. You'll see down there in the fuel contingency line. We took that 1.25 million out this year. Our miscellaneous, everything else is pretty much the same. We're still anticipating about 30,000 fleet rental. And then down at the bottom, the transfer line, that's the administrative fee that we're proposing and removing completely. On the expense side, you can see not much change in the personal services. Everything there is pretty straightforward again. The very bottom, I want to draw your attention to the capital outlay because we know we're short of base base and so we are planning ahead, we're planning to use a little bit of our fund balance, I'm sorry, and cash fund the beginning of this expansion project. We've worked on a few different options that we'll bring before you and see which way to go on that. But we want to make sure that we cash fund the beginning of that at least. So that's what the 786, that's the electric vehicle and the shop expansion project. Yes, Council Member. So that- Going back aside, you mentioned fuel only. That means fuel expenses up to here. Yes. So moving to- Oh, your microphone. Your microphone, yeah. I'm sorry. Sorry. That's a significant savings. That's a significant number and by all accounts, every vehicle manufacturer is moving to more and more electric platforms. I think it's only a matter of time before we see a lot more electric vehicles on the streets. Basically, just a summary of our positions. I mentioned at the beginning, but we have six administrative staff and 16 technicians, we're total of 22 people. We also have four contracted employees that operate our contracted services for our parts department. We consider them, we work closely with them. They're on site daily and they're not included in this number of course, but they are a part of our total staff fleet. So with that, any questions or comments? I hope that was- Any further comments, questions? Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you. [inaudible] Assuming airport is next. Yes, sir. Mayor, members of council, good evening. I'm Scott Gray, airport manager. Thank you for the opportunity to present the airport budget for my first time with the city. Be happy to answer questions as we go and I'll try to keep us on schedule here. I did want to touch upon just a few of our accomplishments that I think were important in our first, in this current fiscal year. The complete lease review and revenue recovery billing process that has been completed. That was the review of all the leases, the consumer price index increases and so forth. That went very well, resulted in one time increase of 75, 000 and an annual increase of about 73,000 a year. So it turned out very well with minimal concerns from our tenants. Initiate the construction of the parallel runway. I'm sure most of you have heard this parallel runway discussion for quite some time. We do anticipate that start to be in August, September, so we're still keeping our fingers crossed to get the FAA documents here in the next several weeks. Did want to touch upon the airport airfield lighting and signage enhancements. We use the text dot grant, which is a 50/50 match grant that we get every year. We replaced about $50,000 worth of signage, signage panels and the lighting on the runway to bring everything up to FAA standard. There was some information that was provided earlier this morning that you may have seen that shows the picture of the two signs and how faded they were. We received quite a bit of comments back from our users that how much easier it is to see at night and certainly with the runway lighting and in poor weather, it helps them find the runway environment a lot quicker. The initiate airport rates and fees, minimum standards and leasing policy. As you may recall, in May we did the rates and fees schedule already. The rules, regs, minimum standards and leasing policy will be coming forward. We're starting that process now. We'll probably finish pieces of that in the subsequent months and then probably finish the vast majority of that in this next budget period. Lastly, on the accomplishments is the utility extension. That project is actually about ready to go out to bid. That will extend a sewer line to several parcels that will allow us to start marketing that for development and expand our acreage. For the goals of 18-19, certainly complete that parallel runway. If we started in the August-September timeframe, we should be finished about this time next year which will be a great enhancement for the safety of our airfield. And then the last one I wanted to identify there was the complete, the development of our airport guiding documents. We've had some brief discussions of that in the Council Airport Committee. That includes the city code. Chapter three of the city code covers the airport. There's some code provisions in there that are a little dated. They've been around since the '60s so we would like to take a look at that and bring that up to speed but also look at our rules, regulations, our minimum operating standards, our leasing policies, all of those documents combined to give us a nice foundation to move forward in the future. Our budget emphasis is maybe slightly different than some of the other departments. I've been in the airport business for about 26 years and my philosophy has always been to do a zero-based line item budget. So we review every line item and every expenditure for the last two years and then build our budget from there rather than starting from a starting point and kind of adding to it. Since I've only been here a year, it was a really good learning experience for me to see what was all in our budget and it also allowed us to do some cost controls and some line item readjustments for some of those items. We did focus on expenditure control, enhanced revenue evaluation, working with the finance staff and then enhanced safety through staff training. Mainly as we got some new turnaround of staff is training them in the importance of airport safety and doing airfield inspections to make sure we have a safe operating environment for our operators. Our cost containment strategies I mentioned was the zero- based, the budget line items. We did look at that two-year review and it did provide us an opportunity to move some of the line items around to be more categorized to allow us to track them better in the future. Then we did reassess all of our existing capital projects and realign some of the funding as is being done in the city with the capital budget program. We looked at some of our projects that may have been hanging around for a while or no longer needed and reallocated those funds to important projects that we're trying to finish now, mainly regarding security and safety. Some of the completed processes was the lease review and billing process that I mentioned. We put into place some staff benchmarks to keep track of those on a regular basis so we don't lose sight of those billing cycles and changes to the CPIs on a regular basis. The development review process, we've worked with development review and engaged ourselves as a staff member of the airport is now at the preliminary DR meetings and subsequent meetings with anybody that's constructing on the airfield. We can answer questions as it relates not necessarily to the development side, which we allow the development review staff to present their expertise, but really how it relates to the lease that they have and the permitted uses as it relates to that so we don't run into a conflict with that later on. We did complete the vacant land appraisal. It was an appraisal of all of our vacant lands to set fair market values, which will help us moving forward with the vacant parcels that we have. At the same time, they also evaluated other fee structures that we had and compared to our neighboring airports in the Metroplex, similar to our airport, and allowed us to create that rates and fees schedule back in May. And then finally, we did some staff reorganization where we focused certain tasks to airport operations, which is safety and security type role from the maintenance role so we could have a better handle on those. Some of the future projects is the update of our various plans and programs and you're probably going, wow, that's pretty vague. That's our airport emergency plan, our wildlife management plan, our storm water prevention pollution fans. Those plans are in place, but they're a little bit dated so we're going to review all those and bring them up to speed as well. Make sure they're all compliant. I talked already about the airport guiding documents and then lastly is the enhanced the airfield inspection program. As I mentioned, the training and focusing on the airport inspections, the reason that's important now is because we have a second runway coming online in about a year and we want to make sure all of our processes are in place, that we're doing the right thing with what we have in place. When we open a new runway, we'll have two runways to inspect so that will give us that time to make sure that our processes are in place and we're tracking all of those deficiencies and addressing them in a timely manner. So some of the performance measures for the airport, obvious one is the number of takeoffs and landings. You can see that our goal is about 140,000 for this current fiscal year. We're on target for just under that right now, but we are seeing some spikes in some operational levels over the last couple of months. I think flight training has peaked a little bit. We are getting some flight training operators coming from other airports in the Metroplex right now and I think when we see that second runway, we'll also see significant bump on that as well. How many acres that we think we're going to lease? Our goal was seven. We were on target for that, but we had one of our leases that we subsequently have canceled that lease and we're moving forward with maybe some other operators to lease that. We'll be close, but we'll see how that goes. We maintain a little over 1,000 acres out at the airport with two staff members. We mow it. We do all of the safety inspections and so forth. So we maintain, it's 3,300 acres there and the reason why is because some of those acreages we mow multiple times per month. So we may mow the runway airfield area several times a month where some other areas we only may mow once a month. And when you add it all together, how many acres we maintain over the year, it adds up to 3,300. The percentage of daily inspections completed. We complete 100% of daily inspections except for the weekends and holidays because we don't have staff present. Our goal is when we move through this budget and I can touch upon some of the changes that we're looking at is to actually be able to cover weekends and holidays and have 100% coverage of our facilities every day. The percentage of leases reviewed annually. We just completed all of them, which is a little over 50. Our goal is to touch each one of those leases every year just to make sure there's no issues with whether it be compliance or whether it be fee adjustments that we do on a monthly basis periodically throughout the year. And safety critical issues completed within 48 hours. This is a new tracking method, both of these last ones were . We created an airport work order system similar to what facilities may use in-house. We created one more airport related that allows us to track safety critical improvement or safety critical deficiencies and how long it takes us to respond to those and our goal is 100% and so far we are targeting that. So now into more of the fun stuff, which is the broader look at just the revenues and expenses in the net and our fund balance and I'll get into the specifics of the revenues and expenses in those particular categories in a moment. We do have a fund balance, a fairly strong fund balance, but you'll see over the five year projection that we're looking at a net loss, which is primarily because we're funding a multi-year capital improvement program for pavement maintenance at the airport. Reason why we're funding that pavement maintenance using our fund balance is we are the grants that we're getting from FAA and the state are being focused on very large projects. So there's not a lot of other grants that we can get so we 're drawing down some of our fund balance to take care of pavement maintenance so we can get extended life out of those. We do anticipate favorable revenues based on the new lease at fair market values that I mentioned earlier and increased revenue to fuel flowage fees as we see those increased operations and we are seeing a little spike in that and I think we'll start to see a little bit more of that as we get into this next fiscal year. Just curious, I know that there's revenue from Nine Wells at the airport. Gas wells, yes sir. Yeah, gas wells and how much of the revenue is accounted for by that? What was the peak and what do you see going forward from that? That's a great question and I have another slide that will show some of those numbers if I can get to that one. And I'll explain kind of the unfortunate news of the gas wells for the airport. Our expenditure review resulted in improved line item details and I mentioned we had some expenditures and line items that didn't make a lot of sense so we've moved those and you'll see some of those changes in the next couple of slides. So here's our revenue slide which will get you your question, the gas well royalties. You can see that the gas well royalties in the '14-'15 timeframe was about $581,000 and you can see that it is dipped but then it increased a little bit. They did do some well reworks and I won't get into the details of what that means but it was some minor changes to the wells that did cause a little bit of a spike but now you'll see that it's a fairly solid dip there and we're working with legal. There seems to be some lease compliance issues about what's reductions are permitted under the lease so we're working through legal to see if we can recapture that but it's $90,000 to $100,000 difference over the year so we're hopeful that we can actually recapture that funding and increase that number. But what we're going to see over time is it's diminishing asset unless they rework the wells and find more gas to get out of the system that we'll see that number continually decreasing. We're estimating about 3% a year on decrease. You can see-- Yes, go ahead, Katsy. Is there any economic feasibility at any point in selling off that asset if it-- price continues to dip or is that not realistic? The gas wells? The gas wells are actually not owned by the city. It's leased out to these companies that did that and then we get a royalty from it. So we have a long-term relationship with those folks. They can shut down the wells as they become non-producing. They've closed one so far at the airport. I see another one that's probably likely to close as well but as they rework some of the other ones they've kind of peaked so they may come to us and request additional wells. They have enough pad sites that they could expand. I see. So it's just-- so our only-- so we're not invested in it. It's just that they are leasing the land and that those roy alties come to us. Correct. We get a land lease and then we get a royalty from it. Got it. Thanks. Land leases is the ones that I mentioned. We have about 50 leases or so. You can see that we've had some fairly steady growth. Certainly that's from just standard CPIs and maybe a few developments over the last several years and then you'll see a pretty good growth over this budget and next budget. Some of that we didn't realize this year but we are repro gramming to next year plus we have 17 acres of additional land that we're hoping to get leased out over time and then we have some terminal area development opportunities that might actually see us some increased revenues in that area. As you can see, we have a slight increase from current budget to proposed mainly just from the standard city percentage increases on some of our projections. This is the expense categories similar to the rest of the budgets that you've seen. Personnel services, we're not increasing any personnel services or FTEs. That's just the increases projected over time. I just want to point out if you see the maintenance line item that was 105,000, the decrease to 61, and you'll see that there's an increase in operations. Some of these things have just been moved around as I said that they were just miscategorized in the past and we've just moved them. You can see we had a slight increase of about $20,000 from last year's budget to this year's budget as far as expenses. I mentioned earlier the $250,000 there and the transfer to capital projects, that's that pavement maintenance program for airfield pavement maintenance. There's another project that I'll get to in a moment for the landside street program. Just a comment, because I know we did this I think it was last year, the year before last, when we took the debt service out of the airport enterprise fund and I believe it's the general fund that is paying for that debt service now. And I'll repeat my comment, if it's an enterprise fund, we may have to go back and look at that again because do you guys pay franchise fees? No, sir, that is stopped as well. Okay. So, yeah, if the debt service were still in there, the budget would be quite a challenge. I mean, we'd just be drawing down the fund balance and it would be gone within three or four years. About two to three, correct. We did look at four scenarios with finance and dug into that very deeply about options of how to address that. Okay, yeah. All right. The FTEs, we have administrative and operations and maintenance staff. We have six individuals and there's the folks that we have. What we're doing is repurposing some of our maintenance staff. We found a way to outsource a little bit of our mowing. We mow, as I mentioned earlier, quite a bit of mowing. We've looked at a way to work with the existing city contract that was out to outsource about 90 acres, which allows us to gain about 1,500 work hours that will allow us to address some of our maintenance deficiencies and increase our operational presence for the weekends and holidays. The five-year capital program, the 250,000 is the airfield maintenance program from Gaswell Royalties. It's basically drawing down fund balance. The airport road rehabilitation project is a large one, $1. 3 million. All of the roads that are at the airport are not under the streets program. They're under the airport and many of them are failing from just high use of construction vehicles and so forth. They don't have curbs, so the streets start to fail on the sides and we're seeing that pretty significant in areas. Working with the streets department and working with finance, it was recommended that we go through bond financing to do that project moving forward and get all the streets up to speed, including curbs. Some of them will take full-depth repairs, some of them are just maintenance projects. Will the debt service on those bonds be treated like we're treating the debt service now? In other words, they'll just be paid out of the general fund? Yes, sir. Okay. As I mentioned earlier, reallocating the existing fundings to priority projects, we worked with finance and did that already. As I mentioned earlier, the TechSat $100,000 grant we get every year, we're focusing it mainly towards airfield safety and security projects moving forward. Happy to answer any questions? This is, I ask this every year and so it's good. Given that we've moved the debt service out and given that we've, you know, we're seeing a reduction in the fund balance pretty much on a yearly basis, at some point, if those trends don't, if that trend doesn't reverse, either through leases or whatever we're doing, I know you guys are working real hard to try to find all aspects of revenue, then the fund balance will be depleted and then we'll have to figure something else out. So my question is, when we take into account revenues to the airport, I know I've had some people ask me, we don't take into, it's just direct revenues. It's lease payments, oil royalties, fuel flows and stuff like that. And I think we've done this before where we've tried to determine what is the amount of property taxes paid for either the fixed improvements, which I think are mainly all leased or no, they still would be taxed on their hangers, I think. And then also any sales tax. And if I remember, it's not as much as we thought. Is that correct? Oh, we've got the finance guy. All right. That's the finance. Yes. Yes, Mayor, we did look at this as part of the 2017 tax year. What we found was there was about 21 million of real property valuation. About 14 million was aircraft and about 10 million was business personal property. That's about $46 million at the current tax rate. That's about $290,000 of property tax revenue that comes to the city that's then split, obviously, between the operations and also the debt service . So that's kind of what we found in 2017. We certainly haven't looked at it for 2018, but we can certainly investigate that further. Yeah, my only point is, and some people had pointed out, which the comment was if we included all that, then the airport's doing fine and it's solvent. And I'm not saying it's not solvent, but even at that level , if the trend continues, we might stay stable, but yet it seems like we are seeing expenses over revenue pretty much year after year. So at some point, when do we start really looking at the forecast to go, okay, if the fund balance gets down to half a million or a million dollars and you got maybe three or four or five years left, I just want to make sure we still keep that in mind because we don't want to get to that point and not have some plan, obviously, and you all will. You probably already do, actually. Is that something that you all, I guess you only do five- year forecasts? Correct. Okay. Yeah. I think for the next five years, I think there'll be adequate fund balance. I think some of the things that the airport is doing currently might generate additional revenues. Good. Is it going to generate enough revenues to continue to make that sustainable enterprise fund is yet to be seen? Okay. I would likely say that probably after the 10 years, we're probably still going to have some amount of fund balance in there to continue to support those operations, but certainly at some point, we'll need to look at the possibility of bringing that back into the general fund. Okay. You bet. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? Great presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Things are going well out there. Thank you. All right. I think we've got one more. Do we have one more? Oh, transportation and legal. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council. Welcome back. Welcome back, sir. So, it's a transportation budget for '18-'19. I'll make it real quick. It's a very small budget, very small operation. I was going to say it's just you. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But this is where I have the oversight. This is the org chart for where I'm at. The innovative transportation solutions, you know that as John Polster and his staff, that reports to me up through and assisting our other partner departments, which would include CIP capital. Just going to cover a couple of these bullet points, really outlining the first three here on the left in terms of securing the additional funding for Mayhill, working through TxDOT to secure the commitment on the Mayhill Road underpass, which will enhance the capacity at that location, about a $45 million, $46 million project once that comes to fruition. And then really this third item here in terms of trying to coordinate with TxDOT area office to improve some communication. TxDOT hasn't always been as readily, hasn't brought information to us as quick as we would like it. So we're trying to work with the citizens and help TxDOT with their issues and be responsive to the citizens. That's something that we're trying to put a little more focus in and moving forward that we've had some success. We're still working through some of the issues there, but we expect to get better as we move forward. In terms of goals for the upcoming year, just like to highlight the top left, top right here, the first one is working with North Central Texas Council of Governments. That's about a $45 million project, which would be the northern phase six and seven, essentially from University Drive up to 77 or up to 288 would be the phase seven component. And so what we're trying to do is work a partnership with multiple agencies to include TxDOT, North Central Texas Council of Governments and the county. Council Member Hadsworth. Thank you. Are we going to be able to partner with DISD on that stretch? I know there was some conversation. They're in the conversation, yes, sir. We had an all hands on meeting, I guess about six weeks ago . We've had a couple of follow up with North Central Texas Council of Governments. We provided some additional information. We believe that's going well. It's probably time for us to circle the wagons on that again. Yes, sir. I just drove that stretch between land where they're putting the apartments and so I guess that's low, but I forget the state highway. But my question is, is there an overlay out there? Has DISD got that far where they're outlining where they see the traffic flow or where they see the traffic flow patterns? I know it's way early. I'm not sure if they're there yet. I'm just curious. I have not seen anything in terms of traffic patterns as to where the traffic would be moving through that. We do have a site plan, a preliminary site plan on where that would be, which would be again off of Bonnie Bray and south of 77. Right. Okay. Thank you. The other one top right here would be coordinating with TechStot and the county on the FM 1515 project. As you know, there's quite a bit of development taking place, not only on the airport, but out in the industrial area and we'd like to improve that particular roadway, improve the capacity, taking it from a rural two lane undivided highway to a six lane urban section. And so county's funding some preliminary planning efforts on that. So we get through that, then we've got to push that issue with TechStot to fund the construction side of it. So some of the different areas of budget emphasis, again, trying to enhance our surface transportation options, working through with the various agencies that we partner with. Capacity and choices is important. And then leveraging the local funding, really chasing other dollars that can better leverage our local dollar here, whether that's through TechStot or whether that's through North Central Texas Council of Government where they distribute federal funding. And then certainly trying to work with DCTA on certain areas as well. Yes, Councilman Baxter. Do we coordinate with the county at all? Absolutely. In the same way? Yes, sir. Again, I might back to that question. They are funding the preliminary schematic design for FM 15 15. That's coming out of county funding. So really where can we come to play? And that is really communication, collaboration, make sure we're communication across departments, single point or single point in some cases with the various agencies, make sure our message is sharp and clear. Provide focus to those funding requests across the spectrum . Process improvements, working with those stakeholder meetings with their regional partners. We've had in the past this transportation working group. And so we reconstituted that here again. That's getting to the heart of the matter is to find out what projects need additional funding, prioritization issues as we're starting to see different development activity taking place in different parts of the community. It's important that we get that transportation network in place. So working with not only capital improvements in the engineering department but certainly with our planning and development. I mentioned this earlier, the advance notification on projects, we find often that the information just doesn't get out in a timely manner and trying to come to play on that front is important to us. What you'll see in terms of my budget this year is we've done some reorganization, the bike and pedestrian component has been reorganized and moved up under the traffic operations. So it's reporting directly to pre-TEM now. And so that part of my budget has reduced over -- been reduced from past year. And that's evident here. You'll see in the '17-'18 budget a reduction down to about half of what it was. Under operations, that's where we have the contracts for IT S and then the other costs associated with that are some dues associated with the various organizations, whether that's Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition and/or with North Central Texas Council of Government. Department of One, that would be me. Then we looked at three FTEs in the -- were set up this year. It was the bike and pedestrian myself, bike and pedestrian coordinator, and then there was going to be a management analyst. But again, with the restructure, we've trimmed that down and looking at doing some shared FTEs in terms of the FTE and then again bike and ped is in capital projects. So with that, I'll stand for any questions that you may have. Just a couple -- I've got one question, a couple comments. Actually, a couple questions. Bonnie Bray from 35 along where Apogee is all the way to Roselon. I think that's Phase 3. Is that Phase 3? I'm having to go backwards. Yeah. Bonnie Bray north to -- No, Bonnie Bray is south from Apogee Stadium down to Rosel on. Yes, yes, yes. That's 3 because 4 -- So that's -- so that -- I've just had some people ask me about that at the university track now. What's the -- I will need to get with Todd Estes on that. They're managing that component of the project. Quiet zones? So you're working with trying to get our quiet zones finally? Collaborating with Pre-Tem, yes, sir. Okay, implemented. And I just want to say, I think you have -- you working with your partners have done a great job on some of these really major projects such as the May hill Road, being able to find funding for that ultimate alignment. I think some of the concerns that they had about the one lane service road over around Teasley Lane and along I-35 and Luke 288, you know, that sort of crazy mess, I think you've been working real hard to try to get that resolved. So I really appreciate, you know, there's been some interesting transportation challenges over the last 12 to 15, 16 months, but you've really advoc ated for the city and for our projects. So I really do appreciate that. I think you've done a great job. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? All right. Fantastic. Thank you. One left. Legal department. Is that right? Is that you? Oh, it's Larry. Oh, I was -- darn. I was getting ready to grill Aaron up there. So -- It's kind of like riding the dock and you're the last hearing of the day and everybody's wanting to get a home. Well, you're not the last hearing, my friend. We got a long way to go. So yeah. Larry Paulson, city attorney's office. Let me go back here. What I want to do real quick was just talk to you all. I'm going to talk to you about the city attorney's office. We're a direct report to the city council. We deal with -- Hey, Larry. Would you mind -- I'm getting the light. Would you mind pulling the mic a little bit closer? Okay. Yeah, you don't need to bend down. You had it pushed away. So we'll try that. If I get the light, I'll have to -- I'm usually in closed session. That's why I push it back. Okay. There you go. So, you know, we're responsible for all the city's litigation and prosecution in the municipal court, you know, approve all the ordinances and resolutions that are passed by council and review and approve and most time draft and edit all the contracts of the city and generally act as general council, in-house council for the city. Starts with the city council. It goes down to management and all the boards and commissions. With that, I'd like to go into our accomplishments and really process improvements and these are tied in together. And this year we conducted an internal needs assessment and reorganized the office for improved management. And I want to tie these into the core values which we have tried to follow in doing all this and this really ties into fiscal responsibility and outstanding client service. We've broken the office down into two areas. Short hand is transactional litigation. Transactional includes non-transactional which is all the in-house drafting but utilities and regulatory and litigation includes enforcement and risk management. And enforcement would be the municipal court. We'd start instituting weekly attorney staff meetings. This is the first time that we've done that since I've been here. And we started weekly one-on-ones with the attorneys that we're responsible for. I will meet with the attorneys I'm responsible for for about 30 to 45 minutes a week just to go over where they're at on their workload to make sure we're getting things out timely and also to move priorities around. It's been a bit of a challenge recently because we've been short staffed but we're still trying we're still moving on that. The last one is going through these weekly staff meetings and going through the one-on-ones is we recognize the need for an additional deputy city attorney. How really how we've come to that conclusion is is this is a more experienced attorney than an entry-level assistant city attorney and this need this is someone that would have defined experience in municipal law and this is a it's a highly specialized area that not a lot of people practice in and we get pulled to a lot of different boards commissions we have overlap we have we're right now kind of chasing our tails in terms of coverage and what we have seen is having another experience kind of a utility infielder at a higher level will give us better coverage on getting everything done timely. The next was an improved working relationship and communication with city management at all levels and this is really taken on since the new city manager has shown up is there's been a strong collaborative effort between our office and city management across the board on everything. Aaron is he attends the city of the city manager has a weekly meeting on Wednesday mornings after city council they weren't attendance on also the city attorney and the two first assistants we we make ourselves available 24/7 in any event some legal issue arises it's no different from city management. We have started weekly bi-weekly monthly meetings with high -use departments we're trying to get proactive on in front of all the projects that are coming out because in the past and I'm not sure why that was we came in we'd come in on the back end of a lot of things and that would end up slowing down the process and we're proactively going out with all the departments I know we have weekly meetings with purchasing we have weekly meetings with DME all the high-use of departments were out there and we find out what they need at the time they recognize they need something and then we're starting to really get into that with purchasing on the bid side of things so we get things bid properly get things out timely. I've worked with the attorneys to go out and this is no different than private practices to go out and know who your client is and that's to go out on site to the departments and find out what they're all about learn to speak their language and find out what their needs are because parks talks one language utilities will talk in their language finance I mentioned it once Tony that they have their own language and so we want to go out there and find out what they do and understand their needs. This has been one that that I'm particularly proud of with where we've gone on this is there's been a complete switch on the council general review process in terms of our office and what we've done is for the first time the city attorney has been invited to attend the weekly council agenda committee meeting which I think we were all kind of shocked that that hadn't happened in the past and I know council member Ryan had picked out something in an agenda that we it really wasn't a responsibility of any one department pick out but through a working kind of a collaborative effort we can make sure the agenda hits everything it needs to. We've instituted a closed session implement we've implemented it's a closed session review and what it is is historically up until probably the last year one of the concerns a lot of citizens had in the community were all the closed sessions and we have we've required now to have a closed session justification and as you've noticed and as the community has noticed the closed sessions have really flipped it's the exception and not the rule anymore. Very few things happen in closed session and what happens in closed session needs to happen in closed session and so we've gone through that. We also work with the departments on their work session and closed session captions because we want to make sure that by participating in these weekly agenda committee meetings the captions are drafted to capture what you all want to discuss because there have been times that you have been able to discuss them because the caption wasn't where it needed to be so by us being involved in these meetings ahead of time we can understand where management and councils wanted to go on the discussions and we draft the captions accordingly. And then we have a last pass Friday review which the city secretary really enjoys us doing on the agenda just to make sure everything's correct before it goes out. We've implemented a cloud based request portal and internal workflow tracking what that is is we have got on the city's SharePoint site we have a request portal for legal request and then also for ordinance and resolution and caption assistance and what that does is it auto populates a spreadsheet in our office that I manage and direct the work out to the attorneys in the office and then we track that through the weekly meetings we have with the attorneys. We also have as there are investigations that are going on that we will send out we keep that going internally. The last thing we're doing right now with materials management economic development is developing templates for really for what they do on a daily basis and what we have found out is it's somewhat been an old school way of doing things. I look at this back when I was in private practice coming out you would have attorneys that you your partners that are older that well if you go look at the Smith file we did it something like something like that there you pull no file out and work off of that. A lot of that is how it's gone on these departments we're capturing templates now technology allows us to do that and it makes the process quicker and it makes it more accurate and we're implementing that particularly with materials management right now we're working with the House I counsel on that as well as an outside engineering firm to go from a stem to stern bid to contract on these documents. The last thing is is a review and refinement of the city wide open records response process. Our office when we get involved we involved when there's a question as to what can be disclosed and that triggers there's a very short time frame on getting information at the Attorney General. The city secretary's office will receive a request we have a 10 day window and a 15 day window to get that out sometimes we're not getting information back from the user departments until the day before a request is due and we find out okay the information needs to go to the AG's office we're hustling around trying to get that out for ruling from them. What we're doing is we're getting more proactive on that working with the city secretary working with management to have people designated in departments to respond to this in a more timely manner to get the information out. What we've done with counsel is in terms of improved communication is the increased use of legal status reports both weekly and as needed and one of the things that I noticed prior to Mr. Holman getting here is a lot of times we would have closed session action and contracts would be handed out in closed session at that time. Counsel doesn't have the time to digest anything at that point and so what we're doing on items that are required to be looked at in closed session we're getting those documents out before the meeting through confidential communication that y'all can look at and see what is going out there we've also started doing that with PUB on documents that they're looking at that you're just not looking at it in the 15 or 20 minutes that you're in closed session. You've got a chance to look at it, contact us, contact management with questions. We've also instituted a monthly litigation update and one of the things where I'm spending a lot of time right now is looking at really a focused cost effective use of outside counsel in limiting their use to a very defined engagement and an intense scrutiny of their billing. One of the things we found out it was with a shift in management outside counsel is an extension of our office and that was sometimes recognized other times it wasn't and we have gone in and looked at seeing what they're doing and if you 've worked with outside counsel they typically are going to tell you what you want to hear and if departments are going out working with outside counsel they're looking for business and what we're trying to do now is pull and find out one what do we need them for, two who do we need, three what are we going to be paying them and we have cut that back considerably. We're working with finance to deep dive the numbers on that because JD Edwards is having some difficulty in terms of tracking seeing how that's tracked. We have some numbers that are in consultant fees, we have other numbers that are in outside counsel fees and then there were different departments. We've got to try it down in vendors but we're doing a hard look at that number and I think that's where we're going to be able to work on the largest cost savings. Since I've came here we've pulled all the real estate stuff in house. The only real estate stuff that goes outside now is condemn ation work and that's the litigation side of it. Since Trey Lansford has gotten here we've pulled all the condemnation stuff in house with the exception of litigation. So all the letters that are required to go out prior to lawsuit being filed, everything is done in house. We're looking at doing more of that with purchasing, more of that with economic development and really going outside for what we need to go outside. There are certain areas you don't need bond counsel being one that we don't need to hire. We don't need to have somebody in the house to do that. Upcoming goals and process improvements is we want to work hard on evaluating everybody's skill level in areas of procurement, planning and zoning in real estate. These are areas that we deal with on a daily basis and that we want to be interchangeable and be able to cover that quicker than we have at present. We're going to do that through in-house training. We're going to ramp up the internal tracking of the transactional investigative matters. This because of us being short staffed has not been able, I haven't been able to look at this in depth the way I'd like to, but we're going to move that to a more robust tracking method, implementing an internal tracking litigation and developing hard performance metrics. We've got a list from departmental meetings attended to public meetings we've been involved in. Emails received, contracts reviewed, the complexity of the contracts, the amount of contracts, the dollar amounts involved in, regulatory issues, litigation done in-house, done out of house, done in combination with outside lawyers, mini court cases. That we're going to come up the hard list of that for next year when we come back for the budget. What next thing we're looking at is when we implemented this smart sheet protocol to track everything what we found out is that the user departments want to look at our spreadsheet. That's really what was developed is tracking what we have coming in and giving an electronic tracking of what is coming in. What we found out now is that everybody wants to see that. What we're going to develop, we've looked at working with the software platform that allows us to communicate collaboratively within that software platform that we can track through date stamping, everything that's happened chronologically in something that if we're working on something with procurement and engineering we can all look at it, collaborate on the same thing in real time. Continue review and development of document templates. This is a combination of best practices and keeping up with both statutes federally and state wide. Every two years the legislature decides to make wholesale changes and procurement laws and different things that we've got to go through and look at all of those. Interdepartmental training and process development with compliance, risk, materials management, city auditor. This is going to really revolve around contract management software that is being put in place by compliance. We're going to be working with them to make sure that we have got everything looked at. There's a group of us that we've come across a lot of issues that this is going to be, it will have to be a holistic approach to work effectively. This cannot be done independent of any of these people. We're in the process of doing that now. Then the last thing is implementing software that we can capture city wide documentation for litigation and open records request purposes. This is interesting in that. I think we can grab a lot of it, but we found out through involvement with UTA that you don't necessarily get everything from a server database. We're wanting to also work on policies about what happens with things that you save your hard drive when you're on your computer at your desk and portable hard drives that you have, that you're doing city business on. We want to make sure we capture everything that the city has produced in response, particularly in response to litigation and open records request that we don't see it for the first time when we're opposing something. Our budget instance this year is to develop and maintain a responsive, highly capable and cost effective office of attorneys and staff through competitive salaries, increased use of technology, and current topical and issue relevant training. This last one is incredibly important. This is a dynamic changing environment that we're in legally with telecommunications, with the gas well activity, there are environmental issues we're facing every day procurement, and we want to make sure we're going to cutting edge CLA on that. Our cost containment strategies include continuing to develop in-house abilities to reduce the need for and the cost of outside counsel, except required for really specialized tasks. That again will be like bond counsel, regulatory counsel before the public utility commission down in Austin, training process and template development for materials management, economic development, development services and engineering, increased use of electronic files for both the use and storage. This always interests me because some lawyers like paper, some don't, but that's a very labor intensive way of dealing with things and we can really I think get cost savings in that. Then the last is to evaluate support staff duties versus the attorneys and technology. When I came into practice, you had maybe three legal assistants to one lawyer. That pyramid has been turned upside down and very few people have administrative staff anymore because technology, you can leverage that to do so much. We're looking at that within the office. Our position summary, we've got the city attorney, we have eight staff attorneys and then the administrative staff, we have an administrator, one paral egal and three legal secretaries. We're asking for one more attorney for next year. In our budget highlights, what I really just like to point out is there was an increase in the baseline on the personal services for this next budget year. Operations, what really will stick out is when you look at 14, 15, 454,000, that will be consultant fees or outside counsel fees regarding the fr acking and gas well issue. There's a lot of money that was spent on that. We will have ongoing issues with that and with certain procurement items. It's remained fairly static, but there are certain issues, particularly when it gets to the regulatory issues with the electric, water, wastewater, environmental matters. We had an agreed order that we had to have with EPA, I know , and a wastewater manager that we worked with outside counsel on that. Any questions? I've got a question. I know we received a report from our city attorney about staffing and that there was, if I remember correctly, I reviewed it a couple days ago about that there maybe had been some staffing that was over in city manager's office that you needed. Go over that and where, if anywhere, is that in this budget ? Can you go back to the, I think it's your first slide, Larry, we talked about. You can use this one too. Back also in the first slide of the presentation, we had identified the recognized need for an additional attorney when it had a very broad based background in municipal law. What we initially had done was put a supplemental budget request for an additional attorney, which is performed at least the justification before counsel is done later in the budgeting process. As I had talked with the managers, Todd had indicated that since there were a lot of FTEs that were going to be phased out that some of the budget savings from those FTEs could be transferred over now rather than October 1 so that we can fill the need and address, as Larry had mentioned, getting to be able to handle a lot of the backlog, especially Larry. You've seen a lot of the stuff that Larry's doing. The utility issues are just getting more and more, I don't want, more demanding because there's a lot more work coming in. As you're hearing the presentations of what departments are doing, that's going to involve a lot more legal work. With that, that's why we had identified a need for an additional attorney. I had posed to the counsel if there were any issues with, whether or not they had any issues with taking the offer that the city manager had extended to our office to get that attorney hired sooner rather than later, or would you prefer to go the supplemental budget request route? The only difference is I can hire somebody within the next couple of weeks versus sometime October, November. That was the question you posed to us and you haven't gotten, we don't need to address that at least right now, but I think I really would encourage my colleagues to go back and review that memo. That was the memo we contained about just some staffing and we'll get that to you. Let's see if we can't get some kind of resolution for that because what I'm hearing you say, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that you're putting in a supplemental request for this additional staff, but there may be a way that you can obtain that staff in a revenue neutral or budget neutral perspective. In other words, it doesn't affect the budget either way. You won't be asking for it in your supplementals because you already have it. Let's go back and review that and maybe in the next couple of weeks get some kind of feedback to the city attorney for that. He'll have some direction on moving forward. You put it in your presentation, I think, just assuming that nothing happens, at least it's there. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yes. Larry, it was in my questions. I really would like to see the budget capture some way, bar , more bar activities or just kind of that social aspect of your job. Understanding it's probably ... I don't know if my peers agree, so I don't know where that falls, but I just think there's value in the department being ... Once it's solidified, I understand there's a lot of moving parts, but being active in those different associations, different community aspects. I know probably everyone does it kind of individually, but kind of as a city to have a forward facing interaction with other attorneys here locally or ... I mentioned schools, be it open houses, that sort of thing. I just really think that's good to do and it demystifies the department a little bit and it makes it so it's not the first interaction with the department, it's not Stephanie Berry and judges for it. It's hey, I know you from school. You know, kind of just to interact and I just think that's a big part of what the department should be doing. Again, I'm happy to have that fold in somewhere. I'm not trying to burden anyone and I don't know if we have consensus on that, but that just hit me that I think we need to be as a department more , as a legal department more active in those kind of service groups, if you will. One of the things that I can mention is that everybody in the office is a member of the local bar association and we'll try to get a lunch as often as we can. One of the concerns that we've talked about in our office is being a city employee is you know, I think we have to be cognizant of how we spend our time during the day and a lot of that stuff may happen during the day. So I want to be aware that if I'm a citizen seeing me doing something that may not benefit the city directly in my employment, that we've had a very candid conversation in our office about that. Now there are things that we can do after five and on the weekends that I think people their own choice. So we have to take a hard look at that because I know if we 're involved with something that's really unrelated to what we're doing, I worry about criticism somewhat on that. But we do go to the bar meetings and we try to interact with the lawyers. I talked to Richard Hayes today and you know, just because I practice here the whole time. And I may not be the perfect garden variety for shying away from conflict, but so you know, that's foreign to me, but I've read books about it. And so, but no, I really do. I think for me, I'll give you, I absolutely respect that. And that makes sense to me, but also understand that even if someone works eight to five, they're not 100% productive during that window, right? So even if there's a representative from the department that's optioned up, that takes turns, you know, hey, like my pastor said, eat the meat and spit out the bones. But I'm just saying that's kind of what I envision the department and I think there's value in there someplace. Well, I think we have the ability now with the HR policy that went into play is to build a use time to do that and make that available. We'll work on improving that. Yeah, along the same lines, and I agree, I think that it is , that it would be great and would serve the city to have the legal department be more involved directly with the community during work hours in certain, in ways that would benefit the community, you know, an example of that in another department, you know, the cops, they do the coffee with the cop, you know, and it's not separate from what they do every day. It's part of the gaining the trust of the community. Now the city legal department, you know, it's a different kind of relationship, but I just wanted to give us an example and I'm going to call later my concluding remarks to have a work session on just exploring these possibilities. The city of San Antonio, their legal department, they do education, sent public education seminars on just reading from their website. Now some of it involves partnering with other agencies, but still it's coming from the legal department. It says here, the city funds, in this case, three legal service providers to assist low income San Antonio residents and educate the community on immigrant rights and legal representation. These legal services include education seminars, counseling , legal representations on a variety of issues, including veteran issues, landlord tenant, identification recovery for homeless and immigration, and simple wills. And then, you know, they partner out with here, it says American Gateways, Catholic Charities, and Riesus. So there are things that can be done, and I'm not saying we have to do all these things, but I think, my gosh, it would be wonderful. I mean, everybody is protected under the law, but not everybody can afford to have a lawyer to give them that kind of advice. So that would be a service we could provide, even if it's not actually our lawyers, because you all are kept so busy, providing those services. That would just do a great job. And I just wanted to add one more thing to that, and that is, it would be good for me, and I think also for the public, to be able to see on the website so that we could know what are the specialties of each of our, what are we now, eight, nine attorneys. And I realize that has shifted around, and you know, and will shift in the future, but what does everybody do? What are their, that would help me, just knowing who does what, but also in terms of budgeting, I think it would help me to see, okay, I see why you need a deputy city attorney, because you've got these people doing this, and you've only got this many, because I don't know who you have who specializes in municipal law. For instance, I just kind of figured, well, I guess everybody does, because you're city attorneys, so it would be educational and helpful for the public and also for budgeting purposes. Okay. All right. Anybody else? Thank you. Appreciate it. Do we have any, do we have any more presentations? He was doing the part. Yeah. All right. We're going to move on to agenda item E, receive report, hold discussion against staff direction regarding the boards and commissions nominating process. Sorry, I've been sitting so long, it's got to take me a while to get up here. So. Wow. Okay. Mayor and council, at your seats this evening, you have your board and commissions, notebook, and before I get started, I would just like to give out a little shout to Jane Richardson, the assistant city secretary. Jane compiled all of these notebooks for you and was instrumental in getting everything done for you for these notebooks. So I just want to take a minute to say thank you to her. So without any further ado, I'll open my notebook and I'll just start on page one and work through all the pages in the notebook for you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're, yeah, I was, I was like, first of all, they're not numbered. They're not numbered. Number one, I knew that was the first red herring. No one even looked. Yeah. Good for you. You're, you're waking us up. Love it. So in your notebooks, I'll just do a real quick review of what you have there. So you can find it with ease. You have a listing of the positions vacant or with terms expiring by board. And then you also have a listing of the vacant positions or expiring terms by council member. So if you're saying, Oh, maybe do I have something on the airport board? You can either look under the tab that has it by board or you can look at under your particular name. And then inside the notebook, you also have, I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, not at all. Is this list more or less like this, uh, visible to the public somewhere? No, not yet. No. Well, so a reason why it isn't because people have asked me before. Oh, really? Okay. Cause I've been asked, where's the list of what the, you know, open slots are. So it seems like people would like to see that. Well, we could add that to the field differently. We can add that if you like to the website. Um, okay. Boards and commissions notebook has your attendance information, um, for the members, uh, applications, board preference. There's a, uh, a little sheet, uh, chart that if you say, Oh, I have a nomination to the library board. Is there anybody who's interested? You don't have to page through all the applications. There's a preference chart in there for you. And also the, the current members, um, noting their, uh, terms on they've been there and expiration. Um, with the exception of the civil service commission, whose members are appointed by the city manager and the Denton housing authority, whose members are appointed by the mayor, the council's responsible for making the nominations and then approving the appointments, um, to all the rest of the boards and commissions. However, nominations for the economic development partnership board are accomplished through a nominating committee. And then they're confirmed by council, the tax increment, refind reinvestment zone. Number two board membership mirrors the edp board, uh, membership and the downtown Denton TIF, uh, members are appointed by council and these appointments, um, these ones I just mentioned now will be done at, um, a later time. So right now we're just, uh, basically working on your, um, main boards and commissions. So quick little timeline today, you're being provided the vacancy information, July 27th. Um, we're asking if you could have your nominations into the city secretary's office. So if you say, um, I want to reappoint so-and-so, or I want to point so-and-so, if you just shoot either Jane and or me an email, then, um, we, uh, we 'll get the list drawn up for you. So August 7th in the work session we'll discuss those nominations and then confirm the appointments in the regular session. And then August 21st there's an additional meeting, um, scheduled to complete the nominations if necessary, but I know that won't be necessary because you'll have them all done by August 7th. Okay. So any questions? Is that page, we're on page seven? We have about 100 left. So the, the, uh, DHA board is not in this particular thing as far as? Correct. Okay. Gotcha. Right. Because that's just your, your appointment. Gotcha. Thank you. Any questions? Yes. DHA, which is? Dinhas Authority. Okay. Yes. That's right. And the ethics board? Um, uh, Brian's handling that. It's separate. Okay. Yeah, there's, there's an agenda item on that. Later on. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions for this work session agenda item? If not, thank you very much. If you give me just a minute to go click on my computer. Oh, you bet. You sure can. Oh, okay. You again. Member Porter, hold discussion of staff direction regarding city council committee nominations. This is agenda item F. Yes. Mayor and council. This is your annual process for looking at your, um, boards and commissions. Excuse me. No. City council committee appointments. Um, you were given a list of the current, um, assignments and I also included at your spots today, um, a list of the committees and their meeting times and days. Um, some of them are as needed, but, um, I tried to get as many as I could narrow down to when they meet. I did receive an, an email from, um, council member Briggs who asked if, um, she, stating that she would like to remain on the, um, board, uh, keep saying boards on the committees that she's, um, currently serving on. So do you want to go board by board or council committee by committee and, um, see if anyone has preferences? Yeah, I just open it up to council members. Especially the, the two newer members to just sort of see what their thoughts are and then we can sort of work around, work around that. So, uh, either one, I'm going to defer to council member Tar. If I could interrupt for just one second. Oh yes, go ahead. The really important one that I see here is the mobility committee because there's only one member and they are unable to meet at this time. Okay. Until we have some additional members. Okay. All right. So, um, yes, what are your thoughts on, um, trying to find where this is, um, the list is in the backup. Oh, wow. You've got this list right here. Well, um, I would like to, so you'd like me to just say which committees I would like to be on. Yeah, which committees would you have a preference for? Yeah, um, yeah, I would like to be on the hot funds committee. Okay. That is one. And, uh, the mobility committee. Okay. And the committee on citizen engagement. Okay. And I believe, see, I'm looking for the part on the, in the backup where all of these, um, positions are, are listed and I had annotated it. Um, anyway, but I believe those are, oh, I remember the other one. Um, the external, are we talking about the external committees now or the? Yeah, we can, yeah, you can ask about those as well. Yeah. Um, the, the, the CVB. Okay. Committee, I would like to be on that. I believe in that and that, that was vacated by. Dalton, my predecessor. Yep, Dalton, yep. Okay. So. All right. Uh, Council Member Meltzer, what are you, what are your thoughts? I'm interested in, uh, the committee on the environment, mobility. Um, I'd like to be able to switch seats and the downtown T IF board and, uh, I'm willing if a lot of gratitude is expressed to be on the audit committee. Okay. Okay. All right. It's a fun committee. So now that we, now that we have. You're the life of the party for sure. Now that we have the, let's just go ahead and go, let's take these sort of like committee. So the mobility committee, it sounds like Council Member Br iggs, Council Member, uh, Armatr wanted to, has a, has a preference for the mobility committee. Council Member Meltzer, who else wants, yes. It is, is the RTC rep that was Council Member Bagary was on there as the RTC rep. So you're on that? So I would prefer to be on that. All right. Yeah, because you are a rep for the RTC. Yeah. So we have one slot. Uh, uh, no. What, is that correct? No. On the mobility committee? Mobility is already. If I take one spot and Council Member Briggs stays on for the other. We got one, we got one left. But didn't you mention you wanted to be on mobility? Well, I did. I thought, I thought it was an option. That's why I'm trying to see who, who would. Yeah, I thought it was an option because, uh, uh, you know, both, uh, for Mayor Portem and, uh, Council Member Gregory were on it. So that's why I thought it was an option. Well, and I understand that I think she was there as a capacity for RTC, which is a regional transportation, which it's important to have. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, um, don't need to be on that one. That makes sense to have that continuity. So you want to, I'll take it. So then, um, Council Member Armitage, which one, so you want to be on hot funds. Let's look at hot funds. Right now it's Council Member Hutspeth, myself, and vacant with Gregory. Council Member Hutspeth, you still want to serve on that committee, hot funds? Yes, sir. Okay. I do as well. So if you would, hot funds, everybody okay with that? Okay. Don't see anybody. Well, you've accounted for the slots, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Um, all right. So you're, I'm sort of going to go because I want to get as much of a preference for the, for the new members, unless there's, so if y'all, if the current existing members just have a, just a burning preference, let's just throw it out there. Okay. Um, committee on the environment. Do we have, what do we have there? So one vacancy. Yeah, so that was when I, you want to be on the environment . And I think Council Member Armitage, you want to be on the environment as well. Is that right? No. No. There's only one spot and yeah. Yeah, we're, we're good. Yeah. Okay. What's that mean? Okay. All right. Hot funds was my number one. Okay, gotcha. So Council Airport Committee, Duff, Ryan and myself, any desire to change there? I'm good. All right. Uh, uh, CAPER committee, Ryan, Watts, Vacant, McGarry. We don't even, we really haven't even been doing that. So I'm going to say we just, we're just going to forego that. Yeah, because we, we're not. I'm sorry. Was that CAPER? Yeah, we're just, we're bypassing that. Uh, so we've got the Mobility Committee figured out, the Hotel Occupancy Tax Committee. We've got the Council Committee. We've got the Committee on the Environment Committee on Citizen Engagement. That's Council Member Armitage. Yes. So Council Member Armitage will be filling a Council, a previous Council Member Gregory's position Audit and Finance, but Gary has vacated Ryan and Watts. And you want to express extreme gratitude for my technique because I know it's a lot of fun. Uh, who else wants to do that? I'm just kidding. No, that's fine. Anybody else have a burning desire to do that? Doesn't see that. So yeah, that's fine. Council Member Meltzer will be on the Audit and Finance or what do they call it? Yeah, Audit and Finance. So that leaves us with, um, the external. Community Justice, Council Member Briggs will stay on. Convention Visitors Bureau. There's a vacancy. So, um, I would love that. Yes, all right. Um, Dallas Regional Mobility, Council Member Briggs, Lake view Robbers, North Texas Commission Watts. It's very hard for me to get to those, but I'll stay on it. National Transportation Council. Ryan, you're on there obviously. Texas Middle Power Agency is Watts. So I think that anybody have any objections to any of those that either you were selected, you got on or that you've been on and stayed on? Can I, can I review these just one, one quick time? Yes. Because Jane is listening and I want to make sure that. Oh yeah, sure. Absolutely. Because she's going to update this and we'll have it presented to you, um, later on in the meeting. So for agenda committee, that will now be Watts and Ryan. Uh, audit finance, Ryan, Watts, Meltzer, citizen engagement , Armentor, Hudspeth, Briggs, uh, environment Briggs, Ryan, Meltzer, airport, Duff, Ryan, Watts, uh, Caper, we're skipping. Uh, ethics committee that I assume is going away. Yeah. Okay. Uh, hot committee, Hudspeth, Watts, Armentor, Mobility, Br iggs, Meltzer, Ryan, and the other ones that I have. Just want to make sure of those. Okay. Does that sound. Tiff, Tiff, you got it? Yeah. Or do that later. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I think that's good. Okay. Thank you. All right. We'll move on to our next agenda item, which is agenda item G, receive a report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the design and construction of industrial park. Enough. Great. That's right. Good evening, mayor and council, Gary Pack and Dr. Parks and Recreation. Wanted to talk to you this evening about the proposed potential development of industrial park. Uh, we received direction a few, a few months ago, uh, in regards to, uh, getting some concepts for park development for industrial. Um, and we've been working on that. So no further ado, we'll try to move through this as quickly as possible. Um, so in relationship to the courthouse, you could see, uh , the park is located right here, just real, real close to fuzzy tacos, not far from the city hall. Uh, it's 108 industrial. It's a vacant property lot. It's about 60 by 100 feet, 6,000 feet, uh, in regards to site conditions, it's really there to support neighbors. And in, in my estimation, uh, we have residential to the south, we have businesses and restaurants on all sides. We have visitors that attend, uh, the restaurants that want to use the park and grab food and go over there and relax. Uh, and then also just it's based on recreational opportunities that it could provide to the community. Initial site conditions, um, staff went in just this past spring, early, I guess, late winter and did some renovations, but it was, uh, it needed severe grading. There's a drainage issue. Uh, the turf was poor. Uh, it just, it needed some work. So they initially went in and did a significant amount of work. They regraded everything. They put down some, uh, basically sacrete bags to kind of temporarily solve the drainage issue onto other properties. Um, they put down new sod and put in irrigation to really beautify that. And we were down there actually when we're taking these pictures and, and, uh, a grandmother with her daughter or granddaughter came by and said, Hey, we really appreciate what you guys have done. Um, and it was really just a temporary, uh, do we know what the costs were for all that? Uh, yes, it is. It was about $11,000. Okay. 10 to 10,742. Okay. It looks beautiful. You could see, you could see the sacrete bags right here, just kind of preventing water from draining north on the property. All the property drains to the west. Uh, there is still a hip in the middle that was graded out a little bit. So it kind of grades to the north and south as well, but everything is moving in the eastern direction. So some initial project goals for staff when we started the process was provide a park space for people to relax, socialize, eat, uh, various seating opportunities. So whether you want to throw a blanket out there, if you want to have it sit in a table with food, uh, you want to bring your own lounge chair for an event, you could do that. A stage for multi-use, whether it's a, uh, a guitar just out there doing acoustic or maybe even a small wedding. Uh, that was something that we were looking at. Obviously, obviously just general beautification of the space. I think we've made significant strides already, uh, but there's still an initial opportunity integration of art and continue to do that within our park system and throughout the city. Anyway, we can stimulate and promote economic development in the downtown and the city. You know, we're, we're all game for that. And then just enhancement of the city identity and community pride. So initially we hired TMP to do three concepts of varying design and cost. Uh, that was $11,000. Uh, and then we were fortunate also to have a park staff that's a landscape architect and he put together, uh, a rendering as well, which I'll show you here in a second. And then going through this process, we'd love to get some feedback from, from city council on specific options, uh, here today, if possible, uh, and eventually select the best concept and then take all the community input that we 're going to be gathering and put that into one concept and then come back to you, uh, later this summer. So these are the three TMP, um, renderings that they provided to us. This is the most expensive one at $653,000. Some of the features here, this is all brick works. All this, uh, peach or tan color is all brick. We have after turf in a stage of the two things that are prevalent in every one of these. So artificial turf and a stage, a little performing area, seeding here. These are steps. This is industrial street here and there is a fountain in this version. It's one feature that we talked about. Fountains are very nice. They make, they make pleasant noises, but they are troublesome when it comes to maintaining their challenge and they're expensive to put in. And then everything else here on the edges are all perenn ials back in here and along here. Are those tables shaded or they just, did they have like an umbrella or something or is it just open? These ones are just showing as open, but that doesn't mean we couldn't put those in. I was just curious. I couldn't do it. Option number two is just a little, a little less of $400, 000. A combination of crushed granite here and again, artificial turf, some bench seating, which meanders along the sidewalk here coming from the parking lot. We do have a stage in this area as well. And then some unique decorative lighting, kind of like a modern style right in this area. Steps going into the property, steps here as well. This is all terraced because this side of the park is much higher than this side over here. So there's a natural slope going in this direction. Is the seating that you said on the retaining wall, is that , is that a concrete or what is that? What's the material? Well, we talked about both. They showed it originally as kind of like a plastic lumber. Okay. But using decking and stuff. Yeah. But the one thing that we want to do, since it was industrial park, we wanted to give an industrial theme. Sure. So recycled plastic doesn't really fit that. So we're looking for things that could match that industrial theme. And then some large planter urns here, here, here on number 14 and 15. And then this is more of a, this is a little bit more basic , but it's kind of almost like a park you'd see in New York City. Very traditional, very symmetrical, heavily shaded with trees. Again, perennials on this side, we have a little stage here , tiered terrace steps right in these locations. And then sidewalks going from both the parking lot down to industrial. So is the, the base or the ground six, that is decomm, so what you've got is basically outside of your trees, you've got, you don't really have grass or turf because it's sort of more maintenance free, but it's got a tremendous amount of shade area. It does. Now this, this is the Southern side. So in the winter time, this isn't going to get a lot of sun down this lower half of the park, but it would provide a lot of shade. The downside of it, it's, it's all decomposed granite. So you really can't throw a picnic table or a blanket out there and have a picnic per se. That decomposed granite will move a little bit. So it's a little bit of a maintenance challenge there. And then internally we have a staff member, like I had mentioned earlier, it's for, we're fortunate to have on, on the team. That's a landscape architect and he's done some drawings that you've seen with new streets and I 30 with the medallions. I think it was Brinker road. He did a little video of, and he, this was one of his first projects that he did for the department internally. And he really, what's unique, his approach is he uses behavioral psychology incorporated into park design to stimulate, stimulate visceral and emotional experiences of the park users. And these are some of the ways he looks at park space and he, he does a great job. His name's Glenn McClain. He was going to come here today, but I said he didn't have to, he didn't have to wait. But he looks at land form, ordering principle of park spaces within the park, personal space for people and make sure there's various types of personal space so people have comfort, distance height ratio for adjacent properties. And then auditory and vision. There's a long list of things that he went through to, to help build this design. And I'm going to show you two different designs. He's put together a number of renderings so far, but this was one of the original ones and this is his current version. As of right now, these lines with the yellow dots are festival lighting, kind of like you see in a food truck park or something like that. This is all artificial turf, artificial turf here. So it's low maintenance. These are block natural rock seating. And then this is all stamped concrete with tables up on here. These could be moved for small performances as well. ADA access from both sides of the parking lot. He did put a little bump out here on industrial street to create a little bit of a barrier between the road and the park just for vehicular safety or pedestrian safety, I should say. And there's some additional planners here to serve as bar ricades for that. He did have a trees located, trees located in both of these spots, but we removed those as well as trees over here. One these trees were taken out just so you could see into the park. There was clear vision of all aspects of the park and through the park from the street as well as from the parking lot. But these trees were taken off because what we've put in here, these little black dots over here, there's three panels that are for art. And they are envisioned as core 10 steel. And we would actually mount prefabricated piece of medium, whatever it would be, that people could actually do art on and would work through the art committee on that and they could be mounted onto that and then we would rotate those off after a period of time, giving people an opportunity to show public art. So that was one way to provide some integration. So this is his earlier rendering. You could see the trees here. This was a large wall for that art originally, which has changed to, it's located right along this area here. These plants currently exist as well as this tree, so he's incorporated those from the private property. And then the back of the property, this could be a water feature if we wanted to or it could just be a decorative sign. And that's the Denton logo made out of core 10 steel. So it provides that rust rustic look. Question on the, in either this drawing or his first one, he said the tables can be removed. Obviously, they're not going to be able to be removed by just anybody. I mean, they're going to be fixed, but if you want to perform, there's some kind of scheduling or something like that in order to remove those because if they're not nailed down, they're probably. So we've talked about a couple different ways where one, they're just tables that people could pick up and move based on how many people they have. The downside of that is sometimes that stuff can walk away, but it does give you maximum flexibility. We could also look at, you know, four seedings that's all one piece. It's a little heavier to pick up and move a little less opportunity for that to walk away. You'd have to obviously really make an effort to get that into a truck to walk off with it, but that would reduce that a little bit. So we've looked at some some options in regards to seating. So refresh my memory on park hours. I got regular parks, the hours are. Well this one this one would have to be discussed in a sense that you know, do you want it to mirror. Midnight because of the businesses and the environments there or do you want it to be 10 o'clock, however that would be to support those restaurants. What do we currently do with just our regular with this one ? I'm not sure what this is actually. I'm talking about. Oh yeah, but just like I say Quaker Town Park. What are the hours for Quaker Town? Do we know? I don't know. It's probably I think it's 9 or 10. OK, 10 PM. So this one that that would be. Because what I've I mean I've received some emails. I think there's some great drawings here. I think some of the concern was how do we like in Quaker Town sometimes. We have issues with people coming and going and that you know some people are a little bit more hesitant to be in the park or because of that and so this being. This close to residential. I mean, have we what are our thoughts on either hours or how do we know if the police? It's the right word, but you know, I mean like we do with all of our parks, right? So obviously there's not a lot going on down the park right now, but I haven't had heard of any complaints. The way it is as of today. Obviously if we design it, redesign it in this aspect and we invest in it, we're encouraging people go down there and use that right. So if they're at Fuzzy's and they want to get something to go, they can go over there and sit we would discourage, you know, loud music in regards to rock bands going over there and doing anything. It'd be more like an acoustic type performance. So with the aspect of the neighbors, you know, being right next door, we want to respect that as well. Yes. Several comments. I found these really interesting. I personally for now anyway, like I like number three and number four or some combination of the two. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. I think that's a great point. Things that could be done that could benefit both kids and adults. One example that I've seen in other cities is either some kind of public hammocks or swings, public swings, swings that adults and kids could be into. One thing about the public hammocks, it might sound sloppy if you're thinking of some net strung between two trees, but if you look up and see in New York City, they've got some amazing also in Seattle, public hammocks that are like public art. They actually have a very, some of them, they can have a very industrial look on big metal frames. It slows people down. It's a place where you can go and lie and read a book in a public space. Anywhere from somebody by themselves to people out on a date. Also when I think about public spaces and our homeless population, I would like to see, all of our parks are for everybody. That could also be a place where somebody who is homeless, who does not have a place to legally sleep during the day if they're not in a shelter , could go and just rest in a hammock and they wouldn't stand out. They would just be like any other person resting in a hamm ock. Then the rest of us could benefit by just resting in a hamm ock. I'm just using the hammock as an example of something that could benefit kids and our homeless as well. Also, having a water fountain, like a drinking fountain would be nice. It's always nice to have those and at some of our parks, we have water fountains that don't work, which is really, that's really frustrating, especially in the summer. With the bars around there, it's nice to keep people hydrated and have a place to fill up your water bottle. Those were my suggestions. Also I'd be curious about the synthetic turf. I've got kind of a knee-jerk response against that, but I'm trying to check that because I bet it's a lot nicer than I'm imagining, but I'd be curious to know about the lifespan and the wear and tear of that. It would be neat to see some samples. We've got Council Member Duff and then Council Member Hussb und. I just have one comment on the water features. I really like water features, but maintenance is a pain. As far as the artificial grass, I've seen some lately and it's pretty incredibly good. We could get some examples. Council Member Hussbund. It's Greg Wright. Is that his? Glenn. Glenn. Glenn. I know it's you. I'm all for Glenn's design because I just think that's really neat. Glenn, I like that approach. I mentioned when the staff shared the option of the transitioning art. I think that's fantastic. I can't get down with the hammocks. Man, I'm not there yet. We can't do that. These are the panels right here that you're talking about for the art. I absolutely believe it. I think as a council and as a ... We've got to have that conversation. We can't feign as if ... The parks are for everyone, absolutely, but we can't feign as if it's okay to sanction someone sleeping next to these condos without some real collaborative conversations and make sure we do that right. We can't just, "Hey, I know you live here and you're next to this park and these people live here too." That won't work, not without having a conversation, in my opinion. I could be absolutely wrong if it's happened before, but I would not support the hammock approach. I would support some sort of gaming kits. When I say gaming ... Slot machine. Slot machine. Yes. Yeah. Motivate them to go to Winstar and Bucky's like a beaver nugget machine. No, like some kind of putting green there would be good, something like that. People in the residence could come out and play and it also could serve as like if you're playing corn hole, you can toss washers or whatever. Something like that where no maintenance. It's a hole in the ground. It's very small. No one's going to twist an ankle, that sort of thing. I agree with Council Member Duff on the water. I enjoy it, but I want it to be low maintenance. I really do like the art component. I like the bump out. I don't know what that'll do as far as parking issues. We would lose one space because right now there's three spaces in this general area. If we did parallel parking here, because there would be enough room, we would lose one space. In this design, I really like that. That's the top south corner there where it comes up to the parking lot, to the west there. Yes, because I think when you're parking in Williams Square , you kind of, "Oh, what is that over there?" Even if you don't come down industrial, you still kind of are privy to, "Hey, what is this area over here? Let's go see from all around." I like that component. There was one other ask, but it gets away from me. All right. Thank you. Yes, Council Member Noh. The one thing that Glenn's able to do is he's able to provide these multi-dimensional views as opposed to just a traditional aerial looking down on the property where that's usually where you don't see the property unless you're in an airplane. He's able to do this as well as even short video clips. You could experience park space as we develop. But again, these are the art panels that we talked about. These could be interchanged over a period of time. This would all be grass here in the middle as well. But some of our next steps with some direction from City Council. Yeah, no, we've got it. That's fine. That's fine. It's okay, Paul. We'll get you. It's all right. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. The train already left. There's three and four, but the four with the more trees. The reasons for reducing trees I didn't find compelling. I think trees really contribute to the enjoyment and the aesthetics of the park. I'm also totally unpersuaded yet. I'm willing to be persuaded, but on the artificial turf. And you'll be most so many acres of grass. I find it hard to believe that it's an insurmountable obstacle to both trees and grass as a majority kind of feature in the park. Without shade as a consideration, I don't think the tables and chairs will be used. However, we can address that in a visionary way, whether it 's just umbrellas. If they're movable, obviously you wouldn't do pergolas. But yeah, like I said, I think they will be well used if shade is taken into account. They'll be unused if it isn't. Other than that, I'm happy with most of what has been said. We did look at a pergola on top of the stage and it looked awkward. It looked really cluttered. Yeah. I'm talking more about where you expect people to sit. Yeah. We could put the seating on the stage underneath the perg ola when it's not being used for performance, but that was an option. You've got some incredible talent in your department there. I'll bet you can come up with a shade solution. So Councilman Browning. He's going to get out of his faster 9am. I like both 3 and 4. I think I like 3 from the tree aspect because it is such a concrete jungle down in that area. The additional trees would definitely help and maybe just slide in the backing here. In 4, I like the stone seating very much and I like the artwork. I do think that the idea of a water fountain, since we'll have to have water on that site for irrigating the trees, would definitely be beneficial, especially next to one of the bike racks because somebody gets off their bike, they've ridden away, they've got their water bottle on their bike, they can fill it up and move on . So quick question, show me which ones are 3 and 4. These ones here are number 4. This one's number 4. Okay, and which one's number 3? That one's number 3? This is number 3. Okay. Okay, let's go to number 4. The three-dimensional. So you're telling me that is what the little aerial view is of his drawing? Okay. So either artificial turf or grass. You're saying here it would be in the green areas, the little, I'm going to call that the egg. Yes. And what is that? That's grass as well. Okay, so that would either be artificial turf or grass. Yes. All right. And grass to me is, I mean, obviously I prefer grass. My concern with artificial turf is it's still hard and it gets hot. I mean, even though you have it, is it the rubber kind that is in football fields now and things such as that? Yeah, I don't know if we'd be putting the rubber in it to give it that soft component, but it would be very similar. So below or underneath the artificial turf will be... There's a hard surface. It's either hard, it's either concrete or something else. Yeah, you're going to have to obviously let water drain through. Right. So, grass is great in a big area like that, the small areas . If you get a lot of traffic, it doesn't hold up very well. That's my only concern there. Is it going to hold up depending on how much that gets used ? So I'm sort of indifferent to that, quite honestly. These numbers have the artificial turf. We clearly could run one with just regular sod as well, just kind of see what that difference is. There used to be a 10-year lifespan on athletic turf. Turf being used in this environment may be different, maybe a little bit longer. Turf meaning real grass or artificial? Artificial. Okay. All right. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, Council. Well, Council Member, you sure go with... Yeah, yeah. Follow me, because it's probably something I'm going to disagree with. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Let's see. Are we going to get a dollar or you don't? Speaking of gaming. It's getting late, but it's not even eight o'clock yet. Lord have mercy. Would you mind going back briefly to the photo of the park with the temporary solution that it has today? Okay. And this fellow... Sorry. Glenn? Glenn. Glenn. He works on sort of physical things that give you an emotional reaction. Did anybody when you saw the current, the improved state that it is now, and you saw the cool grass under the trees not have a slightly, a slight bit of an emotional reaction? Yeah. Okay. That's my point. Do you disagree? No, I don't. I want a buck. Yeah, yeah. You're right. No, I don't disagree. But my concern is, and maybe you can speak to this. So I think Mayor Watts has a good point, because I think it will get a lot of traction. But also my concern is always dogs. Right? So in theory, you pick up after your dog. That's theory. Reality is you don't. And so that is concerning to me too, the maintenance of that as dogs are over there and just kind of life happens. But what have you seen in your experience? What are your thoughts? So actually, the first week I started here, we had some issues with the dog park and we had a lot of complaints. It was, you know, spring was just, or summer was just really starting to kick in. And with the warm weather, and we had a lot of complaints about people not picking up after their dogs. So it is an issue. We hired a firm to help us pick up the dog feces. So it is a challenge. And we're trying to educate people as much as possible to take care of their pets and not leaving litter behind. So that would be my concern is that we're adding maintenance to something that's supposed to be low maintenance and, you know, and if you're trying to factor in the kid functionality and soundstage, it's just, I don't know. I need to go, I'm trying to think what Clyde Van Warren has , that park in Dallas. But anyway, that would be my concern. The wear and tear and the dog component. Councilmember Duff? Yeah, well, as far as the dogs, I mean, you can put some, a container with little bags in it and that should take care of a lot of it. Because a lot of times somebody is out there with their dog and they don't have anything to pick it up with. So if they got something right there to pick it up, you know, or we could do like one neighborhood and do a DNA on all the dogs and we could trace who it was. They literally did that. I was about to enjoy a rare moment of agreeing with Council member Duff, but we went too far. I just like to ask, I know what I'm about to ask you about is county property, but just curious because it's an area that gets a lot of traffic and where there's a lot of dogs. What sort of turf do they use around the courthouse? That's regular Bermuda, I believe. Thank you. Yes. One question that really is just a question. So if the owner of this townhome, these townhomes is listening, I don't want them to panic. But I'm just wondering, you know, since, I mean, they'll obviously be benefiting from having this. I mean, if I was living there, I would be thrilled to have that area developed in my backyard. Is there any talk about them chipping in some? I don't even know if that's, you know, I was just throwing that out there. And also on that wall, is it possible to project, you know, to set something up, to project movies onto that wall? And that could be another possible function of the park that could be considered since you have that big blank wall space there. One thing, and I think that's a good idea. I think my curiosity will be when we get the feedback from those who actually live in the area. Because I think the hours of operations, I think what you allow on that stage, because it's, and I know they're living down in an area that's alive till one or two o'clock in the morning. So it may be a moot point. So I think the public input will be good. And obviously, movies at the courthouse square, they're very popular when they occur. So the great thing is we've got some good bones here. And with the feedback, I think we can come up with something that really is beneficial and cost effective. I mean, $600,000 on the first one. I'd hate to, I wouldn't want to do that. I don't think we need to do that. But I think number three, with all the trees, I believe, is more simple, is a little bit more simple. And then number four, which does have some, you know, some character to it. I think there's certainly opportunity to work with those. Okay. We can go back and look at the trees again for number four as an option. One more comment? Yes. I would see that Clyburn Warren Park, which gets a ton of traffic, has a Bermuda, 419 Bermuda or something. But anyway, yeah, so I stand. Sure. Sure. And that's a wonderful part. Throw the seed down. Yeah. So some of our next steps would be to continue to gather feedback from the community. So we tentatively penciled in a meeting with the Main Street Association and some of the restaurants and businesses in downtown, a public meeting. We're more willing to sit down with the condo association specifically and the members there report back to the Park Board in August and then possibly report back to council in August as well. If we followed those timelines, we could have CDs probably done by December and then estimated construction sometime in the summer of 2019. And funding? Funding. So right now we've identified about almost $500,000 out of 915, 916 funds. And then we're looking at possibly some balance of CIP if we needed. We'd have to get approval for that. But as of right now, we're roughly a penciled in a budget of $500,000. So if we went with option three or four, we'd be under budget. I'm sorry, what was the question? Yes. No, it's good for everybody. Yeah, I just didn't know what 915. 915, 916 is our land development and land purchase for our impact fees. Yes, go ahead. Have you considered the cost of sand, of having part of it kind of a sanded, you know, little urban beach part of it slash adult sandbox? That's something that some other cities have in little urban areas. And I don't know, I would think sand would be cheap. Right. Yeah, no, we haven't, but that doesn't mean we can't consider that. You have to watch out for the cats on that. Well, that's the truth. I mean, it's not like you don't have any wild cats or stray cats around. I mean, they love that stuff. So option three and four, it seems like there was a lot of, you know, consensus basically around that. So we're looking within the funding options and then if there was something else that we wanted that, you know, was a greater. So jumping back to four, this is the version where he had all the trees in it. And then this is when we took some of the trees out. The reason why we took out these two trees here is specifically so you could see the art that wasn't impeding that. So we can look at that. Also, these trees here are really nice. Those crepe myrtles? Yes. Okay. And those are in the house. So they're very attractive. So we wanted to make sure we didn't block those as well. We can, I think we've got some latitude to talk about that because I mean, if people are going to use it, especially in the summer is when typically it'll get used for those. People are looking for shade. I mean, so, but yeah, we can, we can sort of pencil in with sort of see how it looks and come up with some different. And we can look at some shade opportunities around the seating as well. Okay. We could, could be mobile. Yep. Any other questions, comments on it? Do you have direction as far as you have enough directions? Yes, sir. From us? Okay. All right. Fantastic. Great, great work and great work by Glenn. Tell Glenn, thank you. Very, very good. Very talented. Very lucky to have them. Yes. You want to do the closed session? Okay. Yeah, sure. Yeah. We're going to go ahead and do, we're going to go ahead and we're going to put closed session after the regular council meeting. We're going to move the closed session to the end of our regular schedule or our special called whatever we're calling it, meeting on the council following the, well, now we're going to move into, we're going to convene in a special called meeting, which the following items will be considered and we will move the closed session at the end of our special call meeting. Oh yeah. Five minutes. Sure. You bet. Yep. Got some, some cinnamon sticks out there. Welcome everybody back to this special call meeting of the Dent City Council. We are convening at 7.59. We have moved, decided to move our closed session to the end of this agenda portion. Our first item on the agenda is, and we do have a quorum, call this meeting to order, consent agenda. Council member Ryan. Mayor, I move approval of consent agenda items C and E. All right, so we're pulling A, B, D and F. D and F. All right. Chair would entertain a second. So moved. We have a motion and a second for approval of consent agenda items C and E. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Passes unanimously. We will now take up for consideration the consent agenda items that have been pulled in alphabetical order as an item for individual consideration. First being agenda item, what is this? A, but is it 1A? Yeah, 1A. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Texas Home Room Municipal Corporation, approving a real estate exchange and abandonment agreement between City and warehouser of Denton LP. Yeah, is there, who pulled A? Is there a question in particular? No, I just think the public will be interested in hearing what's happening there. That's all. So just looking for a little brief presentation. Just real quick, real quick overview on what's going on. Yes, sir. I'm Paul Williamson, real estate manager for the city. What we've got before you tonight is an ordinance considering an exchange of some right of way tracks, little strips on East Oak Street in exchange for some street right of way and easements from the adjacent landowner. The two strips in red there on East Oak Street, just to the east of Belle Avenue are the tracks that the adjacent landowners petitioned for a partial abandonment of that piece of Oak Street. Right now they've got some awnings and some loading docks and some features that are associated with the adjacent land use that the owner is petitioning the city to abandon what's occupied. When this abandonment petition came forward, we were contemplating a turn lane project here at the northeast corner of Belle and McKinney. So it's kind of a circumstance of opportunity. So we've worked out an exchange. And we've already hired an engineering firm to do the design work for this. And so it's just slated to happen later part of this year. Okay. All right. Is that enough? Yes. Move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second for agenda item 1A. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Agenda item 1B, consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, correcting inadvertent mistakes relating to the prohibition of smoking near store front main entrance, et cetera. I think you'd pull that. Yes. What exactly? When I had asked, and maybe this is not a good idea, but I had thought that maybe B and F could be coupled together since they're both about smoking, but maybe there's some good reason why they should be dealt with separately. And then if you have specific questions about B and F so that staff make sure they address that. So I'll go ahead and call agenda item F, consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, amending section 22-31.13 and 22-31.1 of the Parks and Rec code. Is there a specific question that you have? Or just wanted a brief overview? I was, so about B and F, both, it's really the same issue with both. I was concerned about the 30 foot rule that you can't, I mean, I understand that if a building is non-smoking, you can't smoke inside the building. But to create a 30 foot force field around the building, just de facto for every non-smoking building, that to me would create problems with number one, with enforcement. How are we going to enforce that? Also it's hard to just kind of eyeball that. And I certainly wouldn't want to put big markers up. And then, and for me, there's a personal liberty issue as well. I say for me, I'm not a smoker, I used to be, but it's a brick and mortar building, a wall provides a very clear boundary. You can smoke inside here. You can't smoke outside of here. But to me that just raises all kinds of enforcement issues and personal freedom issues. And I'm not saying it's unconstitutional or whatever. To me, those are some big problems. Well, the reason, yeah, if we could, well, I want to ask Mayor Pro Tem. Mayor Pro Tem, are these items the one related to where you were looking at the smoking ordinance? F is related to that. Have we opened that item as well? Yes, we have. So, okay, I just wanted to, okay. Yeah. Go ahead. We brought both of these items forward. Councilmember Ryan's request, he wanted us to go back and look at all the ordinances with the smoking ordinance that was passed to make sure there weren't any conflicts. We did find one in item F related to the parks. And so that was brought forward to correct that issue. The other was purely a Scribner's arrow that we had on item B, which is related, there was a transposition wording issue, it said within 30 feet of a building where smoking is allowed, it's supposed to be where smoking is prohibited . And so that is to correct that. So when we were doing that research, we found both of these issues, we felt like these were the fixes to those issues. The question that Councilmember Armatuer is raising is more about the smoking ordinance that was passed prior to that. So these are just to clean up a couple of things related to that. We can certainly bring back an item if that's the Council wishes us to do about the smoking ordinance, but that's a different matter. Yeah. And I had, I mean, based on especially, I think, based on what I read about both of them, it was clear that these weren't the only cases where that 30 foot rule applies and I wasn't on Council when the smoking ordinance got decided on. But that would be something, I'm trying to think how many years, when was that? It wasn't that long ago that the smoking ordinance was... Just recently... 2015, I believe it was then a year. I would love for that to come forward before Council to reconsider that. At the very least, I'd be curious to know how this, especially the 30 foot rule, how this has been, has it been enforced, how has it been enforced, is it selectively enforced? I don't know in the enforcement. I suspect it's a complaint basis. If we have that, we look at it, but I'm not sure. And I don't know how many of those we probably have, but we can certainly research that for you and bring that back. I suspect it's not very many. So what I'm understanding is agenda item B is going back and correcting the original ordinance, because the intention, at least the legislative history shows back when it was considered that it was meant to say that was prohibited . All right. Right. And my understanding of this particular issue was that this was a change that was made during the meeting at the dais about this particular rule. And so staff went back after the fact and tried to put in the language that was reflected the conversation. But again, we were doing our research, we realized that we had missed the proper language. It's not within 30 feet of where smoking's allowed, it's where it's prohibited. It's only the way it really makes sense. So we'll take these individually then. On item B, is there any more discussion on item B? I know you're going to ask for probably just a work session in general on the smoking ordinance in general. Yes. And I mean, and I would vote yes to correcting these typos. But for the record, I'm not I am I don't like this, this policy or at the very least, I would need a lot of convincing. Sure. Okay. Councilman, Mayor Pro Tem. I will move approval of item B and I'll also clarify that I do have a question on item F. Okay. Great. Before we vote on this. Any, we have motion. We have a second on agenda item one B. All in favor of agenda item one B, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. Okay, then F. Mayor Pro Tem, you had a question on F. Yeah, my question is, if I remember right, when I brought this forward, that I felt like we should probably just reference ordinance 2015-121 in the parks regulation. And it doesn't look like we've added that language to just reference back. The thought that 2015-121 covered parks as well. So it was so that you could say 2015-121 in any subsequent changes to that ordinance so that if you ever change that in any way, you're not having to go back to other parts of the code and adjust in multiple places. If you made the change to the ordinance, it would be a new ordinance number, correct? So looking at the city attorney to see if there's a different way to handle that perhaps. That's correct. So if we came back in 2018 and you made an adjustment to the smoking ordinance, it would now be an ordinance 2018 something would be the ordinance. But the code provisions were where the references are contained. Okay, but we still don't have, we didn't reference back to where the smoking ordinance is. Maybe that's the better way to do it is to reference the section of the code where those rules are contained rather than the ordinance number. And we can certainly look at that if that's a preference of the council. We were just trying to adjust the language. Will it have the same effect? I think so, yes. So do we want to make, that's a pretty wholesale change in the ordinance before us. We probably want to maybe bring that back. We can. Yeah. A motion to postpone until those changes can be made. Second. We have a motion to postpone. All in favor to postpone. Second, if I'm raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. All right. Thank you. All right. Then we'll move on to agenda item D, I believe. Yes. Consider approval of resolution repealing and replacing resolution 214 2014 dash 01011 amending guidelines for public improvement districts. I believe both Councilmember Armitage and Councilmember Meltzer had asked that to be pulled so I'll open the floor up to either one of you. Yes. We had a recent work session on this issue and I would say on reflection, I'm not really comfortable voting on something that has a policy on both residential and commercial. And I think what I heard expressed too is sort of generally different feelings about those and I would like to move that we divide the question and come back with different pieces, one about residential PIDs and one about commercial PIDs. I'd love an opportunity to have kind of more of a discussion about how commercial PIDs ought to work. Okay. All right. Your comments. That sounds reasonable to me. I like that idea. I hadn't thought of that idea. I wanted to propose an amendment to this that while it does include residential, that the fee be waived for the whatever it's called the application fee that each applicant has to pay for the processing, that it be waived in the case of affordable housing. And I mentioned that because in reading over the history, which I found very interesting, and I appreciated, you know, I was struck by the comment, the EDB Board's comment in the January 10th meeting where they said, and I don't know if this was an oral comment that was transcribed or if this was provided in writing, but there was a concern from EDP that quote, "Development of lower end housing creates a burden on the city and DISD." Now it seems that that suggestion about kind of having a minimum property assessment value, it seems like that wasn't included in the final ordinance. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. But to me, that was so, it was alarming that that issue was raised. Maybe it's a moot point if that's no longer a concern of E DP, but that seemed to me to be something that is worth addressing, not only in terms of kind of factoring in affordable housing as a possibility into a PID plan, not making it mandatory, but a possibility. And maybe, you know, having for EDP, having them have, I don't know, some sort of presentation from staff on how affordable housing is good for the economy, the economic benefits of affordable housing, or rather the hazards for our economy of having people who can't afford to live in Denton. Those are my two interrelated suggestions. So the first one at hand is a request to split the votes out to where you have a separate ordinance for commercial PIDs and a separate ordinance for residential PIDs. Any discussion or comment on that? Mayor Putnam? Yeah, I've got a question. I don't know if this is for Carolyn or for legal. The way that the ordinance is currently written, can you combine the two of those into a single? Can you do a combination commercial and residential? Yes, you can. Yeah, I would follow that logic as well then that there should be separate ordinances or at least take within this ordinance and separate it so that you can apply for a residential PID or a commercial PID, but not a combo PID. They can be applied for at the same time and council can look at them separately. But I do think that they are totally different, you know, grand animals, so to speak, that you need to look at them differently. So let me ask you, Councilmember Meltzer, because I thought what I heard you saying was that because the residential and commercial, let's say I'm okay with commercial PID, but I'm against residential PID, that I'm being asked to vote if they're in the same ordinance, I've got to decide, well, I'm either going to vote for it because I'm for commercial, but I'm also then giving assent to the residential. Is that what you're talking about, about splitting the ordinances out of? So I think that's what he was getting to is where you can vote on. I resonate with the river Thames comments as well. Which is? That they be considered separately, and then we may vote differently. Your microphone. I was just saying, I also, however, resonate with Mayor Per otin's comments, although we may end up voting differently on the residential PID. So they can be in the ordinance, but then they'll be considered as a vote if you accept a residential PID or commercial PID in a separate vote. No, no, no, no. I think we are agreeing, pardon me, if I may. Sure. I think Mayor Perotin and I are agreeing that they, don't let me put words in your mouth, that they ought to be, okay, maybe you didn't. I thought you agreed that they ought to be separate ordin ances as well. You do. Okay. So we agree on them being separate ordinances. We may, however, vote differently on those. Yes, no, I understand. I guess my point is I don't know that we necessarily need to have separate ordinances for what we're looking at passing today, our policy. But we may want to change the wording in that ordinance such that when a PID comes forward, it can only be a commercial PID or a residential PID and not a combination PID. Well, in which case, if I may, then your assessment of my view is correct and I don't, I would prefer not to have to vote on one ordinance that sanctions both. I prefer to separate the two. Okay. Yeah, Council Member Romer. I have one more for Carolyn. So to me, that first sounded like a good idea, but I guess I might have different reasons for thinking that was a good idea. I like the idea about having a mixed use development where you're incentivizing an area that has kind of a mix of development and commercial. Is that the idea behind putting them together? That idea, I like. So the guidelines themselves are intended to capture best practices for assessing the fiscal feasibility and the public benefit of a PID, whatever kind it is. I think that the general steps that we would take with having the developer fund the study and looking at the different criteria to demonstrate public benefit would be very much the same for a commercial or a residential PID, except if you have a residential PID, as you expressed, might want to incorporate or look at whether it includes an affordable housing component. So I see this policy giving the council flexibility to judge projects as they come forward, whether they're residential alone, commercial alone, or a combination. I see. So from what you're saying, you could have a PID that was exclusively residential, PID that's exclusively commercial, PID that's mixed, and this doesn't... Okay. So then I'm okay with them both being together. I'm fine with them both being together then. Okay. Yes, go ahead. First, this is the third time we've talked about this. First time we voted, second time we reworked it. This is the third time and we're trying to rework it again. I think my feeling is, as she just articulated, everything fits its guidelines. It's not a rigid, you have to meet these qualifications or else. This opens a door for us to consider projects individually on their merits. They can outline residential, they can outline commercial. Everything fits in there. And I've heard no issue with the substantive wording or the body of work, and there was no mention of that, the two hours we spent on it two weeks ago. And so I just think, I just want to be very clear that I don't think it's right to put staff through all these iterations. I think you should mean what you say, say what you mean. And so, and I've been... Anyway, so understanding the guidelines, understand everything fits in there. There's no need to carve anything out. Whatever this goes, I'm not going to support it. I like the way it is. I appreciate staff's work on this. I appreciate staff's patience this third time, and hopefully we don't have to go for a fourth. We'll see how that works out. Okay. Council Member Meltzer, and then we'll go to Council Member Rolontour. With all due respect for your concern for staff's work, I'm more concerned with the people who come into PIDS, don't realize that they're basically going to be paying what looks to them like an extra high tax. I don't think it's well understood by the public. I don't see that it has a demonstrable benefit, except in some corner cases to the city. I think commercial PIDS are an entirely different matter. I think it's better understood by those who participate, and I'll be voting no. Council Member Rolontour. Well, first, I just want to say that, Council Member Hudson , thank you for your patience. This is my first meeting dealing with this. For me, this is my first time, and so I appreciate having my questions answered and been answered to my satisfaction. I'm fine with having the two of them together. I see it as a useful tool that's really flexible. I might myself be against certain PID requests and for certain PID requests, but it leaves it very open, so I'm okay with that. But I would go back to the one substantive thing that I raised. I don't know if I have any takers on this, but it was to include an amendment considering that we have a huge affordable housing waiting list and that this is a big problem for our city and it's not going to go away. This wouldn't solve a problem, but just to make things a little easier, if people consider waiving the fee such that if somebody who has an affordable housing proposal wants to be considered for the PID, that they don't have to pay for it. Now, of course, that means that we would be paying for it, even if then we decide we don't end up going ahead with it. But I believe we're so in need of affordable housing that I would be glad to hear whatever creative ideas a developer has or anybody has in that area. Carolyn, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that absolutely can be considered. We touched on that. So if someone comes up, you can propose, "Hey, we're willing to approve it," but for these kind of components and that already fits into the guidelines. Those are the kind of project-specific things that would be included in a developer agreement discussed in the course of vetting the project. There is another option if you would like to include a simple statement about affordable housing being a component that could be considered as a demonstration of public benefit. That would be about a five-word addition into this document that would then add it so that people could know that that would be another way that their project could demonstrate benefit. To me, that would make a big difference even though it's just words in reconfiguring because I realized when I first came to this and I hadn't been following the discussion until I studied it for today, when I thought public improvement, residential and commercial, I'm thinking about an impoverished neighborhood and a development that builds it up with housing and commercial. That's just where my imagination is going, where the need is. I realize that that's not the exclusive use of a PID, but that is one use. I would love to have that in there. Of course, I would prefer to have a kind of across-the- board waiver of fees, but as long as that's something that's put in there so that it's shown that affordable housing is an option and that our housing authority and community development staff would be aware that this was another tool, then I would be happy with that . All right. Well, that's sort of on the table, so I want to get Council Member Meltzer's because then we're going to have to discuss all that. I'm open to hearing it, but I brought this up in work session, and I have not yet heard a persuasive example of how a PID can be used for affordable housing, and that in essence, what it does is create an extra tax on the people within the PID so that they pay more in order to add amenities. That's the essence of what a PID is, and that the benefit flows to the developer and that it enables them to get access to tax free capital. So the benefit goes entirely to the developer, and it actually raises costs on people in the PID. Oh, okay. So I was thinking that ... Okay, I see. I was thinking that it raised the cost for ... No, I think Council Member Meltzer is absolutely right. I can't envision a scenario where affordable housing complex would come in because if folks were struggling to get into affordable housing and then get hit with a second tax bill, I suppose it's in theory as possible, but it's probably going to make it less likely someone would apply. Okay. Well, thank you. Anyway, thank you, Council Member Meltzer, for pointing that out, and apologies for not having followed the previous PID discussion. And having read the ordinance, I somehow wasn't aware of that, so sorry. So now I'm back to ... May I make one other ... I'm sorry. I want to share something with you that I learned today. Austin does do this. It's contemplated under the statute regarding PIDs. It's acceptable to have that as a component of development, and in developer agreements, the developer can be obligated to cover the cost of the PID assessment for the affordable housing. So not disagreeing with anything that was said over here, but we have an example that that's been ... But that's in the development agreement. This is sort of a policy ordinance, and so it's just simply saying we have guidelines. When somebody comes to make a proposal for a PID, it's all on the table. So you can say yes to this, no to that, yes to this, no to that, so I would much rather keep it to where that's where we put the onus on the developer to come in and ask for these things. So I'm okay with the ordinance as it is, because it does allow ... I understand what you're saying about the separate ordinance, but if a PID comes before it and it's commercial and it's got residential, you still have the opportunity to say, "Well, I support the residential. I mean the commercial, I don't support the residential." So I'm okay with the ordinance as it is, because I think it gives the flexibility that Councilmember Armitage, you're talking about as far as somebody comes before us, we can ask them for all these justifications. We can ask them to pay the additional amount, which would resolve the issue that I agree with Councilmember Meltzer, that a PID puts more value, more taxes on the owners within the PID to the benefit of the developer, because it reimb urses them for their costs. So then you would have to ask the developer, just as an example, if an affordable housing project comes into Denton and gets tax exemptions, then you 've got an internal rate of return that's up to 20% for the developer and you're charging $1, 000 a month for a one bedroom, then I'm not so sure that that's affordable. But we have the opportunity to not allow that to happen if we so desire. So we've got robust discussion. We've got an agenda item on the floor. I think we've got enough information to be able to make a decision on this one way or the other. So Chair would entertain some kind of action. I'll just say while I won't motion or second it, I would support it. Again, we are a body of compromise. I can support this ordinance, but I would the other side of the day is take care of putting it on the table. Council Member Husspeth. I move approval of a contingent of item D, ID 18-1039, a well written document. You want to turn your mic back on and repeat all that? Sure. Yes, sir. Council Member Husspeth. I approve, I would like to move for approval for item D on the consent agenda, ID 18-1039. It's wonderfully written. Council Member Duff. I second. We have a second and I'm sorry, we have a motion and a second for agenda item 1F. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. All opposed by like sign. Motion carries 4 to 2. Now we'll move on to our regular items for individual consideration. I'm sorry, no, it's, is it? Okay, they're right there at the bottom. Item for individual consideration, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, O'Neill City to execute a contract for technology infrastructure for manufacturer Cisco Systems. Good evening council, mayor, city manager. I'm Melissa Craft. I'm the chief technology officer and today we'll be discussing a Cisco RFP, EMC, and VMware. Since 2010, let me just put it down, kind of short, okay, sorry about that. Since 2010, the tech services capital improvement program has established an equipment life cycle of five to seven years. This ensures reliable operations, support for manufacturer, fast and more secure network. Our primary data center, backup data center, networking equipment at over 40 locations are needing to be replaced. Some of the equipment we currently have is over six years old and is close or has exceeded the manufacturer's recommended life cycle. The majority of equipment has reached either end of support or will reach end of support over the next three years. Some of the other issues we have been experiencing, there's been rapid growth that requires additional infrastructure to serve various services amongst the city department. We've seen our data storage really grow over the past three years from 311 terabytes to 524. Our backup storage is also more than doubled just in the past three years. In our network infrastructure, just in the past two, three years, we've added 35 pieces of equipment throughout the various facilities. So if you take a look at that, for instance, in our network equipment, every piece of equipment can range anywhere from 15,000 to 25,000 per. You multiply that times 35, and then for recurring maintenance, it's 20% of that. You can definitely see our growth over time. Prior to the RFP, we did review alternative manufacturers and solutions and came across some constraints. Some of these solutions did require additional infrastructure such as more cabling, more connections and more components. We were looking at alternative storage manufacturers. They didn't really have a significant price difference. I know prior to starting our CIP program in 2010, one of the things we would do was mix and match between different technology solutions to try to see if we can put different pieces together. One of the things we found out by piece mailing some of those solutions together, we didn't really get a holistic perspective. Our uptime was around 70-something percent. Service wasn't as reliable when you start mixing and matching different manufacturers. An RFP was published on October 9th to the Denton Record Chronicle and the Materials Management website. Three proposals were received, evaluated and ranked. This is based on the criteria established on Exhibit 1. The proposal's original pricing is shown on Exhibit 2. Presidio Network Solutions overall received the highest evaluated score based on pricing, performance and value. So here are some of the different project estimates that we 're estimating that would take part of this contract. You can see our disaster recovery software life cycle replacement. That's around 800,000. Public safety disaster recovery. You can see some of the components of camera storage. How we came about with these project estimates, this is really based on historical projects that we've had on our last network refresh or our last data center refresh. That's one of the things we kind of put together. So when we started the RFP, we did a different approach called the market basket approach with the help of Materials Management. So we gave them a sample project and part of the RFP, when they evaluated that sample project, this is around how much that project would cost. Again, how we came about with these project estimates, this is based on historical consumption of the technology solution and kind of what we saw historically. Some of them are a little easier to figure out. So for instance, Fire Station 3, those are really small scale projects. Those are really easy to estimate where something like the DME SCADA hardware life cycle refresh or even our primary data center, this usually requires very similar to what you see with a lot of engineering RFPs. You need to have kind of a design in place before you get your bill of materials and your scope of work. So there's a combination of mix and match depending on what the project is. This RFP provides consolidation of technology infrastructure under one vendor, hopefully with the goal of lower administration costs. Right now, currently tech services, we manage over 80 different contracts of various different manufacturers. One of the things we found out with our last refresh by doing bulk discount and bulk procurements, we were able to save over 150,000 in our last procurement, when we did our last data center refresh being able to do bulk discounts, we've seen savings of over 100K. Increase in quality and speed in delivery by having the design, the scope of work, materials and software under one vendor that essentially gives us one point of contact in developing that solution. It's easier to track the deliverables and track the expectations with some of the projects we're trying to provide. So this vendor can provide multi-manufacturer solutions, so for instance, when we upgraded public safeties, our hardware infrastructure this past year , we went with a hyperconverged environment which combined all these different things in one platform, less points of failure, higher redundancy, higher availability. It gave us some flexibility to be able to do small, mid and large type of solutions depending on the city's needs. A technology CIP program has adopted a pay as you go to fund capital projects that is based on prioritized needs. We currently use money from current sources rather than through issuance of debt. This allows the city to be responsive to city growth and improve service levels and modernize systems. Currently we have 1.8 million in our CIP projects account for our primary and backup data center, file storage and server and network devices. When you look at just the scale of the different CIP projects, we have to replace every switch over I think you saw facilities earlier today at over 45 different facilities that all take some type of technology, equipment to make sure it interconnects and it talks to each other. Here's a little bit about the Presidio Network Solutions. They are local. They're headquarters in Lewisville, Texas. They actually have a warehouse where if we needed extra parts and materials, they're right around the corner. They are a leading IT provider for local municipalities. We checked in with City of Corinth, City of Fort Worth and Denton County just to see what their level of service and experience has been with Presid io. They're really known to be I guess the leader around the DF W area to really help provide solutions centered around government solutions. They also receive several accommodations between Cisco and Dell as a partner, excellence partner of the year and excellence award, which means they have a certain level of maturity. They have a certain level of competent technical staff that can help, you know, help design our network or help design upgrades or help with just services in general and providing connectivity to our environment. We are seeking approval for adoption of an ordinance, accepting competitive proposals and awarding a contract for technology infrastructure for manufacturers Cisco, Dell and VMware. Any questions for staff? Mayor Pro Tem. I move approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries six zero. Thank you very much. Appreciate it, Melissa. Try to talk as fast as I could to you. No, you did great. Thank you. Agenda item. I saved the picture to you. Do you mind if I show this real quick? No, no. Yeah. I just feel like our staff with. You what? So here's what we would call the heart of the network. This is what one million dollars looks like in your data center. I just wanted to physically give you a visual of what that looks like. Fantastic. Okay. Wow. Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay. All right. We're moving on to agenda item B, considered adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton authorizing the city manager, designee to execute a transmission line relocation agreement with Toronto Realty Inc. Etc. Thank you, Mayor and Council. George, if we could are the polls on here as well. They'll be right after this. The next item. Can I call these at the same time? We'll just vote separately. Mr. City attorney. And so you can just make the presentation altogether. Happy to do that. All right. So that's agenda item C, considered adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, the Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation approving a proposal for the purchase of galvanized steel transmission poles, anchor cages and related hardware . All right. Thank you again. So Texas Municipal Power Agency that we're a member of has a 138 kb transmission line in Denton that they would like to have relocated. The property owner would like to have relocated to help improve their property. They've offered to pay for that relocation. And this is the project here. You can see, I'll go ahead and get the mouse working here. So this is the existing line here in black kind of running, let's see, is that north south on 288. And it's going to kind of be swung around to this red line and rebuilt. It's about a 35 year old project and we're going to get a brand new circuit out of that. And that's a good thing from the utility standpoint. TMPA board of directors has approved that on March 17th of last year, provided that the property owner would pay for the entire cost. And that has happened. The buyer has put 2.2 million in escrow. That is slightly over our estimate of what it will cost. Key to that, as the mayor mentioned, is this procurement of steel poles. Price of steel kind of moves quickly in the world today. So we went out and got a rebid on that. And just to confirm that we're going to be able to stay under this number and it and we will be able to do that. So it works better for us because now we're on the street versus in a kind of a back alleyway. Make it easier to operate and maintain that circuit and it will improve our capacity performance reliability and give us another 30 or 40 years worth of service down the road. So we took this to the PUB last night. They recommended it forward to approve this project. And that's our recommendation is that we accept the funds from the developer, the property owner and proceed to relocate the transmission line as per their agreement. >> Yes, Councilmember Melcer. >> Really just out of curiosity because the benefits are very clear to the city. How does it benefit? Why is it worth this much to the property owner? >> My understanding is it will free up the property for more valuable development. >> So right now that power line sort of -- >> It's right at the front of the property off of loop 288. So yeah, it's at the front. So it really will open that up to a lot stronger opportunity for retail because the power line does restrict that. I mean, just aesthetically. >> So good for the property owner developer, good for the city that we're going to get theoretically some better development there. Any other questions? >> Any other questions? >> We're going to call for agenda item B and then C, so the purchasing of the polls is also part of this as a separate vote. But any questions on that information as well? All right. Seeing none, we will consider then agenda item 2B. Mayor Pro Tem? >> I move approval. >> Councilmember Duff? >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second for agenda item 2B. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. We'll move on to agenda item 2C. >> Right. As mentioned, this is critical that we go ahead and do the procurement of the polls. Same project, same circuit map you just saw. Also we updated our steel poll pricing by putting out another RFP. There will be a total of 16 galvanized steel polls purchased. 13 of them will be paid for by the project. The other three are we need for our own purposes. So we're out there to do that procurement at the same time. Here's just a breakdown of those that's in your staff report showing you the different polls, the different costs. Here's what they look like. I believe the council is pretty familiar with our transmission polls. And the lowest bid we had, I think we sent out something like 90 different vendors. We got four bids. One was withdrawn during the evaluation process. The other three were evaluated by a committee. Texas Electric Co-op received the highest evaluated score and also had the lowest price, which is kind of a nice feature. Also they are the quickest delivery. Delivery is kind of critical here. The developer wants to get this moving as quick as possible . They were about four months quicker in delivery time. So with the best price, best delivery time, highest evaluation, we're recommending a war to Texas Electric Co-op. And that's consistent with the PUB who recommended that for yesterday also. Okay. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. I move approval. All right. We have a motion. Second. We have a motion and a second. Let's everybody -- let me back up. My brain is freezing on me. All in favor, agenda item 2C, signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Moving on to agenda item 2D, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton and Texas Home World Municipal Corporation, providing for, authorizing, and approving the purchase of property boiler and machinery business interruption insurance coverage. Good evening, Mayor, members of Council, Scott Payne, risk manager for the City of Denton. I understand high points would be appreciated. So -- Yeah, just what's it going to cost us in our week over? Pretty much. Yeah. We have the DEC. We need to insure the DEC. Our current property carrier, affiliate FM, does not insure commercial power generation facilities. So we had to go out for a standalone process there. We used our broker agent to seek quotes for us. As you guys know, the property market in Texas is kind of shrinking for commercial property. When you add in the fact that we're a public entity and all of our values are kind of in one geographical area, it makes it even smaller. And then when you add in the power generation piece, it makes the pool really small. So we did find for people who were wanting to submit quotes to us, the three main categories were the property coverage for wind, hail, fire, those types of things, the blower machinery coverage or the equipment breakdown coverage. Obviously a big piece of the value of this property are the engines. And so if those break down, we want to have coverage to protect that. And then the business interruption coverage, if the power plant is not able to function because of a covered loss, then there is some reimbursement for that lost revenue in that piece. So the four companies, or the proposals together, Lexington and Swiss Re did a combined proposal. They were the only ones that covered all three of those elements. Lloyd's presented just property but no blower machinery. And the last two travelers in HSB were just the blower machinery quotes. So we're recommending the Lexington, Swiss Re quote. It's a split proposal where they share 50% of the revenue and also 50% of the loss if anything does occur. Again, it was the only one that covered all three elements and the amount of the premium is there in your backup and covers about $170 million with a total insured value at the facility. It was approved by the PUB last night, 420. Any questions? >> Seeking retroactive, have we already purchased it? >> Right. As we said in the backup, we thought we had coverage through the property, excuse me, through the general contractors. >> As long as you get it. >> Yes, Councilmember Amtower. >> So we've already purchased it. So I guess it's kind of a moot point. But I'm curious. So the 50% of the revenue, 50% of the loss, I guess, is that typical for this kind of insurance? >> It's getting more typical for large purchases like this where there's not one single insurance company that's willing to take on all that risk themselves. That's probably why we didn't get a full proposal from anybody else. Alexis and Swissery came together to take on. So basically they got 50% of the loss and they get 50% of the premium for that. So and again, we're seeing that in property coverages, even not for power plants, because the values are just -- it's too much risk for one insurance company to take on. >> Yeah. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Was that your -- >> You know, I was just about to say it's -- it's a little -- you know, it's a little scary to think about. And we need the insurance. You know, we definitely need the insurance. But yeah, it's just a reminder that it's a risky investment we made. I hope it works out. >> Councilmember Meltzer. >> Does this require council approval, this purchase? >> Yes, sir. >> Then how did we already purchase it? >> The situation that it found itself where the coverage had to be in effect after they went from construction to operation or the testing phase that they needed to have something in place, what's being -- it's treated in more of an emergency situation, we need to have that insurance. And what they're coming before you is to ask you to ratify that, to agree. Something that we couldn't simply have put on the budget back then in order for the approval before the insurance would have collapsed. So we found out, hey, it's lapsed. You need to get coverage. And that's why we had to act quickly. And so they're simply -- they're asking you to ratify that action. >> I understand that. If we had it to do over again, how would we have done it differently? Or is this the way -- the only way it could have gone down? >> We began the process in February to try and start putting together these quotes, these proposals, knowing that it was going to be difficult to find willing participants. So we thought we had plenty of lag time or lead time to get this done. We were communicating with the general contractor trying to determine -- because looking at the contract was very clear that -- well, relatively clear -- as to when the business -- the builder's risk carriage would stop covering the project, it was at either a substantial completion or when we entered the operational phase. And so we had gotten assurances from the general contractor that that was going to be July the 1st. Apparently, he overstepped his bounds and didn't go back and consult with his insurance people who came back and said, oh, no, that's already passed. Once we then went into the operational testing phase and moved from being a construction project into operational, and therefore the builder's risk was no longer covering the property itself. Now, certainly all their liability coverages for damage or injury to one of our employees, their workers' comp was still in effect, but covering the facility as a property risk was no longer in place. And so that's when we got that email. We immediately worked with McGriff to speed up the process. Fortunately, we were already engaged in gathering that data to have at this meeting for you anyway. We'd hoped to have those proposals in the first part of June. So we basically had to speed the process up by about two weeks. So if we had to do over again, would we have done an emergency council vote in order to do it in proper order, or do we still feel like this is the only way it could have gone down and is the best way it could have gone down? I think it's the only way it could have gone down, unless we would have had just a hard delivery date of July 1. And I believe this contract remind me, was there incentive to finish it early? There was. So that was the challenge here. So it either had to be done this way or a hard date of July 1, and they ended up finishing it a little bit early. When was the mistake, when was this, and maybe you mentioned this, I'm just trying to put the timeline together in my mind, when was it discovered that this insurance needed to be purchased ASAP? March the 24th, about four o'clock in the afternoon, and we had the coverage by about 430 on March the 25th. So I guess- May. Sorry, May. May, yeah. I would think, I mean, looking backwards, you know, with the 2020 hindsight, I mean, it would have been nice, of course, I wasn't on council at the time, but for the council and the public to have been informed as soon as this was discovered, that's just a suggestion for future. Scott, from the time that we got the coverage to a month later to bring it forward, was that because we were writing the contracts or what took that extra time? So we can kind of clarify that for the council. Essentially, they came together in principle that this is what we're going to do, and then it was a matter of working out all the details on all the different sub-levels of coverage, the deductibles, and those types of things. So they basically said, "Okay, look, we understand this is a merger for you guys. We're willing to put the coverage in place, but we got some details to work out, so let's keep our fingers crossed that nothing happens, that we haven't had a chance to dot our I's and cross our T's yet, but in principle, this is what we're going to do." And so, as you saw in the comparison of all the different sub-limits, there's lots of different sub-limits and deductibles, that those details had to be worked out, and we got that final information to us around the 12th of this month, and then that's when we got the stuff to the council. So we had the coverage in place. That was the main thing. If a windstorm or, you know, tornado came through, the plant was going to be protected, the fire broke out, the plant was going to be protected, and then we had to work out the details. So legal had less than a week or two to get it reviewed and hammered out before you get here. So while it sounds like there's a long lead time, I really don't know that there's any way this could have been handled again. I suppose we could have said that we were negotiating for coverage, but until our attorneys are comfortable with all the terms, the deal's not done yet . And we didn't even have the final premium until that date either. So. Yeah. I mean, I understand you're active very responsibly to protect the City of Tenton, so I don't want my comments to be misconstrued with anything less than appreciation for that. But when things don't go the way that I was just told explicitly they're supposed to go, you want to get some kind of learning out of it. So that's the ways it would be irresponsible on my part, I feel. So I guess I would just ask, because it wasn't on council at the time, was there notification to council at that time that the purchase was made without their consent, but because of the circumstance? No. Not when we were in negotiations. The way we have typically handled this when there's a purchase that's not voluntary, I mean, this is imminent, it's got to happen. We will bring something forward and it happens on a rare occasion where we treat something like an emergency. I've got the authority under the City Code that if we get into a situation like this, we have to make an emergency purchase. We're trying to bang out the deal as we do it and bring it back for perfunctory execution by the council. But there are times where it's not a choice. The deal wasn't done quite yet. I think what you heard from Scott is the contractor and the owners and their rep were not on the same page and gave them the wrong date. You know, and kind of scurried there, but there are going to be times when something happens that's unforeseen out of our control and we just have to sign off on it, bring it back to you to make sure that you formally ratify it under our purchasing guidelines. Again, the way that we can handle this better, more explicit delivery date, more explicit notice being required by the contractor that we will be delivering it to you on this date and had that come from the company, the corporation rather than is somebody in the field giving us incorrect information, it probably would have, we would have handled this a lot differently. My opinion is, you know, I mean, first of all, gratitude that, you know, it kept us covered. But secondly, that, you know, with retrospect, had I been on council, I would have liked an email the moment after the emergency was passed. You know, just this happened, right? We're all, you know, imminently reachable. So that's my, but I'll be voting for that. A close session. Yeah. A close session on the topic. Fair enough. And I think it's easy to rectify down the road. Yeah. Oh no, sorry. I hear what you're saying, but I have to be honest with you when you say it's, I don't want to be misconstrued as not appreciative. When the word but comes in there to me that negates all of that. So I guarantee you, if we were sitting in a meeting where we were told, Hey, you know what? We lost coverage, but we needed to get you guys permission to get coverage and something would have come in and destroyed a $200 million investment because we didn't pay $400,000 and negotiate the rest of them on the other end. We'd be having a lot more of a discussion than just saying, Hey, just give us some notice. So I can appreciate that. And I think that that's probably been heard, but I really appreciate you taking the decisions that you needed to take to, to protect the investments of the city of Denton, because if it would have gone another way, we'd be having a whole different conversation right now. I can guarantee you that. So I appreciate what you're saying, but I guess just from the way you were talking and your tone and everything, it sounded like that you were, you were really not appreciative of what they did other than just sending out an email. So that is the opposite of what I said. And if it would, if it would feel better, I would completely agree to change the butt to an aunt. I meant every word I said. I, I, I, that's fine. Okay. Yep. I heard it that way. I just took it. It's face value that you were appreciative. I know I'm appreciative. And I have the same concern. So maybe I was just projecting my own simultaneous appreciation of the awesome emergency response handling and a concern for front the democracy side, you know, and there's no perfect, I mean, as you were explaining Todd, you know, it's hard to balance these issues and, and, but that's part of what we do here in government is discuss these things. Yeah. I will say, I will say what Scott and our legal team pulled off in that short amount of time with a policy this complex, it's pretty impressive. And I think we'll, we'll, we've heard you and in times that we have to use that emergency authority, we'll, we'll certainly let you know, I guess in something like this, we, you know, there was no choice, quite frankly. And I guess the issue of informing you down the road is correct, but I would completely back the, and won't second guess the approach that we took at this point. Okay. Any other questions, comment? Yes. Yes. So just to go back a little bit, did I hear correctly, because I'm trying to put together the timeline, what was the testing, the dates of the testing changed to accommodate the insurance issue or, or no? There was a, there was a confusion over when substantial completion was, and it was initially, our goal has always been to have the deck online by July 1. When they finished early, gave us the ability to do the testing a little bit early, that policy had to be put in place. So that's how it went. Okay. It was contemplated that this thing would come together perfectly. July 1, they had put this meeting down to get your approval ahead of time and the contractor ended up finishing early. So that's what happened. Okay. Got it. This, this puts together a lot of number of pieces of a puzzle for me. Cause when I read this in the backup, I didn't quite understand. I didn't, and you know, when I had been following the testing and asking about dates, like I was confused by different dates I was hearing. Now I can go back and put all the pieces together and see that this was happening behind the scene. So thank you for handling this. And would you say, I'm just curious from a risk management perspective, you know, do you think that the difficulty in obtaining insurance for this gas plant, what was this anticipated when, when the gas plant was first, first proposed that it would be, it's be seen as a risky, I mean, yes and no. It's the single largest asset the city owns. And so we knew that that was certainly going to skew our, our property numbers because of the value of it and also what it is. So we knew that based on what we're seeing in the marketplace, it was going to be challenging. But we also were puzzling to surprise that more people were interested in this because it was a brand new shiny plant with warranties on some of the engines. And so we were able to get some interest from some companies that we were trying to place coverage on a 20 year old plant we probably wouldn't have. And so it was still complicated, but we were able to get, I think, some, some good proposals. And I think going into it next year, having a year of operation, we may be able to refine those numbers somewhat as well too, because right now everybody is, is working on estimates. We're looking on estimates from runtime and we're looking at estimates for revenue and everything else. We don't have any hard data to go on yet. And so I think that may help the numbers as we go out for renewables to get better. Any other questions, comments? Yes, I move approval of item 2D. Second. We have a motion to second. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Passes unanimously. All right, we're going to move on then to agenda item E, consider nominations for appointment to the city board of ethics. Mayor and council Brian Langley, deputy city manager. I was waiting to see if George might come up for this one. I wasn't sure. I was hoping. This is continuing our discussion. We've had over the last several months about the board of ethics and last week we talked about making nominations to this board. Just as a reminder, you did pass the ethics ordinance back in May. Be seven members for the ethics board and you'd have three alternate members that have staggered terms. As stated in ethics ordinance, there's a preference for some types of professions and trades that was passed in the language. That is at the discretion of the council, of course, of how you look at those. There's a minimum of three members who must be attorneys or retired jurists or judges. So I just want to point that out to you as we go through this. We did get nominations from you on June 19th. Last week we're asking for additional nominations tonight and we'll come back with an ordinance to approve all of the appointments on July 17th, provided you have all those different nominations made. The three nominations that we've received so far are there Tomlin, Karen McDaniels and Sandy Christopherson. You can see their professional experience here. We did put at your dais as well an application that we received from Jesse Davis and I believe the mayor had one also for Ron Johnson as well. Yes. Okay. Yes. Who's sponsoring Jesse Davis? I am. Okay. Councilmember Ryan. Yes. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions or take nominations if you do have them. Yes, councilmember. Yeah, I'd like to make a nomination, but I'm talking to do that now. I would like to nominate David Zeltner and I'd just like to say just a shout out to him that he just as a private citizen has just done so much to push for an ethics ordinance since day one and helping to educate the community about the need for an ethics ordinance. So I'm really pleased to nominate him. Do we have an application for him? Yeah, we do. I do not. Really? He told me he submitted one. Yeah, I saw it too somehow on email. From my understanding from staff, we do have one. Okay. Yes. Okay. All right. Any other? Does that fill our slate? Yeah. That would give you with David Zeltner, Jesse Davis and Ron Johnson. Six. That would give you six. So we're missing one. Yes, sir. Who's the one we're missing? Looks like we have one from council. Sorry, councilmember Briggs, Metzler, Hudspeth. Jesse would be for councilmember Ryan, councilmember Armatr our, Zeltner, Duff. Yeah, Duff is the only one. Okay. Yeah. There's also three alternates. Right. Okay. That we also have available. All of these will be again voted on as a slate. Okay, so we're not doing that now. These are nominations. They are appointments of the entire council. Right. Not by member, by council. Yes. That's right, Metzler. Thank you. Can anyone nominate alternates? Is that how that works? Yes. Yes. You can have multiple nominations, of course. Okay. So we're not taking any action tonight? No, sir. All right. Again, we'll bring that back for action on July 17th. Okay. So we'll have an item to make additional nominations and then consideration of the appointments themselves. Fantastic. Oh, yes. Councilmember Housbett. Thanks, sir. Brian, can you, so I sent in a question and I reviewed the answer. And so my question is this. So when you have, what level, who makes the decision if the level of association with a ethics board member and the recipient of the ethics complaint are too closely related? Who makes that assessment? I'll try to answer this and the city attorney's office can correct me if I misstate any of this. But the board member would have to file a conflict of interest if they had a conflict of interest and then that would have to be considered through that process if there was something that came up. But it would be upon the board member to notify if there was a conflict of interest with what's called a city official in the ordinance, which is a defined term of all the different council members and other officials that are covered by the ordinance. Is that a fair statement, Aaron? I agree with that statement. Okay. And follow up. So is it in the ordinance it's the relative, that kind of lineage is a conflict or is it, hey, I've known them for 20 years, that's a conflict? What is the definition? Is it the conflict that we kind of outlined, brother-in-law , sister-in-law, that kind of lineage or is there another association? It would be the lineage. Okay. So it's not a fiduciary relationship? Got it. Not fiduciary. Not a fiduciary relationship. Again, it depends on the facts at hand that you have in the specific, every facts scenario will differ. If they're in business together, then that might also raise a different type of conflict under our ordinance. Yes, of course. But and is, if the person I appointed, are they automatically disqualified from serving on the ethics, right? I mean, so I appointed the person and they're going to hear my ethics complaint. That seems a little iffy. Well, wouldn't they recuse themselves? That's what I'm asking. That's exactly. One of the things that when the panel, let's say if a complaint does come against you and that person's on the board of ethics, one of the things that the chair of the panel, assuming that they get a valid complaint involving yourself , they would, they're the ones who are going to appoint who's going to be the three-person panel to hear the complaint. At that point, somewhere in that process, the board of ethics member has to come forward and say, I can't sit on this because of whatever relationship it might be that triggers the conflict under our ordinance. That's how it should work. Well, and so in our ordinance, it says the appointee, the person appointed can't serve, you know, whatever that that. The board of ethics member is every member on that board of ethics also is a city official. And so if they have conflicts that come in related, if they have to hear a case where, you know, there's some business dealing with you, you know, they're partners in a business or they're related to you within a third degree of affinity or consanguinity, they're going to have to recuse themselves as well because they have a conflict. But no, none of those touched on the fact that if I appointed them, no. So what I hear his question, if it's wrong, let me know, is that they're not just limited to the specific written conflicts within the code that if they believe that it's a conflict and they can't serve in fairness and be reasonable, then they can voluntarily recuse themselves in that situation. I don't know if it's an absolute kind of you're pushed out from what I'm hearing. So if you're looking for something that says, no, you can't hear it, you're not given the option voluntarily decided, then we need to we need to talk about that. Well, yeah. So here's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about adding amendment to the submissions to require whoever appointed them to disclose relationships. So it's not nothing complex. It's just, hey, I appointed Sandy Christopherson and I, you know, here's how I got to that name or something, some kind of association that goes with the document. That's just I don't know what that looks like. And you can kind of clean that up for me or take a week or so. But that's that's kind of my mind. I think there should be some kind of association tied to how they got there. I mean, that's certainly something that we can include in the application itself or and then go back to the candidates and ask them or if you want to disclose anybody that you've nominated has some type of relationship you want to disclose and then you can do that. We can get there. Great. Yes. I support that. I think that's a good idea. I know the having the council appointed appointed Board of Ethics was not my top choice for the way of selecting an ethics board because of this issue of of the you know, the the appearance of self self policing. But it's it's so much better than what we had before. Council, you know, policing itself, literally having a council on the ethics board. But I think that this would be an improvement having a required explanation of the connection. Okay. So any more questions on this agenda item? There's no action here. No action. Did you want us to add something to the application going forward to address those points? We certainly can just a field of if you have any kind of relationship, disclose that of a business relationship, anything like that family relationship. Sure. Okay, we can do that. Right back to us. All right. We're close to okay. So thank you. Agenda item E we've completed. Is that correct? Yes, sir. All right. Agenda item F consider appointments to council committees. We need a we need a what are they called? Remote mic. Well, I have to say that I slipped coming back from the Civic Center this morning and I think it's caught up with me. So anyway, I'm word to the council committees. Oh, you might want to call you Adam. Sorry. Did you call the item? I think I did. Yes. I'm sorry. Consider appointments to council committee. Okay. When I put it to your spots, the revised list, I'm hoping that you had a chance to maybe look it over and make sure that everything is correct and then consider the item. Any questions on the revised list? Does it look in order? Yes, sir. Yes. Yes. Yes. Any questions? Comments? Not chair would entertain a motion. Move approval. Pro Tem. Council member Hussbett. Second. We have a motion to second for agenda item E. Second for agenda item 2F. Everybody in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. Moving on to agenda item 2G, consider nominations appointments to the city boards and commissions. We've just sort of gone through that in the work session as far as the dates you need and yes. Council member Meltzer. Sorry. Meltzer. Apologize. Whichever. Requested that this item be- Requested that this item be on, he would like to do an advanced nomination to the public utilities board. I nominate Karen Devaney to the public utilities board. Okay. And council is able to vote on this pending completion of her qualifications. And she has an application pending or will be getting it. Okay. All right. Okay. So we can, it doesn't require a second, I don't believe. Does the nomination to public utility board require a second? No. Okay. So I believe you made a motion. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. Passes unanimously. Anybody else have any appointments at this time? I do. I have my nomination to, I believe he submitted his application to planning and zoning. I would like to nominate Matt Pernada to planning and zoning. Okay. Any questions on that? All right. We have a motion for nomination Matt Pernada to planning and zoning. All in favor, please signify by raising your right hand. All opposed by like sign. Motion carries unanimously. Anybody else? Once, twice, three times. Okay. All right. We'll move on then to our public hearings. Public hearing 3A, conduct a second of two public hearings for voluntary annexation of approximately 47.466 acres. I will now open the public hearing. Thank you. I'm going to pull up my presentation. For the record, I'm Cindy Jackson with the planning division. And this is the second public hearing of A18-0001, a voluntary annexation of land. The site is located on the south side of East Ryan Road and it is east of the intersection of Ryan Road and Andrew Avenue. The site contains approximately 47.66 acres and they're proposing single family development. If you recall from the first public hearing, a pre-annex ation agreement was approved between the city and the property owners in 2016. And a condition of this pre-annexation agreement was that the applicant apply for annexation within 10 days of having their plat approved. They have had their plat approved and they applied for annexation within the 10 days and here we are at the second public hearing. Here is the annexation schedule. We are right now on the June 26th. I'll be before you next on July 17th for the first reading of the annexation ordinance and finally on August 21st for the second reading and adoption of the annexation ordinance. That concludes my presentation. Okay. Any questions for staff before we take public comments? Seeing none. This is a public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak, please step forward and state your name and address and your time will begin. Don't see any movement. I don't know if I even see anybody who's not on city staff in here. The applicant couldn't make it today. The applicant is not here. All right. Well, then one more time. Anybody wishing to speak? We'll go ahead and close the public hearing then. Thank you. Great. And there's no action taken on this item at this time. That is correct. All right. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Thank you. We're moving on to concluding items. Oh, oh, I'm sorry. Closed session. Okay. Yep. All right. Here we go. We will convene now the closed session at 917. We will consider the following items. Consultation with attorneys under Texas government code section 551.071. Let's just take a five minute. All right. Welcome everybody back. We're we went back into open session to wrap up our conclud ing items. We postponed the closed session to take up after concluding items. So we will now go to concluding items, which I started to do and was so heavily reminded that we had a closed session. So concluding items. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem. I have one in the report on solid waste. There was a discussion about overweight trucks. As we move forward on looking to either lease or purchase new to look at what the additional cost would be or to include that as a potential item to have the onboard scales to the trucks so that we don't have trucks running way overweight on our streets. Okay. Anybody else? Yes. I hadn't this being my first meeting, I had a number of different issues, but out of respect for our staff who are staying extra late, I'm going to take off some and just kind of plow through them and be as clear as I can and without a pontificating and explaining too much. One issue, well, so I've divided these into three different categories, cost of living, quality of life and better government for cost of living. These one, I would like to have a work session exploring possibilities by which legal staff could provide services for low income residents like how they do in San Antonio. So kind of a study of the San Antonio's program or other programs that our legal department might be aware of could involve, I mean, really the sky's the limit, you know, partnering with nonprofits for low income residents, including renter and landlord issues and also immigration issues. And I know that RAISAS, you know, provides those services and that would really fill a crucial need in the community. Number two, for affordable housing, and this is something that I mentioned earlier, I had a Lego work session on the McKinney's policy of waiving all permitting fees for affordable housing. I'd be happy to give you my copy of this. I know that other cities do it, do, but, and others don't, but it's an across the board, you know, not on a case by case basis, but just across the board waiver for affordable low income housing. And I would also like to, for us to explore the possibility of coming up with a municipally defined category that we might call truly affordable housing or something, because I know that what counts as affordable housing is in many cases not actually all that affordable for Denton residents. So I'm just interested in, since we've got such a huge waiting list for affordable housing, for me it's a top priority in getting people off this waiting list. And I would like for us to look at what creative solutions could be explored, yeah, other than just, you know, applying for the federal grants that already exist. So for quality of life issues, I would like us to add sexual orientation and gender identity to our current anti-discrimination ordinance. We already have an anti-discrimination ordinance on the books. It's a little out of date. And so the language on that is very important. Human rights campaign provides free consultation on that. They've done that for Dallas. So of the neighboring cities, we're kind of behind the times in getting up to scratch on that. I'd like a work session on that. And another work session or together in the same work session on improving our score on the municipal equality index. I don't know which staff would want to be in charge of that . It could be any number of staff. But just to kind of do a little report on the municipal equality index, there's some real low-hanging fruit on there. I've got a very clear rubric, and again, this is another case where Dallas and Fort Worth have a perfect or near-perfect score, and Denton's really lagging. And we shouldn't be, because there's so much that we're a city that really cares about equality. I'll skip over a couple things there. Finally, in my better government category, I would like for us to have a public discussion on alternatives to the use of code names, posted code names in closed sessions. I've read the attorney general's decision on use of code names. I'm not a lawyer. To me, it seems to say that it's okay to use code names before a public posting, but when that item is posted publicly, the name of the company needs to be posted. So I would like us to be in compliance with the law. I know we all want that. And it's also just the case that the public, at least everyone I've talked to, doesn't like these code names, and they also prevent public from doing their due diligence. So to me, that's pretty important. I wanted to thank staff for this report on the SPIN program , the South Lake program for the involvement of neighborhoods. That was included in the, I don't remember if it was posted on the online back, it was. That is a terrific program. And I want to thank, I believe it was Council Member Briggs who had requested that. I wanted to thank staff for putting that together. It's a great way to empower neighborhoods. I'd like to have a work session on how we could implement that in Denton. I wanted to also propose a group TOMA training. This is second to last. Okay, yeah, please. The mayor's gonna fall asleep. Yeah, no, I'm not gonna fall asleep. We just, I'm in to have. Group TOMA training, all of us together instead of individually. And I would like to have an outside group like the, I believe they're called the Freedom of Information Foundation. I might have that name slightly wrong, in Austin. They do a terrific job and I actually, even though I'm not remembering their name right now offhand, I've done training under them. They come here sometimes and do training for the public. And then finally, and this would be more along the lines of maybe a staff memo than a work session. As I understand it, our red light cameras, tickets are not being enforced and yet, is that true or at least that's what I hear. And so a lot of people don't know that. There's a lot of confusion among the public about if you get a red light ticket, if you get a ticket from a red light camera, should you go or not? Anecdotally, I've heard it's not being enforced, but there 's a lot of confusion and I hate thinking that people are just going and paying when they don't have to. So I would like more transparency on that and I'll save my other issues for later. But thank you for your indulgence and thank you staff for staying so late. Anybody else concluding items? Just one real quick thing, Mr. City Manager, if you could ask Carolyn, the staff from Embassy Suites said they were interested in partnering with Day of the Dead and I know Carolyn and her group is tied into that group down there. And what they'd like to see is some kind of two day festival, you know, so that then the hotel's benefit and extends that thing. So if they could reach out to them and see what that looks like and see if there's an appetite for that, what it would look like. Thanks. Okay, anybody else? Anybody else concluding items? Seeing none. We will now close this open portion of the meeting of the Dent City Council. We will again reconvene the closed session at 932. Is that right? Yes. We will consider the following items. Consultation with attorneys under text government code section 551.071, which are regarding certain public power utility competitive matters. Thank you.